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
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.
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!
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.
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 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.
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