Poems for April 28

I Dream a World  by Langston Hughes  (referenced in Margaret Noodin's poem, Nimbawaadaan Aikiing/I Dream a world discussed last week)

Dogs  by Mary Oliver (thank you Dave H)

Rock Paper Scissors  by Arthur Sze 

Being Wrong by Alison Luterman

Wind by Gwendolyn Bennett

Growing Older, On a Good Day by Bernie Shore

Post Fire Forest- Forrest Gander

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFHn2LfxIDA

The Text: 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/12/post-fire-forest

Nutshell:

I Dream a World: Although many of the images may feel familiar now, we wondered if they were in 1941 when this poem was written.  There is a sadness, whether  in the last line he is directly addressing the world, or the dream.

Dogs: Although Dave H. was not able to attend, this was his pick and said this about it:  wonderfully perceptive portrayal of nature, The dogs are neither good nor bad.They're just dogs. We're the ones who see the contradition between the loving "darling" animals and their occasionally savage instincts.

The discussion of course included many dog stories... as we as a discussion of our idealization of dogs as pets, the nature of a dog pack in a hunt, the layer of contextualized dream towards the end where  the wild aspect of dogs steps into "the old good natures".  The ending stanzas invited us to make parallels in our own nature, both the recognizable the  shyness, courage, and perhaps a speculation about the "black" and blood in a bottomless pool, and the upsetting retching of hope, giving us the world as it is.

Rock Paper Scissors:  Not everyone knows this game, although wiki will tell you it was invented in 206 BCE in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_paper_scissors  Rose Marie pointed out it is sometimes used like flipping a coin, to choose an order, make a decision, involving careful observation in an opponent's anticipatory gestures or creating some sort of strategy.  Like the Dogs, a sense of darwinism, but more than that, a sense of Helgelian cycles, or intertwining of intellect and imagination where disparate events are connected.  Interesting, very private associations, but obscure. 

Being Wrong:  a delightful breath of fresh air regarding our human vulnerabilities, and ability to "get things wrong".  David pointed out the delight for him is how the poem makes him wonder just in what way "being wrong" was going-- what was good or bad, rectified?  The bottom line... opinions change.  Does "bruschetta" (from the verb to toast, roast over coals) imply something more than food?  What had been wrong in the opinions about men, pasta, skinny jeans.  Emily helped us out with the latter: in the pandemic era, no one wears skinny jeans... women opt for comfortable, loose-banded pants.  The tongue-in-cheek ending confirms a sense of good humor as we face the only irrefutable fact we know.

Wind:  Written in 1924, it is hard not to read this sonnet and think of lynchings... perhaps of burning crucifixes.  Wind, as a powerful, male force without a heart... how to understand the last two lines, like a thief, taking all for himself, slinking back

to his cave, like a dragon? is there any shame in those rain-filled eyes, low-bowed head?  (David reminded us that Faulkner thought that the shame of whites persecuting blacks would be the only thing that could stop the destruction.)

Growing Older, On a Good Day: Bernie, alias "True Manifestation of Deep Looking", name given by his teacher in his mindfulness practice, shared this birthday meditation poem about turning 70.  The tactful description of youth becoming "less... annoying"... bending into a focus on their curiosity, energy, intriguing as artworks in a museum of life" is a useful tool provided to those of us who understand that "the answer keeps changing even as it stays the same, its wardrobe continually refashioned... but still the same."

On Floriography: We did not discuss much about this poem... I loved the ease of extracting poetry out of poverty... 

a different flowering where the "dystopia of civilization is rendered fragrant."

Post Fire Forest:  we only listened to the reading of this poem by Forrest Gander.  I highly recommend you watch the video with which it is paired.  

Emily brought up the current exhibit at the MAG, 613, by Archie Rand, and how Archie had explained his art was like poetry.

"Painting has nothing to do with knowing and everything to do with giving, to paraphrase Franz Klein. The desire of the artist to communicate the necessity of their affection, dedication, devotion, is something we receive… part of the artist’s outreach.  The big question could be, “how do you ponder on the wonders of the universe?”  Because there are so many unanswered questions, human beings turn to belief in order to put some order into the cacophony of it all.  The 613 is one such expression of belief.".  How do we balance the paradox of possessing a rare talent for happiness, walking through wreckage?

For April 21

Underwear by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The Owl by Joyce Sutphen (poetry pick from Jules Nyquist)

The Ragged and the Beautiful by Safiya Sinclair

Anthropocene: A Dictionary by Jake Skeets

Nimbawaadaan Akiing / I Dream a World by Margaret Noodin

Dirt and Light  by Aria Aber

Mount Auburn Cemetary by Robert Pinsky 

 Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Underwear:   you can hear him read it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jz6gDVHa7Q It’s a rather long poem so you may prefer just to read it: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42871/underwear (Thank you Gretchen!)

 As this was not on the list, but a poem suggested by Gretchen who was visiting the group today, I wanted to be sure her "Poetry Month choice" could be shared when she was able to come.  We enjoyed her

reading of it, watching how masterfully Ferlinghetti takes the reality of underwear into the metaphorical realm replete with political ramifications..

The Owl: Susan gave a perfect "owl-like" "who cooks for you" call which dovetailed with the spirit of the Ferlinghetti.  Owl is more than owl, and the call, more than call, just like underwear, delving into what lies under... what is worn... She calls on Brecht's question about dark times... and the answer.  Sutphen shares her take on bitter by embracing a paradoxical smile which becomes even more believable wondering

as does she how it is we can still "leap to our feet; clap our hands together.".

 

The Ragged and the Beautiful: This poem very much picked up  on the Sutphen, where dark and bitter are the "ragged".  The language is beautifully poetic whether the image of storming bull of doubt, the garden of good days... the blue-wide windows of myself...  

The crafting with an on-going flow of tercets, weaving syntax like a seamless dream, even the one-word, "Yes." ends with a half-line of a couplet, indeed, flown "perfectly away".  The poem captures the inner world of the outcast-- whether by economics, social status, race, gender, mental health.  And the saving grace of "good days", No body is wrong.  We are all bodies.   

 "enough/of ourselves to catch the wind in our feathers, and fly so perfectly away."

Comments: truth has its own beauty; the poem is a universalist invitation.  

She does not label doubt as "self-doubt", a destructive force... but rather all the unanswerable storms of

being human... and the amazing ability of living beings to survive, albeit ragged and sideways and always... (with line and stanza enjambing to) "beautiful."  

For the Jake Skeets Anthropopcene: you might be able to find more words here: https://dictionary.nihizaad.com/dict/sheep/

Gretchen mentioned that often this is restricted, as many Native American tribes do not want unlimited access to anyone out of respect for these words and customs.

This is definitely a poem you need to listen to.  The slow, deliberate cadence of his voice, the passing down of words in oral tradition where each word is explained -- and so if you took only the Navajo

Sheep corral... moonlight... its sails, wind, more wind comes up, evening... 

they burned it... we did this --

there is almost a haiku-like sense of more being said.  Language creates culture... 

The space of both the spoken words and visual layout also has a clever use of colon Barbara pointed out.

At first, a Navajo word: English equivalent.  The space between the Navajo word and English increases with each instance-- worth a second look.  As the note about the poem says, it is a window on a Navajo-Indian dictionary as an anthropological act to show what is happening.

Nimbawaadaan:

Again, you must listen to this poem.  Margaret Noodin sings the Anishinaabe  first, then the English.

There is a definite rhythmic beat, and it feels like a prayer.  We were all touched by the sound of the words sung even before we understood their translation.  She could have put the two languages side by side,

but chose not to-- so that the visual and aural/oral do not line up.  She references Martin Luther King

and Langston Hughes: https://allpoetry.com/I-Dream-A-World

(I have pasted that at the top of the poems for next week.). 

 Dirt and Light by Aria Aber: 

the James Merrill poem referred to  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=29216

It helps to know that the poet is Afghani, that her parents fled to Germany and she lived as refugee.

One feels the desert in the "salt-white music", a sense of mines and everything blowing up .

Lemony light is part of the culture left behind, felt graveside. We spoke of how the poem felt drenched in loss, sorrow, regret... that large wanting one can never have of what is lost.  She weaves a poignant longing-- yes... the pigeon settles into the dusk, the wet pine... life goes on... and yet.. so does grief.

At Mount Auburn Cemetery

This was in the same issue of the New Yorker as Dirt and Light.

