Poems for September: 7

 Poems from Poet Laureates

September 7 

Joseph Auslander (1897-1965) Between 1937 and 1941 Auslander served as the first consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that would later become that of poet laureate of the United States.  Note the title didn't change until 1986!!!!  almost 50 years later. 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Auslander

Allen Tate: (1899-1979) NPC 1943 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allen-Tate

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) (NPC  1944 (NPL 1986) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Penn-Warren

Louise Bogan (1897-1970) NPC 1945-6 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louise-Bogan

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/louise-bogan

Karl Shapiro (1913 –2000) (NPC 1946-47) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Shapiro

Words That Stay Over by Joseph Auslander

Brief Message by Allen Tate

A Way to Love God by Robert Penn Warren

Elders  by Louise Bogan

Americans Are Afraid of Lizards by Karl Shapiro

Why Do You Love the Poem? by Charles Bernstein

THE POEMS:  

Words That Stay Over by Joseph Auslander

 

Having watched the wild gulls gather, disperse,

And knowing no better and no worse

What beauty is and the beating of wings in my eyes

And the wind beating in their cries;

Having seen white breast colour and of beaks

The rapid flash and the whistling streaks —

Something in me not to be quieted

Asserts itself like the sound of birds over water and speaks:

 

And I say: It would be a simple thing to bear

The weight of death, the impact of despair,

The pressure of contempt or even silence or yet

Endure a clamour I cannot forget;

All this would be a simple thing if words

And water and the bitterly radiant birds,

Gold dark twilight and one throat and one

Face mirroring stars, one mouth murmuring and eyes still wet —

 

If all this and all these and the little things

That have such terrible strength could beat like wings

On water once, like wings beating, like swords

On water beating ... and then no more! ... But words,

Words that stay over though the voice is dead

To the words; the terror of something someone said

Long ago somewhere and laughed at long ago —

These rust in the brain and grope like a wound that has never bled.

 

more poems: https://www.best-poems.net/joseph-auslander/poems.html

 

Brief Message by Allen Tate

 

This, Warren, is our trouble now:

Not even fools could disavow

Three centuries of piety

Grown bare as a cottonwood tree

(A timber seldom drawn and sawn

And chiefly used to hang men on),

So face with calm that heritage

And earn contempt before the age.

 

more poems: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/allen-tate

 

A Way to Love God by Robert Penn Warren

 

Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true.

And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific

First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know

About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle

Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.

 

I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least

I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and

Heard mountains moan in their sleep.By daylight,

They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occasions

Of not going anywhere except in slow disintegration.At night

They remember, however, that there is something they cannot remember.

So moan.Theirs is the perfected pain of conscience that

Of forgetting the crime, and I hope you have not suffered it.I have.

 

I do not recall what had burdened my tongue, but urge you

To think on the slug's white belly, how sick-slick and soft,

On the hairiness of stars, silver, silver, while the silence

Blows like wind by, and on the sea's virgin bosom unveiled

To give suck to the wavering serpent of the moon; and,

In the distance, in plaza, piazza, place, platz, and square,

Boot heels, like history being born, on cobbles bang.

 

Everything seems an echo of something else.

 

And when, by the hair, the headsman held up the head

Of Mary of Scots, the lips kept on moving,

But without sound.The lips,

They were trying to say something very important.

 

But I had forgotten to mention an upland

Of wind-tortured stone white in darkness, and tall, but when

No wind, mist gathers, and once on the Sarré at midnight,

I watched the sheep huddling.Their eyes

Stared into nothingness.In that mist-diffused light their eyes

Were stupid and round like the eyes of fat fish in muddy water,

Or of a scholar who has lost faith in his calling.

 

Their jaws did not move.Shreds

Of dry grass, gray in the gray mist-light, hung

From the side of a jaw, unmoving.

 

You would think that nothing would ever again happen.

 

That may be a way to love God.

 

more poems: https://www.best-poems.net/robert_penn_warren/true_love.html

 

 

Elders  by Louise Bogan

 

At night the moon shakes the bright dice of the water;

And the elders, their flower light as broken snow upon the

bush,

Repeat the circle of the moon.

Within the month

Black fruit breaks from the white flower.

The black-wheeled berries turn

Weighing the boughs over the road.

