From: timo [timo@csbsju.edu]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 12:19 AM
To: mthamert@csbsju.edu
Subject: 9. Ondaatje // A violent balance
My mind held on to Ondaatje's poem; and when I was through, I had to read it again. This poem struck me for two reasons. First, in the begining I could see myself in the poems first two stanzas. Second, by the end I remembered seeing myself in the father character, this concerned me.
When I say I see myself in the first two stanzas, I don't mean exactly myself. I see some behaviors I occasionally exhibit, but these are the kinds of actions I dislike greatly as I say to myself, "Why do I do this, it isn't who I am." I suppose I should explain what I'm talking about now. In the first stanza, the speaker describes his father as knowing something that he doesn't, actually something we don't, meaning his mother and he. I see this knowledge of his father's as the father's past, his "terrifying comedy" of an early life, all of the sad truths he's seen, but doesn't want to impose on his family. The father is isolating himself from his family and his family from the world (but they're heading there anyway). The last two lines really bring it home for me. "His letters were a room he seldom lived in/ In them the logic of his love could grow" I see this room as a point in space-time that doesn't describe a place, but a state. This state is a connection to truth, to reality, to self. The father does not share his true self with anyone but his letters. The last line mentions the logic of his love. I frequently find myself wrapped up in the logic of life, I become more concerned with the logic of the rules.
In the end, the man feels so separated between his true self in the letters and his outward image, he kills himself. "His letters were a room his body scared"
In the second part of the poem, the explanation of the action, the speaker gives us some insight into his father. "my father, jealous/ at my mother's articulate emotion" Near the end (of the poem and his father's life), the speaker describes his father's progression. "Letters in a clear hand of the most complete empathy/ hi sheart widening and widening and widening/ to all manner of change in his children and friends/ while he himself edged/ into the terrible acute hatred/ of his own privacy/ till he balanced and fell" The father sees his family changing, growing, and learning the ways of the world, but he is unable to share in their experiences. He can only write his intentions in his letters. This part of him grows, but is imprisoned by his outward self. He becomes so unbalanced that the pressure forces a violent balancing, which causes his death. That line is very powerful for me "till he balanced and fell". His head was left empty, "without a metaphor".
From: timo [timo@csbsju.edu]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 1:15 AM
To: mthamert@csbsju.edu
Subject: 10. Peacock // Playing catch up with Peacock
I'd like to say first that this chapter gave me some useful insights into these poems that made the poems more meaningful to me (like our discussion in class does). I would also like to express my feelings on the chapters discussion on Ondaantje's poem. I think what Peacock says about the duality of this poem, the "layering of truth" is awesome. I think this would be a good topic to address in discussion. There is so much to talk about in this reading, but I must choose one topic because my previous entry was too long. I'll concentrate this entry on some thoughts derived from this reading and a week of contemplation.
Looking at this reading reinforced some thoughts I've been turning in my mind all week. My analytical skills that dictate how I read are not developed in the ways a person reads and analyzes poetry. This seems obvious to me now, like something I should have assumed the first day of class, but I didn't verbalize this until this week. My business classes have infected my brain into finding the meaning in numbers and sentences that I know the end of. This is the worst approach to poetry, no wonder I am frustrated trying to find the meaning. I keep looking for the main idea, the concrete thread carried throughout a poem (there isn't necessarily one).
Peacock has a great insight:
Free verse depends on its breaks, where the line stops the sentence from going on and makes us pause-- and therefore guess at-- the next word. When the word is a surprise, that break succeeds, since most reading depends on predictability. Our lives are not only filled with predictable combinations, they are made of them-- these combinations are the fabric of our daily communication.
This selection affirms many of my concerns. I hope now that I have asserted this problem, I may be able to expand my literary analytical abilities to include more abstract approaches like examining individually the work, the sentence, the line, the word, and the syllable. I may try examining a poem's prepositions or even look at textual shape (like in the french rain poem). Maybe I'm taking an all too logical approach to expanding the way I look at poems, oh well. I know this is just what has been said in class all along, but for some reason it is hitting me now.
From: timo [timo@csbsju.edu]
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 5:09 PM
To: mthamert@csbsju.edu
Subject: 11. Hayden // A little biography goes a long way
Reading this poem, the two characters are what caught my attention most. My first reading I connected to the father character. In him I found an almost stereotypical male figure. He is hard-working, strong, and stolid.
