Poems for Sept. 9 + 11

 Elegy for a Walnut Tree  by W.S. Merwin; A Last Look  by W.S. Merwin; Saint Paul by Hieu Minh Nguyen;  Characteristics of Life by Camille T. Dungy;  Clam  by Mary Oliver; The Specific Ocean by Jenny Browne

Elegy for a Walnut: One feels an intimate conversation with the walnut trees. Polly mentioned what a giving tree a Black Walnut is, with a difficult nut, but once you break it open, you are well=rewarded.  The personification is skillfully crafted (curled sleeping finger/of newborn leaves) with the sense that humans are not the main players.  There is a sense of centuries in the lines "already you had lived through wars/and echoes of wars"  and a complicity of life's universals with "you and seasons spoke the same language".

 

A Last Look:  the title invites multiple nuances.  Why a "last" look?  at what? As Neillie noted,

it could be a continuation of the above poem.  A gentle jab at hubris and observation of how some are disassociated from the natural world and just don't notice the loss.  One could turn around the cliché that one doesn't see the forest for the trees to say, we fail to see trees, given the forest of our "urban" preoccupations. 

 

John Milton: Sonnet 19:  When I consider how my light is spent:   

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” 

   I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need 

   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best 

   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed 

   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: 

   They also serve who only stand and wait.”

   

 

Saint Paul :  in the Aug. 24 + Aug. 31 issue of the New Yorker.  The poem delivers with a light touch of humor  and refreshing honesty his "pilgrimage" and evolution of views on multiple religions.  The final three lines provide a powerful conclusion, to his gratitude of learning about gods, friends... and confident about freedom to choose his version of heaven, with options to leave!  We did discuss "my want is just the want of birds" with an array of interpretations stemming from birds being both physical, with need to eat, survive, but also able to be above physical bounds, which echo more metaphorical considerations.  A lovely reminder that whoever we are as human, we are all in this together.

 

Characteristics of Life:   the title certainly doesn't make you think to start with small creatures, however,   the epigraph sets up reference to animals without backbones. 

Her perspective of "speaking for" them adds opportunities for personification. If the "you" in the final stanza is a firefly or some human.  Regardlesss, spineless is not to be dismissed and calling invertebrates mindless totally misses the point.

 

Clam:  In two short paragraphs, Oliver paints the power of the will to live.  "Terrible" as adjective has the awesome quality of a god.  If a clam buries itself, does it escape the "terrible effort of thinking" ?  Maybe small mollusks feel as we do.   The opening sentence “Each one is a small life, but sometimes long, if its place in the universe is not found out” — to quote Devin Kelly might serve as a definition for any living thing in this universe, even us.  He goes on in his blog to explore what it is to be "found out", and what it is to find out one's place, knowing, at the end, the inevitable is that we die. 

 

The Specific Ocean:  starts with   a child's mispronunciation of "Pacific" -- as in pacificus, meaning "peaceful" or "peace-making" toboos mean specific.  And what do we find in the specific details but disquieting details such as "torn" with the red booster seat.  The fisherman's slicker is "bloodied"... some strange association with "intake form" and "how many live births" as if a mother is about to miscarry yet again.

 

Time/weather: same word.  Daughter/daughter, in different times, memories which the reader can only guess at.  The poet's note speaks to how the sea reminds you of who you are and were.  

Poems for Sept. 2+4

 Trees by W.S. Merwin; Telescope by Louise Glück; MMXXVI  by Rowan Ricardo Phillips; Refrain by Jameson Fitzpatrick; The blessed Angels  by Toi Derricotte; What You Missed That Day You Were absent from Fourth Grade  by Brad Aaron Modlin; Then Again  by Rae Armantrout

Trees immediately triggered anecdotes about trees, associations, experiences, as well as the work Merwin did in Maui, preserving trees.  Two more poems were read, that are so compelling, I'll use them for next week!  Merwin tucks in between the lines what we intuit, as Graeme puts it, "crystalizes what should be obvious".  Slipping in an adverb like "tenderly" but speaking of trees, gives a human aspect to these great breathing beings with their communicative roots, although he says nothing of that.  We name, and think to draw closer to someone by doing  -- but trees are beyond such  artifice, and "carry us"  with their presence without needing record.  

Neilie brought up the delightful book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein.  https://allpoetry.com/poem/8538991-The-Giving-Tree-by-Shel-Silverstein  Such selflessness in a tree!

Elaine R. read "Rain, Light" from the website of the merwinconservancy.org -- yet another dimension inspired by his poem "Trees."

