Poems for Feb. 28

Poems:

Planet Earth by PK Page; Lullaby by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha; Manhattan is a Lenape Word  by Nathalie Diaz; Body's Ken by Simon West;  Solace  by Kim Addonizio

sent with March 6-7 poems:

- two translations Neruda's Poem "In Praise of Ironing" which triggers the glosa by PK Page.  

- a link to PK Page reading her glosa:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWFTFE8Icf0

- link (and time) to the Nathalie Diaz poem.  More notes about her in this week's selection.

- link to Japanese "crows and trees" (art and poems)

- the Breton Fisherman's Prayer by Winfred Garrison referred to in Lullaby

**

Nutshell:

Planet Earth:  A glosa is a Spanish form from the 15th century  where a borrowed excerpt of 4 lines  from another writer  is taken, called "the cabeza" or head is followed by usually 4 ten-line stanzas each with 10 syllables per line.  In Page's poem, there are only 34 lines and no stanza breaks, however, she weaves in each of the 4 lines taken from Pablo Neruda's Ode,

"In Praise of Ironing" (translated by Alistair Reid.)

We remarked on the highly sensual quality of the poem, especially touch.  Many many anecdotes and memories were shared about laundry drying outdoors.  If you didn't know that "goffered" means to "crimp the lace edges of a garment" -- or also emboss a book with a repeated design, this is yet one more type of "ironing.  Judith gave us a lesson about starch and it's clean odor.

We also spoke of the exhausting work of old-fashioned laundresses  (do look at the three 19th century French paintings of them, one of which is the idealized version by Bouguereau. (You might enjoy comparing paintings here: https://eclecticlight.co/2017/08/20/a-womans-work-2-portrait-of-a-laundress/

Alla remarked on the metaphorical "warp and woof" which supports a highly intimate knowledge of the weaving that goes into muslin, which of course is underscored by the hands "caressing" or the "coaxing" of a  lover.

Apologies.  O was missing on the 9th line. 

Polly added a humorous note about taking the poem literally, as moss does not stand cleansing! 

Lullaby: The repeated opening line, although using the lulling of repetition, says the opposite.  As poet  XJ Kennedy  remarks, "tone makes an attitude clear.  The effect of poetry on us, lies in our emotional response."  Certainly, there is an unsettling of "cradle-fallen", razor-edged waves; upturned fish, trenches of our silence.  What brings us to shore, grounds us,  is in the final stanza, devoid of this repeated phrase, "We cannot carry you" .  It is our desire for things smaller than we know; a strong vessel to lift our children to tomorrow, a pair of small shows pressing into the sand.  As the note about the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye says, "Remembrance, identification are timeless gifts of poetry."  People remarked that the title allowed coherence and we appreciated how the poem carries and intimates much more than the words we read.  

Manhattan is a Lenape Word:  Lest we forget... The use of an actual car siren, the ancient Greek Siren song and the voice of a Siren in the poem combine to make us think about what was on land before it was colonized, before we began to construct the modern cities of steel and glass.   "Where have all the natives gone" reminded us of Pete Seeger, "Where have all the flowers gone".  Judith remarked on the mica that makes Manhattan's sidewalks glitter... and the very special light particular to it.

We spoke of injustice to Indigenous people.  Paul remarked on the repetition of bees. 

Body's Ken:  The Scottish "Ken" or knowing.   This poem appeared in the Slowdown and is from a contemporary volume, Prickly Moses:  Poems by Simon West.   

This was the preamble by Major Jackson: IIhttps://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2024/01/30/1052-bodys-ken

There is something old world-ish, magical in the sound, in the repeated "so", which can be both a narrative quality that allows a story to unfold, carry forward  as it continues, but also, a sense of "so it is the nature...) 

We saw a little laundry repeat  from the first poem in the "crease of things" .

Solace:  apologies again.  Yes, there was a period after the final word.   Interesting progression from "pine tree, crows"  after a statement about art, "which sometimes can enter/through a sliver" to "split tree, crow's cry tore".  Nice use of using the noun "trellis", something normally stationary, as a verb.  The long O sounds resound, and indeed, if the coat thin, a torn pocket all that is left of love, there is something consolatory about the sound of a blue canto, the sight of a split tree when solo and the ear

"found an oar" and I rowed.  

 even hear thresholds, as when a jazz quartet plays a suspended moment of held notes before the soloist improvises away from the opening melody and into a freedom of sound.

