Poems for Jan. 25-6

 I recommend this review of John Lee Clark’s book: How to Communicate: https://www.pw.org/content/ten_questions_for_john_lee_clark .   You might also enjoy listening to this interview: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/segments/poet-john-lee-clark

You will see in this week’s selection, an example of a creative form of poetry he invented inspired by the Braille slate.  Also in the selection this week, a youtube link to see as well as hear Ilya Kaminsky read his opening poem from the Deaf Republic which took 15 years to write.  This week, I only share the first poem intended by Kaminsky to serve as a wake-up call; to prevent people from reading “Deaf Republic” as a tragedy of elsewhere. Deaf Republics, with their hopes, protests, and complicities, are everywhere. We live in the Deaf Republic. 

Good background material on Ilya Kaminsky: 

https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-with-ilya-kaminsky/

This interview tells you about him, his growing up in Odessa, his view of what a poet is and much more. 

Poems discussed

Slateku by John Lee Clark

 from Dancing in Odessa (2004) by Ilya Kaminsky : Author's Prayer; Dancing in Odessa; the final poem Envoi is from the third sequence, Natalia

I include a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva , I Know the Truth by Tsvetaeva (1915). Trans. by Elaine Feinstein to better understand Ilya's poem Marina Tsvetaeva  by Ilya Kaminsky

We Lived Happily During the War by Ilya Kaminsky  (from Deaf Republic) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/video/151644/ilya-kaminsky-reads-we-lived-happily-during-the-war

Nutshell discussion!  Indeed, it was lively and I need help recording all the thoughts that were flying, albeit, as ever, offered with an august amount of compassion. 

Slateku: 5-3-5-10 !!! A new form!  The braille slate has 4 rows of 28 cells each... and John Lee Clark thinks of it as "writing forward in a different direction".  Some of these Slateku only Braille readers can appreciation, as Braille is full of characters, contractions, words that are the opposite of each other -- and palindromes!!! 

We enjoyed the 4 short pieces.  : The first, good parenting advice...  Rose Marie explained about AG Bell in the second, how he was "villain" because of his insistance on oral methods only, no sign language-- but out of concern that Deaf not be excluded... The third, ADD... seemed to have parallel with touch... and emotional feel, what is "flicked" away... and the 4th with Japanese Sign Language, a playful "pull down a string/to greet each other in a new light".

Author's Prayer:  Meditative.   The idea of speaking for the dead... the insistence on affirming his presence (yes, Deaf People can do plenty! is everywhere between the lines, both lightly playful, and reckoning the unfathomable complexity of life with its light and dark.  We felt this to be an invitation to the reader to see the world his way.

Dancing in Odessa: title poem.  Striking images... Many commented-- "I love this poem, but I don't know why".  We recalled Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry" -- that the idea is not to tie the poem up to a chair and beat it until it finally explains itself.  Are these two of the nicknames for a Jew : "Angel", "He has no name"?  The line and stanza breaks reinforce layers of meaning.  The repeat, "Yes, we lived.// We lived, yes, don't say it was a dream."  And yet, the ghost ship, the memories,  and the haunting ending couplet:  "I retell the story the light etches/ into my hand.  Was this a poem written after returning to  Odessa?   What is silenced, what speaks and the emotional reaction of return is emphasized. One person felt the poem completely transparent.  Another, completely opaque.  

We spoke about Odessa, the mentality of being in a warm place, albeit with some criminal ingenuity; 1/3 of the population Jewish; so opposite from St. Petersburg.

I Know the Truth:  Written in 1915,  active revolutionary Marina Tsvetaeva levels both barrels of her gun!  I love the translation of the last line of the first stanza which could be that "poets, lovers, generals" are addressed, and asked to explain what they are saying, OR, that poets, lovers, generals are the subjects of conversation.   Most translators would choose, "the wind died down", -- but it could have been a sound consideration of the translation for "level/wet/dew".  Tragic universal and eternal truth of the final two lines.  We all will all (perhaps metaphorically) sleep under the earth, i.e. die; but all have a hand in not allowing a peaceful sleep for the living.

Marina Tsvetaeva:  Ilya's response, perhaps not to the above poem by Marina, but her mythic stature.  Dream reappears.  Some of us wondered how he came up with the final two lines.  the poem is in tercets and could have ended with "all I want is a human window" but he goes on, line break, stanza break...  "in a house whose roof is my life."

We lived Happily During the War:  we listened and were captivated by his reading.  The video is a must see with each word appearing as he speaks it.  The repetitions, enjambments, are powerful as is the parenthetical (forgive us), like Elizabeth Bishop in her poem "One Art".  "The Art of Losing is not too hard to master/ though it may look like (write it!) /disaster.

What tone does this opening poem establish  and lead us to expect in the pages to come of this little book?  What helps lead you to pin it down?

Alone, by itself, the poem is a powerful commentary on America, the Vietnam War, but also about human nature... how it is, we can live "happily" (well-enough, in spite of circumstances) while others suffer.  

Books mentioned: Mark Twain in Odessa...