Many Winters, 1974 by Nancy Wood (1936 –2013) https://nancywood.com a special poem Polly wanted to share; poems by MJ Iuppa . Howden Pond, 2021; Fighting Death; Strandhill Beach in May (Sligo);Poems from Sometimes Simply (small chapbook): Sometimes; Chrysalis; The Gift; Simply; You might want to explore http://mjiuppa.blogspot.com/
We didn't get to all the poems from As the Crow Flies: (Over)look; (Over)heard; Triolet on the Adage 'As the Crow Flies'; “Things Are Not Always What They Seem”; but did end on Pablo Neruda's Sonnet 17 (from One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII)
Paul started us off with a bit of witty humor from Yeats, teasing his friend wishing some praise:
You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever dog that praised his fleas?
Nutshell:
Nancy Wood: Polly explained this poet had other poems that intrigued her, but the one selected was the one that showed up on line. Richard was curious about how poems work with line breaks -- a quite valid question for "free verse" which generated a long discussion about the relation between visual impact, how to read a poem to deliver outloud. Many people shared the intuitive process they follow by writing, vs. following any rules. Many related to Paul's mention that he could feel so pleased with something he'd written, then two weeks later wonder that he could have found merit in it.
There exist implied rules about a small (intuitive) pause after a line break vs. reading a poem without any pause to deliver an entire thought. Judith called on the oral tradition of poetry, in days when it was not written down, but memorized and handed down by word of mouth. She also mentioned a book by Dame Judy Dench, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent where the actress explains English is such that serious messages are best delivered in iambic pentameter, and end stops are "theatrical instructions on delivery" as to how to recite them. (The book is new and several copies are in the library system.)
Some participants referred directly to the poem, the pleasure of the repetitions which are emphasized by the visual set up and the subtle change of the final "Hold on to" where "what" is replaced by "life" and followed on the same line by "even when" (instead of dropping to the next line to deliver 4 words, "even if it is") and the speaker of the poem enters. For some, it felt like a conversation with a child, giving parting words of advice, for others, the voice of someone dying speaking to a loved one.
It confirmed the fact that each individual will find rules and meanings that confirm individual likes and dislikes. Poetry, Art, Music go beyond a "right" or "wrong" interpretation. Examining the "how", noticing the "what" and how it leads to a greater sense of "wondering" often can change a dismissal of a poem to a glad acceptance.
Howden Pond: The discussion about line break continued with the unusual choices in this poem. All agreed that the poem's visual set up allowed us the gift of slowing down, to enter a meditative space which was resilient in its sense of suspension. The sound of the long O in alone, closely, close, over, opening, closing, the exquisite image created by "wings of/moths, opening & closing in emerald shadows" which continues only to "dissolve into darkness & sounds of even/breath..." added to the power of the unexpected line breaks. The "three little dots" in French are called "points of suspension" very different from the em-dash that follows "I am left here—" which is followed by "wanting" and then the fall of a double space like a stanza break, allows the reader to feel the emphasis on the tenderness of "holding this moment". People noticed the indentation pattern, also like breathing, and how the poem started with "looking closely" at visual details, but shifted to sounds. How "even breath" allows because of the line break can be understood as "even" meaning both "regular" and "also".
Had the line breaks been more "conventional" we might not have sensed the intense mindfulness paid to the penultimate word of the poem: this -- the italics holding the weight of everything in this one moment without spelling out a name for it. It echoes the traditional trope of poetry's ability to create a sense of the ineffable which cannot be named, described.
Fighting Death: This poem appeared in the review Amethyst and indeed, much as one person thought "stranglers" might be a misprint for "stragglers" a chorus of people disagreed! The review also printed "stranglers" and those who are gardeners attested to those late-blooming vines and one person described the two small blooms above her ripe heirloom tomato. Knowing that MJ was fighting cancer increases the power of this poem about survival. We wondered about the break in the second couplet of in-/fancy-- a play on infancy, and fanciful as if part of a magical tale? Or simply, a mimicry of a cruel cut. Unlike the peaceful, meditative calm of "Howden Pond" this poem ends on a very relatable will to live in spite of feeling "miserable". She does not use the verb "fight", in the final couplet but rather the verb "settle". The conversational tone of the poem, describing the speaker in the garden at the end of growing season, ends with a tiny tuck in of her own "compulsion" to live, (like me) "to the bitter end". We remarked the clash in feeling of those final words. Re-reading that final couplet, I go back to the "wishing I were a witch" -- don't we all wish for the power to make things last, have time to do all we want to do? I love how she confesses her desire to save the late bloomers, and deftly, without any sentimentality, involves the feel of the late-morning sun, "creep over my shoulder/ and settle upon this garden's compulsion to live, like me, to the bitter end. A beautiful marriage of concrete with abstraction to add heft to the title.
Strandhill Beach: Paul, our resident Irishman described this beach for us, and how "if you turn 180 degrees from the cold blustery Atlantic, you'll face the 3,000 year old burial cairn of Queen Maeve. Paul also brought up Ben Bulben, the backdrop for Yeats' tomb which has the inscription of his line about the Horsemen passing by. (This link will tell you more about it : https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2013/10/do-i-understand-meaning-of-w-b-yeats.html
The poem's language reminded Bernie of the time he and he wife went up to Lake Ontario after a serious storm, where the waves were indeed "muscular and taut, rising like an infantry". Everyone was swept away by the power of the description--and the depth of her experience: black stones "God's tears", the stanza break after the mystery of losing them without know how they fell back, and the final metaphysical embrace of lack of knowledge "of who God is and the impossibility of/keeping what no one else sees". It felt to Jan like a powerful environmental poem as well.
Sometimes: This poem felt like it was meant to be set to music. MJ's husband Peter Tonery said MJ wasn't a musician herself, but for sure, this poem conveys the important element of musicality in poetry. The "duo" of two syllables soft, in lonesome, syllables, sinking, scattered, falling (falling, repeated) set in couplets paints a duet of lovers!
Chrysalis: published in Poetry in 1993, is beautifully timeless. At first, you might not think it is told from the perspective of a chrysalis, but rather a description of "a lie for beauty" -- with the double meaning of a place where beauty lies, as well as a clever "trick". In this first stanza, the language is as "careful" as the intricate unfolding that is predicted. "My secret" increases the mystery, prepares the reader for the Merwin-esque final stanza, "perhaps the world is empty/as I am brief", but with MJ's inimitable grasp of the spiritual we can only imagine. You will want to read this poem at least 10 times, to feel the gravity.
I told the group about MJ's final book The Weight of Air https://www.amazon.com/Weight-Air-M-J-Iuppa/dp/1639801863 published the year before her death. Highly recommend.
Maura offers these magical pictures of a chrysalis: If they do not appear on the blog,
here is a description of the three: the making of it: the subtle presence where you might not guess a caterpillar is preparing a new stage; the wing-like residue left after the transformation complete.
Waking, without knowing
where I am, I seek summer’s
open window to see what exists
in the dark that pools before me
I trace the outline of sumac, rising
up against the barn, gleaming
in moonlight
as if it were memory— this hour
seemingly divine in its solitude
becomes a gateway
I can slip through, without
notice, which makes me
nostalgic
for those humid nights
where I could come and go
as I pleased
Waiting for Nothing
In the stillness of summer heat, a bird’s
plaintive whistle sounds like a slow strand
of wind rustling beneath the garden’s ivy.
I glance, catching a glimpse of what is there—
a luminous carapace leaving its silver
signature, leaf to leaf, returning to its place
before it’s swept away by sudden rain . . .
Who am I to say that it’s over?
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