6.29.15

Last night's final Jeopardy was poetry-related again, I love it when they do that. Combining things I like! The question (err, answer) was: "One summer day in 1797 this British poet fell asleep reading a book that adapted the writings of Marco Polo". The response was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the poem was Kubla Kahn, or a Vision in a Dream. A fragment. I knew about this poem from several references in literary criticism texts. It is often the example given for Iambic structure. Culturally, it wasn't well known until Coleridge was encouraged by Lord Byron to publish it. (I was also unaware that opium may have played a part in the induction of the dream!) Here is a little bit about the verse itself:

 The story of its genesis is one of the prodigies of English literature. In the course of a solitary walk in the combes near the Bristol Channel in the fall of 1797, Coleridge took two grains of opium for the dysentery which had been bothering him for some time. He retired to an old stone farmhouse some distance from Porlock, where he fell asleep while reading an old travel book, Purchase His Pilgrimage (1613), by Samuel Purchase. He awoke hours later to record the extraordinary train of images which arose during his opiated stupor. The act of composition was interrupted by a “person from Porlock”—often conjured by later poets as a figure of life intruding on art—and it proved impossible to continue afterward. Much ink has been spilled over these circumstances, but their oddity makes them generally plausible, even considering Coleridge’s habits of prevarication.

Here's the poem:  

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

   Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

   The shadow of the dome of pleasure

   Floated midway on the waves;

   Where was heard the mingled measure

   From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer

   In a vision once I saw:

   It was an Abyssinian maid

   And on her dulcimer she played,

   Singing of Mount Abora.

   Could I revive within me

   Her symphony and song,

   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Coleridge was active in politics after the French Revolution and had worked as a pamphleteer and lay preacher. He even ran away to enlist under an assumed name at one point, and served five months before family members were able to retrieve him. He dreamed of escape in one form or another, including making plans for a utopian commune in Pennsylvania. After his poetic career he became a critic, incorporating themes from other cultures and new ideas. 

6.23.15

I'm staring at the backlog of poems in my inbox, knowing I need to read them (wanting to read them!) and still ignoring them. I wish I had something new to share with you, some exciting experience, but I don't get out much. Even if I did go over to the artists enclaves in the city, I also admit that it's really somewhat terrifying to break into a new circle, and I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of art right now.

This is my father moved through dooms of love by e.e. cummings.


       34


my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

Edward Estlin Cummings was known for his experimentation. I think many people are familiar with his play with form, as in [in just], and enjoy learning his work as a departure from some of his peers. I find it somewhat difficult to read his poems with the crazy formatting, but I do love that this poem plays with language while still retaining the semantic thread. Also, I rather relate to this work, and it's somewhat special to me for that reason. (Ach, du.) 

Among linguistically-minded friends, the argument of understanding vs. evolution of language comes up. Some believe there is no "wrong" (descriptive understanding) in languages because they continually evolve and change and that is totally normal, while others would like some formalization of semantics and form for communication and understandings' sake (prescriptive understanding). Something that I really like about this work is how it dabbles in both camps. We see forms that are totally different "Theys of we", which is strange in that it pluralizes they, and makes subgroups within pronouns. I really like this, though, because it feels as though there is a third person within the first person, and that makes it feel very isolated and lonely, much as I imagine the speaker of this eulogistic piece would feel. 

6.16.15

Juan Luis Herrera is our next poet laureate of the US, and the first Latino to be chosen. Previously the poet laureate of California in 2012, he studied at UCLA and Stanford, and his work reflects the "three Californias", or faces of the state as he knew it.

His work has received a lot of acclaim (including the UC Berkeley Regents Fellowship, go bears!), and he continues to teach and do activist work. I am happy that a Latino poet laureate has been chosen, since the diversity of voices in writing and art is part of what makes the USA an interesting place in which to create.

