Poems for June 22

 Middle-Class Blues by Dennis O'Driscoll

A Northern Town by George Denham

Customs by Dennis O'Driscoll

Life  by Dennis O'Driscoll

A Meaning by Antonio Osorio

America  by Aria Aber

Reading Szymborska at Friday Harbor by Patrycja Humienik

Mentally Missturbed  by Ava Hofmann

I am so grateful for all the various sources that post poems daily, weekly, monthly.  This week in addition to Poetry Daily,  "The Writers Almanac" (TWA), the New Yorker, a stumble on a reference from one poem leading to another.  As Elaine said, what is wonderful about meeting to discuss poems, is a sense that

by helping each other by sharing our thoughts, research and associations with them, we end up with feeling we have come to an understanding.  As Susan puts it, sometimes with a poem you just never get there.  To which Judith says, "and some poems have no "there" to get to"!

Nutshell:

Middle-Class Blues:  we learned from Heather that a "suite" is a sofa and 2 chairs, so line 5 of have a velvet 3-piece suite is not a typo, although a velvet suit does rather match the nouveau riche tone of things mentioned, until you get to the antique clock with a disapproving click.  Probably purchased. Such a simple but effective set up of life going well and  then comes that proverbial "one day". Period.

It stops you short, just like the unfinished  last line.  And just what are you afraid of most?  

A Northern Town: what brings a little joy to a small, Northern town of solemn people?  We're given a snapshot of a moment in winter perhaps recalled in memory, but told in present tense, when the sun makes the snow glitter, and the ice shine as young skaters carry on in the dark,  10 below zero --

the transformation of "love of youth" to make it all sweet.  I don't know if the point would be better made without the rhyme.

Customs: interesting point of view of everything caught in reverie.  Setting: airport. Scene: waiting for airplane, but everything in suspense. The plane personified as "lost in fog of thought" having seen it all.

It brought memories of going out to Idlewild airport to watch people go through customs.  A humanizing gesture imagining what the Customs officer might imagine in January -- and why not kicking stones 

along a byroad in July.

life: good sandwich of opening and closing, both perhaps deeper than a quick read might give. There's a pleasant punning quality that life would indeed give us something to live for.  And usually we do want to prolong it, unable to imagine living without it, as perforce we would not be doing should that be the case!

And what details might give you heart?  

Judith mentioned the book Daughter of a Samurai  by Sugimoto.  

A meaning:  perhaps a problem with translation where, "Let there be worship" in the first stanza needs something to match what might celebrate memory.  We felt "outburst" was odd.  As for the penultimate line of the first stanza with the mention of copper, this could apply to soil for the grapevine, but Heather brought up its benefits in distilling whiskey, as it removes undesirable flavors.

Lovely sandwich of lily... symbol of resurrection .  Judith quoted the line from Edmund Spencer from Fairie Queen, "peace after war, ... death after life doth greatly please..."

The reassurance of the first line, with its affirmative "Because there is a meaning in the lily", is followed by a string of good things that result in harvest proclaimed in  biblical tones of "let there be".

Another meaning, and another and another given by memory, love, release by death.  Beautifully succinct.

America:  We were touched by this poem, but it is not transparent by any means.  The poet, a young 31 Afghani woman raised in Germany comes to teach at Stanford.  It allows us to imagine her story, the

difficulty of assimilating to this country; we imagine some assault and do not know the story of her uncle.

What lies in store in the relationship of this woman to this country she is supposed to love?

Maura recommended the book Tortilla Curtain.   What makes a coast "soft-stoned"?  What expectations do immigrants and their parents have of this country.  Judith shared many stories.  

Reading Szymborska:  Both Marna and Elaine R researched the poet who is Polish American and wrote the poem after Aria Aber.  Whether she had the idea of "America" in mind I do not know.

However, that she collaborates with people in solitary confinement through letters, and that she had a demanding mother who could not accept her as she was perhaps play into this poem.  She craves the music of a language that speaks to her.  She refers to Szymborska's poem https://www.favoritepoem.org/poem_NotesfromaNonexistentHimalayanExpedition.html

and her nobel prize acceptance speech in 1996. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/szymborska/lecture/

Mentally missturbed: This collage becomes more clear if listened to.  You realize she is reading the label on the bottle of oil for guns.  OK.. so "fired mechanism" is metaphor and puns of "men" in mentally and "miss" as a verb to indicate "missing the mark and messing up" in the disturbing rhetoric that misidentifies a transgender person are there.  

