Resounding echoes in other poetry

From Frances Densmore's Chippewa Music:

The Sky Will Resound

it will resound finely
the sky
when I come making a noise


Because I read the Neruda first, this reminds me of something from The Book of Questions, it is here someplace, but let me transcribe it below, though I doubt it will make sense to anyone but me.

XLIX

When I see the sea once more
will the sea have seen ornate seen me?

Why do the waves ask me 
the same questions I ask them?

And why do they strike the rock
with so much wasted passion?

Don't they get tired of repeating
their declaration to the sand?


The sky resounding with the questions of the sea?  I am not sure what brought these two together in my mind, but I did think of the Neruda when I read Densmore piece.  Minds are odd and they forge connections were they will.  Densmore is the earlier work, so what reminding me of which should probably be reversed, but I read one well before I read the other, and that is the timetable I am working through.  I can say one thing with certainty though, the connection has nothing to do with alcohol, as there was no consumption of such.

Poem on words...

This short one is called Horses, by Witter Bynner:

Horses

Words are hoops
Through which to leap upon meanings,
Which are horses' backs,
Bare, moving.

Like a reason to enjoy poetry... that sort of describes this one for me.  

Surprise translated from the Spanish

Here is a poem by Mario Melendez, translated from the Spanish by Eloisa Amezcua:

Future Memories

My sister woke me very early
that morning and told me
"Get up, you have to come see this
the ocean's filled with stars"
Delighted by the revelation
I dressed quickly and thought
if the ocean's filled with stars
I must take the first flight
and collect all the fish from the sky

I was caught off guard by the brilliant logic at the end, which it is, and reminded of how wonderful other cultural perspectives can be.  

This poem is from the September 2017 issue of Poetry.

Poetry, just because

I really didn't intend this to become a poetry blog or a place where I just posted poems that I liked, but that seems to be the direction it is inhabiting, at least temporarily.  This evening I came across a fun one by William Carlos Williams in which the words for me dance just like the title, "The Dance":

The Dance

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess, 
the dancers go round, they go round and 
around, the squeal and the blare and the 
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them.  Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess.

Hopefully it brings a smile to you, as it did for me, my eyes flittering with all the repetitions, and enjoying the humor that I saw.

It's Labor Day, so let's post some Rumi

From "The Great Wagon":

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
...

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

Excerpt From: Coleman Barks. “The Essential Rumi - reissue.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-essential-rumi-reissue/id381183707?mt=11

Both are from the same poem, and initially I was only going to post the longer section, but I changed my mind and added the earlier bit.

Neglectful me

I have been using Twitter far too much, and not sharing any of what I read.  I did come across this one this past weekend:

The Poem

It discovers by night
what the day hid from it.
Sometimes it turns itself
into an animal.
In summer it takes long walks
by itself where meadows
fold back from ditches.
Once it stood still
in a quiet row of machines.
Who knows
what it is thinking?

Excerpt From: Donald Hall. “The Selected Poems of Donald Hall.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-selected-poems-of-donald-hall/id949386905?mt=11

The word for today is amorphous, which is one way to describe things, and which is one way this poem made me feel about poetry.

A Very Short Song, by Dorothy Parker

A Very Short Song
                  by Dorothy Parker

Once, when I was young and true,
     Someone left me sad --
Broke my brittle heart in two;
     And that was very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
     Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
     And that, I think, is worse.

I had told myself that I was done with my computer tonight, but then I ran across this gem from Dorothy Parker, so I had to share it.  There is something to be said about breaking someone's heart being worse than having your heart broken.

More selections

A snippet from Tommy Pico's "Nature Poem" that I liked:

I look too much into the mirror of my worst self
so life feels like always breakin in a new pair of shoes

This is from a longer work, but I do like these lines.  For me, it describes those days when I don't feel put together right, and nothing seems to be going quite as I might hope.

