O Pen !

Thursday, February 25, 2021

February 24

Self Portrait as retratos de cosas locas y de locos (stolen) by Patricia Spears Jones

for Papo Colo

The Wall by Anita Endrezze (Yaqui)

Shaking Hands by Pádraig Ó Team

Breath by Adrian Rice

Sometimes by Herman Hesse (translated by Robert Bly) (paired with Crow in Shadow, by Peter Jemison)

Barter by Sara Teasdale

His Master's Voice by Carl Phillips

Rejection Letter to a January Crocus

We will start with Bernie's poem from last week, "Medina on the Mississippi.

What hats do we wear and how does this reflect who we are?

And if you painted portraits of crazy things, crazy people, what would you paint? Perhaps graffiti on a wall... and what walls do you face? If only we could just shake hands and move on... understand that the breath blown into balloons will also come out when their time is up... and wonder about questions, barter for answers... look at what is called "truth"... well... and why not write a poem about it, hope that eventually, some ragged remains will struggle up after winter to be reconsidered.

Ken Nash highly recommended this movie, Mango Dreams -- wonderful movie and skillful telling of the horrible repercussions of the Partition…the power of memory, bonding through story… Ken's summary: A Hindu doctor with dementia and a Muslim auto rickshaw driver form an unlikely friendship as they cross India in search of the doctor's childhood home. Issues of loss, denial and division mix with cherished memories, sacrifice and respect.

On Netflix.

Nutshell: 2/24

Medina: Bernie opened the meeting with his poem, written in 2006, which he remembered after discussing “Healing Improvisations of Hair” by Jay Wright https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42740/the-healing-improvisation-of-hair discussed Feb. 10. As Wright puts it in his poem…

How like joy to come upon me

in remembering a head of hair…

Indeed, Bernie’s perspective of the back of heads, leads to a deeper truth of our human condition but he adds a sacred overtone. Hegira (Islam marking of year 1 of the Muslim calendar, in tribute to Muhammad’s exodus from Mecca to Medina) becomes a shared experience on a 21^st century airplane traveling to Mississippi. (Indeed, unbeknownst to Bernie, there is a Medinah, MS with a Musliim community in it!) The hair is “bondaged”, and we are given strong visuals of hair do’s, caps… The ending is hopeful, with a yearning to imagine unity despite our individual hats, hair, selves. The mention of a possible shepherd in charge of all is comforting indeed. From the poet: As I recall I noticed the heads and hair, and that big head moved me to associations, so the Medici. And then I think it was seeing the rows and columns of us all on th4e plane that made me think of those large Islamic prayer gatherings. I'm uncertain of all the connections, but I made a connection from Muslims to Mohammed's flight to Medina, which I was familiar with in a general way, paralleling our literal flight heading onward, and then took off - so to speak - from there.

Looking at it now, I wonder if Medina also grew from Medici and the M's in Meridian, my destination, and Mississippi. I know I've always liked the sound of that title, and the title definitely came last, after the poem had formed, not the other way around.

Self-Portrait: One intriguing question that came up was how to read the poem without its note.

Certainly the poem itself is filled with lovely brushstrokes of alliterations, repetitions, sounds of words, like a painting. The four stanzas appeal to our senses giving a visceral feel both to something universal like the pandemic which touches us all and the more personal portrayal of the poet’s friend and the trigger of their meeting on Mercer Street in early 2019. We had the sense of a mosaic, not yet assembled. The final stanza reminded Emily of Leonard Cohen,

and many recalled the passage in the Bible about Elijah and the “still small voice” as conscience. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2019%3A11-13&version=NKJV

The Wall: Adjectives for this poem: fabulous! amazing! powerful! Jan brought up the trauma that a wall creates, and how the poem ressembled the horror of the story of the India/Pakistan partition in Mango Dreams. Memories spackled together, build, like the semi-random-seeming possibilities of what one could use to make a wall. A touch of humor makes the distress and devastation inherent bearable. (avocado seeds as Aztec testicles! choices of “adobe or ghosts” next to lego or bubble wrap; wallets on life support; the bigly block party; xocoatl motar, etc. )

A touch of surrealism to offset the seriousness such as “Dreams will be terrorists” and the memories of what was. The poet’s father is Yaqui , and I put that next to her name, as

she writes from her experience as a Native American woman. Like the previous poem, a mosaic— but in this case of congruent angles of stories that are part of the border.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anita-endrezze

Shaking Hands: to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4psKIf-_fi0

Pádraig reads the poem at 2:20 but tells the background in those first two minutes.

