December 11

 Features of the Modern Age  by Ashley Steineger; Permission Granted by David Allen Sullivan; Southbound On The Freeway; Louder by Eric Nelson (inspired by The House on the Hill by E. A. Robinson); Relic  by Jennifer Foerster; That’s My Heart Right There  by Willie Perdomo;  If I can stop one heart from breaking -- by Emily Dickinson

It is Friday night, the day after Santa Lucia, a beautiful holiday that celebrates light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy%27s_Day  I was reminded of it by my friend from Sweden who was an exchange student in my senior year in High School. She and I had a long WhatsApp talk.   This has been a week of many such beautiful connections, including a poem shared with me this morning by a very special older friend.  

"When Will You Be Back?"

A poetry prayer for the 2d Week of Advent

Yesterday I visited an old man in the hospital.

I was not the only one. We talked on the elevator ride down—

Has he gained any weight? Will he stay in that room?

Does he like the food? Has he called?

All the man wanted to know was, When will you be back?

We ask that question in a thousand different ways

every single day,

our hearts leaning over themselves, bending to get closer to love.

We say, Text me when you're home.

Call me when you're free.

One more kiss!

I love you all the time.

When will you be back?

What we really mean is

I can't go through life alone.

Please don't let me go through life alone.

Poem by Rev. Sarah A. Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC / sanctifiedart.org

This is what poems allow us... they hold our hands, or perhaps irritate us, baffle us, but it is another person behind them who is sharing.  Last night, as featured reader, I listened to the 30 odd voices along with the poems by the other featured reader.  Such a rich sharing.  I haven't had time to process all I heard...

I know I will miss the two weeks when O pen does not gather in person.  

First things first... the write up of the discussion of the poems Wednesday then send out of Dec. 18 poems.  

Nutshell:

Features of the Modern Age:  The poetess is a holistic psychologist and joins many fine environmental poets in looking at our current state of affairs and writing with honesty to touch people so they indeed are shaken out of complacency. Indeed guilt and blame sabotage and are not helpful. It serves no purpose to go back 70-80 years and cry out Rachel Carson warned us with her book Silent Spring, just as it serves no purpose to cry out warnings to leaders who insist on wars.  I'm not sure who offered these words which sound like a blues song:    "Riven with negatives, we can still sing little songs as we face great sorrows."   Judith brought up Alvin Ailey's ballet Cry  https://ailey.org/repertory/cry composed in 1971.  

In response to the third couplet, (the invention of a word for the painful loss of dark skies, noctaglia),

Neil brought up light pollution and the example of the light dome in Phoenix.  In his words: "Phoenix, the tenth largest US city with a greater metropolitan population of over 5 million is typical of other huge dense urban sprawls with its large polluting light dome of nighttime luminance that obscures the night sky. The famous Kitt Observatory, over 150 miles away in the desert to the SW has to carefully adjust their scopes to avoid these light pollution flares.

Tucson, a city of about a million residents, is only 50 miles away from Kitt, but since Tucson has strict light pollution laws that prohibit light sources directed towards the sky, it does not represent the same type of night light pollution that Phoenix represents."

People shared insights on astrology and the vocabulary in the poem referring to astronomy, such as retrograde.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retrograde   This prompted quite a few references to Science Fiction, for example people live without sun, but know one day it will appear and they will be totally destroyed. I believe this might be it? https://medium.com/@digital.artistry.10/the-lost-sun-a-short-story-5483f7e84d0c

As for the poem itself, the title might provide insight to the mention of what is disappearing, but it is connected to the personal theme of our own death, and the unsettling thought that one will not be able to see the familiar constellation of Orion with those three distinctive bright stars for his belt where the mother pointed -- as reassurance, "when I die, that's how you'll find me."

(The myths and importance of Orion are fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion%27s_Belt)

It is unsettling to think the night sky will become a foreign text... the stars untranslatable words.  It might be a depressing note on which to end, but points to the limitations of our understanding and ability to guide ourselves in "blinding dark". However, it also does no good to keep our heads in the sand, or stop trying to understand our constantly changing universe.  Perhaps the old system of beliefs needs drastic revision. 

Permission Granted might beg the question: "why is it necessary and by whom is it given".  Clever and by the 5th stanza one arrives at the crux of the matter:  "Each beat of the world's pulse demands /only that you feel it."  The poet uses the technique of coupling unusual adjectives and juxtapositions, such as "See the homeless woman following/ (note the enjambment... the following is interrupted) the tunings of a dead composer?  There is a hopeful note of "following her down, (enjambment, this time as suspension enhanced by a comma) inside, ( the commas contain the space of line break and the word inside-- which gives a sense of vastness), where the singing resides. 

