February 3 nutshell

 Rose-Marie kindly shared this program of a reading of Robert Hayden’s poem, Those Winter Sundays.  https://youtu.be/XzqW6s5NsTM

at minute 7, Bill Murray reads; at minute 30 or so, Moses Ingram reads. At the end you hear 

President Biden read it... 

The discussion in between as Rose-Marie remarked, is much like what happens in our weekly discussions.  Each of us is touched in different ways.  It is special to be privy to hearing two professional actors interpret the poem so differently. 

Nutshell: of Feb. 3 poems. 

Today's discussion left me with a great sense of humility.   Race in today's culture, is a loaded gun of a topic.  How do white readers discuss an Afro-American poem-- and what to make of it, perhaps could be subject of an entire book.  This is where I go to my own heart... and then to the community of readers that makes O Pen.  This is not a group for whom anyone can make sweeping generalizations.

What I love, is that each week, people who love words gather to read aloud poems from a variety of sources and share responses, associations, gleanings, stabs at understanding.

My attempt to summarize an hour and a half of discussion is not fair to the richness of the discussion.

I humbly offer the best I can offer at this moment in time.  Is it fair to the poems? I ask.  Is it even fair to those who were present on zoom?  I don't pretend to offer anything but imperfect glimpses into heartfelt contributions.  I so appreciate each person's sharing.  Thank you all.

The Power of Hope Today:  Yes, a 7th grader, a child who shows signs of being a nascent poet... who flings the anaphor "Today's hope" five times, but gives a sense of truth of experience, an attempt to understand how to "peer"/beyond/the lingering barrier... She doesn't make it plural, does not make metaphor to say what that is... but leaves us with the last two lines... the hope of/today.

The remainder of the poems as mentioned, recommended by Dante Micheaux.

As from a Quiver of Arrows:  Title poem of one of many works by Carl Phillips.  I am reminded that when I make selections of poems, usually it is not about a representative work by one poet, or to discuss the work in general produced.  Rather, there is something about the poem which calls out to me to say, this poem is important to discuss!  What intrigued me was the sense of incessant questions being shot, and no space between stanzas to allow them to register in any target due to enjambments.  The first stanza is contained, but the rest of the 7 that follow are unfinished, enjambed into the first line of the following stanza.  Sylvia reminded us that Phillips is influenced by Audrey Lorde.  We examined the metaphor of the "quiver" of us... who we are after we are no longer, what to remember, dismiss... how to deal with grief... with loss.  Whether cupid and valentines day, Saint Sebastian, or a warrior carefully arranging his quiver so the right arrow is delivered at the right time... we all found the poem enjoyable allowing us many directions for contemplation.

MMDCCXII1/2:  Such a title!  Why the Roman numerals?  2713 1/2 doesn't elucidate a thing .  One thought is roman numerals and New York apartments accommodating an influx of people bringing their history and assimilating as they can to whatever America is offering.  The "one half" leaves conjecture as to the subdividing.  14 lines begs examination of sonnet structure... and the craft of the poem certainly is outstanding.  The opening line repeated in the last, with the "cruelty" turned plural makes a poignant punch.  The "hasp", the repeated double o of door, single o of lock, slumlord, both of us -- but who is "us"? in which room...  and who and how is the dance "like electrons out of each other's way"? 

Haunting and powerful.

Do check out this strong portfolio of photographs http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2015/05/lorenzo-thomas-mmdccxiii-12.html

Dictionary of the Wolf.  Another sonnet... quotations... all from Lincoln?  Juxtaposed with   

with the second stanza.  Who is the grizzled axman?  More by this poet  perhaps gives clue:  Check out this  Italian website (but in English, scroll down: https://poetassigloveintiuno.blogspot.com/2016/10/melvin-b-tolson-19214.html

We commented on how the density of of the language disguised at first the  end rhymes.

Noted as a modernist, indeed,  Tolson is brilliant in his combining form to serve a subtext .

The Cradle Logic of Autumn: 

About Wright’s work, critic Harold Bloom wrote, “As an immensely learned poet, Wright tries to defend himself against incessant allusiveness by stripping his diction, sometimes to an astonishing sparseness…

read more here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2930927?seq=1

We limped through the words of Molinari (who provided the epigraph) -- I am thinking it is this Argentinian poet speaking of a long sadness.. dry flowers, parrots, a certain river of flame? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Molinari

In four stanzas, a sense of imminent death... meditation allowing us to hook into what might be familiar... 

What is cradle logic? The words will not tell and yet, there is a sense one need not know more than their sound, taken on faith.

Menace to:  to what? to whom? Powerful impact which promoted quite a discussion!  Can money nurture... double disappointment when what should is contaminated.. repeated enemy and enemies ...

The note about the poem allowed us to see the point that as white people, we do not begin to understand how it is to be black, where one's ID is on the skin.  

Without the note, one thinks of how we are spied on by our connections to digital devices... but we are the ones inviting the spy by our use... connected but disembodied.  

Bernie brought up  SURJ: https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org