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 DouglasThe 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
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment