poems for March 25-6

 Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai/ Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,/ How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp/Abode his Hour or two, and went his way-- from the Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam 

One Today  by Richard Blanco; At the End of the World Is Forgetting by Dick Westheimer; Ghazal: Back Home by Zeina Hashem Beck; Instructions for Assembling the Miracle by Peter Cooley (both from Rattle's post on Friday 3/21) The American Abecedarian by Frankie Reiss;  excerpt from Social Norms Pop Quiz  by Ubayawardena Thebara;  The Gift Outright: by Robert Frost; Of History and Hope  by Miller Williams. 

Nutshell: I started with a reminder of poetry's gift of delving deeply into feelings through compressed meanings.   An "occasional poem", one written for a large public occasion such as an inauguration, is quite a different matter as one can see of the 6 inaugural poems from poets chosen by  4 US Presidents. I did quote part of the poem that Robert Frost had prepared for JFK's inaugural election 

As Kennedy remarked at his last speech, delivered at Amherst College on Oct. 26, 1963: "When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment."

One Today: Blanco:  We read the opening and closing stanza of his inaugural poem.  One is inclusive.  We loved the power of the verb choices:  kindled, peeking, spreading, charging... and the contrast with the silent gestures.  Have you ever looked up at a window of a stranger's house, thought of their story, silent to you, but a story nonetheless behind each one of us.  Blanco will be giving a workshop about the occasional poem-- how this is a different matter of audience and purpose.  However, this does not preclude a delivery of message and fine poetics!

The contrast with Frost's 1961 poem, he had intended to give in rhymed meter, proper support of patriotic myth of the history of our country reminds us that when we read, we are using the lens of our times.  What might someone say about Blanco's poem 100 years from now?  What kind of America will exist?  What kind of Americans?

At the End...Westheimer: Skillful poem sustaining our attention with the repeated "abandoned" and "quiet" and a predominance of O sounds,  shifts between similar words like  tomes to tones, lips to lit.  As Bernie put it, "a block of mournful dirge increasing in weight".  The poems draws on sensory details in the block of prose.  We puzzled about the final three lines.  They have a double space between and are indented -- living fragments indeed between the silent library, and those breathing, alive, reading.  Parts of speech, perhaps because a book is not complete without a reader.  Indeed, true death is when a thing is forgotten, truly no longer exists, is at risk for not existing at all since no one would know to look for it.

Below this link https://rattle.com/at-the-end-of-the-world-is-forgetting-by-dick-westheimer/ are more poems by the poet.  The poem and image elicited quite a few stories about library stacks, a mention of the danger of banning books and who is in charge of de-accessioning.  

Comment from the artist, Walter Arnold

“While reading ‘At the End of the World is Forgetting’ I am transported back to the moment in time when I captured this image. The descriptions of the ‘low hum of traffic” and the whispering dust motes help place the reader (and the viewer in this case) into the scene. As an artist I am always trying to draw people into my scenes, to have them feel like they can look around and dwell in these spaces even for just a fleeting moment. These words help complete that process in an eloquent way that adds to the emotion that I was hoping to convey in the photograph. I also particularly love the lines ‘the darkness of forgetting’ and ‘… between silence and breathing.’ I’d love to use these lines as titles of future photos, with permission from the author of course!”

Ghazal : Hashem-Beck: The repeated "back home" with its different meanings provides links as "a backbone of textures".  The stories of refugees only hinted at in each couplet are sewn  with"a fine thread of emotional tone"(Bernie's image)  connecting what might seem disparate items:  favorite food, in this stanza; memories in that.   The words between husband/wife, displaced teens, the man on the train tracks are familiar: "hold me"; "help us", we don't want to stay (in Europe).  Just stop the war." But they connect as well to the repeated home... to tow back home;  the first meeting of the couple, back home (recounted as a memory, far away from home); how they first kissed then went back home (then); how they never thought their children would be writing help us on cardboard... and the teen as if praying Grow, grow back, home.  The measure bahr as meter and sea, in the second couplet, trying not to measure sorrow back home.  The question is if one wants to return back home.  We only touched on the big question of what "home" means to each living creature on this planet.  Judith did bring up Verdi's Nabucco: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/aria-code/episodes/aria-code-verdi-nabucco   This magnificent rendition of "Going Home" by Paul Robeson  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9smSP1dq-A also came up. 

I am not repeating the ghazal, only parts of it to try to convey the power of the delivery of the message.  Seeing pictures in the news of Ramadan... celebrated in the rubble, the on-going war between Palestine and Israel, makes this piece, written 10 years ago feel as if written just now.     

Instructions: Cooley: A poem from 2007 by a poet who thinks of his poems as "spiritual tool kits". The title seems to indicate a specific Miracle.  The gold in the penultimate line seems to refer to the candle flame, whether it be a real candle or the metaphorical one of the poem.  An odd ending that leaves one hanging -- what is "all in sight" that is transfigured and into what, and why is this  "enough"? 

We did not dwell on it, but in some ways, the poet has opened questions for the reader to explore.

