Before I was a Gazan by Naomi Shihab Nye
We admired the “economical” understatement set up by the title and first line, the juxtaposition of something ordinary missing, like homework, with the brutal subtraction caused by war… how the measures used for math homework, the pride of additions made, multiplied… become unsolvable problems.
We related so much to this boy, this “I” which brought up this question. Why did Naomi pick a boy, and not a “child” or “a girl" as the speaker of the poem? (I wrote her to ask.)
We all concur, that the poem is so stunningly executed, the surprises deftly dealt… that small enjambed addition about the baby sister / “who couldn’t talk yet”.
Judith was reminded of the passage in Job, “And I only have escaped to tell you.” ("This quote from the Bible is that of Job's servants telling their master some very bad news. Melville uses it in Moby Dick b/c Ishmael, the only survivor of the debacle, is at least healed and reconciled with God." (internet source.)
Indeed, this poem is given to the world… like the one remaining voice, and we all become the “I” who must resolve to find something, that can find answer to the situation, not just in Palestine, but every place where a child is at risk, school is not a safe place, and everyone suffers from the heartbreak of genocide, of murder. We brought up Racial Justice... the meeting on Monday to discuss the Palestinian question; Judith also brought up Jan Karsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Karski
Breaking Free by Stuart Kestenbaum
We admired the story telling and effective line-breaks which enhance it, the viewpoint of shoes the dog sees (blunt-toed shoes of the army // of teachers) and the especially touching line/stanza breaks in the final stanzas.
He wags his tail when he sees me, but I am// So many possibilities of what could follow as you drop to the enjambment
in the stanza below.
From "my dog", the play on "I get the dog", i.e. I understand the dog, as well as fetch him.
Go home, I tell him, go on home, ignoring // again, many directions of the story could happen here.
the line-breaks after shutting/
the great wooden doors are equally surprising... shutting the part of him that is without a collar and free.
The dog is presented as a message, delivered by a friend whispered to the teacher. Rather like an angel.
What does school do to a child? And what about the insistence of the dog to find him?
Martin shared a personal story of the feeling of being closed off with the tragedy of hearing the news that his sister was dying.
How else do we close off integral parts of ourselves? The title seems to apply both to the dog, but also hopefully, to the speaker of the poem!
These quotes about school came to Judith's mind:
from Shakespeare, "As You Like It" https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/worldstage.html "then comes the whining school boy with satchel and shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school."
and Wordsworth: "And from his alder shades and rocky falls,. And from his fords and ... Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45542/the-prelude-book-1-childhood-and-school-time
Give yourself some Flowers by Marcus Amaker. This video has the poet speaking it with some visuals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykHOVQKt4iw A lovely poem for when dark days surface. Almost like an advice column, although we disagreed that it was a "poetical Ann Landers". Maureen at Rundel was reminded of the Four Agreements: (Be impeccable with your own words; do not take things personally; do not make assumptions; always do your best.)
We weren't sure what "praise warm energy" meant, but the advice to be an adaptable star and "float in the black" came up in the Kunitz as well... Good repetition of "keep in mind/all of these things..."
Give yourself some flowers... you are a star-- "made perfectly/ for this moment/in time."
pronunciation by Leora Kava
One needs to read the note to understand the Tongo tradition of caring for the "Mala'e" word for cemetery.
There are 4 sentences but it is not until the third sentence that the title appears. It is perhaps pronunciation as a
pronouncement, a way of presenting a language of the broom and its sweeping, the "oh's" made by the mouth of hands that hold it, release, in an act of caring for ancestors' graves. The ants have come, have always come, vestiges of offerings, even
blue plastic flowers -- and how weeds cover up. Joyce (Rundel) is part of Friends of Mt. Hope cemetery and immediately related to this and her care of tending cradle graves. One finishes the poem with a new thought about language, where act and emotion create the meanings through gesture and feeling.
The Round: by Stanley Kunitz
Thank you Kathy for bringing up his book Wild Braid. Whether his garden, his poems, life and death are always together.
I am reminded of the Buddhist slogan: "No mud; no lotus". The opening light -- splashed, flowed, kisses -- and the delicacy of "shell-pink" and weaving of all the sibilance -- indeed "A curious gladness" shakes the reader as well as poet recounting.
So... repeated three times... as in... truly, thus... because of what I have witnessed... he shuts, trudges, sits in semi-dark, hunched over his desk by the compost heap... and the round recommences, "Light splashed"...
The final 4 lines are a marvelous reminder to be mindful of such moments -- for this confirms the repeats, as the round continues the next day, with a new life... as it does each day, as it does each day.
The Past by Barbara Guest
4 enigmatic lines suggesting endings beginning, echoes and mirrors. Judith was reminded of these words by Tagore: "His own mornings are a new surprise to God." (Perhaps the idea, "God's own mornings are a new surprise to him"?) and also Bavarian Gentians: https://allpoetry.com/Bavarian-Gentians
Elaine brought up H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), imagist poet about whom Barbara Guest wrote in her book, Herself defined: H.D. and her World. which documents the life of Hilda Doolittle, the poet and modernist whose work led the vanguard of women's literature from the eve of World War I until her death in 1961.
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