This week's selection, starts with three poems used in a workshop I attended 7/13 called "How to Sing in the Dark" led by the inimitable Abby Murray. I referred at the end of the 7/17 session to a quote she used from Louise Glück: "We live in a culture almost fascistic in its enforcement of optimism". from American Originality.
The workshop material encouraged participants to find hope and joy in poems that seem to be "writing to the dark". She also shared this quote: "... What happens if joy is not separate from pain? What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things?"-- Ross Gay, Inciting Joy
I want to thank Polly for sharing the other three poems she considers her favorites. She was introduced to the Lowell and highly original E.E. Cummings in High School by her beloved teacher Virginia Elson.
Poems:
Affirmation by Donald Hall; Without by Donald Hall; For Warmth by Thich Nhat Hanh; Patterns by Amy Lowell; The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry Stinging by e.e. cummingsI opened with a quote from one of my poet friends who is facing an incurable disease. "Poetry is what helps you take the straight jacket off the heart.". Reading poems by Donald Hall, hearing him speak them aloud, you sense his heart has taken in both joy and pain and has considered carefully the paradoxical title of his autobiography "Carnival of losses " like the last lines of his poem Affirmation ( to affirm that "it is fitting/and delicious to lose everything"). Kathy brought up the fact that this poem from 2001, written 6 years after the death of his beloved wife, Jane Kenyon, is from his book White Apples and Taste of Stone, which contains poems from 1946-2006. They are organized thematically, not chronologically. This is the title poem of the volume about his father. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/155942/white-apples-609ab9389476c
We discussed at length Affirmation which both drew us in, and repelled us. It indeed contains a summary of Donald Hall's life, not just mention of his undying love for his wife Jane. At one point, for fun, Mario asked those who would prefer to remain "young, ignorant and content" to raise their hand. Neil felt Donald was egotistical in the lines about "our wife will die", and Paul went on about the pleasures of love, albeit temporary which indeed should be experienced as "delicious."
Initially, in the context of the workshop, I saw the poem as an affirmation of acceptance of life as a roll of yin/yang, but still struggled to understand the word "delicious" at the end. It is one thing to accept an understanding of the danger of simply focussing on optimism or by ignoring sorrow, knowing this reduces the nature of joy. It is quite another to say with conviction (like Graeme) the sum total of living is "delicious". What other word could be used? Bernie came up with "outlandish". How does each reader convince him/herself that "fitting and delicious" indeed belong together and are "earned in the poem"? This is a not an "answer once" kind of question.
Bernie shared his Buddhist perspective, that when loss is accepted as no longer having what one is used to, it involves fully embracing life without what is gone, hammering in the truth of it. Then it is possible to bring out a new aliveness. Instead of using energy to fight loss, whether physical or emotional, fully accepting it, learning to live with it allows a new world to open, while at the same time closes the old world.
Without: In Abby's workshop, we had started with this poem, Without first, followed by Affirmation. I wanted to challenge the group with the later poem first, before the comma-less, relentless repeat of without and no.
First, I read aloud a series of nouns without the negations: seagulls, palm trees, barnacles, moss, snowdrop, crocus, peony, woodthrush, (even mice), maple leaves, parrots. As Abby had stressed in the workshop, these things exist in the world. Hall can only write about the reality of the chemotherapy, the battle against leukemia, how it effaces everything, and even silence has no color, sound. Bernie provided the definition of the medical term "petechiae" -- the bruises.
And then...in the penultimate stanza, there is one moment... the one moment in the poem when it might be possible to pick up a pencil, and unwritten stanzas and take up and touch "beautiful, terrible sentences unuttered." The group spoke about such "good days" in the midst of bleak despair. We imagined the moment both for Jane, as well as for Donald. I think every one of the 20 souls in the room felt the courage of Donald Hall describing what he was facing. Mario brought up "the book he almost read" — everyone immediately understood from the title, the feeling of wanting to read something but not ready to face it: The Inheritance of Loss: by Kiran Desai, published in 2006. He offers this quote:"... he retreated into a solitude that grew in weight day by day. The solitude became a habit, the habit became the man, and it crushed him into a shadow." That is where he put the book down, hoping to pick it up again someday. He retained the message that any loss small or huge contains gifts, lessons, "inheritances" that we carry, our unique possessions.