As Pinsky said about House Hour, “It can feel heavy with longing—and heavy with longing, in my mind, is preferable to hollow, which one also feels. If I’m heavy with longing, at least I have some idea of what I want.”

Here in the cemetery, meditating on names, lives...on what it is to be human, as you bury a beloved pet...  there is nothing hollow.  

Thank you Marna for bringing up Cary Ratcliff’s “Ode to Common Things” and   e e cummings Madrigals. WXXI broadcasts.  You can experience a 2020 performance of the Ode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBzLdeIdb8A

Ratcliffe: e e cummings Madrigals https://www.trendsmap.com/twitter/tweet/1384445503732060160

3 links to Cary Ratcliffe: https://www.classical915.org/programs/classical-music-brenda-tremblay

Poems for April 14

 

One of the Butterflies by  W. S. Merwin       (Thank you Kathy)

Love Calls Us to the Things of the World by Richard Wilbur          (Thank you Kathy)

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry           (Thank you Vicky)

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver (Thank you Vicky)

July by Ursula Le Guin. (Thank you Jan)

Recognition  by W. S. Merwin (Thank you Jim)

We Dogs of a Thursday Off by Alberto Rios. (Thank you Jim) 

Nutshell:

First of all, condolences to Elaine, whose beloved Omar was put down after his 18 years.

One of the Butterflies: In 13 lines, Merwin produces a “butterfly” effect without mentioning 

this symbol of the fleeting and ephemeral.  We spoke of the nature of pleasure,  its relationship to

pain, in both Keats (Ode to Melancholy) and in Wordsworth (I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud).

Merwin’s treatment of the same theme starts with the idea of “timing”, moves on to the surprising unpredictability of pleasure, where an unrecognized moment in the past arrives as memory in the present… The first four lines feel complete in and of themselves, and the elasticity of the line where one line can work both with the one above and the one below

starts on line 5.  Many associations came up:  the idea of holding onto pleasure too long, 

“curdles” the moment… G. Saunders’ translation of Gogol, The Nose and how nothing endures in this world… Our human nature which desires to “capture moments” whether by jotting them down, taking pictures… 

 

Love Calls us to the Things of the World:  Wilbur combines “heartfeltness with precision of intellect” (David S.) starting with a line from St. Augustine.  It is fun to listen to him read the poem to see where he pauses, breaks, or ignores a stanza break entirely.  There are plenty of puns

on “spirited”, “awash” and perfectly inserted adjectives that add to the unexpected: a false dawn; impersonal breathing (of laundry angels); punctual rape; bitter love.  The last stanza paints a crucifixion feeling with the gallows and thieves… and the spiritual descends to earth with the

heaviest nuns… their dark habits… their walk in a “pure floating” (back to the laundry inbued

with breath)… as they “keep their difficult balance”.  The “their” embraces the thieves, the lovers, the nuns, all of us having slept in bedsheets, worn the blouses, smocks freshly washed,

hung out to dry.  Rose Marie shared the fun story of learning the importance of “symmetry on the laundry line” — how a housewife might be judged by her arrangement of small to large,

or lack of order.

 

The Peace of Wild Things:  Although a choice of Vicky, and a favorite of David H. who mentioned meeting Berry at the MAG and a reading at Liftbridge Books. Ginny could not be there and said “Berry so perfectly describes the way it is for me when I am in nature.”  Very much like the 23^rd psalm.

The concept of “Forest Bathing” came up — the importance of nature.  The lightness of the rhythm allows “peace” to infiltrate despair… transform fear and worry, grief…  

 

Wild Geese:  I brought up the fact that many people criticize Mary Oliver for a sentimental type of poetry.  Emily mentioned her words are like a prayer that opens its arms to everyone.  This pparticular poem is a balm for the lonely. The repeated “meanwhile” allows the simultaneity

of despair and beauty, and an invitation to follow one’s imagination.  Often people scoff at those who can hold lightness, kindness, and criticize gentleness.  Bernie offered that Oliver led a hard life, and her voice is authentic in identifying the presence of desperation, and yet committed to 

engagement with the world. 

 

July:  a pick from Jan who was struck that Ursula LeGuin wrote this just days before her death. 

The height of summer, and even then, big old trees have to die…. but, take in from the sun, and water absorbed from the roots, and then give back … for 500 rainy seasons.

