Sir David Brewster's Toy
In this tube you see
At the far end a batch of
Colored-glass debris--
Which, however, grows
Upon reflection to an
Intricate pied rose,
Flushed with sun, that might,
Set in some cathedral's wall,
Paraphrase the light.
Now, at the least shake,
The many colors jumble
And abruptly make
The rose rearrange,
Adding to form and splendor
The release of change.
Rattle it afresh
And see its coruscating
Flinders quickly mesh,
Fashioning once more
A fine sixfold gaudiness
Never seen before.
Many prophets claim
That Heaven's joys, though endless,
Are not twice the same;
This kaleidoscope
Can, in that connection, give
Exercise in hope.
Richard Wilbur 2004
Wilbur offers us a sweet and simple poem about the joys of a kaleidescope--a fragmentary, collection of broken glass and shards of light. He starts the poem simply enough, with the humble description "tube" and "a batch of/ colored glass debris." However, when one turns it to the light, it reforms into a rose. The choice of "upon reflection" refers not only to the glass, but to the watcher--really looking at the light helps one find the beauty. Using "intricate pied rose" to describe the shape uses language to convey the delicacy of the kalidescope. The phrase's consonants dance along the tongue, reminding us of the beauty of the rose.
The rose is not only an apt image, but a reference to Christ, and to divine beauty. Wilbur heightens this connection by comparing it to a cathedral rose--the enormous stained glass mosaics in cathedrals (cf. Notre Dame, famously). Paraphrasing the light, these windows capture the glory of the world--paraphrase it. Beauty like this selects a piece of the holy world and presents it in a small way.
But, as one of my friends said (to whom in particular this poem is dedicated)--"This is just an idea. It’s transient. But I hope you can relate." The kalidescope demonstrates this, tentatively.... This world... is just an endlessly tumbling tube of beauty, if only we can see it, if only we can point it at the light. Infinitely varied, infinitely changing, each image shatters and reforms into something different, something else beautiful.
This is something that I think we forget as we get older, or that we struggle with. It's so easy to forget how beautiful the world is, to get caught up on the last image or excited for the next one, not willing to let the changes happen around us... But, when pointed to the light, what could be more beautiful than our revolving tube of the things of this world?
Monday, December 25, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Poem of the Week 12/18/2006: Another Sonnet to Black Itself
Another Sonnet to Black Itself
Thou Black, wherein all colors are compos'd,
And unto which they all at last return,
Thou color of the sun where it doth burn,
And shadow, where it cools, in thee is clos'd,
Whatever nature can, or hath dispos'd
In any other hue: from thee do rise
Those tempers and complexions, which discols'd,
As parts fo thee, do work as mysteries,
Of that thy hidden power; when thou dost reign
The characters of fate shine in the skies,
And tell us what the heavens do ordain,
But when earth's common light shines to our eyes,
Thou so retir'st thy self, that thy disdain
All revelation unto man denies.
Edward Herbert 1620
I choose this poem this week because it is close to the shortest day of the year, and so the blackest day. He opens the poem writing about the mystery of black: how it contains all colors, yet conceals them when they are together. Black is the beginning and end of color, to Herbert. It is also the end of matter, for he refers to the color of charring when something as firey as a sun burns something. He further associates black and the sun with his discussion of the black of shadows; black is both the power of the sun and teh absence of it, the light and the dark, Black is all things (colors), and it is the destruction of things.
As Herbert points out, black contains much mystery, a fact I felt more acutely recently when the school's power went out. It was so strange to walk at night without light, and yet it is only within the last hundred years or so that our nights are so lit. Maybe less.
But anyway, with that taken, the second half of the poem becomes more potent. He writes that black allows us to see the stars, which foretell the future. In the daytime, the stars are hidden, and so we can't see the future. We know very little during the daytime, when light is everywhere. So now that there is always light (and few stars), we know less. Hm.
Thou Black, wherein all colors are compos'd,
And unto which they all at last return,
Thou color of the sun where it doth burn,
And shadow, where it cools, in thee is clos'd,
Whatever nature can, or hath dispos'd
In any other hue: from thee do rise
Those tempers and complexions, which discols'd,
As parts fo thee, do work as mysteries,
Of that thy hidden power; when thou dost reign
The characters of fate shine in the skies,
And tell us what the heavens do ordain,
But when earth's common light shines to our eyes,
Thou so retir'st thy self, that thy disdain
All revelation unto man denies.
Edward Herbert 1620
I choose this poem this week because it is close to the shortest day of the year, and so the blackest day. He opens the poem writing about the mystery of black: how it contains all colors, yet conceals them when they are together. Black is the beginning and end of color, to Herbert. It is also the end of matter, for he refers to the color of charring when something as firey as a sun burns something. He further associates black and the sun with his discussion of the black of shadows; black is both the power of the sun and teh absence of it, the light and the dark, Black is all things (colors), and it is the destruction of things.
As Herbert points out, black contains much mystery, a fact I felt more acutely recently when the school's power went out. It was so strange to walk at night without light, and yet it is only within the last hundred years or so that our nights are so lit. Maybe less.
But anyway, with that taken, the second half of the poem becomes more potent. He writes that black allows us to see the stars, which foretell the future. In the daytime, the stars are hidden, and so we can't see the future. We know very little during the daytime, when light is everywhere. So now that there is always light (and few stars), we know less. Hm.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Poem of the Week 12/11/2006: from Duino Elegies: First Elegy
from Duino Elegies: First Elegy
And if I cried, who'd listen to me in those angelic
orders? Even if one of them suddenly held me
to his heart, I'd vanish in his overwhelming
presence. Because beauty's nothing
but the start of terror we can hardly bear,
and we adore it because of the serene scorn
it could kill us with. Every angel's terrifying.
So I control myself and choke back the lure
of my dark cry. Ah, who can we turn to,
then? Neither angels nor men,
and the animals already know by instinct
we're not comfortably at home
in our translated world. Maybe what's left
for us is some tree on a hillside we can look at
day after day, one of yesterday's streets,
and the perverse affection of a habit
that liked us so much it never let go.
And the night, oh the night when the wind
full of outer space gnaws at our faces; that wished for,
gentle, deceptive one waiting painfully for the lonely
heart--she'd stay on for anyone. Is she easier on lovers?
But they use each other to hide their fate.
You still don't understand? Throw the emptiness in
your arms out into that space we breathe; maybe birds
will feel the air thinning as they fly deeper into themselves.
Ranier Maria Rilke (trans. A. Poulin Jr.) 1922
I will write about this poem later, when my mind can sort a little bit about it. Some poems need to be lived with, digested, absorbed.
And if I cried, who'd listen to me in those angelic
orders? Even if one of them suddenly held me
to his heart, I'd vanish in his overwhelming
presence. Because beauty's nothing
but the start of terror we can hardly bear,
and we adore it because of the serene scorn
it could kill us with. Every angel's terrifying.
So I control myself and choke back the lure
of my dark cry. Ah, who can we turn to,
then? Neither angels nor men,
and the animals already know by instinct
we're not comfortably at home
in our translated world. Maybe what's left
for us is some tree on a hillside we can look at
day after day, one of yesterday's streets,
and the perverse affection of a habit
that liked us so much it never let go.
And the night, oh the night when the wind
full of outer space gnaws at our faces; that wished for,
gentle, deceptive one waiting painfully for the lonely
heart--she'd stay on for anyone. Is she easier on lovers?
But they use each other to hide their fate.
You still don't understand? Throw the emptiness in
your arms out into that space we breathe; maybe birds
will feel the air thinning as they fly deeper into themselves.
Ranier Maria Rilke (trans. A. Poulin Jr.) 1922
I will write about this poem later, when my mind can sort a little bit about it. Some poems need to be lived with, digested, absorbed.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Poem of the Week 12/6/2006: To Autumn
To Autumn
1.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
John Keats September 19, 1819
I know--it's not Autumn (indeed, we are full on along in Winter), but Keats felt right for today. His delicate, yearning stanzas and serene tone feel just right for this morning. Plus, notice the focus on age in the last stanza, and the quiet, tender grief that comes along with it. It seems as if the first stanza should be positive, for it is full of words like "sweet," "plump," and "ripe," but I sense some kind of tension or illness. Perhaps the opening of mist puts a damper over the exuberant abundance we find (the layers of flowers upon flowers). Also, it contains friendship and maturity rather than youth and romantic love. This seems to be the central tension in the poem--that between youth and age. "To Autumn" asks, what happens when youth is gone? What is there to love or mourn in age?
