Wednesday:  With 21 in the room, there was a buoyant vigor in the room!

Poems:

 

3 from Musical Tables  by Billy Collins:

Headstones, Poetry Collection and Dictionary Wanders

At the Market  by Lori Romero

Retirement  by Monica Sok

Fanny Linguistics: Nickole by Nickole Brown.  I wrote the the PoemHunter to tell them to fix their site which attributes it to Patricia Smith.

From the Stone Age: by Alice Corbin Henderson  : see February 15-6: discussed then

Carmel Point  by Robinson Jeffers  (see : https://www.torhouse.org/)

The Moon Is in Labor  by Gail Wronsky

** Discussion:  

Billy Collins:  light-hearted humor regarding his short poems-- and immediately, there seem to be so many stories to tell... whether "gradual starvation" mean loneliness, or as advice before marriage to be sure one of the couple knows how to cook and teach the other... or s in Poetry Collection, to wonder just what is being muttered and by whom.  Without the title, it could well be a commentary on those passed over by society.  With the title, the question of who collects what and for whom becomes equally complicated.  As for the Dictionary Wanderings, this prompted Judith to share Ogden Nash:

The Lama by Ogden Nash

 

The one-l lama,

He's a priest.

The two-l llama,

He's a beast.

And I will bet

A silk pajama

There isn't any

Three-l lllama

At the Market:  the wonderful stanza break after And suddenly

was filled with "I'm hungry"!  Indeed, the description of vegetables and fruits, the verbs "planted" for vendors, and that growers" forest" the pathways with greens and lavendar, customers compared to bees give a vibrant life to a market scene.  In contrast, the second stanza with the "bag lady" captures a small act of kindness (small man, large slice of Ginger Gold) and the "rest of us" seem to shrink like shrink-wrapping the freshness and their selves.  How to understand the "bawdy/salute" in the ritual is as "outside" the scene as the lady...  The unexpected turn at the end unearths a truth about the sweetness that often lies hidden.   

Retirement:  The note about the poem is reassuring and offsets the shock of the threat of estrangement from the open line.  The play on the word "temples" as both the father's head and the projected pursuit of monastic life underlines the skill of this poet to look at what is involved in the intimacy of a father-daughter relationship.  It reminded some of us of Li-Young Lee's poem, The Gift.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43010/the-gift-56d221adc12b 

Fanny Linguistics: Nickole:  We had quite the merry-go-round on Wednesday imagining that Patricia Smith wrote this as a persona poem.  Patricia who is black indeed is a gifted and powerful writer and I can't wait for her Blaney Lecture to be available!  https://poets.org/academy-american-poets/programs/blaney-lecture.  So is Nickole who wrote a collection of poems published by BOA entitled "Fanny Linguistics. Fanny is indeed the Grandmother of Nickole, and there is nothing about butts involved.  What fun to give a letter arms, legs and a "broom-handle spine".  If you google the names,  Latonna Lee et all, you will learn they are real,  Southern gals.  Many  of us struggled with the /k/ of cold, coal, coke, scoop of coco.  Sure, possible reference to drugs, but that comfort of sweet cocoa, and the safety inside is the inner essence of Nickole, beyond the K in her name.   A great poem and as Judith reminded us as we debated,  "Don't let theories get ahead of the data" quoting Sherlock Holmes: "I have come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data."  Let's hope that PoemHunter answers my email to explain their misnomer!

From the Stone Age : was discussed on February 15-6:  Reading it again, since it was posted again, not just as a worthy poem,  but on the teacher site, "Teach This Poem" we were struck by the persona of the rock.  Being one with the universe... Maura brought up Robin Kimmerer's suggestion that we not call an animal with the pronoun "him, her, it" but "ki".  The plural:  kin!  The discussion included mention of Navajo stone monuments, a sense of astral connection.  Again, Maura mentioned looking up at the current "parade of planets" and how distressing to see so many blinking lights of airplanes at the same time. The notes from February follow at the end of this blog.

Perhaps it was coupling the poem with Carmel Point that the discussion felt an inspirational pull in the lines:  "It does not matter how small te space you pack life in,/That space is as big as the universe."  What is it to be stone?  to speak as stone crafted as a God?  What matter the name?  That K in Nickole? 

The first line of the Jeffers poem throws us into a stone age!  The extraordinary patience of things.  Interesting to see how he uses the pronoun "it" -- does it care? It has all time... It knows the people are a tide... as opposed to "us".  If only this poem had been heard to help un-humanize, un-center from ego, profit and greed.  It is hard to see over-building and encroachment on the wildness he loved and was once part of  Carmel Point.  Jeffers was an important prophet for "Ecopoetry"  (how curious prophet sounds like profit... ) and Kathy brought up a recent volume of such:  Can Poetry Save the Earth https://www.amazon.com/Can-Poetry-Save-Earth-Nature/dp/0300168136  The discussion included information about Adrienne Rich's reaction to Jeffers and the very wise advice to us all:  "A writer writes about what is important to them.  Leave off all criticism about it."

At Rundel, we spoke about ambivalence-- how many of us truly would give up the convenience of our gas stoves, our warm houses?  And now a good century into roads and cars, how can we organize ourselves ? 

The Moon is in Labor: Perhaps we were tired on Wednesday and felt this was one of those "interesting poems", but no cigars awarded.  Rundel enjoyed it.  Interesting way to think of the moon... and lovely use of pretending (3 times), often associated with the moon.  Two meanwhiles bring in the contrast  (friction?) with male energy.  A hint of a molotov cocktail... lip service about caring about injustice, and I'm not quite sure about the "curved horns growing out of my ears".  As for "furious", totally not convinced.  Can we trust the poet? 

FEBRUARY ENTRY ABOUT From the Stone Age:   (written in April 20, 1918)  Perhaps one could read a self portrait from stone.. and one thinks of Michelangelo liberating what is inside a stone to become a magnificent sculpture. Does this poem ring universal, although written over 100 years ago?  Southwest flavor? Some felt a flavor of ancient sculptures such as those in  Aku-Aku.  Humans have forever tried to "get at the truth", tried to "do good" , created religions, made statues to venerate what's important.  Like the Kay Ryan poem, there is a sense that there SHOULD be abrasion, like water carving stone, and here a voice from the past, speaking to the space and time which we try to define....The discussion was rich including references to Oxymandias, to Robin Hobbs' story of the king's assassins, and perhaps some Navaho flavor.  The title, gives a sense of pre-historic, and second line probably does not refer to the iconoclasm practised by taking power away from a statue by disfigurement, as the statue is speaking, and "forgets what it was meant to represent".

In some ways, it feels like a description of alzheimers... the body there, life moving through, "space, volume, overtone of volume" with the curious comparison to "taste of happiness in the throat" (associated with chords of music in line before?) which you fear to lose, though it may choke you. 

Poems:

3 from Musical Tables  by Billy Collins:

Headstones, Poetry Collection and Dictionary Wanders