poems for May 15-6

 Villanelle by Marilyn Hacker;   Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America by Matthew Olzmann; Need by Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner ;Translated from the American Sign Language by John Lee Clark; Ode To Broken Things  by Pablo Neruda; Thanks for Remembering Us by Dana Gioia  (from 1986); Accessory to War by Kim Stafford; My Planet by Susan Telfer; a song with no end  by Charles Bukowski

I was so glad for the courage of those who had divergent opinions who expressed them.  All of the poems explore what makes us human, what human can mean in so many diverse ways.

 

Villanelle: A formal poem can be risky if it becomes an intellectual exercise. Most felt the form matched the content and the feel of coming apart, back together -- both personally, as lovers, as a nation with its politics, etc.!  One person felt it was detached from feeling.  Then again... I think you have to be in the "mood" to appreciate any poem and a formal poem runs an even greater risk if the form takes precedence over content.

 

I think the poem resonates with the current general feeling of incomprehensibility in our country and of the world, the prevalence of mass hypnotism that has people supporting tyrants with no concern for the general well-being of human beings.  It indeed leaves me "torn and dazed, speechless and amazed..." it is frightening to see how people learn and repeat "wordless praise" without understanding what is celebrated...  Hacker uses the form skillfully, for instance, in the 4th stanza uses "separate" as adjective and with line/stanza breaks that reinforce the separation. 

 

We were curious why the title is merely "Villanelle" -- as if to peg it only by the name of a form, without naming the distress conveyed.  What title might you give if you wanted to prepare the reader for the content?  

 

Two notes of humor:  Neil, on looking up Villanelle, was brought to "Villain" and we all could imagine variations on a villanelle of the Villain, perhaps with a Nell... Paul picked up on the rhymes and thought another stanza using "taze and eradicate" might sum it up. 

 

Hacker weaves the two lines like a ribbon exploring what it is about parts of us... whether our bodies, aging, or our thoughts, sorting themselves out and how we celebrate, or perhaps fail to celebrate not understanding we could indeed find celebration if we rearrange our thinking and feeling.  I was pleased that Elaine O found notes of celebration in all of the poems -- it confirms my belief that celebration is there alongside all there is that counters.  

 

Letter:  The long title is intriguing, as is the repeated quasi invitation, laden with insults,  to an unknown carver  to reveal himself.  A thank you to Kathleen for having suggested this poem!

 Almost all 20 present had something to say, including a few confessions of being a kid, and inscribing one's initials in a favorite tree... Elaine picked up on an angry tone... a "how could anyone be so disdainful to desecrate a living being" attitude... many resonated with the sense of violation.  Rose Marie reminded us to be careful about judging others -- we don't know the story of the person who carved the initials.   It might have been a child who didn't know better, who loved the tree.  She reminded us of the 2016 use by Hillary Clinton of calling Trump supporters "A Basket of Deplorables" and a few others chimed in about the danger of making assumptions.  The poem gives us no fact about "who did it".  We learn more about Matthew Olzmann than the carver.

Bernie brought up how he felt sad... but also curious about the life of the person (actually he said, "poor slob") who might have done this.  Most thought of the primordial importance of trees, the veneration owed to such long-lived witnesses of time.  Someone else mentioned a tree in Highland park covered with a collection of initials.  

Graeme had the reaction Barbara had to the Villanelle of not being "taken" by the poem.  (I was so glad for each of them to have the courage to disagree with the 90%!)

Graeme's point:  the sense of contempt was overdone.  He was not moved to pity for tree, nor for outrage for the villain.  To quote him further, he is "sick of poems that take me by the ankles and suspend me upside down over great vats of boiling roiling righteous indignation, dipping me into each so that I wriggle squeal and splutter on cue." 

Elaine was glad for the breath of nature that reminds us to celebrate the beauty of wild things.  How does Olzmann know the carver would yawn with indifference?

You can see-- it was quite the poem!  We spent at least 1/2 hour on it.