Keats achieves a tremendous amount of distance in the end of the poem. By positioning the animals and humans in different places--a hill, the sky, a hidden garden-croft--Keats puts their small noises far off. This has the effect of making both Spring and youth seem far away.
Though the poem asks us not to think of the songs of Spring, that Autumn (age) has its melody, too, one might argue that Spring is everywhere in the background here. There are flowers, bees, and brooks, and the sheep are identified as "full-grown lambs." Keats draws life in terms of Spring, which may place the emphasis on Spring nonetheless.
But who knows. Part of the achievement of this poem is Keats' ability to balance the beauty and abundance of Autumn with the poem's sad tone. "To Autumn" is like a psalm, a hymn, a lament: beautiful and tearing, ripe and sad. Keats has produced a poem of autumn, a poem of beauty and age. In it, there is a passing of grand poetic metaphors or gestures; these are replaced by a slow and solemnly beautiful three stanzas.
1.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
John Keats September 19, 1819
I know--it's not Autumn (indeed, we are full on along in Winter), but Keats felt right for today. His delicate, yearning stanzas and serene tone feel just right for this morning. Plus, notice the focus on age in the last stanza, and the quiet, tender grief that comes along with it. It seems as if the first stanza should be positive, for it is full of words like "sweet," "plump," and "ripe," but I sense some kind of tension or illness. Perhaps the opening of mist puts a damper over the exuberant abundance we find (the layers of flowers upon flowers). Also, it contains friendship and maturity rather than youth and romantic love. This seems to be the central tension in the poem--that between youth and age. "To Autumn" asks, what happens when youth is gone? What is there to love or mourn in age?
Keats achieves a tremendous amount of distance in the end of the poem. By positioning the animals and humans in different places--a hill, the sky, a hidden garden-croft--Keats puts their small noises far off. This has the effect of making both Spring and youth seem far away.
Though the poem asks us not to think of the songs of Spring, that Autumn (age) has its melody, too, one might argue that Spring is everywhere in the background here. There are flowers, bees, and brooks, and the sheep are identified as "full-grown lambs." Keats draws life in terms of Spring, which may place the emphasis on Spring nonetheless.
But who knows. Part of the achievement of this poem is Keats' ability to balance the beauty and abundance of Autumn with the poem's sad tone. "To Autumn" is like a psalm, a hymn, a lament: beautiful and tearing, ripe and sad. Keats has produced a poem of autumn, a poem of beauty and age. In it, there is a passing of grand poetic metaphors or gestures; these are replaced by a slow and solemnly beautiful three stanzas.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Poem of the Week 11/27/2006: The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundew
The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundew
An ingenuity too astonishing
to be quite fortuitous is
this bog full of sundews, sphagnum-
lined and shaped like a teacup.
A step
down and you're into it: a
wilderness swallows you up:
ankle-, then knee-, then midriff-
to-shoulder-deep in wetfooted
understory, an overhead
spruce-tamarack horizon hinting
you'll never get out of here.
But the sun
among the sundews, down there,
is so bright, an underfoot
webwork of carnivorous rubies,
a star-swarm thick as the gnats
they're set to catch, delectable
double-faced cockleburs, each
hair-tip a sticky mirror
afire with sunlight, a million
of them and again a million,
each mirror a trap set to
unhand unbelieving,
that either
a First Cause said once, "Let there
be sundews," and there were, or they've
made their way here unaided
other than by that backhand, round-
about refusal to assume responsibility
known as Natural Selection.
But the sun
underfoot is so dazzling
down there among the sundews,
there is so much light
in the cup that, looking,
you start to fall upward.
Amy Clampitt 1983
Some explicatory notes: this poem tells the story of a (wo?)man walking into a bog and falling into a deep, marshy area of sundews. I don't know how this works, and I am too tired to look it up, but that is what I get from the poem. She falls, but, slightly afraid of dying, sees the sundews shining out. They are so beautiful, that it seems that she is falling the opposite way.
That is an incredibly crude explanation of this poem, but my hope is that this little summary will help you parse out the poem yourself. Maybe it will help? It is a beautiful poem - light imagery always gets me.
I chose it because it's snowing here, and I was amused at the juxtaposition. Goodnight!
An ingenuity too astonishing
to be quite fortuitous is
this bog full of sundews, sphagnum-
lined and shaped like a teacup.
A step
down and you're into it: a
wilderness swallows you up:
ankle-, then knee-, then midriff-
to-shoulder-deep in wetfooted
understory, an overhead
spruce-tamarack horizon hinting
you'll never get out of here.
But the sun
among the sundews, down there,
is so bright, an underfoot
webwork of carnivorous rubies,
a star-swarm thick as the gnats
they're set to catch, delectable
double-faced cockleburs, each
hair-tip a sticky mirror
afire with sunlight, a million
of them and again a million,
each mirror a trap set to
unhand unbelieving,
that either
a First Cause said once, "Let there
be sundews," and there were, or they've
made their way here unaided
other than by that backhand, round-
about refusal to assume responsibility
known as Natural Selection.
But the sun
underfoot is so dazzling
down there among the sundews,
there is so much light
in the cup that, looking,
you start to fall upward.
Amy Clampitt 1983
Some explicatory notes: this poem tells the story of a (wo?)man walking into a bog and falling into a deep, marshy area of sundews. I don't know how this works, and I am too tired to look it up, but that is what I get from the poem. She falls, but, slightly afraid of dying, sees the sundews shining out. They are so beautiful, that it seems that she is falling the opposite way.
That is an incredibly crude explanation of this poem, but my hope is that this little summary will help you parse out the poem yourself. Maybe it will help? It is a beautiful poem - light imagery always gets me.
I chose it because it's snowing here, and I was amused at the juxtaposition. Goodnight!
Monday, November 20, 2006
Poem of the Week 11/20/2006: A Few Moments
A Few Moments
The dwarf pine on marsh grounds holds its head up: a dark rag.
But what you see is nothing compared to the roots,
the widening, secretly groping, deathless or half-
deathless root system.
I you she he also put roots out.
Outside our common will.
Outside the City.
Rain drifts from the summer sky that's pale as milk.
It is as if my five senses were hooked up to some other creature
that moves with the same stubborn flow
as the runners in white circling the track as the night comes misting in.
by Tomas Transtomer
translated by Robert Bly 2001
Robert Bly's interest is in poetry that is highly metaphorical; he is one of the most vocal members of the "Deep Image" school of poetry, which writes images that harmonize with the spiritual interior of a human. Much of his work has been translating poets such as Transtomer, Vallejo, and others whose names I cannot remember. He asks for a poetry that is almost Biblical in the symbolism of its imagery, I suppose.
I read this poem as an articulation of man's subconscious. This subconscious is scattered, complex, growing, unknown, much like the imagery and form of this poem. Transtomer opens with an image establishing, on one level, the smallness of man: "the dwarf pine." He personifies the tree, for it holds its poor head up, "a small rag." The pine is usually a tall tree, but, as I remember, a dwarf pine is a species that cannot grow much higher than the height of a man (please somebody correct me if I am wrong!). Thus, in this image is the idea of something stunted, limited, meager. With the pine, "what you see is nothing compared to the roots."
This line, though, offers a second interpretation of the tree. It may not merely be a humble human, but man's visible, or conscious thoughts. What we see of what we think, for most, comprises little of actual existence. Most of existence, the subconscious, is a tangled web of roots. Like the subconscious, the roots are unknown and complex, "widening [and] secretly groping." Looking deeper into the image, we find that roots feed a tree, which implies that subconscious feeds us.
Speaking of subconscious, sleep is taking over my brain. I will finish this tomorrow, I hope. It is beautiful; I hope you all agree.
The dwarf pine on marsh grounds holds its head up: a dark rag.
But what you see is nothing compared to the roots,
the widening, secretly groping, deathless or half-
deathless root system.
I you she he also put roots out.
