From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 7:44 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 1 Rilke // echoing from memory

Rilke speaks of the book Niels Lyhne saying, "There is nothing in it that would not be understandable, comprehensible, or that wouldn't ring true to experience. There is nothing in it that would not summon a familiar resonance echoing from the memory." As I read letter after letter, I found myself coming back to this quote. On almost every page I have written words in the margin that no one but myself can understand; they refer to my own experiences. Though there are passages that I question, ideas that don't sit right with me, the overwhelming majority of Rilke's ideas "summon a familiar resonance echoing from the memory."

When I read "All Things consist of carrying to term and them giving birth," I feel comforted by it's "familiar resonance." It's not that I have heard this metaphor before, but that once I read it, I knew I have been looking for this metaphor. It is a hard sensation to describe, because the passage, as Rilke says, "summons a familiar resonance echoing from memory." It is a metaphor of motherhood, of pregnancy, of birth, of creation. We are a society that unconsciously uses war metaphors as though we were in danger of forgetting what war is, as though war was our favorite past time, as though war was the only experience we could recall. To realize this though does not solve the problem. We must actively create new habits in our speech. It is not easy to forget our most common metaphors and to create new ones that do not recall images of violence. I find it extremely difficult because speaking is a habit for me, and to change I must not only break the habit but create for myself a whole new way of thinking. I have a long way to go. I still do not notice destructive metaphors; they sneak up on me and sneak away again and I never notice. It is only when I read a line like this, where Rilke uses a birth metaphor, that I begin to think again about the power of language and metaphors, and I realize how difficult it is to turn war comparisons, into comparisons of birth, fertility, and motherhood. Rilke's passage feels familiar to me because I look for these words, I recognize them as coming from a free thinker, from someone who has lived and experienced, and who is deliberate with their words as I would like to be.

Rilke writes not only with a familiarity that echoes from our memory, but with a poetic beauty that pulls us in and captivates us. I find it almost impossible to disagree with any of Rilke's ideas unless I make the conscious effort to pull myself away from the book. This art Rilke has mastered, of pulling the reader inside, is similar to the atmosphere my choir director, Mr. Pool, tried to create between our choir and the audience. We were 18 young women in long black dresses with roses on our wrists. When we stood together we were one gem that glowed with 18 facets, throwing the light in a 18 beautiful directions. And between us and Mr. Pool, in that area of 6ft, something amazing happened, something that drew the audience in. We danced. Perhaps for a moment the audience felt they were part of this, perhaps they drew something away from it and our concert changed them, perhaps they wanted more than anything to be on stage with us... but they weren't. This is how Rilke effects me. He draws us in to the place where the light comes from, then we watch as the light springs from the gem in a million different directions, illuminating the world in a whole new light. And perhaps this illumination will change the way we see the world, but it does not make us a part of Rilke's world. Just as the audience couldn't be part of the dance, so can we only observe and marvel at and be captivated by Rilke's dance with the world. The passage that I haven't seemed to be able to work into this paragraph, but which inspired these thoughts reads: "What is keeping you from ... living your life as though it were one painful beautiful day in the history of a great pregnancy?" This is Rilke's dance with language, with life and experience. To read something so poetic and beautiful as this makes me smile and cry. It creates in me a feeling of longing, of wanting to live my life this way, of wanting to use language this way. I long to see my life as a beautiful painful day in the carrying to term of something, that when it's born, will be the greatest most loving act of creation we could imagine.

There are so many more underlined and stared and noted passages that I want to write about. I had this notion of going back through the book and journaling on every passage I'd marked, but I find now that I must pick one more idea, one more passage that "summon[s] a familiar resonance." Coming from the idea of a "beautiful painful day ... [in] a great pregnancy", Rilke draws me in again when he says "There is much beauty here because there is much beauty everywhere." Like Rilke's birth metaphors, this is an idea that I look for. I am drawn over and over again to the idea of beauty everywhere, and every time I come across it again it jumps up and kisses my cheek. No matter how many times I hear it, it always suppress me. I look up on my bookshelf and I see the title Little Altars Everywhere, and I am amazed at the simple truth of these three words. I have this suspicion that this simple thought is at the same time deep and complex and rare, and that I must treasure it. I suspect also that more than anything else I have encountered, it could transform my life and my whole way of thinking. I recently returned from England, and there I picked up a book Fairy Spells for my sister. The book is basically the author's view of life. She writes about coming to the world with a childlike sense of awe; she challenges readers to be amazed by the world around them, and to look for magical happenings. I hope she has read Rilke. After reading her ideas I wrote in my journal "yes, but it's so much easier to see the trees here with awe, for they are so much older and more majestic. I look for the unexpected bit of magic here, in 500 year old cathedrals and reading graves from the past centuries, because this country has more enchantment than the States." Then I realized that by having this thought I had missed the whole point. Everything is enchanted. There are little altars everywhere. And in the words of Peter Mayer (sp?) "Everything is holy now.".

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 10:58 AM

To: Briggle, Adam R; Thamert, Mark

Subject: briggle//twisting

When I beat him

I was Achilles

And my brother was Hector

Strung from the back of my chariot,

His head cropping up dust clouds,

And Priam wept and

Agamemnon cheered -

Helen would return to that bastard

Second-born Greek.

adam,

your first poem from the family poems draws me in with the verb in the first line. "beat" The reference to achilles draws me into a greek world of dust and hatred and death. At first I assume that this is something just between brothers, something I know little about. But I do know what competition feels like, and I realize that I felt like Achilles too, when I beat my sister. Only with us if it came to brawls she always won. "his head cropping up dust clouds" I love the sound and image of this line. I can see the head dragging in the dust, producing dust clouds as farm machinery working hard dry soil. I like the double "h" sound of His Head, then the "p"s in croPPing uP, the "uh" sound in Up and dUst, and the c's in Cropping and Clouds. It's not that I notice these things when I read the poem, but I know that it sounds good, the words rolling over in my head, swimming in my mouth and leaping off my toungue. I have to go back and look for why your poems do this so much better than others. That's when I find these repeated sounds that make happy buzzes in my brain. But back to the poem. The last lines throw me through a loop - "Helen would return to that bastard

Second-born Greek."

They take ma back out of the greek world and leave me trying to see how this greek myth relates to you and your brother. where I first decided it was all in loving sibling rivalry, I now see something deeper. The work helen draws me back out of this man's world, and makes me try to see who helen was in you and your brother's relationship (it this is really a poem about you and your brother as I am assuming); and then with the word "bastard" I step away from the poem. I see anger that I don't want to associate with. I don't want to examine my life and see the "chronic angers" of my house. I'm afraid of what I'll see, not in your relationship with your brother, but in myself.

Thank you adam for sharing this poem with us. I always enjoy reading your poetry and hearing you read.

rachel

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 6:38 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 20. jeff, anne, jen, tim// Nasrin Presentation// spacing

I found the presentation to be rewarding and intense. I especially liked the break down of the physical image of the poem, the way the spacing and line breaks could be interpreted to add meaning to an explication of the poem. We haven't talked much about line breaks and spacing in class so it was nice to look intensely at this aspect of the poetry. The other aspect of the presentation that gave me great insights was the biographical information provided about the poet, and the quote about Nasrin being either brave or crazy. I'm not big on polarizing debates, but I did appreciate the way the group was able to inspire the class to participate in the discussion by making an obviously polarized debate out of an issue that most people would fall somewhere in the middle on. I am intrigued by the choices Nasrin has made in her own life and how that reflects back on her poetry, an how her poetry reflects back on her life. The last lines in "Character (p 401/02)" read: If you've got no character/ you'll turn back,/ and if not/ you'll keep on going,/ as you are going now.

after learning about Nasrin's life, and the controvercies surrounding it, and how seriously and deeply she lives her life, this passage has particular meaning. It is almost as if she is willing herself to keep going. saying, you have character, you must keep going if you are a woman at all! and so she goes. maybe she is trying to convince herself, or maybe she is trying to tell the world why she must do this.