 

Recognition: Jim’s choice, because of the language but also the interconnectedness he paints for us.  Interesting that Merwin separates both the opening and closing line… 

Stories indeed… come to us like new senses… stories provide what we always wanted to believe.

How lovely this wave and ash tree… personnified.. “writing to each other every day/without knowing where to send the letters” — and the sense that we might see traces of them… 

and understand a view of the world we
 “could not have guessed at.”

 

We Dogs of a Thursday Off:  Rios provides a light humor, for the wine of “uncharted days”… 

the “intense intoxication” of nothing to be done… the idea of a day off… not something possible in the time of pandemic.. Dogs as metaphor… the trust  and careless exuberance-- and this idea of a polka

done "straight ahead into the beautiful distance" and a workday turned on its back... hoping to be rubbed.

Social distancing : the solar circle poem ... healing begins... pick your line... 

Great discussion... 

April 7

Introduction to Poetry by Abby Murray

Conversation with Immigration Officer by Ae Hee Lee

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

The Gift  by Li-Young Lee

What Work Is by Philip Levine

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón 

Where Love will Need no Proof  by Kitty Jospé

Waterwheel Review published my poem today…. 4/1

https://waterwheelreview.com

(to see the whole poem https://waterwheelreview.com/kitty-jospe/

Whether or not you subscribe to "April as Poetry Month" -- it does give an excuse to put a spotlight

on sharing poems which touch us deeply.

We spoke last week of  the "ars poetica" of Craig Santos Perez... and the amazing power that poems

exert on us.   I was reading an article in the NYTimes about the "preference of human beings for negativity in their stories" -- that "bad news invites us to cut through self-promotion to find truth" and hence, newspapers respond to this "consumer demand".

Poetry is a much-needed antidote to such negativity.  I feel the poems help us cut into a fuller picture

to contemplate the multiple angles of whatever "truth" is there and if delivered with empathy, give us

the courage and tools to help each other deepen our mutual understanding.  

Thank you to Marna for bringing the joy of nonsense which reminds us of our human need to chuckle,

guffaw, poke fun at ourselves--indeed a gladsome poem to start out this “fool’s day”.  Her other poem choice is well worth pursuing, although I do not reproduce it.  As she put it, "The second is new to me and I chose it because of my concern for Asian Americans and immigrants. Due to problems of formatting, (Italics, indentation refusing to cooperate and extra spaces) I ask your indulgence to click on the attachment to read it.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151146/conversation-with-immigration-officer"

Thank you to Elaine for the next two:  Perfect follow up with another Li-Young Lee, and an old favorite of many from Phil Levine. As she puts it,  “They are very different but hold for me the same thread....that of love.”

Enjoy the line-up!  

Nutshell:

Introduction to Poetry: see note published April 9 in this blog. 

Conversation with Immigration Officer: (Marna's pick)

I shared the screen so people could follow two voices:  One, the Immigration Officer, the other, the person being interviewed, whose words are interspersed italics.  It is a strong story, where we are exposed to the cut and dried manner of the officer, devoid of humanity, no smile, and despite the lawyer's reassurance "everything is going to be all right", even the lawyer isn't smiling either.

Marna was struck by the strength, the resilience of the "liquid" text inserted in the narration of the detainee's viewpoint.

We might say somewhere is "decidedly (not) a beautiful place-- but "undecidedly beautiful"   stands out with an underlying beautiful at risk, vulnerable in its "undecided" state.  

Does everyone commit lies / & wants... does one commit a  lie? a "desire"-- or does one want something (& the object is cut off)?

Jabberwocky:  (also Marna's pick-- for the delightful sounds!  Apparently "chortle" did make it into the Webster's abridged dictionary but not all these combination words.  For fun, here is a glossary https://floridarti.usf.edu/resources/pl_modules/intensive_interventions/day2/5.%20Jabberwocky%20Vocabulary.pdf

David proposed a reading where the opening repeated in the closing stanza create a sandwich of the order of the world we know.

The advice of father to son, is to pass on the heroic tasks (with vorpal sword).  Marna, out of sensitivity to a less patriarchal reading, tried changing "beamish boy" to beamish one... and all the "he" pronouns turned to "they". It worked in her mind, but not necessary.