 All day the stars watch from long ago

my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning

Telescope provided a lens to re-examine our connection to the web of life.  Many poets have mentioned how we are but "stardust" -- but to imagine stars light years away breaks away from any conventional thoughts of time and space.  Mention of Sci-Fi, observation of the use of the second pronoun "you" to mean both readers and the poet, the shift in perception, putting down the instrument, and re-considering relationship-- a tangible sense of separation, as she separates from her viewing tool.  For sure, we reveled in how the poem made us ponder about "what's out there" as we were transported to travel with her.

MMXXVI:  Do people still use Roman numerals?  Why did this poet opt for them to say "2026"?  

From the opening line, he plays with contradiction -- how can we understand peace, if there is no war-- and vice versa?  Relationship here, is not about here vs. there, but specifics of our earth: sea/shore..our myths like the phoenix rising from ashes; a slant political reference  to America's "blue cities" (although other cities in the world are called "blue" because of location and color, like Chefchaouen in Morocco and Jodhpur in India.) Perhaps a reference to ICE, but not capitalized, only a different version of man's doings, where dumb means silent, but also the idiocy of war, our monuments.  Certainly the sounds of "gunk, scum, dumb" are not endearing.  As for dumb: mute -- perhaps as in "struck dumb". Combined with stone, one thinks of how the Romans carved their Latin into rock and return to the title.

The line breaks between the tercet stanzas  indeed chip an interruption into the flow... and then the opening quatrain with the first word, War, has echo in the final quatrain with the first word, Again.

Begun... never done... 

We marveled at how things really are not separate and how opposites really are necessary!

The "Poem of experience" echoes Blake's 1794 "Songs of Experience".  Judith picked up on the repetition in the second stanza, "The Night" -- 5 times thinking of Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra when she cries "O Anthony,  O Anthony, O Anthony".  

In the poet note, Rowan refers to feeling that the events of a single year cannot be separated but follow a recursive structure of repetition, interruption, return.  His poem "is less a commentary on its moment, than an attempt to inhabit it."

When poets consciously or subconsciously tap into the wealth of all that has been written, it is to me a joy. 

We were well-served by Jameson Fitzpatrick in her poem Refrain  where she mentions in her note  T.S. Eliot, Anne Sexton, François Villon J.M. Barrie and Louise Glück.

Identifying sources of mermaids,  (Eliot) snows of yesteryear, (Villon)  Peter Pan and lost boys in Neverland (Barrie) enriched the reading but more than these references, several people researched the poet who is trans which allowed a better understanding of the poem.  Given the repeat of  the layered meaning in the  word "still", we noted the following pattern:  the opening tercet, Sometimes still...  followed by two couplets and a single line and the modified refrain, starting with the tercet Somehow still, followed by a single line, a couplet, ... a divided couplet  I changed my face// but my face was still there: and two more couplets. 

Still, as in persistently, shifts to the meaning that expresses surprising in that divided couplet.  I was once this, but now I am this once called that!  It seemed to be her personal journey, and the transformation from mythical mermaids singing, to actual sisters supporting her change underlined her actual physical change.   

A beautiful lyrical piece regardless of any of these comments.

The blessed angels:  a beautifully succinct description of beauty without sentimentality.

What you missed....  coupled with the voice of Pádraig Ó Tuama, this poem is pure enchantment .  Do such teachers exist?  Apparently, some do, given the sharing of memories -- but oh would it not be a wonderful thing for every child who attends school to have an authority figure doubling as a wise and compassionate grandmother?  The humor is delightful,  (ex. how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks!) just subtle enough, yet, also touching on very real circumstances such as believing "the house you wake in is your home", coming hard on the heels on the reassurance that you didn't feel you had forgotten to do something important.  Imminently humane in the understanding of all our doubts and misgivings, summed up in the complete sentence, I am.  The ending with the metaphor of the math equation is simply brilliant.  Yes, when you add it all up, you see everything is going to be OK.

Then Again: You can read the title as two separate words, when "then" will repeat, again, or as the expression on the other hand.  The poem picked up the feel of recursive we saw especially in the second poem.

That the poem is in two parts, both starting with "Then again" provides a mirror effect.  The luscious sounds, echoes of rhymes in half  and chaff work to weave an understanding of meaning, looking at it both inside  (where is seems contained, completed) and out (loose, far flung, dubious like rumor or cottonwood chaff).  Oh the labels we put on things.   Had you ever thought of meaning as promiscuous? Perfect choice in this setting.  One could almost continue the poem with "then again", to explore more meanings, but with the feeling that nothing will be pinned down.  Rather like "inhabiting" moments, like the MMXXVI poem.