I was also espcially struck by one class member's comment about the poem "At the Back of Progress (p 403/ 04)" that the whole poem, when taken visually in it's verticle columns, rests rather unstably on "a couple of green chilis or a handful of cooked rice." It is as if this progress rests just unstabley on the cycle of violence, abuse and discrimination Nasrin talks about throughout the poem. It's hard for me to imagine being her, not only writing about these INCREDIBLY controvercial issues, but also speaking her opinion about them to audiences all over the world.

The only suggestion I would make is that other groups don't try to cover as much as this group tried to cover in their lengthy 15-20 min. presentation. But as I said, I enjoyed it, and gained great insights.

Write a brief entry about the presentation given by Jen, Tim, Ann and Jeff on Taslima Nasrin. Include at least one or two quotes from the poetry they covered. How do you know and understand this poet better after their presentation? What aspects of how they taught the poet were particularly effective?

20. Jeff, Ann, Jen and Tim // Nasrin Presentation // Your Title

__ Write a brief entry on one of the poems by Dahlia Ravikovitch or Ryuichi Tamura which will be presented next time. (Pinter Anthology, pp. 329ff and 457ff, respectively).

21. Ravikovitch or Tamura // Your Title

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 1:16 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Response to John // die to the known

When i read Rumi's "Die In This Love" I had a reaction similar to John's, my thoughts lingered on the religious. How could they not, knowing even a little about Rumi. This relates back to something we talked about in class, that you can't have an impression based purely on reader respnse, or even on the work itself, once you know something about the author. Your religious take on it John is slightly different from mine though. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you about it and some of my own thoughts to share as well.

you said:

Die, die, die in this love.

If you die in this love your soul will be renewed.

This phrase caught me the most as religious because of its implications of faith and salvation within love. To die within love as in to completely accept the love of god and within this find salvation (your common everyday relgious idea)

I was confused about what you meant by "your common everyday religious idea." I would assume you are talking about salvation, but I'm not sure what you're trying to get at exactly. When i read this passage however, i don't get a sense of salvation. perhaps it is because i have issues with the christain focus on salvation, and I think the whole idea takes away rather than adds to my experience of God and my experiences with the church. but that is for another essay. I think it is interesting however how our religious experiences and upbringing lead us to this way we relate to God right now, whether that be as a creator, as peace, as a subjective reality, as an imagined entity, as the opium of the masses, as a friend, as a father, as a mother, as a child, or any other way. But as Heidegger says, our past is not just some thing that we lug around; we LIVE our past everyday. So it is not just that our past brought us here, but that it is here. So even seeing this poem today, as a catholic who is disheartened by the focus of the church, hopeful for the future of it, and who thinks religious rules are a bunch of crap, I cannot see the poem without the lense of my past, without thinking of the time I wasn't into spirituality, of the time I was Catholic (with a capital C) and followed all the rules, of the time I cried cause my dad wouldn't come to church, of the time i had to be the rolemodel, of the time I was sure about everything. Rilke makes this point as well. "How can we be capable of forgetting the myths that stand at the threshold of all mankind?" (Letters to a Young Poet). We cannot truely forget any of it, for it guides our being and our seeing, every experience and relationship. So looking through my lenses, I don't want Rumi to be talking about salvation. The world itself brings to mind only negative connotations for me. It is all that is wrong with western religion. all we want is the goal, the ends, the salvation, to be saved. What if, GASP!! religion, faith, spirituality, relationship with the divine.... wasn't about GETTING anything (salvation included), but about giving and growing?

In the next line you talk about what Rumi means by the "death of that which is known". I see this a little differently than you do as well. This line speaks to me as not a known death, but a death to the known world. Rumi seems to say that we should not fear dying to all that we know, perhaps because something better awaits. but he wouldn't know this, would he. so perhaps he means for us not to fear the unknown. This idea reminds me of our theme of human wildness. To die to the known is to step out of the light and dance the rhumba with the woman in the shadows. To die to the known is to leave the old woman behind and embrace the green girl. To die to the known is to fall into the wild-night-woods, and never look back.

thank you for makin' me think john.

rachel castor

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 4:10 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: Response to Jen: Clifton // alive and out-of-bounds

I'm going to use Jen's original email and make comments right in with the text, so I'll do them in blue and in italics, just in case one or the other doesn't show up, you can still see where it was me talkin' and where it was jen.

~rachel

Lucille Clifton

there is a girl inside

she is randy as a wolf.

The sexuality of a woman is not usually referred to with this kind of freedom. The metaphor of the wolf implies a wildness and a predatory instinct that is not usually associated with women, who are "supposed to be" of more delicate concerns. I"m glad you took a closer look at this than I did because it brings up themes from the work itself. I very much agree with your comments. Lucille's coupling of girl and wolf brings to mind the unexpected, and there for unpredictable. since this way of talking about a girl's sexuality is so unexpected, we can't predict the girl, and likewise, the poem. Since girl is coupled with this intense view of sexuality, girl does not necessarily imply young of age, but rather seems to be a slang term. Something like the use of girl in "You go girl!" A term of power and affection, a striving for or toward something specific. I don't know how much sense it makes to disagree with another's opinion, but I 'disagree' with your view of Lucille's usage of the term "girl." I think the idea "girl" coupled with and intense view of sexuality definitely implies young, that is the contrast, that is what gives the poem that push and pull feeling. I wouldn't say the term girl in Lucille's poem is similar to girl in the term "you go girl!", not because it meaning of the word may be different, but because the context of the words is so very very different. The only thing I can relate girl to besides randy and wolf, is the obvious, "green girl". I think the term is meant to be seen as w/o power, and it creates amazing contrasts in the poem and perhaps makes us question how we think about girls, and what it means to be one. No Doubt has some song lyrics that say "I'm just a girl ... that's all that you'll let me be"

she will not walk away

and leave these bones

to an old woman.

This portion of the first stanza seems to be a reference to the frustration of the speaker of the poem, who seems to be an old woman, slightly tired of her youthful sense of sexuality. The speaker seems to be one who wants to relax and rest in the face of her inner wild nature. In other words, the speaker seems incapable of following through with the natural and powerful instincts of the girl within her. This line remains enigmatic for me, but I feel not a frustration from the poet, but an excitement that perhaps surprises her. Maybe it is an excitement that she has discovered this green girl, or that the green girl will not abandon her and leave her with only old bones, or only an old woman. No, the greenness fills her with randy wolf thoughts and hopes for blossoms in the second coming, born from her very experience, her aged-ness. Instead of denying the poet's age and taunting it with her youth, the green girl brings youth out of the "used poet['s]" gray hairs and bones. The poet is grateful to the fire inside her.

she is a green tree

in a forest of kindling.

she is a green girl

in a used poet.

