Poems for Nov. 15-6

Center of the Universe by Hannah Emerson:  

To Be a Person by Jane Hirshfield

I was in a Hurry by Dunya Mikhail

The Beautiful Changes by Richard Wilbur

Hamlen Brook by Richard Wilbur

Bread and Butter  by Gayle Brandeis

David Drake -- 3 selections of his inscriptions

fragments inscribed on pots made by David Drake,  https://poets.org/poet/david-drake

I include 3 of them in the poems.  We will NOT be meeting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  I hope you will be spending this holiday with friends and family and share together

the blessings of food, shelter, and time to gather together to honor the sake of gathering together. 

DISCUSSION:

Center of the Universe by Hannah Emerson:  This is in her volume of poetry called The Kissing of Kissing.

You may want to read this blog entry by Maria Popova:  https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/09/26/hannah-emerson-center-of-the-universe/?mc_cid=9d04bb9df5&mc_eid=2e713bf367

I started the session with this lovely poem by a young poet, Ben Wilson.

IN THE FOREST

In the forest

a man sits

a tree stands high

a river runs through his silence. —from 2014 Rattle Young Poets Anthology When asked Why do you like to write poetry? Ben replied: “I like writing poetry because it makes me feel like I am in another world and I forget about the normal world.” 

It seemed appropriate to introduce Hannah Emerson whose poem "Listening" we discussed on Oct. 27.

 I also shared I brought up this excellent book, that helps us understand better the negative effect of labeling "disabled" and believe that there is a "normal". What can a body do?(How we Meet the Built World): by Sara Hendren.  For Hannah, she considers poets, "Keepers of the light" and has her on definition of "Hell".  

"It is mine and a great gift of trying to be here.  I help the world-- people need to become me, to help themselves."

discussion comments:  Hannah seems to recording her own "Self ignition".  The poem seems like a dance. 

For sure, her mind is its own place and she provides us a view of its fire -- how "hell" for her is at the heart of creation.  

There were several shares of funny quotes about hell as well -- why would one choose a boring condition of heaven ? (no cigars -- Mark Twain).  Judith brought up the story of Aucassin and Nicolette, where Aucassin declares that he would prefer hell to heaven because hell's inmates are likely to be more entertaining.  (The medieval tale does complete reversals, and in this case is a mockery of Saints Lives.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aucassin_and_Nicolette

To Be a Person by Jane Hirshfield

Normally when we say "person" in contemporary parlance, we are referring to a full "actualized" human being.  Judith brought up the etymology of persona, or the actor's mask.  Hirshfield's opening line is a surprising challenge:  How is being a person "untenable"? Her leaps between stanzas to portray what a person is, works through this "untenable" to consider "it may be possible then, after all".  A delightful play of paradox which ends on a brilliant metaphor of waiting working boots... yes... to be a person, is to be a work in progress... and we joked at the word "open" -- like our group -- how, like an unused drawer to open, we share the joys of discovering surprises we might not find without each other.

Judith thought immediately of Van Gogh "waiting working boots" : 

(I had a different association in my poem about them in my first book, Cadences: Van Gogh’s Boots

Only a pair of boots,

a man’s only pair of boots.

Leather aches into a stiff lip,

chafes the space 

            mangled laces

     barely close —

peasant boots —

            artist’s boots —

mute mates.

 

One pulled up stark

watching the other

lip folded open

as if ready to speak.

 

A painting of boots,

one with a cow-thick tongue

hanging in the bleeding shadows

of a barn,

the other kicked off, 

crumpled in fatigue.

 

The caked spring mud says 

one man has been out 

in the world, walking.

One flung to the bare floor,

empty of sinew and bone,

the other standing upright,

a sentinel

watching over its mate.

I was in a Hurry by Dunya Mikhail

We enjoyed the powerful  recitation by Dunya in Arabic and English to the sound of the Arabic music. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCXnL_AQiA  Note, she says, "glittering with dreams" not "scattered like".

Thank you Rose-Marie who mentioned she found it, recommended by Ilya Kaminsky and his sense of loss of country as Ukranian. 

We all look at the current Gaza-Hamas-Israeli horror, and the complexity of "homeland".  As for our own country, are we not also grieving how it seems "like a broken branch" -- that we haven't been noticing the need to help it?  

Dunya's images paint images of refugees, the urgency of fleeing and this deep ache of longing for what had been home.  Even if bad things happen in it, even if we are not in agreement with its leaders, it is still home.  