Outside our common will.
Outside the City.
Rain drifts from the summer sky that's pale as milk.
It is as if my five senses were hooked up to some other creature
that moves with the same stubborn flow
as the runners in white circling the track as the night comes misting in.
by Tomas Transtomer
translated by Robert Bly 2001
Robert Bly's interest is in poetry that is highly metaphorical; he is one of the most vocal members of the "Deep Image" school of poetry, which writes images that harmonize with the spiritual interior of a human. Much of his work has been translating poets such as Transtomer, Vallejo, and others whose names I cannot remember. He asks for a poetry that is almost Biblical in the symbolism of its imagery, I suppose.
I read this poem as an articulation of man's subconscious. This subconscious is scattered, complex, growing, unknown, much like the imagery and form of this poem. Transtomer opens with an image establishing, on one level, the smallness of man: "the dwarf pine." He personifies the tree, for it holds its poor head up, "a small rag." The pine is usually a tall tree, but, as I remember, a dwarf pine is a species that cannot grow much higher than the height of a man (please somebody correct me if I am wrong!). Thus, in this image is the idea of something stunted, limited, meager. With the pine, "what you see is nothing compared to the roots."
This line, though, offers a second interpretation of the tree. It may not merely be a humble human, but man's visible, or conscious thoughts. What we see of what we think, for most, comprises little of actual existence. Most of existence, the subconscious, is a tangled web of roots. Like the subconscious, the roots are unknown and complex, "widening [and] secretly groping." Looking deeper into the image, we find that roots feed a tree, which implies that subconscious feeds us.
Speaking of subconscious, sleep is taking over my brain. I will finish this tomorrow, I hope. It is beautiful; I hope you all agree.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Poem of the Week 11/13/2006: No Tears
No Tears
Roses, Christ knows how they got to be so lovely,
green skies over the city
in the evening
in the ephemeral of the years!
The yearning I have for that time
when one mark thirty was all I had,
yes, I counted them this way and that,
I trimmed my days to fit them,
days, what am I saying days: weeks on bread and plum mush
out of earthenware pots
brought from my village,
still under the reselects of native poverty,
how raw everything felt, how tremblingly beautiful!
What good is the luster conferred by European pundits,
the great name,
the pour le merite,
people who shoot their cuffs and tool on,
it's only the ephemeral that's beautiful,
looking back, the poverty,
the frowstiness* that didn't know what it was,
sobs, and stands in line for its dole,
what a wonderful Hades
that takes away the frowst,
and the pundits both--
please, no tears,
no one say: oh, I was so lonesome.
Gottfried Benn 2006
*Hot stuffy fustiness.
It would do one good to ask why Benn opens the poem with the image of a rose; roses are a symbol of Christ (not so subtly associated in this poem), but they, again obviously, have thorns. Beauty and pain go together, the first lesson of the rose.
That is certainly how the narrator feels in this poem; he longs for his time of poverty, the kind of romantic simplicity of a life without too many goods. In what I find to be the best line of the poem, he calls this, "the rushlight of native poverty." That is, this kind of poverty lights softly, intimately, beautifully. And the rush goes out in an instant, unlike the steady, green throb of city lights in the opening section.
Essentially, this poem is concerned with many of the things I am thinking about now: simplicity, modernity, loneliness, beauty, and the sky. It is perhaps not as dense as it could be, but why make it so? It speaks to me. Modern society is lonely, harsh, tearful. We of course must question a romantic notion of the past, but this seems to be authentic. My best friend and I were recently talking about idealizing certain moments of high school, even, because it was so raw and new. Life was less clogged, then, I think. Perhaps that is what Benn is talking about.
He almost implies some kind of force or violence in the modern world when he writes of "people who shoot their cuffs." This is the harshness that seeks glory, a great name, some kind of masculine, lustrous permanence.
Modernity even turns the "native poverty" into something sad and broken. Only in cities do long lines of homeless stretch out over the city, perhaps because the modern world requires so much of us. It tires us, breaks us, makes us cry.
To be in a place of poverty and simplicity, now that's a different story. There is real beauty, and so real connectedness with the world. Rather than the mass-produced, buzzing fluorescent lights all around the modern world, a simple world is intimate, personal, ephemeral: a tiny lit reed flickering in the night.
I don't mean this to be a rant, but I stumbled on this poem exactly at the right time for myself. It's funny how that happens.
Roses, Christ knows how they got to be so lovely,
green skies over the city
in the evening
in the ephemeral of the years!
The yearning I have for that time
when one mark thirty was all I had,
yes, I counted them this way and that,
I trimmed my days to fit them,
days, what am I saying days: weeks on bread and plum mush
out of earthenware pots
brought from my village,
still under the reselects of native poverty,
how raw everything felt, how tremblingly beautiful!
What good is the luster conferred by European pundits,
the great name,
the pour le merite,
people who shoot their cuffs and tool on,
it's only the ephemeral that's beautiful,
looking back, the poverty,
the frowstiness* that didn't know what it was,
sobs, and stands in line for its dole,
what a wonderful Hades
that takes away the frowst,
and the pundits both--
please, no tears,
no one say: oh, I was so lonesome.
Gottfried Benn 2006
*Hot stuffy fustiness.
It would do one good to ask why Benn opens the poem with the image of a rose; roses are a symbol of Christ (not so subtly associated in this poem), but they, again obviously, have thorns. Beauty and pain go together, the first lesson of the rose.
That is certainly how the narrator feels in this poem; he longs for his time of poverty, the kind of romantic simplicity of a life without too many goods. In what I find to be the best line of the poem, he calls this, "the rushlight of native poverty." That is, this kind of poverty lights softly, intimately, beautifully. And the rush goes out in an instant, unlike the steady, green throb of city lights in the opening section.
Essentially, this poem is concerned with many of the things I am thinking about now: simplicity, modernity, loneliness, beauty, and the sky. It is perhaps not as dense as it could be, but why make it so? It speaks to me. Modern society is lonely, harsh, tearful. We of course must question a romantic notion of the past, but this seems to be authentic. My best friend and I were recently talking about idealizing certain moments of high school, even, because it was so raw and new. Life was less clogged, then, I think. Perhaps that is what Benn is talking about.
He almost implies some kind of force or violence in the modern world when he writes of "people who shoot their cuffs." This is the harshness that seeks glory, a great name, some kind of masculine, lustrous permanence.
Modernity even turns the "native poverty" into something sad and broken. Only in cities do long lines of homeless stretch out over the city, perhaps because the modern world requires so much of us. It tires us, breaks us, makes us cry.
To be in a place of poverty and simplicity, now that's a different story. There is real beauty, and so real connectedness with the world. Rather than the mass-produced, buzzing fluorescent lights all around the modern world, a simple world is intimate, personal, ephemeral: a tiny lit reed flickering in the night.
I don't mean this to be a rant, but I stumbled on this poem exactly at the right time for myself. It's funny how that happens.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Poem of the Week 11/6/2006: Proust in the Waters
Proust in the Waters
Swimming along the bar of moon
the yellow scattered sleeping
arm of moon
on Balsam Lake
releasing the air
out of your mouth
the moon under your arm
tick of the brain
submerged. Tick
of the loon's heart
in the wet night thunder
below us
knowing its shore is the air
We love things which disappear
and are found
creatures who plummet
and become
an arrow.
To know the syllables
in a loon sentence
intricate
shift of preposition
that signals meridian
west south west.
The mother tongue
a bubble caught in my beak
releasing the air
of a language
Seeing no human in this moon storm
being naked in black water
you approach the corridor
such jewellery! Queen Anne's Lace!
and slide to fathoms.
The mouth swallows river morse
throws a sound
through the loom of liquid
against sky.
Where are you?
On the edge
of the moon bar
Michael Ondaatje 1984
This strange and dreamy poem is concerned with language, connection, fragmentation, time, and solitariness, I think. It traces the location of another person, finding her through a web of moonlit shards. We have an interesting unity between water, loon, moon, and human. My thinking is muddy, but this poem is not! It is clear and luminous, even. Sometimes these things plant themselves in your mind; you read them over and over, and the meaning only unfolds after time. These are the poems that you live, that you act out, that you must wait for. Poetry and life go together, remember?