There is no harvest.

Heavy to withering, the black wheels bend

Ripe for the mouths of chance lovers,

Or birds.

Twigs show again in the quick cleavage of season and

season.

The elders sag over the powdery road-bank.

As though they bore, and it were too much,

The seed of the year beyond the year.

 

More poems: https://poets.org/poet/louise-bogan

 

Americans Are Afraid of Lizards by Karl Shapiro

 

My American host in Madras in his moist air-conditioned apart-

ment

Spotted a lizard and yelled for a servant to kill it, kill it!

And a beautifully turbaned, silent and grinning Hindu, beauti-

fully barefooted, beautifully servant,

Rushed in with a towel and pretending to smack it to death

Impounded it gently and carried it off to the gorgeous and sweat-

ing garden

To let it go.

In earlier years, on my first trip to the tropics,

I screamed at a lizard on my pillow,

And the fat Tahitian lady stuffed it in her hand

And grinned toothlessly and pointed to the ceiling

Frescoed with twenty or thirty of the pretty beasts

All vividly flicking their tongues at mosquitoes,

Or playing at making designs.

 

more poems: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/karl-shapiro - tab-poems

 

Why Do You Love the Poem? by Charles Bernstein

https://dcs.megaphone.fm/POETS9781963679.mp3?key=b20e75aa44b8356062842f173b827cca

 

For the sentiment. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the sentiment.

For the message. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the message.

For the music. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the music.

For the spirit. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the spirit.

For the intelligence. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the intelligence. 

For the courage. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the courage.

For the inspiration. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the inspiration. 

For the emotion. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the emotion. 

For the vocabulary. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the vocabulary. 

For the poet. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the poet.

For the meaning. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the meaning.

For what it stands for. — Then you don’t love the poem you love what it stands for.

For the words. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the words.

For the syntax. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the syntax.

For the politics. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the politics.

For the beauty. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the beauty.

For the outrage. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the outrage.

For the tenderness. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the tenderness.

For the hope. — Then you don’t love the poem you love the hope. 

For itself. — Then you love the poem.

 

About this poem: “I’d prefer to leave this commentary blank. The kind of poetry I want doesn’t follow rules: it makes up its own rules. Perhaps my commentary needs a commentary? The poem is itself a series of commentaries. The idea of ‘blank’—letting the work stand for itself—is my commentary on the poem. In other words, if you love the poem for what it is about, you don’t love the poem but what it’s about. Or perhaps you could say the commentary is the poem and the poem the commentary. I get things all, well, Topsy-Turvy.”—Charles Bernstein

 

Note: Next week: Note, that  Wm Carlos Williams --was  appointed in 1952 but did not serve due to ill health but then also a political retraction withdrawing the invitation:    check out: 

https://www.nj.com/inside-jersey/2018/06/how_one_of_njs_most_famous_poets_ended_up_under_fbi_investigation.html

 

In Al Que Quiere! (1917; “To Him Who Wants It!”) his style was distinctly his own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Que_Quiere!

Poems for Aug. 31

At the Church Door by Louis Simpson

Swinging From Parents by Ted Kooser

Self Portrait with Impending War by Lauren K. Alleyne

The Dead by Rupert Brooke

The Bell by Richard Jones

The Guitar by Federico García Lorca - 1898-1936

Sparklers by Ted Kooser

Sparklers  by Barb Crooker

Nutshell:

What makes a good poem?  

Simpson, Kooser use simple, familiar language that allows us to relate to the experience shared.  In the case of the scene at the church door, the poem begins and ends there, allowing the reader the full implication of the setting, the reason for the speaker leaving (and each reader's memory of leaving situations).  The trusting question of the child,  the opening of the door, the reassurance... and then a second leaving, quite different from the first, where he takes care where he steps.  Perhaps we have associations with church, as a place where prayers will be answered; perhaps each of us have had such small requests for help, that remind us to stay available, and how simple it is to do a kind deed.  You never know what lifts our spirits.

Kooser, in the Swinging from parents... already in the title has a 3-fold meaning.  Two parents, and what stems from them, how one relates to them and how a child swings away from them to try out the world.  The play with the shape of letters matching to the words infancy, love, father, forever, is not overdone.  That first r of forever, is what comes before the r in future, and that second, final r.

