March 2

 

Love at First Sight by Wislawa Szymborska

The Thing is by Ellen Bass

My Heart, Being Hungry by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Disappointment by Tony Hoagland

Gloria Mundi by Michael Kleber-Diggs**

Bloom — is Result — to meet a Flower— Emily Dickinson

** (see his Acrostic (Title of poem: America Loving Me to Death + Golden Shovel using the first 24 words of the pledge of allegiance: https://poets.org/poem/america-loving-me-death

Nutshell:

We were delighted to have Joyce join us, from the Jewish Home!  Zoom has so many advantages!

The poems today brought out Martin's view of Love being the most important need; our desire

for connection; very different takes on how to live, without feeling a need to be remembered for something. 

Love at First Sight:  Although we've discussed this brilliant poem before, it is a perfect one for reminding us that "certitude" can indeed be reassuring, and often our adopted attitude towards the way we want to explain how things are... but what of that mystery of the inexplicable -- it often is "more beautiful still".

As one person put it, another title of the poem could have been "Ode to Incompleteness of What We Know".  Elaine noted the capitalization of Chance and Destiny... and we briefly discussed the difference--

how indeed, they act like Greek or Roman gods... the one offering possibility, good or bad, the other a sense of a required set of circumstances dutifully fulfilled per expected requirements and by definition.

The repetition of perhaps, and other ER sounds, the alliterative "signs and signals", "doorknobs and doorbells" add to the pleasure of the excellent translation.  Why can't there be love at first sight?  Is love always a mystery?  The witty examples of chance encounters, the metaphorical suitcases, a certain leaf... all add to the pleasure.  Nothing new in the conclusion, and yet it does not take on the tone of a sermon,

with the tongue-in-cheek, "after all"... in the "book of events", always open halfway through. David cited Tom Stoppard, "Every entrance an exit somewhere else... " and brought up the idea of a deliberate structure with a dénouement will happen only in art-- not life.

The Thing is:   The visceral description of grief, the throat unable to breath, the weight, the obesity, like an obscenity a grease of grief, where indeed one wonders how a body can withstand it... The question seems to offer a choice point, after the pile up of circumstances, when you have no stomach for it, when grief... when grief... only more... But Ellen Bass does not say if.  She offers then.  She returns to the beginning, the fact is, to love life... is to be able to keep on going.  She translates grief into words that weight us down, then offers this tenderness of "holding life like a face" -- the gentle touch one uses holding a child, a lover.  It reminds me of Stanley Kunitz, "Touch Me".   Yes, one is once again, 

because of that, to love life again.

My heart being hungry: /Disappointment: Both poems use the word querulous, Millay for need,

Hoagland for the insistent chatter of desire.  Again, I think of Kunitz poem, "what makes the engine go?  desire, desire, desire" Millay, to quote Judith, sketches an elegant pity party.  Both poems address our hunger for connection, and what "fills the heart".   It is curious, Millay without using the word desire, hints  at need others "fat of heart" would not appreciate,  such as edge acrid tansy in the dark.  The second stanza hints/ projects the loss of satisfaction should that hungry heart be dull (no longer clamoring).

Hoagland uses a tongue in cheek approach, with lively language:  "fish in tin armor", the "trench coat of solitude/scarf of resignation".  It could seem that the set up is for a suicide... but he sketches the freedom of being off the hook when no longer needing to worry about meeting exceptions!  This is definitely a poem that profits from being read outloud.  Sadly,  I could not find a recording of him reading it.

Barb's sigh, reading the title, Carolyn's clipped trot through the last two stanzas with no punctuation gave the feeling both of disappointment and that blend of discrepant details, the contrast of "minor roadside flowers pronouncing their quiet colors",  the reversal of a mother goose hey diddle diddle with the moon

going over the barn, and loss of a job a freedom.  

It is fun to image the kind of conversation  Bass, Millay and Hoagland might have!  

Gloria Mundi:  Thanks to Bernie, we discovered this poet, who clearly enjoys playing with form.

