Happy Thanksgiving

No poem today, just a full belly. Happy Thanksgiving! I, for one, am thankful for this outlet and for all the new poetry I find through it!

The Orange Bears (Kenneth Patchen)

And I quote: "I remember you would put daisies/On the windowsill at night and in/The morning they'd be so covered with soot/You couldn't tell what they were anymore./A hell of a fat chance my orange bears had!"

Okay, so maybe that line doesn't make much sense without reading Kenneth Patchen's poem, but you should, because it's all contained in that line, those last two stanzas.

The poem starts so nicely. It begins like any poem about Nature. But then it turns and we learn that the bears don't win. And that daises lose to soot. Which expands to the nearby strikers who lose out to the ones with bayonets.

Everything is contained by the same threads. It's the same portal, only expanded from dust to mammals to people throughout history fighting for their rights.

Not bad for a poem that from its title and opening lines could have been a nature travelogue.

Favorite line: "What did he know about/Orange bears with their coats all stunk up with soft coal/And the National Guard coming over"

miss rosie (Lucille Clifton)

Oh my! I read this poem and got chills. I am extremely low on sleep, so emotions are therefore faster to breach, but ya know. It's a rich poem. It's also one I have vague memories of hearing before, though I do not recognize the poet's name.

I do love this descriptive phrase: "you wet brown bag of a woman". I mean, my gosh, what a fantastic way to describe a stranger. Just, love!

Ah right, all the other words: "through your destruction/I stand up" And what does that mean? Perhaps, nothing, just a pat on the back. Perhaps, it harkens back to the former relations N and the 'woman' had. It's a great ending because it add backbone to the whole poem. It's moving. It's adds definition to N even though this poem, from the title on, is about Miss Rosie.

Favorite line: "you wet brown bag of a woman"

On the Disadvantages of Central Heating (Amy Clampitt)

Aw. Nostalgia. It's strong in this poem by Amy C. It is, in part, what drives me home for Thanksgiving and my fiance home to his. Homes, once left, are forever in your heart. The memories become richer, the colors deeper, and even 'the disadvantages of central heating' ring clearer and become fuzzy with warmth and good feelings.

This poem is five snapshots, really. Blocks of text, listing memory-rich places and things. Maybe the poet wrote this poem in a a burst of homesickness.

I always forget that description alone can be a good poem. Thanks Amy C. for reminding me that you don't need "I" to make a poem personal, close, or specific.

Favorite line: "small boys and big eager sheepdogs/muscling in on bookish profundities"

A Song On the End of the World (Czeslaw Milosz)

This is a popular theme for movies these days. How will the world end? Vampires, disease, climate change, because the Aztecs predicted it so. Everyone's got an idea, a method. Milosz has no method, only reactions. And in his version, at least, no one is running, screaming from the horror. And no one acts the part of the triumphant savior.

Instead, he gives four stanzas describing what would be a pretty average day. That is, if the title and first line didn't change the poem's tone: "On the day the world ends..."

So, on this very last day, what details does the poet consider worthy of to draw our attention to out of all the going-ons? "A bee circles a clover,/A fisherman mends a glimmering net./Happy porpoises jump in the sea"

Nature. Nature is described first, maybe because it so shocking. People, like all species, will eventually cease to be, but to say that Nature will disappear seems ludicrous. How could water, land, and the millions of creatures stop being?

But again, that's the point. Things appear too big, too seemingly forever to cease being. So people put it out of their minds. Even with hours of life left, they will return to normal, quotidian tasks: "Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,/A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,/Vegetable peddlers shout in the street"

Even the only man who speaks 'the truth' keeps "busy" gardening his tomatoes even though he knows he and they will not be in only a few hours.

Knowledge is pretty useless if you cannot, like in a movie, act to prevent disaster. Perhaps, it is a wise old man (a prophet even) who says the world is ending, there is no second chance and then continues on with his work as if the days would stretch on to infinity like they always had.

Favorite line: "By the rainspout young sparrows are playing/And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be."

Out, Out -- (Robert Frost)

Out, Out-- by Robert Frost is the poem for today. Oops about not posting for days. I do mean for this to be a daily blog, but ya know, daily. And every day sure is one tall order.

So this poem is about the tragic death of a young boy. It reads like prose, only prettified into poetry. I think it's pretty clear about how the boy died. It's also pretty direct and unflinching as to how other people who are touched initially by his death will soon leave and forget him.

The title, I remember from HS, is from Hamlet, though I forget where and by whom the line was spoken. I'm sure it adds a neat level to this poem, though. Anybody wanna leave a comment and fill me in?

Favorite line: "Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—/He must have given the hand."

Too tired. We'll try this again later. See you tomorrow!

Nothing Gold Can Stay (Robert Frost)

Haha. This poem. I first heard of it from reading The Outsiders. I really thought that HS Hinton had composed the thing. It doesn't smack of Robert Frost. I get no sense of New England from this poem.

It's also very understandable. It's very middle school. Frost wrote better poems, I think. But I do like this poem, merely because my fiance loves to quote it. And that is a definite plus for the poem. It IS really easy to remember.

