Romantics by Lisel Mueller; To The People Who Have Resisted the Urge to Push an Asian Person Into the Path of a Moving Train by Bao Phi; I Ask My Mother to Sing by Li-Young Lee; My Mother Says by Amy Chan; Lessons from Darkness by Anita Barrows; May Song by Wendell Berry
Romantics:
Jan suggested that we listen to the piano intermezzi by Brahms. All of them are beautiful love songs. Below the op. 118 #2 we listened to to accompany Lisel Mueller's poem.
What might biographers have said 150 years ago about Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann as opposed to "modern" biographers and their more brash manner? We have a hint seeing the adverb "softly" next to Eros, the old-fashioned language of a gaze "anchored/in someone's eyes (that) could unseat a heart". The air is not redolent with XYZ but rather redolent air (i.e. filled with fragrance) trembles and shimmers. The "question of our age" could refer to first love as a teen vs. love decades later, or love in modern times. Listening to the op. 118 #2 Intermezzo, you feel the "meshing" of melody which echoes beautifully the feelings between these two people.
Discussion included comments about America being a culture revolving around youth; "egalitarian language" expresses a more black and white openness lacking the subtlety of 19th century nuances. Also brought up was a discussion of other cultures and the impact of technology.
The "late-blooming roses" and "dark cascades of leaves" allows a shade of premonition of death in the silence where only the landscape, real and metaphoric speak.
To the people...
The long title immediately shocks. Who would push an Asian person (or anyone!) into the path of moving train deliberately?!
The opening stanza speaks of universal concerns for all fellow men.
The point of the first parenthetical becomes clearer with the second, as if being Asian in America interrupts what should be a universal experience. Giving up a seat to a man who can't stand to sit with his back to the door has morphed to turning your back on someone.
The third parenthetical could be the opening sentence of a sermon. Indeed... "Every human being alive and dead is a cautionary tale." Followed by "Before this, there never was a before this." one senses a danger perhaps of historical amnesia, or a repeating whirl with no beginning or end. The final stanza brings up considerations of trust and faith. What if indeed, our purpose as humans to all "turn our backs" to a wind we can't see. The poet doesn't say, trust the wind, but invites the reader to imagine we are sails, pushed by the wind, and going with the flow.
The discussion demonstrates how powerfully a poem can elicit discussion and demand deep reflection. Many took offense at the label "entrenched white supremacist" in the poet's comment about his poem. Many shared horror stories about the very type of attack specifically against Asians, Chinese against Japanese. Could the same poem be written about other groups targeted for genocide, about being Black in the USA?
As humans, we tend to categorize, lump and generalize into stereotypes; we "otherize" in strange ways and it would seem any culture has a bit of xenophobia. The discussion addressed the multiplicity of points of view: compare the US response to Indigeneous Americans vs. Canada's response to "the First People" ; or the difference in reception of a white person in Japan in three different time periods/circumstances (WW2, as an executive decades later and as a tourist).
Kathy brought up Paisley Rekdal's book West: A Translation[1] which recreates the experience of Chinese workers building the railroad in the West and starts as an elegy, with 56 Chinese characters. It continues by expanding with a poem for each character.
Marna spoke about her Japanese artist-poet friend she grew up with[2] and how one can be prejudiced towards a culture. She also shared the experience of a class of 5 year olds at Writers and Books where a Chinese boy was conditioned by his father to hate any Japanese-- and refused to deal with a Japanese student in the class.
The poem is complex, addressing not only anti-Asian sentiment, but also the fundamental response of a parent to protect a child and the poet's experience as an Asian in America. Listening to him read, whispering the parentheticals, threads in a haunting tone of ghosts. For more about the poet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Phi It is important
I ask my mother to sing . A distinct contrast from the other poem, this one expresses a tender universal recognition for memory and places once lived, but now far away. The water metaphor,
accentuated by the liquid consonants in the 3rd stanza meshes the idea of water overturning lily, only to right itself again, with the song that continues to flow regardless of the tears.
My Mother Says: More singing and meshing, and a beautiful on-going transfer of grace. The note to the poem quotes Adrienne Rich, in a surprising way, very different from an activist tone we might associate with her. "Poetry asks of us, "a grace in what we bear". Many poems have been written with the title "Grace", one of which by Joy Harjo, former National Poet Laureate who shows how difficult it is to do so. https://poets.org/poem/grace-1 We were reminded of the spiritual uplift of Maya Angelou, as well as Li-Young Lee, where the mother's grace (catching light on water, reflected in her face) is gifted, in her daughter's song. Simple, heartfelt beauty that leaves us with shivers.
Lessons from Darkness: The poem starts with a stark philosophical statement: Everything you love will perish. I read again, jump into the mundane details and delight at the fragment: "A magician's act: Presto!" and the jeweled raspberry preserves, going into the practical manifestation of a mother's love for her child, and meditation that restores faith that the world goes on. A beautiful unfolding, where temporary may well be, but has a way of repeating.
As one participant put it, an invitation to contemplate here and now, afterlife.
The discussion brought up the Ise Shrine in Japan, where the Shinto belief in tokowaka (常若), renewing objects to maintain a strong sense of divine prestige in pursuit of eternity, and as a way of passing building techniques from one generation to the next, is practised. This site explains the complexity of planning ahead and much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine
May Song: Berry continues this sense of connection, letting go, accepting transcience... How reassuring to think of living taking care of itself by simply living, enjoying the "privilege"while it can! The unusual "inner" example that "flies" from a subway tunnel, ressembles Luther's darkness with the hole in it... but it is not a train, but a window -- an opening to see out,
and what is seen is this "freehold of life" where the champion is weeds! I love how he sneaks in the tenacity of life, despite humans, how it is all about us, even if we don't deserve it, cannot see the beauty in weeds "making use" of what we might call "useless".
[1] https://westtrain.org/click on "enter" to experience a video, multiple voices, the Chinese poems
all part of the 150th anniversary of the "Golden Spike".
this is the first photo: https://westtrain.org/west-a-translation-video-page/
[2] See her current art and poetry here: https://members.aawaa.net/artists/susan-kitazawa
