Poems for July 17 + poems from Richard Blanco workshop

 Naive by Tim Seibles; Mother Country by Richard Blanco, From a Photograph by George Oppen; Papá at the Kitchen Table by Richard Blanco

Apologies:  on the hand-out, there were two lines from a Claude McKay poem at the end of Richard Blanco's poem, Mother Country. The poem ends on "that's your country."following it: a list of "Photograph Poems" Blanco asked us to pick from: (We have discussed some of these): We did end the discussion with the William Carlos Williams poem (which we have discussed previously).  It seemed timely to bring up the trope of the world's indifference, whether to myth or to real instances of tragic misfortune.  Several poets have written wonderful ekphrastic responses to Brueghel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus".  This site  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus mentions Auden and others.  Nemerov has two Breughel poems, but neither specifically about Icarus. This one comes up with the Fall of Icarus:   https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47698/the-war-in-the-air

The Portrait by Stanley Kunitz : https://poets.org/poem/portrait

This is a photograph of me:  by Margaret Atwood: https://poets.org/poem/photograph-me

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus:  by William Carlos Williams: https://poets.org/poem/landscape-fall-icarus

History Lesson  by Natasha Trethewey https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47538/history-lesson-56d2280d442a7

Yours & Mine  by Alice Fulton https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49241/yours-mineThe Only Portrait of Emily Dickinson by Irene McKinney[1]

Nutshell of discussion:

 Tim Seibles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Seibles

I wish Tim Seibles could have been in the group to explain the epigraph of his excellent poem, Naive.!  The Irish song,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_I_Hardly_Knew_Ye came up.  How Seibles encountered this saying by a Mennonite Woman, we don't know.  What does it mean to "love someone, but not know them"?  Examples came up of parents saying this to each other, and in the group itself, where 22 of us sat about discussing poems, we could say this as well.  Maura sums it up this way:  "we keep coming back to keep learning about poetry, and each other, and ourselves because we love this unique opportunity that teaches us how to understand what it is to love another."  Tim Seibles, in this poem does just that as well, recalling his childhood, and painting for us a picture so real, we can feel it, of two boys with their "snaggle-toothed grins that held a thousand giggles".  There is a celebratory note to the "astonishment" of this world, supported by mention of Mardi Gras, and "a child's heart builds a chocolate sunflower".    Of course this doesn't last... and who cannot relate to the fury that such "early welcome" to the world be sent away.  Is it "naive" to believe in the "unruined heart"?  Seibles does not judge but simply shows the way to a kinder city.

It was heartening to hear several stories about seeing soap bubbles -- whether between and a father and his children here, by the canal, or seeing them cranked out of a machine on a San Francisco expressway... It feels a perfect metaphor for being a child when you think all is well in the world, and much as you think you have lost that innocence, it is more than reassuring to think we are not constrained by labels, for instance of "naivete", as if that be a fault, for chasing the fleeting rainbows of bubbles made together.

Mother Country:  We shared ideas of why President Obama might have chosen "One Today" over this poem, (one of the three choices Richard Blanco was asked to provide for the Inaugural poem). Most of us present preferred the "real" picture Blanco paints of his experience as immigrant.  It is a wonderful character sketch which humanizes oft-misunderstood implications of what "immigrating to America" means.  

Kathy brought a beautifully illustrated children's book with large, colorful pages that reproduces "One Today".  Blanco's style, filled with sensory detail, his use of line-break (ex. one foot/  vs.  her other foot anchored/), his use of refrain (To love a country as if you've lost one),  the surprising leap from past to present with his mother, now old, hobbling) providing a new idea of what matters with a country.  Beautiful portrait of a mother, of the metaphorical power of country as mother, which indeed makes us think about what we would miss, should we leave ours.  Once you leave, it cannot be undone.  And where and with whom do we choose to die?

On line break:  interesting that Blanco used all the possible effects:  dramatic pause (3rd stanza, "as if/); double duty: sounding out words as strange as the talking/(next line animals); suspense:  the refrain followed by 1968: / allowing the reader to think about this year, what it means to him/her or in general.