We loved the anaphora of Because, which also feels like the reasoning behind the unspoken question is larger than just the Irish troubles, or the examples given in the poem. Susan mentioned how it felt like a proclamation and Bernie and Jan remarked on the ressemblance to the tolling of a bell. Particularly in this time of pandemic, it is a timely poem. How will we deal with each other when we can touch again? Shake hands? How do we convey empathy, good will without the basic courtesy of the handshake or this metaphor for whatever cultural touch it represents?

Breath: The Guardian gives a nice summary — but out group picked up on death/breath/womb-tomb of the idea of breath entering a balloon… We picked up on his reading, which didn’t give space between the tercets, which give an air of a children’s story. We could sense the personality of the father, admired the seamless way his mock-cursing transforms to the balloons mockingly bobbing about… The wife’s anger at his death… her love for this man… the violent burst of life-giving air she receives… A touch surreal, and works without the story. Elaine told the tragic story of a father-to-be blown up preparing a prop for a “reveal party”. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-state-father-be-killed-when-gender-reveal-prop-n1258554

This too could be made into poem. We reminisced about how we remember… how if a casserole is left over, made the person who passed away… how this becomes a “rite” part

of the memorial.

My mistake about the story behind the poem (go to minute 43): He and his wife Molly had gone to Walmarts to pick up bread and milk (and Adrian says, “never underestimate the temple that is Walmart— I’ve had so many poems inspired by this place…” The story is that a working class couple with some children were at the checkout, and the kids were crying for some expensive helium balloons. Adrian told them, ah… you’ll be missing out on all the fun — get a packet of 100 of them and ask your Da’ to blow them up — it will kill him, and give him a squeaky voice…”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxE3QejLas&feature=youtu.be

He reads it at minute 44:44

This is one of his poems that came to him sitting on a porch —what he calls “a secret poetry machine”. All it took was remembering this incident after writing the title and immediately the first stanza comes to mind.

Sometimes: I found the original German, a rhymed translation and link to the Bly here: http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2014/10/hermann-hesse-sometimes.html

With the Bly translation, which lacks rhyme, we still had a sense of a unified treatment of feeling fortified by the images. It is an enigmatic poem. What are the questions asked? We as readers cannot participate in the reply, but rather must seek our own questions, join in the universal conversation with "soul" in this way. I shared the link to a work of art by Peter Jemison, Crow in the Shadow http://magart.rochester.edu/objects-1/info/24389

paired with this poem for the docents at the Memorial Art Gallery.

Barter: An older form poem, beautifully crafted… … and we are reminded as well, it is quite a privileged perspective. It had been recited for the teen Poetry Outloud competition by Sofia de Bitetto.

In her recitation it felt that she latched onto the infinite optimism of the poem. The speaker, arguably, could "have" nothing. life's loveliness is in nature and experience, interpersonal connections. yes, one is urged to "spend" without limit on this loveliness, but therein lies the barter. one is not spending their trust fund on it, but rather "all [they] have been, or could be."

His Master’s Voice: The image of the RCA Victor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipper]

came to mind, as well as possibly a slave recalling a master… perhaps doing something he regretted to another slave…

The ambiguity, and impossibility of knowing the details allowed us to look at the message about truth. We enjoyed the language — that “dust-bath thing” of “indistinguishable brown birds”,

the “fake-looking posture of half collapse” of those bedraggled dahlias… and the heat (compared to the way facts behave with a “truth more difficult/to touch than usual) haloing… —

the style, language, overlay of images ending with the sea anemones rooted in something we cannot see, all adds to an elusive experience. Well, in case you don’t get it… go back to the beginning… honesty as bruising and bruisable… and perhaps you too will go back to making

your inventory…

rejection letter: Perfect metaphor all writers understand, expressed in a delightful, heart-warming manner.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Poems for February 17

On Time Tanka by June Jordan

& Later, by Adrian Matejka

Realization by Marilyn Nelson

Manistee Light by Samiya Bashir

Faithful Forest by Alberto Ríos The blue nightgown by Toi Derricotte

Medina on the Mississippi by Bernard Shore

Tabula Rasa by Tyler Curtis

Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden

Nutshell summary of poems 2/17/2021

June Jordan: On Time Tanka

7 tankas (31 syllable short songs following 5-7-5-7-7- syllabic pattern) with repeating sounds, rhythms, rhymes… What is time? measured by clocks, by seasons, all our expressions about the timing of things. How is time related to choice — and what choices does a black woman have in a patriarchal society? How to understand “neither one of you” (black or white,

one cheating, one beating the wife) or “you both” (big power, big power dude, or police creeps)…

The rhyme confirms a sweeping conviction.

