“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/
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
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