From a Photograph: The poem comes alive for me when I hear it: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28951/from-a-photograph

Published in 1962, when Oppen would be 54, I hear a certain trembling sadness in the tone, describing what sounds like his mother.  I like that it could be an Aunt, Grandmother, different woman.  Who is the "father"?  It reminded some of "The Child is the Father of the Man." https://www.thoughtco.com/child-is-the-father-of-man-3975052 

There's a certain biblical inference perhaps with the apple.  The c's of the first part: child, rock, collar, coat progressively soften to b's of branch, bramble, brush, blowing.

Papá:  A lovely example of "reverse process".  This isn't indeed a photograph of Richard Blanco's father. It's definitely more than a photograph, where you feel the "real stuff" of him.  It brought up several stories of the effect of seeing photographs, the appreciation of an intimate look at someone from Cuba, and the value of making a photograph from a poem, where the photo comes after the words.  There is an immediate "thereness" that goes beyond "the black and white" we think to be proof. 

We questioned "pricing" in the penultimate line ... but that's what's on line.  

At the end of the discussion,  Richard brought up the choice of poems.   We  read and discussed briefly Williams' The Fall of Icarus . I mentioned this had been discussed before, and appreciated the comments about how what we all treasure about this group, where many have been coming weekly for 17 years. We indeed, travel a wide variety of poems.   An important part of the joy in gathering is to get away from the news and discuss and share what it's like to be human.    

I close, Garrison Keilor style: Carry forth, keep a corner safe in your heart for joy. 

 

---

[1] You can read about "The photographic Poem" and see this one with a photograph of Richard's parents, see his Mama and Papa poems here: https://richard-blanco.com/2021/05/poetry-and-photography-how-two-forms-speak-to-one-another/

Poems for July 17 -- supplement

 Last week, we discussed a few poems suggested by Richard Blanco for reading and class discussion (that the class never got to.)   We ended by reading aloud Since, Unfinished  by Richard Blanco.  It is the first poem in this link  (which has other fine poems by him and links): : https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56063/the-island-within

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56065/el-florida-room

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56067/burning-in-the-rain

 

Queer Theory https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2017-11-27/never-take-a-bubble-bath-poet-richard-blanco-on-his-grandmothers-gender-surveillance

 

from City of 100 Fires: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57953/contemplations-at-the-virgin-de-la-caridad-cafeteria-inc-56d23be8d35dc Seventeen Funerals 

Once upon a Time: Surfside, Miami 

a hysterically funny take on Cuban "Thanksgiving"  https://parade.com/229213/parade/richard-blancos-poem-about-his-cuban-familys-first-thanksgiving/

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/richard-blanco

You will see in the above link, on the right sidebar, poems about Immigration by other poets.  The one below is powerful. 

Como Tú / Like You / Like Me

Poems for July 10

The first two  suggested by Richard Blanco for reading and class discussion (that the class never got to) at Maine Media: The Simple Truth by Philip Levine; This Close by Dorianne Laux;   Originally I was also going to include What He Thought by Heather McHugh.   Here you can hear Robert Pinsky read it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJbiLikPsK8  Apologies for having sent that and the George Oppen poem to half the group.  We did discuss the McHugh a long time ago.  The Oppen is slated for 7/17.

The other 3 poems are all by Richard Blanco: Mamá with Indians: 1973, 2007;  Looking for the Gulf Motel   (Marco Island, Florida)  were part of the "responding to a photograph" part of the workshop. Birthday Portrait  was not, but a brilliant poem by him.

We ended the session by reading Since, Unfinished. 

Nutshell:

The pedagogic game we played, was to try to guess why the first two poems would be chosen for a poetry workshop -- and what "teachable" elements and moments they contained.

The Simple Truth: It is a simple cliché used as a title, but the poem demonstrates truth is anything but. The second stanza twists the delivery of "Some things you know all your life"  followed by 5 lines of quite complicated demonstration of  "simple and true". 