The first three tankas (stanzas) abaab rhyme shift in stanza 4 where the long oo of

choose, refuse, echoes in fruit; slant rhyme of hero and rolls and every word rhyming on the last two lines except for (Black- capital B) and (white- small w). The first word of each line capitalized. Stanza 5 starts with the “real slime”, the eye-rhyme of mouth/uncouth…

Stanza 6 piles up play/day/say/spray carries on with double exclamation points, Okay!

laugh away! and two enjambments that accentuate “you” and “choose”—

The blues, indeed, is the blues… and black and blue news, means hurt and lose.

As Lori puts it: This poem speaks of life TIME— it feels of contemporary relevance and points to the relentlessness of this sad song in the life of a black woman.

I really admire this poem — the relentlessness perhaps lies in the 7… like days of the week…the repetitions for instance of the opening line, “I refuse to choose” ,broken in the last stanza —

I accuse/you both: I refuse/to choose. How she repeats “lose” from the second stanza; the black and blue news of the third stanza”… the truth that it “withers the heart of her hand” and confirms the meaning “I hurt and I lose”.

A picture containing text, fabric

Description automatically generated Trumpet by Jean-Michel Basquiat

http://www.jean-michel-basquiat.org/trumpet/

Adrian Matejka : & Later,

to find out more about the poet: https://poets.org/event/2020-2021-blaney-lecture-adrian-matejka

to find out more about Basquiat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX02QQXfb_o

Just as the painting might be difficult to interpret, so is this poem— more like a jazz improvisation, where indeed, you see the 3 keys, the red, a black crown (both as crown and head)

perhaps the skyscraper smile…

We discussed poetry... as sounds... meanings beyond words— both
harsh, difficult words, (broken scrawl, villanous, complaint shapes, 3-triggered agitation, angry-fingered fruition, suspicious) and words taken from positive contexts to unexpected negatives

(brass instrument… thin throat like a fist… where the “instrument” is not a trumpet, but a weapon; the flat declinations of pastors/& teachers at Christmas… but it is not holiday cheer

but a holiday choir of hungry/

paints

We sensed a feeling of enclosed anger…. Although we did not discuss the title, which leads into the first line… it is worth noting it starts the poem in media res… what is relaxed (line and stanza break) explanation of lateness: ? The colon is followed by a fragment which refuses to say. We noted the disjunctive, the unexpected, the irregular indentations, line breaks. Oh yes…

below words crossed out/— in the painting you see the breath of the trumpet, and the unseen

potholes, ashy elbows that come out in red light.

Even without the painting, this poem captures a painful tune, like a trumpet riff triggered by, but not recognizable from its melody, filled with unsettling disjunctions… The poem captures the sense that the paint has become more than paint, and both poem and painting prod us to re-think

beyond lines attempting to draw out the feeling-experience.

To see… yes… that is the greatest gift of life…to paraphrase Rilke… Which leads to the next poem by Marilyn Nelson:Realization

The title prepares us to think about what makes something “real” both as a completed idea, sculpture, and bringing something alive, which leads to greater understanding.

A picture containing text, person, outdoor, person

Description automatically generated ”Gussie” and her statue “Realization” described in Marilyn Nelson’s poem, of the same title. https://gailtanzer.com/2020/07/26/augusta-savages-sculpture-realization/

As Lori mentioned, this ¾ size work, 8X10 inches… and thousands of the ¾ sized-works depicting such scenes would not begin to “measure up” to equal all the statues of confederate generals… The size of Mount Rushmore (Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, each about 60 feet (18 metres) tall, are carved in granite on the southeast side of the mountain) is no protection either.

The opening lines of the poem… a fragment. Three-quarter size. Full size would break the heart. Even if this were not an ekphrastic response to a specific statue, the first 17 lines give

us a fully rounded picture of real human beings at a slave market. The absence of a child,

auctioned separately… the helplessness of the man (father perhaps of the child, husband),

the humiliation of the bare-breasted woman, “perhaps realizing what/will happen to them next.”.

We are offered several “realizations”. The next 16 lines start with harrowing questions that share the realizations of the poet and underline historic discrepancy between “all men created equal” and the inhumane and dehumanizing practice of slavery…

What words are there to describe hopelessness? How can they believe (in God) while the blue sky/smiles innocently, pretends nothing is wrong. (no question mark.)

All of us had images even without the sculpture— the reduction of human souls/lives to parts: their naked feet (the couple); her collarbone (harkening to her bareness); the vein/traveling his bicep. The punch of the closing line — all those “monumental generals whose stars (as in their karma perhaps) /and sabers say (present tense), black pain/ did not then and still does not matter.

Powerful poem, where the reader cannot escape the realization of how this must feel.

Samiya Bashir: Manistee Light.

I found a different version here: http://blogthisrock.blogspot.com/2013/02/poem-of-week-samiya-bashir.html. Regardless, what does this lighthouse represent? One reading could be strictly ecological… how the land once produced real crops… Although the light was not “land mined” the image of that possibility— what is destroyed and is no longer haunts the poem.