The title provides a paradoxical embrace of praise to life while discussing death and how to proceed 

with a funeral, burial.   Mary is eager to send it to family to reassure them it is not necessary to make

a trip to come to a funeral.  We all agreed, it would be helpful to establish one's desires and let people know them before we die. Judith was reminded of the Rubiaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the Potter's tale... 

https://www.bartleby.com/380/poem/1017.html

The enjambments are effect for the most part, although slightly overdone.  Come to my funeral dressed as you are/ (as you) would for an autumn walk...

Arrive on your schedule; I give you permission/ (permission) to be late...

We loved the calm distance, the acceptance of our small moment on earth, the fact of being smaller by 

being mixed back into the earth.  David pointed out, the poem is actually a set of directions on how to live.

Bloom:  We didn't have enough time to consider this enigmatic poem-- overtones of duty to bloom--

"to meet a flower and casually glance" is not enough... given the "profound Responsibility" -- for all of us to bloom, surviving all the offsets and unpredictable weather!

 The zoom session didn't have time for the Dickinson!

We didn't have time for the poems below.  I shared the Dunbar, The Sparrow on the Rundel central library facebook page. https://poets.org/poem/sparrow-0 As Spring gives hints of arriving  in March, I picked this poem which reminds us not to be so wrapped up in our work and lives, but take time to appreciate the gifts of the natural world around us — indeed, sources of peace, hope, love. 

There are SO many poems that came up in February for Black History Month.  If time we can choose from:

—As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes   https://poets.org/poem/i-grew-older

—"Let my anger be the celebration we were never supposed to have."by Natasha Oladokun

https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2018-novdec/selections/natasha-oladokun-763879/

In today’s poem, we see both rage and truth. Here is a poem that looks America in the eye, and tells the country how she feels. It’s also an ode to the power of anger. — Ada

—Bearing Witness by Laura Weaver https://www.lauraweaver.org/poetry “On the edgeof the 6th mass extinction, with species vanishing before our eyes, we’d be a people gone mad, if we did not grieve.”

— Celebration of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) on  2/22/2022 (Tuesday twosday)

I will be glad to send the audio recording as soon as it’s available!

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

 

February 23

 During the Pandemic I listen to the July 26, 1965 can-les-Pins Recording of A Love Supreme by Ellen Bass

Length of Moon by Arna Bontemps

Nocturne of the Wharves  by Arna Bontemps

The Weight by Linda Gregg

What for?  by Kim Stafford (only discussed by in person group)

The Sun’s Words  by Ai Qing

She Ties my Bow Tie by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Nutshell: 

During the Pandemic... a love supreme: 

Kathy declared that  this poem is now her favorite by Ellen Bass — although she found it hard to change allegiance from her up-until-now favorite, The Thing Is.

Whether jazz enthusiast or not, everyone appreciated the way Ellen wove the effect of Coltrane’s horn— the elemental breath (aka, spirit, sacred wind)— the repeated “still” (as if we as readers had been with you, listening to him for 37 minutes) in those four repeated notes playing , A love supreme… 

We loved the power at the beginning of “A love supreme”, where her love for your daughter, title of the song, Coltrane’s playing, the idea of a supreme love, combine in the again and again, /as though if he says it enough, he can ease/that mercy…

… This generous sound that can mean/anything, nothing, whatever you need.

She had us in the palm of her hand with her questions… the echo of Noah’s flood, the still small voice, the image of perhaps davening elders making sure the Torah is precisely recited.   And Coltrane, infinitely patient… offering the same 4 notes.  A love supreme, as theme, improvised and returning.  4 notes in the unsayable Yahweh.

It was funny, as there was a miscue as Bernie  read, after the Torah line, “everybody” instead of “someone”— and we laughed heartily — how we as readers bring our baggage into the poem, associations and memory sifting in as we sieve and transform the words.  (Case in point, Judith brought up the Hindi word for conjoined twins, ude hue judava and bonding came up briefly…)

 

I fondly call Judith “the eloquent walking encyclopedia” who can recite Shakespeare by heart and tell you all about Indian dance. She praised the poem as “a lavish treasure-filled thing”… David described the religious feeling evoked by the word breath, that “brilliant integration” of sound vibrating and spirit moving through.  We all could feel the visceral effect.  