American ABC: Reiss: This 9th grader at SOTA shares a vibrant, savvy voice bringing us up to date in the world of a contemporary teen.  We immediately were struck  by the contrast to the bleak tone of the "At the end of the world" abandoned library poem.  Youth are not going to write such a poem, but find a way to activate! Much of the discussion was about gun violence and how different school is today from school in the 50's and 60's when an emergency drill would involve simply duck and cover.  Bernie sent this link about how 3.5% can "change the world" with non-violent action. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world

Marna brought up the Singing revolution in Estonia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolution 

 excerpt from Social Norms Pop Quiz  by Ubayawardena Thebara;  We did not discuss the "grin and bear it"  but felt the  ironic tone regarding the "they" in charge who supposedly understand all that is thought and registered in the minds and lives of others. 

The Gift Outright: Frost  We ended with reading this with not enough time to discuss the Miller Williams. The poem, as I said in the beginning, is dated and if one wrote such words today, they might seem racist in their assumptions.  Deeds of war as valiant?  A land "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?  (as if the indigenous people never existed.)

Miller: He seems to take a different stance from both Frost, and present day Trump about the American people:  "We mean to be the people we meant to be/to keep going where we meant to go."  Just who might that be?  For all our Utopianism, desire for a united states, our history has never been revealed a united view of equal rights in this "land of the free and home of the brave". 

  The second stanza follows the concern expressed in the  discussion of the abecedarian.  How do we fashion the future?  

This is worth mulling over carefully  with this from the middle: We... "who were many people coming together/cannot become one people falling apart.".

Final stanza:

It is in the hands of the children... their "eyes already set/ on a land we can never visit— it isn't there yet— /but  looking through their eyes, we can see/we can see what our long gift to them may come to be. /If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

What is true?  Bernie told a story from the PBS series, "This American Life" episode 855: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/855/thats-a-weird-thing-to-lie-about How do we perceive others?  Understand behavior?  For an autistic child, it would seem "neuro-normal" people lie all the time! They tell someone they look pretty, when that's not true.  

Rousing discussion indeed! 

Poems for March 19-20

 You know all secrets of this earthly sphere,/ Why then remain a prey to empty fear?/You cannot bend things to your will, but yet/ Cheer up for the few moments you are here! -- Omar Khayyam

Announcement: Nowruz celebration at UR on 3/23 with Rumi Specialist, 

A Plain Ordinary Steel Needle Can Float on Pure Water by Kay Ryan; The Cameo  by Edna St. Vincent Millay;  Lichen Song by Arthur Sze; Sestina: Like  by A.E. Stallings; In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa[1] by Ada Limón;  Cloud Anthem by Richard Blanco (Set to music by Oliver Caplan :  https://soundcloud.com/music-68-2/cloud-anthem-excerpt-chorus-orchestra

This is another musical reference by Michael Gilberton.https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/cloud-anthem-single

Supplement: I shared  Old Hundred by Lucille Clifton:skillful mix of Psalm 100 and Negro Spiritual  posted by former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith (thank you Eddy).  Underneath, Tracy's poem, Wade in the Water.

Reminded people of the special Nowruz (Persian New Year) event and invited all to send to me any favorite Rumi quotation or poem.  You will see I add an epigram for the poems from the 11th century Persian polymath Omar Khayyam -- you are welcome to send any favorite quotations from him and other such wise scholars!  

CORRECTIONS:

Nutshell:

Kay Ryan:  In 15 short ingeniously rhymed lines, 3 sentences laced with adjectives plain, serene, peaceful, tenderest, simple yes... and seeming non-sequiturs of rubbery for water, compared to Jell-O, Ryan enjoys painting observations from the standpoint of an observation announced in the title.  Brilliant is an understatement for her way of addressing unseen tension, with a clear sense of enjoyment and charm.  A needle on rubbery water, with a point encased /in the tenderest dimple, -- as if lying on a pillow?  How is it that things or people modify each other's qualities?  It takes the oddity of her set-up to remind us of the oddity of that!

Edna St. Vincent Millay:  (1892-50)  With her skill of sonneteer, this exquisite 16 line poem creates a vision of "love not meant to be", carved like a cameo, preserved as a gem stone.  The repetitions and choices of sounds such as the collection of hard c's

from the title, (Cameo repeated twice more), clear, [and diminished -- this combo also twice] carven... cove, cut (twice), cold, cliff, alliterations, and metaphor of the action of waves akin to the action of sorrow, crystalize and honor what had been and is no more.  A colorful addition to the  much that has been written about her, here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/how-fame-fed-on-edna-st-vincent-millay-diaries-rapture-melancholy

Arthur Sze : Apologies for the format-- Eddy brought in the book, Sight Lines from which "Lichen Song" comes.  The block of text was not lineated as it should be in the book.  To start a poem with "—Snow in the air" , and an unknown speaker who turns out to be the voice of one of the most ancient forms of life,  and employ unusual spaces and line breaks feels quite daring.  Was thousand broken into thou - sand?  Clearly, the lichen is chiding us humans, as one person says, "brings us down a peg".  We are but a "blink" -- and have not learned that we "are not alone in pain and grief"... although we have installed pain and grief... 

The poem dares us to "urge the dare and thrill of bliss"... We all agreed on the mastery of this poem and punned how we were "likin' it. 

Judith was reminded of a  tree story by Ursula LeGuin.  It is in the collection Buffalo Gals and other Animal Presences, and is titled “Direction of the Road.” As Judith says,  it is really really unusual, and as often with Ursula, dead-pan funny.  O what a magnificent writer and thinker she was.  It cannot be read even as a prose poem—that is not remotely its intention, but a gem.

A.E. Stallings: Like as final word in each line of a sestina, which invites a possible tedious chore of working with repeated end words could be a challenge for most writers.  Alicia Elspeth however, clearly not only revels in form and tosses off pantoums like confetti, but uses it with skill to explore meanings.  What does it mean to "like" someeone or something?  What did it mean before facebook?  Has conversational speech changed, replacing pauses with "you know" with pauses of "like"? Simile has  a reputation as inferior image to metaphor; "like" as simile still remains a valuable and popular tool.  Where is truth in our subjective use of "liking" or "disliking" something?  Perhaps the falseness of a virtual world doesn't allow "dislike" in its set of proscribed responses in the case of facebook, and desire  "money-like" and act cuckoo-like (pushing others out of nests) .  We admired her use of the archaic "belike" .  The poem is satire, comedy, meditation all at once.  The question might be, is it memorable?    

Ada Limon:  The How and What that goes into our memory is an important item to consider in our human history.  Is this finely crafted poem any more memorable than the sestina by Stallings?  Lovely crafting  with aba rhyme in the first tercet, eye-rhyme of "inky" and "sky", how "rain" as final word in the 5th tercet carries into the rhyme of the "vein" as final word on the first line of the 6th.  Indeed, we, as "blink" pin "quick wishes on stars" and this poem traveled on NASA's Europa Clipper.   As an occasional poem, the wishful thinking of how we, as human inhabitants on this planet, would like to be considered by other forms of consciousness in the universe seems to be the politically correct choice.  Indeed we are made "of wonders, loves, invisibles" whether these are great or small, whether indeed we can say all humans are in constant awe, this much Ada credits us with: we have a need to call out through the dark.

Richard Blanco:  This poem,is  hands down is memorable.  It uses cloud as a metaphor to explore the nature of being human.  The anaphor of until  opens a series of fragments and repeats 14 times until interrupted twice by "though" and twice by "we" of what we can do:  The first instance, we can collude into storms that ravage, is one possibility and also "sprinkle ourselves like memories" -- which makes me think of history sprinkling its repeats, both good and bad.  That last two "Untils" show us the direction.  Just like clouds, so much depends on wind, on conditions.  Originally from the 2020 project "The Crossing Votes"   Here, he reads it (Jan. 2021) https://www.facebook.com/RichardBlancoPoetry/videos/1711208562384848/

 there are several musical settings of it. For the one I gave with music by Oliver Caplan, this article explains more:  https://www.nhmasterchorale.org/post/imagining-a-better-world-the-music-of-oliver-caplan

 

 

 

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[1] “In Praise of Mystery” by Ada Limón was released at the Library of Congress on June 1, 2023, in celebration of the poem’s engraving on NASA’s Europa Clipper, scheduled to launch in October of 2024.  Limón, in addition to being national poet laureate, she was appointed in January 2025 as one of the chancellors in the American Academy of Poets. 

March 12-13

 email note w/ send out of poems:

In my blog https://kdjospe.blogspot.com/ I apologize for leaving off the crucial last 2 words of the second Merwin Poem along with a short summary of our fabulous discussions.    I include many links but  cannot figure out how to share one from Bernie  of  a letter written by one of his friends who is a dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh tradition.   I agree  that a letter is a small step in activating ourselves.  This particular letter is a reminder of the need for an antidote to our tendency to "tribalize others", accusing them as being wholly immoral and evil.  I am reminded that stooping  to anger interferes with understanding and invites further harm.   Should you wish a copy of this letter or the blog,  let me know.  I am sensitive to the overuse of internet sharing.

Back to the poems!  Oh the words!  Understanding our love of them, our need, our sharing of them.  I cannot tell you how much I treasure our time together.  Share: not as a portion, a divide, a cut, percentage, but a gesture of generosity towards each other.   

For next week:   The 3rd poem was recited by Judith in response to the Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet last week.  I apologize to scrollers for my attempt of side-by-side 

of the Robert Frost and Shakespeare .  You will see a large space after the last line of the Shakespeare Youth's a stuff will not endure. Frost's Flower Gathering starts with I left you in the morning. (reference is in the footnotes).

Poems: When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (excerpts-- first and last stanzas) full poem here

by Galway Kinnell;

Love Poem With Toast by Miller Williams; Not in a silver casket cool with pearls by Edna St. Vincent Millay; The Bracelet: To Julia  by Robert Herrick (from Robert Frost Book review ); “The World After Rain”  by Canisia Lubrin; POEM BY WENDELL BERRY:   VII; Carpe Diem (from 12th Night  Shakespeare    side by side w/ Flower-Gathering  by Robert Frost

Book review  How Robert Frost "invested in the literary tradition": note: In Maggie Doherty's review of Love and Need  by Adam Plunkett, "My appreciation of the exquisite late sonnet "The Silken Tent" did not increase upon learning that it borrows an image from this 17th century poem. In the same article,   Emerson's poem,  about Montaigne's relationship with a close friend, mentioned as an inspiration for The Road not Taken, written for the English poet Edward Thomas.

In a nutshell...  poems about aging, and love... poems which draw on "ulteriority" -- how you can love a poem without explaining the sense... Each poem offers a different spin, and we wondered,  what motivated Miller Williams to come up with "toast" in his upbeat poem?