Even writing that loosened my thoughts a bit; the end is a coming together. The only instance of actual, spoken dialog in the poem (the other words are merely "releasing the air," "a bubble caught in my beak," and "the river morse." It is as if the two people are learning to talk, or perhaps finding their words among lunacy (of love?). I think I picked this poem because of the moon, the fragmentation, and the beautiful language.
Swimming along the bar of moon
the yellow scattered sleeping
arm of moon
on Balsam Lake
releasing the air
out of your mouth
the moon under your arm
tick of the brain
submerged. Tick
of the loon's heart
in the wet night thunder
below us
knowing its shore is the air
We love things which disappear
and are found
creatures who plummet
and become
an arrow.
To know the syllables
in a loon sentence
intricate
shift of preposition
that signals meridian
west south west.
The mother tongue
a bubble caught in my beak
releasing the air
of a language
Seeing no human in this moon storm
being naked in black water
you approach the corridor
such jewellery! Queen Anne's Lace!
and slide to fathoms.
The mouth swallows river morse
throws a sound
through the loom of liquid
against sky.
Where are you?
On the edge
of the moon bar
Michael Ondaatje 1984
This strange and dreamy poem is concerned with language, connection, fragmentation, time, and solitariness, I think. It traces the location of another person, finding her through a web of moonlit shards. We have an interesting unity between water, loon, moon, and human. My thinking is muddy, but this poem is not! It is clear and luminous, even. Sometimes these things plant themselves in your mind; you read them over and over, and the meaning only unfolds after time. These are the poems that you live, that you act out, that you must wait for. Poetry and life go together, remember?
Even writing that loosened my thoughts a bit; the end is a coming together. The only instance of actual, spoken dialog in the poem (the other words are merely "releasing the air," "a bubble caught in my beak," and "the river morse." It is as if the two people are learning to talk, or perhaps finding their words among lunacy (of love?). I think I picked this poem because of the moon, the fragmentation, and the beautiful language.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Poem of the Week 10/30/2006: Megan
Megan
Megan, my dog,
You freed me from that churning water.
You turned and came back to me
as I screamed for you.
You glided to me over the sharp rocks
like a ballerina
getting ready to dance,
and you pulled me to shore.
You gazed into my eyes,
and comforted me
as I cried for my father.
Megan, thank you.
Sibella Campbell
Grade 3 - Northern Lights ABC
2006
Poetry is right language, Howard Nemerov writes, and this is true whether you are 9 or 19 or 109. The first stanza of this poem is spectacularly right language. Without the first and last lines, this poem could be as good as many of the poems written by people four or five times her age; the tightness and clarity of language make it strong and powerful.
Megan, my dog,
You freed me from that churning water.
You turned and came back to me
as I screamed for you.
You glided to me over the sharp rocks
like a ballerina
getting ready to dance,
and you pulled me to shore.
You gazed into my eyes,
and comforted me
as I cried for my father.
Megan, thank you.
Sibella Campbell
Grade 3 - Northern Lights ABC
2006
Poetry is right language, Howard Nemerov writes, and this is true whether you are 9 or 19 or 109. The first stanza of this poem is spectacularly right language. Without the first and last lines, this poem could be as good as many of the poems written by people four or five times her age; the tightness and clarity of language make it strong and powerful.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Poem of the Week 10/23/2006: Variations on the Word Sleep
Variations on the Word Sleep
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
Margaret Atwood 1987
This one is a bit of a ramble, but that's how it fell out tonight.
The last line of this poem seems a little incongruous to me; while the rest of the poem is an elaboration on tenderness and togetherness, the last line implies some kind of dependence. It privileges the sleeper. Other than that, though, I find this poem beautiful. Atwood plays with rythmic cycles and abstract imagery in portraying intimacy. Oh, it sounds so dry to say it that way. Let me instead point out the gorgeous eroticism. The speaker opens innocently enough, for "sleeping" implies inactivity. However, when she says, "I would like to sleep with you," suddenly we are aware that one of the variations on the word sleep is sexual. The narrator says that she wants, "to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head," evoking images of sheets moving, perhaps, or bodies. Even the sound of the phrase "smooth dark wave" is sultry and soft, its oooo sound cooing arousal, and the low "a" sounds singing along with the act of love.
At this point, however, the speaker pulls back, entering a weaker dream world of "a watery sun and three moons." Here she says that she wants to follow him into a cave where he must meet his deepest fear. Elaborating on this in the next stanza, she says that she would like to present him with "the silver branch, the small white flower, the single word that will protect [him]." Is this love? A vagina (a long thin branch with a small round flower)? Physical presence? A body? A mere dreamlike, mythic token of affection? Hm...
however, is this a departure from the erotic imagery? Perhaps these are merely her thoughts while lovemaking, the loving impulse. As she writes, she continues to use enjambment, which implies sexuality, stringing our energy over one line to the next, and repetition, moving the sentences one after the other like two bodies. As the third stanza moves on, the reader almost runs out of breath running from line to line, all the while accumulating the image of a flame in two cupped hands - perhaps this flame is her orgasm, perhaps just her delight?
The stanza ends with an in breath; literally, its last two words are "breathing in," and after this climax, the poem falls back into tenderness.
Perhaps we may see the entire poem as a breath, the inhale starting from a place of peace, of rest, of sleep, moving and inhaling and building to a climax, and then, finally, releasing, relaxing, breathing out.
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
Margaret Atwood 1987
This one is a bit of a ramble, but that's how it fell out tonight.
The last line of this poem seems a little incongruous to me; while the rest of the poem is an elaboration on tenderness and togetherness, the last line implies some kind of dependence. It privileges the sleeper. Other than that, though, I find this poem beautiful. Atwood plays with rythmic cycles and abstract imagery in portraying intimacy. Oh, it sounds so dry to say it that way. Let me instead point out the gorgeous eroticism. The speaker opens innocently enough, for "sleeping" implies inactivity. However, when she says, "I would like to sleep with you," suddenly we are aware that one of the variations on the word sleep is sexual. The narrator says that she wants, "to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head," evoking images of sheets moving, perhaps, or bodies. Even the sound of the phrase "smooth dark wave" is sultry and soft, its oooo sound cooing arousal, and the low "a" sounds singing along with the act of love.
At this point, however, the speaker pulls back, entering a weaker dream world of "a watery sun and three moons." Here she says that she wants to follow him into a cave where he must meet his deepest fear. Elaborating on this in the next stanza, she says that she would like to present him with "the silver branch, the small white flower, the single word that will protect [him]." Is this love? A vagina (a long thin branch with a small round flower)? Physical presence? A body? A mere dreamlike, mythic token of affection? Hm...
however, is this a departure from the erotic imagery? Perhaps these are merely her thoughts while lovemaking, the loving impulse. As she writes, she continues to use enjambment, which implies sexuality, stringing our energy over one line to the next, and repetition, moving the sentences one after the other like two bodies. As the third stanza moves on, the reader almost runs out of breath running from line to line, all the while accumulating the image of a flame in two cupped hands - perhaps this flame is her orgasm, perhaps just her delight?
The stanza ends with an in breath; literally, its last two words are "breathing in," and after this climax, the poem falls back into tenderness.
Perhaps we may see the entire poem as a breath, the inhale starting from a place of peace, of rest, of sleep, moving and inhaling and building to a climax, and then, finally, releasing, relaxing, breathing out.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Poem of the Week 10/17/2006: Of Mere Being
Of Mere Being
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
Wallace Stevens 1957
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
Wallace Stevens 1957
Monday, October 09, 2006
Poem of the Week 10/9/2006: To the Roman Forum
To the Roman Forum
After my daughter Katherine was born
I was terribly excited
I think I would have been measured at the twenty-five-espresso mark
We--Janice, now Katherine, and I--were in Rome
(Janice gave birth at the international hospital on top of Trastevere*)
I went down and sat and looked at the ruins of you
I gazed at them, gleaming in the half-night
And thought, Oh my, My God, My goodness, a child, a wife.
While I was sitting there, a friend, a sculptor, came by
I just had a baby, I said. I mean Janice did. I'm--
I thought I'd look up at some very old great things
To match up with this new one. Oh, Adya said,
I guess you'd like to be alone, then. Congratulations. Goodnight.