The girl inside of the old speaker is the youthful portion of the woman, the one that will not go away. She is green and slow to burn, slow to grow tired and give up all, in the midst of a forest of quick burning kindling, which becomes exhausted in a moment. Only the green girl holds on to life and will not give in within the used poet, who has put names to experiences and emotions in life. These are really different insights than mine, much more concrete and very very interesting. I feel like I see the poem in a new light, and it is more illuminated. I think also that the green girl is not the only hold on life that the poet has, she will not die. But perhaps the green girl is the part of the poet who can stand in the fire, as Rumi asks, show me a man willing to stand in the fire.

she has waited

patient as a nun

for the second coming,

when she can break through gray hairs

into blossom

This portion of the poem sounds like a search for rebirth. The girl inside of the elderly poet is waiting for a release or reincarnation of life, uninhibited by the restrictions of age and maturity. The girl is the green tree that will not quickly burn, just as she is a nun of eternal patience, awaiting her time, in which she can break the bonds of gray haired age and become new and fresh again. and wild and alive and randy and ecstatic and very very ON FIRE with passionate green, this is the second coming. She HAS waited. perhaps the wait is over. perhaps it is over with each poem, or with each night of lovemaking, or with every moment of awe.... Perhaps the second coming is every moment of NOW that we realize.

and her lovers will harvest

honey and thyme

The lovers of the girl, once she breaks the bonds of age will find in her a sweetness which they didn't find in the old woman in her age. or their lovers could be one in the same, maybe the world itself is her lover, or her lovers are all the moments that make up the NOW, the pin-pricks in time that make up poetry, those who gather sweets (as rilke says) for some future poet...Perhaps this is part of a memory, a wish for a different time or place in which the girl's desires were possible either in the future or in the past. If the theme of rebirth is correct in the previous passage, this could be the woman expressing the desire for the future and the rebirth of the girl inside of her. Or it could be a call to look now and see the wild green girl, and see her niche in the world, and see how she can be let out. to see that there is a harvesting to be done.

and the woods will be wild

with the damn wonder of it.

The forest of kindling that is the old woman will watch in amazement as she re-experiences or relives, or becomes that which she cannot have at this moment. great image, I never would have thought of it, or reconnected the two images, of forest and woods. I love her words here, the wild woods. often I go to the woods to find peace, but there are times at night when the woods are edgy and wild and too alive for the part of me that wants boundaries and lines to color in. The elderly woman cannot allow the girl to shine through because of either physical or mental constraints, so at some point, she will amaze the world. I also relate the woods to the world. We'll all be wild with the damn wonder of the green girls in all of us, and the second-coming that takes place in every NOW, every moment. DAMN!!

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 3:31 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 8 Clifton// call her green

Lucille Clifton's poem reminded me of a song by Joni Mitchell:

Little Green

Born with the moon in Cancer

Choose her a name she will answer to

Call her green and the winters cannot fade her

Call her green for the children who have meade her

Little green, be a gypsy dancer.

He went to California

Hearing that everything's warmer there

So you write him and letter and say, "Her eyes are blue."

He sends you a poem ans she's lost to you

Little green, he's a non-conformer.

Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born

There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little green

Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There'll be iceicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there'll be sorrow.

Child with a child pretneding

Weary of lies you are sending home

So you sign all the papers in the family name

You're sad and you're sorry, but you're not ashamed

Little green, have a happy ending.

Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born

There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little green

Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There'll be iceicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there'll be sorrow.

(Joni Mitchell)

I'd be interested to hear other peoples' interpretation of or thoughts on the song if anyone every wanted to do one of their responses to this post. The idea of winters not fading "little green" reminds me alot of the green girl inside that lucille talks about. And all the things joni relates to the color green, the color when the spring is born, the nights when the northern lights perform, and the crocuses... it puts emotions and specific memories of ours with the color green. It gives green a personality, as Lucille gives her a wild personality, perhaps joni's green is a little more sorrowful, but I'd like to think she's a non-conformer. Since I heard this song i've imagined that if i ever had a baby girl, i'd name her green so she'd be a gypsy dancer. "Call her green for the children who have made her" makes me thing her parents must be young and wild. When lucille calls the little girl randy, i think of england, and brittish humor, and a wild playful sensuality and just plain horneyness (if that's a word). But randy like a wolf... what could that be? I think of the japanese animated movie, Princess Mononoke, that came out this fall. Here are the images I have in my head of princess mononoke. She is a girl who was raised by wolves, and she is fiercely loyal to the and associates herself with them. A very wild individual, yet full of life. compaired with other humans, she is "a green tree in a forest of kindling" I would recommend the movie to anyone, just in case you were wondering. It is wonderfully insightful and thought provoking commentary on human civilization and our treatment of eachother and the natural environment, but you won't come away with it knowing the filmmaker's opionions, and you might not be so sure of your own.

I was particularly taken with Lucille's lines seeming to refer to herself, such as, she will not walk away/ and leave these bones/ to an old woman. and She is a green girl/ inside a used poet and When she can brak through grey hairs/ into blossom. These images are striking. At first i didn't connect with the last line of the thirt strophe, but now I see grey hair litterally blossoming. the grey hair becomes the stem for the tiny, beautiful, abundanat and brightly colored flowers. And the green girl, in the forest, inside the used poet. I wonder if Lucille herself feels used. The last three lines of the first strophe sort of haunt me. I'm not sure that I understand them, but something in them speaks to me, and I am drawn in. In to wondering and into silence and into thoughts that I need to live this moment, and the next, and not leave my bones at all. And I hope I never think of myself as an old woman, and I hope the green girl has plans for my bones.

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 2:27 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 6 Anacreontea//Into the Fire

Pinter, 99 Poems in Translation, p4

Drinking -- I was immediately turned off by this poem because of the title. I wonder what connotations the word had when Anacreontea wrote this in the 6th c BC.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, -- Personifies the earth; the earth has thirst. Does it need or just want the rain? Was the poet watching a rainstorm? What was the view of the earth at this time, were people afraid of its wildness (am I?) or bent on conquering it? (maybe I should be.) It is a feminine image of the earth, passive, and waiting for the miracle of water to bestow life upon it. All life come from the water and the earth, they are lovers, but it is born of the earth. Maternal.

And drinks and gapes for drink again; -- This for me is after a long run in the summer, when we cannot wait for our water bottles at the end, but rush to the creek and thrust our heads underwater, and open our mouths, letting the water wash the dusty saliva out of our mouths until we emerge, and run with new energy, not wiping the water that drips from out wet hair off the tips of our noses.

The plants suck the earth, -- like infants suckling their pregnant mothers' nipples; rain is the milk of the earth.

and are/ with constant drinking fresh and fair; -- What does Anacreontea mean by "fresh and fair" ? Why use THOSE adjectives; could there have been different translations? This conjures images of spring, or of young women after bathing. The plants are never satisfied... are we? We have a constant need for satiation, perhaps it is a spiritual need that is never completely satisfied. What are we drinking? Is love our milk?

The sea itself (which one would think/ Should have but little need of drink)/ Drinks ten thousand rivers up, -- Because the sea has more water than any other entity, we think it does not need drink, but we are wrong, the sea drinks more water than any plant. The idea of greedy sea is not new; the sea eats lives of sailors and swallows ships. In the Odyssey how many times do creatures related to the sea try to keep (or kill) Odysseus? If we have more connection to Duende in our lives, do we then need more? Do poets need to 'drink' less of the earth because they are already intoxicated with it, or do they only need more and more?

So filled that they o'er flow the cup, -- What cup? Seems like a cheap rhyme. makes me think of Christianity and the blood of Christ poured out, or maybe the holy grail.

The busy Sun -- Sun is a male symbol; Apollo, powerful, strong ... busy? What is the sun doing? Did the author worship the sun as the bringer of life? Did he think the sun went round the earth?

(and one would guess/ By's drunken fiery face no less) -- Did the author know the sun was a star, a giant ball of burning gas? 'drunken fiery face' seems a negative phrase; but if we take drunken to be a good attribute, then fiery could mean full of energy, as opposed to full of rage, as I first read it. We can guess by the Sun's strength that he'd be thirsty, his drinking doesn't surprise us. Are there people we know who seem so thirsty for inspiration that no matter how much life they drink up, it never surprises us that they want more?