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the wekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
He's not a perfect man, he might not even be a good man, but he has a sort of love for his family that is easy to overlook. He shows this love by giving in the quietest manner. I think the warmth he provides on Sunday mornings is in some ways symbolic of the father's love. You can't see or hear or touch the warmth, but you know it will be there every Sunday morning. It will be there regardless of the events of the past day or week. "fearing the chronic angers of that house"
I turned to the other character in my subsequent readings. I assume this character is a boy, the author as a child. The first time I thought as the child, I saw him as a thirteen year old boy, asserting his independence and disinterested in his parents. "No one ever thanked him" "Speaking indifferently to him" After another reading I saw something different. Now I see that maybe the boy is not acting out against his father, but is very maturely seeing the good in an otherwise not so good man. I changed my view after returning to the line "fearing the chronic angers of that house" This line stands out from those before it and indicates to me somehow that there is more than angst within the boy.
It was interesting to me to read some biographical informatin on Hayden. I saw this poem as taking place on a farm somewhere in the country, in an average family. I was surprised to find out that Hayden was born in Detroit, was given up for adoption and moved to Buffalo with his new family. It was also interesting to read that Hayden's new family was not a happy household. This is vastly different from the isolated farm setting I saw. A little information about the author can be helpful.
Robert Hayden
www.poets.org
http://longman.awl.com/kennedy/hayden/biography.html
http://www.minorities-jb.com/african/arts/hayden.html
From: timo [timo@csbsju.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 7:09 PM
To: mthamert@csbsju.edu
Subject: McPherson and McCarriston
Here's some information I found on the poets.
McPherson:
BAD MOTHER BLUES
When you were arrested, child, and I had to take your pocketknife
When you were booked and I had to confiscate your pocketknife
It had blood on it from where you'd tried to take your life
It was the night before Thanksgiving, all the family coming over
The night before Thanksgiving, all the family coming over
We had to hide your porno magazine and put your handcuffs undercover
Each naked man looked at you, said, Baby who do you think you are
Each man looked straight down on you, like a waiting astronomer's star
Solely, disgustedly, each wagged his luster
I've decided to throw horror down the well and wish on it
Decided I'll throw horror down the well and wish on it
And up from the water will shine my sweet girl in her baby bonnet
A thief will blind you with his flashlight
but a daughter be your bouquet
A thief will blind you with his flashlight
but a daughter be your bouquet
When the thief's your daughter you turn your eyes the other way
I'm going into the sunflower field where all of them are facing me
I'm going into the sunflower field so all of them are facing me
Going to go behind the sunflowers, feel all the sun that I can't see
HELEN TODD: MY BIRTHNAME
They did not come to claim you back,
To make me Helen again. Mother
Watched the dry, hot streets in case they came.
This is how she found a tortoise
Crossing between cars and saved it.
It's how she knew roof-rats raised families
In the palmtree heads. But they didn't come--
It's almost forty years.
I went to them. And now I know
Our name, quiet one. I believe you
Would have stayed in trigonometry and taken up
The harp. Math soothed you; music
Made you bold; and science, completely
Understanding. Wouldn't you have collected,
Curated, in your adolescence, Mother Lode
Pyrites out of pity for their semblance
To gold? And three-leaf clovers to search
For some shy differences between them?
Knowing you myself at last--it seems you'd cut
Death in half and double everlasting life,
Quiet person named as a formality
At birth. I was not born. Only you were.
ONE WAY SHE SPOKE TO ME
I would say, "Whisper." And she could
never figure how to do it. I would say,
"Speak louder," into the phone, nor
could she raise her voice.
But then I found such a whisper, the trail
as she began to write to me in snails,
in silver memos on the front door,
in witnesses to her sense of touch.
Home late, I found them slurred
and searching, erasing the welcome
she'd arranged them in:
H--twelve snails. I--seven or six.
They were misspelling it,
digressing in wayward caravans and pileups,
mobile and rolling but with little perspective,
their eyestalks smooth as nylons on tiny legs.
I raised her in isolation. But it is these snails
who keep climbing the walls. For them, maybe
every vertical makes an unending tree --
and every ascension's lovely.
Why else don't they wend homeward to ground?
But what do we do? We are only a part
of a letter in a word. And we are on our
bellies with speech, wondering, wondering slowly,
how to move toward one another.
Two poems from the Spring 1999 issue of Ploughshares
A Vigil, 2 a.m., County Jail
Waiting for their release--
for the shoes without laces,
the belts kept from suicide
--drumming, When
will they be released,
when and will they ever?
