Poems for April 25:
Last week, we shared thoughts about Barot’s poem “The Wooden Coffin” , exploring the angles of “detail” and “image”. This week, a series of poems which play with point of view, syntax, and what it is we “see”, visually and in our mind’s eye.
Wislawa Szymborska: Cat in an Empty Apartment translated by Dr. Clare Cavanagh + Stanisław Barańczak,
Robert Creeley:
The Pattern (Creeley, Collected Poems, 294)
( if time "The Rain" -- read by Forrest Gander 4/13 at RIT at the Mano project)
Samuel Daniel Another Song [Are they shadows that we see?]
Jennifer Grotz: The Needle
Wallace Stevens: Man Carrying Thing
Rebecca Lindenberg Ghostology (posted on Verse Daily)
Thursday, April 19, 2012
discussion of O PEN April 18
We spoke a bit of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane -- of Levine's wry humor, which allows us to access imagination both for grief and for "myths we live by". The parallel of having a headache by jumping back and forth from one language to another, then jumps to vision -- which instead of being a moment's relief as announced, shakes your head back at the image of a horrible accident or death. Just as Levine does not use "The Fall of Icarus" directly to make his point of an indifferent world,
"The Merciless God" is nonetheless set up to think of it, like neoclassical paintings using Renaissance religious settings for 19th century historical work, just as one thinks both of work accidents, hard luck of 1929, and Hart Crane's suicide off Brooklyn Bridge. Levine reminds us not to be frivolous -- he is talking about two men, and imagination shared in a way "that even ants in your own house won't forget" -- not imagination elevated to be some divine inspiration, but the very real,
important imagination we need for every day life.
The three poems from the April issue of Poetry Magazine prompted an equal amount of discussion:
Barot’s poem brought up the idea of what we bring to a poem in terms of what attitudes are shaping our reading. For instance, having just read the book “Talking to Trees” which is filled with “definitions” such as this: Faith: one part belief, two parts courage,
I found the opening line more “telling” which detracts from a poem’s power. And yet, yet saying what image is, then questioning it, coming to the conclusion that the speaker doesn’t know, is a fine example of how we explore what we hold in our mind, what we want to believe. What the poem doing is more important than what the poem is “teaching”. Death, from the title, to the image of the horse, and practices of the Shoshone which are not familiar to us, threads to the very last line, where the clock stops. The finality of a coffin changes once we start to call it “wooden overcoat” which image changes the detail of funerary box for the deceased to something protective, warm. A detail names... or does it? as the poem ends on “details.”
It reminds me of Robert Creeley’s “Patterns”
"The Pattern," (Creeley, Collected Poems, 294)
As soon as
I speak, I
speaks. It
it wants to
be free
but impassive lies
in the direction
of its
words. Let
x equal x. x
also equals x
I
speak to hear
myself speak?
I
had not
thought that some-
thing had such
undone. It
was an idea
of mine.
Jason Guriel’s poem explains “a magnetic personality” creating a verb out of Marc-Anthony, referring to Picasso and Gertrude Stein, with a delightful use of language play.
Michael Collier’s poem also pays tribute not only to Louise Bogan, her contribution to poetry, her difficult life, but imbeds loving to beloved, taming to tamed, cupping wildness lost along with the beloved, into parentheses as if to protect it. One of those short poems worthy of memorizing, to be able to think about.
The two Louise Bogan poems, also are worthy of memorizing. The 9 lines of tears in sleep combines familiar associations (Peter and the the Garden of Gethsemene but not 3 times the cock crew – all night long) and Clement Moore’s “Night Before Christmas”
(the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave a luster to midnight); what is real and what false, what is joy and sorrow, how do we speak in tears? Although this is in the cage of sleep, the poem challenges us to think of the cages we enter during wakefulness.
As for the dragonfly — a more exquisite picture could not be drawn of its ephemeral beauty. We listened to her say it — she pronounces "predator" as PRE – DATE – OR which invites the imagination to break down the image into the double-life of butterflies.
