May 18-19

The Three Oddest Words by Wisława Szymborska

More like a Lichtenberg Figure  by Zebulon Huset

Do/Do Not  by Nisha Atali                                                                          

Frogs by Louis Simpson

Spring Pools  by Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay  by Robert Frost

But What Is Gold by Kitty Jospé

Our last zoom session -- with a thank you to Valerie for hosting.  It has been such a boon to be able to continue the weekly conversations during the pandemic (again, with a thank you to Elaine R. for 2+ years of handling the zoom) and especially wonderful to be able to have David join us this way after moving away from Rochester.  

It was especially fitting to have David share the reading of Spring Pools (memorized, so read by heart) with his "Frosting" expertise and a go around of the 18 people each "reflecting" on how much we have appreciated all he brought to the group.  Frost has a way of capturing a sense of mourning as he records.  In Spring Pools, two stanzas of 6 lines, just two sentences, capture the transitory nature of these pools, the repeated mention of flowers bound in their reflection, and ask us in turn to reflect on the nature of the passing of the seasons.  Judith immediately commented on the gorgeous effects of slant vowels, and we all admired the masterful crafting of two sentences, the repetitions, the chiasmus in the penultimate line... the snow in the final line, that, although melting just yesterday, will return. 

I was chided by the Rundel group for not signing my name on the small sequel to Nothing Gold can Stay.  It's humbling to follow a perfect Frost poem in trimeter,  (Nothing Gold can stay) whose short lines laced with long vowels ends with 5 syllable line, as if the "gold" remains in the unspoken.  Emily was reminded of the Japanese term mono no aware -- literally "the pathos of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to ephemera", is a Japanese idiom for the awareness of impermanence (無常, mujō), or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.

 Kathy immediately thought of the word "hence" in the penultimate line -- the treasure of what happens in our weekly discussions as we share our understandings.

Nutshell of the rest...

Szymborska — note how Future, Silence, Nothing all have caps… We discussed why they might be called  “odd” — as a philosophical look at how the actual word "undoes" the meaning.  We did bat about different ways of understanding the "something no non-being can hold" ... What can we, as beings hold?  Judith shared this delightful saying which helps us embrace the refusal of complexity to be unraveled:  "Take the F out of ineffable, and unscrew the inscrutable."

Odd, as in unfamiliar…stops us to think about the nature of language.  Doris, in the Rundel group noted how in this day and age where we hear “words matter; words are powerful” we see words misused, misconstrued.   As grandmother, she suggested this YA (Young Adult) book for her granddaughter— which although, she noted, could be better written, has an interesting premise: Words on Fire https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/words-on-fire-9781338606065.html

Huset: For the Pittsford group, Paul underlined the nature of Lichtenberg's lightening patterns.  For Rundel,  Mike immediately saw a bus/car with two wheels… perhaps two suitcases on the top… How do we give value to words here… small broken mosaics of a family tree… The idea of our DNA having some prehistoric elements in it… the mess of our heritage… the anthropomorphic way we have of looking at geography, (cliffs, mountain faces, jagged face of coastline), and this matryoshka metaphor of what nests in our folklore… so apropos to Ukraine/Russia today.  Was it yesterday the topic came up of the welcome of Ukrainians at the Polish border, but not the African students in Ukraine trying to flee to safety?

Atali: Do/Do not..  I love what Elaine said about a poem — once it is out in the world, it doesn’t belong to the poet… as we discussed whether the note "about this poem" helped us understand it.  Without the note,   Mike said kindly,  "the poet has some cool thoughts and ways to express them, but this has the feel of a first draft and unconnected…". Both groups did a lot of guesswork, especially about the last two stanzas… How do animals perceive us?  Do they shudder at us for all the reasons we might shudder at the way we treat the world?  If those mangos arrive unbruised, is it because they are picked too soon…? (The judges say this is evidence of a catastrophe, but might it not also be the way we go about trying to protect such a tricky fruit susceptible to easy damage?)…and what connection is there for wolves to start running?   I'm not sure without the note I would have seen the contradiction Atali mentions of "our impulse to love and nourish, is both insufficient and absolutely necessary".  The Judges' citation felt the poem addresses our human responsibility to the climate crisis... 

In the 11 stanzas,  4 of which are couplets, the rest tercets, all but two contain reference to "I" ( 11 sentences that start with "I", and one "me".). It may be that the damage we do is unintentional, but there is a sense of  cluelessness... and overtone of sadness.  I recommend her audio recording of her voice.

Simpson: Perhaps an overtone of Basho's frogs, but delightful poem infused with the senses, colors, sounds.  We discussed the layers of meaning of the word "monstrous" -- immense sound... but another meaning as Paul pointed out is "absurd".  Frogs are vulnerable creatures, who breathe through their skin... The last line comes as a surprise, but perhaps  also allows us to share the insouciance of being a frog and croaking, with its overtone of death, as well as rhythmic jabbering.