Thank you. Goodnight, I said. Adya departed.
Next day I saw Janice and Katherine.
Here they are again and have nothing to do with you
A pure force swept through me another time
I am here, they are here, this has happened.
It is happening now, it happened then.
Kenneth Koch 2000
Koch's poem is not your typical ode, but I call it such because it ponders on/talks to a Classic object, examining that thing's interplay with a larger emotional or spiritual force. To understand the departure, let's look at the definition of an ode. My Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory defines it as: "A lyric poem, usually of some length. The main features are an elaborate stanza-structure, a marked formality and stateliness in tone and style (which make it ceremonious), and lofty sentiments and thoughts. In short, an ode is rather a grand poem; a full-dress poem" (608).
Now read the poem again.
This poem does not have a rigorous stanza structure, elevated diction, or pretensions of any sort. Indeed, it trades heavily in humility, in wonder, awe and love. So perhaps they are lofty thoughts, but I consider "lofty" to be something self-conscious. Lofty includes ego, and this poem is all about feeling small. It opens with the giddy, hilarious assessment, "I was terribly excited, / I think I would have been measured at the twenty-five-espresso mark."
His excitement surges through the poem, appearing in the scattered, jittery sentence lengths. The narrator feels such enthusiasm about his daughter that he forgets to punctuate his sentences in the first 7 lines of the poem. However, he is so scattered that he turns around in the next 12 and uses thirty punctuated pauses (that is, thirty commas, dashes, or periods). This is a lot.
Even more than the sheer number, however, the poetically brilliant but technically poor use of punctuation disjoints the rhythm of his sentences. He tells us, "When I was sitting there, a friend, a sculptor, came by / I just had a baby, I said. I mean Janice did I'm--" He doesn't even let himself finish the description of his friend Adya (a friend whose name he was too excited to tell us at first) before jumping into telling her of his daughter.
In the line above, it's also important to notice that he defers responsibility for "having" the daughter. He implies that he did little more than make love with his wife, while she carried the baby for nine months and gave birth to it herself, for he later explains, "Next day I saw Janice and Katherine. / Here they are again and have nothing to do with you." Of course, "you" directly refers to the forum, but one could read the line as a piece of interior monologue. The greatness of their coming has nothing to do with him, and this is exhilarating.
Reading "you" as a reference to the Forum makes Janice and Katherine small in comparison; just as the narrator had little to do with his daughter's birth, so his daughter and wife have little do with the Roman Forum. Koch thus sets up a comparison between the great and the small, the old and the new. The last three lines, "A pure force swept through me another time / I am here, they are here, this has happened. / It is happening now, it happened then," explain what this comparison ultimately achieves. By throwing our own greatness (the ego) against something far greater, and then dwarfing that great something against an even bigger thing, Koch gives us perspective. This is not only the perspective of humility, of which it certainly has some component, but the ability to see and love one's tiny place in the vast stretch of the present and the past.
Each of us is part of everything that was and is, but it is rare that we feel that. School, friends, petty problems: these things obtrude upon our sense of relativity, the idea that a single human or event is far smaller than we usually think. What is striking about this revelation is that it includes a deep sense of love - the "pure force" Koch includes in the end of the poem. Somehow, in singling out the small from the vast, we can love and appreciate the small that much more. Perhaps this has something to do with continuity/connectedness, perhaps with the love of a single, small person opening into the love of every person and thing. Perhaps this poem includes some lofty thoughts after all.
After my daughter Katherine was born
I was terribly excited
I think I would have been measured at the twenty-five-espresso mark
We--Janice, now Katherine, and I--were in Rome
(Janice gave birth at the international hospital on top of Trastevere*)
I went down and sat and looked at the ruins of you
I gazed at them, gleaming in the half-night
And thought, Oh my, My God, My goodness, a child, a wife.
While I was sitting there, a friend, a sculptor, came by
I just had a baby, I said. I mean Janice did. I'm--
I thought I'd look up at some very old great things
To match up with this new one. Oh, Adya said,
I guess you'd like to be alone, then. Congratulations. Goodnight.
Thank you. Goodnight, I said. Adya departed.
Next day I saw Janice and Katherine.
Here they are again and have nothing to do with you
A pure force swept through me another time
I am here, they are here, this has happened.
It is happening now, it happened then.
Kenneth Koch 2000
Koch's poem is not your typical ode, but I call it such because it ponders on/talks to a Classic object, examining that thing's interplay with a larger emotional or spiritual force. To understand the departure, let's look at the definition of an ode. My Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory defines it as: "A lyric poem, usually of some length. The main features are an elaborate stanza-structure, a marked formality and stateliness in tone and style (which make it ceremonious), and lofty sentiments and thoughts. In short, an ode is rather a grand poem; a full-dress poem" (608).
Now read the poem again.
This poem does not have a rigorous stanza structure, elevated diction, or pretensions of any sort. Indeed, it trades heavily in humility, in wonder, awe and love. So perhaps they are lofty thoughts, but I consider "lofty" to be something self-conscious. Lofty includes ego, and this poem is all about feeling small. It opens with the giddy, hilarious assessment, "I was terribly excited, / I think I would have been measured at the twenty-five-espresso mark."
His excitement surges through the poem, appearing in the scattered, jittery sentence lengths. The narrator feels such enthusiasm about his daughter that he forgets to punctuate his sentences in the first 7 lines of the poem. However, he is so scattered that he turns around in the next 12 and uses thirty punctuated pauses (that is, thirty commas, dashes, or periods). This is a lot.
Even more than the sheer number, however, the poetically brilliant but technically poor use of punctuation disjoints the rhythm of his sentences. He tells us, "When I was sitting there, a friend, a sculptor, came by / I just had a baby, I said. I mean Janice did I'm--" He doesn't even let himself finish the description of his friend Adya (a friend whose name he was too excited to tell us at first) before jumping into telling her of his daughter.
In the line above, it's also important to notice that he defers responsibility for "having" the daughter. He implies that he did little more than make love with his wife, while she carried the baby for nine months and gave birth to it herself, for he later explains, "Next day I saw Janice and Katherine. / Here they are again and have nothing to do with you." Of course, "you" directly refers to the forum, but one could read the line as a piece of interior monologue. The greatness of their coming has nothing to do with him, and this is exhilarating.
Reading "you" as a reference to the Forum makes Janice and Katherine small in comparison; just as the narrator had little to do with his daughter's birth, so his daughter and wife have little do with the Roman Forum. Koch thus sets up a comparison between the great and the small, the old and the new. The last three lines, "A pure force swept through me another time / I am here, they are here, this has happened. / It is happening now, it happened then," explain what this comparison ultimately achieves. By throwing our own greatness (the ego) against something far greater, and then dwarfing that great something against an even bigger thing, Koch gives us perspective. This is not only the perspective of humility, of which it certainly has some component, but the ability to see and love one's tiny place in the vast stretch of the present and the past.
Each of us is part of everything that was and is, but it is rare that we feel that. School, friends, petty problems: these things obtrude upon our sense of relativity, the idea that a single human or event is far smaller than we usually think. What is striking about this revelation is that it includes a deep sense of love - the "pure force" Koch includes in the end of the poem. Somehow, in singling out the small from the vast, we can love and appreciate the small that much more. Perhaps this has something to do with continuity/connectedness, perhaps with the love of a single, small person opening into the love of every person and thing. Perhaps this poem includes some lofty thoughts after all.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Poem of the Week 10/2/2006: The Season of Phantasmal Peace
The Season of Phantasmal Peace
Then all the nations of birds lifted together
the huge net of the shadows of this earth
in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,
stitching and crossing it. They lifted up
the shadow of long pines down trackless slopes,
the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,
the shadow of a frail plant on a city still--
the net rising soundless as night, the birds' cries soundless, until
there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather,
only this passage of phantasmal light
that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.
And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew,
what the ospreys trailed behind them in silvery ropes
that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear
battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries,
bearing the net higher, covering this world
like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing
the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;
it was the light
that you will see at evening on the side of a hill
in yellow October, and no one hearing knew
what change had brought into the raven's cawing,
the killdeer's screech, the ember-circling chough*
such an immense, soundless, and high concern
for the fields and cities where the birds belong,
except it was their seasonal passing, Love,
made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth,
something brighter than pity for the wingless ones
below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses,
and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices
above all change, betrayals of falling suns,
and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.