I could go on and on… how the precision necessary in reciting the Torah reminded us of Blake and his view, "“Without minute neatness of execution, the sublime cannot exist! Grandeur of ideas is founded on precision of ideas.”

Marna loved the contrast of the cascade of words, the run on referring to nature… and the way the short questions bring us to great metaphysical wonderings.  

Arna Bontemps:  

Both the poems have an incantatory feel.  The first, knowing he wrote as a young 24 year old, Harlem Renaissance poet, led some to believe Length of Moon was more than a meditative piece on the passing of time.  What is the "golden hour" ? 

Judith was reminded of this painting, Grapevine in Wind and Moonlight (Smithsonian,National Museum of Asian Art).

Jim picked up on a sense of regrets, others picked up a poignant sense of loss.  More miscues arrived in the 4th stanza but are helpful to examine more deeply: 

A stone will fall vs. what is written: fail. (inevitability of stone cracking, turning to gravel, sand... ) a rather unexpected fall if failure, of what is expected to hold, to last.

A rose is sure to grow, although what is written is go. 

This stanza appears like a turn... what is the something in the imperative "should forget" ? It doesn't mean we will... although the last line seems to indicate this as distinct possibility.

I love that the poem starts in media res  with "Then".  What is it that makes the golden hour "tick its last"? There is a prophetic sense of doom... 

Equally in Nocturne, a beautiful music and personnification of the boats and nocturnal sounds of boats "whining" against the dock.  w's, the sharp k's of the captain, the copper coast, linked to the mist, the memory... the dissembling (both as in concealed and pretend) or trees...   Restlessness tugs against weariness, in prevalent hiss and slap of s's.  The first stanza recalls memories of China, "bright" Bombay, Formosa (so much more melodious a name than Taiwan!).  Cities ruined by the sea.

The second stanza repeats Tugging at the dim gray wharf they think... but this time of Africa, and dead men.

Is this only a dream of the little ships or as real as the memories in the first stanza?

We discussed the pros and cons of the very last line.  Dave feels it fills in the entire poem, allows us to connect speaker to the ships and an extended metaphor.  Someone reminded us that captains refer to their ships as alive.  

A gorgeous, ambiguous poem which invites both research and dwelling in a meditation of what uneasiness makes us want to move, what exhausts us, and the role of  dreams.

The Weight: what grounds us?  and horses? As title, it is repeated in the 10th line as part of the closeness of these two horses put together.  

We discussed "enclosure" of the paddock, confinement and Kathy brought up Nelson Mandela bound in his tiny cell where he spent 20 years, yet like fragment describing the horses, "The dignity of being", he maintained his dignity and a vision of freedom which grew in a way no one might have suspected.

Another fragment after "The privacy of them had a river in it."  is "Had our universe in it." The lines afterwards bring shivers-- this freedom built at night by stars -- outside of our human efforts of controlling.

We discussed the intuitive nature we cannot know... but which the horses do in their shared intimacy.  

Jim mentioned that you can see these horses in Fishers  adjacent to the Auburn trail north of the Thruway that perfectly fit the description in the poem.  https://www.traillink.com/trail/auburn-trail/

He adds,  one, especially, is huge (but not, at least, a Clydesdale).  

What For?

Just the in-person group read this one.  It reminded Judith of Stephen Crane's poem, In The Dessert  

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46457/in-the-desert-56d2265793693

 and Edna St. Vincent Millay's, My Heart being Hungry:  https://sonnetsandothervices.weebly.com/my-heart-being-hungry-by-edna-st-vincent-millay.html

Beauty and truth have countless poems examining their relationship.  What is beauty for? and more questions...about pain of loss, how beauty becomes nourishment for good things... but for truth, 

we need to "gnash on salty structures of sorrow, bite the bitter rind."

The Sun's Words: A fitting reminder in March.  Knowing that Ai Qing spent 3 years in prison adds a somber slant, reminding us to be grateful!

 

She ties: 

A rather humorous extended metaphor and perfect poem to present on Valentine's day.  I love the use of the 2nd person pronoun-- the assumptions of the poet about the assumptions of the reader and "forgive yourself."  Small gestures become huge testimony!

