Poems for April 15-17

 The plum you're going to eat next summer  by Gayle Brandeis; Anything Can Happen Seamus Heaney; A Coat by William Butler Yeats; The Negro Speaks of Rivers  by Langston Hughes; At the Fishhouses by Elizabeth Bishop; To a No. 2 Yellow Pencil on May 1, 2020 Kimiko Hahn ; A Poet  by Sherwood Anderson 

Nutshell:

The Plum:   One person calls this poem "a huge illustration of hope".  Others enjoyed the delightful play on what is not yet seen, known, and maybe never will be.  The last two sentences put on a solid philosopher hat:  Indeed, most of nature is indifferent to us.  So how do you understand that a plum

(unaware that you exist) is growing just for you?  In terms of technique, the poet changes up the placement of the opening line so on line 9, you have a momentary twists of meaning which add an element of delightful surprise:  "The plum you are.../".  Another 3 lines,  it is only "The plum" and the "you" is absent for 3 lines, allowing more layers of meaning : "The plum / (emphasis) you are going to eat next/(maybe you are going to eat a series of plums?)summer doesn't know (doesn't know what? ).  

As some noticed, you could substitute "the plum" for "the person"  and substitute the verb "to eat" with another verb, like "to meet".  

Anything Can Happen:  No, not like the delightful book by Papashvily https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1662353.Anything_Can_Happen

but directly influenced by Ode 34 by Horace.   We noted as well echoes of the Magnificat in the 3rd stanza, where the humble will be raised up.  Apparently Heaney was working with Horace at the time, which was shortly after 9/11 which makes "the tallest towers" even more ominous.  For those unfamiliar with "stropped", it is the leather strap used for sharpening razors, with a corresponding onomatopoetic sound.  For comparison, below, a translation of the Horace. 

ODE XXXIV. AGAINST THE EPICURIANS.

 

A remiss and irregular worshiper of the gods, while I professed the errors of a senseless philosophy, I am now obliged to set sail back again, and to renew the course that I had deserted. For Jupiter, who usually cleaves the clouds with his gleaming lightning, lately drove his thundering horses and rapid chariot through the clear serene; which the sluggish earth, and wandering rivers; at which Styx, and the horrid seat of detested Tænarus, and the utmost boundary of Atlas were shaken. The Deity is able to make exchange between the highest and the lowest, and diminishes the exalted, bringing to light the obscure; rapacious fortune, with a shrill whizzing, has borne off the plume from one head, and delights in having placed it on another. https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1742-horace-ode-i-34/

 

A Coat:  This poem by Yeats was mentioned in the book by Niall Williams  Time of the Child.   I shared one of the lines from the story: "every true story in the parish was concluded by the phrase,"you just couldn't make it up. 270".  Some may see a similarity with the 2nd stanza of Sailing to Byzantium: https://poets.org/poem/sailing-byzantium.  

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

The Negro Speaks of Rivers:  if you listen to the link, you realize the poem was written in 1920 when Hughes was only 18, and he tells about traveling to Mexico to visit his father and thinking about what the Mississippi meant to a black man in the history of slavery.  He wrote his thoughts down on the back of a letter from his father.  What a masterful poem!  We listened to him read it, marveling at its resonance,  its depth in a moment of reverent silence.

At the Fishhouses.   You can hear Bishop say a few words about the poem then read it:  to hear her .

It looks like a long poem, but the rhythms, of the pile-ups of adjectives (some with "Oxford commas" some without), the diction and sounds paint not just clear images, but prepare a ontological dive into how we know what we know.  The repeat of "silver", whether surface of the sea, how it slicks the surfaces of all it touches; the scales of herrings; the thin tree trunks, brings a magical shimmer; the otter, the firs "waiting for Christmas", the sensory detail of the ache provoked by cold water, the bitter, burning taste,

bring us to a "metaphorical summation" -- knowledge, as drawn "from the cold hard mouth/of the world, derived from the rocky breasts/" -- then the repeated f's , (teeth on lips) forever, flowing and drawn... flowing, and flown.  Remark the first time no comma before the "and"  the second time, a comma--

as she does earlier with the repeat "cold dark deep and absolutely clear" (icy water) vs. dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, (what we imagine knowledge to be).  We remarked that "flown" is the past participle of to fly, the past participle of  flow is flowed.  

To a No.2 Pencil: Not just a pencil, but a yellow, No. 2 pencil and not just an ode to a pencil, but a poem commemorating a specific date.  As one reader noted, May 2020 would have been still the pandemic.

Perhaps that explains the space after empty, // stanza space // with no shopping in sight.  We all had a good laugh at Mrs. Rote, which rhymes with wrote and pencil-less rote learning.  We all thought it a most delightful poem.  Kimiko Hahn, current NY State Poet Reader will be one of the guests at the Writers and Books Poetry Festival Poetry (June 10, 11, and 12 | 6 – 8:30 PM ) 

Sherwood Anderson:  Apparently not a particularly successful poet, and better known for his prose, he wrote the lines in this week's selection in 1922.   For more about him:   1961 article: The Significance of Sherwood Anderson's Poetry by Winfield Scott Lenox

"His most often repeated theme during the years he wrote (1912-27)  was one in which contemporary man, with his distorted sense of values created for him by the industrialized atmosphere around him,

had descended to a level at which he found it impossible, or at least very difficult, to love and understand his fellows.  Mrs. Eleanor Anderson, the author's widow, in a recent letter to the writer of this paper said: *'Sherwood talked a great deal about 'Singingprose t and 'hidden poetry."

Judith shared her poem  

A Pox on the Pestiferous Potholes of Pittsford Plaza

 

The potholes of Pittsford Plaza perturb

Weary wayfarers, wending wary way

As slithering snow sends SUVs sliding through slush

While winter wields wailing winds.

O sigh for summer, shedding sweaters in sun

Benevolent, bountiful beams bronzing beautiful bare bodies

Lying loose and langorous, languid on lovely leas.

O for dewdrops, daisies, daily dippings

                                                In pleasant, plangent pools, potholes in past.