The Old Poets of China by Mary Oliver (1935-2019); All by Bei Dao; The Answer; Never Alone by Francisco X. Alarcón (favorite by Ada Limon~); Incantation by Czesław Miłosz; from Mythologizing Always : Seven Sonnets by Patricia Spears Jones. (I and IV); The Library's Roof Is a Meadow by Pamela Lucinda Moss
We had the honor of hearing Eddy read the two poems in the set by Bei Dao in Chinese. Thank you Eddy for offering this special opportunity to hear the original and point out particularities of the translation.
NUTSHELL:
The Old Poets of China: The title sets us up to want to know more... Much is happening with Oliver's management of these five lines. The first line delivers a double-meaning, where the world "comes after me" could imply the speaker comes first, then the world; or literally, the world seems to chase us with its offers of busyness. Then two short sentences, one of which broken by an enjambment. Then a long two and half lines of the next sentence that completes the poem, shooting us back in time, and high in the misty mountains. She needn't tell us how she understands these old poets, it is enough that she does, and we are invited to join in a metaphorical meditation of an old Chinese brush painting of tall mountains where a tiny figure can barely be distinguished.
We can all relate to a desire to escape busyness... and The World is too much with us (Wordsworth) comes to mind. How does she mean "it does not believe that I do not want it." ? By personifying "the world" this is not an easy statement to ignore. What is our place in the world, whether it be natural or the one of human affairs? The more you stay with this short poem, the more satisfying it seems to be, straddling whatever occidental present in our case, with an ancient oriental art and wisdom.
Bei Dao (Zhao Zhenkai) born in 1949 is an important poet both for both China and the World. Eddy gave us a brief history of modern China, after the rise of Mao, the cultural revolution in 1966-76, Tianamen Square Massacre in 1989. Bei Dao was exiled in 1989 but allowed back in the country in 2006. He belonged at one point to the Misty Poets, and he is known for subtlety, eloquence, and innovation. All: In English, the "l" curls off the tongue and the anaphor allows a sense of a flowing river. Note, the translator emphasizes "All" with a capital A, but there is no punctuation, only a double space between each line, as if the words "creep into the pale mist" in the high mountains. Each line invites long reflection. The first four lines treat "All" as an entity, with an opening that implies birth, awareness of being in immense and eternal beginnings without end, and yet "All is a search that dies at birth". What comes before? Is there need to know what comes after? All does not need to search. The final line echoes the echoes -- "All deaths have a lingering echo".
The rest of the phrases couple "All" to mostly abstract nouns : joy, sorrow, love, hope, faith. Even language reflects the anaphoric All, as it repeats. One thought about "All joy lacks smiles/all sorrow lacks tears": these two lines see the inward nature that does not need outward expression. Likewise with the "groans" carried with faith; abstract love encased in the heart; abstract hope as a metaphorical vehicle carrying annotations. To arrive at a true sense of joy, sorrow, love, the "all" cannot be pinned down, put into words. We try to make meaning, to understand the complexity of faith, hope, but it is almost reassuring to hear the chiming of "All".
The footnote gives a site and further reference of one blogger -- to add to our discussion and address the penultimate line. We discussed the line, "All contact a first encounter" -- which affirms the constant shifting nature of reality. Each time we perceive something, meet someone, it will be different.
Carolyn had the idea of a choral incantation where the group would join in saying "all", and then different individual voices would complete the line. Indeed, this poem is one you can imagine sung.
The Answer: It is helpful to know that this poem was written in response to the 1976 uprising 4 months after Chou En-Lai's death. Indeed, with a title "The Answer", a first response would be "what is the question"? It seems to be a call for truth, calling into question givens like "the sky is blue"which modern science will confirm is a matter of our perception, not fact. Coupled with the protest is a belief in dreams.
We remarked the irony of the opening two stanzas. What makes good or bad poetry? How does writing poetry make a difference? (Perhaps "All" has the answer!) Eddy was helpful explaining that "brackish water" in the penultimate stanza is a phrase in Chinese for grievances. "Let all the brackish water pour into my heart", would imply absorbing grievances to create harmony, encourage "Humanity to choose a peak for existence again" (back to the philosopher-poet-scholar's mountains!).
Never Alone: This was a choice of a poem by current National Poet Laureate, Ada Limon and one she used in "Poetry in the Parks. To hear her read it: https://www.nps.gov/places/poetryinparks3.htm The softness of the sibilance is reassuringly convincing. The final word, corazón, heart echoes Bei Dao, "All love is in the heart".
Incantation: Like "All", this poem offers us lines deserving careful attention, meditation, however, they do contain punctuation which accentuates an "end-stopped" gravity. The first 14 lines of this 20 line poem concern Human Reason. The second character is a coupling of love + wisdom, "beautiful and young Philo-Sophia" and then Poetry who brings the news as mythic unicorn, magical but offering us ways to imagine the possible. Again, eternal, renewed, and the echoes confirm old/young go hand in hand, renaissance after renaissance. The background of the poem: written in Berkley, CA in 1968 shortly after Prague Spring, Milosz wrote it in Polish and translated it with his good friend Robert Pinsky, who later became a two-term National Poet Laureate. Pinsky would read this poem at public events, such as the memorial after 9/11.
As Seamus Heaney remarks, "it is thrilling to hear ideal possibilities of human life stated so unrepentantly and unambiguously." Vive the spirit of optimistic enlightenment, more powerful (we hope) than post-structuralists preaching indeterminism!
two stanzas of Mythologizing Always: As a series of seven sonnets, the title uses "mythologizing" as adjective to the abstract noun of "always". I am reminded of the saying that "poetry tells us what we think we need to hear, that we would not get from honest, responsible prose." The first sonnet deserves a dramatic reading, bringing alive "heart part" hand in hand with "intense improvisation" turning mythologizing (in parentheses) into a verb, where always becomes its adverb. Sonnet IV goes to town with the sounds and rhythms supporting lively images of a poem miming itself, working itself up to the fabulous last four lines where the reader is shown the choreography of "the anxiety dance". Yet another way to address the Tao theme of this week's selection of poems.
The Library's Roof: Delightful set of couplets drawing on "library" vocabulary -- from bibliographic record, sanctuary (especially in the psychology section of 158.9's), catalogues, Libby -- all the way to the roof, as a place of renewal-- imagine that final line as everyone's birthright: astonishingly undocumented, circulating love!
The poem brought up mutliple shares of memories wandering the stacks, the joy of serendipitous stumblings . Apparently the Frederick Douglass library had a garden on its roof!
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