The Tao of Touch by Marge Piercy
The Moose -- Elizabeth Bishop
The Snake—D.H. Lawrence
Song of a Man Who Has Come Through – D.H. Lawrence
To the Hawks
McNamara, Rusk, Bundy (by Donald Justice)
Unwise Purchases – George Bilgere
The art most attentive to pattern is poetry. For the next two weeks, we will look at
how rhythm and syntax operate in poems, and what effect this has on our response as reader. The Bishop, Lawrence, Justice poems cited above come from Ellen Bryant Voigt's book, "The Art of Syntax" (rhythm of thought, rhythm of song).
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Poems for February 15 + Love in different forms!
With Valentine’s Day coming up, let’s compare different styles from different ages! We’ll compare how Jean de Sponde (Joanes Ezponda, in Basque, 1557 – 18 March 1595) a Baroque French poet, and contemporary American poet Richard Wakefield play with love’s “position”, skip back to 19th century England, for a glimpse of Dante and Petrarch provided by Christina Georgina Rossetti. One of the Valentine postcards available from Poets.org I showed last week included lines from by ee cummings somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond. Feel free to bring in one of your favorites to share. For a list of “love poems” consult the RH column at this site:
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/389 :
The poem by Jane Kenyon is simply a different seasonal selection, which like the one by Farouk Asvat balances idealized notions Hallmark provides of Valentine’s day.
With love,
Kitty
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings
Writing about Love – by Richard Wakefield
Monna Innominata [I wish I could remember)by Christina Rossetti
Sonnets on Love XIII by Jean de Sponde (translated by David R. Slavitt)
Bright Sun after Heavy Snow by Jane Kenyon
Often I have thought of you-- by Farouk Asvat
. ee cummings with his play on "close" as verb pronounced almost like "clothes" and close as adjective — the frail gesture entering again as intense fragility… the parentheses working like two hands cupping the voice of the eyes…
Emily was reminded of this: My Star – by Robert Browning — and recited it all by heart!
All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
And to go on to the poem by Wakefield — did you see how LOVE made a vertical column from title to last word? How two of the "love" were in quotes — as it is a poem about writing about love… How he moves the poem, in iambic pentameter, from right to left, starting with the word "Love" iambic pentameter going to the right,starting with the word "Love" and slowly moves it one foot at a time so that the poem's ultimate line (still in iambic pentameter) ends with the word love?
David Sanders (retired prof ) recently joined the group and is writing the introduction to Richard Wakefield's new book, called A Vertical Mole ...
It is great to see form in contemporary poetry which is not contrived. Love is not easy to write about — but using love as the spine of the thing, his rhymed couplets moving, so the rhyme doesn't clunk, the natural images leave us believing the stick of love for all its flowing away, will continue to surface.
Long discussion about Rosetti and looking at her sonnet, starting the Octet, with "I wish I could remember"… The sestet with "if only I could recollect" replete with more vigor, exclamations… what is it she remembers? Perhaps a feminist slant would be — I wish I could have a happier memory to work with"
The Jean de Sponde (Golden age of Spanish poetry — late 16th c.) had a positive "ooo" rating. Maura said it could fit in Lois Wyse's book, "Poems for the very married". Martin commented that in this one, it is more about Faith, than simply the importance of love — a faith that love can change the world.Do you believe that things CAN change if rooted in love ?
The Jane Kenyon poem felt negative after all these doses of love… Marcie did a great summary: It's a pissy poem, the kind you could write if you have cabin fever — and ends on that wooden pin going up and down like a (third) finger that says
f… you, or fling it, in its own clothespin language.
The last poem, I didn't say anything about any of the names mentioned — but it helped to know about Carolyn Forche, her activism, the S. American scene.
The punctuation really works in the beginning of the poem.
There is a kind of death
In the land of my birth,
Offering me another cup of sadness:
That is all there is.
Yet,
Often,
I have thought of you:
the rest of the poem follows this second colon...
One stops at the line
We give sustenance
To the memories stacked upon memories
which continues
Of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Thinking of their dear departed
The detained
The dead
And the disappeared,
Our beloved desaparecidos.
The reader is part of this "our", even if we have not witnessed El Salvador,
or other places like it.
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/389 :
The poem by Jane Kenyon is simply a different seasonal selection, which like the one by Farouk Asvat balances idealized notions Hallmark provides of Valentine’s day.