Derek Walcott 1981
I have a new goal for the Poem of the Week. Instead of writing the extensive close-reads I have been doing, I hope to write about an interesting or important theme I pick up in the poem - a paragraph or two - and leave it at that. I do not like that I have left this blog so sadly unattended, for the wonderful poems are hung alone and unexamined. So, the next part of this is coming either late tonight or tomorrow morning.
The title indicates that this poem is about an illusory, ephemeral, or perhaps spiritual peace, introducing some of the central themes within the poem: time, etheriality, and peace. The central image for this poem - birds lifting a net of shadows to leave the earth in absolute light - implies the
Then all the nations of birds lifted together
the huge net of the shadows of this earth
in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,
stitching and crossing it. They lifted up
the shadow of long pines down trackless slopes,
the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,
the shadow of a frail plant on a city still--
the net rising soundless as night, the birds' cries soundless, until
there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather,
only this passage of phantasmal light
that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.
And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew,
what the ospreys trailed behind them in silvery ropes
that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear
battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries,
bearing the net higher, covering this world
like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing
the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;
it was the light
that you will see at evening on the side of a hill
in yellow October, and no one hearing knew
what change had brought into the raven's cawing,
the killdeer's screech, the ember-circling chough*
such an immense, soundless, and high concern
for the fields and cities where the birds belong,
except it was their seasonal passing, Love,
made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth,
something brighter than pity for the wingless ones
below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses,
and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices
above all change, betrayals of falling suns,
and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.
Derek Walcott 1981
I have a new goal for the Poem of the Week. Instead of writing the extensive close-reads I have been doing, I hope to write about an interesting or important theme I pick up in the poem - a paragraph or two - and leave it at that. I do not like that I have left this blog so sadly unattended, for the wonderful poems are hung alone and unexamined. So, the next part of this is coming either late tonight or tomorrow morning.
The title indicates that this poem is about an illusory, ephemeral, or perhaps spiritual peace, introducing some of the central themes within the poem: time, etheriality, and peace. The central image for this poem - birds lifting a net of shadows to leave the earth in absolute light - implies the
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Poem of the Week 9/25/2006: from The Merchant of Venice
from The Merchant of Venice, Act 3 Scene 2
Madam, you have bereft me of all words.
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers
As after some oration finally spoke
By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
Where every something being blent together
Turns to a wild nothing save of joy
Expressed and not expressed.
William Shakespeare
We are reading this play in my Shakespeare class, and this small exerpt leapt straight into my mind and hasn't left since. It is such a gem, a pure distillation of love. Oh gorgeous.
Madam, you have bereft me of all words.
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers
As after some oration finally spoke
By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
Where every something being blent together
Turns to a wild nothing save of joy
Expressed and not expressed.
William Shakespeare
We are reading this play in my Shakespeare class, and this small exerpt leapt straight into my mind and hasn't left since. It is such a gem, a pure distillation of love. Oh gorgeous.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Poem of the Week 9/18/2006: from Love at Thirty-Two Degrees
from Love at Thirty-Two Degrees
II
Last night I threw my lab coat in the fire
& drove all night through the Arizona desert
with a thermos full of silver tequila.
It was the last of what we bought
on our way back from Guadalajara--
desert wind in the mouth, your mother's
beat-up Honda, agaves
twisting up from the soil
like the limbs of cephalopods.
Outside of Tucson, saguaros so lovely
considering the cold, & the fact that you
weren't there to warm me.
Suddenly drunk I was shouting that I wanted to see the stars
as my ancestors used to see them--
to see the godawful blue as Aurvandil's* frostbitten toe.
III
Then, there is the astronomer's wife
ascending stairs to her bed.
The astronomer gazes out,
one eye at a time,
to a sky that expands
even as it falls apart
like a paper boat dissolving in bilge.
Furious, fuming stars.
When his migrane builds &
lodges its dark anchor behind
the eyes, he fastens the wooden buttons
of his jacket, & walks
outside with a flashlight
to keep company with the barn owl
who stares back at him with eyes
that are no greater or less than
a spiral galaxy.
The snow outside
is white & quiet
as a woman's slip
against cracked floorboards.
So he walks to the house
inflamed by moonlight, & slips
into the bed wiht his wife
her hair & arms all
in disarray
like fish confused by waves.
IV
Science--
beyond pheromones, hormones, aesthetics of bone,
every time I make love for love's sake alone,
I betray you.
Katherine Larson 2006
*a semi-demi God from Norse mythology; connected to the constellation Orion
THIS poem mentions one of my great fantasies that I have not been able to shut up about over the last couple of months. No, I am not talkiing about making love after looking at the stars, but seeing the stars as they are without light pollution. I love the idea of getting wasted in the desert and shouting at the moon, of the presence of a loved one when he is gone, of playing with ideas of warmth and coldness, warmth among coldness...
II
Last night I threw my lab coat in the fire
& drove all night through the Arizona desert
with a thermos full of silver tequila.
It was the last of what we bought
on our way back from Guadalajara--
desert wind in the mouth, your mother's
beat-up Honda, agaves
twisting up from the soil
like the limbs of cephalopods.
Outside of Tucson, saguaros so lovely
considering the cold, & the fact that you
weren't there to warm me.
Suddenly drunk I was shouting that I wanted to see the stars
as my ancestors used to see them--
to see the godawful blue as Aurvandil's* frostbitten toe.
III
Then, there is the astronomer's wife
ascending stairs to her bed.
The astronomer gazes out,
one eye at a time,
to a sky that expands
even as it falls apart
like a paper boat dissolving in bilge.
Furious, fuming stars.
When his migrane builds &
lodges its dark anchor behind
the eyes, he fastens the wooden buttons
of his jacket, & walks
outside with a flashlight
to keep company with the barn owl
who stares back at him with eyes
that are no greater or less than
a spiral galaxy.
The snow outside
is white & quiet
as a woman's slip
against cracked floorboards.
So he walks to the house
inflamed by moonlight, & slips
into the bed wiht his wife
her hair & arms all
in disarray
like fish confused by waves.
IV
Science--
beyond pheromones, hormones, aesthetics of bone,
every time I make love for love's sake alone,
I betray you.
Katherine Larson 2006
*a semi-demi God from Norse mythology; connected to the constellation Orion
THIS poem mentions one of my great fantasies that I have not been able to shut up about over the last couple of months. No, I am not talkiing about making love after looking at the stars, but seeing the stars as they are without light pollution. I love the idea of getting wasted in the desert and shouting at the moon, of the presence of a loved one when he is gone, of playing with ideas of warmth and coldness, warmth among coldness...
Monday, September 11, 2006
Poem of the Week 9/11/2006: Henry's Understanding
Henry's Understanding
He was reading late, at Richard's, down in Maine,
aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,
my good wife long in bed.
All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,
putting the marker in the book, & sleep,
& wake to a hot breakfast.
Off the coast was an island, P'tit Manaan,
the bluff from Richard's lawn was almost sheer.
A chill at four o'clock.
It only takes a few minutes to make a man.
A concentration upon now & here.
Suddenly, unlike Bach,
& horribly, unlike Bach, it occured to me
that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
I'd take off all my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it toward the island.
John Berryman 1972
ALSO see the March 2006 archive for another poem from The Dream Songs that I love love love. I really will write on this blog again, but it may not be for a while.
He was reading late, at Richard's, down in Maine,
aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,
my good wife long in bed.
All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,
putting the marker in the book, & sleep,
& wake to a hot breakfast.
Off the coast was an island, P'tit Manaan,
the bluff from Richard's lawn was almost sheer.
A chill at four o'clock.
It only takes a few minutes to make a man.
A concentration upon now & here.
Suddenly, unlike Bach,
& horribly, unlike Bach, it occured to me
that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
I'd take off all my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it toward the island.
