November:
Todd Davis :
These poems grow on you and ask to be read and re-read, each time giving back a rich layer that confirms that the time spent with them is time well spent indeed. I love the references to art, and how a 14th century Eve combines with Stem cells; the way tree branches aspire to the sacred yet reinforce their roots;
how the "now" is not in the realm of desire, but simply details that have caught our attention, demand it.
Geography of Imagination:
" I wish every English teacher read this book and shared the insights with their students -- hopefully with shades of enthusiasm and passion like Guy Davenport.
This is the sort of book that celebrates humanism and leaves the reader breathless, as if having attended a reception where everybody who was anybody from Homer and all his characters to Wittgenstein and beyond has been present and asked you some probing question. I love the chapters that deal with translation, and appreciate all the insights to so many of my favorite authors, which heretofore, were simply favorites without too much knowledge of anecdotes about them, or the tongue of Davenport to bring them alive.
CK Williams : Wait
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Dec issue of The Sun -- and 12/2 discussion
4 poems by John Donne to contrast with
Elizabeth Bishop -- Casabianca
A new one published by linebreak: Kimberly Grey: Modern Sentences
How perfect that the December issue of The Sun starts with Kim Rosen on becoming the disciple of a poem -- learning it by heart, not to use our left brain to analyze it, but to allow our right brain to celebrate the "ineffable, the emotional, the relational" -- dressed up in the costume of the left brain -- i.e. words. "Learning a poem by heart is... a mutual relationship in which you let yourself be changed and healed. What the Tibetans used to call, "writing on the bones".
The Greeks believed speaking poetry raises the vibration of the physical body to ease the passage into the higher vibration of spirit.
It is as if the selection today were perfectly intended: Donne, combines R and L Brain; Bishop's parody of a popular poem memorized by school children for almost a century so as not to lose its emotional strength, has it's own strength; and a modern poem which imitates "web-thinking" and the great concern
...But how do we
keep from moving forward too
quickly and what do we do
with all the preciousness and time-
lessness and sadness? Even history
can't keep us. We keep inventing
newfangled ways to be in the world.
We are living in a country where people have forgotten to think in metaphor -- and with loss of metaphor, Rosen says, comes lack of imagination, ritual, mystery and discovery.
JFK in his Eulogy of Robert Frost
"When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
Love Dogs... Rumi -
The boy memorizing changed Coleman Barks' translation : he grief from which you cry --
vs. the grief you cry out from... the first version is predictable, the second is "a wonderful mess, falling over itself and open-ended."
The article also cited The songs of the Masaii and the Oliver poem, "The Journey"
Naomi Shihab Nye and Kindness --(Before you know what kindness really is / you must lose things.) to be in kinship -- how kindness flows into us and out of us.
See how a poem stretches the rhythms of your breathing, pulse, voice -- let that poem show you that you don't end here, you're so much bigger. Because if we speak only our own words, there is a possibility that our unhealthy or worn out patterns will prevail. If we take in the words of somebody else, they might shake up our own patterns. Others' words rattle the "glass bottles of our own ego" as CH Lawrence says in his poem "Escape" --
**
Elizabeth Bishop -- Casabianca
A new one published by linebreak: Kimberly Grey: Modern Sentences
How perfect that the December issue of The Sun starts with Kim Rosen on becoming the disciple of a poem -- learning it by heart, not to use our left brain to analyze it, but to allow our right brain to celebrate the "ineffable, the emotional, the relational" -- dressed up in the costume of the left brain -- i.e. words. "Learning a poem by heart is... a mutual relationship in which you let yourself be changed and healed. What the Tibetans used to call, "writing on the bones".
The Greeks believed speaking poetry raises the vibration of the physical body to ease the passage into the higher vibration of spirit.
It is as if the selection today were perfectly intended: Donne, combines R and L Brain; Bishop's parody of a popular poem memorized by school children for almost a century so as not to lose its emotional strength, has it's own strength; and a modern poem which imitates "web-thinking" and the great concern
...But how do we
keep from moving forward too
quickly and what do we do
with all the preciousness and time-
lessness and sadness? Even history
can't keep us. We keep inventing
newfangled ways to be in the world.
