Poems for Nov. 2-3

 The Word by Tony Hoagland.

If you need an uplifting, humorous poems with a satisfying sense of craft, "The Word" will not disappointment.  A Biblical association of the title with the appearance of the word "sunlight"on a shopping list  is a delightful contrast!  The slant reference to   "In the beginning, was the Word"  is reinforced with "kingdom" appearing in the last line of the 3rd stanza.  

What do you put on your to-do list?  Imagine the power of "sunlight"... and pleasure, as reminders of something that "is done"!  The enjambments heighten the surprises about what needs accomplishing, and "Do you remember?" spills on about the fact that time and light are kinds // of love, and he threads on love with the practicality of a coffee grinder or safe spare tire.  

I'm not sure if in 2011 when this poem appeared, people still used telegrams, but it works for a mythic time, when a heart in exile can proclaim whatever needs proclaiming about  a kingdom to a king, queen, their progeny.  The catch, rather like the simple complexity of love, is finding time to sit out in the sun and listen.

Nature Aria by Yi Lei:  We spoke about translation, and the complexity of understanding 8th century Chinese poetry, vs. contemporary poetry.  There are lovely lyric moments that indeed reinforce an operatic solo...but is it nature who introduces the autumn wind who then sings imperatives? It would appear to be Earth singing to the wind to scatter new seed, but it expands to "Living World".    We had a sense of yin/yang as the poem went on, ending light and dark with the fire and mud, and the fabulous laughter "like a cloud in trousers".  But who is the "me" that entreats the earth to bury her?  Is nature not also the poet and has it been her all along?  The poem is lush and one feels a chaste damsel, chased by an insistent wind, preparing for the next season.  This article sheds some light on the translation process  https://lithub.com/tracy-k-smith-on-translating-the-world-of-yi-lei/. Sadly the poet is no longer with us.  It would be so helpful to have her voice explain the sadness of "small gifts/laden with love's intentions" .

The Wise by Countee Cullen:   This site gives a lot of background to Countee's short life and role in the Harlem Renaissance. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/countee-cullen. How to understand the anaphor in the first 3 stanzas, "Dead men"and the change in the final stanza where it is not an adjective, but rather a play on "Strange" as commentary on men.   Should men flee the company of the dead, with their wisdom of how to bear the seasons, any emotions?   Or is it strange too long for their immunity to this?   On one gravestone in Mt. Hope cemetery, it is inscribed, "Now I know something you don't."  There is also an anonymous gravestone with only one word, "Then".    

Some One: Walter de la Mare.  As it was a few days after Halloween, I couldn't resist yet another mysterious poem, this one not as ghoulish as Cullen's The Wise.  The cadence, rhythm is something irresistible and reminded some of "The Night Before Christmas".

The Listeners: Walter de la Mare.  This poem stimulates and evades simultaneously the urge to impose a clarifying interpretation, leaving the reader as haunted as a lone house.  Who are the listeners?  Who is the traveler and where is he going, or is he condemned to navigating the world with no answer? What role do they play?  What is the story of the traveler that he came back to this house, and goes away because there is no response?  One feels a prior connection with the "phantom listeners", as we hear the "knock" become more forceful, as the traveler "smote upon the door" a second time... and even louder the third crying out "Tell them, I came, no one answered, /that I kept my word".  Who is them?  You need to read a few times the next 4 lines.  The one man left awake is the traveller.  

If (an extract) by Rudyard Kipling.  I felt this summarized our times... and a good conclusion to our discussion!