With love,
Kitty
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings
Writing about Love – by Richard Wakefield
Monna Innominata [I wish I could remember)by Christina Rossetti
Sonnets on Love XIII by Jean de Sponde (translated by David R. Slavitt)
Bright Sun after Heavy Snow by Jane Kenyon
Often I have thought of you-- by Farouk Asvat
. ee cummings with his play on "close" as verb pronounced almost like "clothes" and close as adjective — the frail gesture entering again as intense fragility… the parentheses working like two hands cupping the voice of the eyes…
Emily was reminded of this: My Star – by Robert Browning — and recited it all by heart!
All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
And to go on to the poem by Wakefield — did you see how LOVE made a vertical column from title to last word? How two of the "love" were in quotes — as it is a poem about writing about love… How he moves the poem, in iambic pentameter, from right to left, starting with the word "Love" iambic pentameter going to the right,starting with the word "Love" and slowly moves it one foot at a time so that the poem's ultimate line (still in iambic pentameter) ends with the word love?
David Sanders (retired prof ) recently joined the group and is writing the introduction to Richard Wakefield's new book, called A Vertical Mole ...
It is great to see form in contemporary poetry which is not contrived. Love is not easy to write about — but using love as the spine of the thing, his rhymed couplets moving, so the rhyme doesn't clunk, the natural images leave us believing the stick of love for all its flowing away, will continue to surface.
Long discussion about Rosetti and looking at her sonnet, starting the Octet, with "I wish I could remember"… The sestet with "if only I could recollect" replete with more vigor, exclamations… what is it she remembers? Perhaps a feminist slant would be — I wish I could have a happier memory to work with"
The Jean de Sponde (Golden age of Spanish poetry — late 16th c.) had a positive "ooo" rating. Maura said it could fit in Lois Wyse's book, "Poems for the very married". Martin commented that in this one, it is more about Faith, than simply the importance of love — a faith that love can change the world.Do you believe that things CAN change if rooted in love ?
The Jane Kenyon poem felt negative after all these doses of love… Marcie did a great summary: It's a pissy poem, the kind you could write if you have cabin fever — and ends on that wooden pin going up and down like a (third) finger that says
f… you, or fling it, in its own clothespin language.
The last poem, I didn't say anything about any of the names mentioned — but it helped to know about Carolyn Forche, her activism, the S. American scene.
The punctuation really works in the beginning of the poem.
There is a kind of death
In the land of my birth,
Offering me another cup of sadness:
That is all there is.
Yet,
Often,
I have thought of you:
the rest of the poem follows this second colon...
One stops at the line
We give sustenance
To the memories stacked upon memories
which continues
Of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Thinking of their dear departed
The detained
The dead
And the disappeared,
Our beloved desaparecidos.
The reader is part of this "our", even if we have not witnessed El Salvador,
or other places like it.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
discussion of poems 2/8: Stevens, Wright, Schlaifer, Mueller
What a blessing to have a group with whom to share discussion of poetry -- 16 different lenses today to view the poems.
To give a flavor of our exchange:
It was a fun session… Wallace Stevens is never easy, but it was great to have 16 minds trying to figure out "time" -- which took us all over the map --
You can't see it, know it, understand it, start/stop it, and just what is it? Stevens implies a platonic trio of good, beauty, truth, with time winding itself into it, but it is navel gazing, to wonder about time, see it as music beat, heart heat, breathing, an emptiness waiting for song. Our mind needs parameters… like having Friday — we say TGIF only if we are working and Friday means the end of the work week. What is the relationship between time and change? What is change but something that hinges between one state and another,
One place or time… time as season, as era, as hour and what is the speed of time, as light… Of course the poetics with the repetitions, beat / batters/…the echoes of hooded in book;
Walker in taut; the dark images work well… only for him to shrug and move from the spells of "inimical music" in enchantered space — perhaps what Schlaifer in her poem "Swath" was creating with the stanza w/ the Rothko and Mueller with her second sentence about the crippled lovers waiting (some shrill sign, some cry, some screaming cat that smells a sacrific and spells them thunder).
The James Wright gave us a foil for Stevens' tercets or Mueller's sonnet, with a poem that flows. The first four lines whittle to a one syllable: now. 3 views the moon's young (owlets maybe?) the slender woman (moon goddess?) and I. Whether it is anthropomorphism of a touch of American Indian that stills us — there are no questions, in this leaning to darkness, in a poem called "Beginning."
Everyone's favorite.