For Warmth: Thich, Bernie corrects me, is more accurately pronounced "Tick". Bernie generously shared some time describing this impressive monk, his peace activism, his teachings and background as he is familiar with him in his Buddhist practice. He and his group refer to him as "Thay" or "Teacher". Bernie brought up one of his teachings about the concept of "enemy": A person is not the enemy, it's the delusion of one. In this simple poem, that starts with a universal gesture, he leads us to consider all that hands can do in a positive way includes the surprising and poignant idea of "keeping the loneliness warm", and then how to meet grief. This is a poem to memorize, ponder.
Graeme read a sharing from "The School of Life", The Loveliest people in the world. "They are the ones who long ago shed their pride, who can tell you frankly how lonely and sad they are, who can face their self-hatred and accept their regrets..."
I can't remember who quoted this from Donald Hall's Distressed Haiku (published in the Atlantic in 2000)
You think that their
dying is the worst
thing that could happen.
Then they stay dead.
Patterns: Polly remembers this poem her teacher, Virginia, presented to her class during World War II.
In the discussion, we marveled at the rhymes, repetitions, the patterns woven and broken, the metaphorical weight and stiffness of the brocade, the could-have-beens, but will never be rendered even more powerful by the stiffling effects of not only the dress, but of war itself. Indeed, what are patterns for???? We discussed pattern as societal conditioning, how we respond to patterns, whether defined as traditions, structures, strictures, or habits. How do we become aware of them, get rid of them, live with them, avoid them, change them? We discussed Amy Lowell's feminism, replete with a portrait by Judith of a large buxom lesbian, smoking a cigar. Judith doubts she had the cigar coming to speak to an audience in Milwaukee some time in the late 'teens or so mentioning how cold it was backstage waiting to appear after the short play "The Ice Maiden".
The peace of wild things: We were grateful for this offering which reminds us of the importance to be connected to nature. The line "I come into the presence of still water" reminded Jan and many of the comforting rhythm of the 23rd psalm.
Stinging: Polly thought her teacher, Virginia Elson had put this up on the board, to grab the attention of some of the boys in the class, who had no interest in poetry. For her, the "tall wind is dragging the sea with dream S" is the echo of the bell, with the final S the final whisper. This brought up Arizona Arcosanti bells
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti , a haiku,
“The temple bell stops…”
**adrienne maree brown, is an American author, doula, women's rights activist and black feminist based in Detroit, Michigan. From 2006 to 2010, she was the executive director of the Ruckus Society.
Much of her work as a writer is based around the writings of Octavia E. Butler Brown has worked extensively with numerous organizations on social justice. Following college, Brown worked with the Harm Reduction Coalition in Brooklyn, and started working as a social justice facilitator. She would go on to facilitate the Social Forum and work with social justice organizations in Detroit.[4][5] Of her work in Detroit, brown wrote, "Our actions have to be towards the world we want. We need to be guerilla gardening and turning people's heat and water on. We need to be the guerillas putting up solar panels in the hood. That's what Detroit has taught me."[7]
Between 2006 and 2010, Brown served as the executive director of the Ruckus Society.[5] She described the Society's work as prioritizing "directly impacted communities - folks who are impacted by economic and environmental injustice and are angry about their situation. We help them determine how to strategically take action, so they can reorient them- selves to the long-term vision of self- determination and sustainability."[7] She was cofounder and director of the League of Young/Pissed Off Voters and has worked with the Arctic Indigenous Youth AllianceA Guided Meditation* by adrienne maree brown** -
- (modified for BLS use - Bernie Shore)
1. breathing in my contradictions
breathing out compassion for the contradictions in others
BREATHING IN - my contradictions
BREATHING OUT-compassion for contradictions in others, and in myself
2. breathing in complexity
breathing out space for complexity in others
BREATHING IN - complexity
BREATHING OUT - space for the complexity in others, and in myself
3. breathing in all the reality I can handle
breathing out my own truth/fears/love
BREATHING IN - all the reality I can handle
BREATHING OUT - my own truth (fears, love)
4. breathing in humility at my humanity
breathing out I recommit to humanity and kindness
BREATHING IN - humility at my humanity
BREATHING OUT - I recommit to humanity and kindness
5. turning my awareness to gratitude,
turning my attention to life, relationship and learning
BREATHING IN - turning awareness to gratitude
BREATHING OUT - turning awareness to life, relationship and learning
6. turning my awareness to mindfulness in the body
increasing the integrity between my thoughts, words and actions
BREATHING IN - turning awareness to mindfulness in the body
BREATHING OUT - increasing integrity between thoughts, words and actions
7. BREATHING IN AND OUT - turning my awareness toward liberation, turning my awareness toward being free
* Underlined sections are my small edits to the original meditation
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