We are living in a country where people have forgotten to think in metaphor -- and with loss of metaphor, Rosen says, comes lack of imagination, ritual, mystery and discovery.
JFK in his Eulogy of Robert Frost
"When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
Love Dogs... Rumi -
The boy memorizing changed Coleman Barks' translation : he grief from which you cry --
vs. the grief you cry out from... the first version is predictable, the second is "a wonderful mess, falling over itself and open-ended."
The article also cited The songs of the Masaii and the Oliver poem, "The Journey"
Naomi Shihab Nye and Kindness --(Before you know what kindness really is / you must lose things.) to be in kinship -- how kindness flows into us and out of us.
See how a poem stretches the rhythms of your breathing, pulse, voice -- let that poem show you that you don't end here, you're so much bigger. Because if we speak only our own words, there is a possibility that our unhealthy or worn out patterns will prevail. If we take in the words of somebody else, they might shake up our own patterns. Others' words rattle the "glass bottles of our own ego" as CH Lawrence says in his poem "Escape" --
**
little genius -- Beethoven and Forster
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/music/chicago-symphony-introduces-ne.html
INDEED amazing. He dances the music. What I loved was the match of EM Forster underneath: that very passage of Beethoven and what Jonathan might have been feeling. I love the unabashed delight in two places, where he GETS the music — beyond the more classic baton sweeps.
"The goblins really had been there. They might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things."
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/music/chicago-symphony-introduces-ne.html
INDEED amazing. He dances the music. What I loved was the match of EM Forster underneath: that very passage of Beethoven and what Jonathan might have been feeling. I love the unabashed delight in two places, where he GETS the music — beyond the more classic baton sweeps.
"The goblins really had been there. They might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things."
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/music/chicago-symphony-introduces-ne.html
Line Break -- CK Williams
Ape : This is a terrific poem, however, the way it is formatted, disturbs me, especially as I contacted the editor to ask why there was a discrepancy between the hard and paperback versions of the Collected... The editor replied that he worked on "Wait" with the author and that line break should not be considered important for the overall appreciation of the work...
As the poetic line and line break are ways of creating tension in a poem, what distinguishes a poem from arbitrarily chopped-up prose?
I typed up the WAIT version of Apes.
Why terri-/torial
anthropo-/morphic
dement-/edly
confirm-/ing
phi-/losophy
gov-/erned;
Apes – by CK Williams (from his book, Wait)
One branch, I read, of a species of chimpanzees has something like terri-
torial wars,
and when the… army, I suppose you’d call it, of one tribe prevails and
captures an enemy,
“several males hold a hand or foot of the rival so the victim can be damaged at
will.”
This is so disquieting: if things with whom we share so many genes can
be this rule,
what hope for us? Still, “rival,” “victim,” “will” – don’t such anthropo-
morphic terms
make those simians’ social-political conflicts sounds more brutal than they
are?
The chimps that Catherine and I saw on their island sanctuary in Uganda
we loathed.
Unlike the pacific gorillas in the forest of Bwindi, they fought, dement-
edly shrieked,
the dominant male lorded it over the rest; they were, in all, too much
like us.
Another island from my recent reading, where Columbus, on his last
voyage,
encountering some “Indians” who’d greeted him with curiosity and
warmth, wrote,
before he chained and enslaved them, “They don’t even know how to kill
each other.”
It’s occurred to me I’ve read enough; at my age all I’m doing is confirm-
ing my sadness.
Surely the papers: war, terror, torture, corruption – it’s like broken glass
in the mind.
Back when I knew I knew nothing, I read all the time, poems, novels, phi-
losophy, myth,
but I hardly glanced at the news, there was a distance between what could
happen
and the part of myself I felt with: now everything’s so tight against me I
hardly can move.
The Analects say people in the golden age weren’t aware they were gov-
erned; they just lived.
Could I have passed through my own golden age and not even known I
was there?
Some gold: nuclear rockets aimed at your head, racism, sexism, contempt
for the poor.