Bernie remarked how it reminded him of Mary Oliver, Wild Geese https://www.poetry.com/poem/123017/wild-geese

Participants noted the personal self-help advice in the 5th stanza... free from the shackles of guilt and the news.

Eddie commented how the poem seemed to be written bty someone distant from his/her family who has found peace within himself. 

Southbound on the Freeway:  was to provide a sequel to the poem last about the automated cars.  Here, there is a feel of a sci-fi premise and the human characteristics quite apparent.  One person remarked how enjoyable it is to read poems which seem to say one thing, but actually say another as well.  This is such a poem.  Discussion brought up more Sci Fi, Sinclair Lewis and the worship of the family automobile.

I first read this poem in 1963 -- it was fun to re-read it so many years later, actually, unsettling to see how accurately Swenson captured humans as soft, brainless guts whose machines drive them!

Louder:  I placed this side by side with the Robinson villanelle with its refrain "Nothing more to say" which haunted Eric Nelson. The haunting refrain of not being able to tell what is said, the imminence of death, the sense of being an outside all weave through.

Relic:  A Native American perspective on America, in a dream, which counters the myth "everyone can live their dream".

It helps to know more about the poetess: https://www.jenniferfoerster.com/ 

I believe it was Paul who started the song, As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there..."  and Judith brought up Bartleby and his refrain, "I prefer not to"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartleby,_the_Scrivener

That's my heart right there:  Elaine and I performed this as a duet... Blues gets to the point... and the repetition "right there" and rhymes with heart paint the power of love.

If I can stop one heart from breaking seemed to be the perfect antidote! 

December 4

 blake; Nálí, Her Solo  by Laura Tohe; Why Wouldn’t Autonomous Cars Cry at Night?  by Ryan McCarty; The Early Bird by Ted Kooser; Grading Rubric by Antonio de Jesús López; Two poems by M.J. Iuppa: https://thewildword.com/poetry-summer-mj-iuppa/ : God’s Eye View; Waiting for Nothing

Paul's comment:     "A Philosopher's overload, I'd say......McCarty's used cars, autonomously confused, rambling around over MJI's , "God's Eye View". Oh, the things that precurse the final understanding...."

  In the discussion, it came up how helpful it is often to know something about the poet. I always appreciate those who research the poets and add their background as further fodder for discussion!  For instance, knowing Antonio de Jesus Lopez is an activist and his poetry in his book Gentefication  addresses in the undertone of Gente, Spanish not just for "people", but a group, folk, dwellers... so not the usual gentry of "those who've made it" but specifically Latinidad success stories, and a whole system of "tokenizing" and survivor's guilt for those receiving scholarships and succeeding.  

 For those who are not familiar with Lucille Clifton, an important voice for 20th century, I hope you will read more of her work.  Clifton did not use capitals by choice, to challenge convention perhaps.  In a discussion of her poem, "won't you celebrate with me" the lowercase "i" in particular is perhaps a footnote to the challenges she faced  as an independent, confident Black woman.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69412/lucille-clifton-wont-you-celebrate-with-me 

Perhaps like me, you never had heard the name Laura Tohe.  You might be surprised to find out she is poet laureate of the Navajo Nation for 2015–2019, ( and Native American author and poet). She is a professor emerita of English at Arizona State University.  You might also enjoy finding out about Ryan McCarty, PhD, who teaches at University of Michigan, https://lsa.umich.edu/english/people/faculty/ryanmcca0.html.  

We are so fortunate to have such a variety of voices available in contemporary poetry!  I express my gratitude to all the journals, chance encounters and regular sources I consult -- and to all who offer suggestions!

NUTSHELL OF DISCUSSION

Blake: The title is the first word of the poem, and immediately one wonders if there is a specific reference to a poem by  William Blake, (1757-1827).  Polly puzzled if perhaps there were some relationship to Tiger Tiger burning bright, and Marna puzzled if perhaps there was reference to Blake's bird poem https://www.poetry.com/poem/39149/the-birds .  Jan mentioned Blake is a visionary poet which flavors this poem as well.  The once-mentioned "birds" is a way to connect writing (quill pens) and soul (angels) to address the hunger to create something.   It could be that Clifton is attracted to Blake's ability to be simple and direct.  Perhaps she has chosen "Blake" as the name of a fictitious black boy to express the difficulty of surviving racial exclusions, as well as  her acknowledgement of the fellow poet, who was not recognized as important in his lifetime, as she  searches to create her own poem.   