Kinnell:  Good prompt.  Start a poem where each stanza repeats the same opening and closing line.  Try 11 of them.  Not "When one has lived a long time".  Or "when one has lived alone"... what is a long time and what is alone in the context of saving small creatures one used to thoughtlessly swat... but now offer "a life line flung at reality".  The repeat of "one", not a person, but a general reference to being human perhaps gave some the idea of a sermon, and many said, "for such a fine poet, not his best work". Others did not feel a tone of sadness, regret, but rather a meditative contemplation reflecting on the complexity of life.  The sense of life, birth to death, the gaze of the new baby looks past the gaze/of the great granny... and the unusual way of describing love with "lips blowsy from kissing, that language/the same in each mouth."  But he goes on... with a comparison of long-winded blethering of the birds.  It's not the words that are of consequence, it might seem, but the singing of daybreak, both earth's and heaven's.

Williams:  plenty of disparity in how to understand this poem which starts out logically enough about what it is we do, whether to make things happen, or trying to keep something from doing something.  He expands this idea with 6 repeats of wanting as anaphor, alternating between wanting to... and wanting not. Yes/no.  Some felt it was a poem about wanting what is beyond our understanding or control.  There's enough ambiguity to suit any reader's take.  Is it a tender love poem about two older people?  Or, two people caught in the complexity of life, pretending it makes any sense?  Lots of fun to read and re-read.

This is the same poet who was selected for Bill Clinton's second Inauguration. Of History and Hope https://poemanalysis.com/miller-williams/of-history-and-hope/ -- full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47107/of-history-and-hop

Millay: Not in a silver casket... as in a jewelry case, not about death at all, only a beautiful rejection of artificiality.  The last lines say it all -- Look at me... at what I have... with all the veracity of a child.  Millay's mastery (and love) of language is clearly evident.  Judith gave a summary of a poetry session on her at Maine Media.  Growing up on farm, very poor, many of her poems are filled with vegetation.  

Herrick:  Back to 17th century... this poem apparently inspired Robert Frost in his love poem, The Silken Tent :  https://poemanalysis.com/robert-frost/the-silken-tent/  But is he sincere? His love of conceit evident... but Julia? 

Lubrin:  her book, The World After Rain will come out in October... so we have no idea if this is a complete poem or an excerpt from the book, or how it fits in.  And yet.. we thought it magnificent!  References to Santa Lucia, the strange disconnect between mother and daughter -- where the mother's reality and astonishment feels so negative, but the daughter, as the voice of the poet, lifts up with imagination, connection with a sense of a former world... 

Judith provided us the story of a mother explaining the word slippery to her son who couldn't understand it, by dumping a bucket of water filled with fish over his head.  Yes. This is that sort of poem, where we can't  quite put the feel of it into words. 

Berry:  beautiful love poem... and kindness towards one's aging self... "young, with unforeseen debilities" is so much more gracious than decrepit.  And to feel the love still of how one used to love... that is a "beautiful bomb" at the end!

We loved the idea of age being a "progression" with new stages and the optimistic tone.  Judith brought up "No one loses all the time" by E.E. Cummings : https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1628/nobody-loses-all-the-time/

Frost:   So, poets steal from poems, and roaming from the snippet of Shakespeare appears in Frost. Seize the day.  

Judith shared at the end the grace and beauty of dancers, who off-stage might have looked ready for burial, but as soon as they approached the stage, returned to their former state of supreme mastery and race. Duende... what comes up inside of you, fills you with a love of life, some might say.  

March 5-6

  

Worn Words  by W.S. Merwin; To the Words (9/17/01)  by W.S. Merwin; Chaplinesque  by Hart Crane; my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell  by Gwendolyn Brooks; Schroedinger’s Cat  by  Wanda Schubmehl; Gaia’s Dream  by David Sutton; When I Am Asked by Lisel Mueller 1924 –2020; May Perpetual Light Shine by Patricia Spears Jones

Email with send out of poems for March 5-6:  "Here on the last day of February, I started the day re-reading the preface  to September 11, 2001, American Writers Respond, edited by William Heyen, and the first three poems -- by W.S. Merwin, Tamman Adi, Ai...  Merwin's words seemed to be a timely share. I am reminded of how easy it is in the news to blame a religion, a nationality.  Let us not forget that harm to other humans no matter what the affiliation is wrong. Let us maintain dignified and respectful behavior with poems that champion The Just, as we saw in the Borgès poem last week.

I am so grateful for good discussions as we respond to careful crafting of words in poems each week.

If anyone wishes the short resume of discussion I make each week, let me know. "

Starting the session: “Stanley Kunitz: ‘Most of all, I love being alive. I love the natural world -- and caring and creative people -- and the seekers of justice and truth. Whom do I disdain? Bigots, reactionaries, self-righteous people, zealots, trimmers, bullies, and manipulators.” 

**

Nutshell:  

I usually write about the discussion going poem by poem.  This morning, reading more of Heyen's anthology, I reflect on  the difficulty we humans have with language, our tool of expression.   In Patrick Bizzaro's essay, he speaks about "Houses of History made of words";  Wendell Berry shares a 4 page, XXVII point essay that reminds us of the importance of examining ourselves, as we try to understand the words wielded by the dominant politicians, investors, those who believe their promises.

It is easy to bandy about a word like "prosperity", call peace a "beautiful thing", substitute rhetoric without acknowledging a self-righteousness that mistakenly believes "promoting American interests as primary by abrogating international treaties, and standing aloof from international cooperation on moral issues" will ensure "victory" to paraphrase Berry.  He  points out that ends obtained by violence, lead to further violence, and our last two centuries of wars that confirm this.  Calling someone an "enemy" without understanding reasons they might be in a position to hate us, is is not a solution to conflict.

