Hearing the Mouse in Smile – a few notes on Bilingual Thinking followed by a poem
Where we place a word, what we keep of the syntax which couches it in a phrase, is part of a poet’s work. I enjoy testing a poem by playing with line breaks, associations, with “best word in the best place” or order, as Coleridge and Dobyns would say.
Finding inspiration by thinking of homonyms and their translation can be quite beneficial, especially when the word is flexible to act as a noun and a verb.
In French, tu souris is “you smile”, from the verb sourire, which has a sous-entendu of “under a laugh”. Rather like Voltaire’s invitation to come to the Château Sans Souci (without worries), spelled this way:
ci
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
sans
If you eliminate the subject tu, souris becomes a command, “smile!”.
However, la souris means mouse. So it could be that you have dropped the article (la) to the noun, in order to address the mouse, as in souris, souris! Mouse, mouse! And of course the context and intonation will help you tell the difference.
As linguist, my mind is constantly playing this way, and often provides a source of triggers which I find amusing. Maybe you will too. Here’s an example.
Sous la Souris – souris: Under the mouse – smile.
What lies under a laugh?
A small mouse
some days, tight-lipped,
without a hint of a tooth,
the scurrying kind of mouse,
content to stop, burrow
in the bocal safety
battened shut
And look
his slightly larger sibling
curving at the mouth corners
considering a shimmy
down into a chuckle
but is not sure it is the time or place.
Other days, something makes it spread
from ear to ear, as if to ignite a lamp
in each eye.
As for the sleeping mouse,
smile draped light as angel kite,
when he wakes up, he’ll turn its rope
asking every cell to jump to it.
And "Version II"
Slippery
What lies under a laugh?
A small French mouse some days
tight-lipped, without a hint of a tooth,
a scurrying kind of mouse,
content to stop, burrow
in bocal safety battened shut
And look
his slightly larger sibling,
curving at the mouth corners
considering a shimmy
down into a chuckle,
considering a full-grown rire.
Somedays this under-laugh
spreads from ear to ear, as if to ignite
a lamp in each eye.
Other days, it sleeps,
smile draped light as angel kite,
but when he wakes up, he’ll turn its rope
asking every cell to jump to it.
Sad jumpropes to happy
English mouse to French souris
happy hopscotches to pensive
and a French command: smile
with plenty of sous-entendu
How do you translate mouse,
or what lies in a smile?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thanksgiving day --
It seems fitting on Thanksgiving to post a comment on CK Williams "Wait" -- how he deftly expresses how time works on us, how we work on it, how finally the question
is not caught in the hurry of "wait", nor really the anticipation, but the
gratitude for yet another day as it is.
Note how he uses the repetition: chop / chopped/ chopping
Slash/slahed/slashing in 1, 2, and 4th stanza.
The sounds are onomatopoetic — harsh, then sibilant (slowly, slowly... Otherwise) the tremulous “f’s” in the 3rd stanza — fleeing from / for/ frightened, fray/
The violence of the cleaver, ax, clumsiest clod of a butcher – how time works on us and we in turn, chop, slash through time. The recognition of needing a better way to deal with time. But what would that be. Wait! I have an idea. Hang on! Let me explain…
and the poem ends on the delight of having yet one more day.
This strange sense of being, and there is time... and the relationship we have with it... That seems like the relationship w/ life. And we, the speech creatures are caught up perhaps in the anticipation of “I can’t wait” ... And then, we’re caught in the moment and don’t have any footing with time — wait, we cry out. Time starts with a T. Wait ends with it.
As we approach the holidays, it is a good time to think about what we are waiting for” – and what it is we are saying what we say to each other “wait”.
**
A good day to reflect on thanksgiving: see facebook page with pictures.
"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order." -- Henry Miller
Tira beagle is off to the far left, in the tall grasses.
"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are." -- John Burroughs
Walking our dog in Mendon Ponds park, Nick and Tif stop to enjoy scuffling in the leaves.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." -- Dalai Lama
"You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket.
... to have "running" water, you must let go of it and let it "run". " Alan Watts
The small leaf to the mid-right is ready to join a bush not in the picture, which had 5 little red-orange butterfly-like leaves calling to it.
"Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf" -- Native American Indian proverb
The idea of Tira being the camera-dog was abandoned in favor of a quiet moment, grateful for each other.
is not caught in the hurry of "wait", nor really the anticipation, but the
gratitude for yet another day as it is.
Note how he uses the repetition: chop / chopped/ chopping
Slash/slahed/slashing in 1, 2, and 4th stanza.
The sounds are onomatopoetic — harsh, then sibilant (slowly, slowly... Otherwise) the tremulous “f’s” in the 3rd stanza — fleeing from / for/ frightened, fray/
The violence of the cleaver, ax, clumsiest clod of a butcher – how time works on us and we in turn, chop, slash through time. The recognition of needing a better way to deal with time. But what would that be. Wait! I have an idea. Hang on! Let me explain…
and the poem ends on the delight of having yet one more day.
This strange sense of being, and there is time... and the relationship we have with it... That seems like the relationship w/ life. And we, the speech creatures are caught up perhaps in the anticipation of “I can’t wait” ... And then, we’re caught in the moment and don’t have any footing with time — wait, we cry out. Time starts with a T. Wait ends with it.
As we approach the holidays, it is a good time to think about what we are waiting for” – and what it is we are saying what we say to each other “wait”.
**
A good day to reflect on thanksgiving: see facebook page with pictures.
"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order." -- Henry Miller
Tira beagle is off to the far left, in the tall grasses.
"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are." -- John Burroughs
Walking our dog in Mendon Ponds park, Nick and Tif stop to enjoy scuffling in the leaves.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." -- Dalai Lama
"You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket.
... to have "running" water, you must let go of it and let it "run". " Alan Watts
The small leaf to the mid-right is ready to join a bush not in the picture, which had 5 little red-orange butterfly-like leaves calling to it.
"Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf" -- Native American Indian proverb
The idea of Tira being the camera-dog was abandoned in favor of a quiet moment, grateful for each other.
Friday, October 22, 2010
O Pen -- October 4 -- 3 brains...
Poems for October 4
Trying to finish up the September batch!
My favorite : 4 poems from from Turkish Pears In August, by Robert Bly (published in 2007)
THE WATCHER OF VOWELS [Ramage #9]
Sound, music leads us to an energy that goes to what Bly refers to "the third, new brain".
Not the reptilian brain, (survival) and beyond the mammal brain (emotion). In Charles Fair's book "The Dying Self", he sugests that what Freud meant by the "Id" was the reptile and mammal brain, and what the ancient Indian philosophers meant by the "self" was the new brain.
What feeds this new brain is wild, spiritual ideas. Often the Reptilian and Mammalian brains don't understand it... but it is here, that mystery is perceived. Interesting that Bly said you cannot leap from the reptilian brain to the "new brain". Experience beyond an "I".
Brought in a new book called “A spicing of Birds” which has Audubon drawings of birds matched with Dickinson’s poems.
Here is one, In light of our discussion of Bly’s “Ramages”.
The Bird her punctual music brings
And lays it in its place –
Its place is in the Human Heart
And in the Heanvenly Grace –
What respite from her thrilling toil
Did Beauty ever take –
But Work might be electric Rest
To those that Magic make.
-- Emily Dickinson
And a few Seamus Heaney lines from his book, Human Chains.
p. 42
If you know a bit/
About the universe
It’s because you’ve taken it in
Like that,
Looked as hard
As you look into yourself,
Into the rat hole,
Through the vetch and dock
That mantled it.
p. 58:
Or doubting the solid ground
Of the riverbank field, twilit and a-hover
With midge drifts, as if we had commingled
Among shades and shadows stirring on the brink
And stood there waiting, watching,
Needy and ever needier for translation.
**
**
Trying to finish up the September batch!
My favorite : 4 poems from from Turkish Pears In August, by Robert Bly (published in 2007)
THE WATCHER OF VOWELS [Ramage #9]
Sound, music leads us to an energy that goes to what Bly refers to "the third, new brain".