Swath brought forward memories of real tornados as well as discussion about the balance between destruction and yield… tension between violent and silent… how we cut to make anything— onomatopoeia — and the scythe both sliced with an em-dash. It inspired John to write a poem about a river offering, water, highway; damned by humans, so it floods, levied, it demands, taxes, or something like that.
A Brief history of time or space…
Whether the next poem by her was intended to be read with hers, we imagined a tornado drill and use of double negatives. If a poem makes us speculate too hard,
Is that good or bad?
Finally, A Prayer for Rain: beautiful metaphor for release and redemption perhaps… the walling up, and hardened stillness, as if after a bad fight, and the waiting for the repeat, only wishing this time, the mumbling of whatever will bring the rain.
To give a flavor of our exchange:
It was a fun session… Wallace Stevens is never easy, but it was great to have 16 minds trying to figure out "time" -- which took us all over the map --
You can't see it, know it, understand it, start/stop it, and just what is it? Stevens implies a platonic trio of good, beauty, truth, with time winding itself into it, but it is navel gazing, to wonder about time, see it as music beat, heart heat, breathing, an emptiness waiting for song. Our mind needs parameters… like having Friday — we say TGIF only if we are working and Friday means the end of the work week. What is the relationship between time and change? What is change but something that hinges between one state and another,
One place or time… time as season, as era, as hour and what is the speed of time, as light… Of course the poetics with the repetitions, beat / batters/…the echoes of hooded in book;
Walker in taut; the dark images work well… only for him to shrug and move from the spells of "inimical music" in enchantered space — perhaps what Schlaifer in her poem "Swath" was creating with the stanza w/ the Rothko and Mueller with her second sentence about the crippled lovers waiting (some shrill sign, some cry, some screaming cat that smells a sacrific and spells them thunder).
The James Wright gave us a foil for Stevens' tercets or Mueller's sonnet, with a poem that flows. The first four lines whittle to a one syllable: now. 3 views the moon's young (owlets maybe?) the slender woman (moon goddess?) and I. Whether it is anthropomorphism of a touch of American Indian that stills us — there are no questions, in this leaning to darkness, in a poem called "Beginning."
Everyone's favorite.
Swath brought forward memories of real tornados as well as discussion about the balance between destruction and yield… tension between violent and silent… how we cut to make anything— onomatopoeia — and the scythe both sliced with an em-dash. It inspired John to write a poem about a river offering, water, highway; damned by humans, so it floods, levied, it demands, taxes, or something like that.
A Brief history of time or space…
Whether the next poem by her was intended to be read with hers, we imagined a tornado drill and use of double negatives. If a poem makes us speculate too hard,
Is that good or bad?
Finally, A Prayer for Rain: beautiful metaphor for release and redemption perhaps… the walling up, and hardened stillness, as if after a bad fight, and the waiting for the repeat, only wishing this time, the mumbling of whatever will bring the rain.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Poems for Feb. 8 - prep w/ Poetry Magazine
The Pure Good of Theory -- Wallace Stevens
Beginning -- James Wright
Swath -- Stephanie E. Schlaifer
The Stimulation is an understatement -- Stephenie E. Schlaifer
A Prayer for Rain -- Lisel Mueller
Poetry (the magazine)founded in 2012, is celebrating 100 years, and part of the February issue is a selection of one poem each by Lisel Mueller, Weldon Kees, Eleanor Ross Taylor, Janet Lewis, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost and Robert Creeley.
Another section is entitled "Various" in which 14 poets chime in "One whole voice".
Let's try the "can you guess game" with who might have said what.
(Jericho Brown, Fanny Howe, Kazim Ali, Jean Valentine, G.C. Waldrep, Joy Harjo, Eleanor Wilner, Dunya Mikhail.)
-- "I've never believed that what attracts us to poems is knowing what's going on in them."
"there is a coincidence, and a slowly developing sense of a hidden structure which increases with work, experience and age. How people stay in your life. How memories are so strong and books passed along through decades, and at the same time there is no evidence of yesterday as a place."
"You can see two things at once, reflections in different directions, and both things are true."
"I am drawn to poets who allow the Other its existence."
"Most Americans compartmentalize, because it is convenient: we find our modern lives intolerable otherwise. ... Poetry is that which conveys a message to a stranger."
"Much of world poetry is incantation and chant. ... The everlasting is who we truly are, where we truly belong. It is the stuff of poetry, music and dance, of all arts. In this place, we are one person, one poem, one story and one song."
"For me, the poem is never just about experience, it IS an experience; we can't know where a poem is going, and should be surprised (and even enlightened) by what it reveals."