This beautifully crafted 11 line poem is replete with rhyme, slant rhyme, skillful enjambment, but also the  delay technique inverting the syntax so "they" is only revealed on the third line as angels, and the flight of words combining need, hunger the power of language to deliver hope and a sort of reckoning with who we have become.   The humility of asking for just one poem combines and contrasts with  sense of urgency  to deliver grace, knowing poems don't just fall out of trees.  It takes a visionary to find those angels ready to scribe. 

Nali: Like Lucille, Laura does not use capitals, but here, the title does not run into the first line.  The poet explains in the note that when her grandmother was creating something beautiful, whether the weaving or the notes rising, it was "like she was doing a solo".  This is a beautiful portrait that moves out of the poem, like music, as the Grandmother works her loom, her voicing of stories, patterns of stars and storm.  

The line describing the grandmother as  "storyteller and mathematician" prompted Neil  to draw a parallel with his interview with  the founder of the TED talks, Richard Saul Wurman, who observed the powerful convergence among three fields: technology, entertainment and design.  (He is also the author of a number of innovative books (several in my library), including "Information Anxiety" & an extremely clever ahead of their times travel tour books series under his "Access" rubric. Actually I think he may have used similar heuristics in assisting in revamping the San Francisco Yellow Pages. See the following reference...https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/access.html)

Why Wouldn't Autonomous Cars...  As Paul pointed out, the first four letters of autonomous are shared with automobile.  We enjoyed the rich alliteration and cleverness of the conceit addressing our loneliness and emptiness.  The ending is a sad but accurate sign of the times.   Perhaps cars indeed live in a parallel universe and need to cope with their vulnerabilities as we do. One person remarked  how complete an antithesis this poem is to the Laura Tohe one.  What are we caught in here?  We need to go back to the loom! 

On the brighter side, we enjoyed sharing names we've given our cars... and Mary remarked on the fun of going to a car show, where indeed, you feel the personalities and fashions of each vehicle!

The Early Bird:  Paul mentioned the couplet form invites a "mix and match" of possibilities, but however you combine the lines, Kooser works sound and story... the "wooden-pulley" notes of the early bird... the "bucket of dawn".  I like that part of the "work" given to the early bird is to "let us drink" from this heavy bucket its notes help draw up.  There was a little ambiguity about the final "drink", perhaps an implied celebratory beverage... or simply rainwater, or metaphorical refreshment of dawn.  Then again,  "letting us drink" could mean  those drinking (he doesn't specify what)  don't have to bother with singing up the dawn.

Grading Rubric:  How do you weight trauma?  Comedians know how to balance cleverness and pain, which this satire does brilliantly.  Many played with the math... For the first category, "Formal Essay"  it is variable:  if you pick 55%, and include "In-Class" and "Participation", it makes 100%.  Then again, if the Formal Essay is 65%, to make 100%, you need to eliminate "Participation".  There is no variable either way in the participation category.  

It is clear the student is finding ways to defend him/herself "In Class".  Pun on class as well.  All of the rubrics are diminishing to the immigrant child.

Poems by MJ Iuppa:  All three end with a slant reference to her battle with cancer.  The rhythms, alliterations, sounds combine with keen observation.  Seeing not only what is in front of her, but in the future in God's Eye View spells out what we tend to avoid talking about -- or simply don't want to see.  The thick pewter clouds set the tone.

The title, Waiting for Nothing could be understood as not needing to wait for anything... or uselessness of waiting, or not to count on expectations, which the poem confirms.  The slowness and stillness, the implied snail with its "silver signature" contrast sharply with the sudden rain.  Her humility is generous and invites us to adopt her mindset.  Who is anyone to say anything is over?  This is not the same as don't give up, or keep up the courage.  Life, death, and mystery of life continuing.

Turkey Tail: apparently reputed to have a curative effect on cancer.  But so is admiring the beauty of this beautiful mushroom exquisitely described.  

As Mary Oliver says, "to pay attention -- that is our endless and proper work." MJ echoes this, urging us to look closely.  One day we won't be able to. 

NO MEETING NOV. 27

 Attached two things:  One, the announcement of the concert by 5X5   DECEMBER 7 at 7 pm 

and a  brief reflection on the poem Table discussed yesterday with a picture I took in Switzerland.

Wishing everyone the positives of sharing goodness,

Reflections

"A man filled with the gladness of living/put his keys on the table..." 