Not the reptilian brain, (survival) and beyond the mammal brain (emotion). In Charles Fair's book "The Dying Self", he sugests that what Freud meant by the "Id" was the reptile and mammal brain, and what the ancient Indian philosophers meant by the "self" was the new brain.
What feeds this new brain is wild, spiritual ideas. Often the Reptilian and Mammalian brains don't understand it... but it is here, that mystery is perceived. Interesting that Bly said you cannot leap from the reptilian brain to the "new brain". Experience beyond an "I".
Brought in a new book called “A spicing of Birds” which has Audubon drawings of birds matched with Dickinson’s poems.
Here is one, In light of our discussion of Bly’s “Ramages”.
The Bird her punctual music brings
And lays it in its place –
Its place is in the Human Heart
And in the Heanvenly Grace –
What respite from her thrilling toil
Did Beauty ever take –
But Work might be electric Rest
To those that Magic make.
-- Emily Dickinson
And a few Seamus Heaney lines from his book, Human Chains.
p. 42
If you know a bit/
About the universe
It’s because you’ve taken it in
Like that,
Looked as hard
As you look into yourself,
Into the rat hole,
Through the vetch and dock
That mantled it.
p. 58:
Or doubting the solid ground
Of the riverbank field, twilit and a-hover
With midge drifts, as if we had commingled
Among shades and shadows stirring on the brink
And stood there waiting, watching,
Needy and ever needier for translation.
**
**
various... a few reflections on poetry in mid-October
What's poetry about?
Kim Addonizio's poem about Book Burning... which shifts into the first person POV, leaving me (one reader) behind. How different from Dorianne's poem about the Beatles...why they broke up, using titles of their songs... Or the Kooser selection about the Woman putting her crying baby to sleep. How the baby does the crying, and she doesn't yet with so much to cry about.
And so I wrote a poem about "putting America to sleep".
What is it we "tuck in" our days, our dreams, our lives?
And then there's the bop poem...
and the object poem :
Objects: Those things in the backgrounds of our pictures, cluttering our bookshelves and stuffed in drawers. We’re collecting their stories here—to celebrate and remember the strange intimacies of life with ordinary objects. Tell us a good story and we’ll make sure everyone else enjoys it too.
Read the guidelines and email submissions to lifewithobjects@gmail.com.
And the brilliant first chapter of "Little Bee": Chris Cleave
Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.
everyone pleased to see me coming
if spent, not longed for.
can go wherever it thinks afest
disguise as power/property’
has tricks
and a sound poem...
Wind
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the winter stark,
Oh the level dark,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the mystery
Of the blasted tree
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the owlet's croon
To the haggard moon,
To the waning moon,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the fleshless stare,
Oh the windy hair,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the cold sigh,
Oh the hollow cry,
The lean and hollow cry,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the white sight,
Oh the shuddering night,
The shivering shuddering night,
On the wold, the wold, the wold
**
All good triggers for poems...
Kim Addonizio's poem about Book Burning... which shifts into the first person POV, leaving me (one reader) behind. How different from Dorianne's poem about the Beatles...why they broke up, using titles of their songs... Or the Kooser selection about the Woman putting her crying baby to sleep. How the baby does the crying, and she doesn't yet with so much to cry about.
And so I wrote a poem about "putting America to sleep".
What is it we "tuck in" our days, our dreams, our lives?
And then there's the bop poem...
and the object poem :
Objects: Those things in the backgrounds of our pictures, cluttering our bookshelves and stuffed in drawers. We’re collecting their stories here—to celebrate and remember the strange intimacies of life with ordinary objects. Tell us a good story and we’ll make sure everyone else enjoys it too.
Read the guidelines and email submissions to lifewithobjects@gmail.com.
And the brilliant first chapter of "Little Bee": Chris Cleave
Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.
everyone pleased to see me coming
if spent, not longed for.
can go wherever it thinks afest
disguise as power/property’
has tricks
and a sound poem...
Wind
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the winter stark,
Oh the level dark,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the mystery
Of the blasted tree
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the owlet's croon
To the haggard moon,
To the waning moon,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the fleshless stare,
Oh the windy hair,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the cold sigh,
Oh the hollow cry,
The lean and hollow cry,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the white sight,
Oh the shuddering night,
The shivering shuddering night,
On the wold, the wold, the wold
**
All good triggers for poems...
O pen -- October 18
Prose vs. Poetry:
What is the difference between a prose poem, a narrative poem, and a story which uses good language? What if writing were only collections of words that sting?
What hooks us in?
Here is the link (apologies -- fuzzy here) of Alan Ginsberg at RIT reading from “Howl”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm3QodfkUKw&feature=related
Are there works like “hydrogen jukebox” in the poems and sentences below?
Merlin Enthralled by Richard Wilbur
OCTOBER 4, 2010
Hell, by Zbigniew Herbert
(discussed with Christopher Kennedy 10/9 at his workshop. Two paragraphs; an ordering of Hell. One wonders about the nature of life as joke.)
Antonina’s Education (runner-up for Cranston prize awarded by Calyx.
http://www.calyxpress.org/Cranstonprize.htmlprize -- for winning poems and other runners’ up.
(stanzas: part 1 of 6 lines; part 2: 3 lines; (initiation -- as girl, changing language/country) part 3: couplets. The juxtaposition of the German guard who shares his sandwich. Her surprise when she expresses sympathy to him on the loss of his son.)
Lines from Prose : (from Gary Lutz' talk 10/9)
Sam Lipsyte: Novelist – sentences that read like a string of epiphanies, glued with assonance, patterned repetitions, blends.
“Viola tones rose from a carved alcove.”
“So maybe I wanted all these memories, the sorrows and the hollows.”
“the blade bordered on sword.)
Christine Schutt:
“Mother had used overcooked bacon for a bookmark,
or a hair pin, stick of gum, sucker stick, twig –
whatever was at hand.
**
Two poems by Christopher Kennedy from "Encouragement for a Man Falling to his Death"
poems with a touch a strange, beautifully structured prose poems.
Speech Identification Procedure : beautiful crafting in 3 stanzas -- relationship -- of father to child, light, dark, absence, disappearance. How italicized "father" migrates to italicized last word, "bird".
The 3rd stanza:
A person can stand still for a long time moving about in the world.
My days are like this, a scarecrow in a field, trying to imagine "birds"
King Cobra Does the Mambo
Like Ashbery -- a view of chaos, with serpent power and clin d'oeil to Villon, Stevens' monocle.
Juxtaposition. Italics: "I love you,/but you never phone." non-italics: For this, our species waited centuries./ That's as far as I go today;
and the poem continues. Ends with a dream -- "I intuit the laughter/of trees. That, or a runaway train headed your way."
**
There's an irresistable humor, more pleasing than Herbert's "Hell";
Prose cannot be a simple kyrielle (string of Kyrie) of epiphanies. Nor poetry for that matter.
Well-constructed snapshots that capture more than the black and white.
What is the difference between a prose poem, a narrative poem, and a story which uses good language? What if writing were only collections of words that sting?
What hooks us in?
Here is the link (apologies -- fuzzy here) of Alan Ginsberg at RIT reading from “Howl”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm3QodfkUKw&feature=related
Are there works like “hydrogen jukebox” in the poems and sentences below?
Merlin Enthralled by Richard Wilbur
OCTOBER 4, 2010
Hell, by Zbigniew Herbert
(discussed with Christopher Kennedy 10/9 at his workshop. Two paragraphs; an ordering of Hell. One wonders about the nature of life as joke.)
Antonina’s Education (runner-up for Cranston prize awarded by Calyx.
http://www.calyxpress.org/Cranstonprize.htmlprize -- for winning poems and other runners’ up.
(stanzas: part 1 of 6 lines; part 2: 3 lines; (initiation -- as girl, changing language/country) part 3: couplets. The juxtaposition of the German guard who shares his sandwich. Her surprise when she expresses sympathy to him on the loss of his son.)
Lines from Prose : (from Gary Lutz' talk 10/9)
Sam Lipsyte: Novelist – sentences that read like a string of epiphanies, glued with assonance, patterned repetitions, blends.
“Viola tones rose from a carved alcove.”
“So maybe I wanted all these memories, the sorrows and the hollows.”
“the blade bordered on sword.)
