Song of the Shattering Vessels by Peter Cole
Fetish by Tim Skeen
the great escape by Charles Bukowski
Picture of the Sun by Molly Spencer
A State of Permanent Visibility by Steve Healey (sadly, we ran out of time to discuss this one.)
The poems this week seemed to toss us up between crests of waves of "now it's working" and cast us down into troughs of "now it's not". For sure we enjoyed the first poem and the refrain "Either the world is coming together//or else the world is falling apart" where each stanza's small twist would remind you that "hope is not a resting place, but a starting point — a cactus, not a cushion" to quote H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (on the back of the Environmental Defense Fund's Summer 2023 publication "Solutions").
Peter Cole:
It is not surprising that the title of the first poem, penned by this poet/translator, Yale Professor, author of five books of poems and many volumes of translation from Hebrew and Arabic, would have a connection to the Kabbalah. The "Shattering Vessels" refers to the mystical belief that the embodiment of God was shattered into "vessels". A slightly different version of the "great chain of being" where all is inter-related. As Bernie put it, it is like reading a "tongue-twister" for the mind... Elaine loved the fact that it didn't quote specifics, but a refreshing general take on the kind of specifics we hear in the news.
It starts with the world impossibly coming together/ very possibly falling apart... and continues to play with together/apart whether interior or exterior, statement or question, or subjective note of what might be true. The final reference seems to emphasize that everything (our perception, our experience, as the world "comes together" and our "knowing" falling apart) happens simultaneously.
Maura brought up the sunrise/sunsets she sees from her home -- how not only is that one point where a day "comes together" but is constantly shifting... and continues to happen as our Earth continues to rotate and follow its path around the sun. Herewith a picture she shared of last night's sunset:
(As she put it: "I was thinking about everyone and wishing they could be here to enjoy this with us. It would have made it even better!!")We discussed the possible meanings of "the Isaac of this art" . Isaac, the son of the impossibly old Abraham and wife, Sarah (Sarai), bears the name which means "laughter"-- indeed "what a funny, unpredictable arrival"... but there's also the more ominous part of the story where God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son. Fortunately, Abraham passes this test of faith, and an angel appears with a Ram to be sacrificed instead of Isaac.
Paul suggested perhaps the Isaac refered to Azimov and his futuristic tales with a slightly hopeful tenor; Judith countered with Isaac Newton and his scientific examinations. Perhaps the "taking apart" might also be poetry itself, as a means for "piecing the world together" as Naomi Shihab Nye proposes in an interview with Jeffrey Bean, the fabulous poet and professor who led the workshop I attended last week at Maine Media.
We all admired the title of the book of poems from which this one came: Hymns & Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations. © Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2017.
Drought Essay by Isabel Neal: (apparently has an awesome rating at University of Michigan where she is professor of creative writing.) We appreciated her note About this poem: “Leaning on prose’s visual density and its illusion of order, I have tried to consider how thought, grief, and desire might be ways of tending to the self—even when ragged, even when askew.”
even the cruel twins left the shed and pressed to look and touch the ear.
Its freak pearls, its cool thread."
Fetish by Tim Skeen
Lots of chuckles and fun followed this poem! I doubt I am the only one thinking we should establish a theatre troupe after Mary, Joyce, Elmer, Maura, Ken, Judith each delivered a stanza!
The epigram from Peter Lorre brought up quite the discussion of the movie M. Bernie supplied this review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-m-1931
Judith brought up the detail of hearing the theme of Papagano, bird capturer, his theme played (as girls are playing game... ). The poet captures the emotional grip of printing! Brilliant stanza enjambments enhance the rush, almost frenzy of the hunger of wanting more, more, more! Indeed, there is emotional meaning to each typeface...
the great escape by Charles Bukowski
Thank you Polly for continuing the theatrical delivery with a fabulous reading of this poem -- it's just so much fun to read aloud!!!! It reminded Maura of this New Yorker magazine cover
and reminded Judith of this Blue Grass song: take this hammer Lord. https://www.bluegrasslyrics.com/song/take-this-hammer/Picture of the Sun by Molly Spencer: This poem left us breathless starting with the homonym of sun/son, the line set up (longer line followed by an indented line; no stanzas, so a seamless confusion between the speaker of the poem (it all ended in 8th grade) and her son, age 7.
It reminded Judith of Shakespeare's Richard III (and that famous opening line, "Now is the winter of our discontent".) I forget which of the 21 of us said the poem reflected the three parts of our lives: childhood, (and the shorter and shorter period of innocence of contemporary children, inundated with information); more self-absorbed middle life and the return to a more childlike acceptance in older age (for those lucky enough to accept with grace the inevitable... ). God... and weather... where "global warming" is now referred to as "global boiling"... and this word "extinction" is on the tip of our tongues, not thinking ahead to the day the sun will burn itself up, but what we have done to our planet.
We could have gone on much longer to discuss this well-crafted and timely poem.
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