July 29

Full Moon March 2020 by Ted Kooser 

 Stolen Glances   by John Thornberg (from ALP, Ted Kooser)

Earthbound by Laura Grace Weldon

Galloping Rap Smack Thwack  by Laura Grace Weldon

After Love  by Jack Gilbert

Luck by Langston Hughes

Flying Crooked  by Robert Graves

The Gardener and the Garden 11  by Phoebe Reeves 

Kooser:  After seeing why we'd want Ted Kooser to be our President last week, we had further confirmation of his ability to combine a sensitivity to the COVID crisis, appreciation of a full moon with a delightful personification.
Thornberg might be a fine leader as well with his understanding of vanity and the thievery we project onto a mirror.  We were reminded that a poet never means just one thing... However we view
our aging selves, the poem embraced all sorts of perceptions-- some felt it sad, others funny...
The little aside of "alas" seems tongue in cheek as does the choice of rhymed couplets and the three different meanings of Stolen, in the title, 5th couplet and final line -- as if the mirror has eloped
with the speaker of the poem!
Weldon:  The first poem, Earthbound, lends itself to different speaking tones-- although like any good theatre, it will be up to director and actors how the lines develop.  Whimsical, imaginative, and perhaps a way to escape feeling bound by our less than perfect human tendencies.  The praise for the poem, nature, "those alive poems called trees" and and bind of oneness -- as imperfectly kept secret save the poem from sermonizing.
The Galloping second poem paints a visual music -- John was reminded of the theme from rawhide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtP7yH7l87w
(rolling, rolling, rolling// raw-hiiiiiiiide) and provided a beautiful paradox of  trees as visual chaos
we find relaxing... which echoes in the consonance/dissonance of a planet-wide syncopation.
I love how the words, "let's let our minutes linger longer" do that... as we are reminded to tell each other everyone of our stories.

After Love: Kathy brought  up the Portuguese term Saudade… "There is somehow a pleasure in the loss..."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

( the pronunciation of Saudade : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j75MOMHDlM.). She mentioned how Gilbert suffered from Alzheimers, and perhaps this poem reflects what that can feel like.


The opening line, "watching with eyes closed" is a brilliant sensory contradiction...thinking by feeling, feels like the mind is blind and must use fingers to guide it... the divide of  music as orchestra and solo heart.  The impending silence -- perhaps is the "it" we do not notice inside us...
The pain of never again. Again the never.  the fragments... the coming to the end.  Powerful and penetratingly beautiful.
Reminded some of Mary Oliver's poem, "When Death Comes".

Luck: Not the usual Langston Hughes poem.  One stanza, life on earth.  chance crumb from the table of joy. The other stanza, seems to intimate that promise of heaven is all some get.  If we're lucky, maybe we're given love.

Graves: Not an easy poem with its parentheticals, one marked, one not, spaced into 10 lines.  It brought up many associations, including the biblical approval of the crooked, meandering path, as opposed to the wide and straight one.
Damascus Gate by Robert Stone;  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196337.Damascus_Gate
Talmud scholarship.

Reeves: Apparently there are 11 steps to a garden... Many different responses... but on the whole people enjoyed the playful tone, the Tao of the Bee with Shakespearian overtones and a meditation on what work is.

This was not the usual  session.. as I received an incredible thank you at the end-- O Pen and Poetry Oasis had created a scholarship in my name!  My email to the group is below.

How do I begin to thank you for creating a youth scholarship in my name?  I’m absolutely floored by such a tribute— and touched to the core by the recognition and appreciation you have given me.

 I lose my breath hearing Bernie telling the generous contributions made already —  

I will look forward to hearing from Writers and Books and share the text with everyone and so excited that the scholarship can start right away this summer and can’t wait to find out more!

I want to pen a thank you poem — but "I Cannot Find the Words” seems to be the refrain as I replay  the voices of Bernie, Kathy, Susan,  and later, all your voices joining in. 

I Cannot Find the Words

as I replay the reading of the commemoration, see you, and the words, my eyes closed, all that moves in it, beyond the alphabet of the words, beyond

the music in their sound as they phrase into sentences, It  laces a gentle, yet strong  feeling of all our heartbeats joining together.  

— what words can I use to  express  how deeply I feel your kindness, your trust, your appreciation of our weekly gatherings?