Polly quoted, "I shall never see a tree at all, unless the billboards fall."

Need:  This is an ASL poem, translated by John Lee Clark who is both blind and deaf, so he is relying on protactile on the interpreter's body.  Thank you to Rose Marie who explained this. She also mentioned the poem was in response to the US involvement with Iraq.   You can watch the video of the ASL version. https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=Need+by+Peter+Cook+and+Kenny+Lerner&qpvt=Need+by+Peter+Cook+and+Kenny+Lerner&mid=261FC29A5DD660149EE3261FC29A5DD660149EE3&&FORM=VRDGAR

There is a velocity in the written language, and the spoken words drive the frantic, anxious pumping of machines which rule our world.  If you have any doubt of how humans abuse the world, each other, this poem will persuade you.  Paul brought up MacBeth, "the sound and the fury" -- perhaps our fear is that it all signify nothing.  With the insertion of the single sheet of paper, one hopes the poem will turn  direction ... but it  only reinforces the executive power of orders in the wrong hands and wars fought to preserve the insanity providing profit for the CEO and shareholders.

Mike suggested the final word be added, "more".

Ode to Broken Things: note:  translated by Jodey Bateman:

recommended by Bernie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4MXPIpj5sA

Koyaanisqatsi   Life out of Balance

Note:  In the penultimate stanza a typo perhaps:  "what lasts through time is like an island or a ship" not "on a ship".  Whether or not you see scarlet as blood, violet as violence, powder of a flowerpot as gun,  by the time you get to the stanza of the clock, it would seem breaking is inevitable.   The idea of an existence "wound up by a clockmaker who then departed for parts unknown" perhaps is implied, by the opening reference to "an invisible, deliberate smasher".  Something greater than our human ingenuity to create, and destroy.  Even if no one breaks things, especially the useless things that perhaps would be better broken, the surprise is that "they break anyway."  No matter our role, all will break.  Loss is part of life and best to let go...  The poem is told in the past tense.  

We enjoyed the part about tossing all the treasures into the sea (Elaine O underlines the celebration!  There are also many traditions that would wrap up "concerns" written on a leaf, or paper, then burned. ) 

The sea as source of the origin of life... metaphoric spirituality... and in English, the pun on "breakers"  

Thanks for Remembering: delightful humor.  More confessions were made of "small crimes" such as Paul's picking up a dropped roll of stamps.  

accessory : Kim Stafford, like his father, Bill Stafford, is a pacifist.  His poem, with those two stanzas in the form of bullets indeed, tells us a lot about  him, what he cherishes, his feelings about our defense budget... !  One person wondered about the first stanza with so many references to the Middle East.  Curious, as I had a grandmother who mentioned the same things from her time in Lebanon in 1920.  Polly mentioned that you can indicate that you pay taxes used for the defense budget "under protest".  ( We joked that we could write the President, and use Paul's stamps.)  There's a caveat there too... if each individual starts to protest different official programs  government, it can open up quite the can of worms.

Note the contrast in the 4th line of the first stanza, "my brother", and the horror of what "my taxes" did to "her brother". 

My Planet:  Response to PK Page, "Planet Earth".  You can hear her read it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWFTFE8Icf0  We agreed that the poem had a dream-like unreality which allowed an easier acceptance of strange leaps between the stanzas.  Likewise, the "close-enough" but not consistent rhymes perhaps could point to an unsuccessful attempt to keep order.  Hypnogogic.

a song with no end:  Bukowski, 1920-1994.  Born Heinrich Karl, in Germany  he adopted Charles in America.

We all enjoyed the stanza about "making death work hard"... perhaps a better ending to suggest just what this "victory" is for either us or death might be this:

when it does take us....

it will look at us and say, "well-played my friend".  (Suggestion of Mike .)

Marna shifted to an association with Dickinson, "Hope is the thing with feathers".

Whatever it is this life, it does seem to keep going.  But perhaps there is a note of apocalypse.