I do not mean to sound dismissively judgmental about abstract art, but this saying from Thoreau comes to mind:  "Do not seek expressions, seek thoughts to be expressed."  If a "poem" is evidence of an urge to find an artistic manner to represent a thought, how does this collage help the reader who is not struggling with transgender issues understand a transgender reality?  Seen this way, perhaps opens a gentle road of contemplation and empathy to look at words used in the collage such as "meaningless identity", "brain cursed", "kinning my depiction in transphobic culture", and "illegible why's".

As response to Ava Hofmann, I wrote her back :

Potpourri of Possibility

I see your anger, your puns,

your view on how mental tallies up

missed marks

the shape of the bottle of oil for guns—

(prepared especially for all kinds of them)

how miss replaces dis 

But, such hints at disconnection, run

counter to understanding 

who you are without labels…

tell me the fragrance, the feel, what you've done

that left you glad, and allows you to sing

the language of the world your way?

We all seek this under our one shared sun.

Poems for June 15

 selections from Ted Kooser: Winter Morning Walks 100 postcards

George Bizet by George Denham

Voicemail Villanelle by Dan Skwire

On the Grasshopper and Cricket  by John Keats (1816)

Lapis Lazuli  by William Butler Yeats

The Approaches  by Harry Clifton

Nutshell:

Kooser: What a refreshing read each poem provided, filled with unusual imaginative images~. Let us all be "choosers of Koosers"!

March 18: Gusty and Warm: Paul noted, this would be the day after St. Patrick's day... but that aside... it is one thing to recognize the gift of life as multiple poets do, exercising the art of praising all that throbs and pulses on our earth, but here, in a succinct, understated few lines, we learn of the arrival of the first bluebird of the season, on the day of a cancer appointment.  He is a master of twisting the circumstances to a deeper, unexpected thought:  "Lucky I am, to go off to my appointment/having been given a bluebird, and for a lifetime, having been given this world."

Rainy and Cold: Not only the image (sky hanging thin and wet on its clothesline!), but the sounds, where the short i of thin

(first line) is repeated in dripping, and last line, in tin.  He creates in impressionistic painting.  "a deer of gray vapor" could

be the way the foggy wetness moves, or the deer moving through it in  the rhythm of lichen-rusted trees. One line,

two lines, and three lines -- from  thin sky, to foreground on earth, to metaphysical thought of distance as future, sealed up

in tin like an old barn.  

Note... I am only repeating the poem which crafts so masterfully the observation of a moment given a full and rich treatment.

Chilly and Clear:  Such a perfect portrait... Not a morality lecture about those smoking, drinking days, tossed with careless laughter with the perfect association of topcoat, homburg and paisley scarf.  You can read "look at me now" in both as a negative or positive result of such behavior.  Perhaps both? It reminded Judith of Tamara de Lempicka, the art deco painter.  https://www.delempicka.org/

The Vernal Equinox:  perfect juxtaposition of concrete to abstract... daredevil squirrel // worry; (question mark tail); tin cone, greased pipe (to protect seed in birdfeeder from said squirrel)// baffles

How to understand the title and the last line?  We discussed how the equinox implies balance, and the one in spring marks

a shift from end of winter to new beginning of the spring season.  What generous acceptance of the squirrel -- thanks to meditation and positive thought... ending on the thought that the baffles aren't needed: if it wants sunflower seeds, everyone of them is his.

Which of course, will get you thinking about your own squirrels and just what it is that we are after!  Kooser paints a perfect picture where we know exactly how that squirrel arrives... in the metaphorical vernal equinox when, all seems in balance.. such lively language to describe how he springs into action!  leaps... swings, clambers, twitches that question mark tail.  The baffles, meant to protect us from such confusion, perhaps will lead us to see an alternative view of the situation!

Windy and at the freezing point: Instead of clothes, imagine the world struggling to keep its clouds on and grass in place! Skirts of cedars, where tumbleweeds are huddling; and dawn -- no lyric aubade here... no, the blocky colors of the comics section--

and quickly, the way of sunrise and sunset, fluttering away "leaving a Sunday the color of news."  Interesting -- one could read a Saturday, or any day... but the Sunday paper is usually more chock full of "news."  