I know I’ve heard people say, “When I make my gratitude list, the weekly sharing of poetry is top on my list.”  To extend this gift that we share each

week, by making it possible for a young person to enroll in a course at Writers and Books is a wonderful idea!  But, then to honor my idea started 12 1/2 years ago,

of reading aloud and discussing good poems by calling  this on-going scholarship  by my name, makes me feel very special indeed.  

to call on today’s poems: 

I think I’ll just wave up at the moon, wearing its white mask, tell it, a magical star just fell on earth— and that I got to see it before eternity’s checkout— wrapped up as it was

in kindred spirits, with polyrhythms calming us in spite of what might seem to be visual chaos of trees.   Oh yes — let’s let our minutes linger longer as we tell each other our stories—

and hope to hear the orchestra playing as we lurch like the best of cabbage whites, knowing the art of crooked flight… and the gift of bees being, dusting the next generation… 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Poems for July 22

Summer Morn in New Hampshire  by Claude McKay - 1889-1948

 Ode to Kool-Aid  by Marcus Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elNzMoG8Zs0 (to hear Naomi Read it start at 1:17)

Ted Kooser is my President  by Naomi Shihab Nye

Afterwards by Thomas Hardy - 1840-1928

Measured by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (to hear her read click on this link.)

https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS6481219622.mp3?key=1b81c71b839abec0e6c44aebe31053d1

No One Knew The Young Black Man  by Scott Williams

A People's Historian by Kenneth Carroll

Thank you all for the thoughtful discussion.  Herewith a quick skim — please feel free to add… and to share with each other a “post-session — now tell me how you are doing…"

For the McKay:  you might enjoy this musical response: https://soundcloud.com/jonathansantore/three-seasons-ii by composer Jonathan Santore

Wonderful insights into the contrasting octaves, the visuals, the surprises — blind with hunger, once such, since we have such an accurate description;

the sensuous kiss of the dark cloud, mist nestling against the earth’s wet breast and the surprise of the miracle of sun, the palpable beauty… and further

surprise that this could not move the poet, his heart for his love far away, magnifying how wonderful indeed he/she be.

Ode to Kool-Aid: lyric ode and such clever issues addressed: metallic water and environmental hazards; marketing gimmicks of names, logos, the addictive nature of sugar disguising those unpronounceable (chemical) ingredients.  Funny, with a taste of disturbing… what is swallowed— admitted ? Removing teeth — as metaphor.     Indeed, could be a perfect poem to address poverty, what the “trendy” rich can afford, versus  an addiction to what is not natural. 

Ted Kooser: Great comments all.  Ted as passport… Definition of a nationality as a kind person who notices good.  The small details, the honesty— of weather?  Well, it doesn’t care about boundaries… no need to hide scissors, matches from it.  

Afterwards:  Hardy has written his own elegy, beautifully. The neighbors, the bells repeat the last line of first and last stanza; throughout  the language unusual, with touches of mystery ,  The intertwining of how we want to be remembered with what  we value and want to pass along.

In a way, an echo to Kooser — … 

Measured: We discussed the visual use of punctuation and its small reversals as well as  layout, the measured reading.  The use of amphibrach for the seven-year old girl, Aiyana killed on her grandmother’s sofa.

How do we find pattern, order for such a disorder.  In a way, an elegy… dark… as the unnameable, as the black type on the white page, as the black body… how do we each hold our space?  A sense of precarious… 

Scott Williams: powerfully sad.  The silence after the reading echoed the ache in our hearts.

The anaphor of all who might have known a young black man brought up a lot of discussion… the need to support restorative justice… how we call a policeman with the swat team term “ shield”.  The poignancy of the details… the toy-poodle-carrying witness… the next line carrying the kicks he receives, the clubbing of his ribs.

His response to my note (see below):

Wow! Amazing, my only reading has been at Just Poets. I sent the poem to a magazine that publishes poetry connected to current events. They rejected it

"Excepting the willow, the story is told with time reversed and intentional possibilities induced. So the mother’s death was very early in the story. 

The poem spewed from finger to phone after watching “The Green Mile” for 7th time. In between the two lines you indicate is an edited out line about English and physics teachers who knew him too.”

**

 The ambiguity of circumstance— how real and metaphoric bullets are not given narrative context is effective.  However, people wanted to know if this was based on an actual incident or a compilation of incidents? 