And there I was, reading. What did I larned? Everything, nothing, too lit-
tle, too much…
Just enough to get me to here: a long-faced, white-haired ape with a book,
still turning the page.
**
Compare the poem “Light” on p. 391 of the paperback and and the way poetry foundation reproduces the line online. At least poetry foundation keeps the integrity of words like re-/lation; al-/lowed; alterna-/tive
subju-/gation; over-/whelmed; sur-/render; ex-haustion; be-/hold.
Also, the online version does not indent so the line spills nicely like an overflow.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182357
**
As Kimberley put it: he must believe in the strength of the line in and of itself! Of course the line breaks are only one technique that poets use, and so much else goes into crafting them.
Perhaps a small thing as indented sections of hypenated words are just a minor irritation -- a stray thread in the overall weave?
"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see -- it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life."
... Robert Penn Warren
As the poetic line and line break are ways of creating tension in a poem, what distinguishes a poem from arbitrarily chopped-up prose?
I typed up the WAIT version of Apes.
Why terri-/torial
anthropo-/morphic
dement-/edly
confirm-/ing
phi-/losophy
gov-/erned;
Apes – by CK Williams (from his book, Wait)
One branch, I read, of a species of chimpanzees has something like terri-
torial wars,
and when the… army, I suppose you’d call it, of one tribe prevails and
captures an enemy,
“several males hold a hand or foot of the rival so the victim can be damaged at
will.”
This is so disquieting: if things with whom we share so many genes can
be this rule,
what hope for us? Still, “rival,” “victim,” “will” – don’t such anthropo-
morphic terms
make those simians’ social-political conflicts sounds more brutal than they
are?
The chimps that Catherine and I saw on their island sanctuary in Uganda
we loathed.
Unlike the pacific gorillas in the forest of Bwindi, they fought, dement-
edly shrieked,
the dominant male lorded it over the rest; they were, in all, too much
like us.
Another island from my recent reading, where Columbus, on his last
voyage,
encountering some “Indians” who’d greeted him with curiosity and
warmth, wrote,
before he chained and enslaved them, “They don’t even know how to kill
each other.”
It’s occurred to me I’ve read enough; at my age all I’m doing is confirm-
ing my sadness.
Surely the papers: war, terror, torture, corruption – it’s like broken glass
in the mind.
Back when I knew I knew nothing, I read all the time, poems, novels, phi-
losophy, myth,
but I hardly glanced at the news, there was a distance between what could
happen
and the part of myself I felt with: now everything’s so tight against me I
hardly can move.
The Analects say people in the golden age weren’t aware they were gov-
erned; they just lived.
Could I have passed through my own golden age and not even known I
was there?
Some gold: nuclear rockets aimed at your head, racism, sexism, contempt
for the poor.
And there I was, reading. What did I larned? Everything, nothing, too lit-
tle, too much…
Just enough to get me to here: a long-faced, white-haired ape with a book,
still turning the page.
**
Compare the poem “Light” on p. 391 of the paperback and and the way poetry foundation reproduces the line online. At least poetry foundation keeps the integrity of words like re-/lation; al-/lowed; alterna-/tive
subju-/gation; over-/whelmed; sur-/render; ex-haustion; be-/hold.
Also, the online version does not indent so the line spills nicely like an overflow.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182357
**
As Kimberley put it: he must believe in the strength of the line in and of itself! Of course the line breaks are only one technique that poets use, and so much else goes into crafting them.
Perhaps a small thing as indented sections of hypenated words are just a minor irritation -- a stray thread in the overall weave?
"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see -- it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life."
... Robert Penn Warren
Poetry and Spirituality -- Follow-up 12/2
Poems for December 9 : I will send separately
Jennifer Grotz: Umbrella
Joseph Stroud: Manna
Thomas Hardy: At the Railway Station, Upway
James Wright: The Blessing
poems by Joanna Goodman (APR)
Sent earlier :
Developing the Land
(I will read out loud a companion poem "Glare Full Moon on the Equinox" by Steve Lewandowski)
WE WILL MEET from 11:30 AM – 12:40 PM
Follow-up : On December 2 – thank you Elaine, Joyce, Ronna, John for your insightful comments.