The fact that the poem uses simple words, disguises the tools of internal rhyme, predominant p's and s's in the sound, a surprising line break after 1965 and turn in the styory, and drawing on the senses.  

The poem invited people to share stories... not just about Polish grandmothers urging children to eat, eat, but the response after world war 2 and near starvation, of special insistence to children, no matter what nationality, to eat.  The undertones of loss, and sorrow brought up many more stories.  As one person put it: it is a deep and powerful poem without any curlicues.  Elaine brought up that when she heard Levine reading it, his tone was angry when he got to the part about his friend, Henri.

This Close: Carolyn gave a spectacular reading of this dramatic poem filled with unparalleled intensity and a sense of violence that goes beyond all bounds.  We are left curious about the speaker... whether it is two women, whether she is talking to herself saying "Crazy Woman...." Paul brought up that such writing has been done before and refered us to Mickey Spillane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Spillane and Judith recited Edna St. Vincent Millay, " I, being born a woman and distressed.  

By all the needs and notions of my kind,

Am urged by your propinquity to find

Your person fair, and feel a certain zest

To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:

So subtly is the fume of life designed,

To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,

And leave me once again undone, possessed.

Think not for this, however, the poor treason

Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,

I shall remember you with love, or season

My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain:

I find this frenzy insufficient reason

For conversation when we meet again.

The surprising last line of the Laux poem, "If I loved you, " gave rise to quite the discussion.  Have women come a long way in the last 100 years?

Mamá: this double portrait -- the same woman... seen once years ago in a picture,  and then in person 34 years later as an old woman is brilliant.  It also brought up stories, for instance Judith's mother, dying in a hospital, but sharing a room and sitting up like the school teacher she had been when her room mate tried to remove her own catheter and scolding her.   We all agreed Blanco is an amazing poet, bringing us along so we can imagine his mother, see the whole scene as in the next poem,

Looking for the Gulf Motel.   you can smell, see, hear, imagine the scene, and yet the poem balances on the repeated refrain, "There should be nothing here I don't remember"...  and the repeated "should" that one wants still to be, but isn't... There is a touch of ecopoem, about what happened to the Florida of 40 years earlier, the mangroves, uncluttered beaches... to add to the poignancy of what was lost.

You can imagine anger that the hotel wasn't there... then sadness... then a sense of how special it is to keep the memory alive.  Every poem is a metaphor in a sense.  As Richard said in the workshop, "if I didn't show you my family, you wouldn't think of yours".  

One challenge might be to substitute details:

What if the mother weren't in daisy sandals from Kmart squeaking on the linoleum... but in red stilettos from Neiman Marcus... ready to dance on the parquet floor... ?

Birthday Portrait.  Everyone could relate -- the desire of the parent to present to the world the "perfect child", the reflection of the parents' standards to help the child fit in.

Based on a picture of himself, staring into the childhood version of his own eyes, his questions are haunting, and he still doesn't know how to answer himself. 

June 26: Barbara; July 3:

Poems discussed 6/26/24

A Donation of Shoes by Ted Kooser;  The Empty Dance Shoes by Cornelius Eady; Funnel by Joan Murray; Depression Glass by Ted Kooser; Two poems by Mary Lou Kownacki; Words are Birds, Francisco Alarcon, 

Poems discussed 7/3/2024

Pink Suede Boots  by Alison Luterman; Autodidact’s Rabbits by Jonathan Everitt; Suicide's Note  by Langston Hughes; [There was a window that lived in a wall.] -- Vinold Kumar Shukla, translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra; The Hook of History  by Hadara Bar-Nadav; Returning to Fields and Gardens (I) by Tao Qian, translated by Arthur Sze; The Dream by a student in RCSD 20 years ago.