 Even the willow shading the favorite bench of a mother and son is struck, weeps sap — made us feel everything was a target.

A People’s Historian ...who will come… willing to tell the truth… What manner of man, woman, truth teller roots around the muck of history?  Each word needs to be examined—

it is not just history that is covered with mud of denial… What is in the canon? Who is in charge of it?

The Martin Espada interview with Bill Moyers: https://billmoyers.com/content/martin-espada-on-howard-zinn-and-poetry/

Espada reads at minute 2:00. I had mentioned this  other link in the email of poems: Castles for The Laborers and Ballgames on the Radio by Martín Espada

For Howard Zinn (1922-2010) http://www.martinespada.net/uploads/6/9/9/8/69989673/castles_for_the_laborers.pdf

commentary in 2020 on the 40 year old book A People’s History.  — Even Zinn accused of prejudice in his way of presenting  history as truth… 

https://inthesetimes.com/article/22296/howard-zinn-peoples-history-of-the-united-states

poems for July 15

The first two : https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/535/already-true
(we discussed the Kurt Luchs poem which gave this section such a title, “That was Already True” ) 

The third one introduced by Tracy K. Smith on her site this way: "It’s no accident most sci-fi is bleak. We know ourselves, we know what we’re up to, and deep down we know we ought to do better."

Small Talk  by Alison Luterman
The Pandemic Halo  by Jim Moore
The End of Science Fiction by Lisel Mueuller 

Singularity  by Marie Howe

The Time by Naomi Shihab Nye

White Chairs by Krystyna Dąbrowska (1906-1944) translated by Karen Kovacik 

What Can I Spare?  by M.J. Iuppa 

references shared:

Marie Howe you tube on Maria Popova’s Universe in Verse: https://vimeo.com/271161318

She starts reading the poem at 3:56

I apologize about Krystyna Dabrowska— the one who wrote White Chairs — it does say  originally appeared in The Southern Review, Winter 2019,

but I am further confused, because this article says it was published in 2012.  https://muse.jhu.edu/article/723974/pdf

Krystyna Dąbrowska (26 November 1906 – 1 September 1944) was a Polish sculptor and painter, and a Warsaw Uprising insurgent.

Perhaps the grandmother of the Krystyna who was born in 1979?

The M.J. Iuppa came from http://www.subterraneanbluepoetry.com/SubterraneanBluePoetry.CurrentIssue.html

In a nutshell…

Small Talk: what is it and why do we make it… how is it different.  Like “That was already true” — which we read a few weeks ago, how does “already true” 

change in our perception of the ordinary?  

Singularity:  I love how many different “takes” we shared on this poem and how many more await.

How do you understand the title?   The four questions guide us to contemplate all we have been exposed to, whether it be Native American visions of the spirit, Hawking’s physics, ideas from psychology, metaphysics, the idea of  God as a process, the is, that goes beyond man-made ideas and concepts.  Thank you Doug for bringing up John Lennon, Imagine John Lennon, Imagine.

Are studies to find out if a coral reef feels pain interested in the one-ness before the big bang, in possible interrelated connection, to address our existential

quests for meaning… Do we divise dilemmas, apply “true” based on solid, fixed parameters which contradict  the variety and mystery of “we”. 

The major question is framed by asking about wanting “wake up to the singularity we once were”.  The poem wakes up the wanting to think about what this could mean and imply  in multiple ways.

The Time : from Fuel, 1998.  We enjoyed the human twists and puzzles.  Not an easy poem, and perhaps a fun exercise to go from the Title to the last line,

to find the “it” that works for each.  Knowing Naomi’s voice, I don’t hear any anxiety, more her usual childlike curiosity about how things work. What is it we “tell ourselves”?  How do we know when it is “the” time.  Discussion included  unsettling details such as the upside down (dead) fish… and a sense of a dirge with the slow accordion… the  “Sanitary Mattress Factory” which seems to prefer we sleep with perpetual 40 winks rather than try 40 different ways to spend an afternoon.  “I was going to do something with it” could be another poem… how we could lament how we grow old too soon, are smarter too late, and really can’t account for anything done that could  seem useful— whether our own adopted judgement or what we project onto someone else’s mind.

The End of Science Fiction  written in 1996, feels as present now as then.  Bernie saw the last two lines of the 2nd stanza as an apt description of Zoom.

