Naive by Tim Seibles; Mother Country by Richard Blanco, From a Photograph by George Oppen; Papá at the Kitchen Table by Richard Blanco
Apologies: on the hand-out, there were two lines from a Claude McKay poem at the end of Richard Blanco's poem, Mother Country. The poem ends on "that's your country."following it: a list of "Photograph Poems" Blanco asked us to pick from: (We have discussed some of these): We did end the discussion with the William Carlos Williams poem (which we have discussed previously). It seemed timely to bring up the trope of the world's indifference, whether to myth or to real instances of tragic misfortune. Several poets have written wonderful ekphrastic responses to Brueghel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus". This site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus mentions Auden and others. Nemerov has two Breughel poems, but neither specifically about Icarus. This one comes up with the Fall of Icarus: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47698/the-war-in-the-air
The Portrait by Stanley Kunitz : https://poets.org/poem/portrait
This is a photograph of me: by Margaret Atwood: https://poets.org/poem/photograph-me
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus: by William Carlos Williams: https://poets.org/poem/landscape-fall-icarus
History Lesson by Natasha Trethewey https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47538/history-lesson-56d2280d442a7
Yours & Mine by Alice Fulton https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49241/yours-mineThe Only Portrait of Emily Dickinson by Irene McKinney[1]
Nutshell of discussion:
Tim Seibles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Seibles
I wish Tim Seibles could have been in the group to explain the epigraph of his excellent poem, Naive.! The Irish song, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_I_Hardly_Knew_Ye came up. How Seibles encountered this saying by a Mennonite Woman, we don't know. What does it mean to "love someone, but not know them"? Examples came up of parents saying this to each other, and in the group itself, where 22 of us sat about discussing poems, we could say this as well. Maura sums it up this way: "we keep coming back to keep learning about poetry, and each other, and ourselves because we love this unique opportunity that teaches us how to understand what it is to love another." Tim Seibles, in this poem does just that as well, recalling his childhood, and painting for us a picture so real, we can feel it, of two boys with their "snaggle-toothed grins that held a thousand giggles". There is a celebratory note to the "astonishment" of this world, supported by mention of Mardi Gras, and "a child's heart builds a chocolate sunflower". Of course this doesn't last... and who cannot relate to the fury that such "early welcome" to the world be sent away. Is it "naive" to believe in the "unruined heart"? Seibles does not judge but simply shows the way to a kinder city.
It was heartening to hear several stories about seeing soap bubbles -- whether between and a father and his children here, by the canal, or seeing them cranked out of a machine on a San Francisco expressway... It feels a perfect metaphor for being a child when you think all is well in the world, and much as you think you have lost that innocence, it is more than reassuring to think we are not constrained by labels, for instance of "naivete", as if that be a fault, for chasing the fleeting rainbows of bubbles made together.
Mother Country: We shared ideas of why President Obama might have chosen "One Today" over this poem, (one of the three choices Richard Blanco was asked to provide for the Inaugural poem). Most of us present preferred the "real" picture Blanco paints of his experience as immigrant. It is a wonderful character sketch which humanizes oft-misunderstood implications of what "immigrating to America" means.
Kathy brought a beautifully illustrated children's book with large, colorful pages that reproduces "One Today". Blanco's style, filled with sensory detail, his use of line-break (ex. one foot/ vs. her other foot anchored/), his use of refrain (To love a country as if you've lost one), the surprising leap from past to present with his mother, now old, hobbling) providing a new idea of what matters with a country. Beautiful portrait of a mother, of the metaphorical power of country as mother, which indeed makes us think about what we would miss, should we leave ours. Once you leave, it cannot be undone. And where and with whom do we choose to die?
On line break: interesting that Blanco used all the possible effects: dramatic pause (3rd stanza, "as if/); double duty: sounding out words as strange as the talking/(next line animals); suspense: the refrain followed by 1968: / allowing the reader to think about this year, what it means to him/her or in general.
From a Photograph: The poem comes alive for me when I hear it: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28951/from-a-photograph
Published in 1962, when Oppen would be 54, I hear a certain trembling sadness in the tone, describing what sounds like his mother. I like that it could be an Aunt, Grandmother, different woman. Who is the "father"? It reminded some of "The Child is the Father of the Man." https://www.thoughtco.com/child-is-the-father-of-man-3975052
There's a certain biblical inference perhaps with the apple. The c's of the first part: child, rock, collar, coat progressively soften to b's of branch, bramble, brush, blowing.
Papá: A lovely example of "reverse process". This isn't indeed a photograph of Richard Blanco's father. It's definitely more than a photograph, where you feel the "real stuff" of him. It brought up several stories of the effect of seeing photographs, the appreciation of an intimate look at someone from Cuba, and the value of making a photograph from a poem, where the photo comes after the words. There is an immediate "thereness" that goes beyond "the black and white" we think to be proof.
We questioned "pricing" in the penultimate line ... but that's what's on line.
At the end of the discussion, Richard brought up the choice of poems. We read and discussed briefly Williams' The Fall of Icarus . I mentioned this had been discussed before, and appreciated the comments about how what we all treasure about this group, where many have been coming weekly for 17 years. We indeed, travel a wide variety of poems. An important part of the joy in gathering is to get away from the news and discuss and share what it's like to be human.
I close, Garrison Keilor style: Carry forth, keep a corner safe in your heart for joy.
[1] You can read about "The photographic Poem" and see this one with a photograph of Richard's parents, see his Mama and Papa poems here: https://richard-blanco.com/2021/05/poetry-and-photography-how-two-forms-speak-to-one-another/
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