I love, love, love the amazing sense of family that discussions of these weekly poems provide. Paul not only wrote me a funny email about "shaking the poems so all the punctuation fell out", but gave us updates on Judith, her Lollapalooza of a cold and Mary who is improving. We all left a singing chorus of Happy Birthday on the phone to Marcie who says, "That was the best birthday serenade! Please give all the O pen folks my very very best and a virtual hug next week."
But, onwards... a small summary of the discussion of these favorites-- both from local people who attended my workshop on 11/19 and from the American Academy who hosted favorites read by fairly famous poets. THAT list is here: Gather in Poems poems read as part of our annual celebration of poetry & community:
“Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo, read by Jennifer Benka“from The Black Maria” by Aracelis Girmay, read by Tracy K. Smith
“Dusting” by Marilyn Nelson, read by David St. John
“Sampling” by Ralph Angel, also read by David St. John
“Spilled Sugar” by Thylias Moss, read by Hanif Abdurraqib
“Amphibious” by Aimee Suzara, read by Sasha Pimentel
“Aubade at the City of Change” by Aldo Amparán, also read by Sasha Pimentel
“Cento Between the Ending and the End” by Cameron Awkward-Rich, read by TC Tolbert
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson, read by Dorianne Laux
“Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks” by Jane Kenyon, read by Marie Howe
“The Day Lady Died” by Frank O’Hara, read by Lloyd Schwartz
“In the Company of Women” by January Gill O’Neil, read by Marilyn Nelson
“The Idea of Ancestry” by Etheridge Knight, read by Juan Felipe Herrera
“Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa, read by Natasha Trethewey
“Offering” by Donika Kelly, read by Sumita Chakraborty
“Map” by Linda Hogan, read by Mai Der Vang
“The Chance” by Arthur Sze, read by Tina Chang
Young Man Picking Flowers by W.S. Merwin
How much can be said in 14 lines. Martin read it, and commented that he suspects it was written by an old man. Indeed... the circle of life is beautifully unpunctuated mirrored in a handful of flowers. We remarked the sensuous details: fragrance, singing; the way "he is no longer" sounds like a funeral oratory, as does "dew runs from them..." and "at this hour". But the lines does run on... and although no longer young, the question, as he is holding them, "is it the hand of the young man who found them only this morning" reflects back to the title, this sense of connection of our older selves remembering who we once were. As Marna remarked, this poem is healing, and gets you "out of your head". We did embark on a discussion of ambiguity, John W introducing the term "coy" for the unpunctuated enjambements. We all wished Kathy, who admires Merwin, were with us to lend her voice. We imagined her elaborating on the mystery created, and supporting Elaine who said Merwin was indeed "giving from his heart."
Friday Night at the Royal Station Hotel by Philip Larkin
Graeme read aloud his pick with his gentle Australian inflection. What a strong poem evoking loneliness, desolation. Graeme explained it resonated with him. He could smell the ashtrays, feel the loneliness of commercial traveler... Sounded like it might be the town of Hull where Larkin worked as librarian... salespeople called "travelers" in Australia. Elaine: sense of Larkin as introverted, quiet person.
Apparently Larkin had all his diaries burned on his death. The poem has a mysterious, almost dreamy poignancy. One senses the poet has been there, seen it, felt it. We admired how a poem can communicate mood, in this case as strong as if one had just lost lifetime partner.
Richard commented on the characteristics of light, contrasting with the first poem.
Mike (Poetry Oasis) noted the uneven rhyme scheme : chairs/declares; glass/pass; How/Now. The adjectives empty, shoeless, unsold emphasize an unanchored life.
Beeches by David St. John : listen to him read it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHHY6Znkg5E
We wondered if perhaps there might not be two poems here: the one celebrating the wonders of the woods. The other, introduced by the word, nostalgia (perfumed with misery!) carries him to the past, unlike the line following the stanza break, which says it Carries me beyond the past. Don't you think a period might come in handy there? Now the forest, sanctuary of ghosts leads him to play with "giving" as both adjective and verb. The way he reads the poem, one can imagine he means, "letting go". He repeats this procedure with "the old giving thanks". A thoughtful reminiscence, but not easy to follow.
John W recounted the sense of remorse as he faced the quadruple by-pass surgery. The sense of "I'm not done yet" which he associated with a feeling the poem evoked of possibly ceding battle, yet not giving up.
Memorizing "The Sun Rising" by John Donne by Billy Collins
We didn't have time to share this one. Light, tongue-in-cheek, but the Donne is indeed worth memorizing!
Pegasus Autopsy by Julio Pazos Barrera
Unusual... it works as a unit... One thinks of Icarus... and the novel Horse perhaps. The carnage of war. Pegasus, the "thunderbolt bearer of Zeus" on an autopsy table? John cited lines from a poem he wrote: In vain we scratch the skies trying to analyze the myth... (will need to obtain the entire poem...) The poem questions how we use images, myths perhaps. The stitching whose "motive, comparable to mercy" begs the question: is it the carnage of war or the carcass of Pegasus, the warrior horse who should have been immortal? The ending feels like a dismal conclusion. Volunteers? body, wings, (confirming Pegasus) to the landfill.
High Flight by John Gillespie Magee
Graeme remembered his grandmother cutting this sonnet out of the paper. Her son was a pilot in WW2. Richard remembered the speech of Ronald Regan after the explosion of the Challenger, and admiring the speech writer-- and delighted to find the source. Apparently used as a TV sign off. Powerful language indeed with a pleasing, but not too evident end-rhyme. How sad that the poet himself died in a crash of 1941.
Winter Scene by A.R. Ammons
Haiku-like and unusual to have the jay become leaf, with the final ambiguous word that could be noun with verbal quality to describe the quivering and breaking out of the branch into blue leaves.
Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks by Jane Kenyon
This poem could be a continuation of the poem above. What is the "it" in the title? Who is the "I" repeated except for one stanza? Does the girl who starve, keep on starving? This is no brief entrance or brief amount of speaking. To whom does the longest hair belong, and compared to which other? The poem offers more questions than answers as it presents puzzles of life resembling zen koans.
We concluded... "it" is the recurrent thought... the recorded life... finally apparent as life itself.
The Garden by Dorianne Laux
Why the title? For sure we need to imagine... and four times we are asked to do so... The metaphor of the doorknob is pushed to a new dimension, that only of preparing, to open the door. ) Eerie.
The Forge by Seamus Heaney
He provides us with a door into the dark... Who is "I"? The blacksmith is referred to as "he" and yet,
we are at the forge. It is unmistakeably described with an "unpredictable fantail of sparks" amid anvil,
horned as a unicorn, compared to an altar... and then we are brought back to reality with the slam and flick
of real iron, and work of bellows. Every word milks metaphor about what it is to live and work on this earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment