11.29.14

I don't have much to contribute, so here is something beautiful. 



Closed by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard



The crimson dawn breaks through the clouded east,
And waking breezes round the casement pipe;
They blow the globes of dew from opening buds,
And steal the odors of the sleeping flowers.
The swallow calls its young ones from the eaves,
To dart above their shadows on the lake,
Till its long rollers redden in the sun,
And bend the lances of the mirrored pines.
Who knows the miracle that brings the morn?
Still in my house I linger, though the night—
The night that hides me from myself is gone.
Light robes the world, but strips me bare again.
I will not follow on the paths of day.
I know the dregs within its crystal hours;
The bearers of my cups have served me well;
I drained them, and the bearers come no more.
Rise, morning, rise, for those believing souls
Who seek completion in day’s garish light.
My casement I will close, keep shut my door,
Till day and night are only dreams to me.


Elizabeth Stoddard is better known (at least to me) as Elizabeth Barstow, a 19th century novelist and poet from the US. From wiki: "Her work combines the narrative style of the popular nineteenth-century male-centered bildungsroman with the conventions of women's romantic fiction in this revolutionary exploration of the conflict between a woman's instinct, passion, and will, and the social taboos, family allegiances, and traditional New England restraint that inhibit her." Her style is compared to the Bronte sisters and Nathaniel Hawthorne. On account of curiosity, here is something slightly different from the first. 


Nameless Pain

I should be happy with my lot:

A wife and mother – is it not

Enough for me to be content?

What other blessing could be sent?

A quiet house, and homely ways,

That make each day like other days;

I only see Time’s shadow now

Darken the hair on baby’s brow!

No world’s work ever comes to me,

No beggar brings his misery;

I have no power, no healing art

With bruised soul or broken heart.

I read the poets of the age,

’Tis lotus-eating in a cage;

I study Art, but Art is dead

To one who clamors to be fed

With milk from Nature’s rugged breast,

Who longs for Labor’s lusty rest.

O foolish wish! I still should pine

If any other lot were mine.

11.24.14

Just a few words for this evening from Langston Hughes:

Frederick Douglass:  1817-1895

Douglass was someone who,

Had he walked with wary foot

And frightened tread,

From very indecision

Might be dead.

Might have lost his soul,

But instead decided to be bold

And capture every street

On which he set his feet,

To route each path

Toward freedom's goal,

To make each highway

Choose his compass' choice,

To all the world cried,

Hear my voice!...

Oh, to be a beast, a bird,

Anything but a slave! he said.

Who would be free

Themselves must strike

The first blow, he said.

He died in 1895.

He is not dead.

11.23.14

For a weekend-words type post, I'll tell you about a little challenge I've been participating in. A few friends wanted to do a "Sketch-a-day" for November, with a list of prompts for inspiration. I can't draw to save my life, but suggested I could do a literary companion to the art.

Writing to a prompt is always interesting, especially if it doesn't grab your interest, but having the structure of a prompt can be helpful if material is being elusive. I actually found myself turning to more structured forms if I wasn't sure how to treat the topic. Another interesting element of it was the prompts instructed me to "draw", so that got swept up in the interpretation sometimes.

A few of the sillier topics and responses:

"Draw your favorite character as a zombie"

From far away, they are little herds of numbers.

Downbeats, matchsticks, little elevens

until you see their drunken shamble

and crooked posture

and known them for the imitations they are;

imitations of life.

Not just anathema to life,

but there for it’s consumption--

pursuit, to the point of madness,

then a sickening rending of flesh from bone,

their own hanging in ribbons.

Clothed in the mire of their loss,

able only to stagger through,

thronging hordes of numbers.

Everyone lets out the breath they’ve been holding.


"Draw a treehouse"

T o decide to

R ise above

E veryday complications and

E ncourage man to say, To

H ell with the surly bonds

O f earth. Oh envy

U s, fallen children, for you

S ee before you the

E pitome of freedom.