For history this site discusses the fire that destroyed the first light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manistee_Pierhead_lights

The closing line, “I wish I knew/how she did it. It was almost enough” speaks of survival against all odds— both from weather, but also economics…

Alberto Rios: Faithful Forest

Four parts, where the first line guides a narrative repeated as ending. David Sanders was reminded of David Attenborough, “Resilience of Wildness, (if we allow it)” https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/david-attenboroughs-witness-statement-for-the-planet-commentary/

and a book like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Lava-Life-Universe-Tells-Earth/dp/1584690429 and the Richard Powers book, Overstory. http://www.richardpowers.net/the-overstory/

How wonderful that we have in a relatively short poem, an uplifting view of the forest, as living, breathing, story-telling record— and reminder of resilience, and the importance of its role as keeper of memory.

Toi Derricotte: The blue nightgown

Ah! Even the men appreciated this feminine example of how to cope! The note gives the

“meta-aspect” of this poem, finding sustenance not just in that ice-blue that allows a glide

through all the rooms of the house, landing in the kitchen as if on stage, to sing!

An encouragement to practice like so many of us pretend, singing opera in the kitchen!

Bernie’s poem for next week:

Tyler Curtis: Tabula Rasa

Lovely poem… filled with hopes. Even had we not known it was written by a High School senior, it is a refreshing reminder of innocence, a reminder of what can sully it.

Robert Hayden: Frederick Douglass

An eloquent tribute — and reminder of the importance of transmitting this “beautiful and terrible, needful, usable” thing called freedom — that indeed… it belong to all…

that we carry it onwards.

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Poems for Feb. 10

A Song for Myself by Melvin B. Tolson

part 7 of Rendez-vous with America

The Healing Improvisation of Hair by Jay Wright

O Little Root of a Dream by Paul Celan

Inauguration by Lorenzo Thomas

My Office by Lorenzo Thomas

Nutshell:

A song for myself: Tolson, (1898-1966) a contemporary with Langston Hughes does not figure in the canon the same way, which makes me want to know more about why he was not accepted by either black or white critics. Why the long skinny poem? Laden with rhyme…a flavor of folk sayings and yet clearly something by a learned man setting forth all sorts of oppositions, and much “meat” “of all that’s writ”. I had to look up Chladni, an 18^th century German physicist and musician who contributed to the speed of sound, accoustics… and Selah! used in the Hebrew Bible after psalms meaning “Forever”.

One way of reading the poem is idea by idea… or try to make sense out of the 22 sections…

What is his creed that he hopes it “span the Gulf of Man”?

Written a year before his death, perhaps indeed, he questions if he has done enough?

What and how does the mind work? How is it starved thin for truth?

Rendez-vous with America: I only gave part 7… so some of the discussion wondering about

the relationship to the rest of the poem, I leave to those scholars who read the whole thing.
It is a wonderful title, and indeed, seems as timely now as in 1944 when it was written.

The first stanza makes it sound that Uncle Sam has fallen asleep at the wheel. The anaphor,

“and” piling up horrors in the second stanza… ending with the “tribulum”— a threshing machine… which as metaphor for how people are “processed” is gruesome. Copperheads is the name of Northern sympathizers with the Confederacy…

3^rd Stanza introduced by Then…

Sometimes/// and… /then… only four things listed: civil war… the corruption and scandal of the Teapot Dome, Wall Street Crash… Thunderclap of bombs at Pearl Harbor! Why the exclamation point… is it the surprise attack?

What do these four things say about America?

The Healing Improvisation of Hair: Such a fun title… Our hair is part of our identity…

we felt a sense of life affirmation— and grit… wonderful texture of verbs… sounds and juxtapositions… contradictions both allusive and elusive… water as perhaps baptismal… a sense of rebirth… perhaps a tinge of regret… remembering water as caress, to stress beauty in a head of hair… witness of his dance under sorrow’s tree… we discussed also the stony woman and at the end, carrying his life, “like a stone” — which made Marna remember this poem we discussed: Green Stone, by Richard Hugo

http://carolpeters.blogspot.com/2006/02/richard-hugo.html

O Little Root of a Dream:

What is it to feel condemned by one’s birth blood, the color of one’s skin? What saps the life out of us? How can we feel the reassurance of a tiny trickle of life despite all the world does… where dream takes on perhaps the guise of the world, and yet… sustains as otherworldly dream

as both measure and standard came up as we tried to reconcile otherworldly

Inauguration: The opening lines remind of Frost’s reciting The Gift Outright at Kennedy’s inauguration. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53013/the-gift-outright

In 14 lines, to be read slowly, carefully, “us” shifting to subject but yet still object

(the bombs us have… )followed by capital G God, and capitalized Us.. as perhaps USA

and fancy names of manifest destiny (particular set of regulations based on undisputable acumen… etc.) and my favorite, “and (of course) other irrational factors…

Masterful irony and tone.