I think all who gather to discuss poems each week feel our attempts to understand how the words are working as we share our collective efforts to sharpen insights are precious indeed.  I thank each and everyone of you.  Poems are not prose, are not essays, but crafted words that express deeper meanings that can help us better examine ourselves.  

Bernie shares  a letter written by one of his friends who is a dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. (I'm not sure how to hyperlink it).   I agree  that a letter is a small step in activating ourselves.  This particular letter is a reminder of the need for an antidote to our tendency to "tribalize others", accusing them as being wholly immoral and evil.  I am reminded that stooping  to anger interferes with understanding and invites further harm.  

I am also aware that we all can suffer from email overload!  https://www.thensomehow.com/the-email-charter-10-rules-to-reverse-email-overload/

**

I have tried to condense as best I can the actual discussion of the 4 pages of poems on March 5-6.

Worn Words: One adjective to describe this short 10-line poem, is baffling.  The repetitions expand with a layering of meaning behind "late" as poems containing age-old wisdom, "worn" as overcoat, well-worn by use,  and of course "words", how they beckon, patiently waiting "almost in plain sight".  The binaries in Robert Graves' poem, The Face in the Mirror came to mind.  

To the Words:  This was the opening poem in the anthology edited by William Heyen, September 11, 2001 mentioned above.  Each selection is dated.  The poem also appears in the 9/30/2001 edition of The New Yorker and Merwin's anthology Present Company.  I apologize profusely -- the last two words are missing.  After and helpless ones, a stanza break then, say it.  

Is it an imperative? or continuation of what the words do... The you... (words) .in all the myriad functions and attributes described in the poem,  say it.   Yes, a statement, but also can be understand as an imperative.  What is this "it", second word of the first line, final word of the poem?

This is an example of the poem which confirms there is never one answer, one way of understanding, and what better expression of the malleable and deep implications of the adjectives chosen to describe words:  indispensable, sleepless, ancient, precious.  The poem feels like a prayer, both an invocation as well as praise for what words do.  The  pacing of  the lines, the space between stanzas accentuate the almost inexpressible power of words.  3rd line: one feels them moving through the ages, no interruption "passed on from breath to breath" , and that very passing then drops through the lines again, age/to age -- and we trust words are charged with knowledge -- but then a sense of contradiction:  knowing nothing... and indifferent .  I am reminded of the ancient wisdom of the gospels:  In the Beginning, was the Word.  

We were surprised by the adjective helpless at the end.  One thought was that words cannot decide how they are or will be used.

In the stanza, "keepers of our names" we were reminded of poetry of remembrance for BLM,  Exhibit at Stanford,  "Say their Names;  Transgender Day.  

Chaplinesque: We discussed Hart Crane (1899-1932), Chaplin's life and work... enjoyed the juicy language, the dual mention of "smirk" as noun then verb, the possibilities of the word "game" as possibly connected to the folly of capitalism.  The "grail of laughter of an ash can" an amazing image we could see, yet feel the ancient sense of "the chalice of salvation".  Why the mention of the Kitten-- is that a reference to a Chaplin film?  We also needed a reminder of the word, covert, as noun, which means shelter.  What makes something Chaplinesque -- makes us laugh at the folly of progress, and yet urges us to embrace the tenderness of our hearts?

my dreams...  Another fabulous Brooks sonnet.  The two capitalized words on line 4 -- what she "bids each lid" : Be firm until I return from hell. Last word on line 7: Wait. Such fierceness of spirit.  Discussion examined darkness, interior life, vs. outside.  The repeat of opening line with the change... hold rhymes with old -- that honey and bread...  a lasting taste, and absolutely hers.   It prompted Judith to remember Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet, https://allpoetry.com/Not-In-A-Silver-Casket-Cool-With-Pearls

Schroedinger's Cat:  Bart sums it up.  WOW.  Not an easy experiment, and not an easy poem about illusion, everything and its opposite all at once, here and not, rather like walking in a hall of endless mirrors.  

Gaia's dream:   If told as we were lucky enough to be, this is an amazing hommage to glaciers... you will understand those blue mystery snails in a larger light.  How to understand Gaia, Mother Earth and our place in her dream?  How to understand "Again, she cradles us with cruel love"... I like how at the end, "off for good" could be both "good" as opposed to "bad", as well as "once and for all."  Comments included concern for trees, the danger of the weight of trucks, and Bernie shared this amazing film:https://www.primevideo.com/detail/The-Hidden-Life-of-Trees/0GC1VQR9PCJTN8ICA742WKLPBF some offer rental at $3.99 https://www.tvguide.com/movies/the-hidden-life-of-trees/2030450161

When I am asked:  beautiful way to understand the power of words... back to Merwin's wisdom.

May Perpetual : Sounds like Catholic liturgy.  I will be attending a workshop Patricia is leading at Writers and Books (only open to teaching artists alas) next Thursday and ask her about the inconsistent caps at the beginning of lines like "Famine" in the 3rd stanza.  What patterns matter?