"With poetry, I feel I am in love. With prose, I feel I am in marriage."
Paul Celan said, "Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the human soul."
**
On Wednesday, we will look at time, at darkness, beginnning, swath, ... we'll ride horses, observe moons, trees, tornado, listen to the sound of rain.
Beginning -- James Wright
Swath -- Stephanie E. Schlaifer
The Stimulation is an understatement -- Stephenie E. Schlaifer
A Prayer for Rain -- Lisel Mueller
Poetry (the magazine)founded in 2012, is celebrating 100 years, and part of the February issue is a selection of one poem each by Lisel Mueller, Weldon Kees, Eleanor Ross Taylor, Janet Lewis, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost and Robert Creeley.
Another section is entitled "Various" in which 14 poets chime in "One whole voice".
Let's try the "can you guess game" with who might have said what.
(Jericho Brown, Fanny Howe, Kazim Ali, Jean Valentine, G.C. Waldrep, Joy Harjo, Eleanor Wilner, Dunya Mikhail.)
-- "I've never believed that what attracts us to poems is knowing what's going on in them."
"there is a coincidence, and a slowly developing sense of a hidden structure which increases with work, experience and age. How people stay in your life. How memories are so strong and books passed along through decades, and at the same time there is no evidence of yesterday as a place."
"You can see two things at once, reflections in different directions, and both things are true."
"I am drawn to poets who allow the Other its existence."
"Most Americans compartmentalize, because it is convenient: we find our modern lives intolerable otherwise. ... Poetry is that which conveys a message to a stranger."
"Much of world poetry is incantation and chant. ... The everlasting is who we truly are, where we truly belong. It is the stuff of poetry, music and dance, of all arts. In this place, we are one person, one poem, one story and one song."
"For me, the poem is never just about experience, it IS an experience; we can't know where a poem is going, and should be surprised (and even enlightened) by what it reveals."
"With poetry, I feel I am in love. With prose, I feel I am in marriage."
Paul Celan said, "Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the human soul."
**
On Wednesday, we will look at time, at darkness, beginnning, swath, ... we'll ride horses, observe moons, trees, tornado, listen to the sound of rain.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Waltzes with RPO Jan. 27
Arild Remmereit is a delightful conductor and serious about educating the public..
He showed us how a viennese waltz sparkles -- none of the wide-bowed, regular 1-2-3,
but the second beat ever so slightly early, the 3rd beat ever so slightly too long--
Whether the waltz is associated with laendler, yodeling, the sounds of music, or the aristocratic gatherings in Viennese ballrooms, there is something in the beat that
makes you want to dance.
Joseph Werner selected two Schubert waltzes (he wrote over 100 of them) (along with 600 songs, 9 symphonies, quartets, quintets and pieces for every instrument),
small 45 second pieces.
It inspired me to write a 4.5 second "waltz"
4.5 second waltz
no time to
prepare you
ONE two three
hurried two ... three
sparkle, spin, spin
breathless...
**
The Tchaikovsky Allegro con grazia (from Symphony 6 in B minor op. 74) is actually in 5, not three...
and if you listen to the Mahler 4th, the 2nd movement, there is a second violin turned a whole step higher to give an edge to the melody!
Illuion, illusion. We have the time we have, but we don't like to be unprepared --
for what? Let us dance! Shall we, then, waltz?
Mozart: three German dances, K 605
we didn't hear the Waltz from Les Sylphides (Chopin) -- arr. by Glazinov
but all repeats on the Emperor Waltz and both the 3rd and 2nd movements of Mahler's 4th.
Uplifting sparkle for a rainy, albeit not icy, January evening.
He showed us how a viennese waltz sparkles -- none of the wide-bowed, regular 1-2-3,
but the second beat ever so slightly early, the 3rd beat ever so slightly too long--
Whether the waltz is associated with laendler, yodeling, the sounds of music, or the aristocratic gatherings in Viennese ballrooms, there is something in the beat that
makes you want to dance.
Joseph Werner selected two Schubert waltzes (he wrote over 100 of them) (along with 600 songs, 9 symphonies, quartets, quintets and pieces for every instrument),
small 45 second pieces.
It inspired me to write a 4.5 second "waltz"
4.5 second waltz
no time to
prepare you
ONE two three
hurried two ... three
sparkle, spin, spin
breathless...
**
The Tchaikovsky Allegro con grazia (from Symphony 6 in B minor op. 74) is actually in 5, not three...
and if you listen to the Mahler 4th, the 2nd movement, there is a second violin turned a whole step higher to give an edge to the melody!
