Holy Ghost by June Robertson Beisch:
It is good not to take oneself too seriously in navigating the complexities of life and a sense of humor is always a good tool for helping the process. How to understand the title with two loaded words that could refer to the Christian concept of spirit, or perhaps a ghost of something that was or is holy, or... ?
So, we started out with blithely reading the straightforward sentences in stanza 1 of this poem all starting with the definite article. We are clearly in a church and things that usually are not stated, such as the off-key singing, rambling priest and peeling paint, are not just setting a tone, but clearly familiar bits of reality.
Stanza 2 is introduced with the indefinite article for the wayward pigeon, and perhaps the glass is stained by something that is not creating a biblical illustration. The end rhyme of Key, Sacristy, and the solo line of stanza three, reality work nicely to contrast what is, and what shouldn't be. The eye-rhyme of cry, concludes stanza 4 with its humorous look at ushers and bills drifting lazily out of the collection baskets and the sound of a child who really would be best elsewhere.
The switch to a pithy message about the human wiring that wants so badly to believe in signs, and survives on the hope someone is looking out for us, reminded some of us of the Ukraine war, and surviving odds. This time, the stained glass feels different.
All seems a fine observation, aside from the enigmatic title which doesn't quite bridge the wayward pigeon's swooping as sign. And then we arrive at the but which starts the final couplet.
"You can survive anything if you know/that someone is looking out for you,// (stanza break)
but the sky... doesn't it look like home? I took out the stained-glass windows. Some thought of the astronauts looking down at earth in the inky black of the universe... some thought of sky as heaven, some tried to imagine sky as "framed" like a belief we want so badly to be true, but, what is happening here that undoes this scene (which doesn't look like reality)? Who is the speaker of the poem? And who are the intended readers?
Someone brought up the title of the book from which this poem appeared. God the father for fatherless? or abandoned daughters or girls who lost their fathers. What is meant by "it" and how does it look like home?
Such problematic, such frightful poems by Julia Musakovska, translated by Timothy Snyder
The lines are short, triple spaced so they hang in space, call for attention. Many could be grouped together, but no punctuation is given, every fragment equal whether is "belongs" with another line or not.
What is metaphor and what happens when they too fall to pieces? Who is "they" -- the dead children, those who were living just a day ago preparing meals but no longer, or the metaphors? You do not die of dehydration under rubble, shot in a car, so for what is dehydration a metaphor? Someone cited the news of Putin knocking out infrastructure so civilians have no water, food, heat, etc. Again was it the metaphors with colorful backpacks over their shoulders or others who tried to survive? Impactful, and calling those of us who are not involved, respectfully, spectators of this horrible spectacle. Powerful, impactful, heartbreaking... but you cannot finish such a poem and not soul-search how to respond.
New Town by Alexandar Hemon
This Bosnian-American poet captures the problem of "fitting in" -- whether an immigrant or whatever society that demands we be subservient to it. "Welcome... " yet shut out, it is an interesting spin on "Home Town" from last week -- those "nosy, incredible, delicious neighbors" will perhaps not want you around. The irony is offset with a play of pronouns. Who is "you", "they"? Can you read "disremembered" without thinking "dismembered"? The repeated opening lines as final say, have two slight additions and a change of pronoun: praise the good people, our kindness, and the last word, endless. One could say, this poem repeats what we know, but then again, some would say, we need to keep hearing it. Human nature will not change, but we do not need to defend and/or accept the indefensible.
We wondered why in the 5th stanza the poet added this idea: "If a man is liked by his fellow men, he is/ liked by God, he is rewarded in heaven. /His before-life shall matter to none of us.
It seems out of context with the rest. Is it merely another instance of the voice of the people of the new town? Those who will ask you to groom their peacocks (does this mean, kowtow to their vanity? or merely metaphorical peacocks as luxury items requiring a servant?
What collectivity includes "we", when this "us" is not treated as an equal?
[Again and again, even though we know love's landscape]-- Rainer Maria Rilke
Paul kindly read us the German. The sound of Immer wieder repeated feels different than repeating again and again... but for sure, this human propensity for repeating such things as war, for trying to avoid the unavoidable of death, and the not always perfect landscape of love... the "even though" (obwohl, or in the case of Rilke, ob wir), lovers do lie down together again and again, look up at the sky, which in German, Himmel, can mean heaven. Beautiful love poem... as well as thoughts of World War I, where "others" (anderen) end (enden -- so close in shared sound). It prompted a few references: "Joyce: caught an amorous couple under a weeping beech." If you google "Use of Sound in Shakespeare" you will find this citation: “All sounds, all colours, all forms, either because of their pre-ordained energies or because of long association, evoke indefinable and yet precise emotions, or, as I prefer to think, call down among us certain disembodied powers, whose footsteps over our hearts we call emotions; and when sound, and colour, and form are in a musical relation, a beautiful relation to one another, they become as it were one sound, one colour, one form and evoke an emotion that is made out of their distinct evocations and yet is one emotion. The same relation exists between all portions of every work of art, whether it be an epic or a song…” (Masson, 1953:219; Yeats, 1900)
It sounds very much like what Paul quoted. I teased about "Billy" with reference to "Robby" who coined the term "sound of sense". With all deference to Shakespeare and Frost! Paul also referred us to Austin Clark, an Irish Poet.
Fiction by Howard Nemerov
Given the discussion, one might conclude, what fun to consider the elevator, the circumstances and people! Certainly this poem provided ample invitations for people to share stories, whether taking an elevator in a crowded elevator in Asia. We also admired "the rapt and stupid look of saints/in painting" to describe the looking up at numbers. Much as the language play is obvious, it takes a strong poet to display such wit. One could ask, "does this poem have significance"? Indeed, not one to tuck into your pocket to read before a final breath... however, the title, "Fiction" will get you thinking about this metaphorical treatment of an elevator, and why novels are written. This had us embark on a discussion of prose vs. poetry... the former an ocean, the later, a cup of tea... however much filled to the brim with feeling. Why is some writing considered a "poem", but can easily be read as prose. We agreed, humor helps us break the ice... and the implications of elevator behavior where one's true character is temporarily suspended, was worth the time.
Our Valley by Philip Levine
Ada Limon posted this poem on The Slow Down mentioning that Philip Levine was her first very cherished poetry professors in graduate school. I'm glad I wasn't the only one to question her summary of "what this poem is about" . After discussion, we did indeed see how the poem could remind the reader of the "importance of awe". However, the question arises: does a poem need to have a point? a purpose? What arose in our discussion: noting the juxtaposition of "We" and "you", the first words in each stanza, where "you" in the third stanza could be an understood you. I love that the mountains are closer than we are in having a word for the "massive, irrational, powerful" feeling of ocean, and this admission that some might call the poet nuts for imagining mountains know everything.
We had a sense the poem could end at the end of the second stanza. That idea of a "huge silence we think of as divine" is embroidered and ends with almost losing breath because "you're thrilled and terrified".
The final stanza feels a distraction. We were glad to see the "worker poet" in action, calling on the men working their small boats, carving a living from the waves, themselves carved down to nothing. But this seems a different poem. How does it follow this description of a valley filled with hints of ocean?
Well... the title is "Our Valley". The final word, "our life".
Where we grow up, someone concluded, owns us. This poem captures that.
Paul provided us with a fabulous quote from Austin Clarke: Describing his technique to Robert Frost, Clarke said "I load myself down with chains and try to wriggle free."
Our fun is to examine the wriggles, and how they work with the chains!
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