i woke up and the day caught me by Kara Jackson
The Undertaking by Louise Glück
Balance by Adam Zagajewski (translated by Clare Cavanagh)
Locked Doors by Anne Sexton
We Lived Happily during the War by Ilya Kaminsky
mountain language — Öykü Tekten
A Noun Sentence by Mahmoud Darwish
The Night Migrations by Louise Glück - 1943-
Nutshell:
The Kara Jackson poem was not only "molested" in the first 2 stanzas, but incomplete, missing these lines at the end: but when the day calls i will answer to my name
but when the day calls i will answer to my name
claim it like a fire rushing toward living things
i will rise because there is someone praying
for me to remain still.
full poem (with nice picture of the US Youth National Poet Laureate!) https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/28-02-2020/the-friday-poem-i-woke-up-and-the-day-caught-me-by-kara-jackson/
Linda thanked me for sending the original but with this comment: I thought it was a deliberate way to present how our thoughts are so jumbled and disconnected in that waking up confused moment! In fact I shared it, saying that was my favorite thing about the poem; it caught me and gradually woke me up. Linda
Great discussion-- We appreciated the positive infusion and imagery; day, as both diurnal, but also the moment-- when the time "catches you"-- and "waking up" both the physical act after sleep, and coming to a realization; layers of history -- she asks for rest... as did her mother, and her mother's mother... David S. brought up the strain of expectations on the young, which could explain in part desire for rest... The tone is one of determination-- "I will be a fire... return to that burning chin... (we wondered what that was-- the moon?) and at the end, answer the call of the day (carpe diem!) "i will answer to my name/claim it like a fire rushing toward living things/////i will rise; a bit of Maya Angelou... and the fire perhaps a slant reference to James Baldwin, The Fire Next time. It may have been Marna who used the image of a cape around the world -- ?
We did not discuss the very bit... "because there is someone praying/for me to remain still." The desire to engage in action increases when we know someone is looking, is caring. Still, as in "remain "even now"... or maybe, "nevertheless" or as noun, deep, meditative calm...
Play between "I woke" in the past tense, and "keeping waking" in present... and whatever that persistent candle is (made me think of a vigil), ignites the future-- "who will the day catch if I am not the centre of its tongue"...
Who is you? Or are the multiple possibilities part of the beauty. There was a comma after the last word of the first stanza: Love,
It could be an address to love, or an imperative to "you" or a directive. An undertaking is normally something much effort, planning, but here, the peace of the poem flows as if no effort is involved. Perhaps a personal meditation, as well as reaching out to the reader as fellow human to remind us of the power of imagination. If an "undertaking" perhaps, also a nod to the work involved with imagining something positive out of negativity. It is hard not to associate "undertaking" with "undertaker", a term coined in 1382 as the helper or assistant to the one who assists with preparing the body for burial.
Emily was reminded of the Stanley Kunitz poem, The Long Boat. The last word, “luck” is worthy of discussion. It is neither good, nor bad… reflecting the usual tendency we have to ascribe and project a positive or negative quality to it.
Luck is merely how the cards are dealt… not in our control.
Adam Zagajewski: Balance... hovering above the earth... balancing between space and "vulnerable" earth, white of clouds and of snow, as well as balancing the polarity of nothing and fullness... and the paradox such as "lovely nothing", " sweet darkness". The description of the view of the "comic gardens forgotten by their owners" / "pale grass plagued by winter and the wind" approaching landing, is as surprising as the image of the concrete, the adverb, "assiduously" for the circling through the airport's "labyrinth". Wonderful sounds such as the repeated "d's" in the final stanza add to the pleasure of feeling the ever-changing emotional landscape... I love the final stanza -- "I once again knew nothing" followed by the resuming of wandering, and the juxtaposition of the self that counts and measures, and the one who remembers and forgets. Who is the "you" here? How does it play into the final stanza?
Anne Sexton: Powerful and frightening poem, perhaps reminiscent of Grimm's Fairy Tales and illustrates the sad story of Anne Sexton, who committed suicide at age 46. Angels are given cold potatoes and a bowl of milk on the windowsill? The hell described captures the mental state of someone fighting depression. No touch, no hope, "cracking like macadam; mute; they do not cry for help/except inside/where their hearts are covered with grubs". It reminded Rose Marie of the book The Butterfly Lampshade. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/211463/the-butterfly-lampshade-by-aimee-bender/
Here, the mother asks to be locked in, with the lock on the outside so she can't get out and potentially harm her child. The idea of the devil locking the door from the inside (hence, with the prisoner); or the horror of an angel on the outside, snapping the lock...
Ilya Kaminsky:
This is a powerful poem filled with irony. The title and last line book-end the question, how can anyone live "happily" during a war? The we/they is immediately introduced with "And when..." the line breaks accentuate the reluctance first to protest... line break
but not enough. Then protest but not/
enough.
The first five sentences contrast with the long sentence broken into two uneven couplets and the repeated
title on its only line -- except the subject and the small aside "we (forgive us)" is on the line above, and an extra space of a stanza break.
the nesting of words (invisible house)... and money repeated 5 times -- the house transferred to the street of, the city of, the country of, our great country of money.
Perhaps not so much an indictment as a statement about our helplessness to change lack of awareness
of what is done in our name. The two first person singular pronouns... I was /in my bed, around my bed America//
was falling... The speaker's reaction? to take a chair outside to watch the sun.
with a series of guided questions in "Teach This Poem".
Öykü Tekten:
A Turkish name... I couldn't find out what else she has written, her bio: https://poets.org/poet/oyku-tekten
I'm not sure this is a "poem" as much as an exercise in irony, pointing to the absurdity with which some people are stripped of trees, their language pronounced dead, and then the gesture of (ineffective) rescue sent is bombed, for the reason of no longer being allowed.
Unsettling. Deep sorrow in these non sequiturs which brought the next poem.
Mahmoud Darwish: Although we ended by reading "A Noun Sentence" we will discuss it the Mahmoud Darwish next week. I have added this information to help us.
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