Nutshell:

Pink Suede Boots: This firecracker of a poem seduced us all!  Witness Graeme's "triumphantly sexy", Barbara's underlining of the sounds (clack-clacking over Cambridge cobblestones...) alliterations (resilient relics) and predominance of l's.  I'm at risk for misattributing the many wonderful other comments, but for sure, we all enjoyed the "flavor bursts" of sensory details, the unusual items and similes (sassy kitten heels like the Princess of Everything) and very different directions of "pink".  Using "the color of desire/and rue" brought up the definition of "rue" as both regret, but also a bitter plant and the beginning sound of "rouge" which made some think of Dorothy tapping her ruby shoes in the Wizard of Oz.  Judith set us straight, as in the book they are silver and shared a delightful story of her gold leather go-go boots.  

The poem addressed both aging, but also, passing on more than a pair of boots.  We didn't discuss the ending:  "before this burning world"/had its way with me.  Perhaps I am not alone in sensing this woman indeed was who she was destined to be... and yet wants more-- and passes that torch as well.

Autodidact's Rabbits: If you only saw the title, you might wonder just what direction it is headed! It's an unusual self-reference, and revealing.   In 12 lines, you receive a delightful lesson in how to tie your shoes. This  brought up several anecdotes recounting learning how to do this as well as Jim's story about teaching a seminar on how to tie knots.  Among the participants were some 10 year olds who observed and concluded they would never be able to learn.  A 13-year old then came along, shrugged at their dismay and demonstrated exactly how to do it.

I enjoyed the repetition of solo 4-syllable words (Inopportune. and mausoleum) and we all enjoyed the humor of "escaped lace" and that the shelf of shoeboxes contained a highly original reference to shoes as "animals that served my feet", and "tying up the poem" by referring back to the rabbit ears, "all so free, so tired."  A great prompt to write about.  It also brought up such rhymes as Peter, Peter/Roger,Roger/ double, double/Knot, Knot.  

Suicide's Note: We could have discussed this short 3-line poem for hours more.  My note about it being Jericho Brown's favorite:  because "it is short as a life".  More than that... some read it, independent from the title.  Some imagined changing the arrangement of line, so instead of the sense of a noun, The Calm, on the first line, stopped by the comma and obliged to stop,  to give it the sense of  an adjective attached to "Cool".  Do you see the river as a person? How do you see it asking for a kiss?  What kind and why?  We could see multiple tones and meanings and wish Langston Hughes were with us. You might like to compare with his poem, Suicide :https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=1739 

[There was a window...] The rhythm of this poem brought up quite a few "comic ballad" memories such as "There once was a woman who lived in a shoe" or "Six little devils jumped over the wall" or "there was an old man lived over the hill" : https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/thefarmerscurstwife.html  For sure, it is a curious image of a window living,  in a wall, granted, but because of it, there is a view... Almost contradictorily,  Everything lived in the window, but if no one around it remained shut.  Final line... to one side of it, in the wall, there lived a man.  

Some saw separation of man from the world, a feeling of trappedness, but however the way to solve a sense of enigma, for sure it elicited quite a few conjectures.  We wondered if the translation might be at fault.

The Hook of History: We all agreed that the opening couplet was intriguing.  From then on, the couplets gave no "hook".  The problem of bringing up Nazis, is that we have been so exposed to World War II history, the risk is there must be some fresh angle, or the reader might lose interest.  Where is Mike's Café? Is it near the Shalom Hotel-- and which one,  in Tel Aviv? Jerusalem, Manila?  Even "crumbs among cobblestones" has a ring of cliché.  Even the use of the double meaning of scream fell flat. A more interesting poem we felt was this one by the same poet: 

A Man Had Sat Down in Desperation

A man had sat down in desperation
I did not know the man
But I knew the desperation
So I went to him
And extended my hand
Holding my hand, he rose
He did not know me
But he knew the extending of my hand
We walked together
We did not know each other
But we knew walking together.

This link will take you to two others: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hadara-bar-nadav

Returning to Fields:  I gave an example of a different translation from 1970.  How do we read a poem written by someone born in 365 ?  What do we know of Chinese poetry and expect from "traditional Mountain Landscape" poets?  Traditional Court Poets?  This is pastoral, but did not pull us in. Thanks to Jan we caught the typo on  the 6th line before the end: it should read Dogs bark.  