Richard Wilbur: 

 “Wilbur’s poems matter not because they may or may not be stylish at any given moment but because they keep the English language alive: Wilbur’s great poems feel as fresh—as astonishing, as perplexing, as shocking—as they did 50 years ago.” -- James Longenbach

 

Wilbur also was an accomplished translator. I find poets who are fluent enough in other languages to be able to translate poetry, tend to be rather fine poets in their native tongue.

Wilbur is no exception.  I love that his dates  (1921-2017) coincide with the life of my own father, who indeed loved his poetry.  Sadly I'll miss the presentation but all are welcome to attend!  Below two of the ones Bob Darling selected (and links to the others.)

The Beautiful Changes: 

What a pleasure to see such deft craftsmanship, the play of the word "changes" as  noun and verb and the implication of "beautiful" as adjective applied to the fact of changes, as well as becoming the abstract noun of The Beautiful.  The liquid l's create a swimming of sound, wading through this summer scene. The use of the verb TUNING, not turning, for the chameleon.  The surprise of "the beautiful" which can change in "such kind ways", bringing in a human element of hand holding something that is not just for oneself... "wishing ever to sunder/things, and things' selves for a second finding" prepares us for the oooo sounds of lose,preceded as they are by  you, blue Lucernes, tune, prove.

As Graeme put it, a nature poem on steroids-- but so beautifully more, plunging into a satisfying depth of thought and feeling. 

Hamlen Brook: 

We reveled in the inventive use of language, the rhymes which dart out and about like the trout, without being overly apparent.  We all agreed flickèd should have been written with the è to indicate saying it as two syllables, suggesting flickered. Was it Elmer who said about rainbow trout-- "don't quarrel about the colors".  Indeed a "flickèd slew of sparks and glittering silt... does the trick, along with the burnished dragon flies.

Jim called on his experience as canoe/kayak enthusiast who confirmed that indeed, especially on a blue-skied day paddling coming up to a stand of birch, it will seem to be a "white precipice."

How to take it all in??? I loved that Wilbur uses the word "trick" -- with Joy!  The poignant ache of it,

like the Portuguese saudade or fado is beautifully told... something we recognize as common, but told in a beautifully uncommon way.

Bread and Butter: 

It seems as if there are two poems here.  The "how did anyone think of this" and know how to do it...

and then a slant love poem ...  

 

special sharing of November 15

Yesterday, thanks to Rose-Marie, we heard this amazing reading of the poem  I was in a Hurry : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCXnL_AQiA

She also sent this amazing link sent to her by  Kenny Lerner who said it is old but which has so much resonance today with all the chaos in the Middle East. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YWCuPaDcs

Kenny Lerner and Peter Cook of Flying Words Project were inspired by a visit to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to create this poem. Humanity can be the author of destruction, but it can also bring beauty. We need to make a better world. This poem was created in Amboise, France in 2015.

** Saturday, Nov. 18, 1:30, Bob Darling, who teaches at Keuka College,  will be presenting the poetry of Richard Wilbur at the meeting of Just Poets.  It will be held at the Pittsford Community Center. 35 Lincoln Avenue, 2nd floor.  For Nov. 15-6 we discussed The Beautiful Changes and Hamlen Brook

 Here are others he also included:

A Barred Owl: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49432/a-barred-owl

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World (one of my favorites, and I believe we've discussed several times!) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43048/love-calls-us-to-the-things-of-this-world

Still, Citizen Sparrow https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43054/still-citizen-sparrow

Year’s End https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43052/years-end-56d221b9e6bd8

The Writer https://poets.org/poem/writer

Judith read her "holiday" poem -- as she put it:" I will be eighty-nine years old in January and I am effing fed up with this nonsense!"

  

O little town of Bethlehem can we see thee at all?

When winds blow north and also east th’art covered by a pall

Of ash and smoke and fragments from murderous lust to kill

The echoes of the drones and bombs rebound from hill to hill.

 

Not silently, not silently, those winds of hate do blow

But with a horrid resonance malevolence do show.

Whatever gods rule over this poor distracted land

Can neither stay nor yet assuage hate’s raging heavy hand.

 

Thus in thy dark streets shineth no glimmer of a light

But everlasting woe and pain with no relief in sight. 

No glint of hope is shown us this winter’s frosty night

Appeals fly up but are they heard?--just gripping, aching fright.

 

 

Bethlehem is just 64 miles north and east of the Gaza strip.

 

Judith shared by email  another poem, and also news about World Philosophy Day... 