My Office: brilliant sketch of what the “suits” do to earn money…
learning the alphabet of nods and eyebrows/and pursed lips straining fo the purse”…

The juxtaposition of “for certain” and “possibles” as slight as handshakes… “firm as agreement of subjective verbs… Indeed, how could you end up anywhere but “no where”?

We had the distinct impression he traded in that office for his dream corner office of a bar… and yet the pretense goes on, pretending to wait for that important call… handshake laughter…

We explored the idea of country music… Charlie Pride…

I’m still haunted by “hope’s frozen green peas” — not only are the peas far removed

from how they grow, but how they are packaged, preserved.

In None of the Above ("New poets of the USA" edited by Michael Lally, published in 1976)

Lorenzo Thomas (author of the last two poems) says this: "Poetry is a spiritual, social & political revelation. A force. An effort to welcome a better world. I see things & write them down & call it poetry, though they used to teach us this was "fantasy". It's not." He goes on-- worth reading:

https://books.google.com/books?id=6TGyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA496&lpg=PA496&dq=Lorenzo+Thomas+%2B+Poetry+is+a+spiritual,+social+%26+political+revelation.++A+force.++An+effort+to+welcome+a+better+world.++I+see+things+%26+write+them+down+%26+call+it+poetry,+though+they+used+to+teach+us+this+was+%22fantasy%22.++It%27s+not.&source=bl&ots=zXO0-vxiLI&sig=ACfU3U1FYoAsjgdk9Udvy5E3ZSmD5bv9ag&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjr1Pq3quPuAhUKY6wKHfyHCS4Q6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=Lorenzo%20Thomas%20%2B%20Poetry%20is%20a%20spiritual%2C%20social%20%26%20political%20revelation.%20%20A%20force.%20%20An%20effort%20to%20welcome%20a%20better%20world.%20%20I%20see%20things%20%26%20write%20them%20down%20%26%20call%20it%20poetry%2C%20though%20they%20used%20to%20teach%20us%20this%20was%20%22fantasy%22.%20%20It's%20not.&f=false

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

February 3 nutshell

Rose-Marie kindly shared this program of a reading of Robert Hayden’s poem, Those Winter Sundays. https://youtu.be/XzqW6s5NsTM

at minute 7, Bill Murray reads; at minute 30 or so, Moses Ingram reads. At the end you hear

President Biden read it...

The discussion in between as Rose-Marie remarked, is much like what happens in our weekly discussions. Each of us is touched in different ways. It is special to be privy to hearing two professional actors interpret the poem so differently.

Nutshell: of Feb. 3 poems.

Today's discussion left me with a great sense of humility. Race in today's culture, is a loaded gun of a topic. How do white readers discuss an Afro-American poem-- and what to make of it, perhaps could be subject of an entire book. This is where I go to my own heart... and then to the community of readers that makes O Pen. This is not a group for whom anyone can make sweeping generalizations.

What I love, is that each week, people who love words gather to read aloud poems from a variety of sources and share responses, associations, gleanings, stabs at understanding.

My attempt to summarize an hour and a half of discussion is not fair to the richness of the discussion.

I humbly offer the best I can offer at this moment in time. Is it fair to the poems? I ask. Is it even fair to those who were present on zoom? I don't pretend to offer anything but imperfect glimpses into heartfelt contributions. I so appreciate each person's sharing. Thank you all.

The Power of Hope Today: Yes, a 7th grader, a child who shows signs of being a nascent poet... who flings the anaphor "Today's hope" five times, but gives a sense of truth of experience, an attempt to understand how to "peer"/beyond/the lingering barrier... She doesn't make it plural, does not make metaphor to say what that is... but leaves us with the last two lines... the hope of/today.

The remainder of the poems as mentioned, recommended by Dante Micheaux.

As from a Quiver of Arrows: Title poem of one of many works by Carl Phillips. I am reminded that when I make selections of poems, usually it is not about a representative work by one poet, or to discuss the work in general produced. Rather, there is something about the poem which calls out to me to say, this poem is important to discuss! What intrigued me was the sense of incessant questions being shot, and no space between stanzas to allow them to register in any target due to enjambments. The first stanza is contained, but the rest of the 7 that follow are unfinished, enjambed into the first line of the following stanza. Sylvia reminded us that Phillips is influenced by Audrey Lorde. We examined the metaphor of the "quiver" of us... who we are after we are no longer, what to remember, dismiss... how to deal with grief... with loss. Whether cupid and valentines day, Saint Sebastian, or a warrior carefully arranging his quiver so the right arrow is delivered at the right time... we all found the poem enjoyable allowing us many directions for contemplation.