The Dream: I apologize -- first stanza was missing:  

Where is it?

Did some CEO 

swallow it whole? 

Some Enron, Global, ImClone,

where vision is no endless horizon

but a barnyard of gluttony and greed.

It brought up the query of what students are writing about these days, and if there are still end-of-the-year poetry anthologies in High Schools.  Compare to Langston Hughes: Harlem: (A Dream deferred) written in 1951, some believe inspired the speech by Martin Luther King, Jr  in 1963 (just 4 years before Hughes' death.)  For background to Hughes' poem and the poem itself: https://poemanalysis.com/langston-hughes/harlem-a-dream-deferred/

Poems for June 19

 Poems referred to in Jane Hirschfield's lecture: Invisible Present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7ER2jmxt7E

Things That Might Have Been by Jorge Luis Borges (tr. A. S. Kline); The Other Tiger by Jorge Luis Borges; I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold by Janet Frame; Postscript by Seamus Heaney; One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch; 

We did not go into detail about Jane's lecture, however, I introduced the Julia Hartwig poem she used at the end of it which summarizes the theme of the ungraspable, invisible, which gives us the promise of the possible and enables us to trust the world, even in a time of darkness.  

Feeling the Way by Julia Hartwig

The most beautiful is what is still unfinished

a sky filled with stars uncharted by the astronomers

a sketch by Leonardo a song broken off from emotion

a pencil a brush suspended in the air. 

(there is no punctuation, however, this does not mean you can't read it adding your own pauses!) 

Nutshell:

All the poems were used by Jane in her lecture.  Reading them outside the lecture, yet, imagining how they could support her thesis is a marvelous exercise!  I reminded everyone that as readers, indeed, we are participating in the creation of the meanings of a poem, allowing multiple possibilities and directions.

Things that Might Have Been:  We thoroughly enjoyed the possibility of turning tables on history.

It reminded Neil of a marvelous story in 1953, Bring the Jubilee  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_the_Jubilee

But there is more than naming of fabled Irish birds (you might enjoy reading about the Morrigan and others here: 

https://mythologyworldwide.com/the-mythical-birds-of-celtic-legends/#:~:text=The%20Morrigan%2C%20often%20depicted%20as%20a%20trio%20of,protection%20and%20the%20cycle%20of%20life%20and%20death

Borges makes no judgment about what is good or bad but rather entertains possibilities of directions.  That he adds a personal note to what might have been, makes the heart skip a beat:  "The child he never had".

There is no way to know how this child might have been, but it unlocks every wish and desire of wanting a child, loving this child, hoping and praying for the health and goodness of this child, and in turn, from this one particular, the same for the world.

The Other Tiger: Oh!  Poems about Tigers!  Blake, or Adrienne Rich and Aunt Jennifer's, or Amit Amit Dahiyabadshah:  "Tiger Poet" Founder of the movement Delhi Poetree 

 

Picture of Amit with Tiger paint on his face and for the book launch from November: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD6R0HfUFSM  : go to minute 9:19 to hear him sing his own tongue. 

I thought also of TS Eliot and the Wasteland, "Who is the third who always walks beside you".  Judith was reminded of The Makers by Nemerov https://allpoetry.com/The-Makers.

Three stanzas, and three different tigers and themes.  Bernie noted the use of darkness.  Rose Marie reminded us of Borgès' appointment (1955) as Director of the National Public Library in Buenos Aires

(Library on line two could be this, but also a larger, abstract library).  The first stanza uses all the senses to create a tiger with no need for naming streams, remembering past, "only the vivid now".  Instead of saying nothing separates us from this Tiger, it is a richer nuance: "Curving oceans and the planet's wastes* keep us// apart in vain: (*wastelands : i.e. deserts) Such a clever enjambment on the part of the translator, landing on "apart" followed by contradicting the apartness!