For the Todd Davis poems, the meditations on acceptance, recognizing desire as complicated, in the distractions of life, allowed the appreciation of the precious moment of “the now”.
For CK Williams, we discussed grief, the innocent and sensitive wisdom of children, as well as the problem of not knowing. Last night, listening to Richard Wilbur, in his poem “The Reckoning” he addressed the problem of “shame” – how if we get caught up in it, we risk being too proud. Williams gives us an insight into the complexity of being human, the complexity of contrition. In Light, he gives us the construct of Paradise and the dark of the Bat world in which to consider how we “blunder” through our deeds.
John shared a poem that his mother wrote (published in the NY Mirror!)
“If I could for a moment be
the person that I’d like to be
I think that I would cease to damn
the person that I really am.”
NY Mirror
Jennifer Grotz: Umbrella
Joseph Stroud: Manna
Thomas Hardy: At the Railway Station, Upway
James Wright: The Blessing
poems by Joanna Goodman (APR)
Sent earlier :
Developing the Land
(I will read out loud a companion poem "Glare Full Moon on the Equinox" by Steve Lewandowski)
WE WILL MEET from 11:30 AM – 12:40 PM
Follow-up : On December 2 – thank you Elaine, Joyce, Ronna, John for your insightful comments.
For the Todd Davis poems, the meditations on acceptance, recognizing desire as complicated, in the distractions of life, allowed the appreciation of the precious moment of “the now”.
For CK Williams, we discussed grief, the innocent and sensitive wisdom of children, as well as the problem of not knowing. Last night, listening to Richard Wilbur, in his poem “The Reckoning” he addressed the problem of “shame” – how if we get caught up in it, we risk being too proud. Williams gives us an insight into the complexity of being human, the complexity of contrition. In Light, he gives us the construct of Paradise and the dark of the Bat world in which to consider how we “blunder” through our deeds.
John shared a poem that his mother wrote (published in the NY Mirror!)
“If I could for a moment be
the person that I’d like to be
I think that I would cease to damn
the person that I really am.”
NY Mirror
Monday, December 6, 2010
4 poems by Donne + Elizabeth Bishop + Linebreak poem 12/6
16th- 17th C. He would have witnessed English civil war and the execution (1649) of King Charles I. The Commonwealth was dominated from the outset by Oliver Cromwell, who by the Instrument of Government (1653) was made lord protector of the Commonwealth. The subsequent government is usually known as the Protectorate, though the Commonwealth formally continued until Restoration in 1660.
Read more: commonwealth — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0813052.html#ixzz17ORWJ6uk
During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the eighteenth century, and for much of the nineteenth century, he was little read and scarcely appreciated. Commentators followed Samuel Johnson in dismissing his work as no more than frigidly ingenious and metrically uncouth. Coleridge and Browning in the 19th; TSE and Yeats in early 20th century recognized the sparring of intellect and passion.
Divine Sonnet #10
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
for...
By addressing Death, putting death into its place, a mere slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, no more and no less than poison, war, sickness... Death, swollen with its importance, is reminded that it has no power after death.
Divine Sonnet #14 -- the repetitions -- first a gentle knock, then more forceful, with the triple break, blow, burn -- a petition
a forceful plea, with both military and romantic vocabulary. I love that "reason" is only a viceroy! The word 'ravish" makes you think of St. Teresa in Ecstasy ; union with God/divine.
What is it that you learn about the speaker of the poem? About God?
Batter my heart, three personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
Triple Fool : A fool for loving; a fool for saying so, thinking that writing will change anything; a fool for making poem public.
The Bait: An idea: a hymn is a love song. What happens if you consider this poem beyond the sensual pleasure and think "Beloved" as divine.
**
Elizabeth Bishop:
Casabianca: by Elizabeth Bishop
Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck". Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.
Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy.
