June 10

Mr.  Jackson by Doug Curry

Breathe by Lynn Ungar

Tell them I'm struggling to sing with angels by David Meltzer (on Poets Walk)

Widening Circles by Rainer Maria Rilke - Translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

email sent: 

"We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.” — James Baldwin

On Wednesday, we will have a special guest, Doug Curry who will read aloud a poem he penned on 6/4.   I am so delighted he has accepted to add his wise and gentle voice in joining the zoom session.

The format  Doug will read aloud his poem.  He welcomes any questions or discussion about it.  Afterwards, you will see other poems that address Black Lives Matter.  I ask your flexibility. For Zoom, you will see I have in mind a broad participation, where the accent is more on gathering  all voices present together rather than individual comments on each poem.  It may be the case that we not finish all the poems, or be able to give them the time they deserve.   There is no reason why there cannot be two sessions involved.  Note, Doug is only able to be present on 6/10. 

Scroll down  below, in case you want more reading material, prepared by Writers and Books . You will see the poem tile “Voices Rise Up” from  Poets Walk (on University Av. between Prince and Goodman).  The poem  is part of the selection on p. 5-6  of  the above poems. Tell them I'm struggling to sing with angels by David Meltzer . You will see the "poem tile words" on line 7.

Discussion of Mr. Jackson: 

Today was a special day for our poetry-loving group.  On the day of the funeral of George Floyd, we had a special guest,

Doug Curry, reading his poem, Mr. Jackson.

What a contrast from the daily news headline, "Today funeral in Houston of George Floyd served as both a national reckoning and a moment of personal mourning.”

Through Doug Curry’s poem,  our group was given the privilege to imagine how it feels as a black man, writing about more than inconceivable acts and brutal murders. 

Doug’s voice, his measured and wise patience fielding and responding to our questions, touched us so that his words allowed us to sense something very real, breathing through us.  As whites, Barbara comments: “ I am a white person who continues to be as Doug states in the second stanza, "pained" and "bewildered" by these repeated killings. George Floyd's name is last on Doug's list. I want it to be the last time we even have such a list. Mr. Jackson in the poem reminds me that we have been here too many times before for that to be the case, but I have to hope. I will do what I can to make that hope a reality.”

Doug explained he came to poetry at age 57, and normally does not write personal poems, but aims for the universal.  He has picked as speaker, Mr. Jackson, a 70 year-old man from Meridian, Mississippi, who has seen it all before, including the echoes of Sherman in the south,  lynchings like what befell  Emmit Till. 

Mr. Jackson looks at the faces… the repeats of what you could see in the 60’s, the lengthening lists…the ineffective attempts at change… all behind the mask of  “Covid 19” .

This is about a black man, George Floyd, dead in the North, in broad daylight.  The list of lives do matter, and are given to us. Barbara: “A powerful part for me is the list of the names of just a few of the many victims of police brutality, starting with Sandra Bland and ending with George Floyd. Two of the names on the list we know so well, Emmit and Trayvon, that Doug didn't even have to include their last names”  and George was not the only one who CAN’T /BREATHE.

 Although the poem is long, all of us were riveted to it. We concur  it sustains the reader.  As Dave H. said, it is an antidote against trite things. How can there not be cynicism, listening to “facile eulogies, graveyard talk funeral speeches, too florid, too fierce; pathos in words that are truly pathetic as precisely calculated …” and the battle of police vs. blacks goes on parade.  The tone changes as we imagine George begging for African brothers to help… Bernie mentioned how the words swelled up like a flood of the Mississippi, then subside.

Mr. Jackson… “another man done gone…” and racism as a parallel pandemic is part of the parade… we want to see hope as he leans back, head tilted, gazing at the spring blue sky…Kathy pulled on the multiple layers of his final sigh…  

The mention of leaders… the rhetoric of leaders, like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and calling on the Lord with Old Testament fists shaking in the psalms asking, “where are you Lord”.  Lori brought up the difference between helpless and passive.  John spoke of the white exercises in futility to try to change things.  Doug explained that revolutions are started by Middle Class, not those in the underclass, whose murders make it onto the newspapers.  What good is it to be “right”, to be “righteous” if dead?  And Prayers?  Empathy is good, but that doesn’t change what needs changing.  The white people trying so hard to feel, it hurts,  can’t be compared to how a black man feels losing a brother.  

The metaphor of parade was perfect… There were so many thoughtful comments, I know I am missing many.  Please feel free to add. 

**
More comments :

Lori mentioned how she felt the fullness and epic nature of the poem was appreciated  She spoke of the silence that initially filled the space.  Sometimes no words and the reticent pause or absorbing and feeling speaks best.  

Doug's reading is powerful so he journeys the listener deftly. 

Breathe: We read this with one voice as the wind and one as the other.  Wonderfully powerful poem with (for me) an unexpected turn at the end, that the living breath that sustains us becomes revolution.  David S. was quick to point out the breath is spirit... and how Shelley used wind as precursor of revolution.  It allowed us time to breathe... think how to use our breath...

Tell them:  This is one of the Poets Walk poems: (stretching from Prince to Goodman on University Av. tiles and granite pavers of poems written by those with a Rochester connection.  David Meltzer (1937-2016) is one such, a well-respected beat poet who died in CA.  We read this with 9 voices for each "tell" : I'm struggling, I wrestle, I sit, tell them I tell them; I'm ravening; walk off; sing;
books get fewer, words go deeper.
The structure is engaging -- what do you struggle with?  Why would it be a struggle to sing with angels... ah... but not just any angel... they hint "at it" (his struggle?) ... oh... black words (and how does it mean here, black?) printed on old paper gold edged (is there a hyphen between paper-gold?
gold-edged makes sense -- but how does time do this?

You get the point.  This is not a poem to breeze through -- and we really did not give it justice. Each sentence is loaded.  Some saw advice being given:  it's OK to take time.  We wondered why tell WHO, what he tells WHO, and are the two who's the same -- or is it a different who, who will tell for me.  We did not discuss why all the "tell them" are followed by I with a verb until the last two which aren't about I at all, but observations:

Discussion included comments about a sense of despair; a sense of failure of words; and Maura
said it was how she felt reading, as "what she is looking for now, she won't find in books."
Jan wondering at the ending.  Some felt it was a way to end the poem without reinforcing despair.
I see deeper levels that make me wonder even more, who is the "them" -- and who is the I?
One idea would be someone who has just died, and is in heaven, with some sort of body called angels, perhaps sparks in space, perhaps space between  one pore (opening?) and another... but
that is confusing.  The parentheses of "terrible" reminds me of biblical overtones of "awe/awful" where terrible means all-mighty.

We ended with Widening Circles: We read this with 5 voices: I live... I may not complete... I circle... I've been circling and then the final piece after the colon the question:  Am I falcon / storm/ great song -- three metaphors for perhaps three stages of life (youth: focus/ middle age: finding solutions/ old age: world view) or three ways of looking at life.  As always, the group agreed on the complexity.