Judith was reminded of Blake's poem, I asked a thief to steal me a peach. https://allpoetry.com/I-Asked-A-Thief-To-Steal-Me-A-Peach

February 16

 

The Prestige by Hanif Abdurraqib

Snow by Anne Sexton

Could this be me? by Charles Simic

On Pleasing by Kimiko Hahn

Brown Furniture by Katha Pollitt

Capra Aegagrus Hircus by Terrance Hayes

What a shock to find out that Joyce was hit by a car — and how amazing that her husband, Elmer, made sure that she was connected by zoom for poetry from the ICU! Likewise, what a surprise to have Rose Marie join us from Sardinia!  As we enter year 3 of the pandemic and zoom, I am grateful that it allows us to stay connected.

February marks the beginning of our 15th year of "O Pen", and Joyce is one of the initial members! No matter diverging views, likes and dislikes, I appreciate all the points of view, and the respectful tone in our discussions.  It never ceases to amaze me how many different responses there are to a poem… Sometimes it is enough to allow the words on the page, other times, it is helpful to know more about the poet or the context.  As ever, I am grateful to those providing background, especially this week. 

Nutshell:

The Prestige

If you didn't know the 2006 movie, or Hanif's connection with it, it might be difficult to know how to "read through"  the leaps and wonder how to connect the words and thoughts, I am glad that the in-person group felt moved by the poem in spite of not fully understanding it.   I shared is this quote:"How is a poem like a magic trick?  What is the cost to the performer, the magician, to the poet, in order to astonish their audience?  Have you considered the cost?"https://tinhouse.com/podcast/hanif-abdurraqib-a-fortune-for-your-disaster/. This link tells more about the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige_(film)

On zoom, I was grateful to Elaine for finding out more: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/80928-survival-poems-pw-talks-with-hanif-abdurraqib.html

there are three parts of a magic trick: the pledge, where a magician shows a participant something that appears normal; the turn, where the ordinary thing becomes extraordinary; and the prestige, where the ordinary thing returns to its normal state, with the new understanding that it could easily become something else. The main magic trick of the book is the question of “how do I trust myself with the world again?”

Carolyn provided this link of a conversation with Wesley Morris which will introduce you to the personable and caring character of this poet from Columbus, Ohio.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdHF7rMB48s

David brought up the “old trope” of love akin to war in the Wilfred Owens, poem  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est

and that old lie, Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

(It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country).  He also brought up Robert Frost and his poem Directive, where indeed, the poet warns, "I am going to be hard to follow."

"The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you/

Who only has at heart your getting lost,  https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/directive

Where does a poem begin? How do we understand gratitude? We follow the complications of memory as mirror, and wonder if all the pain is worth it.  Perhaps there is a mindset of criticism, and as Mary pointed out, the poem is outdated... as we do not watch the sky for bombs anymore-- they have been replaced by something far more ominous... but comments pointed out how fervently we want to understand 

"the body as a door..." and "no one will bury their kin /when desire becomes a fugitive between us."

 

Snow

The in-person group found the images strange, perplexing.  It was helpful that Kathy offered a larger background to this poem, found towards the end of her book, Awful Rowing Toward God.

Unlike her other works, the poems in this book came to her quickly over 2-3 weeks.  Kathy remembers an interview between Anne Sexton and Al Poulin and Bill Heyen over 50 years ago where she explains  "her designation as a "confessional poet" and the shifts in the themes of her poems through the years. She says that she writes what she wants and has to write, but that she often uses other people's stories, making them her own with an "I" voice. She also feels free to fictionalize experience, and isn't worried about being misinterpreted. Sexton talks about a progression in her poems from madness and sin to love and God, but feels that sin is a theme she has carried throughout.” https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/handle/1951/80449?show=full

Snow is one of the poems towards the end of the book and indeed, follows an arc toward hope.  It is sad, that after working on edits with her dear friend, Maxine Kumin, she committed suicide shortly after.

David Sanders brought up the point of the Puritan struggle of feeling worthy — the possession of that pail.  

Kathy was kind to thank me for bring up Anne Sexton and Adrienne Rich and these older poems which remind us of how difficult it was to articulate their struggles.