Poems for February 26-7

Some Days  by Billy Collins; Half the Truth by Jack Gilbert; The Death of Allegory  by Billy Collins; 

Oranges by Gary de Soto; Give-and-Take Ghazal (collaboration #83) by Denise Duhamel, Julie Marie Wade; The Just  by Jorge Luis Borgès, translated by Alistair Reid;  The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner  by Randall Jarell**

For this last week of February, I am grateful to many sources for poems that have gone into this patchwork of tones and colors.  A thank you to Eddie suggested Gary de Soto.**  We have read many poets de Soto admires, like Philip Levine, Pablo Neruda.  ** And heartfelt thanks to David Delaney who used the Jarrell poem as example of a 5-line poem laden with hidden messages that enhance the impact and meaning in his presentation to Just Poets on  Saturday 2/15/25. I stumbled on this site : Nutshell https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68931/when-yellow-ribbons-and-flag-waving-arent-enough  which also includes it.  

Poetry paints the colors of us in ways that call us to pay careful attention to what we might miss otherwise. To repeat the quote by Christian Wiman (thank you Barb!): Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."

 

 Nutshell

Billy Collins: Some Days:  Borderline mockery perhaps is not a fair term for the wry tone of a Billy Collins poem.  Nor do "cynical" or "sardonic" quite fit, as he is not writing a satire, but  rather, in the case of this poem, allowing the reader to join in the challenges of being human, and to invite us to laugh at our own version of it.  Poetry, a poet might think, is one place to exert control, and indeed, in the first 2 quatrains, each tidily ending with a period, we can enjoy his fun "playing".  The tease on the first line "Some days I put people in their places" which is quickly (but only partially) completed with "at the table", light-heartedly interrupts the initial idea to take a turn away from some psychological battle into a more fanciful implication of playing with dolls, with an extra chuckle for the third line about no guarantee that either people or dolls might have certain features.  We gladly follow along with the "other days" relating to feelings of otherways we are "being played with".  He includes us, with his aside, "very funny" and we get to see his point as a writer.  But, does he ever allow the poem to take over?  Is there more to this poem than just a chuckle, and if not, is that enough?  Many participants had memories triggered of dolls, others felt it was a glimpse at a typical day in a life.  

There's sometimes a sense of relief,  to feel there is no worry whether there is a "point" (or not).  It allows the reader to take the poem in whatever stride one is inclined to take at that moment.

 

Jack Gilbert plays a different kind of game with "Half the Truth".  Indeed, many of the details could be parts of a story, and we are reminded how complex "truth" really is in these 16 lines.  Pleasant rhythms, alternating short lines such as the nugget  "Going south" which could be about the actual Geese, or where a state of "discontent" could take you.  We enjoyed the words "bedraggled" and "panoply", which stood out from the vernacular tone of the poem.  Panoply at first, seemed to be implying an "invisible" layer of God's omnipotence, or as Kathy suggested, perhaps easier to understand, as a reference to God as seasonal colors. The theme of resting, (and the importance for plants of lying dormant), waiting, seemed accentuated from the alternating  florid / matter of fact tones, like seasons.  People liked the reassuring note on which the poem ended.  

 

Billy Collins:  Death of Allegory is a witty treatment of Allegory itself, and some noted the Spencerian references to Fairie Queen, with which Billy of course would be well-versed.  Back in 1589, Spencer would be the first to admit that this was was  "cloudily enwrapped in  allegorical devices"...  Collins skillfully inserts the contemporary world (and much we regret in it that seems to shun those Allegorical figures so ready to guide us).  In spite of the humor, the poem points to a very real lament of the loss of what poetry provides, if not a subtle caveat to try to safeguard it.

 

Oranges:  We could see this vivid poem as a silent film.  Once person remarked the tiny cinquain-like poem on lines 5-7: Frost cracking/beneath my steps/my breath before me/

then gone.  (syllable count 3-4-5-2 variation of the Cinquain form 2-4-6-8-2)   We noted the anticipatory gestures, such as the verb choice of breathing before the drugstore, enjoyed the wonderful images (tiered like bleachers), details of orange, fire,  porchlight which burned yellow night and day in any weather. There could be an implication of the girl "lifting" a chocolate, with perhaps the lady behind the counter and the boy were complicit in covering up for her theft.  Most thought the lady was rooting for the young man and for the success of his "date" as a "rite of passage." It's an advantage to have so many ways to see the story!  It's reinforced in the way he lines up "the lady's eyes met mine,/and held them, knowing/Very well what it was all/About. We, as readers can only make conjecture as to what the "about" is about!

 Many thought  the poem should accompany a Rockwell painting!

 

 **Gary de Soto,  known for a body of work that deals with the realities of growing up in Mexican- American communities.  This commentary delightful! (do click on hyperlinks!) from Poetry, June 1983 is suggested by Eddie who provided some links about the poet, 

Gary de Soto:  "As a writer, my duty is not to make people perfect, particularly Mexican Americans. I’m not a cheerleader. I’m one who provides portraits of people in the rush of life.” 

“Soto establishes his acute sense of ethnicity and, simultaneously, his belief that certain emotions, values, and experiences transcend ethnic boundaries and allegiances. “Soto's remembrances are as sharply defined and appealing as bright new coins,” wrote Alicia Fields in the Bloomsbury Review. “His language is spare and simple yet vivid.” But it is his joyful outlook, strong enough to transcend the poverty of the barrio, that makes his work so popular. As he told Hector Avalos Torres in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, writing “is my one talent. There are a lot of people who never discover what their talent is … I am very lucky to have found mine.”  Reminiscent of Philip Levine, Pablo Neruda. 