(We dial our words like Muzak./We hear each other through water.) It is interesting that she uses the imperative (implying you, the reader) to recreate a “we”.

A wonderful reminder of old myths and Biblical references as pertinent now as then — but will we be able to change them — change ourselves — allow the tin man to be given a new heart?  How do we live our lives as real?  Again, wonderful sharing of thoughts, all pointing to our longing to be “real” in our empathy for each other with “hard love”, to help our  humanness find a myth to live by that helps us to bring out the best of us.

White Chairs:  Just as simple words can become poems, a simple chair becomes much more given context.  Praise be to the power of perceiving the sacred in the ordinary, the power.   Knowing the context and time of the poem would accentuate the underlying meaning, but it would seem that whatever might be “everyday ordinary” disappears if we make room for prayer, celebration.

What can I spare: A recent poem, and I have asked M.J. if she will help us understand it.  For me the haunting question in the title seems key: How does she mean by spare?

what can I do without…? give…? what is in reserve?   What traps us? Is that part of it?

July 8

The Fire Gilder by Eavan Boland
Midnight Prayer  by Rebecca Baggett

In the Fourth of July Parade by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Here Together  by W.S. Merwin

Why I don’t write about George Floyd  by Toi Derricotte

The Meaning of the 4th of July to the Negro by Frederick Douglas
The Emancipation Proclamation  by William Heyen

Eavan Boland: “The true obligation of a poet: to make a poem well and truly”.

The Fire Gilder indeed is such a poem, starting with the title, the weaving and intricacies of “gilding”, as mother’s metal work, daughter’s writing, the possible stories, what is remembered, what known, what metaphorical storms leave their bruise, what radiance is created.  So many of the lines remain as volatile as mercury, with the possibility of what it is that is dangerous, to whom, why, and how?  Indeed, a sense of gilded light lingering after each line's collected spark.

Rebecca Baggett: So many levels and angles to consider in this poem… the sonic opening, fnot seen as rude awakening, but sign of safe return; from one boy to the cat, expanding

to the children across the street, to the bar-hopping youth downtown, the old, the young, to those traveling in a plane overhead.  The anaphoric “for” in a litany of those in the prayer, swelling to include whales, deserts, into a “metta” prayer for everyone.   The idea of spinning in space on a fragile planet, in the dark, each one like a light shards of God, can feel both rather terrifying, and yet connect each of us through this prayer, our shared commonality.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer:  Vivid portrait both of a unicycle artist— as if swimming through gravity— to joy.  Simple, does not mean achievable… but imagine if indeed, 

we could swing our gates open to the joy that is — and share the key.  This poem seems to do this!

W.S. Merwin:  Thank you Kathy for sharing  the circumstances of Merwin’s blindness towards the end of his life….  you all might enjoy this review: https://poets.org/book/garden-time

The poem seems to speak to our times… as well as perhaps reflecting “the dark night of the soul”, and a tinge of desperate as we face the end.  Thank you Bernie for the 5 remembrances

impermanence, aging, health, change, and death, in Buddhism.

appeared in The Sun, June 2020 issue.  published in the Yale Review, Vol 104 No. 1, 2016 with Van Gogh painting. Fishing Boats at Sea, 1888 https://yalereview.yale.edu/here-together

Toi Derricotte: I am glad we heard her voice and her words after the poem about reclamation.  Visceral, poignant.  Thank you Jim for your memories growing up in the South.

I’m glad in Rochester we have our special version of Frederick Douglass’ speech.  Thank you Bernie for your comment about the push and rebound that happen with change particularly about the Maplewood Park statue vandalism.  Positive spin on news: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/frederick-douglass-statue-vandalized-rochester-new-york-maplewood-park/

and this clip of James Baldwin on the Statue of Liberty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqRrXvPDsE

clipping of David Shakes who reads the Douglass passage; https://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/north-star-players-celebrates-frederick-douglasss-legacy-through-multimedia-production/Content?oid=5242237

https://mag.oncell.com/en/poets-walk-at-a-time-59420.html read by David Shakes

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2015/01/19/james-baldwin-rochester-perrformance-david-shakes-race/21995263/

 picture of Bill Heyen by his Emancipation Proclamation

 and since people told me they couldn’t open up the June Jordan, I pasted the whole poem, although we didn't discuss it.

Apologies to All the People in Lebanon by June Jordan  

 

Dedicated to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983.

