Buying Paint on the Brink of War by Abby Murray
December by Sarah Freligh
The Traveling Onion by Naomi Shihab Nye
Kerosene Litany by Mahogany L. Browne
Now He Knows All There Is to Know. Now He Is Acquainted with the Day and Night by Delmore Schwartz
Excerpt from Nature Poem by Tommy Pico,
It’s Here In The by Russell Atkins
Our People II by CM Burroughs
I jotted down on the copy of the poems discussed, this quote: "We can see spirit made visible when people are kind to one another." -- Anne LaMott
Bernie provided the whole quote: especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you.
In the first poem, I love the opening tercet... that idea in the 21st century, that we make a list
of "what we THINK we need"... The title prepares us to imagine paint... and by the second tercet,
we understand we do live in times where "Miracle-Gro" and inadequacy partner up to convince
us what needs to grow-- which on the brink of war, seems to echo that idea of expanding territory...
Murray is a master of linking paradox... the timeless (and relentless) details of battle join the idea
of "somewhere, someone" practicing an instrument, with a delicious aroma basking in the image
of a nearby cat, warming itself "like a yeasted loaf in the sun."
The idea of living beings"elsewhere" and "somewhere" is a comfort as precious as breathing...
as colors of green (privilege and paradise) remind us that we are "mixing our choices"...
how tender is in the here and now covering the walls of her kitchen, while the outside world announces the radio announcement of potential retaliationin the penultimate stanza.
The poem ends on the universal thought, both positive and negative of the fallacy of endings--
how battles in the way we live, memories we keep of loved one, "never end".
So much for my paraphrase. The poem is a step ladder of "good stuff" ... Emily reminded the Wednesday group of Abby's poem, Reasons to Love Us which starts this way.
There are more
violins on this earth
than diseases.
December has a similar technique -- the detail of a fire escape in winter, where one "stupid petunia"
still blooms (three ooo sounds). As if the petunia is the one reminding us of choice for insisting on the detail of persisting beauty.
Kerosene Litany is a provocative title ! I found it on Tracy K. Smith's Slow Down site:
The title is followed by a few lines from a Nina Simone song -- "I wish I could break/all the chains holding me..." and the poem seems to do that...
Five stanzas each starting with "today"
Today: i am a black woman in america
" " in a hopeless state
" " in a body of coal
today i am a cold country, a storm/brewing
a woman, a brown and black & /brew
a mother
The discussion remarked bitterness, yet how hauntingly powerful and empowering the last line
is because of it. Poetry as first aid… helps us sweep away dust… anger… hatred.
Note the powerful, very visceral language:
melody-ridden vs. bed ridden...
metaphor of flame... as tongue, as spit,
body of coal, nameless fury, blues scratched from ms. Nina,
bumble hive of hello...
power of "red pumps" -- both sexual, spiritual and the idea of a heart pumping...
Backdraft: perhaps this reference?
Her repetitions, accumulations of "identification" transform the inner fire to storm; make the ending
convincing -- the "awe of how beautiful I look, /on fire" -- a "loaded statement.
powerful-- liberating… or activating…
fff’s accumulating:
(financial.. food stamps, forgiveness, fury, unforgiving, freedom -- and then
the 5th "today... "i forgot how to flee from such a flamboyant/Backdraft"
She allows us allows us a chance to understand someone else’s anger-- like
Goya — I saw this. sketches about war.
makes you feel less alone…
Delmore Schwartz: His parody of Frost comes from a wonderful book of poems inspired by Frost:
Visiting Frost: poems inspired by life and work of RF (edited by Sheila Coghill, Tom Tammaro, intro by Jay Parini).
I picked a bunch of these poems... this one fit with the selections. "Now he knows all there is to know". Baloney. No one can. Even the legendary Robert Frost. Schwartz takes lines from Frost,
tacks a jibe at Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" along with so many other familiar lines from "Stopping by Woods"...
I don't know much about Schwartz -- born in December 1913 to Russian immigrant parents, died at age 52 of alcoholism, abuse of narcotics to treat his bi-polar condition. The article below by biographer, James Atlas, gives a sadly accurate report:
A year earlier, John Ashbery writes a review, recalling his earlier poetry filled with "electric compressions"... and later poetry as "haphazard, euphonious, virtually incomprehensible effusions"
The poem we discussed is witty, rhymed... even to the extent that Moscow, rhymes with both "ago" and "now", reflecting both Russia and New York... I believe written in 1936.
I detect envy, a hint of dismissal -- but perhaps also a bit of autobiography: What "woulds" are promises to a self? Is death the only portal to know what we do not know... what do we make holy?
If death is the answer... that final exclamation point is one of celebration.
"O what a metaphysical first day and night of death must be to honor the death of Robert Frost."
The Tommy Pico has a IDGAF (I don't give a f...) flavor...
I was curious about the poetry project...
Not that I quite understand what he is saying...Comments: expanding universe… and accelerating… light we see what is over…
Elizabeth Moon w/ autistic son. The Speed of Dark…
It’s Here In The by Russell Atkins, is loaded with S sounds... the language unsettling...
disturbing… There is much huge…
He sees the crash… collage effect…
(Taken from the anthology of Negro Poets)
The last poem was the second of a series: Our People... read slash by slash...
the first one
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