This is where realms of existence are palpably felt, where physical and spiritual worlds meet. Recently, upon landing in Ireland, I took a spontaneous drive to Newgrange, a 5,000-year-old tomb of mysterious power. The Celts refer to such thresholds as “thin places.” The Bakongo people call it the Kalûnga line, a watery boundary between the spiritual and the living. 

Thresholds are fundamentally lyrical. Important transitions in my life prove as much. Whenever I am faced with life-altering decisions, I hold the past alongside the uncertainty of the future. That tension powers both ambiguities and revelations. Poets thrive in that energy between knowing and not knowing. They attempt to convey a sense of awakening by marking language and their experiences and thoughts as memorable, as sacred, while honoring the conditions that urged them into song.

Today’s poem spotlights the rich space where language fuses and ushers in the prospect of a new relationship between objects and lived experiences. even hear thresholds, as when a jazz quartet plays a suspended moment of held notes before the soloist improvises away from the opening melody and into a freedom of sound.

This is where realms of existence are palpably felt, where physical and spiritual worlds meet. Recently, upon landing in Ireland, I took a spontaneous drive to Newgrange, a 5,000-year-old tomb of mysterious power. The Celts refer to such thresholds as “thin places.” The Bakongo people call it the Kalûnga line, a watery boundary between the spiritual and the living. 

Thresholds are fundamentally lyrical. Important transitions in my life prove as much. Whenever I am faced with life-altering decisions, I hold the past alongside the uncertainty of the future. That tension powers both ambiguities and revelations. Poets thrive in that energy between knowing and not knowing. They attempt to convey a sense of awakening by marking language and their experiences and thoughts as memorable, as sacred, while honoring the conditions that urged them into song.

Today’s poem spotlights the rich space where language fuses and ushers in the prospect of a new relationship between objects and lived experiences.

poems for Feb. 21

 At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border  by William Stafford ; Cuscatlán by Zoë Anglesey; Trust by Thomas R. Smith; Any Kind of Light by Beneth Goldschmidt-Sauer; Without Name by Pauli Murray; Yes by William Stafford;  To The Stone-Cutters by Robinson Jeffers; The Virtue of Trusting One's Mind  by Marcia Slatkin

Discussion:

Stafford: At the Un-National:  We started by focussing on the unusual title and the negative impact of "un" which in fact reverses the negative implications of wars fought in "national interest" or the poignant but tragic implication of tombs for "unknown" soldiers.  There is much "unspoken" about a field in which a battle did not happen, where a soldier did not die, and ground hallowed by neglect as opposed to the tributes to those who sacrificed their lives on "this hallowed ground".   In the title, there is a sense of "cut the bullshit" as Graeme put it.  

The quiet of birds, without sound, unfolding their wings is provides the background for peace, and that final paradoxical line of not needing to remember a place that is associated with battle.  Many comments about battles of Saratoga, of 1812, of the Canadian border where a neighboring country sheltered many Americans who refused to be drafted in the Vietnam war. 

I cannot do justice to the richness of discussion of this poem which reflects both Stafford's pacifism and his respect for nature, where harmony can breath.  Here a small sampling : the unusual image of "grass joined hands" , the use of the adjective "hallowed".  Earth and sky, and the final lines which rhyme "air so tame", and celebration of a different kind of burial, of war and all its un-named horrors.  There was an anecdote of a grandfather speaking to a grandson about a battle... concluding, "I can't remember what the victory was about."  Another anecdote ending with "you know how Americans are... " and the irony of nothing sacred only desecrated. Elaine picked up on the description of a peaceful place where one would want to be.   

Cuscatlán:  The title is the name of a place located in what is now El Salvador and if you look it up you find it means land of precious jewels. The poet,  Zoë Anglesey traveled there, in 1968,  understood the country, was a translator, poet and activist who died too young of cancer.  see https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a258a1e0abd04962c1cae34/t/5f84989c147e743111519c55/1602525342012/Zoe+Anglesey--E+edits--for+Ishmael+Reed.pdf

Taking the word in Spanish for chicken, the poet plays with associations, such as "smallfry country" and not "deep-fried chicken" but the way pollo and a peaceful country should be : unplucked and alive... The adjective "crated" applies to fresh eggs (which brought up a memory from Judith of watching uncrated eggs being carried on a bicycle in crazy traffic),  but returns in the sound of crater and perhaps metaphorical implication of living on a "crater's edge", and delivery of a crate of bombs. 