I didn’t know and nobody told me and what

could I do or say, anyway?

They said you shot the London Ambassador

and when that wasn’t true

they said so

what

They said you shelled their northern villages

and when U.N. forces reported that was not true

because your side of the cease-fire was holding

since more than a year before

they said so

what

They said they wanted simply to carve

a 25 mile buffer zone and then

they ravaged your

water supplies your electricity your

hospitals your schools your highways and byways all

the way north to Beirut because they said this

was their quest for peace

They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery

stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors

to jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys

whose bodies

swelled purple and black into twice the original size

and tore the buttocks from a four month old baby

and then

they said this was brilliant

military accomplishment and this was done

they said in the name of self-defense they said

that is the noblest concept

of mankind isn’t that obvious?

They said something about never again and then

they made close to one million human beings homeless

in less than three weeks and they killed or maimed

40,000 of your men and your women and your children

But I didn’t know and nobody told me and what

could I do or say, anyway?

They said they were victims. They said you were

Arabs.

They called      your apartments and gardens      guerrilla

strongholds.

They called      the screaming devastation

that they created       the rubble.

Then they told you to leave, didn’t they?

Didn’t you read the leaflets that they dropped

from their hotshot fighter jets?

They told you to go.

One hundred and thirty-five thousand

Palestinians in Beirut and why

didn’t you take the hint?

Go!

There was the Mediterranean: You

could walk into the water and stay

there.

What was the problem?

I didn’t know and nobody told me and what

could I do or say, anyway?

Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that

paid

for the bombs and the planes and the tanks

that they used to massacre your family

But I am not an evil person

The people of my country aren't so bad

You can expect but so much

from those of us who have to pay taxes and watch

American TV

You see my point;

I’m sorry.

I really am sorry.

June Jordan, “Apologies to all the People in Lebanon” from Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by The June M. Jordan Literary Trust. 

a few more thoughts -- June 24 session

I am grateful for a group with whom to discuss poetry with its vital link to how we feel... our varied experiences, different sources of knowledge.

Sylvia: I want to tell you that it was hardly the gender issue of that poem,though certainly I appreciated it and how it was framed.  No, for me it was the dreadful cruelty,destruction,the bees 'bewildered', they and their home destroyed. Such a lack of connection. And yes a lesson, it happens in some form every day. It caught me off-guard as I feel such grief for Black folks . I remembered how I feel about cruelty towards other beings. Other species.
She brings up Naomi Shihab Nye, and her Grandson Khury, reading Making a Fist. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54308/making-a-fist


David S : whose email signature from Blake: "What is now proved was once only imagined."-

Sorry I had to absent myself for the AC man coming to troubleshoot a problem here.  Esp. sorry to miss the Hughes poem, where the choice and sequence of similes is nothing short of brilliant, though his plain style tends to obscure that truth.  As Baldwin points out, Hughes lived what he writes about and has paid keen attention to the experience.  Being gay as well as black surely helped to sensitize his antennae.

I want to call your attention to todays poemforthe resistance—The Jungle, by Carrie Fountain.  It’s one that I read with increasing rather than the usual waning interest, and one that connects with many we’ve been talking about.

What makes us feel alive?  Why is "making a fist" a proof that we are?
What is feral when one is brought up by wolves?
Definitions..  provided by...
words... defined by...
adjectives of choice: distributive, restorative, reparative, retributive, ... applied to Justice.

How is it that poetry becomes a political and racial battleground instead of the field where humans rest
their cases of stories to be heard?  Have we lost the ability to simply observe the art with which, or not, one tells a story?

Bernie suggests this powerful, direct and touching poem which appeared on Ted Kooser’s site, “American Life in Poetry”.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/152847/butchering

What makes us falter when we tell a tale, makes it clear that much as we believe we are inured to any feeling about how we go about our daily lives doing what we say must be done, is the crack which proves impervious is not a fail-safe adjective to describe someone appearing to lack gentleness.

Valley Manor - June 28

continuing w/ Poets Walk -- working through the alphabet -- up to Emancipation! (The first two are not on poets walk the others can be accessed here : https://mag.oncell.com/en/poets-walk-78374.html

look up the poem prompt tile and that will take you to the poem.   You can also listen to the poems by dialing  (585) 627-4132, you can hear the poems spoken aloud.)