Illuion, illusion. We have the time we have, but we don't like to be unprepared --
for what? Let us dance! Shall we, then, waltz?
Mozart: three German dances, K 605
we didn't hear the Waltz from Les Sylphides (Chopin) -- arr. by Glazinov
but all repeats on the Emperor Waltz and both the 3rd and 2nd movements of Mahler's 4th.
Uplifting sparkle for a rainy, albeit not icy, January evening.
O Pen February 1 - prelude to discussion + poem "Word of the Day"
Poems for February 1
What Kind of Times are These: Adrienne Rich
This Is the Dream by Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin
Brother Can You Spare a Dime by William Heyen
3 poems from Liberty’s Vigil, The Occupy Anthology: 99 poets among the 99%
I will not by Kathy Engel (p. 38)
Build the Apocalypse inside your garage. (a Pantoum) by Jules Nyquist (p. 78)
World Conditions Are Such by Leah Zazulyer (p. 114)
(we won't have time for it, probably, but I'd like to include it:
I would like to describe -- by Zbigniew Herbert
The day before Groundhog's Day, and the start of a new month in 2012. As it is an election year, perhaps each month, we should spend some time with poets who challenge us with their voices -- how do we occupy the Earth? which shadows do we admit to seeing, or only pretend to see, or ignore completely.
The 3 poems taken from "Liberty's Vigil" are "...to show us the deeper human meaning that is far deeper than the words, yet indicated, somehow, by the words" to quote co-editor Dwain Wilder. I also have a poem in this anthology -- and met Alice Weiss in Cambridge on December 30, 2011 whose poem, Dewey Square (the OWS of Boston) is also in this anthology of poets from 22 of the United States and 6 countries.
Kathy Engel's poem appeared 1/27/12 in splitthisrock poem of the week.
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=7dta6jcab&v=001-jHgZ8K8LRKjB1j-Aeus9P6Fx3jlk0EbQu4bEw4HTuA83_CxrxhAwHdA1zfSZTw7PlJgUObV5j-o_lZINAO1E7Df9SsP1psHMkbpQsEKgeJ5lrnPo3NKfmznPPSn-4U-t6kGKyAi3_AiTMbutw5nsqnUFifopsvpiCqoQG6ybD56F1NAk0d4-DVNH-76m6ez4Ek5nw3enq35bUAjYOvF053kOkUzafEpSRGLStxohmc%3D
my poem:
The Word of the Day
scro bic u late: having many small
grooves; furrowed
spells scour/bake; it rhymes: you’re late
sounds like crows, skewers, all that’s scraped
a four-syll-battle cry that ends with ATE
as in consumed, as in greedy as in abominate
accelerate, confiscate, asphyxiate,
as in what we break, but do not plough
as in what we hate but still allow as in
land-rape, scape-goat, throat-cloak,
bloat until scope inflates, as in I had
a dream, a poem, a word (in a word) made
for planting –
a new word to a-
light, yes, we’re waiting for a furrowed word
that moves L from the loud clack of cloud
to the soft strummed could.
All of this written because of one word.
**
From Karla Merrifield, Co-editor of Liberty’s Vigil: (send 1/27)Our poems CAN make a difference. Read the moving story of
homelessness at http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-6534-homeless-in-santa-fe.html shared by Jules Nyquist and Mary Strong Jackson, (p 59: The New Homeless Rage)
In her introduction, she starts with the statement of her belief that poets are the world's most experienced decision-makers. Of course, the idea of best word, best order -- or simply the decision to pick up the pen and write; to decide on topics of poems; verbs; images, figures of speech, stanza breaks
So much depends / on weather / and the thin/ quality/ of mercy.
and then we continue to decide as we revise.
I don't know about "most experienced" -- but certainly the requirement of decision-making and training, help decide what actions to take in daily living,
and the poems help bring a candle to them for the reader.
What Kind of Times are These: Adrienne Rich
This Is the Dream by Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin
Brother Can You Spare a Dime by William Heyen
3 poems from Liberty’s Vigil, The Occupy Anthology: 99 poets among the 99%
I will not by Kathy Engel (p. 38)
Build the Apocalypse inside your garage. (a Pantoum) by Jules Nyquist (p. 78)
World Conditions Are Such by Leah Zazulyer (p. 114)
(we won't have time for it, probably, but I'd like to include it:
I would like to describe -- by Zbigniew Herbert
The day before Groundhog's Day, and the start of a new month in 2012. As it is an election year, perhaps each month, we should spend some time with poets who challenge us with their voices -- how do we occupy the Earth? which shadows do we admit to seeing, or only pretend to see, or ignore completely.
