Nutshell:
Cat in the Slipper: A nonet is a shrinking syllabic form of nine lines. The form suggests a slipper; each line acts rather independently as it paints a picture . The sounds are warm and fuzzy, and even if you might prefer the last word to be "slipper", the rule calls for a one-syllable word. You might think of a homonym - shoo! and imagine someone wanting to reclaim the slipper!
Song of the Mischievous Dog: Everyone felt the playful lilt of inner twice-rhymed lines alternating with end rhyme. Who has heard a unicorn described as a horse with a horn and two humps on its head (with a huff of 4 alliterative H's!!!) It's an unusual to have a dog be the speaker, describing a moment of bliss ... whether it's true a dog wants to chase "stones" as well as rabbits. The rhyme seems to write the whimsy (doubtful of biscuit, I'm willing to risk it) and there's a blithe innocence that frees the reader from needing to delve into deep meaning!
Shall Gods Be Said to Thump the Clouds: I'm not sure how old Thomas was when he wrote this, but this is quite a contrast where, 3 tercets set up questions about Gods, with a definitive answer in the first lines of the 4th tercet regarding their existence. God are stones. One more question -- can they drum or chime? There's a sense of yearning that however stone may speak, it be able to be understood. The musical cadences of the lines are powerful and illustrate our human propensity for anthropomorphizing gods in nature, in weather, which some might feel borders anti-religious.
Paul recommended the 1986 book by Dylan's wife Caitlin : https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/caitlin-with-george-tremlett-thomas/caitlin-life-with-dylan-thomas/
Against Endings : The title holds the key to the poem. We want a line to end, but often in poetry, the line carries on the meaning with an enjambment. There are two curious ones: line 8 : two// (line and stanza break)//dogs and line 15: up//(line break)//through. Others do the work of double meanings and a pleasant surprise as in line 3: only the music/ of voices; line 5: voices in darkness/below stars; line 12: obligatos afloat/on the humid air. There are no periods, so some of the lines feel they hang in space, not needing any completion. The poem asks us to read it slowly, allow it the time it is taking to consider what seems to be an urban scene. We made many conjectures: a city block with kids playing up until dark; perhaps two teens in love, not wanting the night to end; perhaps a European city. The musical terms are lovely, contralto of questions; laughter's plucked strings; human duet; obligatos afloat... and different kind of thumping with a rap song. For sure, we were wrapped up in the scene, could feel it strongly.
Blood: Without context, a daring title that immediately gets you wondering which of the many associations the poem will bring: the stuff in our veins we all share? our bloodline as in family? as in shared blood of a country or culture? as in spilled blood from accident or murder? The poet repeats the adjective "true" before "Arab" as if to emphasize the larger definition of a nationality, not sullied by misinterpretation. One person wondered if in the second stanza, perhaps the skin peeled away was a sign of threatened identity. Another brought up that the watermelon was symbolic with the colors of the Palestinian flag. There is an innocence in the third stanza about a girl wanting to see the Arab, perhaps, but also puzzlement. "We don't have one", on second read could me, there isn't one singular, specific Arab. The question, "Once we die, do we give [our name, Shooting Star"] back?" as a good response of what a true Arab would say, also gives rise to consider how we call each other and what we keep about our names and meanings.
The 4th stanza has intimations of terrible chaos. How to tend one's home, the stone walls, gardens, under threat of destruction? Of what good a table mat stitched blue, waved as flag as if we all share sky and ocean? Where can the crying heart graze? The poem asks you to beg the question of how we can talk using the word civilized????? Who calls anyone, any country that?
Come Back! : Do look up the poet. She enjoys working with other texts and references, in this case, H.D., the famous Hilda Doolittle who with Ezra Pound established the imagist group in London in 1911. The poem juxtaposes an idealization of this elegant, eloquent poet (1886-1961), the news of her time with the news of ours a century later. There is a juxtaposition between HD's experience of the Blitz in London with our experience of 9/11. One person thought of the Simon and Garfunkel tune, Mrs. Robinson . Who is standing there, at the top of the stair? The poem pleads for help, for restoration -- to make good things, like imagination come back. We would have appreciated commas in the 4th line (bolded below) of the 5th stanza When bombs fell around your family/You seemed so sure in your poems/Walking down a London street/Thinking of Egypt, of Mary, of ruins/You stepped through a broken wall to see/A bomb-blackened apple tree flowering/It guided you through the Blitz/
Here when cherry blossoms appear after the winter/I think, Pretty pink ladies/Dont catch a disease and die on us.
Apologies for the scrambling there when the pdf and pasted text disagreed. The rest of the poem after the quoted text is only two stanzas: one starting with I remember the Two Towers falling. The final stanza starts: Where to now, H.D.?
Tombs and Wombs: Although the poem is an ekphrastic response to a stunning photograph, it certainly can stand on its own. One senses the narrator is grieving a lost child. The photo of these pre-columbian burial mounds, entitled "Deserted" is located near St. Louis, MO. See Chohokia Each stanza is riven with a sense of aching, of desperate and visceral waiting, -- but infused with what is not longer, may never be.
I added a final poem for the Wednesday session to lighten the spirits.
OK Let’s Go Maureen N. McLane
Let’s go to Dawn School
and learn again to begin
oh something different
from repetition
Let’s go to the morning
and watch the sun smudge
every bankrupt idea
of nature “you can’t write about
anymore” said my friend
the photographer “except
as science”
Let’s enroll ourselves
in the school of the sky
where knowing
how to know
and unknow is everything
we’ll come to know
under what they once thought
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