-- Edip Cansever, translated by Richard Tillinghast

Perhaps you have seen such mystery— a lake offering

a table, and in it, everything can be reflected —

the sky, the bright ball of sun playing a game

with the  clouds,  offering a pale dot

of blue in the reflection?

Everything,  meaning, mist suspended 

as it reaches to wrap the mountain

kissing two of its waterfalls,

and only a hint of human 

in an empty house 

where perhaps people 

put their keys down, with no need

for locking things up, and everything

has a chance to breathe freely. 

Everything, meaning the wanted as well

as the unwanted, hunger 

and fullness with room

for piling on even more.

Now that's what I call a table! 

Wouldn't you?

**rewrite below without the marvelous poem:

Reflections

 

Perhaps you have seen such mystery— a lake offering

a table, and in it, everything can be reflected —

the sky, the bright ball of sun playing a game

with the  clouds, offering a pale dot

of blue in the reflection? 

 

Even if not, even if you have never seen such a lake,

cannot see this picture of mountains rising above

a lake in a V, reflected in a lake, in a reverse V

making an hourglass, 

                                    even if you cannot see 

mist suspending its wrap in the mountains,

hiding a kiss of two of its waterfalls,

 

imagine the lake as a table that never runs 

out of surface, able to hold everything

and its opposite, able to hold emptiness,

abstractions, contradictions and all

you have lived, deepening 

reflection. 

                 You might ask, why bother?

The lake knows about weather, the dance

of wind and cloud with and without the sun,

first and second chances.  If you pause

to tap into the peace of a moment it is offering,

it is akin to an infusion of what some call grace.

 

poems for November 20

 Neil shared this comment:  “I think there’s a kind of desperate hope built into poetry now that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there’s still time. I think that’s a social role, don’t you? ... We keep expressing our anger and our love, and we hope..."  He shared "Heading Out",(4th poem slated for discussion) and photo by Peter Ralston, a photographer from Maine, entitled "Still There".

Poems: excerpt from Passwords, a program of poems by William Stafford (1991)[1]

Table by Edip Cansever,  Translated from the Turkish by Richard Tillinghast https://stratfordcrier.com/the-poetry-corner-table-by-edip-cansever/;  Airborne Hope by Vivian Huang; Heading Out by Philip Booth;  On Being  by Ruben Quesada; Condottiero (The Warlord) by Mary Hood (Ekphrastic response to Leonardo da Vinci, Antique Warrior in Profile, c. 1472); Hummingbirds  by Campbell McGrath; Mockingbird by Louis Jenkins

   

Nutshell: 

Passwords:   In this day and age, it isn't always easy to connect in a "safe way".  Stafford suggests that poetry offers us a guideline for communication.

Table: Just the title can flip from noun to verb, from concrete physical structure to an abstract place for mathematical concepts.  The opening line sets the scene and as one person says, "tells you all you need to know" about how to fill up with "gladness of living".  It starts with giving up keys... opening up to receiving and sharing all that abounds.  Although the poem is in translation, it would be hard not to imagine that the words in Turkish sound as theatrical as they call on all the senses starting with "light",

then sounds, then textures like the softness of bread, and weather.  Life is not totally good things -- and this man understands not to be exclusive, adding what hasn't happened yet, and desires, quickly followed by those he loved and didn't.  He anthropomorphizes this table, a sort of  implied companion, and projects his approval that it can hold so much, stay so firm in spite of the unending arrival of more things piling up on it.  We appreciated the humor, the tone.  Depending on your mood, you might sense a still life created by someone in old age, where all the objects congregate --a record of life before the end, which indeed will happen.  A funny association:  the "horizontal surface syndrome" -- how some "spread out", but one senses, this table knows no limits for "holding" whatever comes.  There is no mention of teetering vertical piles, or objects being pushed aside to make room for new arrivals.  Endlessness is on the table, arriving after the mention of the window next to the sky.  But the ending offers a reassuring metaphor underlying the eternal strength of the table, able to bear whatever life offers.  

Airborn Hope:  A "contrapuntal" poem, not just to read in three parts (horizontally, in 2 separate columns) but one person pointed out the fun of "crossing" the ocean of the white space, and going from line 1 in

column one, to the last line of the 2nd column.... followed by line 1 in column 2, going to the last line of the first column.  Why not?  

Eddie offered insights into the implied crossings an immigrant faces -- the China left behind, the China remembered and painted for a generation who will not know it; the idea of America some who do not leave have, contrasting with those actually living in America.  A beautifully rendered crossing of physical, emotional and psychological oceans.   As this young 15 year old poet confirms, "I have the freedom to push beyond what is conventionally perceived which challenges me to add a new perspective to recurring themes in modern society."