Drinks us the sea, and when he's done -- Is done used only for its rhyme/sound/rhythm? Or does the sun really ever stop drinking. I guess the sun does stop, at night. What is the poets' night? What is our night, our time to stop drinking?

The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun -- I wonder what the author's perception of the stellar universe was. I can see how stars so sharp and bright could be said to drink the sun. Imagine the sun as the pulsing mother, her rays like veins feeding the stars. I guess the sun is our mother in a way - her energy makes life possible on earth. The whole poem seems really maternal - did the author feel the same way?

They drink and dance by their own light, -- The moon (a female symbol) does not have its own light but reflects that of the (male) sun. hmmm. But did the author know that the moon didn't produce light?

The drink and revel all the night -- Night is the party of the Moon and Stars. The stolen light of the sun is their wine, and they come out to frolic as soon as the sun - the staunch King, gets out of the way. This image reminds me of college. We 'steal' the ideas of our profs and the 'greats' we study. Then we go back to our rooms, away from the classroom and the need to regurgitate and we make the ideas, the light, ours. We dance and drink and revel in it. we stay up late at night and talk about it. the ideas are our wine. the night is also our wine, the stolen day, the physically being awake in the wee hours; it is sometimes all that's necessary to revel and dance and play.

Nothing in nature's sober found, -- Nature's intoxicated. what do the rocks drink? Is nature aware of its intoxication, or is it for us to enjoy the thought of its personification? Reminds me of Rumi, could we handle this fire?

But an eternal health goes round. -- So if we were to soak up nature, or Duende, this spiritual inspiration, and be constantly open to revelation, would we be eternally inspired? Spiritually satisfied? What did health mean to Anacreontea? Was it a physical wellbeing caused by a spiritual wellbeing? Round makes me think of whole and holistic and unified and pregnant.

Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high, / Fill all the glasses there, -- With what are we filling them? This seems a pro-alcohol ending to the poem. if it was like the volkslieder (folksongs) we're looking at in another class, I'd say this last verse was tacked on to lighten the ideas of the song. But perhaps I am mis-reading it and one could continue the metaphor to mean that we should rink long and deep from life.

For why should every creature drink but I, -- Creature, perhaps includes moon, stars, sea, earth, and plants, because no animals or insects were mentioned in the poem. Who is the 'I'? The implied poet? We should partake of the earth's splendors as the earth itself does. Are we part of this cycle? If 'I' is the poet, do others who are not poets get to drink as well?

Why, man of mortals, tell me why? -- Man of mortals seems to refer to the reader, but I'm not a man. and I'd like to think that part of me is immortal. It would be really fun to pretend the author is writing to god, and is bringing god down to the level of humanity with this line. Why is the author asking us? To include us in the poem? it seems like he's already answered the question; he doesn't really want our opinion. Is his point to inspire us to think about it?

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2000 5:15 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 5 Hirsch//"many-sided spectacle

On p28 Hirsch quotes Halo Calvino's "Sis Memos for the Next Millenium" saying "outwardness and innerness, the world and I, experience and fantasy, appear compsed of the same verval meterial. ...visions of the eyes and spirit are contained in uniformed lines of small or capital letters, periods, commas, parentheis - pages of signs, packed as closely together as grains of sand, representing the many-sided spectacle of the world as a surface tht is always the same and always different, like dunes shifted by the desert wind." Hirsh goes on to paraphrase another of Calvino's ideas: "all the incitement and grace of leterature has to take place in the line-up of written characters on the page." So this is our lace curtain? It seems so inconsequential, this pattern of lines and curves and dots... yet after reading this chapter in Hirsch, how can we not be awed by this communication - the miracle of the written word. To go back to our discussion from a few classes ago, is the lace curtain the focus of the poem? It seems rather that the curtain's flapping catches our attention and merely frames and illuminates the room behind it. LIke Kate's memory of the curtain which symbolized and showed the emptiness of the house, so are words merely the symbols revealing the truth. Heidegger's etymology of the greek word for truth, "a-letheia", shows "letheia" to mean forgotten or hidden.

Thus truth is an un-forgetting. So words are the vihicle of our un-forgetting. Anyone who has read Sven Birkert's Gutenburg Ellegies, or who has taken Cindy Malone's editing and publishing class, or anyone who's grown up with a reverance for the written word, will disagree. Sven speaks of loving the words on the page -- not just the ideas they uncover. He romanticises books as Hirsch does poetry. And how can I disagree? I am one of those who can never let go of a book, I can't even sell my theology 180 books back. I am the sort who buys used poetry books just to know they are there, even if I never pick them up. And yet I can't help marveling at the bareness, the barrenness of these packed grains of sand. I come back to Yeats' idea: where does all inspiration come from? "The foul rag and bone shop of the heart." It comes from our simple, base, inconsequential experiences, as poetry from these spindly lines, curves, and dots.

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 2:14 AM

To: Thamert, Mark

Subject: 3 Response to STEPHANIE//making manifest

Response to Steph Frerich's post 2/3

Peacock,Yeats,Traditional//Resonating Essence

Though I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of academics or find myself feeling the similarly tickled by Molly Peacock's simple breakdown of poetry, I am drawn to your analyses of "Mad as the Mist and Snow" (Yeats, Rag and Bone, p27) and "Amergin and Cessair" (Traditional, Rag and Bone, p172).

The more I read Yeats the more I like him. Once you feel comfortable with a poet, know their history, where they are coming from and where they want to go, there is a familiarity that draws you into the poem I think. So I was a bit surprised that this poem didn't draw me in right away. Your response however brought me back to the poem, and now I want to taste it in my mouth and feel the images, concrete in their abstraction. You quoted the first lines of the poem: The best part of the poem, I believe, is the beginning when he arouses such visual significance: "Bolt and bar the shutter, / For the foul winds blow: / Our minds are at their best this night..." These lines intrigue me as well, and as I read the poem again, I feel like the third line is almost a shock. It is not what I am expecting and therefore draws me into the poem. Who does the "our" refer to in the third line? Are "our" minds at their best because they are loosened by the wind and begin to run amuck with it, or because they are bolted and barred safe from the "foul" wind? My favorite thing about poetry (well, okay, so maybe it's not my favorite thing, but I dig it) is that you don't have to answer these questions or any others to understand, taste and appreciate the poem. I think it is entirely possible to emotionally understand this poem without having the slightest clue what Yeats is talking about. I find, however, that the more ways I understand a poem the greater an effect it has on me, the longer I remember it, and the more I take away from it. I love the way you describe Yeats' language steph as expressing abstractness concretely. I jotted down a response to one of Adam's postings a few days ago in which I used these exact terms. I feel as though adam's idea of animal self meeting being self like the interface of water and air was absolutely brilliant. His ideas are deep and pleasingly abstract, yet he expresses them very concretely. (I enjoyed hearing Adam's poetry in my J-term class last year for this same reason, and for his surpassing and funky use of words and analogies that always caught me off guard while resonating new connections.)