"Draw any word written in graffiti"

The serifs jag and shafts kink out

in elbows and blades

around the neighborhood.

Each letter in its own code

is a tag on a bus stop or in an alleyway

transforming familiar into unknown.

And if it is code, who then can speak it?

It presents the great two-faced urban makeup

of those who live in it

and those who live and breathe it.

Is it something about gangs?

Is it something about drugs?

if we can’t understand it

what would that say about us?

It's been interesting so far, but I am enjoying it. In addition to putting yourself into good habits by writing every day, some of the topics are a bit of a challenge to address. Since its an art group, I don't actually get any feedback (I'm not sure they know what to do with the text), but I think I might seek out a similar facebook-type group for sharing and feedback. Do you write with a group, or using prompts/exercises ever?

11.22.14

Sorry for the silence. It's funny how creativity begets creativity, and the lack thereof seems to do the same. I've had more Half-Price Books adventures, but no new poets to show for it (I did make out like a bandit in the dollar rack though). I've still been looking at Carver, and marveling at how he does memory and nostalgia without falling into traps. (Traps'n'tropes should be the name of a pulp bookstore).

My Work

I look up and see them starting
down the beach. The young man
is wearing a packboard to carry the baby.
This leaves his hands free
so that he can take one of his wife’s hands
in his, and swing his other. Anyone can see
how happy they are. And intimate. How steady.
They are happier than anyone else, and they know it.
Are gladdened by it, and humbled.
They walk to the end of the beach
and out of sight. That’s it, I think,
and return to this thing governing
my life. But in minutes

they come walking back along the beach.
The only thing different is that they have changed sides.
He is on the other side of her now,
the ocean side. She is on this side.
But they are still holding hands. Even more
in love, if that’s possible. And it is.
Having been there for a long time myself.
Theirs has been a modest walk, fifteen minutes
down the beach, fifteen minutes back.
They’ve had to pick their way
over some rocks and around huge logs,
tossed up from when the sea ran wild.

They walk quietly, slowly, holding hands.
They know the water is out there
but they’re so happy that they ignore it.
The love in their young faces. The surround of it.
Maybe it will last forever. If they are lucky,
and good, and forbearing. And careful. If they
go on loving each other without stint.
Are true to each other—that most of all.
As they will be, of course, as they will be,
as they know they will be.
I go back to my work. My work goes back to me.
A wind picks up out over the water.


This couple reflects the speaker back on himself. The walkers go out and back, his eyes stray away from his work and back to it, he travels back in memory, then returns to the present. If the title is an indication that he compares his relationship to his work to an intimate partnership, it is comforting to think that the work will still be there as life evolves. 



 The Windows of the Summer Vacation Houses

They withheld judgement, looking down at us
silently, in the rain, in our little boat--
as three lines went into the dark water
for salmon. I'm talking of the Hood Canal
in March, when the rain won't let up.
Which was fine by me. I was happy
to be on the water, trying out
new gear. I heard of the death,
by drowning, of a man I didn't know.
And the death in the woods of another,
hit by a snag. They don't call them
widow-makers for nothing.
Hunting stories of bear,
elk, deer, cougar--taken in and out
of season. More hunting stories.
Women, this time. And this time
I could join in. It used to be girls.
Girls of 15, 16, 17, 18--and we
the same age. Now it was women. And married
women at that. No longer girls. Women.
Somebody or other's wife. They mayor
of this town, for instance. His wife.
Taken. The deputy sheriff's wife, the same.
But he's an asshole, anyway. 
Even a brother's wife. It's not anything
to be proud of, but somebody had to go
and do his homework for him. We caught
two small ones, and talked a lot, and laughed.
But as we turned into the landing
a light went on in one of those houses
where nobody was supposed to be.
Smoke drifted up from the chimney
of this place we'd looked at as empty.
And suddenly, like that--I remembered Maryann.
When we were both young.
The rare coin of those mint days!
It was there and gone
by the time we hooked the boat to the trailer.
But it was something to recall.
It turned dark as I watched the figure
move to stand at the window and look

down. And I knew then those things happened
so long ago must have happened, but not
to us. No, I don't think people could go on living
if they had lived those things. It couldn't
have been us.