By All Things Planetary

 

By all things planetary, sweet, I swear

Those hands shall not contain these hands again

Until I get me gloves of ice to wear.  

For you are the headiest of men, your speech

Is whiskey and your grin is gin.  

I am well drunken, is there water near?  

I’ve need of gloves of ice to hem me in.  

But come here, let me put it in your ear, 

I would not want them now.  You gave me

This wildness to drink, now water seems too pale

And now I know deep summer is a bliss 

I have no wish for weathering the gale.

So when I ask for gloves of ice to wear

Laugh at me, I am lying, sweet, I swear.

 

                                                                                    Gwendolyn Brooks

 

UNESCO World Philosophy Day Thursday November 16, 2023-- 4 links provided: 

Is Moral Rome Possible, by Nicolai Olmenchenko

new Erich Fromm website >fromm-online.org<

Paper, British Moralists and the British Empire by Dr. David White: The Midwest Conference on British Studies

List of Western NY societies: American Canoe Association; Master Gardener Network; NY Archives Conference, 

+ Performative Philosophy (utopian societies: The Burned-Over District by Whitney Cross (1950)

School of Dreams, “I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” (Henry David Thoreau)  

  

 

 

 

 

 

Nov. 8-9

  

The Subjunctive by Steve Bellin-Oka

Like You by Roque Dalton 1935 –1975; translated by Jack Hirschman 1933 –2021

Ode to the Head Nod  Elizabeth Acevedo

Drifting by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks 1869 –1944

Changing Is Not Vanishing  by Carlos Montezuma

Dignity  by Too-qua-stee

The Calculus by Paul Hostovsky

“Contemporary poetry serves, for a lot of us, a lack that we feel of spirituality or guidance or truth in our contemporary culture, and I think contemporary poetry is a way that we can turn to replace that loss.” —Steve Bellin-Oka

Steve Bellin-Oka is the editor for November of Poem-a-day.  Drifting, Changing, Dignity were his picks and we started with his own poem.

The Subjunctive:  a little grammar lesson tucked in a poem!  Even if you never learned that the subjunctive mode is used to describe a hypothetical scenario, to express a wish, recommendation or demand... this poem will show you how it works! 

Steve uses it to tell a story... but connecting one thing to another.  Some felt a great sorrow about the trees.  Wrong tree, wrong place, wrong everything.  But if... Had my brother...  emphasizes a sense of regret.

Knowing a bit about the poet might elucidate the grief he has experienced, but for sure, we feel it,

especially with the last line set off like a singleton to complete the line/stanza break.

I wish  ... not sever us... with its lightening like a chainsaw. Fill in the blank for whatever destructiveness. 

Like you:  It is helpful to know the poet is from El Salvador, and was an activist.  We discussed 

my blood boils up ... This is not an angry poem.  If eyes have known  buds of tears, this poem directs us to see our "unanimous blood". 

Ode to Head Nod"  Fun discussion not just about the poem, but lots of examples of head nods!

On Bicycle, on the street, in India with a snake-like head movement which says, "I'm listening".

A head nod... as "a gilded curtsy to the sunfill in another"... line and stanza break, only to continue 

"in yourself".  We noted the large white spaces between words, which become clearer with the mention of the copy editor who deleted the word "head" from the title... Negative space in art, dance, emphasizes what is not... not said, where one is not... 

How does a "nod" change implication when "head" is gone?  The clever use of spacing to illustrate more

than what the words are saying, like its own gesture: to find "the color".  Here again, Aceyedo layers implications perhaps such as reference to the fact that black is the absence of all colors, while white is the presence of all colors.  

As for the ending:  who is the "you"?  perhaps God, or the small good inside all of us? 

Drifting: I hadn't heard of Olivia Ward Bush-Banks,  (1869-1944) and glad to be introduced, thanks to Steve Bellin-Oka.  Of African-American and Montaukett Native American heritage, this author, poet and journalist is on the "must know" list of American woman.   The poem with its aBcB rhyme, lovely rhythm laced with slant rhymes in drift, tinted, ripple contrasting with the long I in light, white, bright, chiming, life, Time, gently describes life passing on to death.

Changing is not Vanishing:  another Steve Bellin-Oka pick.  Just in case you missed "Vanishing" in the title, Carlos Montezuma gives it primary place at the end of each line coupled with NEVER.

The crux for me was the penultimate line:  "The man part of the Indian is here, there, and everywhere".