Alleyne, is a young poet from Trinidad.  Most of the participants in O Pen are of grandparent age, and think about the young parents with young children, facing dire reports that the Earth is doomed and life as we know it will be over in 50 years.   The title is universal at this point:  war is impending on all fronts, whether ecological, sociological, international, metaphorical.  The self-portrait is missing, like the home, at first described as hodgepodge house, then continent with confused seasons, this planet scarred by too much stuff.  The strange syntax, Home be this small silence, could be a small  incantation or mantra, a desperate prayer, perhaps possibility up to you to create.  The questions at the end are unanswerable, and ones we all will experience as we "run to everywhere" and weep the loss of home.  Perhaps there will be a change for the better in the answer of what is going to be gone... in the sense of inequality, inequity, violence, war... or maybe it will take extinction of humans for it to be gone.  How does one prepare a child for the end of the world?

The "good poem" in the case of the turn of the 20th century, might be the approved romanticism of Rupert Brooke in his beautifully cadenced Petrarchan sonnet.  The first part, life, and all the beautiful sights and music, and relationships.  The turn on the 8th line:  All this is ended.  The second part is death, the afterlife.  Paul filled us in on the biography of Brooke, how he was on ship at Skyros in Greece, delivering men for the battle of Gallipoli where they would be slaughtered by the Turks.  He alas (to him) never saw action,  suffered from sepsis and died.  His style, quite different from Wilfred Owen and F. Sassoon, discussed in the book highly recommended by Rose Marie: Regeneration by Pat Barker.

The good poem in the case of Richard Jones, uses sound and repetition equating a bell to a man, the connection to other bells, men, as something both heard, and capable of making sound.

The Lorca has many translations, but the Spanish will not stumble on the effect of the weeping, the use of those "5 swords" that mortally wound the heart... of Spain, the guitar.  It is hard not to think of George Harrison (Beatles) While my guitar gently weeps.  Kathy highly recommends this u tube of Prince who indeed plays it so it weeps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWRCooFKk3c

The two Sparkler poems both demonstrate how to talk about relationships:  in the first, a love story... a brief flash of a romance on a summer night.  In the second, what sounds like a happy July 4th with trivial sounds such as "sizzles of light", spit and fizz, transforms into a eulogy for the poet's mother as she "brands" the night air with her name.

We ended on Santayana, who was born in Madrid, and although he taught at Harvard for 40 years, never became a US citizen.  Paul told us about his background and cited many quotations.  "Only the dead have seen the end of war."  "I am. eternal rumor of war."  

My response to Brooke.  

Dead

            will often be what some wish to be,

no food, no water... no work that makes

them glad, and I have yet to see

sorrow wash marvelously. What makes

tears?  They may wring out grief,

but cares and joys are not brief.

 

Dead, a word we dread, forced to use

about life on our earth, our ability to care

for the living.  We'll always sing the blues

about war, love lost, dreams where we dare

to dream of waters blown to laughter.

But we have pushed selfish wants too far

without care for all.  The door is ajar.

Do you go in? How will you find the hereafter?

 

 

 

Poems for Aug. 24

Surprise Comes Slowly by David Oates

Grief Symphony by Noor Hindi

Messenger by Mary Oliver

Around Us by Marvin Bell 

It’s a Woman’s World by Eavan Boland[1]

Instead of Her Own by Molly Peacock

Nutshell discussion:

Surprise Comes Slowly: The title surprises, as "slowly" is not how we think of surprise... and yet

those signals which indicate something is amiss, such as slow destruction of rain forest, of redwoods, of all that lives on our planet, are often dismissed... and indeed, we are "taken by surprise".  Oates provides in the first stanza possible synonyms:  surprise as remorse, grief, a feeling of "that which has not been

done."   

In 6 quatrains, an unrolling interaction of surprise and redwood... and our place, where we observe, but cannot experience, dropped cones, the rain, mist from the sea integral to a redwood's well-being. Judith was prompted to speak of Ursula Le Guin and her essay on "being a tree".  We all spoke of the environment... and for some the "lesson" of interconnection, roots, of another, another and another, laden with time, could apply to the war in Ukraine, unexpected, and yet, the signs have been there, not just in the 20th century, but the century before.  Connection is "comforting; promising remembrance yet to come"--

but then the opening line repeats.  The disappearance, the absence of connection clear.  It isn't only

the forest forgetting itself in generations faster and hotter-- this is humans at work.  

