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?