Heading out:  An end of life meditation, beautifully crafted and supported by line breaks, enjambments, alliterative effects, metaphors which carry both physical and internal meanings.   Judith was reminded of G.B. Shaw by the metaphysical overtones. https://literariness.org/2019/05/07/analysis-of-george-bernard-shaws-plays/  The more we give away, the more we have... It is not whether we resist, but the how of our resistance.  Like "Table" which can handle everything, the question is no longer needing to "give in" or "give out."

On Being:  as if a continuation of Heading Out,  but more ambiguous and difficult.  Who is the I ?  Is the speaker of the poem driving?  a passenger?  a pedestrian?  We felt the sounds, especially the sibilance which mirrors California smog was quite effective.  Who indeed has turned/this image around?

And who is looking into the mirror?   We didn't feel the comment about the poem on the Slowdown was terribly helpful or provided insight.

Condottiero:  the literal Italian is "Antique warrior".   The Ken Burns special on Leonardo da Vinci came up.  If this portrait were not called "Warlord" might we feel different about it?  Who is he -- as a man?

Some felt he is stupid, others, handsome, others, grumpy, others still again, a rival for Apollo.  What a great  assuredness of tone.  She starts with hammering in the physical  description, then levels him off, belittling his pouting lips, his soul-less eyes: attributes of a mercenary life, as the poet coldly puts it... " based on contract   killing for money."

Hummingbirds:  Much silence after reading this and a crack at a joke about New Yorker poems, which seem to be related to the issue, but on their own, difficult to understand.  The irony that indeed, everything changes, the difficulty of how we perceive things like the moon, with its stages of waxing and waning, and yet it is still the same moon might not have much to do with a hummingbird.  As Elmer pointed out, Hummingbirds do not share.  Ever.  Are light and night interchangeable?  And what does the ocean have to do with this?

Mockingbird:  In contrast, those especially from large families could relate to how differently family members remember a common experience! 

---

[1] Passwords: A Program of Poems is a collection of poems by William E. Stafford that was published in 1980 by Sea Pen Press & Paper Mill in Seattle, Washington. The edition was limited to 60 copies, printed on handmade paper by Suzanne Ferris.  The selection above is dated 1991 and used by Kathleen Wakefield as introduction to a workshop

Poems for November 13

 Smoking Ceremony by Hemat Malak; Things by Lisel Mueller; Elegy for my 1958 Volkswagen by Ruth Bavetta; Safety Pin  by Valerie Worth; Nuthatch by Kirsten Dierking; The Lost Garden by Dana Gioia; Oh, y’know, just your standard Q&A by Alex Z. Salinas; Practice by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Nutshell of discussion: Many of the poems seemed to address the theme of loneliness, letting go, and how we relate to things.  

Smoking Ceremony: Without the note, you might not have noticed that this poem is a villanelle with a slight variant, and indeed, it provides an example of how form can embellish meaning.  The initial prompt was to write a villanelle that mentions your favorite season.  Fall is the ideal season for thinking of things passing away, of transitions and here, the idea of a "Ceremony" honors years which like autumn leaves, are burnt, almost like a ritual purification, to allow for Spring.  The repeated "smoke" and "sighs" moves through a progression to describe a sigh: it is thick; it chokes; it bursts into a thousand bubbles, and finally becomes flames to bless.  Woven in the alternate end of stanza rhyme of goodbye, (singular)  fireflies (plural) this is accentuated by the singular "A" end rhymes:  firefly, sky, dry,  (singular in the first 3 tercets) and butterflies, eyes, prophesize (plural in the last 3 tercets) providing concrete terms in the first 5, as if to provide "ink"  to shadow or echo for the description of the smoke.  

Further repeats: mad to madness (twice),  which rhymes with bless and the slant rhyme of arsonist/artist.  Curious that "mad firefly" on the first line, becomes made two fireflies on the last line of the 4th tercet, with a "slant eye-rhyme" between mad and made.  The "u's"  curl, hue, burst, bubble contrast with  the hard /k/ in smoke, curl, crackle, cleanse, canvas, mistake, ink, sink, (twice: once as noun, once as verb) pink, drink,  with the inner "B" end rhyme shifting in the final stanza to spring. Alliterations abound: the f in firefly, comfort, fall, flames b of bubbles/burst  the ch of choked, children, the th in those (years) together, thick; the st of artist/arsonist, (2) mistake, starburst, toast, the l in smelted, love, left, bloom, bless.