There is a cryptic tone in the final stanza.  The short drop of one word, comforting (3 syllables) now

inevitable (5 syllables) seem to confirm the worst.   Followed by two 3 syllable words:  surprising.  Nonetheless.

Grief Symphony:  This poem by the Palestinian-American poet Noor Hindi, honors Isra Ghrayeb, murdered in an "honor killing".  The name Isra, brought up associations with women's groups, night journeys, and the poet's name, associations with Arabic culture in the Middle East.  Spare lines interrupted by fenced slashes.  Although the discussion did not approach the metaphor of slicing open a cherry, it feels clear it stands for women, the whole woman, in her heart, her sweetness.  The appeal to the olive tree, ancient,  integral to the Middle East, symbol of peace, survival, who has seen "so much red" contrasts with the horror of the deed.

Messenger:  Who is the messenger-- the poet, the love for the world, the world itself?  No matter, the message is clear.  Shouldn't we all undertake this work of loving the world-- and record it as message to the world, so that is goes on?  We all seek sweetness... 

What is in this work?  Mindfulness... to be aware of the astonishing... the "ingredients" which cause rejoicing, gratitude.  The contrast between the "old boots, torn coat" in stanza two and the "body-clothes", 

at the end, echoes the state of the clam, at first, buried deep in the sand, and at the end "dug-up" revealed, and revealed to, bringing the message to all living (with shouts of joy): As long as we love, we are part of the circle of life.

Around Us:  I was lucky to know Marvin as one of the faculty at Pacific University.  In his book, Nightworks: poems 1962-2000 he is praised for his prophetic, candid, voice, his wit and skilled, imaginative leaps.    

Around Us appeared in 2018-2019  in Narrative Magazine: https://www.narrativemagazine.com/authors/marvin-bell

For those wishing more info about him, this is a lovely tribute: https://airlightmagazine.org/airlight/issue-3/bell-discussion/

A delightful portrayal of his personality and humanity with his poem to his wife, often used for weddings and funerals here: https://therumpus.net/2018/03/23/poetry-is-a-manifestation-of-a-life-talking-with-marvin-bell/. About the Dead Man poems: The Dead Man offers searing insight into the joys, as well as the catastrophes, of fluctuating cultural and political moments.

Around us, starts with what we need... with that delightful twist from need to (pine) needles to pad

"the rumble that fills the mind", observing with an almost humorous touch what we all share as humans.

A zipper, a snap of a little sound of thanks... as Maura remarked, feels like bundling up a child before s/he goes outside in winter.  Yes... as Oliver puts it, gratitude.  In terms of craft, it is fun to compare this poem with "Messenger". 

It's a woman's world: Eaven Boland, 1944-2000.  Just as with Marvin Bell, it is not fair to judge Eaven Boland by just one poem.  When did she write it?  Is she  not being ironic, when you look at her other work?  I love the sounds of her opening stanza... those w's of "Woman's World" whirl into the fact we keep repeating the same old, just like the "wheel, that first whetted a knife"... 

The use of nouns as verbs is highly effective:  we milestone our lives (funny, the computer wanted to change that to we millstone our lives).  The w's of washing power, wrapped, wash left wet... the what's of what we forget and will never be.  Judith commented on the power of "it".  It, such a small, 2-letter word that refers to the immensity of all it contains.  It's all the same... Is this the same "It" as the one in the title?

Perhaps the negative and narrow view of a woman's world, in the title, and the final gristing bread, getting recipes for good soup, is commentary on our small role as history goes on, without us on the scene.

Interesting that "seeing" and "scene" are homonyms.  Did we see how the king's head GORED its basket?

What a curious and powerful image... Does each head have a basket, and what causes the goring?

This poem wheels and whets plenty of questions!

Instead of her own: The gesture of a grandmother washing her granddaughter's hair, ideally, would invoke a tender, loving act,  selfless, in the sense of tending first to the granddaughter, instead of herself.