Stephanie, you also talked about he "Amergin and Cessair" poem. I find myself especially drawn to this poem because on one word on the bottom of page 173... Traditional. Coming back from England/Scotland/Wales/Iceland last week left me feeling a little empty. While I was in the UK I was lucky to have the chance to see a number of museums and galleries, and I was amazed by the rich traditions represented there. It made me feel, as I said, empty, and a little shallow. I know that I have traditions to draw on, and that our country is not devoid of them, but the Irish and Scottish and Welsh traditions of literature and language make my mouth water. The only thing that could be more beautiful than this "Battle of Poetic Incantation" would be a 'Birth of Poetic Incantation'. The language is playful yet deep and rare and firm. The competition refreshes me instead of draining me, but I'm sure that if I was competing in it, I would feel very taxed by the end. Sometimes my rare-poet-friend, slb, and I poet like this, competing only so much as to inspire (or perhaps awe) the other. And like Dante and Guido's voyage, these Poetic Incantations have "charmed sails [which] fly/ With winds at will where'er [the poets'] thoughts might wend." I find myself feeling a little nostalgic for a past I never lived, a history that was never mine; it must have been quite enchanting and shocking to listen to such Incantations. Then again, perhaps the history of poetry is a history I can claim as mine, perhaps it belongs to all who study it. For what is tradition but past actions which we embrace and carry on; and who's traditions are they if not those who carry them on? Ta muid anseo (We are here -- Irish).

From: Castor, Rachel A

Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 6:23 PM

To: Thamert, Mark

Cc: 'loveday77@hotmail.com'

Subject: 4 Pinter 99 Poems//RAC to SLB

Dante Alighieri

Sonnett: Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti

99 Poems in Translation; selected by Harold Pinter, etc. p 36

Dante's Sonnet spoke to me as a memory and a promise of the dreams shared between me and my poet-of-moon-and-below-friend, slb. "Led by some strong engchantment," we ascent and descend with charmed sails; "With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend." I relate to Dante's description of this dream world, and it was interesting for me to hear in class what Adam and Sersch and others thought of this dream world. I wonder what slb would think of their interpretations.... I think that our dreaming is at once in the world and apart from it. It is as if, as Emily Dickenson says, our souls create their own society, and we cut a little nitch out of the world to dwell in for a while. But I don't think that stepping into this created society is a negative thing, and neither do I think that it is trying to escape reality. Instead I see it as regecting for a moment the reality that we've unconscioulsy built around ourselves, both individually and as a society, in order to embrace a conciously chosen reality. We have beautiful exchanges of abstract and startlingly concrete images, they haunt and inspire me. These are the images that I get from reading Dante's sonnet. I also liked John's articulation of his reading of the last few lines of the poem. I can see in my poeting-water-ripple-relationship with slb an obvious pride with which we separate ourselves from our companions, who, no matter how much we fein to include them, are never really a part of our delicious-dirty-poeting. In our moments of tumbling words, I am tempted to say we are "content and free." Though we might poet that we are "content and free", there is a part of us that never is. We can never be free of ourselves, and to be content is to be done, and I think slb would agree, that we never are.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2000 10:52 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 24. Dodd and Weores // Rain

Book of Luminous Things, p173 and 174

These two poem are both about rain but one stands out for me in it's word

play, images, and deep probings into meaning. "Of Rain and Air" by Wayne

Dodd was written in English, while "Rain" by Sandor Weores was translated

into English from the Hungarian so maybe it is unfair to say that the word

play in "Of Rain and Air" is much more sophisticated and meaningful than

that in "Rain" because of the whole translation thing. Consider the fourth

line down in "Rain": "well, that's rain." It makes me wonder why Milosz

chose this poem for the book. If I were editing a literary magazine, I'd

look at this line and throw the poem out. not because the poem might not

have good ideas in it... but the line is so incredibly colloquial it kind of

makes me sick to read it in a poem about rain. Maybe it's because I love

the rain so much. "Rain" ends with the thought that humans should move like

rain, "this liquid thing"... another slimy line that doesn't connect me with

the rain at all... it makes me think of a disease or Slimer from the ghost

busters movie. But the last line relates two items that aren't often

thought of together, and ends the poem on a rare strong note saying:

"flowing into human life on rooftops/ and on shoes." I can watch one

raindrop from sky to rooftop to ground to shoe... but it doesn't save the

poem.

"Of Rain and Air" on the other hand speaks to my experience of rain. Of

watching the rain from inside rooms, being called by it, and finally coming

"out / into the night, myself a center // of darkness." The line breaks are

phenomenal. as I read those last few lines, I first encounter the idea that

I am a center.. and don't know what I am a center of until not only the next

line, but the next stanza. it's brilliant. Dodd doesn't use any

predictable language, and when he is colloquial, it doesn't sound trite or

expected. for instance, Dodd says, "I can hardly think / what is

happening." this is somewhat colloquial language, but where it sits in the

poem it is neither simple, expected, or dull. Dodd describes the rain as

scattered light, as opening me, as whispering, as thousands of feet of air,

as speaking for an invisible sky. This touches me, this brings out and

elucidates my experience of the mystery and mythology of rain. Weores

described the rain as pounding, as twirling, sliding, bubbling, foaming

,free, vapor, this liquid thing, flowing on rooftops and shoes. There is

nothing exciting or new here... nothing that speaks to my experience of rain

besides the superficial. All his words are expected and overused in

speaking of rain... or else they are odd and eyebrow raising... such as

'this liquid thing'. I don't think "thing" is the most descriptive of words

or should be used this way in a good poem.

out of fairness to Weores, he may have some very good poems, perhaps, if

translated better, or not at all, this is one of the good ones. but

together, Weores, his translator Kessler, and Milosz for choosing this poem,

have done a very ugly thing.... My trust in Milosz' taste is especially

affected by the fact that he placed this no-so-stunning poem next to one of

the best of the whole anthology. oops!

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 10:57 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 21. Tamura//words eating me

Tamura has so many intense, startling images, I have trouble choosing which to write this brief entry on. His poem "Human House" startles me. every few lines I find tensions, words pop up that I don't expect that fling me into a new meaning for the line. Take for example the third line of the poem (p 462)

I guess I'll be back late

I said and left the house

my house is made of words

until you get to the end of the third line, the poem is about a house, or a family, or a man going out, but once we read words suddenly it is the focus of the poem. The rest of the stanza turns the scene into a poetic one -- where the unexpected is, well, expected.

a woman lives in the water

hyacinths bloom from her eyeballs

of course she is metaphor herself

when I get to the word metaphor, new meanings open up for me again. of course, I knew she was a metaphor, but at the same time i picture a woman living in a vase, perhaps she is the water itself, filling the curves of her container. from here I do not know where Tamura will take me. he has already prepared me to expect the unexpected, and each line comes as a new exhilerating shock, as if the poetry is dancing around me and I never know where it will show up again: at my feet, my right shoulder, above my head?

she changes the way words do

she's as free form as a cat

these two lines draw me in fiercely. I want to be able to change the way words do. I want to be the cat. It's interesting he chose the word cat... cat's bring to mind magic, and witches for me... I wonder what they signify in japanese culture. surely they are not as free form as words... and yet they can symbolize so much, can change meanings depending on the context they are used in. this poem takes me in and up and down to the ground on all fours --

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2000 9:44 PM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: (sub)18) my poems// what brings tears

Poem about Loss:

and if you left now

would i ever come back?

who knows what is beyond this sun

we can never be ready for its setting

no matter how bright the colors as it slips

behind the hills

we cannot see past our tears

making spots on our jeans

dark and round

as if our eyes have fallen

blind until we feel the moss

again. under our feet

the green will make us whole

finding eternity grows

beneath us

Poem about War:

And what of those little hands?

Dirty hands, loved hands,

hungry, hurt hands.

If we leave them empty,

can anything else be called just?

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2000 8:48 PM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: (substitute)16) Nasrin//Eve oh Eve

I am substituting a creative entry on Taslima Nasrin's poem "Eve Oh Eve" on

p404 in the cont. poetry anthology for post 16. In a poetry class of mine

last year we did a creative exercise where we took a line from a poem and

wrote a new poem from that line, so I thought I'd take a line of this poem,

and see were IT took ME.