John Berryman 1972
ALSO see the March 2006 archive for another poem from The Dream Songs that I love love love. I really will write on this blog again, but it may not be for a while.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Poem of the Week 9/4/2006: Trane
Trane*
Propped against the crowded bar
he pours into the curved and silver horn
his old unhappy longing for a home
the dancers twist and turn
he leans and wishes he could burn
his memories to ashes like some old notorious emperor
of rome. but no stars blazed across the sky when he was born
no wise men found his hovel. this crowded bar
where dancers twist and turn
holds all the fame and recognition he will ever earn
on earth or heaven. he leans against the bar
and pours his old unhappy longing in the saxophone
Kamau Brathwaite 1977
* Nickname of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-1967).
Propped against the crowded bar
he pours into the curved and silver horn
his old unhappy longing for a home
the dancers twist and turn
he leans and wishes he could burn
his memories to ashes like some old notorious emperor
of rome. but no stars blazed across the sky when he was born
no wise men found his hovel. this crowded bar
where dancers twist and turn
holds all the fame and recognition he will ever earn
on earth or heaven. he leans against the bar
and pours his old unhappy longing in the saxophone
Kamau Brathwaite 1977
* Nickname of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-1967).
Monday, August 28, 2006
Poem of the Week 8/28/2006: The Embrace
The Embrace
You weren't well or really ill either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.
I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead.
I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.
You'd been out--at work maybe?--
having a good day, almost energetic.
We seemed to be moving from some old house
where we'd lived, boxes everywhere, things
in disarray: that was the story of my dream,
but even asleep I was shocked out of narrative
by your face, the physical fact of your face:
inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.
Why so difficult, remembering the actual
look of you? Without a photograph, without strain?
So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,
your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth
and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held
each other for the time the deam allowed.
Bless you. You came back, so I could see you
once more, plainly, so I could rest against you
without thinking this happiness lessened anything,
without thinking you were alive again.
Mark Doty 1998
Mark Doty draws upon his partner's AIDS-related death to craft this poem about that lover's visitation in dream. Written four years after the loss, it explores the concept of memory. Dream animates memory, giving the speaker some assurance that he hasn't lost his partner. "Loss" is not physical death; rather, it is the forgetting of a physical presence, forgetting of a body in motion, seeing a life instead of a photo.
The poem opens with such familiarity that we are instantly aware of the pair's love. In the first line, "You weren't well or really ill yet either," the speaker places his partner's condition between ill and well. Picking up on the subtlety of the face, the narrator remarks that it's "tinged with grief or anticipation," again demonstrating the visual intimacy of their relationship. His descriptions lend the partner a slightness, a delicacy, a lightness of form that brings into (soft) focus the couple's tenderness. "A little tired" doesn't make the lover seem haggard or worn; it gives him "a thoughtful, deepening grace."
This familiarity so makes it seem as if the lover is alive that the speaker notes in the next stanza that he "didn't for a moment doubt that [he] was dead," but that somehow that death doesn't matter. It is as if the lover had been out and about "-at work, maybe?-" and so, in this dream, death does not seem the most pressing issue.
Indeed, there seems to be an idea of progress and change in the speaker's grief, for the narrator notes that the couple "seemed to be moving from some old house / where we'd lived, [with] // things in disarray." As a metaphor for the changing nature of their relationship, or instead, the speaker's grieving process, this seems to be a signal that things are moving forward. The old house is cluttered with boxes, presumably of emotional junk, the kind of detritus that piles up over time and time.
But this healing: this is not the point. This is only the narrative, and without people, a thick and real human, narrative is merely an outline, a series of facts, of challenges, of events. Sure, the speaker could have thought of his partner, even remembered different realities, but nothing is so real as a person's "physical fact." Memory only takes us so far. This is one of the facts of mankind. Perhaps it is a blessing, for it forces us to see, really look at, one another, and prevents us from being haunted by a lost person's exact presence (if that made sense). This poem, on the other hand, wonders if the lack of this exact presence haunts us, if what really marks a person's departure is that we can never remember them fully...
Which is why this visitation in a dream is such a gorgeous compromise between the two - it is one night, and one night only: enough to assure the speaker that his lover is not lost forever, that there is the possibility of life again. This is closure: the lover's face looming up out of the dark, smooth and real.
Okay, this is all I am up for tonight.
You weren't well or really ill either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.
I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead.
I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.
You'd been out--at work maybe?--
having a good day, almost energetic.
We seemed to be moving from some old house
where we'd lived, boxes everywhere, things
in disarray: that was the story of my dream,
but even asleep I was shocked out of narrative
by your face, the physical fact of your face:
inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.
Why so difficult, remembering the actual
look of you? Without a photograph, without strain?
So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,
your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth
and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held
each other for the time the deam allowed.
Bless you. You came back, so I could see you
once more, plainly, so I could rest against you
without thinking this happiness lessened anything,
without thinking you were alive again.
Mark Doty 1998
Mark Doty draws upon his partner's AIDS-related death to craft this poem about that lover's visitation in dream. Written four years after the loss, it explores the concept of memory. Dream animates memory, giving the speaker some assurance that he hasn't lost his partner. "Loss" is not physical death; rather, it is the forgetting of a physical presence, forgetting of a body in motion, seeing a life instead of a photo.
The poem opens with such familiarity that we are instantly aware of the pair's love. In the first line, "You weren't well or really ill yet either," the speaker places his partner's condition between ill and well. Picking up on the subtlety of the face, the narrator remarks that it's "tinged with grief or anticipation," again demonstrating the visual intimacy of their relationship. His descriptions lend the partner a slightness, a delicacy, a lightness of form that brings into (soft) focus the couple's tenderness. "A little tired" doesn't make the lover seem haggard or worn; it gives him "a thoughtful, deepening grace."
This familiarity so makes it seem as if the lover is alive that the speaker notes in the next stanza that he "didn't for a moment doubt that [he] was dead," but that somehow that death doesn't matter. It is as if the lover had been out and about "-at work, maybe?-" and so, in this dream, death does not seem the most pressing issue.
Indeed, there seems to be an idea of progress and change in the speaker's grief, for the narrator notes that the couple "seemed to be moving from some old house / where we'd lived, [with] // things in disarray." As a metaphor for the changing nature of their relationship, or instead, the speaker's grieving process, this seems to be a signal that things are moving forward. The old house is cluttered with boxes, presumably of emotional junk, the kind of detritus that piles up over time and time.
But this healing: this is not the point. This is only the narrative, and without people, a thick and real human, narrative is merely an outline, a series of facts, of challenges, of events. Sure, the speaker could have thought of his partner, even remembered different realities, but nothing is so real as a person's "physical fact." Memory only takes us so far. This is one of the facts of mankind. Perhaps it is a blessing, for it forces us to see, really look at, one another, and prevents us from being haunted by a lost person's exact presence (if that made sense). This poem, on the other hand, wonders if the lack of this exact presence haunts us, if what really marks a person's departure is that we can never remember them fully...
Which is why this visitation in a dream is such a gorgeous compromise between the two - it is one night, and one night only: enough to assure the speaker that his lover is not lost forever, that there is the possibility of life again. This is closure: the lover's face looming up out of the dark, smooth and real.
Okay, this is all I am up for tonight.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Poem of the Week 8/21/2006: Geometry
Geometry
I prove a theorem and the house expands;
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
As the walls clear themselves of everything
but transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open
and above the windows have hinged into butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they've intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven.
Rita Dove 1980
I take my friend Mark's point; this poem does deal specifically with the instant revelation of
More than a poem about strictly mathematic revelation, this poem is an incredible illustration of any kind of expansion of knowledge. Expansion by itself is a thin term, but say expansion with an exhale, sigh it and open your eyes; this kind of revelation is what Dove is talking about.
I prove a theorem and the house expands;
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
As the walls clear themselves of everything
but transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open
and above the windows have hinged into butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they've intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven.
Rita Dove 1980
I take my friend Mark's point; this poem does deal specifically with the instant revelation of
More than a poem about strictly mathematic revelation, this poem is an incredible illustration of any kind of expansion of knowledge. Expansion by itself is a thin term, but say expansion with an exhale, sigh it and open your eyes; this kind of revelation is what Dove is talking about.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Poem of the Week 8/14/2006: To My Twenties
To My Twenties
How lucky that I ran into you
When everything was possible
For my legs and arms, and with hope in my heart
And so happy to see any woman--
O woman! O my twentieth year!
