Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins
What it Must Have Felt Like by Ada Limon
Redaction by Reginald Dwayne Betts: his poem Untitled; painting by Titus Kaphar, Alternative Endings II
Palimpsest by Georges Bilgère
The Body Remembers by Yusef Komunyakaa : to listen: https://poets.org/poem/body-remembers
Scroll down to end to see "Little Ode to Rochester" by Garrison Keillor
Nutshell:
Spring: Some indeed might label this sonnet an "annoying study of alliteration" especially in the rush of lush, thrush brushed... However for a capture of the feel of the exuberance of Spring, this Jesuit priest does a magnificent imitation of this season, replete with all five senses singing, scenting, infusing it. The octave sets the stage replete with thrush as both noun and verb. This bird's pale blue eggs on earth, perhaps mirror the "descending" blue of heaven. And what is all this juice and joy? The discussion covered the idea of Eden, suggested in "sweet in the beginning" , the fall, with sinning, perhaps Mary, (always in blue) as mother of Christ. Is the mention of "innocent mind" and "choice" perhaps imploring Christ to help them choose the Christian way? Religion aside, for sure, one senses rebirth, a freshness that we associate with the season.
Kathy kindly provided this link to Gerard Manley Hopkins: https://hopkinspoetry.com/
What It Must Have Felt Like: Another flashback at what was once. Here, instead of wild timber rinsing and wringing the air, we have the darker "u" in muted, quietude, ensue, loose, overdue, the silence of dumb. This was one of 19 poems commissioned by the NY Philharmonic to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment. https://nyphil.org/whats-new?tag=Project+19 All the poems here: https://nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/publications/1920-Project19-PoetryBook-2
That aside, this 17-line poem is a mini-biography of Mexican-American poet, Ada Limon, our current National Poet Laureate. We appreciated how imagining the "chaos, should a wing get loose" released an increasing "overdue"and unstoppable burst. The image of the "dumb hourglass" with its white sand "yawning grain by grain" allows a visual contrast to the verbal energy of the consonants -- what cannot be contained, indeed, cannot be contained.
As Joyce put it, the image of "hatching bird" supports the "coming out of her shell expression. Some of the images without the context (line 2, protruding from the sleeve; line 7 "wing", and later, "state's cage") were difficult to understand.
Poem, Untitled with painting, Alternative Endings II : Part of a book of poem/painting response: Redactions. (Editions) which confronts the abuses of the criminal justice system. First exhibited at MoMA PS1, the fifty “Redaction” prints layer Kaphar’s etched portraits of incarcerated individuals with Betts’s poetry, which uses the legal strategy of redaction to craft verse out of legal documents. Three prints are broken apart into their distinct layers, illuminating how the pair manipulated traditional engraving, printing, poetic, and redaction processes to reveal what is often concealed.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324006824
If you didn't know this, and only read the poem, the skillful handling of "collective nouns" produces a shiver of ominous foreboding. We spent some time looking carefully at the artwork. (if on computer, you can enlarge the painting to see the detail of the cracked vase, with a scrawny branch with a few sad leaves protruding... a bit of purple wool handing from the LH shrouded finger. They look perhaps like KKK outfits, but over hanging bodies, whose feet do not touch the floor.). What is the alternative ending? The woman, in a fine dress, has a gun in her lap. It reminds me of Kehinde Wiley taking people off the street, and having them dress up as historical figures. But here, it is not the celebratory, "Oh my! You are a work of art, let me paint you." This is a grim and mysterious portrait. It reminded some of the feel one has looking at work by Hieronymous Bosch.
There are many layers... the desire of a tomorrow... craved for like a child wanting one more story-- is called hope. It makes you wonder if the girl has lost her parents...
What are other nouns that we don't have in our lexicon -- like a collective noun for all the people you love? Does abundance work? The linking from noun to noun, growing larger and more and important, then finally addressing the word for the antithesis of murder. And if incarcerated wrongly for a murder, is there a word for that?
As for the "murder of crows" : this folk expression comes from the actuality of a "flock of crows who held trial to judge members of the flock. Those found guilty were executed. Yes, murdered.
Just as there may not be words for some things, it seems fitting that it is hard to find words to respond to this poem.