"Eve Oh Eve"

"if you get hold of the fruit

don't ever refrain from eating."

Eve Oh Eve

if you ever wake up from a night mare

open your eyes and devour the light

Eve Oh Eve

if you stand alone

don't ever be afraid of the weaknesses

Eve Oh Eve

if you would find god and truth

press your palms to the earth

Eve Oh Eve

if you find love

don't ever stop running.

Eve Oh Eve

we bleed.

we bleed

we bleed when they leave. we bleed in the mirror.

we bleed when they stay. we bleed with the moon.

and someday a son shall be born who will shed his blood

to save us all.

Eve Oh Eve

they will bleed for us

don't ever believe that we can't bleed too

Eve Oh Eve

we didn't ask him to die.

Eve Oh Eve

let your blood be your salvation

let their darkness be your light

Eve Oh Eve

if you get hold of the apple

don't ever refrain from eating it

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2000 8:22 PM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 17. Dahlia Ravikovitch//poetry circle

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 9:48 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 19. Hirsch // formalities

It's been quite a long time since I've done a formal explication of a poem,

so when I read Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" (Hirsch, 32) I didn't see or

look for most of the things Hirsch mentioned in his explication. The

repetitious nature of the poem is impossible to miss though. I read it as

someone trying to convince themselves that these losses weren't disasters.

But in the end I get the feeling that they are. OK, so I know I'm just

paraphrasing the poem, but that's all I can do today, I don't feel like a

literary critic today and I was really quite annoyed that all Edward Hirsch

could comment on in Elizabeth's poem is the formalities of it. It was

interesting to learn about villanelles, which I had never heard of before,

and perhaps I might even try and write one to see what the process is like,

but nothing Hirsch said emotionally connected me to the poem. Realizing the

form the Bishop chose for her poem gave me a little insight into her

aspirations for the poem, and her process of writing it, but I didn't get a

lot more out of the poem just by knowing this. I think an explication

should emotionally connect you to either the poem itself, the author's

vision, or something! I don't know if it's possible to be emotionally

connected to the grammer and formal elements of a poem, but Hirsch certainly

didn't achieve that if it was his goal.

I am glad that we read this chapter and this section about elizabeth

bishop's poem, because it taught me about some formal elements I didn't knew

about, and showed me how even the ones I did could sneak up under my nose to

give a poem added meaning and depth. However, I hoped he would do more.

The first Hirsch chapter set me up to have high expectations.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 9:57 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: poem about family

D

and what if I was to jump

just jump high

like a peacock

reach peace

and never come down

spend all my energy in photosynthesis

and never reach full bloom

would you love me then?

because this wind, like dancing

swims inside you

and is too much

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 9:50 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: first poem

to SLB

why do we

hide behind

paper - souls lurking

in margins like birds

pretend not to notice me

though i know you do . . .

. . . i have to know.

hating ourselves

somewhere beneath

brazen pride,

exuberant.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 11:03 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 14. Bernard // devil-will-care

April Bernard had a sureness about her that I admired and another student

distrusted. I said that I didn't think I could ever talk about myself or my

past with the sureness that April had, and the student said that's why he

trusted me. It seems such an odd thing, so trust my un-sureness. April

reminded me in this way of a woman I worked for this summer, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth spent 10 years of her life after college living alone with a cat

and starting her own business. She reads proliferate numbers of books, and

recognizes things in me that I do not even see in myself. She has a way of

articulating her past in a bold and unapologetic way, very similar to April

Bernard.

I thought it was interesting how different April's advice to young poets was

than the poet who came to class. Her advice was to read. read read read,

and write. She said there's no glamour in being a poet, but I disagree. I

realize she was speaking of the poet's professional life. Of course being a

poet isn't like being a movie-star, it isn't a lucrative business. But in

some ways, being a poet IS like being a movie-star. maybe you don't have

followers, or groupies, or million dollar contracts, but you are famous.

Even if people don't know your name, the trees do. I often think that our

society doesn't respect poets; poets used to be the voice of the people. No,

poets still are the voice of the people, the voice of the voiceless. But

poets aren't commonly seen or referred to in this way anymore. Sometimes

when I talk about what classes I'm taking, I tell people I am every parents

nightmare: the student who goes to college and will take nothing but poetry

classes. I mean it as a joke, but in a sense, it is true; and that says

something about us. We see poetry as a romantic hobby, as passing obsession

or fancy. Maybe parents also see poetry as they see philosophy, music, or

peace studies... and they wonder, "what the hell will you do with THAT?"

but I know what I want to do with poetry: write it. read it. live it.

Okay, so maybe it is an obsession... is there anything wrong with that?

Perhaps all we've ever needed is a little more passion, and what is poetry

but passion breathed into ink? This is the glamour of poetry: the glamour

of passion. of mystery. of darkness and spells and magic and pagan

worship. The glamour is in the words, in the searching, in the vision. To

write and read poetry, and perhaps literature in general, is to see through

holy eyes, and everything becomes an altar.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 10:41 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 12. McCarriston // strong poets don't write poems

the poems write themselves. ok, that was just to "tease" you into reading my entry. I thought the title would appease Fr. Mark :) Rachel, two titles!... Could I ask for anything more? Cheers. Fr. Mark.

Linda McCarriston

Now Hand is the hard bottom of the girl's

Now Hand is full of the full new breast

Now Hand, square hand

cruel as a spade

splits the green girl wood

of her body

No one can take this from him now

ever

though she is for years a mother

and worn

and he is too old to force any again

his cap hangs on a peg by the door

plaid wool of an elderly working man's

park bench decline

"I got there before the boys did"

he knows

hearing back to her pleading

back to her sobbing

to his own voiceover

like his bodyover hers

laughter

mocking

the Elemental Voice of the Cock,

unhearted

in its own quarter

"A man is King in his own castle"

he can still say

having got what he wanted

in a lifetime of used ones

secondhand

one girls he could spill

like a shot of Whiskey

the Whore

only he

could call daughter.

I feel somewhat stupid writing this, but listening to all these poems was an incredibly powerful experience. I feel stupid saying this because I'm sure all of you felt the same way, and i don't feel i've captured it adequately when I say that it was "powerful." It was so much more than just powerful. It was eye opening and illuminating and darkening and scary and sad and full of hope, hat these poets found a way to deal with these feelings. I can't say that one poem spoke to me more than any other, because they were all speaking to me. out loud. It seems easier when I hear the poems spoken well, esp. from the poets themselves, to connect with the words and images. Seeing a poem on paper makes it easy to objectify the words, to put them separate from yourself, from experience, from the actual; to let them wash over the surface of you. but when poets read their poems well, or when anyone reads a poem well, you can't ignore it. You can't stop the words from seeping into you and caressing or molesting you. it is a bodily experience. We can get this bodily, intense, deep experience from reading poetry silently. I have experienced it. But when reading poems on paper we can choose which ones to let in, we can more easily put up our guard than with poems we experience audibly. I could not choose to let one poem in, to experience it more fully than the others.