Give and Take Ghazal: I enjoyed imagining these two poets choosing two words, wondering how they decided who went first, and how many "takes" they took!    The 10 couplets can read as series of odd non-sequiturs, and a fun game where sense is not the goal.   The phrase "blaming myself when I mistake tolerance for interest" piqued some interest; Come on, Democracy, a clever invitation for a variation on Patrick Henry's "Give me..."

Borgès : The "Just" or a translation of the Italian (see original below) could be "the Righteous".  This site has the Italian version and illustration of Norman Rockwell Christmas (I copy the Italian text below) I highly recomment  this fascinating article about Borgès and how he dealt with his hereditary blindness.  On the Thursday, we ended on the Borgès.  In bringing up the reference to "Stevenson", we thought perhaps it might be a slant a reference to R.L. Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses and George mentioned visiting his home in Lake Placid where he was treated for his pulmonary illness.

Back to the poem: oh to have a world filled with such people.  Make sure to notice them and thank them. The link that provided this poem also mentioned Randall Jarrell.  

Death of the Ball-Turret Gunner:  As I mentioned, the 5-line poem was used in a workshop on delving deeper into a poem's meaning.  It provides a highly effective "sound track" with alternating drum beats of iambs and trochees, definitive spondées. The end rhyme in lines 2 and 5 (froze/hose)-- perhaps subconsciously sends a message that what is chilling about war is hosed away.  Similarly  slant rhyme.  the ee sound of sleep/dream;   the I rhyming in 

night/fighters/died, the surprising use of the past tense by the speaker of the poem announcing his own death is powerful.

On Wednesday, we followed it with a more light-hearted read of Gary de Soto, Ambition https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=144&issue=4&page=10

and Judith offered this  poem by Gwendolyn Brooks: https://endarkenment.com/hair/poetry/brooks.htm

 

I also sent out a side by side of John Donne, The Canonization  and Paul's tweak on it, The Intercession.

 

I guisti  by Jorge Luis Borgès (1981)

 

Un uomo che coltiva il suo giardino, come voleva Voltaire.

Chi è contento che sulla terra esista la musica.

Chi scopre con piacere una etimologia.

Due impiegati che in un caffè del sud giocano in silenzio agli scacchi.

Il ceramista che premedita un colore e una forma.

Il tipografo che compone bene questa pagina che forse non gli piace.

Una donna e un uomo che leggono le terzine finali di un certo canto.

Chi accarezza un animale addormentato.

Chi giustifica o vuole giustificare un male che gli hanno fatto.

Chi è contento che sulla terra ci sia Stevenson.

Chi preferisce che abbiano ragione gli altri.

Tali persone, che si ignorano, stanno salvando il mondo.

Small addendum -- in the spirit of John Donne "

see Blog notes for 2/20: (We moved on to the Flea, which  Paul helped us appreciate for its spicy suggestions and more background on John Donne quoting his use of vernacular with a liberal translation of The Canonization: "Shut up and let me love!" (Well...  the opening line is actually, "For God Sakes Woman, be quiet... ") Paul shared this  on Monday evening 2/24:  "a work in progress" and will likely still be so by Wednesday (2/27) 

                                                      Intercession

                    For the Christ's sake

                    Would ye ever put a cork in it

                    And leave me in me lover's mask?

                    Pray me health as I shake and stride 

                    Upon a pair of flamin" feet,

                    Me fortune's receding faster than me hairline,

                    While you, so portly in pounds

                    Sit on the board of the bloody British Art Museum !

                    You set your wits in stone, you preserve your face

                    In honors of interlocking everlasting fame.

                    Do what you dare

                    To save me money

                    That I may save me ladies true 

                    And keep me ould kip alive.

                    Make the numbers work 

                    That I will carry on,

                    And let me love.

Recited by a man in his pints at Davy Byrnes's Moral Pub, 21 Duke St. Dublin.

    Made famous by James Joyce, Ulysses, the Lestregonians.

If you ever should go down to Davy Byrnes's Pub, tell them you knew me then, along with Barney, the daytime barman and the lady known as Kate.

Poems for February 19-20

 Happy Valentine's Day, however you can embellish the happy.   (It helps to make a list of positives in your life.  This might include  celebrations of loving gestures human beings give to each other )-- and I pause there, to thank everyone who is on this list for loving the conversations that come from sharing poems.  For sure, I want to thank everyone (especially Joyce who provided the pink hearts) for penning such lovely notes!  They are totallty reciprocal and I return the positive feelings!  As for the Patron Saint of Bees, and Epileptics, so cruelly martyed in the 3rd century... (Saint Valentine)  or the commercial parephenalia created and ascribed to him, I do hope big KISS will  keep things simple, and perhaps a little silly. 

Barb Murphy shares this quote  from Christian Wiman when he was Editor of Poetry Magazine: she taped it to heroffice door when she was teaching full-time:"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."

Poems for next week:  (you'll note Jim's tongue twister comes first.  I do hope you enjoy the pleasant pheasant  plucker's presence! )  You might know that the wry Frederick Ogden Nash (1902-1971) although born in Rye, New York had an ancestor directly related to the naming of Nashville.. 