The people I'm talking about--I'm sure
I must have read about somewhere.
They were not the main characters, no,
as I'd thought at first and for a long
while after. But some others you
sympathized with, even loved, and cried for--
just before they were taken away
to be hanged, or put somewhere.

We drove off without looking back
at the houses. Last night
I cleaned fish in the kitchen.

This morning it was still dark
when I made coffee. And found blood
on the porcelain sides of the sink.

More blood on the counter. A trail
of it. Drops of blood on the bottom
of the refrigerator where the fish
lay wrapped and gutted.
Everywhere this blood. Mingling with thoughts--
in my mind of the time we'd had
that dear young wife, and I.


For me, the keys to this one are "It turned dark as I watched the figure"...."this morning it was still dark". This memory is a much bigger shadow, presumably of Carver's failed marriage to Maryann. I know we're always supposed to assume that the speaker is not the poet, but this one's pretty clear and well-known. In this darkness he finds the trail of blood, whether real or imagined, and we remember that in the opening lines "I heard of the death" was on his mind as he experienced this memory.

For me, the theme of nostalgia has always been kinda fraught, so I like to see how others make memory work for them.

11.16.14

I didn't give you any weekend words for the weekend, so here are some for a Monday.

1/7/13

I watched the wind push branches

till they rattled and creaked.

It was the crying woman,  

arms and face turned to the sky,

pointing to all directions,

grinding teeth and keening.

Around the house, the edges came

seeking a weak spot to seep in--

to pass along the chill I didn’t know I felt,

which walked along side me,

but I was too slow to keep.

I wanted to feel it on my face,

the power of death,

I am nearly ready to join the dance:

my heart knows the song,

my feet the steps.


I am always concerned I will post one that I have already shared. I don't really remember which ones I've chosen, and I select them somewhat at random from a very large word file, so I apologize preemptively if you should notice a duplicate.

11.14.14

Another chapbook I picked up recently is Where Water Comes Together with Other Water by Raymond Carver. Carver is well-known for his re-popularization of the short story in the 1980s (all this from the pedia of wikis). Born in Oregon and raised in Washington, Carver married early and worked a series of jobs to support his family. Moving to California, he began taking writer's courses, and traveled to Iowa for an MA that he didn't finish there. He eventually graduated and began to teach English, among other work. His patchwork story eventually led to publication, teaching at universities (including my alma mater), and accolades for his writing.

That patchwork wasn't always rosy, or easy, as Carver struggled with alcoholism and its associated effects on his work, marriage, and health. Most of the pieces are somewhat long, but worth re-posting. Carver's voice is conversational, casual, but manages to have a classic tone and deals equally well with "high" and "low" themes.

A Forge, and a Scythe

One minute I had the windows open
and the sun was out. Warm breezes
blew through the room.
(I remarked on this in a letter.)
Then, while I watched, it grew dark.
The water began whitecapping.
All the sport-fishing boats turned
ad headed in, a little fleet.
Those wind-chimes on the porch
blew down. The tops of our trees shook.
The stove pipe squeaked and rattled
around in its moorings.
I said, "a forge, and a scythe."
I talk to myself like this.
Saying the names of things--
capstan, hawser, loam, leaf, furnace.
Your face, your mouth, your shoulder
inconceivable to me now!
Where did they go? It's like
I dreamed them. The stones we brought
home from the beach lie face up
on the windowsill, cooling.
Come home. Do you hear?
My lungs are thick with the smoke
of your absence.


I like the casual narration of this poem, as if the speaker is dictating. The sudden drama of the tempest becomes more like an anecdote told over the fence to a neighbor. There is a great deal of looking back in his works, something that I enjoy from Imagist poetry, of using a moment to illustrate another, but Carver isn't married to the supposed significance of that moment, other than what it makes the speaker experience. His poem Hominy and Rain is a similar moment, but the speaker cannot pin down what about it was so memorable, or why it was important to remember.