Favorite line: "Nothing gold can stay."

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)

Hmm, I remember writing a blog posting referencing this poem by Frost back in day when I had an 'online journal' and not a blog. Let's see if I can find it:

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Summer passes on in lazy slow circles.

I was watching my first Oprah show the other day. She had a series of guests who had achieved incredible success from dire circumstances. Parents died, homeless, night classes, on to Harvard, and writing a best selling book on the subject kind of life stories. She had each guest tell about their struggle. She then showered them with praise and gave them a plaque.

The common thread through all of the stories was that they had no immediate family to depend on. They cited this as a source of pride--"And I had to do it alone. . ." But I think that their lack of family made it possible for them to achieve more than they could have if they had had a family.

I'm sure everyone has seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life. In the movie the main character continually gives up his aspirations to support his family at home. By giving up his dreams he is able to assure the dreams of his brother, father, and children.

Like in Frost's poem Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening I think the major issue is the conflict between serving others or serving yourself.

While not discounting the terrific struggles the women on Oprah's show went through to achieve what they did, I do think that their struggle was made easier because they only had to worry about themselves. They could spend all day studying because they didn't have a baby at home or a sick parent to take care of. Their energies could be intensely directed at their one goal. It wasn't split among a variety of causes or responsibilities. Their cause and responsibility were united.

The main character in It's a Wonderful Life (and let's just call him Jim because I've forgotten what he is called) sacrificed his wants for others. Is he nobler? At the end, we are to think that he is because he has friends and family and a wonderful life. But since it was not the life he had imagined for himself who is to say how things might have turned out if he had managed to pursue his own goals that he had at the start of the picture.

Is it better to chase down your own goals or to let them lie dormant if it means that others will be able to achieve theirs'?

Frost seemed to think so. The woods are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep.

The speaker in Frost's poem gives up his own desire to stay in the wood and watch the snow in order to fulfill his obligations, his promises to others.

I don't know which is the better path to take. But it seems to me that this issue is at the heart of so many unresolved issues today. The individual or the community? It's visible in homeland security. Personal freedoms or omnipresent surveillance? Medicine: Assisted suicides or no? It's at the bottom of soleada42's argument against the subservient position a woman is supposed to have in some wedding vows. It is the conflict between our valedictorian and salutatorian’s speeches
It is a matter of who deserves the priority: the individual or the community.

And right now at least, I think that this is the unresolvable issue. I don't see a way to compromise between the two.

Et tu?


Favorite line: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/ And miles to go before I sleep"

The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)

I once had to memorize and then recite The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost for the stage. Ha! And doesn't that sound dramatic. And yes, if I were to be (un)fair, I would say that the most common reading of this poem is also pretty dramatic.

The pop reading is to say that the less-trodden path is the better one. That to be the odd kid out is the best way to go because you see more and see differently than most.

However, that is not at all what this poem is saying. I find that this line is forgotten in many people's analysis: "the passing there/Had worn them really about the same". The two paths are the same. They both take you far from your starting point and you know what they say about roads, they "go ever on and on". You'll be a different person whether you take one path or another and who can say what difference would have been made if you had selected the un-taken one.

Favorite line: "And sorry I could not travel both/And be one traveler, long I stood"

Fire and Ice (Robert Frost)

Ah right, poetry. This thing is manual! Okay, so today's poem/poet is (drum roll please) Fire and Ice by Robert Frost.

Who doesn't love this poem. It's short. It's clever. It's truth-making. And it rhymes. What a clever, talented fellow Frost was.

And how staid, how New-England! The poem talks about the end of the world and yet it ends, not with a bang or a crash, but with the modest assessment: "ice/Is also great/ And would suffice."

Favorite line: "But if it had to perish twice,/I think I know enough of hate/To say that for destruction ice/Is also great"

To My Dear and Loving Husband (Anne Bradstreet)

I think Anne Bradstreet lived either during or right before the times of the American Revolution. She is one of the few pre-modernity female poets who is famous (in poetry circles). This, I have a vague recollection, is the poem for which she is particularly known. Or maybe I just selected it since I am newly engaged and a sap and wanted to hear her romantic words.

And they are romantic. Definitely so. I find it fun that her phrasing is unique. The lines seems clipped. For instance, while the second line reads "If ever man were loved by wife, then thee", however, surely the more common English reading would go 'if ever man were loved by wife, then you (thee) would be that man' - or something like that.

But, see, I love that she's written it in this manner. Love, as she presents it, is a reduction. Two become one. So, you don't need the full phrase. The words suddenly seem, well, extra.

Favorite line: "Thy love is such I can no way repay;/The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray."

Eating Poetry (Mark Strand)

I might know the poet, but not very well. He's modern and people always site him as beloved, but I don't know much (anything) more. I chose this poem to read first from his selected list because it sounded like an ars poetica and that's always good for a first look.

However, as I read it seemed like a it were written by a high schooler. I think I wrote a similar poem when I was in a hs creative writing class. But then it moves from the meaningless dribble ("I have been eating poetry") and goes to careful observations of the surroundings ("The librarian does not believe what she sees./Her eyes are sad/ and she walks with her hands in her dress."). That, I believe, is what elevates this from a clever hs poem to something worth something.