Could this be me:  everyone had a smile on his/her face!  David commented on the delightful metrics, with the two spondees (no hands / town dump). Reminded some of Al Gore and how his message about climate change was ignored.  We all want to be heard (ticking loudly)… no matter

if without hands, and thrown out! Thank you Jim for sharing the observation of a commentary on how our society treats older people.  And Maura, for your poignant story about that tea-kettle who never received its artistic embellishment...

On Pleasing:  Thank you Mary for sharing your story about reading this poem to your friend who was dying… and how the sounds reached her, made her smile! For those in-person I shared another sound poem, written to console those waiting for those on the brink of death to pass. 

The Zoomers  came through with research about the poet.  Elaine mentioned that Kimiko Hahn offers a course on “identity themes”  such as jealousy, regret, deceit, etc.  It is one way to deepen or subtly vary its use so the poems are not redundant or one-dimensional.  For example, what kind of deceit, concealment, treachery or pretense?  How might the opposite interplay: frankness, uprightness, fidelity?  Kathy brought up the next to last stanza, first line, separate, pronounced as a verb… the sounds separate

from noise… which makes clearer the contrast of “blur” with “fidelity of events”.  We spoke about memory… Marna offering the scientific lens of the amygdala, able to register emotion, operative at birth, vs. the hippocampus which develops later and deals with memory of facts.

Not an ode or meditation on pleasing, as the title suggests, the poem seems to unfold a story of a mother and baby.  The  job is  to please (repeated in stanzas 1, 2 and modified as last line)… Perhaps as Carmin suggested, a story moving in time… perhaps as Elaine suggested, a story about a response to the neediness of a baby, the effort it takes over a lifetime to raise a child… 

Brown Furniture:  a big favorite with in person and zoomers alike… Rose Marie  spoke about the sadness viewing the collections of china, linens, that the next generation don’t want… David S. hopes that children are more sentimental than we think… and we all agreed, objects help us connect with experience—

I look forward to hearing stories your furniture tells.  Dave Harrison told the story of his Trinity chair — first, a chair for his dorm room at college… then in his dorm at law school… later an occasional chair which finally ended up in the kitchen — the perfect height and quite comfortable!   Telling the story of scent might be another trigger!

I like Maura’s idea of coming with a picture and a poem/story of the furniture we are thinking of getting rid of.

Capra:  The link DID work on zoom, unlike in-person.   The way Terrance reads it, one doesn’t sense any quatrains, but a seamless telling.  David gave us the idea of a father comparing his daughter to a goat with those complimentary aspects of goat: pinpoint balance in precarious places… climbing trees… conversing… and something magical given to the mother that the daughter could communicate right away.  Elaine again provided the background that Hayes is an artist (as well as professor and poet).  One of his books is “How to be Drawn.”  I could imagine a playful interaction between a father and child, he’s drawing a goat, the town, the flowers, the chains and the bell… the way it was in the time of the Greeks to be a goat… and then the lead up as David S. put it, of the “goat divagation” coming to that last killer line of apology.

Perhaps all parents feel that.

For us, listening to Paul’s description of the Puck Fair, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_Fair

that too, is in the poem.  And Maura’s idea of the legacy we leave, whether as goat, as mascot, as parent, the real legacy is who we are.

I shared the Guest House with the zoom session as well… 

February 9

Canary  by Rita Dove — https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43359/canary

American History by Michael S. Harper

testify  by Eve L. Ewing

https://poets.org/poem/testify

Death eats our lands by Fadairo Tesleem

Everybody Made Soups by Lisa Coffman

dandelion  by Ron Bailey

It is Black History month... and after reading the first three poems, we felt a weight of sadness... 

The question of how any person survives persistent racism 

politics came up... the idea that in Florida books would be banned because it makes people feel uncomfortable... Later, the topic of anti-intellectualism came up,  (Hofstader's 1963 book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_American_Life) "My ignorance is equal to your

(or anyone else's) knowledge..." Asimov and the cult of ignorance... "passionate pride in mediocrity" (Sartre).  Ken shared  briefly this article from the Guardian  on "Red poets’ society: the secret history of the Stasi’s book club for spies".  Controlling poets, and literati is nothing new, but if you have time, a fine report.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/05/red-poets-society-the-secret-history-of-the-stasis-book-club-for-spies?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Nutshell:

Canary:  Yes, name used in jazz for a female soprano... also the practice of carrying a canary in the coal mines-- if a gas leak, the canary dies... The burned voice... magic spoon, needle, sharpened love... tell one

story, and we puzzled over the couplet, "Fact is, the invention of women under siege/has been to sharpen love in the service of myth".  Judith offered the idea of the loving black Mamie... and it came up how Billie made up lies about herself, her story.  Indeed, not free from drugs, but a deeper sense of being chained as black woman, born in 1915, wronged by the world.   The poems feels like jazz, especially the second stanza. The idea of caged bird, is not new.  I like that it is dedicated to Michael Harper, also a

jazz fan and someone interested in history.  I don't know more... Please comment if you do.

American History:  9 short lines, two about a contemporary event,  (1963) five about an event over 200 years ago.  The sarcasm and anger in the final question reminded us of James Baldwin's statement about being "a negro:  means you are in a rage all the time."  This site shares a bit of information.  The 500 slaves may not have referred to an actual event, but rather the regular occurrence of "Americans" trying to hide slave-trading as it was outlawed by the Brits.  https://prezi.com/mgg2xblw0gi0/american-history/

By using such extreme examples to show how blacks have been "thrown under the bus", and continue to be thrown, Harper accentuates the inequality of treatment.   The hiding of slavery is another example of keeping outrageously inhumane treatment from the public eye, with no consequence.  The man responsible for the bombing which killed the 4 girls was charged for possession of dynamite but not for murder of the girls.  

It's curious, today, Revisionary by Robert Pinsky showed up in Poem-a-Day. The note says: "Revisionary tries to understand the truth about how truth evolves or devolves."

Revisionary by Robert Pinsky 

The globe on a tilted axis means The News.

As the icon spins the angle seems to shift.

 

Science has found ancestral Neanderthals.

We have a bit of their blood. They painted caves

Better than sapiens, as we named ourselves.

 

History has found the Jews who fought for Hitler.

Thousands of Part and what were called Full Jews.

A few were generals.

 

                                      As the globe revolves

 

Different mixes keep passing into the light

Or into the dark, and then back out again:

The unexpected, over and over again.

 

Jefferson’s July 2 draft blamed George III

For violating the liberty of “a People

Who never offended him” shipped off to be

“Slaves in another hemisphere.” For many

“Miserable death in transportation thither.”

On the Fourth of July, that passage was left out. Thither.

 

In draft after draft of Puddn’head Wilson Twain

Linked and tore apart stories: The conjoined twins

From Italy come to town. In that same town, two

Blue-eyed babies. The nursemaid fair-skinned Roxy

Secretly swops the babies cradle to cradle,

Different nightie to nightie and fate to fate.

The one is her son. He sells her down the river.

(2022)

Testify: 

It is powerful to hear sociologist Eve L. Ewing read this, especially at the end with the repeated rush of "we are not dead" and the line break before the final  not/dead/yet.  (Ewing wrote 1919, "a flaming sword of a poetry collection about Red Summer and the aftermath of (a report on) the killing of 17-year-old Eugene Williams, a young Black man who swam into a "whites only" section of Lake Michigan and was stoned to death and drowned by White beach-goers.: -- Abby Murray)

Elaine wondering how the White minister at her church would read it as opposed to a Black minister-- the power, the passion she feels would be missing.  As Frederick Douglass said, " Slaves sing when they are most unhappy.  The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears." Valerie suggested that the repeated "we are not dead" is like a mantra... what you say to get yourself through a difficult situation.

The detail of the chain link fence... the shoes climbing over it... the resilience of those who insist on testifying to the "good" in a day-- like sun, coming through a fence... 

as Abby Murray states it, this is happiness at grief's expense. It puts impossible right next to reasonable-- gratitude flying in the face of violence and uncertainty.  Because she mentions her friend Hanif Abdurraqib, we listened to him read his poem: "How can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time like this." https://poets.org/poem/how-can-black-people-write-about-flowers-time.   

 Emily offered this title: https://www.amazon.com/Taste-Ginger-Novel-Mansi-Shah-ebook/dp/B08YYYVVTC

A Taste of Ginger -- When we are faced with tragedy we must face the good.