The repeated "cold" will convince you otherwise.  Why was the grandmother not taking care of her own hair?  And how was she doing this washing?  It certainly seemed to be far from a pleasurable experience.  It evoked some bad memories for Judith.  Is moist mouse straw just referring to color, or a more complex metaphor for hair on a girl's head?  What substitution is the grandmother making, forming, knuckling?

Unsettling and enigmatic.  

 

 

 

---

[1] https://genius.com/Eavan-boland-its-a-womans-world-annotated

Poems for Aug. 17

In Praise of Dreams by Gary Soto 

In Praise of Dreams by Wislawa Szymborska

Magic by Hiram Larew

Afterlife with a Gentle Afterward by Matthew Henriksen

Phone Therapy by Ellen Bass

Poem by James Schuyler

Scarf by Rita Dove

Discussion: 

Soto/Szymborska: In Praise of Dreams: Many questions rise up when putting two poems with the same title side by side!  What if we had started with reading Szymborska, followed by Soto?  What if we didn't know anything about either poet?  What influences how we read words on a page, where the voice, identity,  of the poet is absent? How important are background circumstances?

We certainly all concurred that everyone borrows from everyone... witness composers writing variations on a theme by xyz hitherto established! 

Comparing the two poems, we felt each poet had a different orientation to being.  Soto, as Mexican-American has a different attitude to women perhaps.  The expression "why don't you throw your mother an occasional bone" came up with the ending... and in addition to admiring his cleverness, we also wondered if God is on his side?  He doesn't necessarily accept a circumstance, as he is busily engaging with the world.  Szymborska on the other hand seems to go deeper, drawing on other sources, such as ancient Greeks, saints, imagines herself as virtuoso, with no assistance for such things as flying, breathing under water, discovering mythical Atlantis.   

Soto's ending leaves us with a sense of Praise for some God in charge; Szymborska's ending makes you wonder where her dreams have taken her that would have such metaphorical possibilities as two suns, penguins clear as day at night.  And you?  What would  like to be?  What do you dream of that goes beyond aspirations?

Magic/Larew: Do see Eric Epstein's ASL translation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUFK9pjVHc&t=0s. He creates magic and further, the sonic references of words "sounds" and "voices" are the hands themselves, flash-blinking, touch-topping, leaping into the heart and blazing outwards.  Perhaps magic realism.  Larew's background in agriculture and addressing hunger, and belief in the power of poetry to address it explained here: https://www.poetryxhunger.com/initiative-founder.html

We spoke of the "translator-traitor" phenomenon... Judith brought up how the Chinese understanding of translation is "all the threads, but not the pattern.  Case in point, be aware of differences in translations. Judith highly recommends Brian Hooker's translation of Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac".

Maura was reminded by the poem of viewing the recent super moon illuminating a tree-- which at first looked like a far-off fire in a field, perhaps a full-decorated and illuminated Christmas tree... and then as the moon rose higher, it became clear the "magic" of its light.

Afterlife with a Gentle Afterward: Such an intriguing title.  Beautiful binding of slant rhymes (reed/dreamed; sky/ lied/light).  We do not know the circumstances of the writing of the poem, but it feels that this young man, who passed away at age 45, had a premonition.  Maura's story enhances its presence. 

Phone Therapy: What an opening line!  I was relief... and such a masterful thumbnail sketch of New York City.  We imagined other situations where we haven't a clue as to what to say... how something surprisingly comes up.  Some analyzed the situation, imagining the cry for help, the power of postponement.  Is Ellen Bass the "Ann Landers of Poetry"? She goes beyond.  The last stanza with the memorable imagery of the goldfish, the turn in the glass bowl... the match to another through a cord strung under yet more others, the wait for the wave of sound... and that surprise of agreement to wait. OK. Masterful.  

Poem: Beautiful villanelle... Each tercet starts with a statement.  Ends with a conclusion. We enjoyed the reversal of art/death being brief; life/friendship long.  That common way that lasts.

Scarf:  What a beautifully sensuous poem!  beauty lies... with its double meaning in the eye... the call on the sound of silk as music over a bared/ (line stanza break... ) neck.  The additional last word "or a lover" dropped ever so gently in conclusion.  Many feel they will not think of a silk scarf, or wearing one in the same way.

Extra!