MMDCCXII1/2: Such a title! Why the Roman numerals? 2713 1/2 doesn't elucidate a thing . One thought is roman numerals and New York apartments accommodating an influx of people bringing their history and assimilating as they can to whatever America is offering. The "one half" leaves conjecture as to the subdividing. 14 lines begs examination of sonnet structure... and the craft of the poem certainly is outstanding. The opening line repeated in the last, with the "cruelty" turned plural makes a poignant punch. The "hasp", the repeated double o of door, single o of lock, slumlord, both of us -- but who is "us"? in which room... and who and how is the dance "like electrons out of each other's way"?

Haunting and powerful.

Do check out this strong portfolio of photographs http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2015/05/lorenzo-thomas-mmdccxiii-12.html

Dictionary of the Wolf. Another sonnet... quotations... all from Lincoln? Juxtaposed with

with the second stanza. Who is the grizzled axman? More by this poet perhaps gives clue: Check out this Italian website (but in English, scroll down: https://poetassigloveintiuno.blogspot.com/2016/10/melvin-b-tolson-19214.html

We commented on how the density of of the language disguised at first the end rhymes.

Noted as a modernist, indeed, Tolson is brilliant in his combining form to serve a subtext .

The Cradle Logic of Autumn:

About Wright’s work, critic Harold Bloom wrote, “As an immensely learned poet, Wright tries to defend himself against incessant allusiveness by stripping his diction, sometimes to an astonishing sparseness…

We limped through the words of Molinari (who provided the epigraph) -- I am thinking it is this Argentinian poet speaking of a long sadness.. dry flowers, parrots, a certain river of flame? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Molinari

In four stanzas, a sense of imminent death... meditation allowing us to hook into what might be familiar...

What is cradle logic? The words will not tell and yet, there is a sense one need not know more than their sound, taken on faith.

Menace to: to what? to whom? Powerful impact which promoted quite a discussion! Can money nurture... double disappointment when what should is contaminated.. repeated enemy and enemies ...

The note about the poem allowed us to see the point that as white people, we do not begin to understand how it is to be black, where one's ID is on the skin.

Without the note, one thinks of how we are spied on by our connections to digital devices... but we are the ones inviting the spy by our use... connected but disembodied.

Bernie brought up SURJ: https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org

Poems for Feb. 3

I love Groundhog's day where here in the North, the shifting to days with more light is still teetering in balance-- will he or won't he see his shadow? Last week's poems were the sort that do not deliver a "terminal pleasure", a term Marvin Bell jokingly uses for those poems ending up in a distinct bus station.

I thank everyone for embracing the diversity poetry offers. What poems "push the envelope" for you? and how do you respond? What is it you seek in a poem?

The world was dazzled by Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem -- another one, written for Tracy K. Smith on her inauguration as National Poet Laureate is In This Place (An American Lyric). (5 min. video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWrsEtqPFNw)

I was tempted to use the poems of Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí — Featured Poet in Mud Review December issue: https://mudseasonreview.com/2020/12/poetry-issue-53/.

Good questions such as: what isn’t propelled by hunger,/the mouth of the beast unhinged inside us/like a broken door, always wanting & wanting? and in his Ode to Grief: orisha ta o le ba binu, what ritual do you require?

compelling sharings such as :I am learning: nothing ruins a man/more than the dirty receipts of all that he tried to be/ but failed at, a life imagined but never birthed.

The line up starts with the 3rd place runner-up youth in the competition for the inaugural poem, a 7th grader from Virginia, Gabrielle Marshall. 1st place runner up: Hallie Knight, 17, a HS senior from Jacksonville, FL; (To Rebuild) 2nd place: Mina King, 17, from Shreveport, LA; (In Pursuit of Dawn)

In honor of Black History month, a selection from poets recommended by Dante Micheaux, visiting poet at Writers and Books.

The Power of Hope Today by Gabrielle Marshall

As from a Quiver of Arrows by Carl Phillips

MMDCCXIII ½ by Lorenzo Thomas

The Dictionary of the Wolf by Melvin B. Tolson

The Cradle Logic of Autumn by Jay Wright

Menace to by Taylor Johnson

see Nutshell for discussion.

Thursday, January 28, 2021

Poems for January 27

Because of the Inauguration, no meeting of poetry, however we had the gift of a national youth poet laureate, in addition to the inaugural address!