We Made Quite a Do by Jim Jordan; The Cow, The Pig by Ogden Nash; The Flea by John Donne; A Caution To Everybody by Ogden Nash; Moon Gathering by Eleanor Wilner; POEM IN WHICH I INSPECT THE FABRIC CARE LABEL by Dick Westheimer 

 

Nutshell:

 

 Much ado:  We had the honor of Jim coming in person to read his poem.  It received a sound round of applause and chuckles on Wednesday, and quite a few more compliments Thursday.  What fun the contrasting modern sound (sass) with the fancier "fusillade" all with the overplay of battle play inside a play and in history!  Phew!  An audacious and ambitious project -- but as Mike said  pulled it off quite successfully!  Not overdone, but with all the delight of Shakespeare making the reader want to read that play... but meanwhile enjoying how Jim and friends are enjoying it!

 

So what makes us glad to read/hear wordplay -- or conversely find it tiresome?  It came up that alliteration is great for satire and expressing anger, but not great when it interferes with the tone or message. Wit can fall into similar pros and cons, best expressed as comedy perhaps.

 

Ogden Nash: the small sampling provided much merriment!  Graeme thought Nash might need some help with a review of anatomy for the cow;  The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the middle is milk, and the other end of entirely different ilk.  An alternative might go directly to rhyme with poo.

It brought up many fun references.  Polly shared Nash's view of the Turtle:  The turtle lives twixt plated decks/which practically conceal its sex./ I think it clever of the turtle/In such a fix to be so fertile. 

We moved on to the Flea, which  Paul helped us appreciate for its spicy suggestions and more background on John Donne quoting his use of vernacular with a liberal translation of The Canonization: "Shut up and let me love!" (Well...  the opening line is actually, "For God Sakes Woman, be quiet... ") He suggests, if you enjoyed animal poems, to check out Robert Burns, and his comments To a Louse" espied on a lady's bonnet in church.  

Thanks to Judith, we enjoyed very much "Archy" the cockroach recording the alley cat Mehitabel's story,  helping his punctuation along, since could not manage the shift key on the typewriter when recording  (note  3rd stanza, there's a small typo:  guts, not gust)..  The liberal dose of French indeed makes the Ballade resemble a take-off of François Villon.  Don Marquis, by the way, is not a Spanish Nobleman, but an American,  Donald, from Walnut, Illinois (1878-1937).  Neil brought in his copies of Archie and Mehitabel to show and mentioned the  musical  !  Bart (Rundel) summed it up: the poem is a delightful example of brio filled panache and unexpected surprises.  

Moon Gathering:  this poem by one of the newest Chancellors of the American Academy (note, she is 88!)  could have provided a month of discussion and appreciation.  The title sets up mystery with the intrigue in the play of noun and verb in the word gathering.  Who is they?  Who is we?  

  We shared feelings regarding  tone: a sense of sacred, perhaps ancient ceremony of Wickens, and travel with the ancestors of the stars.  The moon is a powerful symbol, and Wilner sets the stage with the word scrim, the light curtain used in theatre.  Her use of the future tense, shifting to present allows the reader to travel simultaneously with the poet in two worlds.  This is one of those mysterious  poems which engages the reader fully, but skirts explanation. Details include  moon as "hook", the old-fashioned well and dipper, and the scientific term, "precession" used for the wobbling state of a planet on its axis.   As for an understanding of  the three zeros standing like pawprints  it is not clear:  a reference to the millenium, the summer triangle or Canis Major (the big dipper's other Dog name)?  Without knowing, the impact of possibilities is not confusing, but enhances the intrigue.  All this lends to a sense of summoning  spirits.  

Voicemail Villanelle:  Here, the form is used to enhance a light-heartedly clever commentary on the telephone, the "menus" providing choices with the obvious lies of the two repeated rhymes We'll be with you right away; We're grateful that you called today.  

Poem in Which:  The Rattle prompt  from Denise Duhamel, is a wonderful challenge. Tap the hyperlink to read the review about her book called  In Which

 Denise writes this in a note to her Jan, 2025 poem, "Poem in which I press Fast Forward" : 

“I started writing the poems from In Which after reading Emily Carr’s brilliant essay ‘Another World Is Not Only Possible, She Is on Her Way on a Quiet Day I Can Hear Her Breathing.’ (American Poetry Review, Volume 51, No. 3, May/June 2022) Carr borrows her title from Arundhati Roy, political activist and novelist. In her delightfully unconventional essay, Carr talks about rekindling intuition in poems, offering ‘a welcome antidote to whatever personal hell you, too, are in.’ Carr’s invitation to be unapologetic, even impolite, gave me new ways of entering my narratives. Soon I was imagining I was someone else completely. Or sometimes I looked back at my earlier self, at someone I no longer recognized.”

We very much enjoyed the scenario inspired by a "care" label.  The stanza enjambments propel the poem forward, as an accumulation of slant rhymes flesh, chest, caresse, yes weave a story.  Inspecting an actual label,  the poem calls on how we label, the importance of care, as subtext.  Although she could not make it in person,  Marge Burgio, responded to the last with her poem. 

"Read the Care Label"

Don't Discard

Give a light washing

of streams from above,

May need TLC if wrinkled

Or smooth like a dove.

Perhaps a swift kick 

in the pants...

Will be the best aid!

Or just a listening ear 

without more to say...

Soft music to soothe 

at the end of the day.

{A Bible Study Class, Poems of God's splendor/Will give us the love, we/Hope to remember...]

** Indeed, we should all come with a care label: if faith in a God helps, go for it... perhaps the splendor in nature's wonder is another name for it.