If you are going to throw eggs... put them into painter's tempera!  The discussion noted the vibrant vitality of description from the crazy swerves of drivers through mud-washed, potholed streets, street vendors, and taste of tamales swaddled in banana leaves and secrets of the grandmothers who stew chicken.   

I thank Jan for pointing out that to her the "flying truck" was one going way to fast, out of control, as opposed to my initial understanding of an airplane.  

One person pointed out how beautifully the poem captured a sense of life going on, where one tiny snapshot of a moment shows the immensity of "everything".

Trust: I immediately enjoyed the reversal of "for a yes or a no" starting with the second line...and following Stafford's  use of negative"Un-national", the "theft that could have happened but didn't..." and in the second stanza the description which would lead you to think nothing could possibly work out, and yet, everything indeed "shows up at the intended destination", like the wind "getting to where it was going" and the river, even when frozen.  As Richard noted, whatever the "right place" is, "right" can change.  The final couplet is a refreshing reminder of how "faithfully life is delivered".  I can't think of a better thing to trust!

Any Kind of Light: This is not an easy poem to grasp.  The title re-appears, re-arranged sliding off an enjambment from second to third stanza:   into light, any kind.  Whose voice is "your voice" in the opening?  What implication of the words spoken, repeated at the end by the lamp?  Three times, "you" implied, three times "dead", written in three different ways.  

There is almost something cinematographic "Watch what happens now", but also surreal.  This enhances the impact of the question in the third stanza: Why don't they stop? Stop. How to read that second "Stop."? 

The layered use of repetition, and overriding metaphor given in the note about moths drawn to light perhaps does not need the note from the poet about "indictment of damage we have done to our planet, or relationships".   Some picked up on violence, implied domestic abuse; Judith brought up the use of "Okay" as slang : does it interfere with the tone of the poem?   Is it acceptance?  Re-definition?  Something is clearly not "Okay".  And cannot stop.  That "suck of incandescent night" even sounds like a monstrous swallowing up.

Without Name: Again, negatives well-used.    Little pockets of inarticulate, wayward wandering.  Although Frost considered poetry as a tool  as a means to "momentary stays again confusion" the ending line of the first stanza summarizes a frightening unsettledness.  The final three lines indeed reassure  If language is muted, love not named but only shown in images, this amplifies it, as Major says in the note, "love and desire echo into a future without end."

Yes: It is special to hear that someone actually heard and saw Stafford reading this poem as it corroborates its "realness"!    Yes is only 3 stanzas.  The note below references his writing reflecting a similar thinking.  Although I couldn't find when he wrote "Yes", it is very much the kind of thinking of Paul Celan, during the Holocaust in a concentration camp, writing about the beautiful.  The "bonus" of possibilities if you just take one moment at a time of whatever is.  It could be the absolute worst thing... and no, there are no guarantees, nor need for proof of anything.   We were reminded of "Trust".

To the Stone Cutters:  This poem reminded Polly of watching stone cutters in Italy working on the roads, cutting pieces so pavement fit perfectly.  Carolyn brought up calligraphy, and how Roman Letters were originally only Majuscule.  For the complete transcription of the comment from the "Slow Down" https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2024/01/23/1047-to-the-stonecutters. The Morgan in question is one of the listeners of this broadcast.   

We had many takes on the poem, including the cutting of tombstones, carved words.  There are two kinds of marble, words cut into the cheaper "soft" marble will not last and become indecipherable.  Those carved into "hard" marble will remain.   The "honey of peace" in old poems brings us full circle to how we remember, what is created in a monument.    Polly brought up Virginia Elson.  I did find this poem. https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1983/10/252-4/132591815.pdf

Judith brought up the marble beauty of the Taj Mahal, and how one gazes at it in wonderment and discussion included also commentary from Mary McCarthy: from her 1959 "Stones of Florence" -- "Even the pictures in the Uffizi  had grown ugly from looking at the people who looked at them."  https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/oct/07/art.art 

The Virtue of trusting one's mind:  I confess... I added on the last two stanzas~  I was intrigued by Slatkin's poem... not quite sure what the title had to do with the goats. We did have many comments about these animals... attempts to compare the quieter, more stubborn insistence goats might have to temper tantrums of children.  What does this have to do with trusting your mind?