Oops, and I can't talk more about this poem. More later.

Favorite line: "She does not understand./When I get on my knees and lick her hand"

Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock (Wallace Stevens)

Another poem by Wallace Stevens.

I am not bummed by what I have seen. His poem last night beckoned me to review my world to discover angles I had not known. This night's poem seems to say that most things are, indeed, just things and have no more stories or angles to discover. However, sometimes you find your "blackbird". You realize that "Only, here and there, an old sailor" waits to be found. The old sailor could be anybody, anything with stories that is hidden behind, in this case, a grizzled and sleeping, drunk face. Don't discount anybody or anything. Thinking on a blackbird could make you part of cannon. Considering suburbia could be the base of another meaningful poem.

Favorite line: "People are not going/To dream of baboons and periwinkles."

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (Wallace Stevens)

Straightforward. Simple phrasing that belies deeper intentions. New eyes unto the world. I find this poem by Wallace Stevens to be breathtakingly beautiful, but it is the kind of beauty that does not allow for pictures, awes, or intakes of breath. Instead, the kind of beauty in this poem forces you to appreciate, nod, and lift your eyes to the things around you and see them, perhaps, for the first time. Their wholeness.

Favorite line: "A man and a woman/Are one./A man and a woman and a blackbird/Are one."

Ice Breaking (Ogden Nash)

Hee. A famous, pithy poem by Ogden (best, lamest first name ever) Nash.

Everyone has heard this, perhaps unlinked to its author. Although only seven words long, it has lasting power because it contains a truth. It might have conveyed that truth in harsh, damning language, but instead because it is written so briefly, it becomes funny with nary a word of judgment.

Who doesn't love this poem?

Favorite line: the whole darn thing.

Death, be not proud (John Donne)

This is another Donne poem that I came to through non-poetry means. I first heard of 'Death, be not proud' by reading the book by the same name. A great book about the terminal illness of a son through the eyes of the father. The poem was the epitaph.

It was a fitting epitaph. You fear death until you come into close contact and then you realize it's just a phase change and that "Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men." Death has no power by itself. Really it's so weak, a tool to be plied by others. And after all you can't fear a tool, only the wielder. So, sure, fear the 'desperate men', but death itself is pure fluff. Donne does a great job of powerfully uncovering this truth and ending with the a clear and loud deathly stroke. "And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."

This poem is so empowering. I bet it was pure comfort to the author of the true-life novel "Death, Be Not Proud."

Favorite line: "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;/For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow/Die not, poor Death"

A Valediction: Forbidding Morning (John Donne)

Here is a super famous poem by John Donne. I remember seeing this poem as a question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It was the most surreal thing. The question was: In the poem...to what object was a lover compared to? Or something like that. It was worth a lot of money, but the person got it wrong and acted like the question was ridiculous and "who would know this obscure piece of knowledge"?

Tonight, I recited this poem aloud, like I do with every poem I have talked about on here. However, unlike every other time I have read this poem I began to tear up. I'm a sap, and I am newly engaged and it just got to me. Even though this poem compares love to a mathematical tool, it totally works and plants the airy romance to the real and touchable world. Love. Love. Love.

Favorite line: "Our two souls therefore, which are one,/Though I must go, endure not yet/A breach, but an expansion./Like gold to airy thinness beat."

The Windhover (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Another poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I just find such such joy in Hopkins' joy and his love and use of language. He's having fun and so I have fun. Squee!

This poem is about a bird, the windhover, that seems to pause in mid-flight as it hunts. Pauses perhaps like a person does when they read the obscene over-use of alliteration in this poem. Oh! Maybe that's why only the first stanza has so much alliteration. It's the skimming, the pause before the strike that occurs in the last stanzas.

The strike! The kill. In a way, it's about the bird killing its dinner. It could also be about any result after a long effort. Er, that is, if the result is a bloody and well-fought one.

This poem is a sonnet. For show, I guess. It's not romantic in the way Shakespeare's sonnets are. I don't really know why else the form would be used.

Favorite line: "Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion."

Spring and Fall: To a young child (Gerald Manley Hopkins)

Oh boy! I didn't know this poem was written by Gerald Manley Hopkins. I adore Hopkins. I knew this poem before tonight, but if asked, I would have said it were written by William Blake. It just seems more his style. This poem doesn't really have the flash that I normally associate with Hopkins.

Death comes to all, eh? An old poem, a universal truth. Funny how those two go together. Maybe there is no flash because the topic is so somber. Maybe Hopkins was in a depressive state.

Gleeful or somber, he's a talented guy. Who else would take the image of a child and an autumn tree and spin the whole of a human life and then reconnect it to the very basic, indivisible childlike self.

Gosh, I love Hopkins!

Favorite line: "Margaret, are you grieving/Over Goldengrove unleaving?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I should talk about a poem tonight. I should have talked about a poem yesterday. I'm just not focused enough to do that though. My boyfriend proposed to me this weekend and while I looked (briefly) for an engagement poem, I could not find one. So, I will begin again with poetry tomorrow.