Praise by Angelo Geter : probably not enough time to read this poem. many of you may enjoy reading it outside of the session: https://poets.org/poem/praise?mbd=1

and had thought many care givers might enjoy this: https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2022/08/03/732-caregiving

The preliminary note gives as much of a glimpse into that tender complexity of care work as the poem…

https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2022/08/03/732-caregiving

August 10

For fun and followup from 8/3:

Movie suggestions:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10189300/

Lunana:  A Yak in the Classroom

 

The Man in the Hat : https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_man_in_the_hat

 

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Bus-Timothy-Spall/dp/B09P17NTF8

Marna recommended this: (It says unavailable, but has this call number at library: 821.9208)

Stairs and whispers : D/deaf and disabled poets write back(2017)

Mrs. Sisyphus by Carol Ann Duffy https://mrssisyphus.weebly.com/

**These New Yorker Cartoons:

 Alas, I miss another Wednesday! Session II of National Poet Laureates (NPL)

Apology for Old Clothes  (published 1979) by Donald Hall 1928–2018 (NPL 2006-2007)

Lullaby  by Louise Glück (NPL 2003-2004)

American Sonnet  (publ. 1989) Billy Collins (b 1941) (NPL 2001-2003)

**

The View from the Road  by Robert Pinksy** (NPL 1997-2001)

After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa Robert Hass  ( b. 1941)(NPL 1995-1997) 

https://gwarlingo.com/2012/the-sunday-poem-kobayashi-issa-translated-and-read-by-robert-hass/

Ballad of Blossom by Mona Van Duyn  (published August 1979)  (NPL 1992-1995) 

**Stanley Kunitz - Twice: (poet laureate consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress from (1974 to 1976 and from 2000 to 2001.). (We discussed his poem, The Layers 7/13)

Ars Poetica  by Rita Dove  (b. 1952) (NPL 1993-1995)

Constancy by Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) (NPL 1991-1992)

Bernie brought up the conversations in 2002 that produced this book Wild Braid:  A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden https://geninelentine.com/the-wild-braid/Constancy by Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) (NPL 1991-1992)

Paul's write up: 

12 regulars, Judith  not feeling well and Mary at dentist, so, down 2 biggies. 

    A lot of great insights into your selections of philosophical stuff.  Billy Collins entertained, Rita Dove baffled us. We took a lot of angles and thrusts in trying to understand her. When I asked later if all were ready to move on, the jury of twelve gave unanimous assent. It was, nevertheless  a nice poem. There were no losers in the selections. Lotta talk on the Jos. Brodsky number.  I reminded the group of a Will Rogers Quip...." Don't squat if you're wearin' your spurs. "  We praised the Lord and went on our ways.

Aug. 3, 2022

See  Barb’s collaborative book, Left Behind,  with photographs by her nephew and her poems.  In this interview, she reads “Screened Back Porch” (p. 51)

https://www.rochesterfirst.com/arts/keeping-a-promise-rochester-writer-completes-art-exhibit-following-nephews-suicide/

Poems:

 Octavia Butler excerpt from from Parable of the Sower (1993) — the first part of her oracular Earthseed allegory —

Lucky  by Carl Dennis

Camouflage by Katie Kemple - ekphrastic response to painting, El Camino de Esmeralda, Danelle Rivas.

September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden 

Graduation Speech by Charles W. Pratt

**

Octavia Butler: Judith filled us in on her bio, as first black woman science fiction writer. As noted, the words came from her 1993 masterwork, Parable of the Sower, the first part of her oracular Earthed allegory. 

These 8 lines, in 4 couplets, each containing the word, change, (and the second stanza containing it twice!) gave rise to a discussion that covered big bang theory, advice for solid social interaction, and all manner of how life works.  Paul suggested from a philosopher's point of view, it might be good to start with the 3rd couplet.  He quickly followed with, "I have change in the pocket.  God's in my pocket too".

Martin promises to send a poem in his head that embraces the idea that reality is something that always existed and the linking of the way nature works with the complex diversity of life... 

Group advice: Imagine if indeed, we aimed to "touch" each other, not just physically, but emotionally.

It would be good if we all try to read about someone who doesn't ressemble us.  

It reminded Judith of Understood Betsy   A great model of how to make a confession, that becomes a portrait of a beloved object. 

