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.