While clicking about on my laptop, looking for something other than news to read, I discovered that I happened to have "Macbeth" and reading just a bit found:

Malcolm:

My liege,

They are not yet come back. But I have spoke

With one that saw him die: who did report

That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,

Implored your highness' pardon and set forth

A deep repentance: nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it; he died

As one that had been studied in his death

To throw away the dearest thing he owed,

As 'twere a careless trifle.

I really liked the highlighted section of Malcolm's comment, as there is definitely the implication that someone was a total waste of breath.  

Youthful Frost

First, I am making the assumption that the Library of America edition of Robert Frost is in chronological order, or reasonably so.  Most of their collections at least make that effort, so I am taking it as a safe guess.  "Into My Own" is the first poem in A Boy's Will, and the last stanza caught my attention.  After leaving home, very few folks would encourage friends and family to find them later, with a bit of braggadocio regarding how little he has changed.

The last stanza a Robert Frost's "Into My Own":

They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

If the above stanza did turn out to be true for him, and that after leaving home he truly only became more sure of what he already knew, then I don't know whether to be happy for him or sad.

Something from Rilke

This comes from Rainier Maria Rilke's "Duino Elegies" and is specifically from the ninth elegy, lines 36-38:

                          ...Is not the secret purpose
of this sly earth, in urging a pair of lovers,
just to make everything leap with ecstasy in them?

Nothing great in my own personal revelation interpretation, but it made me smile, and sometimes smiles are nice.

[This is from the JB Leishman and Stephen Spender translation.]

For this I had to look up "Rogers Group"

John Rogers was an American sculptor of the 19th century who created mass produced sculptures, normally featuring a small number of people in an everyday setting (for the time).

Here is "A Rogers Group" by Robert Frost:

A Rogers Group

How young and unassuming
They waited in the street,
With babies in their arms
And baggage at their fee.

A trolley car they hailed
Went by with clanging gong
Before they guessed the corner
They waited on was wrong.

And no one told them so
By way of traveler's aid,
No one was so far touched
By the Rogers Group they made.


This is one of those I liked, and I don't know if I would be one walking by or giving them advice.  I think it would depend on knowing more.  I have told a few drivers after they have parked in a no parking zone, that they should move their car, pointing the sign out to them, but I am less inclined to put my nose in people's business on the street without them asking first, as I will happily try and give directions if asked.

Ocean Vuong, from "Night Sky with Exit Wounds"

There is a poem earlier in this book ("Night Sky with Exit Wounds"), Torso of Air, that I liked quite a bit, but I am going to send you off to see if you can actually locate it elsewhere, since I wanted to quote from a different poem, Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong, right now:

... The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world. ...

I did finish up the book tonight, and for whatever reason, that line about loneliness rather struck me.

My reading has been all over the place.  I actually restarted my kindle unlimited subscription since they were offering me another thirty day free trial.  I cancelled it and removed the books I had downloaded, after totally losing interest in three of the four books I had borrowed.  It occurred to me a day or two after reactivating the service that I really didn't want to spend all summer reading on my kindle.

Speaking of reading, and of poetry, I discovered Tommy Pico's newest effort was released back in May, so I ordered it from my local bookstore.  Upon returning home, I noticed, unlike his earlier work, this one was available in electronic format.  While I have poetry in electronic format, I think it is actually something I prefer in paper, so I didn't cancel any orders or even compare pricing.  What struck me as the funniest thing was that I found the book in the Apple iBooks store, but it never really registered, until after I got home from the bookstore, that it was actually available electronically.  My mind thinks small press and that means no electronic versions.  Obviously, I am wrong, and I am glad such works are available in a variety of formats.

John Donne's "The Message"

The Message

SEND home my long stray’d eyes to me, 
Which, O! too long have dwelt on thee; 
Yet since there they have learn’d such ill,   
   Such forced fashions,
   And false passions, 
     That they be
     Made by thee 
Fit for no good sight, keep them still. 