The hours so used
to their own sequence
cannot pass one another.
Diamond Ear waits here
for his esposa, and inside
the held-in selves stare
at their feet. They hate
the unbound, personal
tongues of their shoes.
Wives' eyes streetside
lynx on the transparent
jailhouse door. The stone
custodian entombs its men
in an infinite repeat of cells
like the guls in Persian rugs,
no escaping the eternal motifs,
the old, irresistible recurrences.
Will the stronghold
unbolt, will the men
spill out like rubble, gravel
at the foot of a weir,
will they sluice out, clean
and valuable again?
Then, in the darkest
hour out they pour,
their few clothes flying,
not birds migrating
into a pale limit of glass
but liquor wasting from
the crack in the punchbowl.
The women, too, tough flutter
of shirt, not wings,
day legs tossed onto
cold night. The lost,
the drowned, and the plagued,
paroled in a bunch,
not sorted like washing
and eggs and nails.
And they don't all look so hurt
but glad to be loose
in their own T-shirts
to drift toward the bank
of chilly telephones.
Only one or two
get an embrace.
And I am chewed
by the serrated beauty
of a street tree, its raggedy
light-bronzed royalty
pinned in cement,
in its firm house
stationed to stretch out
as big as its life meant.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Her Image
French postcard, circa World War I
In agreeing to be the crucified woman,
she knew she would need to hang there
with no pockets, no purse, no pearls.
She would know how to stretch into it
when the time came. Did she enjoy
an innate ballerina who could express
befitting grace? While still her bearing
should look disciplinary, chastening.
Express duress. She must suffer
while blooming with a boast of pulchritude
the lighting director could work with.
At the tryouts, the rest of us were already
too mangled with practice nails, and slivers.
She stepped right up, and now she is holding on.
Jesus as evangelist from girlhood, a young savant
known for finespun sayings and secrecy
revealed as sorrow. Her death would fall
somewhere in her menstrual cycle.
Her belly invites most--soft and so
slightly split into those two lobes
which make apricots and peaches
superior to the moon. Lustrous,
a stage-curtain rope knots right over
pubic hair. Feet bound with ribbon,
a satin tether to appeal to some, she
ails ungaunt, her edges sled-round,
cambered. Coifed in the same style
as her carnality: in even waves, marcelled.
Are agony's good looks art's job,
or labor's contract, or sex's by swoon?
Whatever, they're hers. And the age's.
Real senselessness, stupefying power
over lives, eventually tore men's
faces off. Their leaders made millions
rot millions. Many choked on rats' mud.
Flies had no teeth for skulls
so there it stopped. What did this have to do
with our sacrificing, sacrificing our breasts
barely between a triangle of bleeding nails?
How we numbed evil. How unbearable
we made goodness feel.
Copyright 1 1999 Sandra McPherson
Linda McCarriston
Victorian
At seventy my mother discovers the orgasm
in a dream, with someone she cannot remember,
someone not my father, and not the boy who spoiled her
for him when she was a girl--the one he rubbed
her nose in like a reason fifty years of nights
rom which days wrapping meat at the Elm Farm
were the respite - someone not the one man, maybe two,
that in her wedded separations, optimist undaunted,
she Let. Imagine. Two live births, the lost ones
between, the men sawing wood, the pessaries,
violations routine as the news. Hysterectomy.
No wonder it took a noncorporeal to slip
up under her as she lay, open as a rose in her old
woman's sleep, the bedroom white and blossomy
as a bride's and far from my father's. I wanted
to ask her why she sought down her list of men
for the one who had touched her. I wanted to say:
might it not have been a gift brought warm from
the distaff side, from the one who had loved you since
before you were born and who grieved for the two of you still
that of all the body's possibilities, the one
she had to be sure you learned was to endure?
Answer
I am the woman you saw, Louise
Bogan, hanging clothes on the line
from the cold back porch
of her tenement, the woman you said
you'd trade to be--free as she seemed
from where you stood at your barred
asylum window. But did your whole
mind ache to be out, to be only
whole enough that day to sort whites
from darks, to man the wringer,
to be that mechanical thing not singing
as she chapped her pale hands raw
in the city wind? Today I went
through the motions that woman
knew, motions I'd guessed
you'd spent your life refusing,
a waking day when my body or my mind
- I can't tell which - dragged
the other from room to room, wiping
fingerprints, washing the bowl,
polishing faucets. It is all I did.