All three poems made us sad... and we spoke of what has changed, and what not... how race seems to be an issue with no solution... wondering if it will ever come to an end... what we have failed to do, but perhaps can do now?  

 Death eats our lands:  Fadairo Tesleem is Nigerian.  Indeed, one of the oldest complaints around... God--

how could you allow such injustice???  (David cited the  Old Testament in the Bible, Ahab in Moby Dick)... We noted the small i in the first line -- I did send a message to the poet to ask him about it... to my eye, it was like the speaker was a tiny pawn... as opposed to the I who wonders, has seen, has read--

Most of us found it a very moving and powerful poem.  I repeat the end line... And with all this horror,

God is still watching???

How could he watch and allow this?

Everybody made Soups:  a little relief... and many associations with soup were shared!  

Bernie mentioned how his neighborhood put together a cookbook... we thought of "stone soup"...

and how sad that now-a-days, people toss food out instead of making a good soup... Maura shared her

"trip around the world" imagining each country where things came from in her fridge...

Martin offered the metaphorical idea of kissing the new year...and that magical making of one thing out of all that hadn't filled us... instead of tossing out and rejecting, to come up with a soup, "the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted."

The images of the onion's story, the weeping meat, cathedral carcass...

the idea of a new year... yet to make demands on us... each day in the dark like a folded letter...

Deliciously wonderful poem!

Likewise Dandelion.  It merits the 3 line space between each line indeed!  

In the in-person group, we watched the flower sequence for a bit.  Do consider muting the sound and replacing it with Arno Pärt's Spiegel im spiegel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ6Mzvh3XCc

 

Revisionary Robert Pinsky  The globe on a tilted axis means The News. As the icon spins the angle seems to shift. Science has found ancestral Neanderthals. We have a bit of their blood. They painted caves Better than sapiens, as we named ourselves. History has found the Jews who fought for Hitler. Thousands of Part and what were called Full Jews. A few were generals.                                       As the globe revolves Different mixes keep passing into the light Or into the dark, and then back out again: The unexpected, over and over again. Jefferson’s July 2 draft blamed George III For violating the liberty of “a People Who never offended him” shipped off to be “Slaves in another hemisphere.” For many “Miserable death in transportation thither.” On the Fourth of July, that passage was left out. Thither. In draft after draft of Puddn’head Wilson Twain Linked and tore apart stories: The conjoined twins From Italy come to town. In that same town, two Blue-eyed babies. The nursemaid fair-skinned Roxy Secretly swops the babies cradle to cradle, Different nightie to nightie and fate to fate. The one is her son. He sells her down the river.

 

Red poets’ society: the secret history of the Stasi’s book club for spies
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/05/red-poets-society-the-secret-history-of-the-stasis-book-club-for-spies?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

connecting the last poem, “Dandelion” with the poem “testify”. It was that dandelions are looked upon as weeds without knowing the incredible source of food and healing and strength and joy they possesses…a bit of a metaphor for the way in which so many people view blacks and other people of color.  

February 2

  

“You can be good for the mere sake of goodness; 

you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness.”— CS Lewis

We agreed In this time of so much frightening news, it is a relief to turn to the sanity of poems.  In discussing the Wendell Berry, Carolyn brought a beautiful commissioned calligraphy of the poem 

Carolyn pointed out that the person who wanted it calligraphed for her nephew wanted the indentations, and not to be lined up flush with the LH margin, but to give the italic flourishes room to flow.  Note how the the two longest lines stand out -- balancing "in fear of what my life and children's lives may be"

and "rests in his beauty on the water, and (where) the great heron feeds.

Today's poems address the despair that can grow in us and hold "life boats" we can enter so as to carry on.  Wendell Berry puts "Peace" and "Wild" together in the title (thank you Valerie!); juxtaposes his fear with natural beauty in the length of the lines cited above.  Kathy mentioned how he could have ended the poem with its sacred overtones on "I rest in the grace of the world."  The "I am free" is like a perfect frosting on the cake!  David carried on with the idea that it is not only freedom from despair, but his own self from which he is freed.  When we are too self-conscious, this leads to fears.

