Nov. 17

Autumn by Alexander Posey - 1873-1908

Sonnets from the Cherokee (III) by Ruth Muskrat Bronson

The Truth About Why I Love Potatoes    by Mekeel McBride   

Mrs. Midas by Carol Ann Duffy 

Soldiers Washing (1927) by Ricardo Pau-Llosa  https://www.wikiart.org/en/stanley-spencer/soldiers-washing-1927

a Fine companion to the first poem,  is "Without" by Joy Harjo 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/11/without

for reference to "fields of gold" in Mrs. Midas:             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_the_Cloth_of_Gold

Nutshell:

Autumn: The line breaks clue us into rhythms which in turn connect to the cyclical relationship of season, relationships and connections in the web of life.  Both groups pondered the last three lines -- the dropping/rise again, (and all the ways leaves can fall -- twirling, sashaying, riding on air currents like a roller-coaster)... but why useless sigh for/Rest...  Of what good to sigh-- if it's time to fall, fall one will do.  It's tempting to transpose the fate of a leaf, who will fall, but still has work ahead of decomposing and adding to the Earth, to our human fate-- we really don't rest until we die, and even then, perhaps that is not final.  David brought up Robert Frost's After Apple Picking... Jan brought up Mary Oliver, Song for Autumn; Paul was reminded of Milton's On his blindness... 

Sonnets from the Cherokee:

A Millay feel to this lovely rhymed sonnet of longing and regret. Jim gives a prize for the most depressing phrase to dreary wanton years wear through/their hopeless dragging days...

We discussed in both groups what the penultimate line, "purge my hate" could mean... perhaps anger at self, for not realizing love soon enough, or living it fully enough and missing out on what love could have been.  Oh let us learn how to love before it is too late...

The Truth.... Potatoes

Many associations with potatoes from the Peruvian history (and 5,000 varieties), the name of potato pancakes in Hannibal, MO (Jim's mother called them Wampus Kitties, not to be confused with catawampus) how Frederick the Great insisted that all Germans eat potatoes, known for aphrodisiac qualities (and indeed, the birth rate did rise); Barbara's Irish connection to her fondness for the potato...

Delightful fun -- whether reading the admirable traits a person could adopt as potato, or positive effects if poems were this underground vegetable... (in a vegetarian cookbook indeed, the unsuspected benefits of this lowly root vegetable are outlined in a chapter, "Respect the Potato!" 

Stanza 2 was the one that seemed slightly out of whack:  what is it grown-ups do that imitates globb ing mashed potato into a ball and hurling it ...  Thanksgiving dinner conversations where family members know exactly what will provoke an outburst of outrage came up...

Mrs. Midas:  one of many portraits Duffy provides in her book "The World's Wife". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Wife

Clever, witty... many possibilities to understand relationships -- is Mrs. M just a hysteric making this up? Does Mr. M want to erase her from his life?  We all have wishes, granted.  But curses often make us wish they not be granted once we have them.  Marna though of Midas Muffler--- he muffling his wife... 

The rich details make it feel like short story rather than a poem.  Paul thought she could have shown a little more gratitude for the nest egg Mr. M provided.  What a couple they once made... and how sour it becomes with the turn of events.  Here, unlike the myth, where Midas is cruelly punished by turning his

daughter into a gold statue, it is the wife missing his human touch... Certainly, it allows us to contemplate the importance of what makes us human.

Soldiers Washing - it's helpful to compare poem with the painting that inspired it:  https://www.wikiart.org/en/stanley-spencer/soldiers-washing-1927. Yes, we see Bellona, Roman goddess of war, the thought of murky water as "foretaste of baptismal death... "  Haunting lines like " hourglass of soap in its melt telling us how our fired flesh gleams to fiction renewal. Time is at war."  Haunting mirror of  suspenders rhyming the sink.  We ran out of time to discuss further.