Four Below Zero: Judith was reminded of the Nordic myth of the world tree -- atop, is the evil bird, sending malicious messages, at bottom, the snake eating its roots... see illustration by chapt. 16 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil

We  think we know apples.  Kooser takes us beyond to how an apple is taken to work by his wife... but creates something extraordinary of the invisible presence and suspended image of what might seem indeed quite ordinary.

George Bizet: What fun!  and a cleverly disguised rhymed sonnet, as one is so captivated by the telling, it is easy to discount the form.  I had trouble finding out anything about the poet.

Voicemail Villanelle:  perfect capture of the frustration of being put on hold, the repeating robot telling you niceties about "being right with you" which usually means a frustratingly long amount of time. My favorite line is 4th stanza with the sibilant onomatopoeia involved with press 6, with the ironic result of speaking with someone snide.  The choice of form is perfect for the repeating "we're grateful that you've called today./We will be with you right away."

Dan Skwire seems to be a multi-talented man who works as an actuary.  It is refreshing to see others like him, published in https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/back-issues/

Keats:  Judith reminded us of his death at such a young age, indeed  "forever young."(immortalized:  died at 25 of tuberculosis, not  like famous rockers of drug overdoses. Forever young is also on line 27 of Keats, "Ode to a Grecian Urn".  ) In this delightful sonnet by a city dweller, a hint of the bucolic John Clare.

The imitation of running with the 3rd line enjambment, the echo of "never done" (from opening line and its repeat line 9)

A perfect contrast of the octave of the grasshopper's activity, passing to the sestet of the cricket's song.

 

Wilbur: To start a poem with "But"!!!!  But for a brief... and we're off in a charmingly bouncy capture of movement in quatrains, one moment, cleverly elongated in one long sentence!  The word in the final stanza "gay" release prompted the next poem which uses "gay" four times.  And what a clever final word

about the pause of purported peace, "busily hid".

Lapis Lazuli:

Maura provided this shot of this amazing stone, which helped her imagine the gift given to Yeats on his 70th birthday.  Indeed, Lapis, latin for Stone + lazulum from the Arabic, itself from the Persian lajevard

which means sky or heaven. 

Thanks to Paul, we had a history lesson to explain "King Billy" i.e. William of Orange and the history of Protestants in Northern Ireland.  It is important to know as well that this poem was written in 1936, with rumbles of war.  It is not only "hysterical women" who shrug at  art (palette, fiddle-bow and poets) in such times.  Paul also informed us the in stanza 2, Gaiety may well be referring to the theatre in Dublin.  

Three stanzas in, the reader is provided with a backdrop of how "gaiety"  works to transfigure dread, whether in tragedy or history of "old civilisations put to the sword" and miracle of miracles;  indeed,  rebuilders, and perhaps by implication, imagination, allows a lightening of spirit, a restoration of faith in humans in spite of the catastrophes they wreak. 

Then come the two stanzas about the carving made of lapis lazuli given to him on his 70th birthday by Harry Clifton.  In letters, he had mentioned the sculpture resembled a mountain with a temple, trees, paths and an ascetic with his pupil about to climb the mountain. 

In this meditation, we see how the sculpture mirrors the times, the times the sculpture, as music he imagines is played to respond to tragedy.  Whether it plays mournful melodies, whatever it is that is played brings alive "their ancient, glittering eyes" -- that enduring and restorative power of art.

The Approaches:  We did not have much time to discuss this poem.  Although not the same Harry Clifton as the one in 1936, a response I imagine him making to Yeats' poem.  "Only the approaches are terrible... " and we are left with an enigmatic "coming home" after all the "might-have-beens, wanderers".

Bernie promised to send the link to the Stafford he mentioned. 

Poems for June 8

You and I and the World by Werner Aspenström

 Coal by Audre Lorde

Such Is the Story Made of Stubbornness and a Little Air by Ilya Kaminsky

Boundaries ~ Lynn Ungar

The Art of Blessing the Day  by Marge Piercy

The Last Things I'll Remember by Joyce Sutphen

Two Poems by Deborah Bacharach in Minyan

Plato  by E.E. Cummings

 

You and I and the World:  read aloud 6/1.

Although I don't mean to crunch discussion time to 7-9 minutes a poem, it sometimes might seem that is all that is allowed if we only stayed for hour.  I feel a need to share poems which remind us that we all struggle with the human condition, no matter what our DNA, color, circumstances.

