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!