Such work with sound imitates a sense of unspoken grief of what is not carried on, or as Judith brought up with Jane Austen,  those letters one tries to burn but cannot.  Many of the 24 participants nodded in agreement, facing the problem of sorting and tossing out a lifetime of photos, souvenirs, letters.

As for the title, Smoking is rife with context  could be an adjective, as in smoking hot, although unlikely, and perhaps evokes an image of smoking a peace pipe, but seems to imply a sanctifying  smudge ceremony.  The poem elicits any number of situations involving grief:  perhaps a divorce, a death leading the reader to observe and participate in a cleansing ceremony which indeed honors "the smoke of years".

Things:  (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53133/things-56d2322956d0a In her inimitably frank manner, Lisel spells out how humans tend to anthropomorphize and foist our human attributes and self-importance on concrete objects like clocks, chairs, tables, shoes, bells, pitchers, bottles, only to move on to larger universals like country,  an implied sense of religion in "what is beyond us"  and abstraction of safety.  There is so much "mythology" and superstition attached to things, children learn, like "step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back".  In the poem  there is also an added hint of things as being part of a whole, and implication of the Ding-an-sich, the object as it is, independent of our way of observing and representing it. Delightful poem, rather tongue in check, but comforting.  The mouth of the cave made some think of the beginning of time.  The final stanza also evoked the sense of  "passing on" leaving behind an imperfect world.  We discussed at length how humans try to control by ascribing meanings, and how metaphors can be useful as persuasive devices especially dealing with the negative effects of politics.   I couldn't resist writing a poem back to Lisel, which I shared. (see below)

About Things

a small conversation with Lisel Mueller's poem, Things 

 

The clock started weeping, tears 

trickling towards the numbers

circling its face

 

and the chair broke

unable to support Gramma's back

and even the table's legs

seemed unable to support

the weight of the  tons of books and magazines

on its sagging surface.

 

As for the wagging of those tongues

inside the church bells, the ringing

is likewise in our ears from too much

noise, although statistics show

those who indulge loudly in generous 

amounts of it served in local bars

from generously-lipped

pitchers, seem unaware

of the din.

They go on 

no matter the length

of the bottle's neck.

 

We thought we could pass 

into safety, pass on

useful lessons,

understand how to see

eyes of hurricanes, 

believed in hearts 

of countries, especially. 

 

The thing is, things, no matter

how beautifully personified,

have their own slippery way

to pretend to offer just

the right substitute

for the missing word,

the thing, in itself, 

only for itself, not us. 

-- Kitty Jospé

Elegy for my 1958 VW:  So many wonderful memories and stories came up from this delightful poem which provides an echo to Lisel Mueller's "things".  How do we make sense of life?  The poet concludes there is only what is, and what has been.  Her descriptions certainly provided the colors, sounds, inconvenient and loveable characteristics of "the people's car" with a great sense of humor -- especially those "bowling shoes" which found a place with the 7 bags of groceries, 5 kids, the neighbor (mind you, friendly), 2 dogs.

Safety pin:  a relatively recent invention, like a coat hanger, this poem provides us a novel way to think of this useful object.  There were a few stories of how "safety" pins, are not always "safe"!  This one sentence poem in one skinny column ends with an apt implied metaphor of how we look at ourselves.

Nuthatch:  Starting a poem with "what if" immediately invites our imaginations to set to work.  We wondered how the poet came up with the idea of this poem and why a Nuthatch.  What drove her to write it?  Does she want to be alone?  Does she long for another living being, but just not people?  Interesting fact: the Nuthatch is a songbird who goes down a tree trunk headfirst.

The Lost Garden:  Instead of "what if", this poem starts with a rather melancholic, "If we ever see those gardens again"... Immediately, we are transported to the past, perhaps walking in Versailles and imagining the glory of the court of Louis XIV, the "gracious acreage of a grander age".   Gioia adds a mocking bird,  the delicious detail of "so many trees to kiss" quickly followed by "to kiss or argue under" to embroider the possibility.  The contradictory, "what pleasure to be sad in such surroundings"  is given the space of a stanza break to absorb the meaning, only to drop down to a qualifying fragment:  At least in retrospect.  

The poem is evocative as well of the book The Secret Garden and Judith brought up the scene in Cocteau's Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) where Beauty, in her long dress, mounts castle steps strewn with dead leaves.  The only end-rhyme in the poem, 2nd stanza, "describing someone else who shares our name",  with "game" hints at romance gone awry. It brought us back to the first poem, Smoking Ceremony ending with "the trick is making  memory a blessing." 

