Mending Wall by Robert Frost
The Bridge by Rodney Jones
La Quercia Caduta by Giovanni Pascoli—(tr. Arturo Vivante) The Oak Cut Down
Characteristics of Life by Camille T. Dungy
The first three poems came from the website of the poetry journal Cobalt whose editor shares Ten Poems that send him “into a Mild Arrhythmia”. To see the whole list:
https://cobalt.submittable.com/submit/142569/poetry-the-cobalt-weekly-ed-jonathan-travelstead
Kommunyakaa was #2; Frost #7 and Jones #10. I could not find a link to “Bearing Witness” so picked a different poem by Rodney Jones.
Facing It:
Several people attending have been to the amazing Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and shared the experience of entering underground, the sense of being part of the work of art that combines the experience of being present, while reflecting on the past. The mirror effect of the granite, can be seen in some of the pictures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial
The title calls on the same effect of the memorial to make us face the past, the facts of war, where the actual facing towards the monument draws us in. What else is in the “it” indicated in the title? Our discussion looked at the layering of language, with double-entendres of “clouded reflection”, “depending on the light”; booby trap; brushstroke/brushing image.
I can’t imagine how overwhelming it could be to go down 58,022 names…but certainly, in Komunyuakaa deftly allows the reader to feel the truth of his words “half-expecting to find his own name in letters like smoke” as if alluding to something in him died in the war.
The touching of names becomes a way to bring alive both what is and what isn’t —
“touching” the name Andrew Johnson, could be an army buddy, but echoes the name of the Southern Vice-President selected by Lincoln https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/reconstruction. The white flash… his black face… the image of a white vet…black mirror… how real that a one-armed vet has lost his right arm inside the stone… and how touch is not erasing… whether it is a name or a real boy, it brushes him… how earlier, names shimmered on her blouse, but stay as she walks away… brushstroke of red wing.
A good poem cannot be “retold” this way. In our discussion, we entered the poem as in this memorial, each one feeling its touch.
Mending Wall: Marne started us off with labeling the tone as playful… the surface simplicity, the twists of wisdom… the way Frost navigates “both sides of the fence” as David pointed out…
both wall builder, and wall denier… how mending a wall, in Spring, takes on a hint of gospel,
with no stone unturned, but also the difficulty of building with stones as loaves…or balls (which makes me think of muskets and what one finds in Vermont fields from Revolutionary days!)…
The word “balance” for repairing is perfect. What do we wall in, out? What is mended or not, by the fixing? The discussion included the wall that protects a father’s saying, behind which a son might hide.
The Bridge: Although this was nothe actual poem as one of the 10, but by the same poet, I was glad Emily brought up that she had listened to him read other poems. You can hear his soft
Alabama accent in this short clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0-z9hhzwhE
Called the United States, of course, a totally different subject, although timely. He prefaces the poem by speaking of our two principles as humans: our wildness and our desire to make things well.
As Jan remarked about the first poem, Facing It, this poem, The Bridge allows us to create quite a complex illusion of reality. Here the adjective real is important, used in the first lines, leading up to the false name of a real man. Names… “those fulsome nouns” are indeed “not real” —echoed after the superhero rescue in the line “there is no name for that place…” and even the bridge is “not real”, since it was replaced but a wider bridge. The school is “air”— what it had been, now a parking lot…. Who is the “you” too far from the valley for it to become “all the way true, although it is not true.”? We wondered about the feel of a digression about Clyde Maples — although there too, the creek “is not/real, and the valley a valley of words.”
So, in all this “not real” all 120 pounds of Arthur Peavahouse is smart to run from huge tackles?
“unthinking to throw himself into that roiling water and test the reality of his arms and lungs.”
What really happened? Is the third jump to save another child trapped in the car, or is Arthur the one in an unbreakable harness? What is this country of words where you wonder if “everything you have said or thought was a lie… ” and the lie that stands for truth.
Emily thought of Janis Joplin… https://www.iheart.com/artist/janis-joplin-79631/songs/ode-to-billy-joe-2527220/ (lyrics beneath)
Bobbie Gentry singing the Ode to Billie Joe - Tallahatchie Bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoMF_mSeWJo
Haunting poem.
The Oak Cut Down:
Such a contrast to read this short, “morality” poem. A tiny tragi-comedy/comi-tragedy poking fun at the mindlessness of people, who never noticed how big, how good the tree— or that it served as home to the chickadee… but how good each now has a bundle of wood! David was reminded of the short story by George Orwell about shooting an elephant
Thanks to Judith for recommending.
Characteristics of Life:
Camille picked this poem to read at the Democratic National Convention, speaking of the need for environmental and social justice… how economic crisis cannot be separated from climate crisis; calling on us to draw strength from our differences…
A pearl of a poem, with the anaphor : ask me… at first, ask me if I speak and then saying what she would say (although not asked to, but imagining perhaps someone might… which sets us up for the longing at the end). The set up allows her to paint with beautiful details all the backboneless world we probably have not noticed… and with humor… a little jibe at
the human tendency to be inconsistent, saying one thing today, another tomorrow…
following the dig at our vertebrate human dominance that frowns on “spinelessness”—
(associations legion here…)
Is she sarcastic to the you to whom she asks, “What part of your nature drives you?”
So… we house ourselves in cubicles, snails in shells… but I’m in stitches seeing her
filter, filter, filter. Now come a few more “punches” — the display version
of ourselves… silent and on the shelf… beautiful, useless — she doesn’t quite say
empty… devoid of any soul, life. As a woman, I feel her position of “sure, I can play
that part, if that’s the game on the stage”. You might be interested in this article:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/06/not-finished-yet
We ended with the focus on that “candle” that lights the firefly, searching in the dark,
seeking connection, that contrasts so sharply with the you, alone at a table, one chair,
the candle burning. What is longing? Where do we feel loss?
Wordless does not mean mindless when applied to desire as we search…
This is only a cursory assemblage of remarks. Please feel free to add!
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