In a little patch of ground beside
the wall of the Earth Sciences building,
a man in a canvas hat was on
his knees doing something in the rain
with some plants. Piano music
came from an upstairs window
in the building next door. Then
the music stopped.
And the window was brought down.

You told me those white blossoms
on the cherry trees in the Quad
smelled like a can of just-opened
hominy. Hominy. They reminded you
of that. This may or may not
be true. I can’t say.
I’ve lost my sense of smell,
along with any interest I may ever
have expressed in working
on my knees with plants, or
vegetables. There was a barefoot

madman with a ring in his ear
playing his guitar and singing
reggae. I remember that.
Rain puddling around his feet.
The place he’d picked to stand
had Welcome Fear
painted on the sidewalk in red letters.

At the time it seemed important
to recall the man on his knees
in front of his plants.
The blossoms. Music of one kind,
and another. Now I’m not so sure.
I can’t say, for sure.

Its a little like some tiny cave-in,
in my brain. There’s a sense
that I’ve lost – not everything,
not everything, but far too much.
A part of my life forever.
I like hominy.

Even though your arm stayed linked
in mine. Even though that. Even
though we stood quietly in the
doorway as the rain picked up.
And watched it without saying
anything. Stood quietly.
At peace, I think. Stood watching
the rain. While the one
with the guitar played on.

11.12.14

I got to buy some new chapbooks recently, and even better, since we sold some old material (to Half Price books) I used my credit and it was like getting free books! One of the texts I picked up was The Panther and the Lash by Langston Hughes. It was interesting to explain to my husband who he was and why he was important. I thought that, since he's such a big name, everyone would have a little exposure in a high school English class, or an American History course. Perhaps not.

Despite having some high-profile titles inside (Dream Deferred, Motto, etc), there was a lot of material I was not familiar with. Of course his voices comes blazing through, and despite being culturally militant, his voice is accessible and does not turn the reader away (rather, encourages them to lean in).

Dinner Guest: Me

I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
To probe in polite way
The why and wherewithal
Of darkness U.S.A.--
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Murmuring gently
Over fraises du bois,
"I'm so ashamed of being white"

The lobster is delicious,
The wine divine,
And center of attention
At the damask table, mine.
To be a Problem
On Park Avenue at eight
Is not so bad.
Solutions to the Problem
of course, wait.


Lenox Avenue Bar

Weaving
between assorted terrors
is the Jew
who owns the place--
one Jew,
fifty Negroes:
embroideries
(heirloomed
from ancient evenings)
tattered
in this neon
place.


Down Where I am

Too many years
Beatin' at the door--
I done beat my
Both fists sore.

Too many years
Tryin' to get up there--
Done broke both my ankles down,
Got nowhere.

Too many years
Climbin' that hill,
'Bout out of breath.
I got my fill.

I'm gonna plant my feet
On solid ground.
If you want to see me
Come down.

I hope you liked this selection, it was part ones I had liked and part random skimming. I hope to get some more new books to share soon, since I have more gear to sell back to the bookstore.

11.10.14

More comparisons. My email is on point, or these things happen at this time of year. (Or kismet?)


To One Dead by Maxwell Bondenheim:

I walked upon a hill
And the wind, made solemnly drunk with your presence,
Reeled against me.
I stooped to question a flower,
And you floated between my fingers and the petals,
Tying them together.
I severed a leaf from its tree
And a water-drop in the green flagon
Cupped a hunted bit of your smile.
All things about me were steeped in your remembrance
And shivering as they tried to tell me of it.




and Half-Light by Frank Bidart


That crazy drunken night I

maneuvered you out into a field outside of

Coachella—I’d never seen a sky

so full of stars, as if the dirt of our lives

still were sprinkled with glistening

white shells from the ancient seabed

beneath us that receded long ago.