Stanza 2, now evening fills my soul and we see the poet trying to transform it into a poem.  The very effort made to "fix the limits of its world" makes it fiction, not a living beast.  Many joined in remarks about language, our tool we have to try to express something, and yet fail; how as writer we feel the irresistible pull to write it down, knowing it is insufficient.  How it feels that living our experiences is the same way-- what are they if we cannot record them.. or worse, forget?

 

Stanza 3: we enter dream, subconscious.  Hunting the tiger... not just a third tiger, another and another, as Marna put it, an archetype of a tiger.  What beast is this that cannot be found in verse?

Janet Frame:  You can look up this New Zealand poet 1924-2004 and her troubled life.    Overall, we felt she shared her personal feeling of being unable to separate herself from "a devouring world" or master her life.  The "Yet, still", the in spite of it all, whatever the it, the strange incongruities of it, the final line repeats the opening line and one feels her circular trap repeating.

Postscript:  We appreciated Paul's gentle Irish inflection reading this.  The language is music and made some think of Yeats, the Wild Swans at Coole.  Jan remarked how the poem creates a scene that passes through us.  "You are neither here not there, a hurry though" is a beautifully apt definition of a human being.  Bernie filled us in on "buffetings", used by Zen practitioners to mean age, illness-- but given the softness of the f's "buffetings" are friends, messengers to help us deal with rigidities, let go of how we think we "ought" to be.

One Train May Hide Another:  Stream of consciousness, some might find annoying.  I thank Graeme for his honesty: it was laborious!  And yet, some found humor, pinches of wisdom. What stands in front of objects, feelings ideas... hides them... what's involved?  reputations, love, and ideas hiding each other which is terribly complex.  This as opposed to "Life is simple". I liked Mary's summary:  Think before you speak!   Somehow making things more complicated brought up Tristam Shandy and  Judith referred to James Joyce's ego, larger in conceit than God, which further brought up 16 June "Bloomsday".  

 

Poems for June 12

  

Something here about memory by Robin Walter ; Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso by Eduardo C. Corral; Radishes by Ange Mlinko; (May 13, 2024 New Yorker); Mazel Tov by Jessica Jacobs; The Listeners  by Walter de la Mare (Also called "The Traveller" https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/46324/chapter-abstract/405788807?redirectedFrom=fulltext); Watch by Robin Walter

Nutshell: 

We had ended the last session marveling at metrics which had Graeme offering the Walter de la Mare, and Judith wishing we had time to enjoy the Albert Noyes, The Highwayman. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43187/the-highwayman

 Since that poem is a good 3 pages long, I asked Judith to recite the first three stanzas to enjoy the beauty of the rhythms.

The poems seemed to have common threads to add to the weave of the theme of aging

Robin Walter:  The session opened and closed with this young poet from Colorado Springs.  She is interested in "inner knowing", well-connected to nature.  It was surprising to me that she is young, addressing "memory" which usually is a theme one finds in an older person.  

I admire her use of the em-dash, as if trying to start, to gather a thought, or later, interrupting it.

Her enjambments also have a similar "pause" before falling on the next stanza, but layering double meaning.  We enjoyed pondering "letter" as both letter of the alphabet, but also the epistle or message written... "body" both a physical body, but also the "body of a letter", and perhaps the collective body of all that goes into memory.  Some saw the poem as a way to address the difficulty of starting.  The clever

"letter that begins" opens up association with the sound of "b" repeated in begins, body, bearing, birth, and as Marna shared, a sense of  "to be" and "being" as a place of beginning.  We appreciated the reversal of the l and f in leaf, furl how they come together in itself.  

Mysterious, intriguing, and a poem where the overall feeling tone overrides any concrete "meaning".

The final poem, Watch, also uses the em-dash, and calls on a vowel, which could be the a in watch.

Beautiful music of the opening couplet "the faithful shadows/swivel around forest floor" and we discussed at length the adjective "threshing" for the sun.  Watch, as noun, as verb, perhaps as time-keeper, and a sense of dropping leaves and these "edges" -- tilting the "vowel skyward" to mirror the energy of the sun. 