Now Hand is the hard bottom of the girl's

Now Hand is full of the full new breast

the repetition of the phrase "now hand" is like a beating, or an act repeated over and over, different yet the same in cruelty, in trying to forget. When I think of girls and bottoms and breasts I think soft, new, gentle, young, innocent. But this is not the image we get here. The father's hard, criminal hand, rough from working, the girl's soft skin... we are frightened when we put these two images together. It is the nightmare all woman have had - a collective fear of vulnerability, of what has happened. for it did not just happen to this woman, but to all of us; not physically, but spiritually, mentally, emotionally

Now Hand, square hand

cruel as a spade

spade doesn't seem to fit - farming image, hoeing, preparing the ground to produce and be fertile, with this image of molestation. And yet I see the spade breaking the ground, hard and sharp and indifferent. does she feel like she's being prepared for something? do bear some sick fruit?

splits the green girl wood

of her body

like lucile cliffton's green girl in a used poet, does this green girl live inside Linda still? is she still green, or burned now and ashen? The father is confused, he's doing everything all wrong. You use a spade to prepare soil, not to split wood. Split wood will not grow, green wood isn't meant to be split, it won't burn well, it isn't ready for burning. This phrase, green girl wood, is beautiful. it haunts me

No one can take this from him now

ever

she spoke the word ever so strongly. this never ends she is saying, this never never ends. We usually hear this word in fairy tales; "happily ever after", but how differently is speaks to us here. I'm not sure if it's a tension, but it stands out sharp and strong and forboding, like a wall. And I want to knock it down, to take it out of the poem and have hope that she can leave this behind, or take it back from him. but she can't . But no one can take this, poetry, away from her.

though she is for years a mother

and worn

and he is too old to force any again

images of aging don't seem to fit in this poem about a young girl being molested by her father, it is as if she relives it every moment, her past is a part of her, as all of ours is.

his cap hangs on a peg by the door

plaid wool of an elderly working man's

park bench decline

it seems odd to throw in this pitty-the-dad bit here. He's old, grey, working still, a park bench decline. It seems so docile, so wrong. I want him to be cruel and sharp even is aging, but he's not. And here's another tension, this word elderly, and parkbench, a father just like any of ours, and yet he's not. we don't want him to be , we want to hold him off in the violent first images that we have already had to accept.

"I got there before the boys did"

he knows

hearing back to her pleading

back to her sobbing

to his own voiceover

like his bodyover hers

laughter

mocking

the Elemental Voice of the Cock,

unhearted

in its own quarter

"A man is King in his own castle"

he can still say

having got what he wanted

in a lifetime of used ones

secondhand

this word, secondhand, stands out for me. It fits with used, but I think of a second hand store, and I wonder what she means by this. did someone own her first, it seems like he owned her first, made her secondhand to the world, and to herself. but my first thought was that she meant everything her father touched was second hand TO HIM. but this doesn't make sense really. the idea that everything he touches becomes second hand fits with the dirty image of him, and the next lines, spilling whisky, whore, solidify our image of her father, but he is not ours. and we don't associate him with the idea of father. because father is god, father is our dad, and this, this is not Father. This is killer, rapist, abuser; this is wrong, dirty,; this is other.

one girls he could spill

like a shot of Whiskey

the Whore

only he

could call daughter.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 10:48 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 11. Hayden // austere poetry breaking

Those Winter Sundays

Robert Hayden

(Rag and Bone Shop; p141)

is love austere and lonely? I think my father sometimes is.

I read this poem in an English class last year, and the images return, familiar. Word combinations like "blueblack cold"; "banked fires blaze"; "cold splintering, breaking"; "weekday weather" are very imagistic for me. Hayden repeats consonant sounds, like b's in blueblack, and "banked fires blaze", so that these phrases feel good in your mouth. They fit together and create a feel of the early morning cold, and the first flames that drive it from the house. Everything is full of edges, and we can feel them in the hark consonant sounds, like the "k" sounds in "blueblack", "banked", "breaking", "chronic", "cold", "ached", "cracked", "weekday", "thanked", etc. It's almost as if we can hear the wood, or the cold, "splintering and breaking." Hayden did not say that the father split the wood, but that he broke it, and it splintered. Everything in this poem seems to center around this breaking. The splintering gives me images of sharp shards of wood, they look angular, dangerous, uninviting. It is a very lonely sound, this breaking wood, and a very lonely feel to this poem. The echoing in the second to last line: "What did I know, what did I know" adds to this feel of loneliness. Words echo in empty rooms, and when there is no one around to answer them. Even the vowel sound in "know" is repeated in the last line with "lonely". The last line resonates to me, both in it's ideas and sounds. the repetition of "L" in "love" and "lonely", and the repetition of the vowel sound in "austere" and "offices". When I read this poem these similarities in consonant and vowel sound do not jump out at me, and that is the way a poem should obviously be. It is just like watching a play or a movies, if you find yourself thinking about the acting, there is obviously something deficient or too deliberate about it. This fits in with something Heidegger says about the way we interact with the objects around us. To use his example, he says that a hammer is most a hammer when we are using it to do some work, and not when we are analyzing it as a tool. It is when the hammer is too heavy, the head is loose, or it doesn't fit into our grip well that we analyze it and wonder about how good of a hammer it is. When the hammer is working well, we'd never even think about it, we'd just use it. But it is nice to know a thing or two about hammers if you ever plan to buy one, or are deciding between hammers, or need to figure out why it's not working well for he job you want to do. Maybe poems are like this too. It seems obvious to me that a poem is most itself when we're not thinking about it's rhyme and meter, but when we read, feel, and use the poem. But it is nice to know about and be able to analyze poems so that we can figure out what we like about certain ones, and why others don't seem to fit us as well. And just like knowing a bit about hammers, knowing a how to analyze a poem doesn't keep us from experiencing and using the poem. But it is true that the more construction work you do, the more you think about the hammer and question its handiness, the more you've studied acting, the harder it is to watch a play and not notice the quality of the acting, etc. So perhaps knowing too much about poetry would lead to this same over analysis... but whether that's good or bad or what the solution is, I'm not sure. Maybe it's all about trade off and balance. yeah.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 9:51 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 6 Hoelderlin // poet's sacrifice

"oh friend, we arrived too late." "Bread and Wine Part 7", R&B Shop, p12.

Have you ever wanted to live in another time? A time when people lived "like the ancients, strong/enough for water[?]" This poem takes me to a lonely place, a place where I look around and see that everything I have been waiting for is slipping away. It is becoming harder and harder to carry the divine, unless in sleep or insanity. The book Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper is all about the loss of beauty from the world. We stop looking for it and we stop seeing it and we don't care to believe in faeries anymore. It is similar to the feeling I get from this poem, that "The divine energies/ Are still alive, but isolated above us, in the archetypal/ world." At the end of the book, Beauty (a character, and the chosen one to keep beauty) is not unlike Noah, taking two of every animal and plant and everything beautiful with her into her castle. So that as the world industrializes and economizes and forgets the water we were all once strong enough to carry, there still exists a piece of the enchantment and beauty that was. It isn't lost, but waiting. "We waste our whole lives waiting" but perhaps this isn't so bad. It seems as though one drop of water makes up for all the years of parched parchment. I might not always be, but today I am willing to wait for thunderstorms, for the moments of living that night dreams of, for craziness and sleep. How we give up when the wait leads us to morsels that fill our mouth: "What is living now? Night dreams of them." "In thunderstorms it will arrive. I have the feeling often." And it is not only that these words play and reverberate, but that "it" DOES arrive in thunderstorms. I was going to try to pick one word, or one phrase to write about, but this poem takes me up and down and sideways with the playfulness and strength and lacey-ness of the words, and I can't pick just one. It takes me back to "Magic Words"; maybe the earlier time described in "Magic Words" is the time Hoelderlin talks about being too late for. I think everyone is fascinated by earlier times. Most people could probably tell you the century or decade they think they would have been happiest growing up in. When I was younger I remember talking with a few friends about how we must've been accidentally displaced a hundred years or so. But now I suppose that we live when we live for a reason, if nothing else than that our ideas might enhance these "too late" times. Is this the sacrifice Hoelderlin talks about? that we must live in dry times, waiting, waiting for rain? ("In thunderstorms it will arrive.") He talks about this waiting as if it is a waste; he mourns the scarcity of the divine. But is the divine really scarce? or are we waiting for strength so we can tackle the abundance of it? And I wonder if there is not power in the waiting. If the waiting is our sacrifice, it must be a necessary one. It is the poet's cleansing and purification, until craziness or sleep lets her see the Wild One.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 7:54 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 4 Pinter 99 Poems// I cast my rant

How can Velmir Khlebnikov's poem "We chant and enchant" (99 Poem's in Translation 56) be translated? And more than that, how can it appear in an anthology translated without also including its original form? My first reaction is to say that Paul Schmidt must have been insane to think that this sort of word play could work in a translated form. But then I realize that since I've never read it in it's original form, I can't make assumptions about how well the translator did. I can rant about this though, that no poem should be printed in translation without appearing also in the original language it was written in. Ok, so perhaps i'm being a little rash, but it's hard to imagine how this poem could work in a translation, and I'm dying to know what

He can't. She can't.