Parallel. We lay in parallel furrows.

—That suffocated, fearful

look on your face.

Jim, yesterday I heard your wife on the phone

tell me you died almost nine months ago.

Jim, now we cannot ever. Bitter

that we cannot ever have

the conversation that in

nature and alive we never had. Now not ever.

We have not spoken in years. I thought

perhaps at ninety or a hundred, two

broken-down old men, we wouldn't

give a damn, and find speech.

When I tell you that all the years we were

undergraduates I was madly in love with you

you say you

knew. I say I knew you

knew. You say

There was no place in nature we could meet.

You say this as if you need me to

admit something. No place

in nature, given our natures. Or is this

warning? I say what is happening now is

happening only because one of us is

dead. You laugh and say, Or both of us!

Our words

will be weirdly jolly.

That light I now envy

exists only on this page.

In both places the speakers are suspended against a natural backdrop that isn't really now and suffused with contemplation of someone who isn't really there. "There is no place in nature we could meet" fills the comparison in a pat way, but its casualness is a great contrast to the void between the speaker and their dead companion. Half-Light has some wonderful movement back and forth from the present to the past, at least, that's how I interpret "Jim, yesterday I heard your wife on the phone /

tell me you died almost nine months ago" coming just after a sequence of memory and just before another.

Ever have a piece of art/text surprise you by its similarity to another? See/read something and have the timing coincide with another book/object?

11.9.14

I saw this fragment in my poem-of-the-day email: Fragment by Amy Lowell.

What is poetry? Is it a mosaic
Of colored stones which curiously are wrought
Into a pattern? Rather glass that’s taught
By patient labor any hue to take
And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make
Beauty a thing of awe; where sunbeams caught,
Transmuted fall in sheafs of rainbows fraught
With storied meaning for religion’s sake.

It reminded me of another poem in a similar style (though a much different time period) that I very much liked as a kid.

Christopher Marlowe from Tamburlaine's Sufferings:

What is beauty saith my sufferings, then
If all the pens that poets ever held
Had fed the feeling of their masters thoughts,
And every sweetness that inspired their thoughts,
Their minds, their muses, on admired themes:
If all the heavenly quintessence they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy
Wherein, as in a mirror we perceive
The highest reaches of the human wit:
If all these can make one poem's period,
And all combine in beauty's worthiness
Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.


While Lowell was an imagist and Marlow an Elozabethan, there is a lot in common here. Opening with a question, attributing mystical qualities to art, static meter and rhyme, lots of superlatives, etc.

No particularly interesting analysis here, just something that reminded me of something else.

11.8.14

Weekend Words for November.


11/7/09

The earth mumbles and the leaves stretch

toward that to which all compass points align.

The nimbus does not dare watch

the places they have been before,

on their pathways, thin bridges of vapor.

Wraiths uninhibited to forge connections,

we are urged to follow their indices of ethereal magnetism.

Spinning out of control,

I am but mad North-by-Northwest.

Woke up feeling waterlogged,

Saturation pushed to the surface,

To blur the distinction between love and loss.

The spots have long since marred my silent maps,

landmarks dulled by November's dross:

floating scripts of indulgence.

Pure absence is nothing at its fullest,

the delicate bellwether finally top-to-toe:

a storm in a bottle.

11.5.14

It seems timely that today I could showcase a piece of culture/history/folk music that happens to also be a poem. Yes, its Guy Fawkes day, and here is The Fifth of November by no particular author. Many versions exist, and the page I found this on had a pretty exhaustive list. 

Remember, remember!
    The fifth of November,
    The Gunpowder treason and plot;
    I know of no reason
    Why the Gunpowder treason
    Should ever be forgot!
    Guy Fawkes and his companions
    Did the scheme contrive,
    To blow the King and Parliament
    All up alive.
    Threescore barrels, laid below,
    To prove old England's overthrow.
    But, by God's providence, him they catch,
    With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
    A stick and a stake
    For King James's sake!
    If you won't give me one,
    I'll take two,
    The better for me,
    And the worse for you.
    A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
    A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
    A pint of beer to wash it down,
    And a jolly good fire to burn him.
    Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
    Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
    Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

An example of their thoroughness: 

"This traditional verse exists in a large number of variations and the above version has been constructed to give a flavor for the major themes that appear in them. Several of the books referenced below cite even earlier sources. 