Well... the zoom fizzled... but Paul reports:

 Well, after the uproar over the substitute moderator settled down, the whiskey and the porter flowed like buttermilk. We finished  ALL of the selections by 1:21 PM. Some left, many stayed. There were about 15 lifers present and ALL took active parts in discussions. We all agreed that this bunch was the best group of selections ever. We seemed to all think the whole program could be repeated: there was so much more to "get" from them. It was a grand event !  Judith, as usual, great. Jim, great reading and funny asides.......the big greatness today goes to Marna, whose information and insight on a poem none of us could unravel, elicited a groupwide, " Oh, yeah.....now ,I get it.". It may have been the one on Stubbornness.  A really fun day and we all missed you.

And I sure missed everyone!

I did make this comment about the last one (EE Cummings)

The humor starting with famous philosophers, to Gen. Sherman, to a you that could be someone the speaker knows, or the reader, doesn’t prepare us for that key word “Nipponized” which confirms that poem is about the brutal price of war.

Apparently the old 6th av. ‘el’  (torn down in 1939) went by his home on Patchin Place.

That the poem was published in 1944 and some think the scrap metal from the el was sold to the Japanese who used it against the US in WW2 is perhaps part of it.

June 1

 

 

Advice from a Raindrop by Kim Stafford 

The World Is in Pencil by Todd Boss

The Pencil by Mary Hood

At the Graveyard with Anne by Carl Dennis

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I meant to include life is just a bowl of cherries lyrics

My apologies... apparently not all the poems appeared... 

We started with a share from Paul who had penned this 5 years ago!

June 1, 2017

Lucifer you foolish man thing

you are a bluff of drifting smoke

master of nothing.

I have faith and hope and charity

and the means to embrace them.

you had your chance!

-- Paul Brennan

The first day of June... and on we go... and the world indeed feels like it needs a screw of some sort (Thank you Maura for her giant clay sculpture) to keep us from losing it... Note that Maura added the picture of a stone on which a friend inscribed "Laugh"... and this is what we do in O Pen.  

We read, we discuss, we share and everyone is so glad for the friendships, the reassurances that indeed, like the advice from a raindrop (first poem), we have a wild card, however you define it... it might be the shining the rain makes on faces (crying from joy or sorrow), or just a piece in a great storm... As Paul reminds us, a raindrop also casts reflections on everything... which in turn reminds us to give a 360 degree look at this marvelous world.  Advice from a Raindrop: so lovingly offered... empathetically! 

 

Todd Boss: we loved his way of looking at the world and had a fabulous discussion about pencils... how it might be harder to write in pencil, but there's a possibility of modifying-- and that opportunity to start over thanks to an eraser.  Some remembered art classes where you weren't allowed to erase... some remembered the days where anything proper in school had to be in pen... and best of all, we could all relate to days being "rough drafts" and "labors of love"...  Martin reminded us of the carpenter's pencil.. and we were all set for Mary Hood's poem... 

Mary Hood:  What clever use of "mantral" to turn a mantra into an adjectival description of the pencil sharpener... and "detrital" to describe the rubber remains left by eraser... and just the word "hexagonal" gives the feel of the six sides of the wooden pencil.   As for the joy of being #2 -- we were also reminded of all the different kinds of sizes and grades of lead with which to "make  graphite trails".

The deconstruction of this common, every day object ( well, since 1795 when it was first invented) brought forth a wealth of nostalgia! 

Carl Dennis: Delightful stroll in a cemetery with "Anne" who imagines psychological twists of those buried.  The speaker of the poem is the pragmatist,  seeing in the m.d. on the tombstone, "at least we can take our titles", whereas Anne empathetically attaches to this doctor a man's admission that his job more important than his other roles.  How do you want to be remembered?  How do we project ourselves onto the character of others?   Judith brought up Christopher Wren whose inscription says, "if you would see my monument, look around".

Millay: Indeed, time does not bring relief to those who grieve the loss of a loved one.  We spoke briefly of the difficulty of being reminded -- as if everywhere, we can see their faces, whether a beloved pet or lover. 

We did read aloud the Audré Lorde who says about poetry that it provides the words to explain whatever she was feeling.  She would memorize poems and in answer to "what happened to you yesterday", she would recite a poem with a line that expressed it.  Her poem from her book Coal  and the Kaminsky start next week's selection: they provide a sort of testimony to the power words take on in poetry.