Basking in you, you
Oasis from both growing and decay
Fantastic unheard of nine- or ten- year oasis
A palm tree, hey! And then another
And another--and water!
I'm still very impressed by you. Whither,
Midst falling decades, have you gone? Oh in what lucky fellow,
Unsure of himself, upset, and unemployable
For a moment in any case, do you live now?
From my window I drop a nickel
By mistake. With
You I race down to get it
But I find there on
The street instead, a good friend,
X------N--------, who says to me
Kenneth do you have a minute?
And I say yes! I am in my twenties!
I have plenty of time! In you I marry,
In you I first go to France; I make my best friends
In you, and a few enemies. I
Write a lot and am living all the time
And thinking about living. I loved to frequent you
After my teens and before my thirties.
You three together in a bar
I always preferred you because you were midmost
Although now that I look back on you
What part have you played?
You never, ever, were stingy.
What you gave me you gave whole
But as for telling
Me how best to use it
You weren't a genius at that.
Twenties, my soul
Is yours for the asking
You know that, if you ever come back.
Kenneth Koch 2000
This is exactly the right poem to post today. Why? Because I am, officially twenty (subtle, Sarah). So there's a lot to think about for this poem. It is perhaps not the most difficult poem in the world, nor the most provocative, but it is clever and funny and energetic. It's not necessary to ask for much more than that in a poem, I think. My grandmother said two things that stick with me about poetry, particularly popular poetry.
One: all she'd want somebody to say of her poems is, "it's like that." No exploration of immense themes is needed. Just life.
Two: that popular poetry is necessary for people.
I have thought a lot about this, especially regarding my own thoughts and needs about poetry. I find that having read a good number of poems in my now-twenty years adds new ways of thinking, or gives me words to express feelings I'd otherwise struggle to explain. Lines rise to the top of my consciousness, and I often find myself saying "there's this line of a poem that describes what you're talking about." It's not meant to be pretentious, nor a way of showing off (though there is some pleasure in knowing these poems. And it's only the beginning. I am in my twenties! Anything's possible! See, there's this poem that... Oh, wait. You all just read it.)
What I mean to say is this; poetry provides shapes and beauty to the thoughts we have every day, helping us to sort daily floods of experience.
And today, my experience is being twenty. So it gives me a few things to think about. I love Koch's poem because it is so candid, and because, yes, it's like that. Eager, sprawling syntax and energetic diction underline what it means to be in one's twenties. Koch is even gentle with the mistakes that decade makes, understanding that one trades youth for wisdom.
The first, oh, thirty lines gallop from pleasure to pleasure, excited to even think of a woman! It is a time when the awful, necessary labor of becoming in the teens, and the first signs of bodily decay appear at thirty. Furthermore, everything on that oasis (wonderful island) is exciting; the narrator imagines being exicted over "A palm tree, hey! And then another / And another--and water!"
Stepping out of the imagined twenties for a minute, the narrator wonders where this decade has gone. He thinks of the unemployed, overqualified twenty-something, acknowledging one of the less-scintillating bits of being twenty. But true to the energy and optimism of that time, his thoughts gallop to better things, racing to find a nickel he dropped out of a window. Even there, a friend! I know this feeling - sometimes it is frustrating, but more often than not what a wonderful thing it is to have friends. Sounds silly to write, but so few adults have a lot of friends now. I hope to always have friends, but who knows. Maybe I am saying that because I am twenty.
The final section begins when the narrator talks of meeting twenty in a bar (along with her friends teens and thirties). He would definitely hit on twenty: the most supple, the most interesting, the most generous of those decades. Twenty will throw herself whole-heartedly into your arms, but she may not be able to tell you what to do from there.
I think this is right - the kind of bumbling, unknowing energy that races around being this age. I feel it now, milling on my bicycle, meeting friend after friend, being mauled by hugs constantly.
A final note: the last line. The speaker shows a kind of grudging acceptance that twenty is not going to come back, but that he would welcome lovingly that kind of energy once again, that kind of freedom and unknowingness. The world is just enough with us at this age.
How lucky that I ran into you
When everything was possible
For my legs and arms, and with hope in my heart
And so happy to see any woman--
O woman! O my twentieth year!
Basking in you, you
Oasis from both growing and decay
Fantastic unheard of nine- or ten- year oasis
A palm tree, hey! And then another
And another--and water!
I'm still very impressed by you. Whither,
Midst falling decades, have you gone? Oh in what lucky fellow,
Unsure of himself, upset, and unemployable
For a moment in any case, do you live now?
From my window I drop a nickel
By mistake. With
You I race down to get it
But I find there on
The street instead, a good friend,
X------N--------, who says to me
Kenneth do you have a minute?
And I say yes! I am in my twenties!
I have plenty of time! In you I marry,
In you I first go to France; I make my best friends
In you, and a few enemies. I
Write a lot and am living all the time
And thinking about living. I loved to frequent you
After my teens and before my thirties.
You three together in a bar
I always preferred you because you were midmost
Although now that I look back on you
What part have you played?
You never, ever, were stingy.
What you gave me you gave whole
But as for telling
Me how best to use it
You weren't a genius at that.
Twenties, my soul
Is yours for the asking
You know that, if you ever come back.
Kenneth Koch 2000
This is exactly the right poem to post today. Why? Because I am, officially twenty (subtle, Sarah). So there's a lot to think about for this poem. It is perhaps not the most difficult poem in the world, nor the most provocative, but it is clever and funny and energetic. It's not necessary to ask for much more than that in a poem, I think. My grandmother said two things that stick with me about poetry, particularly popular poetry.
One: all she'd want somebody to say of her poems is, "it's like that." No exploration of immense themes is needed. Just life.
Two: that popular poetry is necessary for people.
I have thought a lot about this, especially regarding my own thoughts and needs about poetry. I find that having read a good number of poems in my now-twenty years adds new ways of thinking, or gives me words to express feelings I'd otherwise struggle to explain. Lines rise to the top of my consciousness, and I often find myself saying "there's this line of a poem that describes what you're talking about." It's not meant to be pretentious, nor a way of showing off (though there is some pleasure in knowing these poems. And it's only the beginning. I am in my twenties! Anything's possible! See, there's this poem that... Oh, wait. You all just read it.)
What I mean to say is this; poetry provides shapes and beauty to the thoughts we have every day, helping us to sort daily floods of experience.
And today, my experience is being twenty. So it gives me a few things to think about. I love Koch's poem because it is so candid, and because, yes, it's like that. Eager, sprawling syntax and energetic diction underline what it means to be in one's twenties. Koch is even gentle with the mistakes that decade makes, understanding that one trades youth for wisdom.
The first, oh, thirty lines gallop from pleasure to pleasure, excited to even think of a woman! It is a time when the awful, necessary labor of becoming in the teens, and the first signs of bodily decay appear at thirty. Furthermore, everything on that oasis (wonderful island) is exciting; the narrator imagines being exicted over "A palm tree, hey! And then another / And another--and water!"
Stepping out of the imagined twenties for a minute, the narrator wonders where this decade has gone. He thinks of the unemployed, overqualified twenty-something, acknowledging one of the less-scintillating bits of being twenty. But true to the energy and optimism of that time, his thoughts gallop to better things, racing to find a nickel he dropped out of a window. Even there, a friend! I know this feeling - sometimes it is frustrating, but more often than not what a wonderful thing it is to have friends. Sounds silly to write, but so few adults have a lot of friends now. I hope to always have friends, but who knows. Maybe I am saying that because I am twenty.
The final section begins when the narrator talks of meeting twenty in a bar (along with her friends teens and thirties). He would definitely hit on twenty: the most supple, the most interesting, the most generous of those decades. Twenty will throw herself whole-heartedly into your arms, but she may not be able to tell you what to do from there.
I think this is right - the kind of bumbling, unknowing energy that races around being this age. I feel it now, milling on my bicycle, meeting friend after friend, being mauled by hugs constantly.
A final note: the last line. The speaker shows a kind of grudging acceptance that twenty is not going to come back, but that he would welcome lovingly that kind of energy once again, that kind of freedom and unknowingness. The world is just enough with us at this age.
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