Oh, y'know:  Rather like regular conversation, not an interview, it is an interesting portrayal of a self-absorbed person asking him/herself questions, with a shadow self sketching his/her portrait in reply.

It provided a contemporary context, with hints at equality, sexuality, shopping malls, tourism, and where in all that is beauty, any truth or honor.

Practise:  It seemed to me to provide a sequel to the interview above but directly applied to grief.   What do we practice, in terms of habits, faith, attitudes?  How does this change when someone or something dies?   The "you said" gave us a sense of the person writing trying to honor someone who passed away, honor their words, but unable to do so.  In the face of loss, what do we still believe in? 

 

Poems for Nov. 6

 I highly recommend the Fall/Winter issue of the Journal of American Poets.  It is chock-full of inspiring messages such as this: "With poetry, you're never alone.  You're never starting from scratch and you're always mingling with a lineage you've yet to comprehend fully. With poetry our time becomes mutual and bearable. We hold each other up in times of grief, and times of joy." The Bruschac poem below appears in it.  We may have discussed the Al Poulin poem before which is on Poets Walk -- to see links to all the poems and stories on this Rochester treasure conceived by the late Joe Flaherty, founder of Writers and Books: https://mag.rochester.edu/walk/  

Poems: October Nor'easter by Marge Piercy;  Refugia by Traci Brimhall; Taking Stock  by Elaine Equi; The Cane  by Joseph Bruschac; The Angels of Radiators  by Al Poulin  (founder of BOA Editions, another Rochester treasure in the publishing world.)

American Academy Reading 11/7:  You can replay the reading on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4G3LW4vDzo.

To revisit the poems shared this evening, visit our digital program book here: https://poets.org/gather-poems-2024.

 

Line-up of poets reading poets:

Ricardo Maldonado (current Pres. and Ex. Dir. of the Academy)  reads “Shoulders” by Naomi Shihab Nye (one of our favorites!) 

**Carolyn Forché reads “On Living” by Nâzim Hikmet

Joseph Rios reads “They Won’t Find Us in Books” by Willie Perdomo  (his friend and mentor)

Diane Seuss reads “The Miracle of Giving” by D. A. Powell

**Andrea Gibson reads “The Church of Michael Jordan” by Jeffrey McDaniel

**Robin Walter reads “Wait” by Galway Kinnell and “I Belong There” by Mahmoud Darwish

Tracy K. Smith reads “Carrowmore” by Lucie Brock-Broido

Tree Swenson reads “Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon  (Tree designed the cover of the book. Also President & Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets for 10 yrs before

Jen Benka who recently retired after 10 yrs in this position. Jen reads “From  **‘Elegy in Joy’” by Muriel Rukeyser and “job prescription” by Evie Shockley

Patricia Smith reads “Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege” by Joseph Fasano

avery r. young reads “VOODOO V: ENEMY BE GONE” by Patricia Smith (another Chicago native).  Avery is Inaugural poet laureate of Chicago.  He sings. 

Robert Hass reads “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman

one comment in chat: Uncle Walt bring us home…remind us of who are still at our core

 Ricardo Maldonado: ​​This poem is a vision -- a prophecy, an aspiration

see line 83 Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,

age of photography.  You are the film;

great or small you furnish your parts towards the soul.  (final line)

 

**

Comment from Tree Swenson: The academy feels like home... Reading a poem, feels like coming home.  

**

Blog Notes about poems discussed Nov. 6

I didn't particularly PLAN a program poems which offer hope, however, given the nature of human beings, their politics, I was grateful to be reminded how hope is essential for survival. 

 I started by reading aloud a quote from MLK : “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?"  

I also referred to Alison Luterman's Poem, Holding Vigil: https://www.rattle.com/holding-vigil-by-alison-luterman/.  We are living in a time some might call one of vigil :

 Nutshell of discussion:

 

October: If you are from New England, you know what kind of storm a Nor'easter is.

Neal noted that Marge Piercy describes the weather the way a sailor would, fully understanding the violence.  Elaine picked up as well on how it "ripped" in the vocabulary, the rain turning to scimitar, how stripped and bare to the bone we feel. From storm, to self observation one senses an older person looking back, with the added touch of the enjambment between the 3rd and 4th stanzas, grabbed// at what chance offered.  The end offers a surprising new association of "hard", unlike the hard as granite (rain) in the first stanza, or using days hard in the third.  Now hard is juxtaposed with  "where love rubbed sweetly".  