Polly brought up the idea of prayer.  Before bed, like the goats, you fold your legs by your bedside and recite "Now I lay me down to sleep".  

Judith brought up the Bicameral mind and Kipling's poem about two sides to his head! 

The Two-sided Man

Much I owe to the Lands that grew -
More to the Lives that fed -
But most to Allah Who gave me two 
Separate sides to my head. 

Much I reflect on the Good and True 
In the Faiths beneath the sun, 
But most upon Allah who gave me two 
Sides to my head not one.  

Wesley’s following, Calvin’s flock, 
White or yellow or bronze, 
Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok, 
Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze -  

Here is a health, my brothers, to you, 
However your prayers are said, 
And praised be Allah Who gave me two 
Separate sides to my head !  

I would go without shirt or shoe, 
Friend, tobacco or bread, 
Sooner than lose for a minute the two 
Separate sides of my head 

Not there for 2 weeks-- February

Poems discussed Feb. 7:

Never love unlesse you can  by Thomas Campion; Thanks, Robert Frost  by David Ray; Peace and Rain  Zoey Sheffield (age 6); Leaf Removal by Al Ortolani; The Virtue of Trusting One's Mind  by Marcia Slatkin; Monarchs, Viceroys, Swallowtails by Robert Hedin; and two poems he translated: THE CODFISH by Dag T. Straumsvåg; NOT BY CAR, NOT BY PLANE Olav H. Hauge.

"Poetry forges a compassionate pact with the world and, like all enduring pacts, it is one that in the end sustains and confirms–the poet's life, ours, and the great healing powers of language."

~ Robert Hedin https://www.roberthedin.com/

 

This site gives you a taste of his poetry: https://www.roberthedin.com/examples.html

Poems discussed Feb. 14:

A hearty thank you to Barbara for choosing and moderating! 

The Snow Fairy by Claude McKay from Harlem Shadows, 1922; What Kinds of Times Are These? Adrienne Rich; Handbag by Ruth Fainlight (born 1931) First Thanksgiving by Sharon Olds; Eating Together by Li-Young Lee from Rose, Boa Editions; First Snow by Mary Oliver, When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver,  Feeling the Way by Julie Hartwig (tr. By John and Bogdana Carpenter, 2008

Apparently it came up that poems should be read and discussed on their merits first, and whatever ethnographic background of the poet might distract from this. Graeme offers this interview for further discussion: https://substack.com/@deanobeidallah/note/c-4960178

Ruth Fainlight:  Handbag:  sense of smell, noted... and does this changed knowing on her website she says," I am a poet who is a woman, not a woman poet." Most writers perhaps are uncomfortable if readers expect them to represent whatever particular group they happen to be in. 

Poems for Jan. 31/Feb. 1

 Considering a position as a new planet: Ronda Broatch; Poems by Rolf Jacobsen, translated by Robert Bly, Robert Hedin, and Roger Greenblatt taken from:  The roads have come to an end now : selected and last poems of Rolf Jacobsen (2001) 839.821 J17r

Apologies for a few typos:  p. 2: last stanza of Guardian Angel: I am your third arm    p. 3: Last stanza of Memories of Horses: Capital I : In huge trees.   p. 4: The Fireflies: 4th line should have a period after plane tree.  Capitalized next sentence:  It was then...                 Breathing Exercises: typo first line:  If you go out FAR enough; omission of "out" in last line of second stanza.  Omission of last line:  two words introduced by the em-dash:  —of yourself.

Nutshell:

Considering... 

This poem in the shape of a crescent moon, allows the reader space to imagine floating through space, indeed, considering not just position but this idea of a "new" planet.  The form reminded Judith of  "The Mouse's tail" http://bootless.net/mouse.html, the shape poems of George Herbert (1593-1633) such as “Easter Wings” and “The Altar,” written in the shape of wings and an altar and the E.E. Cummings poem Pity this busy monster, Manunkind https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/pitmonster.html which ends, listen: there's a hell/of a good universe next door; let's go.

We all chuckled at the mention of "banished Pluto", enjoyed the toe/hold and other line-breaks and the seemingly impossible choice either exiting our solar system, or drawing closer to our sun.  The light touch of slant rhyme in ellipses and skipping, suggestive doesn't support such a dour consideration of position,

although wither, shivering, banished  certainly are scarcely reassuring.  Perhaps the hint of short i in ascension, suspension, revolution, rivals the long I in silent, and rise. 

The title has a novel twist on "position", as in viewpoint.  

