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.)
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:
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…
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