Insha'Allah by Danusha Laméris

Here Together W.S. Merwin

For the Anniversary of My Death by W. S. Merwin 

what we can't know by James LaVilla-Havelin

Communion by Jessie Belle Rittenhouse
As Long As We are Not Alone:  by Israel Emiot, translated by Leah Zazulyer

From Gratitude by Cornelius Eady

Choose by Carl Sandburg

The Angels of Radiators by A. Poulin, Jr.

Whatever faith we have, however we mean "so may it be", "God willing", implicit in these words is
a hope and trust  that we will be able to figure out how to deal with what is dealt to us.
I love that the verb, "to hold" is modified by the manner indicated by the adverbs: lightly; carefully;

I also hope that any mother would do this with her child, insha'Allah.

The first Merwin poem was written almost 25 years ago, but I love that it was resurrected both in the Yale Review in 2016 with this drawing by Van Gogh, Fishing Boats at Sea, 1888

Three times, the present participle,  clinging,  first "us", "swept along";  then "I to you"  (to keep you from being swept away) an "you to me" , seeing the shore,
and then a question with cling together in the future.  How long -- and where will it carry us.
Beautiful love poem.

The one on poets walk published in 1967, has an unusual title...  Is the silence the tireless traveler, or the speaker of the poem?  Both possibilities work and reinforce each other... enigmatic... why surprised at the love of one woman?   Is it surprise, hearing the wren sing (the words on the tile on Poets Walk) as the rain stops?  He "bows in" to the surprise?     Perhaps.

It is interesting to contrast the Merwin with James LaVilla-Havelin's list of "what we can't know" which includes not knowing how we are (will be) remembered.  My favorite, "the lie's uncurling..."
and the group liked the perspective we cannot share with an insect...   Much more accessible, but certainly still filled with mystery, and no "aha" as summary.

 Communion harkens back to "Here Together", but contrasting the complacency of cows with the busy couple, who "remain forever two", and split from each other.

We thoroughly enjoyed Leah Zazulyer's translation: "As long as we are not alone" .
Hope, mystery.. the repeated words "as long as" (have a partner); we shall rejoice (insha'Allah)
a bird (like Merwin's wren), silence of God... And if musical sounds promote the growth of plants...
why not imagine a stone as well hearing...  (repeated twice.)

Cornelius Eady offsets the word "Love... bridges the bullies all to themselves with the brick of his poet self...  The sadness -- "Nearly all the things/that weren't supposed to occur/Have happened (anyway) is offset by the power of poetry... what is more powerful than rage... this love, this job
of writing poetry, as simple as breathing.


Sandburg offers us an aphorism in a way.  The context could be the Spanish-American war...
or the timelessness of choosing between confrontation or collaboration.

We thoroughly enjoyed Al Poulin's "Angels of Radiators..."  The alliterative "furnace fails...
the fallen angels... the rumble of resurrection... witty and a lovely ekphrastic music of the sound
of those singing radiators! 

July 1

Motto  by Langston Hughes

July 4, 1974 by June Jordan

The Woman on Court St. Bridge by Celeste Schantz

George Floyd by Terrance Hayes

Aubade  by W.s. DiPiero

That was Already True by Kurt Luchs 

I love that we “delved” into the “dig”  from so many angles.  It gives us a shared “code” for what Langston Hughes meant by “Motto”.  We agreed it sounds simple… let’s like each other… like and be liked… but thanks Doug for the extra references such as the Black Magazine, Jive, and layers of meaning in

“jive”.

Carolyn reminded me about a wonderful essay by June Jordan in the book, Poetry in Person edited by Alexander Neubauer.

Like the Hughes, Jordan elicits multiple layers with her choice of details and craft.  A little “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light” sung for the national holiday,  contrasts

sharply with Jordan’s son.  Admirable line breaks which separate Long… from Island, Atlantic Av/Brooklyn from New York… the cryptic parentheses about facts which do not prepare the reader (do they) //line break// for him // (birthed); the urgency of his running, years later “through the darkness with his / own

and the double duty of “his /own/becoming light.

I will be glad to forward any questions to Celeste.  I did leave her a message to tell her how much we appreciated all the different angles and to ask if this was indeed based on the story of 

Trevyan Rowe https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/03/08/trevyan-rowe-death-rochester-ny-what-happened/3070767002/

and ask about how she sees the  “Lynched apparitions jerk on railroad ties”. 