We spoke about the importance of Indigenous women, carrying on traditions.  You may enjoy this 28 minute video about  Dr. Montezuma, born in 1866 in Arizona territory.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1arhXZjQIY

 As a small boy, he was stolen from his family and sold as a slave. He spent his early childhood on the road with an Italian photographer, and performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show before starting school in Chicago. In 1884, Montezuma was the first Native American to graduate from the University of Illinois and later became one of the first to earn a medical degree. After working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a reservation doctor and witnessing the widespread poverty and bureaucratic corruption, he fought tirelessly for Native American rights and citizenship. When his own Yavapai tribe faced removal from their ancestral home, Montezuma went to Washington, D.C., to fight for and finally secure their land and water rights, setting a precedent for other Indian nations. Narration is by Hattie Kauffman, longtime CBS news reporter/anchor and a member of the Nez Perce tribe

Dignity: Another Steve Bellin-Oka pick written by a Cherokee writer, poet, attorney, teacher born in Georgia in 1829.  How would you define dignity?  We enjoyed the comparison to a summer tree and the unpompous language of "fuss and fight..." the surprising "snow/trickling fatness on fields below"

and that which is by definition, in this poem,  "always needed to complete the man." Delightful last lines:

The job quite done, and Dignity without,

Is like an apple pie, the fruit left out.

The Calculus: sheer fun of using dentist-terms and the perfect match of the situation! 

 

=

Nov. 1-2

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e0OtWYNfXoWHEN THE NIGHT WIND HOWLS-- by: W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911)

After the Opera by Richard Schiffman

The Nature of Memory by Major Jackson 

An Ox Looks At Man by Carlos Drummond de Andrade translated by Mark Strand

The Listening World by Hannah Emerson

The Creative Drive by Catherine Barnett

The Sentence by Nathan McClain

A thank you to Judith for her choice of Halloween spirit  in the Gilbert and Sullivan opener and wonderful costume!

We all seemed to be in good spirits and were trading quotes and quips such as this one:

If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.  It is good that we can poke fun at ourselves!

After the Opera:  More ghoulish  flavor in this one, twisting funny with an underpinning of perhaps a quite serious message about our part as "actors on the stage" of this world.  The description of the various players and implied plots could indeed be headlines from the daily news... with the exception that there

is no "end of the play", no curtain call.  The clever ending has an unusual comparison for the crowd,

and quite original idea of a God who might be "beyond the footlights of the world". 

The Nature of Memory:  Although the poem deals with memory, flashback, perhaps it could be a different title, for instance that line"If there is another world".  What a vivid and wonderful picture he paints for us of his children... which contrasts strongly with the  confessional first two lines which allude to "twice-broken, knife-scarred", and insinuation of a childhood that doesn't resemble the one his children experience.  The underpinnings of being a black man and facing the unspoken extra layers of struggle that implies are there.  "If there is another world," ... but he does not complete the thought, but rather stays in the struggle of "falling into the light", the "ping-pong", understanding the undersides of storm edging up the coast.  For sure, there is no doubt about the immense and powerful love he has for his children, his desire for their well-being.  It is a beautiful wish... and for sure, not a given.  The mention of

"a clumsy series of human foibles" has the very sound of the churn he has been conditioned to expect.

An Ox Looks at Man:  Why an Ox is a great question and started off quite a discussion which included  the Taoist paintings of an ox teaching a path to enlightenment.  Ox as beast of burden as well, shackled by man; Ox as present at the birth of Christ.  It is wonderful to read this point of view of the animal we call "dumb", who is given a chance to speak about his observations about man.  We do not come out well in such a description.  We wondered about the parenthesis:  (one minute) -- perhaps to show our changeability, our melancholy, one minute,  grace another?  (What do we know) -- who is "we"?  Is the Ox including itself

in the overall picture of living beings?  The "chewing away at truth" is a perfect ending, particularly after the enigmatic mention of the "sounds that scatter and fall like troubled stones and burn the herbs and the water"

The Listening World:  You might not guess that this brilliant poem was written by an autistic child.

Rhymes of prayer/lair --the one, a command to pray for little things ... the other  with its double meaning of lair as  burial but also den of a fierce, dangerous animal -- what is hidden, concealed. 

The sensitivity to what lives in deep hurt, the repeat at the end of "deep" but as question seems to imply her careful listening.     Is the ear deep or deeper than such hurt?  Mike (Rundel) brought up an anecdote of an autistic child commenting on "normal" people.  "How can you talk so much and miss all that is

happening in your mind." (Rather like the Ox commenting on people.)   We discussed "light", as enlightened but also the opposite of heavy, buried.  Let it signal:  the it could be the prayer for little things, or perhaps language (feelings language take to lair: an odd syntax.  Language takes?  Feelings take ).

