First Snow by Arthur Sze; Injustice by Jared Campbell; Silence and American Sonnet by Billy Collins; American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes; 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens
First Snow. Eddie had proposed the Arthur Sze poem as an interesting technique using nature. First Snow as title is delightfully ambiguous and allows an embrace of several aspects of "hidden" things. Yes, there is a rabbit, and yes, a gravel driveway and a comparison of "the world of being" akin to the gravel. For many it seemed bafflingly multi-faceted. For others, an interesting narrative where "you" could be the rabbit, as well as the poet. The punctuation is careful: Three lines end with a colon. The first is followed by stanza break, to indented couplets and a staggered tercet. The elaborations after the colons are given breaths of semi-colons. The second and third time a line ends with a colon, it hangs in space.
There appears to be a juxtaposition between an urban environment, a human, and a rabbit.
Known as a poet of clarity and compassion, detailed imagery such fastidious punctuation however, does not help elucidate any point he is making. There is an embrace akin to a Buddhist silence. We cannot know "the whole, only small parts offered... markings of a buck on an aspen, but no buck; work of a carpenter, but no craftsman; mention of a blue-zizagged shirt, car, house, which you do not own, but rather borrow; snow that melts and is no longer. The mention of dreams, and starlight behind the daylight in the haunting last line gives a sense of timelessness.
Injustice: The triolet is known as a form for making fun of something, and is fun to write. We had a lovely discussion about pigeons, their iridescence, and the word "beautifullest" which carries an innocence of a child combining "full and fullest of beauty." Of course, "dove" rhymes with "love", but no need to mention that bird. A critique of religion, or empty praise of love ignore the pigeon, the one carrying messages, providing filling for a pie, both quite useful attributes. But aside from being ignored, what is involved with injustice?
Silence: Billy Collins often has a flippant tone, but in his repeated use of the word Silence, he amply observes the many angles of silence. We examined the contrast of words that seemed to fit in each tercet and those that didn't. One person saw a narrative connecting the second stanza, mentioning the belt striking a child, to the penultimate one of the broken silence. There is a Buddhist feel of "one hand clapping" where one imagines the other hand that is not present, perhaps a memory. There is also tension between several of the elements, such as "the quiet of the day" and the roar of the sun.
We made conjectures about the last line. Is he just being self-effacing? Perhaps referring to the difficulty of writing, and not being able to express the greater aspect of something, or merely, the preference of the process to the silent end. Someone brought up Kipling and the "wind between the words", and another the palpable "roar" of heat and light from the sun in hot countries.
13 ways: We did not discuss this complicated poem, however in the Wednesday group there were countless associations with crows! Bernie: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/851/try-a-little-tenderness ( ACT 2 of the This American Life episode "Try a Little Tenderness" from 1/10/25, which starts at about 29:15
13 as bad luck number; black bird as symbol of death; or merely a convenient image to chose for a collection of disconnected images presented in a haiku-like kaleidoscopic manner that ultimately emphasizes the plural nature of perception. There isn’t just one way to look at a blackbird! In the century since its publication, the poem has inspired numerous musical compositions, pieces of fiction, essays, and other poems.
My favorite it verse 5: which to prefer: beauty of inflections, or innuendoes. Connected to time, which also flavors our sense of something, perhaps it is easier to quibble about the difference than to keep seeking "indecipherable causes traced in the shadow" in the next stanza!
Inflection involves volume and pitch of the voice; innuendo: an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one. What remains is the constant of the bird. Perhaps like the first poem, the "evening all afternoon, points to a larger cosmic connection.
American Sonnet: Terrance Hayes is a powerful voice and creative force in the poetry world. He wrote 70 sonnets for "My Past and Future Assassin" after Trump was elected; published in 2018. See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sonnets_for_My_Past_and_Future_Assassin
Wanda Coleman (1946—2013) also worked with this form, a looser, more inventive group of 14 lines with no requirement about meter, rhyme or volta.
American Sonnet: Billy Collins: He doesn't bother with confining a fake posturing of a sonnet to 14 lines, but goes for 7 tercets -- perhaps an expanded half sonnet? Clearly a parody. The idea of a sonnet as travel postcard is wonderfully funny and many a chuckle was provoked by "the Wish you were here // line and stanza break, and hide the wish that we were where you are.
It prompted Judith to recite by heart a Gwendolyn Brooks Sonnet. If you do not know these, they are well worth looking up. article https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/141972/velvety-velour-and-other-sonnet-textures
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