The 3 poems taken from "Liberty's Vigil" are "...to show us the deeper human meaning that is far deeper than the words, yet indicated, somehow, by the words" to quote co-editor Dwain Wilder. I also have a poem in this anthology -- and met Alice Weiss in Cambridge on December 30, 2011 whose poem, Dewey Square (the OWS of Boston) is also in this anthology of poets from 22 of the United States and 6 countries.
Kathy Engel's poem appeared 1/27/12 in splitthisrock poem of the week.
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=7dta6jcab&v=001-jHgZ8K8LRKjB1j-Aeus9P6Fx3jlk0EbQu4bEw4HTuA83_CxrxhAwHdA1zfSZTw7PlJgUObV5j-o_lZINAO1E7Df9SsP1psHMkbpQsEKgeJ5lrnPo3NKfmznPPSn-4U-t6kGKyAi3_AiTMbutw5nsqnUFifopsvpiCqoQG6ybD56F1NAk0d4-DVNH-76m6ez4Ek5nw3enq35bUAjYOvF053kOkUzafEpSRGLStxohmc%3D
my poem:
The Word of the Day
scro bic u late: having many small
grooves; furrowed
spells scour/bake; it rhymes: you’re late
sounds like crows, skewers, all that’s scraped
a four-syll-battle cry that ends with ATE
as in consumed, as in greedy as in abominate
accelerate, confiscate, asphyxiate,
as in what we break, but do not plough
as in what we hate but still allow as in
land-rape, scape-goat, throat-cloak,
bloat until scope inflates, as in I had
a dream, a poem, a word (in a word) made
for planting –
a new word to a-
light, yes, we’re waiting for a furrowed word
that moves L from the loud clack of cloud
to the soft strummed could.
All of this written because of one word.
**
From Karla Merrifield, Co-editor of Liberty’s Vigil: (send 1/27)Our poems CAN make a difference. Read the moving story of
homelessness at http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-6534-homeless-in-santa-fe.html shared by Jules Nyquist and Mary Strong Jackson, (p 59: The New Homeless Rage)
In her introduction, she starts with the statement of her belief that poets are the world's most experienced decision-makers. Of course, the idea of best word, best order -- or simply the decision to pick up the pen and write; to decide on topics of poems; verbs; images, figures of speech, stanza breaks
So much depends / on weather / and the thin/ quality/ of mercy.
and then we continue to decide as we revise.
I don't know about "most experienced" -- but certainly the requirement of decision-making and training, help decide what actions to take in daily living,
and the poems help bring a candle to them for the reader.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
O pen January 25: judgments: embarrassment; what touches us
Poems for January 23 (meaning the week of Jan. 23 -- apologies). We met 1/25 !
From Sue Ann Simar, Editor of 10 x 3
The Vigilante
Be up at sunrise, a look of determination in your eye./ Seize your weapon and follow my tracks./ Black on white, a savage fate...the striking arms of the reader.
Flyleaf by Michael Gessner
Trees Again by Francis Santaquilani
About Face by Alice Fulton
St. Roach by Muriel Ruykeyser
Perhaps a theme of the poems this week revolves around judgment and what touches us.
What makes us squirm, reject others, shirk from touching the unfamiliar? Perhaps it is an innate, protective mechanism for our survival, but when it has to do with judgment about another person, we tread on grey areas.
The comment by Sue Ann Simar is on the latest edition of the ezine 10X3: the idea is either to choose 3 poets w/ 10 poems, or 3 poems by 10 poets — flyleaf was taken from a previous issue of it.
In the first poem, Flyleaf, the sweep of sounds makes rounds through four stanzas which some bumps of mixed metaphors, such as the rough spot of a “fist” which doesn’t quite work for the idea of an onion-skin flyleaf that could flutter along with “a feathery crowd/of angels jostling in awe”. Perhaps he could have used soapbubbles for a metaphor for the fragility of creation, wonder and its collapse. Marcie came up with this comparison: you ask a question, and someone answers by singing a tune which does not correspond. Why the improper use so easily...than this instead of as this with the slant rhyme of fist/this ?