Palimpsest : I only gave one of the two meanings: yes, 1) a ms or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing, but of which traces remain.
The second meaning: something reused or altered but bearing visible traces of earlier form.
Examples of the MAG show, Striking Power and iconoclam came up; also Hagia Sophia, which changed back and forth from Christianity to Islam several times.
The breeze, easy going irony of Bilgere describing a summer morning on bike in Berlin, with the intent of having a picnic and his dismissal of the spray-painted Juden Raus on the statue, first outlandishly complimenting himself on retaining his German (echo of this WW2 motto also retained in present times), his mock sympathy for the spray-painter doing this... and what really is the point ... only to further irritatingly and pompously say the point is the picnic... Only a slight allusion to the "bad last century still bleeding into this one... "... and that haunting use of the word "illiterate" with meadows -- a far cry from any classical understanding of Elysian fields. We talked about the play Deaf Republic, where indeed, even in war, or violent circumstances, people still fall in love, have children and want to give them something hopeful. And what of that child? How do we protect him?
Carolyn brought up visiting her sister in Germany and on a tour, the feeling of being suspended between Germany before the bombing, and after... Can we ever stop hatred ? War? How should we respond to violence? With blind eyes, deaf ears?
A few more thoughts. Sometimes we are so startled by something, we don't know how to respond. What moves people to display such hostility? It does not promote whatever they "believe in".
The Body Remembers: If you go here, https://poets.org/poem/body-remembers you can hear Yusef say this poem and read this note: “‘The Body Remembers’ sprung out of my memory of swimming in a creek in Bogalusa, Louisiana, in the 1950s when the entire culture was still segregated—especially in any joyful display of the body. However, we boys often took risks and, coming back to that past stitched with youthful energy, perhaps our bravado was fueled by a public dare. Such a moment of play is full of celebration, especially during the months of July and August. But also, there is a reality to our naïve recklessness—and there, in the danger of such moments, we learned to come together as brothers.”
We did bring up the fact that Yusef Komunyakaa was a soldier in Vietnam, and indeed, the poem could evoke a souvenir of that war. However, it really is a childhood memory.You might want to hear him recite a different poem: Rock me Mercy: Rock me Mercy about Sandy Hook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mp3fjl16o
We were sensitive to the crafting of enjambed lines, alliterations and the paradoxical "baleful hope" as if hope itself were threatened... and this idea of the young that they are invincible... until ruined for life by cruel accident. The poem moves like a film, leaving us like the last sentence, uprooting
what's to come, the shadow of the tree/weighed as much as a man.
The end question of how we remember, what we regret, what feels missing, gone forever is powerfully evoked. Indeed is easier to remember pleasure// or does hurt ease truest hunger?
**
In order not to end on such a sad note, I read aloud Garrison Keillor's Little Ode to Rochester.
Little Ode to Rochester -- Garrison Keilor
As I walked out on the streets of Rochester
As I walked down by the clinic one day
I saw an old cowboy dressed in white linen
I could see he was old ‘cause his hair had turned gray.
“I can see by your outfit that you are a doctor,”
He said to me quietly as I walked by.
“Please take a moment and hear my sad story,
I am an old cowboy and I don’t want to die.”
I’ve been having headaches and sometimes I’m dizzy
I’m always exhausted and that is no lie.
And I can’t remember if it’s Thursday or Friday
Or who’s in the White House these days or why.
Could it be a reaction to certain food additives?
Or a lack of vitamins, or maybe the flu.
Or maybe my spine needs a very slight adjustment
Please help me doctor, what should I do?
The doctor leaned down and he took out his stethoscope
He listened for a minute and then he deduced
From the sound of the gurgling in the heart of the cowboy
That his mitral valve had come loose.
He was put on a gurney and shipped into surgery,
They opened him up, took a nip and a tuck,
And sewed him back up and shipped him to ICU
And there he awakened to his very good luck.
It makes a better song if the cowboy has perished,
And his comrades carry him in a coffin draped with black,
But this cowboy’s grateful to be among the living,
And I thank my heart surgeon, Dr. Thomas Orszulak.
He is a cowboy who loves riding his Harley,
He’s a fly fisherman who ties his own lures,
He tied up my heart so it beats with the best of them
And here is a song from my heart to yours.