"The Merciless God" is nonetheless set up to think of it, like neoclassical paintings using Renaissance religious settings for 19th century historical work, just as one thinks both of work accidents, hard luck of 1929, and Hart Crane's suicide off Brooklyn Bridge. Levine reminds us not to be frivolous -- he is talking about two men, and imagination shared in a way "that even ants in your own house won't forget" -- not imagination elevated to be some divine inspiration, but the very real,
important imagination we need for every day life.
The three poems from the April issue of Poetry Magazine prompted an equal amount of discussion:
Barot’s poem brought up the idea of what we bring to a poem in terms of what attitudes are shaping our reading. For instance, having just read the book “Talking to Trees” which is filled with “definitions” such as this: Faith: one part belief, two parts courage,
I found the opening line more “telling” which detracts from a poem’s power. And yet, yet saying what image is, then questioning it, coming to the conclusion that the speaker doesn’t know, is a fine example of how we explore what we hold in our mind, what we want to believe. What the poem doing is more important than what the poem is “teaching”. Death, from the title, to the image of the horse, and practices of the Shoshone which are not familiar to us, threads to the very last line, where the clock stops. The finality of a coffin changes once we start to call it “wooden overcoat” which image changes the detail of funerary box for the deceased to something protective, warm. A detail names... or does it? as the poem ends on “details.”
It reminds me of Robert Creeley’s “Patterns”
"The Pattern," (Creeley, Collected Poems, 294)
As soon as
I speak, I
speaks. It
it wants to
be free
but impassive lies
in the direction
of its
words. Let
x equal x. x
also equals x
I
speak to hear
myself speak?
I
had not
thought that some-
thing had such
undone. It
was an idea
of mine.
Jason Guriel’s poem explains “a magnetic personality” creating a verb out of Marc-Anthony, referring to Picasso and Gertrude Stein, with a delightful use of language play.
Michael Collier’s poem also pays tribute not only to Louise Bogan, her contribution to poetry, her difficult life, but imbeds loving to beloved, taming to tamed, cupping wildness lost along with the beloved, into parentheses as if to protect it. One of those short poems worthy of memorizing, to be able to think about.
The two Louise Bogan poems, also are worthy of memorizing. The 9 lines of tears in sleep combines familiar associations (Peter and the the Garden of Gethsemene but not 3 times the cock crew – all night long) and Clement Moore’s “Night Before Christmas”
(the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave a luster to midnight); what is real and what false, what is joy and sorrow, how do we speak in tears? Although this is in the cage of sleep, the poem challenges us to think of the cages we enter during wakefulness.
As for the dragonfly — a more exquisite picture could not be drawn of its ephemeral beauty. We listened to her say it — she pronounces "predator" as PRE – DATE – OR which invites the imagination to break down the image into the double-life of butterflies.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Napowrimo -- April 18
Twas the 18th of April 1775...
hardly a man still alive
to remember that famous day and year
of the midnight ride of Paul Revere...
**
Poem for today informed by all that is below.
Heartbeat Clock
It's time enter a quiet room, your head
empty of all but the vignette
of the French duck who wanted to be a cat,
ignoring his set of wings and webbed feet.
Wise King Charles* thought his palace clock
could set time straight, but it was as subject
to mood as each citizen -- each YOU a perfect set
of selves. It's time to reflect before giving
into the urge to trade your feathers and quills
for some cat's handset and fur. I hear the beat
without needing anyone to measure what it clocks.
I'm thinking today, is a good day to let go of old memories.
All I want is...
such a common expression that drops out of the mouth.
I remember my mother saying, "All I want is a little white pill to end this all",
and as a young mother myself, feeling the confusion of wishing both that HER misery end,
but also my own, watching her struggles with alcohol and mental illness.
How many years of little blue pills, little pink pills, large quantities of Jim Beam in half gallon bottles standing in their black-lettered labels as straight as any Kentucky gentleman posing for a picture. And the pain of
knowing little can hold a soul trapped in a body rattling ice-cubes.
I remember the African refugee women I taught who hadn't learned "damn you to hell" as a response to lunatics who shot their husbands, burned their huts, abducted their sons. How do they numb the pain, except by their courage
to survive.
