Two Countries — by Naomi Shihab Nye
Making Peace by Denise Levertov
Wind’s Eye by Lynn Caldwell
If You Knew by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
Last Words by Rita Dove
Day-Old Widow Poem by C.D.Wright
Turner by Maurice Manning
Aphorisms: Antonio Porchia
Where do you go
Nutshell:
Two Countries: The title allows the reader to ponder, as did the group, on what metaphor is contained in "countries".
It led me to ask if "skin" could also be a metaphor for something larger... which started the discussion on the properties of skin as the largest organ in the body, capable of absorbing the atmosphere, receptive, responsive to touch. Skin regenerates,
indeed, "heals over the scarred place"-- and like the Ishmael Reed poem last week, it was refreshing to use the word "skin" without referring to color, caste. Indeed, we all felt like one of the blind men touching different parts of an elephant...
Two countries should be the self and other... or territories within a self, or time present and time past. We discussed travel,
as a way to bridge how to we learn from experience, and so much more. This is one of those brilliant poems, which invites
multiple angles... the importance of touch in old age; the importance of observing (noticing that feather in lines 3-6)... the hope that actual physical countries like Palestine and Israel might one day allow a universal love that allows one "to breathe
in two countries."
“Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.”
Making Peace: What is involved with "making" of peace, and what has this to do with poetry? Everything!
Levertov allows us to imagine what we must do first -- her alliterative p's : peace (like a) poem;
r's: revoking reaffirmation; profit/power; peace a presence seen to give an outline. The word "sentence"
is both grammatical (that grammar of justice, syntax of mutual aid,) and also the fate, the judgement handed
down of how we live our lives. If we do not slow down to balance the weight of actions and words as instruments that guide us... indeed, as David brought up in Wordsworth, "The world is too much with us"... and we will be caught in behaviors that lead to war. The poem allows a much bigger vision of peace as a way of life... an energy field, a cadence, not just
the absence of war, and so much more intense.
Wind's Eye: What is wind? What is Eye? Window (which the author's note tells us is Old Norse for wind's eye).
This poem invites a meditative approach to perception...which leads to far greater abstractions than "wind" or sight,
what is "closedshut" and how to open. ( I see the word "hut" in the combined "closedshut" used twice, first with doors, then followed by a line break, open.)
Glass-sharp, a bit like a kenning (two words making a descriptive metaphorical noun)-- gives a sense of keen, incisive action of wind. What does the mind's eye see? Is Wind's Eye an all-being God? Carolyn brought up the importance of color--
that the mention of green is the first time we can "see the light" -- "my eye // blowing open" .
Last Words: read by Rita Dove... we loved the images...and the build up to the penultimate stanza, "Let the end come".
Jan commented that she defines grace: it is what is unsought, underserved, perhaps inconvenient, but definitely not something we control, and often unexpected. We loved also the delightful end in italics... Who is saying this? It doesn't matter, but addresses what we all feel... we know death will come, don't like to think about, and if we do, it's nice to
know we aren't the only ones to chide ourselves for doing so.
Day-Old Widow Poem: This was Kathy's pick. It's one of those poems which indeed changes the way we look at those fractions of moments when everything changes. The title sets the time, scene... but the poem drops in as if a small
piece of the memory of how the husband died. There is no punctuation... no beginning, no end. The stop in the middle of the first line... "he smiles as if..."
with no ellipses, no clue, no indication that he is no longer breathing. Later, in the fifth line, the same kind of
un-accented stop: a book/ drops to the floor...
the poem doesn't say the wife calls out... merely, simply stated. No answer. perhaps a book dropped, she thought she heard it.
and she knew, before she knew... The poem is visceral... none of us had trouble visualizing. It gives me shivers.
Turner: A beautiful ekphrastic poem -- but more than that. A meditation on time... where the word becomes like a mesmerizing chant. Bernie used "unbroken, hallucinatory fog" to describe the feeling of being wrapped in this blurry,
scene. The painting is an anchor... The difference of the pause in the voice, "timeless... in.. time" as opposed to "capture time in time"... what is timeless... what is time? We are arrested -- this capture of vivid aliveness paused... and arrive at the final word, silence.
Aphorisms: Speaking of time... did not have time to discuss them.
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