Now on to some poems. Usually I reformat anything I cut and paste from websites, since they tend to transfer poorly, but I am leaving Everyday We Get More Illegal as I found it, because the spacing is important to the reading:

Yet the peach tree 

still rises

& falls with fruit & without

birds eat it the sparrows fight

our desert       

 

            burns with trash & drug

it also breathes & sprouts

vines & maguey

 

laws pass laws with scientific walls

detention cells   husband

                           with the son

                        the wife &

the daughter who

married a citizen   

they stay behind broken slashed

 

un-powdered in the apartment to

deal out the day

             & the puzzles

another law then   another

Mexican

          Indian

                      spirit exile

 

 

migration                     sky

the grass is mowed then blown

by a machine  sidewalks are empty

clean & the Red Shouldered Hawk

peers

down  — from

an abandoned wooden dome

                       an empty field

 

it is all in-between the light

every day this     changes a little

 

yesterday homeless &

w/o papers                  Alberto

left for Denver a Greyhound bus he said

where they don’t check you

 

walking working

under the silver darkness

            walking   working

with our mind

our life

Half-Mexican

Odd to be a half-Mexican, let me put it this way
I am Mexican + Mexican, then there’s the question of the half
To say Mexican without the half, well it means another thing
One could say only Mexican
Then think of pyramids – obsidian flaw, flame etchings, goddesses with
Flayed visages claw feet & skulls as belts – these are not Mexican
They are existences, that is to say
Slavery, sinew, hearts shredded sacrifices for the continuum
Quarks & galaxies, the cosmic milk that flows into trees
Then darkness
What is the other – yes
It is Mexican too, yet it is formless, it is speckled with particles
European pieces? To say colony or power is incorrect
Better to think of Kant in his tiny room
Shuffling in his black socks seeking out the notion of time
Or Einstein re-working the erroneous equation
Concerning the way light bends – all this has to do with
The half, the half-thing when you are a half-being

Time

Light

How they stalk you & how you beseech them
All this becomes your life-long project, that is
You are Mexican. One half Mexican the other half
Mexican, then the half against itself

Herrera has a large body of work and there are many more to look through, I encourage you to explore his writings. Something I liked about both of these was the lack of punctuation at the final. It made me think that the work was continuing elsewhere. (Like they say, a poem is never unfinished, only abandoned, so this is perfect). 

6.16.15

Some belated weekend words for you. (Isn't that how it always works?)

6/2/15

I am informed of the tidings of my generation.

A generic letter in the mail with cheerful

headers and group snaps,

A heavy-sounding news cast,

this is what I will do next.

I have been informed I will love the cities.

Nightlife, nature, education, free will,

to have it all and still

be unfulfilled, isolated,

damned by the boredom

afforded by the accident of my birth.

I have been informed I will spend more money,

have some debt, the better to match,

and from my perch, the view will be

vast but the wind

harder and harder to push back.

I haven’t seen enough, my eyes are slit,

my mind malleable,

so I must be informed

that it is my privilege to have been born,

and that I must conform.

6.11.15

Leaving my soccer match on Tuesday I noticed this posted near Roosevelt High school. I know it's hard to read, but the title is "Two poems" by Lawrence Raab. If fact, the image seems to be directly correspondent to this page, so go and view it more easily. Not your normal advertisement for this area, and I was pleasantly surprised. 

The writing all around the edge says "Read this!" "why should I?" etc. The page I found is from Speechless the magazine, the self-proclaimed "oddest little magazine on the web".

Here's the first poem:



WHY IT OFTEN RAINS IN THE MOVIES


Because so much consequential thinking
happens in the rain. A steady mist
to recall departures, a bitter downpour
for betrayal. As if the first thing
a man wants to do when he learns his wife
is sleeping with his best friend, and has been
for years, the very first thing
is not to make a drink, and drink it,
and make another, but to walk outside
into bad weather. It’s true
that the way we look doesn’t always
reveal our feelings. Which is a problem
for the movies. And why somebody has to smash
a mirror, for example, to show he’s angry
and full of self-hate, whereas actual people
rarely do this. And rarely sit on benches
in the pouring rain to weep. Is he wondering
why he didn’t see it long ago? Is he wondering
if in fact he did, and lied to himself?
And perhaps she also saw the many ways
he’d allowed himself to be deceived. In this city
it will rain all night. So the three of them
return to their houses, and the wife
and her lover go upstairs to bed
while the husband takes a small black pistol
from a drawer, turns it over in his hands,
the puts it back. Thus demonstrating
his inability to respond to passion
with passion. But we don’t want him
to shoot his wife, or his friend, or himself.
And we’ve begun to suspect
that none of this is going to work out,
that we’ll leave the theater feeling
vaguely cheated, just as the movie,
turning away from the husband’s sorrow,
leaves him to be a man who must continue,
day after day, to walk outside into the rain,
outside and back again, since now there can be
nowhere in this world for him to rest.