Elmer brought up another poem by the poet, A Work of Artifice where the "could have beens" of a bonsai, crippled by the art  also provide a surprising twist at the end. http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/marge_piercy/poems/19228

 

Refugia:  The title demands your attention, and indeed, you will be rewarded by this definition: an area of relatively unaltered climate that is inhabited by plants and animals during a period of continental climatic change (such as a glaciation) and remains as a center of relict forms from which a new dispersion and speciation may take place after climatic readjustment.

Brimball shares what she loves, but in the context of "discovery".   What things did you not notice/know you love?   Not only does she love unusual words like skirling which refers to the shrill wailing sound of bagpipes  and gravid which from Latin gravis, means "heavy" but  also has the figurative meanings of pregnant: "full or teeming" and "meaningful", but she also  "verbs" nouns, and gives us instructions on naming groups of animals.  Elmer informed us that normally a group of buzzards is called a wake,  but it is indeed one of the three names for vultures[1].  I noted in the poems the comment from Major Jackson in the Slowdown: "Today’s poem knows some environments awaken us daily to the wonders. Maybe that is paradise — a place of first permission to go on loving the world."

 

We appreciated the sense of stillness, sense of sanctuary, and the delightful, unusual, but apt oxymoron of "the hopeful ugliness" of cygnets.  3rd stanza:  I'm not sure the legs of insects only tested  n's and o's (in her book), but again, an unusual way of noting two letters usually indicating negativity.  How refreshing her use of color in the 4th stanza, the bold, bare blue of an afternoon, the white of ecstasy at its edges -- followed by the enjambment of lyric// bending me

over its knees which enacts the gesture!  Her skill continues, wrapping us up to notice with her, and reconsider how we really feel about living things like wasps.  What in the natural world allows you to know you love life... watching survival at work?  It is easy to write how we love the moon, but to love tomorrow's moon, not just visually, but connecting it to scent it coats raises the level of affection and reinforces hope.   Driptorch in the penultimate stanza brought up commentary of positive effects of what looks negative.

Elaine R. brought up as compliment to Brimball, the fabulous poem by Nazim Hikmet, born 1902 and recognized as first "modern Turkish poet", Things I Didn't Know I Loved :    https://poets.org/poem/things-i-didnt-know-i-loved

 

Taking Stock: This poem exercises a skillful cleverness that seems comfortable with contradiction and allowed the discussion to entertain thoughts on what is involved with thinking,

whether rational "brainwork" or introspection and how it relates to understanding intuitively through our other senses.    Curious how English has two words for sight, (see vs. look); touch, (physically tactile and emotionally moving); hearing (auditory perception vs. listening).

What is the role of a label?  How does it help or hinder living?  Eddie brought up the sense of primitive rhythms of the 4th stanza, the iambic heartbeat and placement of the repeated Hearing

as "bread" holding the repeated feeling and solo thinking.  Neil brought up the first sound a baby is aware of: the mother's heartbeat in utero! 

How much is choice involved with selection of labels?  How else do we identify?  The poem shares an intimate insight of how the poet is Taking Stock.

 

The Cane: Kathleen brought up her connection to the poet, Joseph Brushac, Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs.  His website will provide more information on the way he gives voice to "marginalized people, amplifying their wisdom and stories"  https://joebruchac.com/. 

We definitely felt the strength of Native American tradition where the word condoled is used, selecting the next chief during the time of condolences for the one who has passed.  The cane,

symbol of wisdom, tool to guide us, help us balance —something to lean on passing on words

to young teens who lean on them as they shape their own journeys and memories.  Beautiful poem where one does not need capitals, punctuation, stanzas as you feel your way, voicing each word just like the cane of the elder, speaking to all of us.  We all walk our paths, and profit from the support and guidance.

 

Angels of Radiators:  Old fashioned radiators still exist, and many shared memories of how it used to be to keep a house warm in cold weather.  The juxtaposition of a personalized furnace with celestial references is humorous: it fails like heaven, its water turning to steam as grace runs out, the angles of rooms unlit, cold, waiting for the cold, white, silent, dead angels to activate.   Mary who read the poem added her touch of humor, saying, sitting in a cold draft of the room, the poem "warmed her up" !  Indeed.  All of us could feel the pure spirit of those radiators singing -- and dancing wild allelujahs warm as spring.

It reminded us of Robert Hayden:  Those Winter Sundays which I read aloud. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/those-winter-sundays

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Kettle: A group of vultures in flight; Committee: A group of vultures resting in a tree or on a fence post

Wake: A group of vultures feeding on a carcass