How many have they been, the days like this
when at the end I could stop and thank God watch
the sun finally falling and say again
I didn't give in. I got up and
stayed up and the wash got done and I moved
a whole day closer to the end. Yours
are the poems I want to write but I can't
lie down and be cared for, can't ever crack,
and I hate her, the thick char who
will not fall, that dead weight peasant
who can't be plowed over, plowed under
to crumble and turn in the earth
of her pain into something that flowers.
I believed it when I read it,
but now I don't believe you ever meant
to be her, mere her, mere me, you proud
raku vase whose self preferred to shatter
time and again than to plod
the slack back porches and call it alive.
Girl from Lynn Bathes Horse!!
1100 pounds, more or less, the mare
high-steps a trot on a short circle
- two feet of line from the hand
of the Tenement Kid who never outgrew
the wish to be able to do this
to the head of the horse who never
watched TV, never saw the Lone Ranger
or Hoppy, never read about Smoky or
Flicka, Black Beauty or King of the Wind,
and so cannot possibly know that the only
thing the two of them need to perform
this difficult, dangerous act together
is love, the kind between cowgirl and pony,
infused as the Garden's knowing. To hell
with experience, instruction, example,
coin of the grownup world. You don't
really need what you don't really own.
In her off hand the stiff hose kinks,
coiling underfoot as the mare circles,
hating the green snake, the water that spurts,
urging her faster, crosser at every turn,
in the tight well of mud, in the slick-
footing'd flood of the yard. It's a lot like
washing a car, she quips, as a shod hoof
flies out when the wet slaps horse privates -
It's always like something else, this life
for which squirting a half-ton of horse-in-hand
on the strength of a nine-year-old's metaphysics
is a figure for all the rest, for the morning
by morning invention of a self
in the laboratory of unmarked chemicals.
Childhood is the barrel they give you
to go over the falls in. Whatever you get to take
with you in it can't be bigger or sharper
than an idea. It must be that fall, clenched
in a kid's fist (as earth expresses a diamond),
that transforms it from simply Some Dumb Thing
to Some Dumb Thing that is magic,
the fifth essence, perhaps what the alchemists
knew lay latent in every thing. Even the least.
Even the most ridiculous.
Healing The Mare
Just days after the vet came,
after the steroids that took
the fire out of the festering
sores--out of the flesh that in
the heat took the stings too
seriously and swelled into great
welts, wore thin and wept, calling
more loudly out to the green-
headed flies - I bathe you
and see your coat returning,
your deep force surfacing in a
new layer of hide: black wax
alive against weather and flies.
But this morning, misshapen
still, you look like an effigy,
something rudely made, something
made to be buffeted, or like
an old comforter - are they both
one in the end? So both a child
and a mother, with my sponge and
my bucket, I come to anoint, to
anneal the still weeping, to croon
to you baby poor baby for the sake
of the song, to polish you up,
for the sake of the touch, to a shine.
As I soothe you I surprise wounds
of my own this long time unmothered.
As you stand, scathed and scabbed,
with your head up, I swab. As you
press, I lean into my own loving
touch, for which no wound
is too ugly.
From: timo [timo@csbsju.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 1:05 AM
To: mthamert@csbsju.edu
Subject: 12 McPherson // I can have names too
HELEN TODD: MY BIRTHNAME
They did not come to claim you back,
To make me Helen again. Mother
In these opening lines two things jump out at me. First, the first line is an action involving "you" while the second mentions "me". Oh, you is her other self and me is her present self, nevermind. Second, the sentence ends and another begins with Mother. I left hanging, wondering what mother she is speaking of.
Watched the dry, hot streets in case they came.
This is how she found a tortoise
Crossing between cars and saved it.
The first line makes me think of a desert. Her adoptive mother is watching the road from the desert, the dry, hot, hard world that surrounds the protection she offers her daughter. Is the author the tortoise, in the middle of a desert waiting to be saved by her birth parents, or is she the helpless, wise tortoise with a tough shell, and her adopted mother saves her from her life that never was in the hot dry desert. I think it is the latter. I think her adoptive mother is nurturing, and took care of her. I'm led to a different approach.
It's how she knew roof-rats raised families
In the palmtree heads. But they didn't come--
It's almost forty years.
Here I notice how the author is intertwining animal images with her statements about her birthparents. She is in a very nice image about the tortoise being saved from the streets and even the roof-rats have a nice family, but then she brings in sadness. "But they didn't come--" This statement catches me, it adds depth to the following line.