A perfect example of a poem which leaves you moved, but also woven in a sense of mystery.

Some felt a perfect sequel to Major Jackson's poem.

The Creative Drive:  It seems funny, but it isn't...  What is it we value?  What else could you substitute for "poem"?  "We've created a system that is not healthy"... line break, stanza break  "for poems".

The celebration of poems which stay... "as a gorgeous marker of time" seems quite serious.

Why the title? 

The Sentence:  without the note, we might not understand the serious purpose of this poem.

What breaks us?  breaks the sentence? The "understood you" perhaps in the two word line,

You understand.  How do you say this sentence?  Where do you put emphasis?  What tone?

We agreed, the wry sarcasm certainly gets us thinking about jail sentences false accusation, the whole system of "justice". 

   

Poems for Oct. 25-6

Crossroads by Louise Glück

Cold Solace by Anna Belle Kaufman

Childhood by David Baker  

The Shoes of Teenage Boys by Tim Nolan  

The Chambermaids in the Marriott in Midmorning by Maxine Kumin 

I had included And The Beautiful by Paul Celan which inspired my powerpoint shared last week-- contact me if you want to see it.)  We ran out of time to read it.  I appreciate Mike's comments at Rundel:  Celan sets up a pattern of past tense followed by present (tore/tear; heaped/heap) but that wind is in the present, sweeping, and caught in the final question, as if to carry it to the next generation.  How do we face a violent and brutal world?  Note how the poem starts with And... as if there is a whole story that included the beautiful... and in our grief, yes, we understand the tearing out of pages, hair as we bury all we loved.

It reminded many of the movie Life is Beautiful.

I stumbled on this quote from Louise Glück:  Everything is change ... and everything is connected. Also everything returns, but what returns is not what went away—

Crossroads:

I had mentioned  thoughtful quotes from great writers on the nature of death on Maria Popova's blog:  https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/02/07/you-cant-have-it-all-barbara-ras-emily-levine/ : Here, from Rilke: Death is our friend, precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is nature, that is love."  Popova's comment seems to sum up  "Crossroads" and  contemplating death as "the most difficult and rewarding art: "befriending our own finitude".  

 Where to start to pay homage to the discussion this poem sparked?  I think the timely sound of the "cricket" on Maura's phone as we read "a new tenderness" was perfect... 

Crossroads:  crossing from life to death; a point where one contemplates which direction to take, and what choices to make.  As Maura put it, there really should be a lemonade stand there... 

Poetry is not about "answers" and this poem demonstrates the power of unspoken, perhaps implied

possibilities.  

In this article from the Guardian  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/17/louise-gluck-a-poet-who-never-shied-away-from-silence-pain-or-fear I loved the sentence about her "clotting diction with dashes-- semi-colons, odd breaks.  Indeed, in our discussion, this came up.

The semi-colon after "My soul has been so fearful, so violent;" is arresting-- the idea will be continued, without any "and, or but". There is something contradictory and unusual introduced.... and then continued with asking the body to forgive "its brutality".

How is a soul fearful?  violent? Brutal?  Does the soul desire substance?  There, she stops you short with a colon:

delivers the final couplet:

it is not the earth I will miss,

it is you I will miss.

We discussed "earth"... something external to a self... something to which we return. We discussed at length this "you".  Is it the body?  and this poem a love-letter to it?  Or is the you, someone the body has loved-- not just her body, but anybody reading the poem thinking of a loved one?  Is you the blend of body and soul as one?  

The tone of the poem is tender, indeed, as we read the words, our hands moved over them cautiously,

(last word of stanza 4) -- as if these words could allow the soul to achieve "expression as substance". 

I didn't bring up William James: "Spirit worn of sinew, mind of marrow" and how the body experiences time... how without soul... some sort of seat of consciousness... there is nothing... 

Cold Solace

https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/02/24/immortality-in-passing-lisel-mueller/?mc_cid=93f7af5baf&mc_eid=2e713bf367 :  The quoting of Lisel Mueller's

poem, "In passing" works perfectly with the "honey cakes"...