See the poem American school children had to learn by heart :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casabianca_(poem)
**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casabianca_(poem)
This poem was a staple of elementary school readers in the United States over a period of about a century spanning, roughly, the 1850s through the 1950s. So often memorized and recited as to lose any shred of meaning or emotion, it is today remembered mostly as a tag line and as a topic of parodies.
Casabianca is a poem by British poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans, first published in the Monthly Magazine for August 1826.
The poem opens:
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
It is written in ballad meter, rhyming abab.
In Hemans' and other tellings of the story, young Casabianca refuses to desert his post without orders from his father. (It is sometimes said, rather improbably, that he heroically set fire to the magazine to prevent the ship's capture by the British.) It's said that he was seen by English sailors on ships attacking from both sides but how any other details of the incident are known beyond the bare fact of the boy's death, is not clear. Hemans, not purporting to offer a history, but rather a poem inspired by the bare facts, writes:
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames rolled on—he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
Hemans has him repeatedly, and heart-rendingly, calling to his father for instructions: "'Say, Father, say/If yet my task is done;'" "'Speak, father!' once again he cried/'If I may yet be gone!;'" and "shouted but once more aloud/ 'My father! must I stay?'" Alas, there is, of course, no response.
She concludes by commending the performances of both ship and boy:
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part—
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.
**
And finally
Modern Sentences BY KIMBERLY GREY
who captures the quick attention span required to live a day in the life in 2010 -- one thought per sentence. Very witty.
Read more: commonwealth — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0813052.html#ixzz17ORWJ6uk
During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the eighteenth century, and for much of the nineteenth century, he was little read and scarcely appreciated. Commentators followed Samuel Johnson in dismissing his work as no more than frigidly ingenious and metrically uncouth. Coleridge and Browning in the 19th; TSE and Yeats in early 20th century recognized the sparring of intellect and passion.
Divine Sonnet #10
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
for...
By addressing Death, putting death into its place, a mere slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, no more and no less than poison, war, sickness... Death, swollen with its importance, is reminded that it has no power after death.
Divine Sonnet #14 -- the repetitions -- first a gentle knock, then more forceful, with the triple break, blow, burn -- a petition
a forceful plea, with both military and romantic vocabulary. I love that "reason" is only a viceroy! The word 'ravish" makes you think of St. Teresa in Ecstasy ; union with God/divine.
What is it that you learn about the speaker of the poem? About God?
Batter my heart, three personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
Triple Fool : A fool for loving; a fool for saying so, thinking that writing will change anything; a fool for making poem public.
The Bait: An idea: a hymn is a love song. What happens if you consider this poem beyond the sensual pleasure and think "Beloved" as divine.
**
Elizabeth Bishop:
Casabianca: by Elizabeth Bishop
Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck". Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.
Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy.
See the poem American school children had to learn by heart :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casabianca_(poem)
**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casabianca_(poem)
This poem was a staple of elementary school readers in the United States over a period of about a century spanning, roughly, the 1850s through the 1950s. So often memorized and recited as to lose any shred of meaning or emotion, it is today remembered mostly as a tag line and as a topic of parodies.
Casabianca is a poem by British poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans, first published in the Monthly Magazine for August 1826.
The poem opens:
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
It is written in ballad meter, rhyming abab.
In Hemans' and other tellings of the story, young Casabianca refuses to desert his post without orders from his father. (It is sometimes said, rather improbably, that he heroically set fire to the magazine to prevent the ship's capture by the British.) It's said that he was seen by English sailors on ships attacking from both sides but how any other details of the incident are known beyond the bare fact of the boy's death, is not clear. Hemans, not purporting to offer a history, but rather a poem inspired by the bare facts, writes:
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames rolled on—he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
Hemans has him repeatedly, and heart-rendingly, calling to his father for instructions: "'Say, Father, say/If yet my task is done;'" "'Speak, father!' once again he cried/'If I may yet be gone!;'" and "shouted but once more aloud/ 'My father! must I stay?'" Alas, there is, of course, no response.
She concludes by commending the performances of both ship and boy:
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part—
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.
