October 23

 White Towels, by Richard Jones; To You, by Kenneth Koch;  (suggested by Graeme)*; A Violet Darkness  by Najwan Darwish; In Trackless Woods  by Richard Wilbur; Haiku by Almila Dükel as an ekphrastic response to a picture in Rattle magazine; Erasers  by Mary Jo Salter; From a Country Overlooked  by Tom Hennen; Joy  by Lisel Mueller* other wonderful picks he suggested: Through the Window of the All-Night Restaurant by Nicholas Christopher; The Old Liberators  by Robert Hedin; Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road? by Robert Hershon;  I also had on my "maybe" list  Missing the Boat by Naomi Shihab Nye (discussed in October 2012!)  

What Joy indeed, to return to O Pen, and be there in person after 7 weeks of absence.  Choosing poems is never a quick decision, but rather a perusal of a collection of poems gathered daily, each month, where one poem suggests another.  This morning reading Maria Popova's blog, https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/10/22/marginalian-18/

I admired how in a way, I emulate her "Marginalian" but make it a living, weekly forum, where I am merely the facilitator of discussion, which enriches the depth and breadth of each poem chosen.  Nothing happens alone. 

 In White Towels,  the fact that the poet, Richard Jones shares that he has been studying the difference "between solitude and loneliness" allowed a host of commentary from those present:Solitude:  a choice, often made because one is comfortable with oneself,  whereas loneliness is involuntary, not something you seek, but rather try to avoid, as it often emphasizing a hurt within. 

How skillfully he links this "study" to the story of his life... and then on to telling it to the towels... which then become likened to his children asleep in his arms.

One person offered the reflection on the use of the subjunctive "as if they were" that this reflects a sense of aloneness, perhaps he had no children, or if he did, they have left. The fact of laundering white towels is in his control, sharing his story with them a solitary act not involving others. 

After half an hour, it was clear that much more was packed into the weave of these 7 lines and all 23 present could have continued with the discussion.

I am so grateful to Graeme for sharing this poem, which takes a simple idea of "telling the story of my life/to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.   The shortest line is the 3rd, "telling the story of my life" — followed by the longest line where the towels become the recipients who safeguard it.  They are  clean, and warm as well as white — able to handle (perhaps make peace with, or forgive?) any messiness involved, as white is not an easy given  for a towel given its function. 

For those who prefer to take in the entire gestalt of a poem, and respond to that emotionally, this is that kind of poem, with a tremendous flow of feelings which does not require such parsing to feel its truth and beauty.

 

To You  by Kenneth Koch:  another poem shared by Graeme.  Which "you" it is, seems to be a non-identified lover, but as pronoun, you is delightfully ambiguous, and as title, invites each "you" of a reader.  It could also be the understood you, the singular or plural you, or even the reflection of oneself.  The poem rolls with unlikely metaphors, circling around the you, rather like the feeling of falling in love when indeed one can feel "crazier than shirttails".  If you are not convinced of the truth of the fundamental importance of love, the 7th and 8th lines leave

the walnut, the vision of a head connected by a neck to shoulders and red roof of a heart and speak an indisputable truth: what solves the unsolved mysteries is love.  We live because we love.  And the poem rolls on... perhaps the Kid is a baby goat searching for its mother, or a child; it doesn't matter where the trustworthy sidewalk leads, which port of call one starts the voyage or finishes.  The penultimate line mentions the sun -- perhaps symbol of enlightenment, but also the source of life, always with us, even when we are asleep.  

Best of all the final enigmatic line   the sun/ "receives me in the questions which you (specific, or understood) always pose."  

A Violet Darkness:  to hear the poem in English and in Arabic: https://soundcloud.com/poets-org/najwan-darwish-translated-by-kareem-james-abu-zeid-a-violet-darkness-1?utm_source=poets.org&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fpoets-org%252Fnajwan-darwish-translated-by-kareem-james-abu-zeid-a-violet-darkness-1

This is a poem where indeed, the poem shapes our breathing... allows us to enter seas of consciousness that become part of spontaneous energy of life.  We understand,  "Love was time" -- as a universal, which we think is beyond time, as if love could carry time to timelessness, but all splinters and cracks... myths, love, and all that are ghosts.

Violet is a special color, in between blood red on one end of the color spectrum, and the purple on the other, that leads to  darkness. Existence, as the translator says in the note, "within a liminal space between life and death."

In Trackless Woods:  Wilbur's use of rhyme, his playful extension of the 9th line of this sonnet, use of mathematical vocabulary, does not deter him from a good reading of the landscape, a sense of place.  He notes the tracks/traces of people, only to gently surprise us by "tramping on" beyond the "stiff geometries" to patterns of hornbeam  and the wondrous spirals pinecones.  We agreed on the enjoyable aspect of this poem,  in a way, reflecting the same contrast between "solitude" and "loneliness" of the opening poem.

Haiku by Almila Dükel: We asked... what makes it a Haiku without following the syllable count?  This has been asked for a long time.  The usual answer is that because English is a non-syllabic language,  one needs to respect the "spirit" of a haiku:  two images, not necessarily related, and then the spark that jumps between them when you read the poem.  Dükel does this beautifully.  She lives in Turkey and writes Haibun as well as haiku.

Erasers: Several present raised their hands about attending a religious-affiliated school, and many more raised their hands about remembering the clapping of erasers.  What is lovely about this poem, as one person put it, "it makes us laugh, but then it gets bigger".  Indeed, who and what is "erased"?  The enjambed stanzas with occasional end rhymes (chalk/talk... boys/noise), the personnification of chalk snow, powdering the eraser's noses and unrecorded word-clouds forgetting themselves, go along with good story telling of an older father up to the last line of the penultimate stanza: though all the lessons,/most of the names (he doesn't spell line and stanza break providing an empty white space this out) ... now are dust.

From a Country Overlooked:  Kathy brought in the book of collected verse this poem comes from:  Darkness sticks to Everything, published  thanks to Ted Kooser and a few other Minnesota poets, who insisted Tom Hennen be known.  Clearly he knows nature, and shares  sensitive observations.  Polly decided she would quarrel with the first line.  There are indeed some creatures you cannot love.  She picked on Fleas and provided two delightful poems:

one by Terry Hoffman,** the other by  Pablo Neruda entitled Fleas.  This brought up other beasts one might not love, such as ear ticks, cockroaches, and Maura's anecdote about the rescue of a mouse Richard wondered perhaps if it was the same one in his pantry.  All good to have laughs. ** https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/fleas_-_with_apologies_to_joyce_kilmer_818942

Back to Hennen, we were carried with him, as "the day is carried across its hours".  The "You are", repeated, unlike the Kenneth Koch poem seemed to be an understood "you".  

Fleas - With Apologies To Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see a beast as loathsome as a flea. A flea whose hungry mouth consumes all the blood that it exhumes. A flea that gets into my hair and makes me scratch 'til I am bare. A flea that makes me itch all day and irritates in every way. Upon whose head curses we rain; whose biting we have scratched in vain. Poems are made by fools like me, but God should not have made the flea.

Joy: One of my favorite poems about this "nameless opposite of despair" referred to as "it" until sung twice.  Read the poem, you'll see the magic and feel it inside.  

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