Christine Schutt:
“Mother had used overcooked bacon for a bookmark,
or a hair pin, stick of gum, sucker stick, twig –
whatever was at hand.
**
Two poems by Christopher Kennedy from "Encouragement for a Man Falling to his Death"
poems with a touch a strange, beautifully structured prose poems.
Speech Identification Procedure : beautiful crafting in 3 stanzas -- relationship -- of father to child, light, dark, absence, disappearance. How italicized "father" migrates to italicized last word, "bird".
The 3rd stanza:
A person can stand still for a long time moving about in the world.
My days are like this, a scarecrow in a field, trying to imagine "birds"
King Cobra Does the Mambo
Like Ashbery -- a view of chaos, with serpent power and clin d'oeil to Villon, Stevens' monocle.
Juxtaposition. Italics: "I love you,/but you never phone." non-italics: For this, our species waited centuries./ That's as far as I go today;
and the poem continues. Ends with a dream -- "I intuit the laughter/of trees. That, or a runaway train headed your way."
**
There's an irresistable humor, more pleasing than Herbert's "Hell";
Prose cannot be a simple kyrielle (string of Kyrie) of epiphanies. Nor poetry for that matter.
Well-constructed snapshots that capture more than the black and white.
O Pen -- October 11 -- on the heels of Black Mountain Symposium
October 11 :
I love October. Perhaps a bit like Molly Peacock's opening statement in "Why I am not a Buddhist". I love the "state of want and thought // of how to get.
There is something "tattered" about the leaves falling, in all their crimson, golden, royal glory.
A reminder that nothing is permanent.
& is such a sign. Ampersand. Put a line between two backward "C's" )( -- and a Greek letter schoots (scoots and shhhhh's?) across the page. et per se. etc.
Man and his symbols and constantly changing language -- and how love moves through it -- whether in ee cummings, "love is a place..." or Molly's poem.
Yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds.
Ashbery : p 11 "A Worldly Country" --
Like a Photograph.
"It will be all over in a minute you said. We both
believe that, and the clock's ticking: Flame on, flame on.
McLuhan on photography: you lose the experience. What we are left with depends not on the clicked instant, but the attention we bring to each moment. And then Emily started to sing
"Our little house is a very fine house,
all made out of ticky-tacky..."
I shared the Patrick Graybill's "mime" of Richard Cory
and a poem by Robert Creeley (from Bly's little book "Leaping Poetry".
Kore: one of those Greek sculptures of a clothed woman, feet together...
and a double flute makes her move
"O love / where are you // leading // me now ?
This intriguing click in a poem which stays in one part of the psyche -- a poetry of "steady light" vs. leaping flashes. As if the poem is tethering down the mind to stop any chaos.
Ashbery's "A Worldly Country" is the opposite --
from insane clocks; scent, and end-rhymed lines which contain everything in real time, novel time -- "In short all hell broke loose that wide afternoon".
But at night? Peace. How sleep offsets the great ungluing.
And just as waves are anchored to the bottom of the sea
we must reach the shallows before God cuts us free.
I love October. Perhaps a bit like Molly Peacock's opening statement in "Why I am not a Buddhist". I love the "state of want and thought // of how to get.
There is something "tattered" about the leaves falling, in all their crimson, golden, royal glory.
A reminder that nothing is permanent.
& is such a sign. Ampersand. Put a line between two backward "C's" )( -- and a Greek letter schoots (scoots and shhhhh's?) across the page. et per se. etc.
Man and his symbols and constantly changing language -- and how love moves through it -- whether in ee cummings, "love is a place..." or Molly's poem.
Yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds.
Ashbery : p 11 "A Worldly Country" --
Like a Photograph.
"It will be all over in a minute you said. We both
believe that, and the clock's ticking: Flame on, flame on.
McLuhan on photography: you lose the experience. What we are left with depends not on the clicked instant, but the attention we bring to each moment. And then Emily started to sing
"Our little house is a very fine house,
all made out of ticky-tacky..."
I shared the Patrick Graybill's "mime" of Richard Cory
and a poem by Robert Creeley (from Bly's little book "Leaping Poetry".