"How little we know" my mother taught her roomnate Rita.
If Yeats could say, "Now that my ladder is gone/I must lie down where all ladders start/In the foul rag and bones shop of the heart.
« C'est l'horloge du palais (qui fait comme il lui plaît) »
Imagine having a clock in your palace by which all the clocks in the city would be set!
My poem today was inspired by thinking of all these things -- found in a stack of notes in a tick-tocked
old folder I'm happy to toss!
*Charles V, dit Charles le Sage,
hardly a man still alive
to remember that famous day and year
of the midnight ride of Paul Revere...
**
Poem for today informed by all that is below.
Heartbeat Clock
It's time enter a quiet room, your head
empty of all but the vignette
of the French duck who wanted to be a cat,
ignoring his set of wings and webbed feet.
Wise King Charles* thought his palace clock
could set time straight, but it was as subject
to mood as each citizen -- each YOU a perfect set
of selves. It's time to reflect before giving
into the urge to trade your feathers and quills
for some cat's handset and fur. I hear the beat
without needing anyone to measure what it clocks.
I'm thinking today, is a good day to let go of old memories.
All I want is...
such a common expression that drops out of the mouth.
I remember my mother saying, "All I want is a little white pill to end this all",
and as a young mother myself, feeling the confusion of wishing both that HER misery end,
but also my own, watching her struggles with alcohol and mental illness.
How many years of little blue pills, little pink pills, large quantities of Jim Beam in half gallon bottles standing in their black-lettered labels as straight as any Kentucky gentleman posing for a picture. And the pain of
knowing little can hold a soul trapped in a body rattling ice-cubes.
I remember the African refugee women I taught who hadn't learned "damn you to hell" as a response to lunatics who shot their husbands, burned their huts, abducted their sons. How do they numb the pain, except by their courage
to survive.
"How little we know" my mother taught her roomnate Rita.
If Yeats could say, "Now that my ladder is gone/I must lie down where all ladders start/In the foul rag and bones shop of the heart.
« C'est l'horloge du palais (qui fait comme il lui plaît) »
Imagine having a clock in your palace by which all the clocks in the city would be set!
My poem today was inspired by thinking of all these things -- found in a stack of notes in a tick-tocked
old folder I'm happy to toss!
*Charles V, dit Charles le Sage,
Napowrimo April 17
Stage Lights
The late afternoon sun catches the petals,
lights them like pink lanterns
and suddenly, my daughter appears
as if slipping out of the picture
in her lavendar-blue prom dress
not to return to twelve years ago,
but to start a theatre of pictures
from laughing, toe-catching baby,
cartwheeling six, faster and faster
to bicycles and skis
and always her very own legs,
her spirit running
her own two deft feet.
Monday, April 16, 2012
NaPoWriMo -- April 14, 15, 16
This week-end, I shared my "Friday the 13th poem" -- and enjoyed the fact that someone else used the fact that Palm Sunday AND April Fools' Day fell on the same day. With a bit of feedback, I thought on my poem, so April 15, the mid-month poem is a revision of it. The poem doesn't really address superstition...so change of title.. a little paring...
Spring Busting Out
Purple Henbit, all lavender bloom,
sunbathes in the soft grass,
not to tan, nor to preen
nor to relax after a hard bit
of birthing for such a short-lived
existence.
In suburban life, someone will
shortchange such plants,
pieces of silver traded
for an American Tru-green lawn
doctored with poisons.
A little surgery by mower-blade
will chop the purple nicely,
fine as ashes without a tell-tale
streak. No monument, entombment,
no grave-- such require real
estate, this idea of permanence,
claim, control.
**
and what is luck? and what is "control" all about. Sunday's poem was a meditation on the arbitrariness of weeding... why
Luck of the Draw
Borders are borders, I tell them.
You are not supposed to be here.
We have strict orders: dandelions
may under no circumstance appear
in the flower bed. Granted, yellow
starred heads are as pretty as a jonquil
with edible leaves, but you fellows
are seedy, go to pot, make for ill-will
dot by bright dot in a country made
for common uniform! Out you go!