Self-portrait:  Brilliant poem filled with movement, surprises !  It made many in the group want to write such a self-portrait!  How might you be as drumroll, watermark and fable... and weaving the snarls of a wolf through your hair like a ribbon! What an opening... leading to jigsaws and performing an autopsy on his shadow.  I might as well write out the whole poem!  Complex... as human beings are... twice a mention of black, once as fish, another as a piano melting like  slab of black ice as his touch.

We discussed Opalescent and how it conveys the shimmer of varying colors, rather like Seurat's "Le Cirque", and orphic with overtones of the musician/poet... the scraping sound of sk in skinned and scarlet--followed by threshold... then a ghost undressing.  It all works.  A sense of exhuberance, triumph, celebration, unconventional -- as Emily put it, a bit like the manic phase of bi-polar... but ever so appealing!

Radishes: more words... like camber (tilt of the road...) and what really worked in the read-aloud, 

were insertions by people reading:  "looks like my battery's low" in the 4th stanza that mentions "sensation wanes with age" ... and we all repeated clog my drain-stopper out of context to apply to losing a place,

to cheer "up with cucumbers" and celebrate the use of all the senses, the playful raw/war spell, repeat of rosy cheeks, snow... and the alliterative filial and feral. Definitely about aging... losing the taste of spice, the knife, whether intellect or physical prowess, duller.

We listened to the poet reciting the poem-- which sounded quite insipid.  If recited dramatically, it would be quite a different piece!

Mazel Tov:  We enjoyed the circular first word, and sense of beginnings and ends repeating.  What are constellations but imaginary lines to illustrate stories that give meaning to the stars?  We discussed "sentimental" and whether the lines about darkness were convincing.   The clincher lines, -- the space between stars... lines we draw to shape the absence... and  dying... and not knowing we are. I love the blessing.  May we find reason indeed, to open our door to the dark... notice the stars...

The Listeners:  Graeme had proposed this poem and read it beautifully.  Someone brought up that Robert E. Lee's horse was called "Traveller".  

We ended with a discussion about how a group of poems carries along poems we might not have noticed, adds energy to create a much bigger sense of a poem than if it stood alone.  

Like the collective power of memory.

We discussed as well the word "redemptive"... what makes a poem feel so?

June 5

Grace by Orlando Ricardo Menes; [ode to the water beneath Kapūkakī also known as Red Hill] by Jake Eduardo  Vermaas; Borrow by Sarah McCartt-Jackson; Parable by Nickole Brown; Perceptive by B. K. Fischer; The Land of Beginning Again by Louisa Fletcher

 I wish to thank "Poem-a-Day" curator for the month of May, No'u Revilla.  She is  an ʻŌiwi (Hawaiian) poet and educator, born and raised on Maui.  Revilla says that she gravitated toward poems “that do not look away” from the reality of our world, and, in that witnessing, offer a comfort that keeps “our tenderness alive. She prioritizes aloha, collaboration, and gratitude in her practice. Her debut book Ask the Brindled (Milkweed Editions, 2022) was a winner of the 2021 National Poetry Series.  The 2nd and 3rd poem were her picks.  

I wish also to call attention to more eco poetry:https://poets.org/poem/2022-2023-laureate-fellows-collaborative-poem and to the poetry collection "Ceive" from which the poem "Perceptive" is drawn.  https://shopthemarketplace.com/get-it-now/product/ceive-by-b-k-fischer-paperback-target-d81ceb   I love that Fischer uses just the root, Ceive, in the title (to found, get).  Note how it changes with the prefix:  re: again.  It can refer to both tangible and intangible things. When you conceive something, such as an idea or plan, you form, imagine, or create it. If you deceive, trick, etc.  To "perceive" means to become aware or conscious of something through the senses or mental processes. 

All of the poems discussed thoughtfully present the crisis we are facing because of lack of careful stewardship of our planet. One person brought up Birchbark Canoe: https://www.amazon.com/Birchbark-Canoe-Living-Among-Algonquins/dp/1552091503 and the fact that the Indigenous People in our country have always known how to work with nature for the good of all.