 

Perhaps a lot could have been left out, and some of us were struck by the heavy dose of alliterations describing the honey cakes. Judith thought Marna's response to the discussion of poets getting a bit above themselves technically or with wordplay,

quite good:  it is as if the writer is so into what he is creating that sometimes what seems like ego excess jut boils out--like the ending to Nemerov's poem--Somber November amber and umber embering out.  He simply could not help it!

 

Jan mentioned how she was overcome having her partner read the poem aloud to her.  The ending lines

could not have been written without the "long thaw" and time spent describing the flavor, the taste, 

proustian effect of these cakes.  The last fragment, "Leave something of sweetness/and substance/in the mouth of the world" could be both plea, and also connect to the "It", that will end, that in turn is connected to the cakes, the memory of the love when the mother was living.  Beautiful, inexplicable mystery of our feelings, grief, that feels complete without any further "messing".

Childhood:  poem in the New Yorker.  We enjoyed the sensory effects and sounds and that the poem opened and closed with "I miss the cold, but curious about the last line as the singing is not "set up".  Unlike "Those Winter Sundays", there is not a sense of presence of a person placing the hot water bottle, or making the fire.  Judith was reminded of Purcell's Aria, "Cold Song".  We all could relate to the relief  when coming in from the "icepick cold" and leaving the howling w's in the 3rd line, that no tucking tight of scarf can keep out! 

The Shoes of Teenage Boys:  just delightful and perfectly captures adolescent boys!

Famous:  Equally delightful and unusual position to address what "fame" means in terms of relationship.  

The couplet about the photograph is not just about a picture in a pocket... but bent, implying both that it traveled long with the person, inevitably suffering from being placed close, not matter how carefully.

Each item allows something else that would other not be without the other.  The brevity of the length of a tear staying on a cheek, how an idea held close to a bosom, puts a different spin on both idea and bosom,

and the boot changes function depending on where it walks.  Perhaps the least obtrusive and humblest thing is a button, which also requires patience to manage if opening and closing the clothing on which its found.  And you?  What is it you do?  Can it be as simple as smiling back?  Let's not forget the simple.

(cf. 10/26/22 poem:  I always wanted/to be famous.) 

The Chambermaids:  Such a cheerful snapshot -- rather like a soap-opera moment as the chambermaids are indeed cleaning, sharing their banter, their own opera... listening to the tv soaps!

The importance of small things -- performed with Rabelaisian vigor (understanding this is a reference to Gargantua and other giants Rabelais invented for our pleasure in the 16th century!) 

 

Poems for Oct. 18-19

The Meaning of Simplicity  by Yannos Ritsos

Utopia by Wisława Szymborska (with map by Maria Popova!)

A Common Saw  by Howard Nemerov

While Shaving by Alfredo Aguilar

A Cut-up Mango by Stephanie Qin (age 12)

What words in poems leave you with a sense of being "stuck" and unable to fathom ?

in the poem by Ritsos, with such a beguilingly simple title filled with a promise of clear definition,

indeed, he shows us the complexity of simplicity.

Is it Simplicity speaking in the first stanza?  The next two stanzas provide us with observations,

and we carefully shared what we noticed and wondered.  The August moon... not a spring moon,

or winter moon, but a ripe summer moon, perhaps one of the rare "blue moons" that occur in August, which sometimes has two full moons.  Regardless, it lights an empty table... and silence kneeling.

The gleam is compared to one provided by a tin kitchen kettle.  Not a fancy kettle, and perhaps some have association with tin as a thin coating, once used to prevent corrosion. How is the parenthetical comment like this gleam?  

Of course, the power of such imagery allows the reader to feel the space in the stanza, the sense of waiting, with the repeated "silence is always kneeling" underlining a quiet quality of attentive reflection, listening.  

We struggled to understand how a single word is an exodus -- a mass departure -- the line break further

confuses the meaning of a meeting cancelled many times.  One thought is the power of a single word,

its intent to be saved... and what needs to be saved and said?  The final line, sums it up... 

one true word, insisting on its meaning.

One thought was that poems often gather meaning that becomes clear in a final stanza.  Indeed, it could stand by itself, but without this idea of "hiding", and implied seeking, in the first stanza, the patience 

of the kneeling in the second, the "singularity " of a word coming to meet "meaning", the chance of

its truth insisting would not be the same.

Stripping down to essentials in this day and age filled with "too much" is a challenge.  Sue mentioned the

advantages of dispensing with social media and technology.

Simplicity?  It is not about ease, but rather a desirable coat of clarity that allows what is essential to shine.

 

Utopia:  Paul reminded us of the Greek Ou-Topos (No where) which puns on Eu-Topos (a good place.)