Poems by Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994)  He is one of Scandinavia’s most distinguished poets, who launched poetic modernism in Norway with his first book, Jord og jern in 1933.   One senses a perfect match between the translators and different aspects of this fine Norwegian poet in the above-mentioned book, with poems selected from books dated 1935, 1951, 1954.   Perhaps I gravitate toward poems that seem to give reassuring kisses from angels, and indeed, in the poems I selected,  his images and way of looking at the world restore a confidence in some spiritual bond between all living beings in the natural world.

Translations by Robert Bly

Guardian Angel: 

The image of an angel "putting my mouth against your heart" is one none of us could ignore.   The Norwegian munnen translated in this poem as mouth is translated in the next as lips, but in both cases seems connected to a depth of spiritual breathing.   In the final stanza, how does Jacobsen means "white shadow"? And why can we not accept it?  Is it that "heavenly" shadows, unlike the dark ones on Earth, is something we cannot believe in?  However we understand this, there is this sense of presence, whether or not we are lucky enough to perceive it, that hits us in the middle of the day, makes us so "fantastically" happy... It will never abandon us... "it can never forget you."

—When they sleep:  the em-dash in the title matches the last line, as if an offering of a breath, a prayer.  Can you imagine if we could speak to each other this way?   Very reminiscent of these lines:                    The Sandman comes, the Sandman comes

Child, will he visit you tonight?

He comes beneath the pale moonlight

The Sandman comes

It is curious that he uses the pronoun "they"-- as if there is a distance between "us" and where we might want to be.  "If only we could speak to one another then" -- and then the lovely final prayer that implies a wish for this "language of sleep" to be part of our state of being.

Snail: Lovely evocation of the delicate relationship of one small creature, not just carrying his house on his back, but the music he respectfully offers as he "kisses the earth". The book The Sound of the Wild Snail Eating came up again. https://www.elisabethtovabailey.net/

translations by Robert Hedin: 

Are they waiting for a star:  We sensed a continuous movement in the poem as the clouds go through "the wind's doors".  The comment about how different languages and landscapes provide us with very different ways of looking at the world came up.  We don't say, "mother is shaking the pillows" when it snows as in the tale of Frau Holle when she shakes the feather bed. 

There is a poignancy in that final line... Here the wind is preparing this lovely resting place... the "they" here, being the clouds, waiting for something that will make all "right with the world."  Is that not what we do as humans, with our fervent requests?  We look for redemption, answers, but have no idea about "these guests/who never come".  

In Countries Where the Light Has Another Color:  

I mentioned the marvelous book by Ed Yong which goes into how animals use their senses: An Immense World  https://edyong.me/an-immense-world

The discussion revolved around the magic of color perception and how each place has a different color.  

However, the poem plumbs a deeper metaphysical level.  Do we ask ourselves "about the hands who have scattered the reflections of stars across dark waters"? The translation implies that we should.  

Memories of Horses: 

Looking at lines in faces and hands of old people, Jacobsen goes further than physical traces as the invisible quality of memories approaches a mystical realm--a "secret language/cloud, word, wind letters, /all the signs the heart gathers up in the lean year."  We weren't sure how to interpret the "if you are happy" in the penultimate line.  how it interrupts "the wind sketches running children and horses, running in the grass".  Perhaps, if we are at peace, we can see this, see "images of peace in the sides of animals".  Many had the feeling of wind in the steppes of Mongolia.  Rose-Marie felt it captured the way old people take everything in.

The Old Clocks: We are no longer living in villages set amidst farmland.  The tick-tock of it's okay, repeated, reinforces this mild wisdom.  How do we look at time?  Race, as species, but also implication of a time when unhappiness, distress "shrink back like grass /during that earlier period when the Earth was earth.:  The clocks are our guests, as we continue the race.  

Kathy brought up Hedin's book At the Great Door of Morning. 

In the large parks:

lovely eloquence of images as one person mentioned, "Merwinesque, but easier to see."  A sense of humble integrity embracing something as large as awe.

 

Translated by Roger Greenwald

The Fireflies : In this chance snapshot, It was then  is repeated 4 times.  This is not the title, but rather, "The fireflies" -- a beautiful metaphor for seeing love as light in the darkness.  

Breathing Exercise

The repeated If you go out far enough, indeed could be breathing out... a little reminiscent of Whitman, flinging out the soul until it catches, seeking the spheres.