Send home my harmless heart again, 
Which no unworthy thought could stain; 
Which if it be taught by thine
   To make jestings
   Of protestings,
     And break both
     Word and oath, 
Keep it, for then ’tis none of mine. 

Yet send me back my heart and eyes, 
That I may know, and see thy lies, 
And may laugh and joy, when thou
   Art in anguish
   And dost languish
     For some one
     That will none, 
Or prove as false as thou art now.

                                -Donne, John (2012-09-14). Delphi Complete Poetical Works of John Donne
                                   (Kindle Locations 710-717). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

I came across this over the weekend, and decided it was something I wanted to share, though I don't think spurning a lover is a poet is a good thing, since poems like this are the result.

When Half the Poem is by a different Poet

I don't know if I am just slow, lazy, or moody about when I read the book, but I am still working on Carlos Pintado's Nine Coins/Nueve monedas.  Amongst those read today included "Portico":

I know that in my life's last moment,

that line of Walt Whitman's will come to me:

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy

walks to his own funeral . . . 

Considering how many entries I have made regarding Whitman, it only seemed sensible to share this as well.

Reminded of Neruda (and other thoughts)

In the February 6, 2017 issue of The New Yorker, I found a poem by Charles Simic that reminded me a great deal of Neruda's The Book of Questions.  I know I have quoted some of the Neruda poetry in the past, so I will spare myself more exercises in transcribing, since those poems are in a physical book for me, rather than electronic.  I think the fifth line of Simic's poem, "Does the sound of the surf remind it of itself?" is probably what the parallel most strongly to mind.

Aside from feeling vaguely unsettled, likely due to a lack of exercise in my daily regimen, there is little to report.  I spent the weekend at work, reading a bit of this and that as I had time.  I will say, electronic readers are great for allowing that, with John Donne (I am reminded there is a poem I wanted to share, but that will be another entry), John Milton, TE Lawrence, and Walt Whitman all authors that I read bits and pieces from.  I also did some browsing of the news, looking for anything I might have missed during the week.  From the latter, I did find this interesting piece in Slate in which the author talks about how the Trump administration is using calls of "Fake News" as a the equivalent of a schoolyard taunt to distract the media and put them on the defensive.

Synchronicity in Reading

Not long ago I read Donald Platt's poem "The Main Event," which is about a boxing match from 1962 between Benny "Kid" Paret and Emile Griffith.  The match is a grizzly affair with the referee stopping the match, a bit belatedly, as Paret is hung on the ropes and beaten ferociously.  Paret eventually dies.  I highly recommend the poem, and it can be found in The Best American Poetry 2015, though it was originally published in Southwest Review.

Shortly after reading this, as I was reading Tales of Beatnik Glory by Ed Sanders, I came across a chapter/short story that mentioned the same fight, "The AEC Sit-In."  The fight was used in a different way in the story, but I found it interesting that I read two unrelated works that just happened to mention the same unfortunate boxing match.

I guess the more you read, the more you discover these things, and I guess if i wanted to be properly clever I could compare and contrast the authors' use of the fight, but I don't care to be properly clever right now, as it is Monday morning, and I am winding down from work, and not mentally up for such an exercise after working all night.

A link to a poem and thoughts (on what, I am not sure)

I found this great poem by Jameson Fitzpatrick in January's "Poetry" magazine, and I think you should give it a read.  I decided it would be too difficult to just take a section of it and post, so that is why I linked the whole thing.  Considering how things in this blog have progressed, linking it is likely political.

I was looking, but couldn't find it quickly, so I will either forget about it or search later for the line of Whitman I was seeking, one where he sees no difference in the young men sent to war by either side during the Civil War.  It will probably haunt me until I can find it and share it.