Thank you Kathy for picking up on the strong verbs “howl” and “wrestling”, Bernie for picking up on the fact, even in full sight, no attention is paid… and o so much more.

The sounds, the horrifying insinuation of a person’s life as “someone’s garbage”,  the threading of the constitution, America the beautiful, the alliterations, rhymes all poignantly underline more than the personal tragedy of one teenager, but those “falls running black” hint at  what can befalls someone if black.
Celeste answers:  
 I’ve written numerous versions of this poem but the basic dedication is to all mothers, especially those of black sons who died for no reason due to racism. In particular I was motivated by the death of Philando Castile and listening to his mother speak out.

The juxtaposition of lines from The Gettysburg Address with an image of lynching on a railroad bridge is what sparked the line about “Lynched apparitions.” I had read about Woody Guthrie’s father Charley and a lynching that took place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Laura_and_L._D._Nelson.

I also had read the incredible poem “Black Confederate Ghost Story” by Terrance Hayes and thus had submitted the poem to the contest he judged for Solstice Magazine.

And also Haye was influenced by Gwendolyn Brooks “Two Gay Chaps at the Bar” with its line “to holler down the lions in this air.”

All of this came together and became “The Woman on Court Street Bridge” as I sat at the library downtown looking out the window at the river . . 

I’m so glad everyone caught so much from the long, no-room-for-breathing-sentence with its sliding meanings.  Thank you Doug for bringing up the “magic bullet” reference to JFK

https://www.wired.com/2007/06/magic-bullet-tragic-path-a-look-at-the-jfk-assassination/

If you want to check out the tune : Stormy Weather, you’ll find several YouTubes of fine singers … here are the lyrics with Lena Horne: lyrics to stormy weather by lena horne

and Time is on your side + Irma Thomas.  

I don’t know if I would say “dispassionate” is the way Terrance Hayes reads it with his low, melodic voice, but the contrast with the sliders, the repeats is uncanny and powerful.

dye and die… Dennis Rodman blue/ blue in the face…  in the face of the music… the whole poem building up to the repeat, three times of “till”, not capitalized like Emmett’s last name,

unlike the first word, “You”, no period to end.

We ended with Aubade from the Mar. 23, 2020 issue of the New Yorker.

Indeed, listening to DiPiero, the voice is soft, gentle and the poem resembles a prayer.  I hear a great kindness in it. 

Martin had shared it with his wife Catherine and I want to share FROM the email he sent me.  'For her this poem is about inclusiveness everybody counts. She read the beginning as its not going to talk about the old things, that were difficulties, but be lighter.”

I think agree. Yes — to quote him, “this fair hour/we want to feel as hope” and he ends shouting blessings — on everyone (and I do love that he picks unionists as example in his list of “everyone” — the sound of unity). And asking that protection not just be for him, but for “our common”.

I think my mis-placed sensitivity about the final 2 words, is that “Sponsor us” at first seemed out of place as a business vocabulary.  How is a day  capable of “sponsoring” ? 

If it’s the second meaning of sponsor, "a person who introduces and supports a proposal for legislation” indeed, I take back everything I said —

for the bill to be sponsored is protection of everyone!

Doug’s point about how we would read the poem 50 years from now provided  a different angle to explore it.  Hopefully a poem like this would intrigue the reader to research it.

Could it have been written 50 years ago?  What are the universals?  Plainer talk…to address the truth.  I love that “unionists” are among the list of the common.

Thank you all for the union of voices and insights!  I look forward to our “re-union” next week.

Whoops:  forgot Kurt Luchs:  That was Already True

Thank you Bernie for saving the reading from disaster by having 13 voices unmute and make a cacophony of rhythms and noises by having a choral response of the title.

We noted the opening and closing sentence -- the truth of the matter... and what's in between... like small mirrors of reflection sandwiched in before that final word.

Marna was pleased that she had the line, "What comes next is a mystery".  

  Soothing repetitions… but how are you doing to say “That was already true”?  Is it dismissive in the second stanza?  Overly eager to generalize?  Cliché?  How long does it take to arrive at the sentence, “Every life matters — and every death.”  Bernie brought up the sad response to death in an old person’s home, where the room in which a human being lived, was “cleaned up, emptied and readied for the next” with little regard for the life of the one who passed away.

You all matter to me enormously!