The Gift: (Elaine's pick)

The poem hints at the complexity of passing down of love from father to son given the tumultuous life of Li-Young Lee's family.  What do we know of another's life beyond the words of a poem?  Elaine recommended Lee's memoir, The Winged Seed: a remembrance.  His father had been personal physician to Mao Tse Tung... fleeing China... living in a Leper Colony, a prison colony before arriving in the US... we suspected the "unchildlike lines" of what Lee "did not hold that shard/between my fingers and think" which contrast so sharply with the final two sentences, have an echo of some of the pain experienced.  

We share the mystery with the poet, not knowing what story  the father told.  The healing hands, the measures of tenderness,

and yet a planting of a flame.  Is it a silver tear, as in teardrop, or silver tear, as in rip-- how sliver slides so easily to silver...

as easily as this memory, which drops in unexpectedly as the grown-up Lee removes a splinter from his wife's hand.

Many could feel a visceral response of splinter-removal; Bernie shared his childhood memory for sure, in his mind, where three large looming doctors would work to get his splinter out!

What work is. (Elaine's pick)

It helped to understand the poem by examining the use of pronouns:  It starts out with "we", and you can imagine a young

Levine and his brother, the standing in line hoping you would be lucky enough to be able to work.  There are many flavors

of "you".  The understood "you", the dismissed you , the faceless you, the personal you of Levine who thinks he sees his brother... the you who is the other.  It is not straightforward to understand "what the work is".  The poem is reminiscence embedded within 

reminiscence... past and present intertwined.  However we understood the poem -- the work of the brother at his German

so he could better sing Wagner (which Levine hates the most); the work which may or may not include your brother;

the sense of love is so strong -- the urgency of it, and the reproach for its absence... how is understanding what work is

tied up in this?  Accepting a brother for being who he is, no matter what you think of his paid work, his unpaid work,

to say sincerely, "I love you"-- is an emotional and psychological angle of work larger and truer than anything else.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

A perfect Spring poem... Rose-Marie commented on the staying power of the green of leaves-- how durable it is, whereas the blossoms (described in frivolous terms: cotton-candy-colored, baubles, trinkets, confetti) are like the mess of us, here in a burst, and gone as quickly.  Hurray for patient, plodding reminders of green skin,  impossible new slick leaves arriving, not necessarily to challenge the order of things (although at first unfurling like a fist) -- but opening up, vibrant with life, offering and receiving.

Where Love will need no proof:  I appreciated the comments.  

I was glad for Waterwheel Review's prompt of slipstream" -- it made me ponder what is in a name? but perhaps more importantly, echoed aspects of all the poems today... how poetry allows us to hold what seems impossible; echoes with heartache; the constant work that allows love to work its healing.

What is Poetry? (insert after reading first poem of those chosen for April 7)

 This was the precursor to Abby Murray's poem, Introduction to Poetry: 

It's been two weeks of brutal violence and shootings and by all means I should not be feeling hopeful. How many people are dead now, who were alive at the beginning of the month, who also planned on having time to themselves later, when work quieted down, when the kids were back in school, when a symptom improved, when they could finally see someone they missed, when the car was fixed, when a bill was paid off? How much does all that hope weigh when it's suddenly ripped from so many people and dropped on the ground?

I don't know. But I can feel it, and so can you, so it must be heavy. And unwieldy too, I don't know how to hold it and move forward, it's like trying to walk for miles with an armful of rocks.

And yet. My mom went to the grocery store on Wednesday, nervous as so many of us are now, to be in a country where guns and the violent reign, and she came home with a few daffodils bunched together in a rubber band. They just looked so good, she said. They're in a glass bottle in front of me as I write this, and I can smell them waking up, getting to work, filling the room.

An anthology of poems called How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope was released on Tuesday, and because I'd pre-ordered it, it arrived on Tuesday afternoon. It is wonderful. Small. Soft, colorful cover of reds and yellows and browns. A couple of the poets in it are too syrupy for me but most of them speak straight into the bloodstream in a way that balances the bitter, the savory, and the sweet. Ross Gay, Jane Hirshfield, January Gill O'Neil, Joy Harjo, Molly Fisk, Terry Kirby Erickson.