Speaking of Whitman, "Long, Too Long America" is one I transcribed onto my FB feed.  I got several likes, and then of course someone decided to make the poem political, and said the screaming was from liberals or some such thing.  After a calm comment from me about one beauty of poetry was that people could interpret it as they will, especially when the author is long gone.  This earned another response of some sort, and I eventually said:

The fact you immediately jumped to something derogatory and negative in your interpretation of the poem, while I was basically using it as a reminder that this country has been divided before, and that we made it through once, and will again, means we really don't see the world in the same way, and our perspectives aren't likely to jibe often. Whitman's war poetry is filled with the blood of young soldiers, and the horrors daily seen, and so there are lamentations also included, but there is also the hope that we will come out whole as a country, and this hope is what carries the poems.  

After that, there was little more to be said, and he did sort of apologize.  Perhaps we are so polarized because we not everyone is willing to compromise on their vision for this country, a country that has historically and consistently demonized immigrants, but has somehow managed to keep accepting them.  We are a country of immigrants, and to deny that is to deny history, and to claim that immigrants have always been openly accepted is also to deny history, since just prior to WWII the US refused to allow a ship of Jewish refugees to disembark.  History is dark and sometimes unpleasant, and though they claim it is written by the winners, we all lose if the other voices are completely silenced.  With the current methods terrorists seem to enjoy, I think a thorough vetting of immigrants is fair and just, and that vetting got even more thorough when it was discovered some were allowed into the country, only to have them attempt to send money to terrorist organizations.  Slowing the process down and increasing the scrutiny was a valid answer, banning people outright fleeing from countries at war is not a measured answer, it is a panic answer that does no good, but does manage to alienate our allies, and make life infinitely more difficult for those fleeing their homes.

Ironically, VP Pence is staunchly pro-life, but a dead three year old boy lying on a beach deserves nothing because he is muslim?  Something tells me that VP Pence is only pro-life if there is a chance the child will be brought up as a good Christian.

A bit from "Paradise Lost"

As I was reading the news this past weekend, I came across this rather striking image.  Is it overblown or a premonition?  Only time will tell, but I also happened to be reading a bit more of "Paradise Lost" this weekend as well, and came across this near the end of book 1 in Milton's poem:

He spake: and to confirm his words, out-flew 
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs 
Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze   
Far round illumin’d hell: highly they rag’d 
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms 
Clash’d on thir sounding 
Shields the din of war, 
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heav’n.

          -Milton, John (2012-10-13). Delphi Complete Works of John Milton (Illustrated) (Kindle Locations 3025-3028). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

This cover, in addition to how Trump has behaved towards the judiciary this past week, as well as his treatment of the press, and his general disregard for the US Constitution, I think compelled my brain to draw that comparison with Mammon.

More Whitman

His Civil War poetry seems to strike a chord with me currently.  Here is another:

LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA.

Long, too long America,Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

- Whitman, Walt; Gilchrist, Anne (2014-02-20). The Complete Walt Whitman: Drum-Taps, Leaves of Grass, Patriotic Poems, Complete Prose Works, The Wound Dresser, Letters (Kindle Locations 1384-1393). Bybliotech. Kindle Edition.

I found something from "Paradise Lost" I intend to share as well, but since I had already posted this to FB, I figured it would make more sense to do this one today, with the other used at a later date. One nice thing about poetry is that it allows us to remember that what we face today is little but a different aspect of what has been faced in the past, no less pernicious, and no less unpleasant, but not something completely new.

Edit: I attempted to correct formatting on this but I didn't succeed. Rather than fuss with it forever, I am just going to leave it.

Walt's words work well

YEAR THAT TREMBLED AND REEL'D BENEATH ME.   

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me! 
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me, 
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me, 
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself, 
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled? 
And sullen hymns of defeat?

          --Whitman, Walt; The Complete Walt Whitman: Drum-Taps, Leaves of Grass, Patriotic Poems, Complete Prose Works, The Wound Dresser, Letters (Kindle Locations 1292-1298). Bybliotech. Kindle Edition.

I came across this poem yesterday, and liked it, and thought it terribly apropos of the current situation.