**
And finally
Modern Sentences BY KIMBERLY GREY
who captures the quick attention span required to live a day in the life in 2010 -- one thought per sentence. Very witty.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
goodreads -- December 4
a wonderfully wacky week-end with Ta -- but I'm not so sure for Tira. What are these humans up to, with crazy bike rides in oak leaves, mini-golf, bi-athalon with 3 types of balls, ski-o, lugging equipment through 4 controls, the "crutches" and ax throwing for extra points, and an indoors warm up of a puzzle. Interlude of bowling before dinner.
I left at 8:15 to rescue Tira, fed, and back in by now the cozy quarters of Ta's room on Mill street, not terrified of the two large retrievers. But, it's been some time -- two pee's and now Tira is wondering where Ta is.
It gives me time to post stuff on Goodreads:
CK Williams : Wait
Hearing a reading of these poems, and being told by the publisher that the long lines don't really care about linebreaks, I am glad I had a chance to hear Charlie read them aloud in person just before Thanksgiving, in Rochester, NY. The intricacy of a poem like "The Gaffe" which travels from a childhood memory to present where it still chafes, alongside just what it is to live with all these people in oneself, especially the critical one, is delightful and reassuring. I enjoy the sense of humor, which allows yet deep probings such as "Apes" -- so that despair is allowed its place, and yet somehow, the poems give a sense of balance, of having gone somewhere deep, but without losing it completely. I look forward to reading these poems again and again.
November:
Todd Davis :
These poems grow on you and ask to be read and re-read, each time giving back a rich layer that confirms that the time spent with them is time well spent indeed. I love the references to art, and how a 14th century Eve combines with Stem cells; the way tree branches aspire to the sacred yet reinforce their roots;
how the "now" is not in the realm of desire, but simply details that have caught our attention, demand it.
Geography of Imagination:
" I wish every English teacher read this book and shared the insights with their students -- hopefully with shades of enthusiasm and passion like Guy Davenport.
This is the sort of book that celebrates humanism and leaves the reader breathless, as if having attended a reception where everybody who was anybody from Homer and all his characters to Wittgenstein and beyond has been present and asked you some probing question. I love the chapters that deal with translation, and appreciate all the insights to so many of my favorite authors, which heretofore, were simply favorites without too much knowledge of anecdotes about them, or the tongue of Davenport to bring them alive.
I left at 8:15 to rescue Tira, fed, and back in by now the cozy quarters of Ta's room on Mill street, not terrified of the two large retrievers. But, it's been some time -- two pee's and now Tira is wondering where Ta is.
It gives me time to post stuff on Goodreads:
CK Williams : Wait
Hearing a reading of these poems, and being told by the publisher that the long lines don't really care about linebreaks, I am glad I had a chance to hear Charlie read them aloud in person just before Thanksgiving, in Rochester, NY. The intricacy of a poem like "The Gaffe" which travels from a childhood memory to present where it still chafes, alongside just what it is to live with all these people in oneself, especially the critical one, is delightful and reassuring. I enjoy the sense of humor, which allows yet deep probings such as "Apes" -- so that despair is allowed its place, and yet somehow, the poems give a sense of balance, of having gone somewhere deep, but without losing it completely. I look forward to reading these poems again and again.
November:
Todd Davis :
These poems grow on you and ask to be read and re-read, each time giving back a rich layer that confirms that the time spent with them is time well spent indeed. I love the references to art, and how a 14th century Eve combines with Stem cells; the way tree branches aspire to the sacred yet reinforce their roots;
how the "now" is not in the realm of desire, but simply details that have caught our attention, demand it.
Geography of Imagination:
" I wish every English teacher read this book and shared the insights with their students -- hopefully with shades of enthusiasm and passion like Guy Davenport.
This is the sort of book that celebrates humanism and leaves the reader breathless, as if having attended a reception where everybody who was anybody from Homer and all his characters to Wittgenstein and beyond has been present and asked you some probing question. I love the chapters that deal with translation, and appreciate all the insights to so many of my favorite authors, which heretofore, were simply favorites without too much knowledge of anecdotes about them, or the tongue of Davenport to bring them alive.
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