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)
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?”
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.
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…
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