Kore: one of those Greek sculptures of a clothed woman, feet together...
and a double flute makes her move
"O love / where are you // leading // me now ?
This intriguing click in a poem which stays in one part of the psyche -- a poetry of "steady light" vs. leaping flashes. As if the poem is tethering down the mind to stop any chaos.
Ashbery's "A Worldly Country" is the opposite --
from insane clocks; scent, and end-rhymed lines which contain everything in real time, novel time -- "In short all hell broke loose that wide afternoon".
But at night? Peace. How sleep offsets the great ungluing.
And just as waves are anchored to the bottom of the sea
we must reach the shallows before God cuts us free.
Poetry and Spirituality -- October
Poetry and Spirituality -- Month of October – YES !
(Optimism, acceptance, tolerance, permeability, commitment, saying “yes to life” when the path is uncertain. )
I love serendipity.
For instance, that I am choosing poems to discuss that have to do with the feeling of YES, and stumbling on a series of ee cummings poems – where if you type eYes, the “vision” of “yes” appears… Oh indeed -- “love is a place” (yes is a world):
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-is-a-place/
or for instance, that I send an ee cummings poem, i thank you God to my friend, and she tells me – oh that is the one I copied by hand on all my wedding invitations 35 years ago!
YES! carried in the coincidence that Writer’s Almanac posted 2 ee cummings’ poems in celebration of his birthday 10/14:
i carry your heart with me // and since feeling is first
since feeling is first
or for instance that the new poet laureate, W.S. Merwin will be giving a reading, and a Seattle contact sends a link to his translation of Lorca’s poem, “Cancion del naranjo seco” – Song of the Barren Orange Tree, which talks about the need to live without having the mirror of oneself interfere – which coincides perfectly with our discussion of poems which beckon to “Atman”, beckon to the larger spiritual connection we seek.
today (10/21):
Ode to The God of Atheists by Ellen Bass -- (not a question of earning a reward, being punished, outward manifestation of faith, etc. Oh give me a god a holy dirt.)
The Thing Is – by Ellen Bass – posted on WA, 10/16 and sent by the minister after I’d already chosen it! And it IS a ‘YES” – a look at the “obesity of grief” and the thing is, you take life, and you love it – even if you have no stomach for it.
Fifth Avenue in Early Spring – by Philip Schultz -- the sense of Spring, young lovers, the raw edge of coming into a new season, the joy simply to “bear witness”. How is it that “satisfactions are disturbing” is such a meaningful paradox – knowing our hunger can only be temporarily satiated.
Dreams – by Szymborska,(translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak) where in spite of accidents, the unplanned and certainly not because of orderly fact, “at times even a clear-cut meaning may slip through”
YES! carried in the coincidence that Writer’s Almanac posted 2 ee cummings’ poems in celebration of his birthday 10/14:
i carry your heart with me // and since feeling is first
since feeling is first
Other poems discussed 10/14:
Dawn – by Robert Bly (Ghazal; like a beautiful rosary of precious beads, linked by the final word)
Derry Derry Down -- by Seamus Heaney for the joyful sound of it, the bright innocence
Ted Kooser’s Selection : Nocturne by Michelle Y. Burke, who lives in N.Y., in which a man who does everything right doesn’t quite do everything right.
Call to Prayer, Abby Murray (the need for prayer for a man, his daughters, and even a Sheik who will abuse them)
My country, I will build you again by Simin Behbahani. She is the
most prolific female poet in Iran, a country in which poetry is the national
scripture.
Shoulders, Naomi Shihab Nye. What we carry, how we carry it; “We’re not going to be able/ to live in this world/if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing/with one another.
October 7 :
Amy Lowell : Patterns
and two more ee cummings:
most(people
simply
can’t)
won’t (most
parent pople mustn’t
shouldn’t)most daren’t
(sortofpeople well
youknow kindof)
aint
&
even
(not having
most ever lived
people always)don’t
die(becoming most buried unbecomingly
very
by
most)people.