Amanda Gorman's poem, We Climb the Hill: https://www.nationalmemo.com/amanda-gorman-

Much is in the press about her: poem https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2021/01/19/958077401/history-has-its-eyes-on-us-poet-amanda-gorman-seeks-right-words-for-inauguration?fbclid=IwAR2cjEvAfM3dGEZ51x7-K0mPukhQr7eZJitNZPmBw2wRIfcxUbKirTRhyW8

Her poem for Thanksgiving https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/speakers/438889/Amanda-Gorman?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=1581483563&utm_content=492911472127&utm_term=amanda%20gorman&gclid=Cj0KCQiAjKqABhDLARIsABbJrGmBYD8Jmx7Dij_EBxCw83XkOAlDzyQX_vy7lS0A74ZwF7J33csqCdMaArxtEALw_wcB

Back to poetry...

Roman Poem Number Thirteen by June Jordan

The Admission by Marvin Bell (1963)

The Alphabet by Marvin Bell

Yes by Marvin Bell

Song on Porcelain by Czeslaw Milosz

Dutchman’s Breeches by Mary Swander

Yellowjackets by Yusef Komunyakaa

What do you think June Jordan means by a "roman poem" ? How are the poems from Marvin Bell still pertinent to today, (although The Admission was written almost 60 years ago)? The Milosz poem was suggested by Judith, having heard a lecture offered through the Frick on Messien porcelain. In view of the storming of the capital the week prior to the inauguration, it seemed a fitting "scant on the destruction of war" to adopt her expression about Milosz referring to the violent destruction of the 1000 piece Swan collection made for a Germano-Polish magnate of the early 18th c. There are only 100 pieces left of this ornate original (exhorbitantly expensive) set after the Soviet army came through Messien and not only used it for target practice but deliberately ran over it with tanks.

Reminders of spring come with Swander poem... and in the final poem, a fine portrait of the hard life of a worker—and through metaphor, the terrible, clumsy beauty of his final moments.

Nutshell:

June Jordan: We puzzled about the title -- are there other "Roman Poems" (I only saw #5) -- is Thirteen a symbolic XIII in some way? Who is Eddie? Although we didn't discuss the last line... Perhaps he is "my love".

This is a more complex poem than perhaps we had time to understand. What is choice? What kinds of choices are no choice at all? The second line reminded us of a CNN screen... or current zoom rooms.

The line breaks with "last" and "past" accentuate what seems like a choice between a rock and a hard place, i.e. neither desirable. The opening is haunting -- "Only our hearts will argue hard against - the news and it looks at first to be a choice between "the small lights letting in the news" and those who choose between the worst possibility and death; the [temporary] winners of a war and the war that kills us all. But she goes on-- and twice the question is posed "who can choose". She is not shy to give answer: There/is no choice in these.

If you have any doubt that killing and war are horrific and leave no winners, this poem will be sure to extinguish that thought.

We thought "dry gas" domination a metaphor for the extra "umph" in cold weather when the car doesn't start and a little dry gas does the trick. Poems of Exile, published in 1974. I'm not sure when this poem was written.

Marvin Bell:

These three poems are from a marvelous interview with Marvin at age 83 -- https://decembermag.org/an-interview-with-marvin-bell-and-three-poems/

The first, written when he was 33; the second at age 39, the last at age 78.

1) The Admission. Another poem that is challenging, and yet, filled with recognizable themes and familiar words. To start with the title... why The Admission? Some of the thoughts: an admission is an acknowledgement, and in the case of being admitted to something, allows/permits a potentially life-changing experience. It would seem the poem is addressing a couple from the angles of both in time and space, with the implied past of bridges burn behind... the "landscape"... We discussed at length the mysterious "it" after the beginning of the second sentence: "The surroundings affect us;/it is a cause /for love/that you call it/something logical,/taking pleasure in/our finding/ ourselves here/

Why do words matter when our actions speak louder? and yet it is the affirmation, confirmation of words that lead us to understanding. David S. brought up Henry James and the plight of the man who never declares himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_in_the_Jungle

There is very little punctuation, only a few semi-colons... and one senses the poet is not trying for a poem that "has a terminal pleasure" but rather painting a sense of time passing... an imbedded stumbling "I have not turned towards you" leading to "before I forget... /openings I had not thought of /turning toward" --

to tell you, and to tell you/to tell me. After reading it for the 20th time, I'm still not sure "I've got it"... What does it mean to say to someone, "I love you"... how would you say what it means to you? For sure, one agrees, "words have meaning... no gift will do". Admission is not a gift.

2) The Alphabet. Ah! what happens when you make 26 letters your own? I love that the reader is given the enigmatic hint: "lines between birthdays"... three parts: how "people" use words (commonalities, but how differently we all manage); the importance of developing your own voice... individuation of a proper name...

Bernie brought up the idea -- that one's name [i.e. one's life live up to it] be a blessing. In the third part,

facing the common road, like everyone... the as yet unvoiced expression that his job will be to find his way.

We spoke a bit about encouragement as well: to earn encourage requires courage to be willing and able to try out your own voice.