We enjoyed the second poem, "Trees Again" even more than "We are Tiger" by the same poet (discussed last week). Joyce brought in research on kudzu and we spent a few minutes listening to James Wright read his poem, "Kudzu" outloud. The juxtaposition between the angry frost and suffocating blanket of kudzu gives an ominous upper hand to the frost. The shrill EE sound in 6 mentions of tree, three, leaves, weeks, week-end, the trees still not tree, until the wind bites into the kudzu, and tree becomes tree again, works to support the metaphor. The G's on the penultimate line, contrast with the trees, happy to seen for what they are, (not gaudy,(nor part of a medieval knight and dragon story), or gaping ghosts). The "or" hanging as the last word enjambs to the surprise of the father's stern, pointed face.
A good example of a poem which in just a few words creates a powerful image, captures a scene and describes the struggle of speaker with his father without telling us about it.
About Face: The recognition of embarassment as key ingredient of our authenticity, vulnerability— and how beautifully title and final sentence work.
Last week, we saw Levin’s comment about “premeditated” poems and the importance of imagination. I felt with the first poem, the poet was close to being surprised at what he didn’t quite expect. And yet, compared to Santaquilani’s ending line, which comes as a real surprise to the reader, the difference lies perhaps in being close to the truth of the emotion expressed. In Fulton’s poem, she captures the teen-age tone of what is hip and what so, like, totally, embarassing. It is clever, and captures us in the mirror, reminding us to face up to things. The last stanza pens the uncontrollable result of embarrassment
one never wants to pretend. A mirror we almost appreciate. and then her brilliant
“I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.” Which brings us full circle to the title, About Face. About losing face; about how our face betrays us. About saving face,
and this “it” of coming dangerously close to authentic. She didn’t write, I almost wrote despise IT. She almost wrote despise – that general landscape of facing something unpleasant in ourselves.
Wouldn't you want every school child to read St. Roach and then discuss racism? Whether street, saint or S.T. Roach*, black coach who was noted for his active role in integrating sports, civic affairs, this is a multi-layered poem by activist poet, Rukeyser, who died on Lincoln's birthday in 1980. The violence and injustice she saw, in the United States and abroad, led her poetry to function as a mode of social protest. She felt a deep responsibility to comment on human issues and was particularly concerned with inequalities of sex, race and class.
St. as Saint, or Street, or S.T. followed by roach.
Carmine was reminded of Hebrews 13:2
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.
The biblical tone “for that” (six times in the past tense) followed by “and that” (four times in the present tense) and “but that” (twice, present progressive accusation followed by present tense answer that shows it is not based on reason), weaves the importance of the roots of our language, the cultural connotations of songs, food in order to know someone else. The verb touch (close to the sound of teach) is used twice; past tense in 2nd line and first line 2nd stanza and present tense on the final line of the poem.
The cause and effect of “they” on “I”, is powerful, swallowing up the “I could not tell you apart one from another” repeated again as for that I could not tell one from another.
Roaches as metaphor for despicable, are yet, fast, slender, and according to the poet, witty replete with a culture of their own and if given a chance, lovely to the touch.
for more poems by her: (Book of the Dead)
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/200305.html#ST._ROACH
*If it is S.T. Roach, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/kentucky/obituary.aspx?n=st-roach&pid=145045206
**
From David Sanders: (who will speak on his new book on Frost at W&B 2/2)
Frost's "Figure a Poem Makes," is one of the few prose statements he actually prepared for the press. It's a brilliant knotty essay he composed as preface to his 1939 Collected Poems and used in all subsequent editions. In it he says that the poem "has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood--and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for last." He concludes the whole piece by saying, "Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain in having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded in surprise as it went."
From Kathy: oscar award nominee: 15 min film: http://www.pw.org/content/the_fantastic_flying_books_of_mr_morris_lessmore
From Joyce: Wright reading Kudzu:
From Sue Ann Simar, Editor of 10 x 3
The Vigilante
Be up at sunrise, a look of determination in your eye./ Seize your weapon and follow my tracks./ Black on white, a savage fate...the striking arms of the reader.
Flyleaf by Michael Gessner
Trees Again by Francis Santaquilani
About Face by Alice Fulton
St. Roach by Muriel Ruykeyser
Perhaps a theme of the poems this week revolves around judgment and what touches us.
What makes us squirm, reject others, shirk from touching the unfamiliar? Perhaps it is an innate, protective mechanism for our survival, but when it has to do with judgment about another person, we tread on grey areas.
The comment by Sue Ann Simar is on the latest edition of the ezine 10X3: the idea is either to choose 3 poets w/ 10 poems, or 3 poems by 10 poets — flyleaf was taken from a previous issue of it.