**
Here’s another “YES”
yes,is a pleasant country
if’s wintry
(my lovely)
let’s open the year
both is the very weather
(not either)
my treasure,
when violets appear
love is a deeper season
than reason;
my sweet one
(and april’s where we’re)
September 30: Theme of Growth :
Identification : Szymborska
Roots: Lucille Clifton
Poems from Rochester Art Drop: (see : http://artdrop.democratandchronicle.com )
Wandering Eye: Jan Cedras
English Flavors: Laure-Anne Bosselaar
The Giving in : Marvin Bell
(Optimism, acceptance, tolerance, permeability, commitment, saying “yes to life” when the path is uncertain. )
I love serendipity.
For instance, that I am choosing poems to discuss that have to do with the feeling of YES, and stumbling on a series of ee cummings poems – where if you type eYes, the “vision” of “yes” appears… Oh indeed -- “love is a place” (yes is a world):
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-is-a-place/
or for instance, that I send an ee cummings poem, i thank you God to my friend, and she tells me – oh that is the one I copied by hand on all my wedding invitations 35 years ago!
YES! carried in the coincidence that Writer’s Almanac posted 2 ee cummings’ poems in celebration of his birthday 10/14:
i carry your heart with me // and since feeling is first
since feeling is first
or for instance that the new poet laureate, W.S. Merwin will be giving a reading, and a Seattle contact sends a link to his translation of Lorca’s poem, “Cancion del naranjo seco” – Song of the Barren Orange Tree, which talks about the need to live without having the mirror of oneself interfere – which coincides perfectly with our discussion of poems which beckon to “Atman”, beckon to the larger spiritual connection we seek.
today (10/21):
Ode to The God of Atheists by Ellen Bass -- (not a question of earning a reward, being punished, outward manifestation of faith, etc. Oh give me a god a holy dirt.)
The Thing Is – by Ellen Bass – posted on WA, 10/16 and sent by the minister after I’d already chosen it! And it IS a ‘YES” – a look at the “obesity of grief” and the thing is, you take life, and you love it – even if you have no stomach for it.
Fifth Avenue in Early Spring – by Philip Schultz -- the sense of Spring, young lovers, the raw edge of coming into a new season, the joy simply to “bear witness”. How is it that “satisfactions are disturbing” is such a meaningful paradox – knowing our hunger can only be temporarily satiated.
Dreams – by Szymborska,(translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak) where in spite of accidents, the unplanned and certainly not because of orderly fact, “at times even a clear-cut meaning may slip through”
YES! carried in the coincidence that Writer’s Almanac posted 2 ee cummings’ poems in celebration of his birthday 10/14:
i carry your heart with me // and since feeling is first
since feeling is first
Other poems discussed 10/14:
Dawn – by Robert Bly (Ghazal; like a beautiful rosary of precious beads, linked by the final word)
Derry Derry Down -- by Seamus Heaney for the joyful sound of it, the bright innocence
Ted Kooser’s Selection : Nocturne by Michelle Y. Burke, who lives in N.Y., in which a man who does everything right doesn’t quite do everything right.
Call to Prayer, Abby Murray (the need for prayer for a man, his daughters, and even a Sheik who will abuse them)
My country, I will build you again by Simin Behbahani. She is the
most prolific female poet in Iran, a country in which poetry is the national
scripture.
Shoulders, Naomi Shihab Nye. What we carry, how we carry it; “We’re not going to be able/ to live in this world/if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing/with one another.
October 7 :
Amy Lowell : Patterns
and two more ee cummings:
most(people
simply
can’t)
won’t (most
parent pople mustn’t
shouldn’t)most daren’t
(sortofpeople well
youknow kindof)
aint
&
even
(not having
most ever lived
people always)don’t
die(becoming most buried unbecomingly
very
by
most)people.
**
Here’s another “YES”
yes,is a pleasant country
if’s wintry
(my lovely)
let’s open the year
both is the very weather
(not either)
my treasure,
when violets appear
love is a deeper season
than reason;
my sweet one
(and april’s where we’re)
September 30: Theme of Growth :
Identification : Szymborska
Roots: Lucille Clifton
Poems from Rochester Art Drop: (see : http://artdrop.democratandchronicle.com )
Wandering Eye: Jan Cedras
English Flavors: Laure-Anne Bosselaar
The Giving in : Marvin Bell
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