March 18 + 20

 Origami  by Meg Yardley; For Air by Ed Robeson; Butchering by Rhina p. Espaillat; No Swan so Fine by Marianne Moore;  American History by Michael S. Harper; Night Bird  by Danusha Laméris; Lessons at the Legendary Institute for Yarn Spinning by Rigoberto González; The Lanyard  by Billy Collins

I fully subscribe to Ross Gay's statement about "Joy, as practice of survival."  I  

Nutshell of discussion of poems for March 18 + 20

 

I opened with this quote from Isabel Allende: We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that sudden strength forward.  In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity people do amazing things.  The human capacity for renewal is awesome.

 

Because the subject of War and Peace is on everyone's mind I shared few quotes from the Peace Postcard initiative[1].  Interesting that the first poem brought up the Japanese legend of thousand cranes and the story of the Japanese girl, Sadoku, one of the many who suffered from the effects of the Atom Bomb

 

  

Origami:  brought up many associations which included the Japanese legend of folding paper into origami cranes. The hyperlink will give you the story of the Japanese girl, Sadoku, one of the many who suffered from the effects of the Atom Bomb dropped on Hiroshima. She folds 1,000 cranes knowing the Japanese legend, that whoever does this will be granted a wish. Lest we forget about the bombing of two cities... 

 

How do we make sense of our world?  How can we repair the damage we see, unfolding a paper,

the creases of failures?  The uses of the word folding take us  from origami to the idea of wrinkles you wish you could smooth away, folds of empty spaces, cities, language, wind, valley, bill folds. The act of creating an origami bird is a meditative calming and methodical practice  that offsets the unpredictable.  I like that kami refers to origami paper but also to Japanese deities.  

 

The poem itself uses many enjambments as if each stanza is folding through space.  Indeed, the word "fold" is key, used in all but three stanzas (5th, 8th and final)   What is the bird base referred to in them?  This many-layered poem has the reader imitating folds of possibilities in the mind. 

 

Night Bird:    Who is saying the opening "Hear me"?  Is it the night bird, the poet? Should we believe or mock the prophetic tone?  The jump to the odd detail about the nephew and the therapist who dismisses that "he" (perhaps the therapist, perhaps the nephew) at play "sank a toy ship and tried to save the captain) is yet one more instance of not knowing more than the surface of the words. 

 

14 lines calls us to examine the poem as a modern sonnet.  Note the repetition in the six lines after the volta "Not, he said"echoes in the final line "Not, I'm sure".  The commas accentuate the contradictory hesitation.  What is what?  and how can we be sure?  The title is repeated at the end as a night bird, just one instance of something communicated. We noted the rhythm of one-beat words on the final line as if drumming echo that we do want to read meaning into what we hear.  

For Air : After a first read of this poem filled with gaps, unexpected spaces, as well as enjambments I re-read the first line:  There is a place in me for air.  I re-read it again and think of the breathing of rhythms and music but just like the scrambled syntax of "making sense like a cart/we are each other's horse before", I am also prompted to wonder if Robeson is implying  something comes before "____ for air" ?  Maybe a verb, like  gasping for air... or maybe an adjective like, "desperate", or a noun, "a craving for air".

Our minds play with empty spaces, try to fill in what's not said, or possibly erased.

This interview gives helpful insights into Roberson's experimental methods which refuse parsing.  He uses  "double-jointed syntax"  (Mackey) to explore and bend themes of race, history and culture.  "I'm not creating a new language.  I'm just trying to un-White-Out the one we've got" (2006 interview with Chicago Postmodern Poetry)

We discussed the last word in the first stanza, taking note there were other instances of ignoring rules of capitalization and punctuation.  What is given?  How it is to be understood?  It is the beginning of a math proof (corroborating the later mention in the 5th stanza, "geometries of air".  The repeat of "shod with a vibration of the unsaid"  feels fresh as the words line up  on the last line of the 4th stanza, and return at the end of the first line of the 5th stanza-- a new bounce of meaning preceded by "geometries of air".  

Many saw ressemblance to Jazz, which uses a different part of the brain than classical music.  The poem is visual in its choreography and all the senses are employed --with synaesthesia  (fragrance if sound wave and beat),  music, poetic beat, heart beat,  balletic leap.  However the possibilities of meaning, there is something delightfully refreshing confirmed with celebratory champagne.

It is fun to see how many different ways Robeson plays with "air": in stanza three, "the surface the air impresses upon..." the way things do that they be.  Other prepositions

No Swan so Fine:  Another sonnet where the oppressive opulence of Louis XV is compressed brilliantly with sound and image of a small detail of  a swan "lodged in a candelabrum..." which may indeed ressemble this: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsNxyBEoUU8/

The final sentence brings relief!  Apparently Marianne Moore would find inspiration from lines in magazines or elsewhere, hence the opening sentence in quotation marks.  It doesn't matter if she actually went to Versailles... 

Lessons at the Legendary Institute:  The word play in the title, teases us about what the double meaning of yarn as part of embroidery and as story. We loved the note about the Indigenous grandmother whispering, "If you're going to make things up, do it well."  Gonzáles does exactly that -- we don't have to know the tale, but we get the point-- and loved the idea of anger / demoted to delight...  The visual disposition of the poem resembles a weaving pattern, spinning out stanza by stanza.  

The Lanyard: The perfect blend of humor and compassion, where indeed, one could say "tears demoted to laughter" as we read the double viewpoint.  So many know about the "camp project" or the school project, but as one person commented, not all of us had mothers who made us feel our efforts were deserving of recognition.  

[1] This year, 5 Countries, 3 Canada Provinces, 35 States and 168 poets participates which adds up to about 4733 postcards circulating peace during February.  (World Peace Poets).  It's wonderful to receive a piece of mail with the Metta prayer on it,  or a recipe card for making Peace:  

Frost with/ample presence/active listening/building layers of trust.