So I shot this because it reminded me of our "poetry terrorism" experiments in college. Whoever posted this, great work, and keep sharing work (yours or others!) where people who may not usually see it! Would you put your work out there in public, or share another piece you loved, to get it seen?

6.10.15

Here's another piece I came across that reminded me of jazz. This is definitely one to read aloud.



Charlie Parker (1950)


Campbell McGrath





Bird is building a metropolis with his horn.
Here are the gates of Babylon, the walls of Jericho cast down.
Might die in Chicago, Kansas City’s where I was born.

Snowflake in a blizzard, purple rose before the thorn.
Stone by stone, note by note, atom by atom, noun by noun,
Bird is building a metropolis with his horn.

Uptown, downtown, following the river to its source,
Savoy, Three Deuces, Cotton Club, Lenox Lounge.
Might just die in Harlem, Kansas City’s where I was born.

Bird is an abacus of possibility, Bird is riding the horse
of habit and augmented sevenths. King without a crown,
Bird is building a metropolis with his horn.

Bred to the labor of it, built to claw an eye from the storm,
made for the lowdown, the countdown, the breakdown.
Might die in Los Angeles, Kansas City’s where I was born.

Bridge by bridge, solo by solo, set by set, chord by chord,
woodshed to penthouse, blue to black to brown,
Charlie Parker is building a metropolis with his horn.
Might just die in Birdland, Kansas City’s where I was born.

I went looking for some more pieces of his to add, and I am tickled to share the one I chose. I'll leave it to you to pull out of it what pieces suit you best, but I must say I relate to "Our voices are too small". 

Emily and Walt

I suppose we did not want for love.

They were considerate parents, if a bit aloof,

or more than a bit. He was a colossus

of enthusiasms, none of them us,

while she kissed our heads and mended socks

with a wistful, faraway look.

She might have been a little, well, daft.
And he—Allons, my little ones, he’d laugh,

then leave without us.
And those “friends” of his!

Anyway, he’s gone off to “discover
himself” in San Francisco, or wherever,

while she’s retired to the condo in Boca.
We worry, but she says she likes it in Florida;

she seems, almost, happy. I suppose they were
less caregivers than enablers,

they taught by example, reading for hours
in the draughty house and now the house is ours,

with its drawers full of junk and odd
lines of verse and stairs that ascend to God

knows where, belfries and gymnasia,
the chapel, the workshop, aviaries, atria—

we can never hope to fill it all.
Our voices are too small

for its silences, too weak to spawn an echo.
Sometimes, even now, when the night-wind blows

into the chimney flue
I start from my bed, calling out—“Hello,

Mom and Dad, is that you?”

6.5.15

Imposter syndrome is real. My struggle (being short) is always "anyone taller than me must be X" where x approaches older, cooler, not to mention more able to reach things off the high shelves. I'm interested that this poem has two authors.



Florida Doll Sonnet

Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton


I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.

This reminds me of an article I read (this is not it, but the subject is the same and it's about the same book and author) about this particular type of conspicuous consumption and the lives it spawns. Read at your peril.

6.1.15

Belated weekend words:

5-28-15

No soy la chascona

The wind shares the

awkward grace of seed pods.

Hemmed, I may observe

but not create.

Mine is a pithy basket,

permutations without replacement.

A path is made so I may walk it.

A verb is pressed into use

A wing is created so that

I may see from above.

Dandelion optimism is the color of my season

My umbrella will be seen

as an instrument for rain,

not of a novel shape.

Some may fabricate clusters of appreciation;

I can only people the perimeter.