In the first poem, Flyleaf, the sweep of sounds makes rounds through four stanzas which some bumps of mixed metaphors, such as the rough spot of a “fist” which doesn’t quite work for the idea of an onion-skin flyleaf that could flutter along with “a feathery crowd/of angels jostling in awe”. Perhaps he could have used soapbubbles for a metaphor for the fragility of creation, wonder and its collapse. Marcie came up with this comparison: you ask a question, and someone answers by singing a tune which does not correspond. Why the improper use so easily...than this instead of as this with the slant rhyme of fist/this ?
We enjoyed the second poem, "Trees Again" even more than "We are Tiger" by the same poet (discussed last week). Joyce brought in research on kudzu and we spent a few minutes listening to James Wright read his poem, "Kudzu" outloud. The juxtaposition between the angry frost and suffocating blanket of kudzu gives an ominous upper hand to the frost. The shrill EE sound in 6 mentions of tree, three, leaves, weeks, week-end, the trees still not tree, until the wind bites into the kudzu, and tree becomes tree again, works to support the metaphor. The G's on the penultimate line, contrast with the trees, happy to seen for what they are, (not gaudy,(nor part of a medieval knight and dragon story), or gaping ghosts). The "or" hanging as the last word enjambs to the surprise of the father's stern, pointed face.
A good example of a poem which in just a few words creates a powerful image, captures a scene and describes the struggle of speaker with his father without telling us about it.
About Face: The recognition of embarassment as key ingredient of our authenticity, vulnerability— and how beautifully title and final sentence work.
Last week, we saw Levin’s comment about “premeditated” poems and the importance of imagination. I felt with the first poem, the poet was close to being surprised at what he didn’t quite expect. And yet, compared to Santaquilani’s ending line, which comes as a real surprise to the reader, the difference lies perhaps in being close to the truth of the emotion expressed. In Fulton’s poem, she captures the teen-age tone of what is hip and what so, like, totally, embarassing. It is clever, and captures us in the mirror, reminding us to face up to things. The last stanza pens the uncontrollable result of embarrassment
one never wants to pretend. A mirror we almost appreciate. and then her brilliant
“I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.” Which brings us full circle to the title, About Face. About losing face; about how our face betrays us. About saving face,
and this “it” of coming dangerously close to authentic. She didn’t write, I almost wrote despise IT. She almost wrote despise – that general landscape of facing something unpleasant in ourselves.
Wouldn't you want every school child to read St. Roach and then discuss racism? Whether street, saint or S.T. Roach*, black coach who was noted for his active role in integrating sports, civic affairs, this is a multi-layered poem by activist poet, Rukeyser, who died on Lincoln's birthday in 1980. The violence and injustice she saw, in the United States and abroad, led her poetry to function as a mode of social protest. She felt a deep responsibility to comment on human issues and was particularly concerned with inequalities of sex, race and class.
St. as Saint, or Street, or S.T. followed by roach.
Carmine was reminded of Hebrews 13:2
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.
The biblical tone “for that” (six times in the past tense) followed by “and that” (four times in the present tense) and “but that” (twice, present progressive accusation followed by present tense answer that shows it is not based on reason), weaves the importance of the roots of our language, the cultural connotations of songs, food in order to know someone else. The verb touch (close to the sound of teach) is used twice; past tense in 2nd line and first line 2nd stanza and present tense on the final line of the poem.
The cause and effect of “they” on “I”, is powerful, swallowing up the “I could not tell you apart one from another” repeated again as for that I could not tell one from another.
Roaches as metaphor for despicable, are yet, fast, slender, and according to the poet, witty replete with a culture of their own and if given a chance, lovely to the touch.
for more poems by her: (Book of the Dead)
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/200305.html#ST._ROACH
*If it is S.T. Roach, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/kentucky/obituary.aspx?n=st-roach&pid=145045206
**
From David Sanders: (who will speak on his new book on Frost at W&B 2/2)
Frost's "Figure a Poem Makes," is one of the few prose statements he actually prepared for the press. It's a brilliant knotty essay he composed as preface to his 1939 Collected Poems and used in all subsequent editions. In it he says that the poem "has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood--and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for last." He concludes the whole piece by saying, "Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain in having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded in surprise as it went."
From Kathy: oscar award nominee: 15 min film: http://www.pw.org/content/the_fantastic_flying_books_of_mr_morris_lessmore
From Joyce: Wright reading Kudzu:
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