Lines 1-6 are as in Moore and Lloyd (1990; pg. 14). They differ from Chambers (1888; pg. 550) only in the third line ("There is..." instead of "I know of..."). "I know..." but not "I know of..." occurs in Thiselton-Dyer (1876; pg. 413, Northamptonshire). 

Lines 7-14 follow the order of the dialect version in Northall (1892, pg. 248, Lowsley). The wording used is from Thistleton-Dyer (1876, pg 413, Northamptonshire) for lines 7-10 and 13-14, and J.C.R (1857) for lines 11-12." 

And so on. Guy Fawkes, also called Guido, was born in York in 1570. When his father died, his mother married a Catholic, and this evidently affected him, as he converted himself, and fought for the Catholic Spanish in the Eighty Year's war. He is most famous for his role in the foiled Gunpowder Plot to assassinated King James I, as he was caught guarding the explosives when the authorities were tipped off, and when he was sentenced to be hanged, threw himself off the scaffold to his death. Even if history doesn't remember him particularly fondly (burning in effigy, anyone?), I feel like he ought to be remembered for more than members of Anonymous wearing masks from V for Vendetta.

Penny for the guy?

11.4.14

Something I love about poetry is its ability to surprise us with how we feel, even if we didn't know it. One of my favorite quotes is from Adrienne Rich: "Poems are like dreams; in them you put what you don't know you know", and the opposite end seems to be true as well. In them we find what we didn't know we were looking for. 

Sometimes, they can make us feel with very simple structures: There is Absolutely Nothing Lonelier by Matthew Rohrer

There is absolutely nothing lonelier
than the little Mars rover
never shutting down, digging up
rocks, so far away from Bond street
in a light rain. I wonder
if he makes little beeps? If so
he is lonelier still. He fires a laser
into the dust. He coughs. A shiny
thing in the sand turns out to be his.

Sometimes the feeling is more complex, developed more slowly: The Burnt-out Spa by Sylvia Plath

An old beast ended in this place:

A monster of wood and rusty teeth.

Fire smelted his eyes to lumps

of pale blue vitreous stuff, opaque

as resin drops oozed from pine bark.

The rafters and struts of his body wear

their char of karaul still. I can't tell

how long his carcass has foundered

  under

the rubbish of summers, the black-

  leaved falls. 

Now little weeds insinuate

soft suede tongues between his bones.

His armorplate, his topped stones

are an esplanade for crickets. 

I pick and pry like a doctor or

Archaeologist among

iron entrails, enamel bowls,

the coils and pipes that made him

    run.

The small dell eats what ate it once. 

And yet the ichor of the spring

proceeds clear as it ever did

from the broke throat, the

   marshy lip.

It flows below the green and white

baulstrade of a sag-backed bridge.

Leaning over, I encounter one

blue and improbable person

Framed in a basketwork of cattails.

O she is gracious and austere,

seated beneath the toneless water!

it is not I, it is not I. 

No animal spoils on her green door-

   step.

And we shall never enter there

where the durable ones keep house.

The stream that hustles us

Neither nourishes nor heals. 

Much like the speaker may discover his own loneliness or whereabouts in the text, the speaker seems to see herself/not-herself in the water, and is surprised. The gulf between the speaker and her "blue and improbable" double seems to be the mirror between the broken reality and the "durable" imagination or memory. I love the lushness of this work (I'm a huge Plath fan, that's no secret), and things like "iron entrails, enamel bowls" wants to become "enamel bowels" and flesh out the inside of the thing that was with an allusion to its purpose. 

This is something I come back to when I wonder why I seek out poetry and continue to try and share it.