When Mae comes home from school and plays in the corner with her bin of Legos, I can hear her singing in Spanish while I write. She pauses to pick two stubborn bricks apart and I can hear her baby-breathing, the exhale kids have that echoes the way they breathed as newborns, concentrated and intent. If moments can be too good, they are these.

And I wrote four poems this week.  When  does that happen? It is getting a little easier to type and although I still can't extend my arm all the way I can send emails for almost an hour before needing to put a bag of hot rice on my elbow.

Spring is crashing into us and we are carrying the hope of those taken from their families. It is bright yellow and blooming and real and it needs us to take it with us wherever we are going and there is no time for strategy.

The poem below is from a prompt from my Monday group. I have been surrounded by good poems all week, and I was asked last Friday in a workshop what poetry is.

And we hear Mae's Spanish in the second line, (perhaps -- I looked up to return and to begin and in all the multiple possibilities, indeed, the verb dar does work for both)...

And why not make up meanings from ancient times, throw in some biblical "honey" with the an undertone of "expensive", reflecting a contemporary American obsession with money.

And just in case you didn't believe that poetry can mean "star that moves"... wiki will soon correct you:

"The word Dhrupad is derived from DHRUVA the steadfast evening star that moves through our galaxy and PADA meaning poetry." and you will learn about the connection to ancient devotional music.

From concrete, Abby moves on to metaphoric... and whether you want to prove that "thirst" (title of play by Eugene O'Neill)  is what  some people call poetry, pronouncing it "persistent cat" or "honest disease"(or amuse yourself by reading Jeffry O'Neill https://www.jstor.org/stable/374060?seq=1)

yes, however you explore everything ever written, spoken to understand POETRY... we are in agreement: 

Poetry is what it is, and isn't.  A Nope and Welcome Home.

Now that we're buttered up and having fun, pretending we know all the history referred to, although largely clueless, we would like to believe there is some language that can mean "begin" and  that sounds like "return" in another... We are given a front row seat to observe an exercise in creating... and how creative invention loves to dress up what some want to believe is "historical" fact.

The desire to believe in something actual, the suspicion of pretense of fact, the delight of an unexpected surprise such as "daffodils win" (mother's gift which helps her daughter poet hold up the heaviness of the world..." -- that tricky act of grabbing horns of a dilemma on an actual raging bull (metaphorically and metonymically ) with all its ambiguous paradox is both target (skin) and craft (arrow for that bull's eye)... I love that the poem ends on flame. 

 

March 31

Dawn - Rita Dove

ars Pasifika - by Craig Santos Perez to hear Craig Santos Perez read his poem: are pacifika  https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS8737071724.mp3?key=72bb030cc5a7add3c823656cfb3977e3

I am the Apsara’s daughter by Sokunthary Svay  

From Blossoms -- Li-Young Lee

The Weight of Sweetness by Li-Young Lee 

What the Paint Can Do - Kitty Jospé

Palm Sunday by Malcolm Guite

CRIMINAL JUSTICE HAIKU SERIES— Lisa Nichols

sent as extra: 

La suavecita by Lupe Mendez

Chrysalis  - M.J. Iuppa

Another Shade of Yellow -- M.J. Iuppa

**

Further sharings: 

the Apsara dance Marna mentioned is a YouTube called Apsara Dance Royal Ballet of Cambodia Tola Chap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkpXEPfxql0

 the book Bernie mentioned about rain: Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett  (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Rain-Natural-Cultural-Cynthia-Barnett/dp/0804137110

This quote from  https://32poems.com/prose/shape-shifting-nostalgia-across-the-va-an-interview-with-craig-santos-perez-by-cate-lycurgus/

Poetry is both a genealogical tattoo and a guerrilla archive.

I try to describe and embody this in my work by employing collage, ethnographic, visual, and documentary techniques. This is combined with lyric, multilingual, and polyphonic narrative devices and structures. My goal is to make visible the seams, fragments, paradoxes, complexities, and indeterminacies of being from an unincorporated territory. My hope is that the reader will gather the materials and harvest their deeper meanings.

I interweave my own intimate subjectivity with larger forces. Moreover I tell the stories of my own family not only to value and memorialize their stories, but also to show that their experiences matter. To me, this personalizes the history and politics. In terms of craft, I usually don’t aim for “balance”; instead, I aim for dynamic and profound juxtapositions.