Adrienne Rich's Love Poem, written sometime between 1974-1978 captures her struggle as Lesbian, to counter the rejections and prejudices of society.  Although we found the tape-recorder irksome, it indeed brings back the period when we relied on them... and how incomplete is it to give a history with only what is partially recorded.   The excerpt that follows evokes images of all the great civilizations that have fallen... and more currently, our planet... the innocents who are killed, slaughtered, ignored... and those with no extraordinary power, perversely (in the eyes of the societies who wittingly or no allow such destruction) reconstitute the world.  Yes... help us put humpty dumpty together again, unlike all the king's horses and men. 

There was rich discussion about the Arthur Sze poem:  the balance of a rabbit imbibing silence with the speaker of the poem staring at spruce needles... the buck scraped his rack... a carpenter scribed -- and you can hear the scr-scr-scr of antlers and the tool.  The complexity of what is seen, what is hidden, our illusions... the amazing image of "aqueduct of dreams"... and as humans, we are reminded any desire to own is off track.  Like Berry's day-blind stars, the largeness of the cosmos behind daylight.  

David kindly read and gave background to the Frost who has many "joking" poems-- but none of which are ever trivial.    Rosemarie wondered if "A" question is not "The" question... This comprehensive power, some call God, recognizes the scars-- and as Bernie noted, there is something of the joyful in this sculptor who made us.

David reminded us that this poem which appears in The Witness Tree, was written after he had lost his wife and  3 of his children (his daughter died in childbirth; his son Carol committed suicide). Wiki offers these interpretations.

Many think that this poem stands for one's reflection on their past life. The poem questions whether you valued your life over deathor, worse, never having been born. Did you in fact see life for all of its beauty or do you view your life as a waste? The poem asks you to analyze your life, to question whether every decision you made was for the greater good, and to learn and accept the decisions you have made in your life. One Answer to the Question would be simply to value the fact that you had the opportunity to live.

Another interpretation is that the poem gives a deep image of suffering. It portrays the fact that we live in suffering, and there is nothing we can do about it. Then the poem relays the question as to why we bear the unhappiness that is life, which makes readers think that Frost was heavily intrigued and curious about the "why."

There is also a Christian interpretation, in which God proposes the titular Question to his followers, the "men of the earth". He asks whether all the suffering and pain we go through during our lives is worth the gift of life. A similar Christian interpretation would also be that the "soul-and-body" scars represent the wounds of Christ, and thus the poem is asking whether humanity has proven itself worthy of such redemption. 

We could have spent the entire afternoon continuing the conversation! 

Peace of Wild Things  by Wendell Berry

Love poem XVII by Adrienne Rich 

excerpt (3 couplets)  from 8 page poem Natural Resources  by Adrienne Rich

First Snow by Arthur Sze 

A Question by Robert Frost 

Poetic License  by Abby Murray (and yes... she did write the poem exactly that way, contrary to what I said!)

The in-person group also discussed

Like an Auto-Tune of Authentic Love Carmen Giménez Smith

(to hear her read:

https://poets.org/poem/auto-tune-authentic-love   

anyone lived in a pretty how town by E. E. Cummings 

Judith's share of the Bishop poem.  She commented that Morris Bishop is like a good bowl of punch-- witty, but not quite Ogden Nash.  

He has several books, she does not recommend Spilt Milk, but rather A Bowl of Bishop

She brought up the humorist's jab at grammar rules: “Never use a preposition to end up a sentence with.”

To which reputedly Winston Churchill replied: This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.  To see the whole story: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/

 It reminded David of the E.E. Cummings poem

Me up at does 

out of the floor
quietly Stare 

a poisoned mouse 

still who alive 

is asking What
have i done that 

You wouldn’t have

After we discussed Poetic License (such a clever pun) Judith was reminded of E.E. Cummings

"next to of course god america i"

                                                              

      

next to of course god america i

love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh

say can you see by the dawn's early my

country 'tis of centuries come and go

and are no more what of it we should worry

in every language even deafanddumb

thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry

by jingo by gee by gosh by gum

why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-

iful than these heroic happy dead

who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

they did not stop to think they died instead

then shall the voice of liberty be mute?

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water