Many contributed titles of  literature about the "ideal", including the popularity of the late 19th c.  Erehwon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon in the 1970's, mention of Thomas More, and Erasmus, In Praise of Folly (for more reading: https://academic.oup.com/policy-press-scholarship-online/book/21118/chapter-abstract/180715160?redirectedFrom=fulltext#)

Szymborska's wit and punning are brilliantly translated by (prize-winning translators) Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranaczak.  We had fun making fun of the "perfect world" which no one really wants, because of the nature of man and his attachment to Ego.  (Eckert Tolle: read The Power of Now). 

The most paradoxical of the "evident benefits" of this Utopic Island seemed to be this stanza:

The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista: /the Valley of Obviously. Not only did we appreciate the alliterative V's for their sound and shape, but the delightful suggestion that  "being lost in the woods, unable to see the forest for the trees" might allow vision. This led to entertaining comments about how boring life would be without the interest of complexity, and indeed, how the idea of Utopia for EVERYONE is impossible!  (enoyreve!!!! -- "everyone", backwards:   looks like an attempt to say in French,  annoying dream!)

A Common Saw:  I'm not sure you know how many saws are out there (hundreds), and quite the choice of "common" one... all with teeth.  A fun expression for a commonplace, and perhaps practical truth.

The epigraph comes from Act. 2 of King Lear -- In contemporary English : "Good King, you're just proving the old saying that everything goes from good to bad".  This is following a hilarious bout of insults, and followed by taking out a letter from Cordelia, who is away ... "  Go lines 170 if you wish more: https://www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translations/king-lear/act-2-scene-2... 

I wish I knew Nemerov's thinking, taking King Lear as starting point to arrive at his reflections on religion!  Bernie provided this humorous joke among Jews:  You know how it goes, 3 Jews?  5 synagogues.  Poor God scrambling around to perform... "no possible way out/but my salvation".

The ironic wit is superb.  We have discussed in other poems how replacing "Love" in the commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" with "be kind", would make for a better world.  Indeed, Nemerov gives us

another spin, with "Dame Kind".  We agreed that the use of the word "dumb" here refers to "Mute".

Back to Ritsos and silence kneeling.

While Shaving: A most tender portrait of a father and son.  It reminded Emily of Li-Young Lee's poem

The Gift, where the father's hands remove a shard with tenderness:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43010/the-gift-56d221adc12b8

We discussed briefly the end of stanza two, and the description of the wife/mother "leaving like light--

"All at once, leaving no trace it had ever shone there."   The detail later, that mixture of "pride and sorrow"

becomes the poignant.  The final stanza gives us a surprisingly beautiful conclusion, opening a reflection 

on the healing effect of the passage of time.

A Cut up Mango: We were in awe of the skill of this poem!  How could a 12-year old write so amazingly well, capturing the difficulty of not only adolescence, but being outsider, not know language or culture.

The metaphor of a mango is "milked" to full capacity.    Sprinkled in the poems are words

most 12 year olds would not use:  nostalgia; autopsy; empathy;  The timing, pacing, the cleverness

of the mango metaphor (once cut, its secrets exposed;  veins popping out  which make it taste terrible... sticky... ) The poet asks if she ever changed and gifts us with a mirror of ourselves.  No, not really.  I do the same foolish things over and over again.  We join her, as she repeats, Did I change?  Her "maybe 

 yes" and ending provide the mango's answer. 

poems for Oct. 11-12

Walking Down Westgate in the Fall  by Howard Nemerov

The Statues and Us by Yannis Ritsos, translated by Martin McKinsey

To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew  by Bradford Kimball

Juggler by Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles; translated from the Filipino by Kristine Ong Muslim

Spell Against Indifference by Maria Popova

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm by Wallace Stevens

The Dying Garden by Howard Nemerov

A thank you to Judith who provided me with 4 Nemerov poems two of which we'll discuss this week. Apparently we already discussed   For Robert Frost, in the Autumn in Vermont and Walking Down Westgate... She also suggested An Ending https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=33197  and this poem by Amy Lowell, Patterns which indeed follows last week's discussion.  

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42987/patterns

Nutshell:

Walking down Westgate

The first thing that strikes me is the assonance of O... the somber sound of O's... those overtones of soul responding in resonance! How the end line, in the midst of the playful bang and bounce of acorns, also

includes their rOll !  As one person remarked, October is one kind of fall, November quite different.