You are not invited, we'll have you know!
I'm glad you like borders, they tell us.
But we are supposed to be where we land
and who decides who lives where? What fuss
have you made about eliminating our band
of merry yellow? Our star-globes bear no ill
seed by seed, pot or no pot in the tranquil
web that weaves us all. On we go!
Not all survive.
First to go: the ones near the borders
next the thick-necked, so large and loud
next, the multiple-headed,
and yet, even if diminished, they still thrive.
And then for a minute, imagine the world
if they really disappeared.
No, bring on those lions
I'd have them rule any day in the course
of empires!*
*Painter Thomas Cole had an idea of "the course of empires" and painted five paintings which show:
1) savage (wild) state (no trace of man)
2) pastoral
3) Empire
4) Destruction
5) Desolation
** I had thought of using this idea for today:
Why is it that we document what it is we are about to destroy? Thomas Cole was asked to sketch Letchworth park in 1839, before they blasted parts of it to make way for a Canal extension.
My writing group is undergoing some changes. One of which is a new name, and this one was suggested:
C L A N J A M P H R Y
clanjamphry (plural clanjamphries)Mob, rabble, crowd. I'm afraid I don't consider myself as writer as being part of a mob. Our job is to interpret the world, make it accessible.
Clanjamphry or gone awry?
The clan will jam and fry the mob
who will poke and try to kill the king.
The crowd will start to cry
give us music, and we will sing
of the sweet berries of days gone by
but alas, alack Milady, Milord, so high
on their horses, they have lost sight of things.
Friday, April 13, 2012
o pen : poems for April 18 CONVERSATIONS
After a stunning reading by Philip Levine on Thursday, April 12, I would like to follow the advice of Jennifer Grotz' advisor who told her that she should "write like someone else, and read Philip Levine".
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/levine.htm
This above interview gives a portrait of Philip Levine – his personality, his gentle humor, his thinking -- a few insights on “They Feed, They Lion” which we discussed earlier.
This week’s selection is a constrast of times, takes, in honor of the way poems do their work in the world. It might be language play, a metaphysical boxing match, blend of narrative and lyric voice and as ever, an invitation to see how words corralled line, image touch us. by will contrast one Philip Levine poem with a few poems in the April 2012 Poetry one of which refers to Louise Bogan, so two of her poems too!
-- On The Meeting Of García Lorca And Hart Crane-- by Philip Levine
3 poems from the April 2012 edition of POETRY
-- The Wooden Overcoat -- by Rick Barot
-- A Magnetic Personality -- Jason Guriel
-- Six Lines for Louise Bogan -- by Michael Collier
2 poems by Louise Bogan:
Tears in Sleep by Louise Bogan and The Dragonfly
NaPoWriMo April 13
Friday the 13th
The purple henbit, all decked out
in lavender and fuchsia bloom,
sunbathes in the soft spring grass.
Not to tan, nor to preen, certainly
not to relax after a hard bit of work
coming to this point in such a short-
lived existence.
Little do these tiny plants know,
here in suburban life, someone will
shortchange them, like pieces
of silver traded for an American
Tru-green, serviced lawn,
doctored with with poisons.
And if not dispensed with that way,
a little surgery by mower-blade
will chop them nicely, fine as ashes,
without even a tell-tale streak left.
No state funeral necessary. Certainly
no monument, no entombment, no grave,
for such require real
estate, this idea of some permanence,
this idea of claim, of control.
The purple henbit, all decked out
in lavender and fuchsia bloom,
sunbathes in the soft spring grass.
Not to tan, nor to preen, certainly
not to relax after a hard bit of work
coming to this point in such a short-
lived existence.
Little do these tiny plants know,
here in suburban life, someone will
shortchange them, like pieces
of silver traded for an American
Tru-green, serviced lawn,
doctored with with poisons.
And if not dispensed with that way,
a little surgery by mower-blade
will chop them nicely, fine as ashes,
without even a tell-tale streak left.
No state funeral necessary. Certainly
no monument, no entombment, no grave,
for such require real
estate, this idea of some permanence,
this idea of claim, of control.
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