"For me, poetry is a vessel—a canoe—that carries our stories, myths, creation stories, genealogies, histories, memories, kin, foods, traumas, hopes, and dreams. Poetry is navigational chant, song map, constellation of words, and wave patterns that help us journey through our past, present, and future. Poetry is prayer and elegy, protest and critique, truth and manifesto. Poetry is a love letter and mahalo circle. Poetry is an archive, document(ary), and library of voices. Poetry is place-based and planetary, migratory and rooted, archipelagic and oceanic. Poetry is hybrid, polyphonic, and multispecies. Poetry is laughter and trickster. Poetry is like the ocean: it has no end, only unknown depths, contracting waves, and dilating horizons."

Nutshell:

Dawn:  Thank you to Joyce for sharing this poem... it allows us to feel a second chance as real...

the welcome relief of starting again afresh.  We picked up on the quirkiness of time:  "If you don't look back, // (line and stanza break) the future never happens."  The link of "prodigal" and smell of biscuits--

and perhaps a return to a more innocent childhood of looking up at the sky to make stories out of clouds

with the sense that anything is possible.  

ars pacifica: I went out of order from what was sent.  (This was poem #4).  Although Bernie read it beautifully slowly, respecting the wide spaces between the worlds... Craig Santos Perez reads it even more

slowly: https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS8737071724.mp3?key=72bb030cc5a7add3c823656cfb3977e3

"If you can write the ocean, you can never be silenced".  We could feel the level of the water rising...

how the paddle of your tongue appears, like a savior.  Lori wrote before hearing Rose-Marie's quote shared above about his "ars poetica" "Steer the ship with word"... Yes!  Prayer, elegy... and meditation

enriched by the research (note: kudos for Elaine whose name now is synonymous with "delving deeper").

I am the Apsara's Dance: See Marna's share of the ballet for the spirit of this spirit woman of sky/cloud. 

We can hear the bells... I didn't mean to put the men in the group on the spot to ask how they respond to this female "copying the image"... the poem resonates on many levels-- as does "sea of milk".  Lori shared the sweetness of the image and scent of orange blossom she is privileged to experience with her son.

A sense of sacred sensuality...

The Weight of Sweetness:  we discussed at length this word "weight" -- both a term of measurement as well as an indicator of emotional gravitas.  We cannot know sweet without struggle... and what is this sweetness that remains in memory?  Li-Young Lee sketches a light philosophical introduction... allows us

to puzzle over choosing three of four "gravities"... proceeds to painting an image of peach... like a video,

from its weight bending the branch to snapping off to rest in your palm... (Ah!  David H. explained that

luscious feel... that ultimate experience of tasting a ripe peach... which inspired Bernie to echo with a similar eureka of tasting a perfectly ripe strawberry)... Back to the poem... third stanza sets the scenario...

the tender gesture of the father moving a green leaf, "fallen like a kiss", leading us to the 4th stanza and

an almost unexpected weight... hugging those peaches, trying to keep up with his father.  The sounds

support the breathless "f's" -- the sibilance of s, sh, weave in to flavor the memory just as delicately sensuous....

From Blossoms:  pick by Jan.    She was struck by the emotional impact, the beauty, the sensuous quality

as were we.   A companion piece to the other... "O to take what we love inside" now

understood in a deeper way... not just "jubilance of peace" -- but this sense of impossible -- how blossom

is so transformed to fruit... a sense of ashes to ashes, and yet this joy, gathering weight as it is repeated

three times, weightless as wing.

What the Paint Can Do:  Van Gogh does in paint, what Li-Young Lee does with words.  A portrait is

more than physical ressemblance.  As Van G. said, "paintings have a life of their own that derives from

the painter's soul".  His yellow in the hat, stands for the sun... the energy and vitality of delivered by...

paint.

Palm Sunday:  Thank you June for sharing this... and the context of how it soothed you as you struggled to write a poem about the nameless man burned alive by two teens... How words and crowds and easy feelings are no enough to fix large problems.  What surface flourish do we apply... no human being is

spared from some form of "self-interest, fearful guardedness, hardness of hard" -- the barricades that

hide a dreadful emptiness... The last line is a strong call to invite us to participate more fully.

Criminal Justice Haiku Series: This criticism of Rochester, NY is just one such way of participating...

It was powerful to have 10 different voices read the 10 haiku.