So it is with the opening and closing poems by Nemerov who captures both moods.

The coupling of weather changes to "private rites/secret celebrations of the soul" prepares us to delve into the mystery of spiritual leanings... Does the soul exist?  The third stanza aside, "if the soul did exist" follows the vivacious description of chrysanthemums with their lion's manes, sun face ruddy with gold,

flower associated with All-Soul's day in November, and visits to cemetaries.  

As for place, Maura shared that she knew Nemerov as professor at Washington University in St. Louis, where indeed, there is a Westgate Av.  

The Statues:

Delightfully different spin on ancient Greek and Roman statues.  No Oxymandias here, but rather, an enviable indifference to Time (with a capital T, as well as time's ravages, where it bears a small t).

A fun exercise:  How would you complete the sentence:  The ravages of time...

line break.  I love the surprise Ritsos provides -- The ravages... don't concern them!  Good lesson for us... They seem to surrender themselves to "some infinite// act of love-making" as opposed to us... unaccountably " tired and depressed, given such adjectives as shabby for hotel, and lumpy for the bed.

Emulating?  Not imitating... but there's a hopeful note of salvation in the choice of verb, which gives a sense of something indeed worthwhile  for which to strive.  What are statues about after we have made them?  This poem helps us look with good humor at ourselves.  To quote Katherine Cecil Thurston: “It is sacrilege to attempt analysis of birth or love or death. Death and birth, the mysteries! Love, the revelation!” 

To the Child:  We read first the comment by the ekphrastic series editor for the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge of Aug. 2023.  For many on Wednesday, the image and sound of a sewing machine elicited multiple memories and associations.  The feeling in the poem of the quiet tenderness which helps a child feel safe plays a gentle music.  Paul enjoyed  commenting in jest, that a needle doesn't hum..

The sound of the work, the wait, the creation of a feeling that will last as a first love song, is beautifully crafted here.

Juggler: Hard to know if the original Filipino uses the same dynamic line breaks -- gap/

anticipated/ brink of hesitation.  We discussed at length the verb choice, "hurl". For metaphorical juggling, perhaps it emphasizes the effort and strength... and coupled with rehearsing either alone, or the practice of being alone, the combination of motion/emotion, it brought to mind a conversation with a difficult person, trying to catch another's words, while yours are hurling up.  We all appreciated the last line, how the "they" could be the balls, the metaphorical balls dropped, or the actual audience.  As Arthur Sze says about this poem, the mention of implied motion, emotion, isolation, connection in this lean translation is arresting... leaving us with stillness at the end, still reverberating.

Spell Against Indifference: 

This poem, rather like a magical spell, was hard to fathom.  What does the title imply?  Why would one need a spell against indifference, as in the case of Ritsos' statues where it might be useful?  

Does Popova mean indifference as apathy, commonly attributed as the opposite of love?  We noted how the first stanza "hurls" everything together, with three mentions of "fall", two things rain is not,

and several things it causes us to remember.  There is a sense of "in spite of it all", arriving at "we are still here, and the almost absurd paradoxical juxtaposition of our love songs and wars; space telescopes and table tennis.  The second stanza arrives with  a totally different tone of  what we could see in the wet grass.

If we were indifferent to the small things, like a half shell of a robin's egg, the possibility of new life,

indifferent to the implied fragility, perhaps this too would be, in need of a spell to help us...  

Perhaps the rain is delivering what we have to deal with?  

One person remarked the second part could be pronounced like a High Priest delivering a proclamation.

The House was quiet:  The repetitions establish a peaceful atmosphere.  Calm. Night. Book.

A zen-like leaning into pages and being.  

The Dying Garden:  The zodiac, the turning of seasons, and the beautiful sounds of alliteratives...

great gyroscope... spin of steepled shapes. crimp... claw... cartwheel and sketchy Orion

and twice, first after "when wealth and death are one" and secondly after "time of turn":

When moth and wasp and mouse come in the house

the first time, for comfort if they can;  the second time, to die as they may.

He is almost cheeky with "You know, All Saints, All Souls, and Halloween,/

the killing forst, the end of Daylight Time.

The lively penultimate line with its mention of bright colored summer flowers, (the specificity of all that is lost, all rhymed with an axe-sound: 4 o'clocks, phlox, hollyhocks) is silenced in the final line filled with rich, long-Os and muted in the M's shivering (brrrr)

Somber November in amber and umber embering out.

Dense, intense, exquisitely composed as we enter the "ember days", so called as we go into winter.