3) Yes . We live differently if we see ourselves as part of the whole of life. What will our ashes contribute?

Almost 40 years later, we see an echo of "The Alphabet" -- everything interconnected -- and imagine the possibilities of that! You think we're goners? There is a satisfying lyricism in the first 10 lines, describing the sensual world; the final 4 that "intangible reach of our being"-- a sonnet-sized confirmation of positivity.

Czeslaw Milosz: for an accompaniment to the Frick Lecture on Porcelain ("cocktails with a curator"

For a link to MEISSEN PORCELAIN: https://www.frick.org/tags/meissen-porcelain) this article from the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-european-obsession-with-porcelain

To appreciate the Meissen swans swimming in the bullrushes, all in relief: https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/news/article/the-meissen-swan-service/

In three stanzas, Milosz paints a vision of the end of WW2, "Of all things broken and lost/The porcelain troubles me most". The present tense of the verb in the opening and closing stanzas, the flashback in second stanza with the haunting scene at dawn "the earth wakes up, and moans..."... the addition of

"Sir" -- as if talking to one of the soldiers in the column marching by the destruction...

"In sorrow and pain and cost/Sir, porcelain troubles me most.".

David recalled "Is Paris Burning" -- and we all commented on how higher artistry is destroyed in war as symbolic vanquishing of the "enemy".

Imagine, 4 years to created 2,200 pieces... and in one day, destroyed, used as target practice, crushed by tanks... as Judith put it, "a descant on the destruction of war."

Mary Swander: June brought up that she is involved with healthy food systems and gave this lnk. https://www.agarts.org/ We enjoyed the rich references, how the difficulty of getting through winter eases with thought of the double bloom of names and flowers-- their hard work of waking up... the hard work of survival... I love the 5th line, "breeches hang on the line" -- both referring to the six blossoms... and faith, hope restored perhaps. We didn't go into the Dutch names van (of): dry, wilt, sickle, patter, water, glen. The sounds were enough... skimming the slough -- I love that slough, if pronounced as "stuff" means shedding skins, like snakes... "slooo/slou rhyming with cow" means wet, swampy ground.

The same with "rout" -- to root about, or rout out...

Yusef Komunyakaa: For a title, "Yellowjackets", it is only the cause of the scene... where the poem actually seems to be about the horse at the end of a work day. Wonderful sounds and images... and Marne informed us that yellowjackets do not sting at night... Taken from "American Life in Poetry", Kooser says, the poems" shows us a fine portrait of the hard life of a worker—in this case, a horse—and, through metaphor, the terrible, clumsy beauty of his final moments. What an incredible last image... the whole/Beautiful, blue-black sky/Fell on his back.

Not sure why he choose "goofy" for calmness... perhaps to create that sense of "clumsiness"?

the text I read at the end of the session.

https://perugiapress.org/2021/01/emerging-biwoc-poet-spotlight-5/

Destiny Birdsong

Just in case you haven’t seen other inaugural poems and want to keep the spirit of last Wednesday:

https://poets.org/inaugural-poems-history?mc_cid=a80d7b45b3&mc_eid=248758c95e

[1] Dutchman's Breeches: the flower ressembles a pair of pantaloons hung upside down. https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=dicu

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Poems for January 13

As if to Demonstrate an Eclipse by Billy Collins

Of The Empire by Mary Oliver

Darkness of the Subjunctive by Paul Hoover

Elegy for the Disappeared by Forrest Gander

let it go – the by e.e. cummings

Mobile by Sarah Strong

It was difficult to choose poems this week, given the tumultuous chaos in the capital on Epiphany... a very dark day for America on the day traditionally celebrating the return of light. Note sent out with the poems:

Dear All,

I am grateful for these groups, O Pen and Poetry Oasis that celebrate the power of words to bring understanding and healing and poems that allow us to study the care with which they are made.

When I choose poems, I am looking those which reflect a poet’s love of words, the care of crafting sentences, a message which reflects the hand of someone who is paying attention to the world in an multi-faceted and empathetic manner. In turn, by discussing, we share reflections on how these poems help us navigate this complex world mindfully and with compassion.

I hope the line-up for next Wednesday will not disappoint in this regard.

I am pleased to share that this month’s curator of a poem-a-day is by Fatimah Asghar. In this spirit of continuing to learn, and foster better understanding of others, especially those we don’t know, I encourage you to read her poem chosen by the American Academy

as introduction to her and her work: : “Ghareeb”

https://poets.org/poem/ghareeb?mc_cid=daed18edde&mc_eid=248758c95e

I was pleased to read her choice for today which felt like a gentle introduction both to Sudan, but also Arabic customs, and that “cocktail” shaken together of old and new, Sudanese and American.