From another poet, Trebbe Johnson, who founded Radical Joy in 2009, responding to the grief of wars and destruction of the environment: “Imagine people all over the world taking time to pay attention to places that have become damaged or endangered… visiting them, sharing stories, making gifts for them, and even ‘adopting them’ by caring for them on a regular basis.” (See https://radicaljoy.org)

 

Nutshell

Grace: 

In 18 lines the poet explores Grace by contrasting it with money, legal systems, creeds:

you cannot buy it, swap it for gold or "hedge" it against bad luck. The poet describes it as

asymmetric, immanent, absolute, unpredictable.  Without using the word paradoxical, the poet shows it also as full/empty, to arrive inopportunely to slip under hope, upset earnest prayer, tease faith.  Elaine brought up the example of falling in love at the wrong time. We loved the marvelously metered "copious cumuli".  The poem ends with a comparison of grace with the power of rain to drench the drought-scourged earth.

 

Note, I have used the words in the poem, summarized somewhat.  What I find interesting about this poem is that it is an invitation to think about grace and its role.  Imagine the other poems in a collection called "The Gospel of Wildflowers and Weeds".   What might you write to add to such a collection?

 

We had the feeling of "grace" in our gathering of kindred spirits.

 [ode to the water ...

With the river dividing two sections, even if read, as Richard did, with a pause between, the poem imitates the struggle of water to stay clean.  One senses also the impact of colonial takeover and drama of the fuel leakage from the American base.  The Filipino words (the poet is Filipino) add an indigenous flavor, but this is Hawaii, not the Philippines.  There are no capital letters.

You might enjoy reading about Hawai'i's poet Laureate: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2011/04/on-brandy-nalani-mcdougalls-the-salt-wind-ka-makani-pakai.   She writes an article in the Spring-Summer issue of American Poet (Vol. 66) "On Puka and Portals" -- many many openings, but none to go out through. Puka, as door, window, portal; verb to emergy from.  She shares other Hawai'ian words, such as kinikini -- a word that describes something plentiful, and the fondness of the language (ōlelo) for riddles. (nane).

Borrow:  Interesting opposition between humans and the harm we inflict and nature.  The first sentence points out the "misuse" of the verb "borrow" of all we cannot return after taking.   Who is "we", and why does the poet change switch to commands (Tamp down... listen)?  Certainly, after reading one feels more sensitized to the negative impact of humans.

We spoke at length about ecology.  Two examples:  Elmer brought up  the impact of the grain trucks and ruined ecology of the prairies. Kathy brought up the very visceral impact of the cottonwoods with their root systems, searching for water, the mountain stream the way it used to be now gone. 

Parable:  It starts with jumbled proverbs, idioms and one senses that the poet knows horses very well.  

At the 6th stanza, the poem introduces the word, cicada and the problem of words which lead us away from understanding through our body and senses.  The wisdom of the horse to listen to "the confused rooster stuttering", the sounds of winter coming goes beyond mere words to deeper meanings/contexts.  We found it curious that it is the deafening wing-scrape of the Cicada that seems to cry out,  confirming all living things want the same thing:  let live, let live, let live.   You could ask if  humans do, given our behavior.

Perceptive:  One person summed up the poem as the sea's complaint about all that is thrown into it.

We enjoyed the couplets and "interruptions" of stanza enjambments.  Brilliant play on "psalter" and salt of the sea, with book of psalms.  We discussed the idea of sea as "crone" as one of the three stages of womanhood— a certain crankiness with the wisdom of an older woman.  

The Land...  Beautiful rhythms reminiscent of Walter de la Mare, A.A. Milne in this poem referring to the hardship of this late 19th century/early 20th century woman (married for a spell  to Tarkington).

As final poem in the set addressing ecology, it seemed fitting to fervently wish for a land "of beginning again", and have things such as "colonialization" done away with-- and try to live quite differently.