Why can't she recant?

Why can't he uncant?

Ranting chanting

No recanting.

Discant, descant.

looks like as Khlebnikov wrote it (even if I can't read the language)

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 7:43 AM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 3 REPLY TO SCOTT//holding grief and words

Scott, this is a response to your posting about "In my Craft or Sullen Art" (Rag and Bone Shop 167, Dylan Thomas); "Magic Words" (R&B Shop 160, Eskimo); and the first two chapters of Molly Peacock's book How to Read a Poem and Start a Poetry Circle.

You talked about the image of lovers holding grief in their arms in "In my Craft or Sullen Art." I also fell in love with this image. Last year I read The Farming of Bones, a novel by Edwige Danticat. She writes with poetic lines and images; reading her prose felt similar to reading Rilke's -- a spiritual experience. In Bones Edwige's characters seem to experience love as a sharing of griefs. She never comes right out and says this, but once someone pointed it out to me, I could see it very clearly. Do you think love is the sharing of griefs? What a different definition of love this seems than the ones we infer from greeting cards and soap operas, and most love poetry. I remember Rilke mentioning in one of his Letters that young poets should refrain from writing love poetry, for it is the hardest to do well. It seems he would argue that the poet needs a wealth or a mass of experience before she is able to interpret love into words, even if it is only to return to the love she knew when she was held in her mother's arms. Since I read Bones last year, I have always wondered about this idea of love as a sharing of griefs, and this is the first time since then that I've read a similar image. When Dylan Thomas wrote this, I wonder if he imagined lovers each holding their own griefs, and the griefs being barriers between them. Or if, as I do, he imagined them embracing and holding, cradling, their griefs between them -- a beautiful sharing. What image do you get Scott? Perhaps the griefs draw the lovers together, connect them; perhaps this connection, this dance between the grief, the sharing, the stickiness of the grief, and the lovers, is what love is. From my own experience grief-sharing is one of the first things that bonds two people together, the first inkling of love. And the need for grief sharing, for letting someone bear some of the weight, never goes away. But just like Poetry, I know love can never be defined. I imagine that though this image may now be a central one for me in thinking about love, my views of love will change; this idea will go into my tool-box of images for understanding and describing the world and my connection to it.

Another thing you talked about Scott was the connection between the traditional Eskimo's "magic" words, and Peacock's idea of a pre-linguistic place of profound sight. This is a beautiful thought; it speaks to my poet and my logic feels quite left behind. I'm not sure how to logically connect those two ideas, and yet my poet feels at home with and engaged by that connection. I always feel a little like a child before language, when I see something i don't know how to describe. I think to myself "dammit, your a poet, find some words, some analogy, for this." But in the moment of my experience I can't yet "find" words to make what I am feeling transparent. I imagine it is because I am looking for the words, instead of doing as peacock suggests, and I have long known is the only way to inspired poetry, and opening myself up to receive the poem. Then there are those times when I try to see the world as a child or an animal or a primitive woman would, before she has language to interpret what she sees. Because you see language alters our vision and even defines our ways of thinking. It limits our perception not only by taking visions, sounds, smells, and changing them into words on a page, but more importantly and profoundly by training us to perceive in terms of our limited ability to describe. At the same time though, quite perplexingly, language broadens our vision by introducing us to new visions. I see poetry as one of these ways language opens doors for us and connects us to the world through language. What is your feeling or vision of this connection you touched on briefly in your posting Scott? I'm sure these images I've described are much different from the ones you get even from the same ideas.

thank you for bringing up these ideas in your posting.

From: Rachel Castor [racastor@csbsju.edu]

Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 11:07 PM

To: mthamert@csbsju.edu

Subject: 2 Peocock, Eskimo // "when words were like magic"

ah. the challenge again... to create on this screen the spiritual experience of reading. Knowing that you'll all read this, knowing that this isn't REALLY my journal, but something more like a mini-essay, makes the words come slowly. I stare at the screen not wanting to commit to any one thought, any idea, because there are so many. Perhaps this is the feeling of ambiguity that Peacock talks about: "the experiencing of many thoughts and feelings at the same time - a state that may be the very definition of adulthood." When I read this passage the first time I mis-read the word 'adulthood' and thought it said 'childhood', and the meaning of the passage seemed much different. Instead of the dwelling in mixed-meanings and mazes of images and levels of meaning as my adult mind revels in, I see a child's mind experiencing many thoughts and feelings she isn't even aware of. I see a child's first experiences with art and poetic language, and I remember my own experiences. I remember feeling drawn to certain authors, to pictures in books; I would sit and stare at them for hours, imagining I was in the paintings. There were so many feelings, yearnings, thoughts, spinning around in my head and in my whole being that I wasn't aware of... perhaps because they were so deep and so real. At the end of our last class I left the room with a similar thought; I was thinking about how impossible it is to know myself now for I spend my whole life reinterpreting my past through the light of experience and learning. The more I learn about love and experience love, the more I understand my relationships in the past. Our childhood is like the book written in a foreign language and the locked trunk which Rilke talks about, only one which we are constantly unlocking. It seems that our more recent experiences, the moments of experience which are decending upon us even now, are moments of feeling rather than understanding. To bring us back to Peacock, "you can feel a poem without really understanding it." This is our lives, little moments of poetry, moments of feeling that maybe, someday, we interpret and understand. "Poetry is the art that offers depth in a moment, using the depth of a moment." This is one of my great loves of poetry, that poetry captures one moment, and yet all moments can exist within a single poem.

I want to comment briefly on the poem MAGIC WORDS from Rag and Bone Shop... Immediately Rilke's words about our incapacity to forget the old myths of dragons turning into princesses at the last minute come to mind. There are layers upon layers of these myths and stories full of gnomes, fairies, witches, ghosts, demons, enchanted animals, and giant bean stalks which, though we profess to be beyond belief in these "stories", effect the way we live our lives. these stories are part of us, part of our society and our psyche. "That was a time when words were like magic" When speaking led to existing. And why are words not so powerful today? Perhaps it wasn't the the words changed, or even the time, but that we stopped believing in their power, their passion. Yeats gave me the idea that yesterday's spells are today's poems and prayers. We still believe that words are powerful, but not in the same way. If I damned you to hell, no one believes my words have the power to actually send you there... but in biblical times it was a different story. Yeats wondered where the magic went, all the occult religions that were repressed by Christianity and Judaism, certainly the spells did not disappear? Poetry is today's magic. "Nobody can explain this:/ That's the way it was."

FINAL PAPER

Translated by Chana Bloch

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1364/poetry.html