Lucky by Carl Dennis.  We enjoyed the tone blending a touch of sarcastic irony and great tenderness in this personnification of a car and the poets "ode" to it.  It reminded Bernie of the story of the Chinese farmer and how events might be interpreted as fortunate or misfortunate. https://www.craftdeology.com/the-story-of-the-chinese-farmer-by-alan-watts/.  It reminded reminded Judith of Understood Betsy.  

A great model of how to make a confession about oneself, through a portrait of a beloved object.

I give the story away here... the poem brings it to life and brought us all howling!

How lucky... no one hurt and the car made no accusations... and what a patient car, although we all agreed, no car is ever where you think you left it... No need to apologize to the car for the mangled state after the accident, the frugal treatment.  What a trusting car, thinking you are the protector, never

suspecting that the real danger was the owner.   

Camouflage by Katie Kemple: This reminded Bernie of Michael Pollan's work which looks at the power of psychedelics for treatment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Change_Your_Mind

It reminded Judith of Ruddigore. We could find all the objects mentioned, and I especially loved the chopsticks (final word) pinching a dumpling, illustrating this idea of how to cope with images.  Why the title?  Perhaps the poet thinks

she is creating her own biographical effigy of herself and this "covers up" the who she is.  The note doesn't give us a clue to the title, only to the poet's attraction to the painting, and how it seemed "a hand of it all, kept painting to keep the images in frame".  

Poem prompt:  How does it feel to be an image in a painting? 

September 1, 1939: There is quite some background about this poem, where each thought is a sentence, each sentence a stanza, and as Judith remarked, filled with rhyme and the strong beat of the  rhythm ressembles a hunting poem.  She compared the rhythm to Siegfried Sassoon, Does it Matter. https://englishverse.com/poems/does_it_matter and brought up Orwell and term, "smelly orthodoxies".

We spoke of the power of the memory of dates, like Dec. 7 as Pearl Harbor day, 9/11 and the twin towers, and here, the date Hitler invaded Poland.  In this poem, it feels as though it is as pertinent now, as then.  The choice language to describe the feel of "uncertain and afraid/ as clever hopes expire" of a low dishonest decade... is memorable.  "vain/Competitive excuse" of each language;

"the windiest militant trash, Important Persons shout"... as we cling an "average day".  Rose Marie spoke of a discussion about a book about Chile, Pinochet, Allende... how no one spoke really of this

as point of concern, and example of "Collective man" and "international wrong".

Yes... we crave, not universal love, but "to be loved alone"-- our own egotistical sense of survival.

And how to undo the folded lie, so neatly, romantically folded by "Authority"?  "We must love one another or die". Elaine O. brought this up as crux of the poem, and our one hope .  Kathy brought up the wording, not "or die" but "and die".  Auden decided that this line about love and death was untruthful; he remarked, in public and in private, that we are all destined to die, whether or not we love each other. It takes only a moment's reflection to recognize this as a misinterpretation of the line's actual meaning. When I read the last 5 lines, what is "dotted everywhere, flashing out in ironic points of light wherever the Just/Exchange their messages", I read it with a question mark.  "May I show an affirming flame" (as in, can I? or have I a right or courage to) as opposed to the imperative overtone of  "Let me".

Beleaguered by the same negation and despair, composed of Eros and Dust... what message would you propose?

Kathy proposed this fine You Tube  reading of the poem Auden 9.1.39 youtube reading by Michael Sheen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol8w3L04I8U

Graduation Speech by Charles W. Pratt. Garrison Keilor on Writer's Almanac posted this poem on June 23, 2011.  I believe this is his biography: https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/charles-w-pratt-’56

Certainly with a background of Philips Academy and Princeton, returning to Philips to teach English, he saw plenty of commencement addresses.  (Judith reminded us, that "graduation" used to be called "commencement -- the beginning or start after the schooling... a subtle but important difference of implication.

(2010) This poem comes from the last section, "Uncollected Poems" of his book, From the Box marked Some Are miSSing 

Charles W. Pratt: https://www.spdbooks.org/Content/Site106/FilesSamples/9780980167283.pdf

Delightful metaphor of baking bread... and when is a loaf done... and how to enjoy the zen of loafing?