I went to them. And now I know
Our name, quiet one. I believe you
The words used in this section seem simple. The word quiet and believe stand out to me. I can connect quiet with the tortoise, which I have always associated with wisdom, reservation, and conservatism. The simple tone feels like the quiet one talking. I like the way the second line ends with "I believe you", this leaves me with an uplifting feeling moving to the next line. I am amazed at the author's supportive and welcoming approach to her dual selves. It seems that she accepts either self contently, like she wouldn't mind a bit if she switched tomorrow. After she meets her birth parents she doesn't feel bitterness or anger, she makes no comment about them after talking about them so much earlier in the poem. I think the natural pondering of an adopted child would be a fantasy of some story-book birth parents, I like how the author can concentrate on her other self, what a beautiful concept.
Would have stayed in trigonometry and taken up
The harp. Math soothed you; music
Made you bold; and science, completely
Understanding. Wouldn't you have collected,
It sounds like the author projects a greatly different path for her other self. I am interested in why the author thinks a different name and a different life would change her interests this drastically. It seems unusual to me that she connects science with making a person understanding. I think of this understanding as empathy which is paradoxial with my view of the sciences.
Curated, in your adolescence, Mother Lode
Pyrites out of pity for their semblance
The word curated seems strong here. McPherson puts her other self in the role of a museum worker, cataloging a pointless collection only valuable to herself. The fact that she is collecting out of pity makes me feel she is very compassionate, but solitary.
To gold? And three-leaf clovers to search
For some shy differences between them?
Why does she use question marks here? I think she is speculating, but with some certainty. Why does she write "shy differences"?
Knowing you myself at last--it seems you'd cut
Death in half and double everlasting life,
It is wonderful that she can hold within herself a past that is an entirely different person and life. She can now (and apparently forever) live two lives simultaneously, the best part is that one of these lives is entirely within her imagination.
Quiet person named as a formality
This statement shows how insignificant her other self seems in reality. It is merely a name, a name that will be replaced in hours.
At birth. I was not born. Only you were.
This line makes this poem work for me. While reading this poem I find myself thinking that maybe she's taking this name thing too seriously. I put it in logical terms and think she only carried this name for hours, how can she have another life (and afterlife), it almost seems silly. This line answers all of those concerns. That self entered this world, no amount of living by her newer self can give her that one spectacular experience. Than again, when we are born we don't really have any name at all. So maybe we all have as many names as we can imagine.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 1:11 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 2 Peacock, Stafford, Meade // Virgin Eyes
Initially I was cautious to consider entering the mysterious world of poetry in an environment where my ability and work would be quantified and turned into a grade. It was intimidating to me to study poems that I will never wholly understand. There is one terrific characteristic of poetry--it's very friendly. Peacock captures this and more in a beautiful paragraph:
I found grown-up poetry to be as spongy as a forest floor --your foot sinks into the pine needles, the air smells mushroomy and dank, and filtered light swirls around you till you're deep in another state. Since the tobacco-and-violet-scented Balmy announced that no one's opinion about verse was ever wrong, I gleefully entered the woods of interpretation. It was all right to be lost. (Peacock, How to Read a Poem, p.8).
This makes poems sound dreamy and innately organic. Not only that, she says poems let you feel what you wish, like you add your own creativity to anothers. Peacock goes deeper in describing a reader's connection to poetry, "When we discover poems, they seem to rediscover us." (Peacock, How to Read a Poem, p.7). How exciting, poems don't discover us, they rediscover us because they already know us. I am now thoroughly excited to get inside some poems.
I found a connection with William Staffords writing. One section in particular reminded me of a familiar activity. (About a writer and new things) "That is, he does not draw on a reservoir; instead, he engages in an activity that brings to him a whole succession of unforeseen stories, poems, essays, plays, laws, philosophies, religions, or--but wait!" (Stafford, "On the Writing of Poetry," in Rag and Bone, p. 181). This sentence reminds me of one of my favorite activities. With a few good friends, I like to engage in a sort of pseudo-philosophy in which the goal is for the game not to end and a move is finding something clever that builds on what was previously said. Of course this game is not strict in its rules, it's more like a highly touted (by me) B.S. session. Still, it's when I find myself in a creative state that I don't otherwise experience very often.
Another poem spoke to me, but not because I saw my life in it, but for its strong words and its beautiful imagery. Amergin and Cessair impressed me in a special way as I watched the lines, "I am dewdrop, a tear of the sun. I am a lily on a still pond. I am the son of harmony. I am a word of skill. I am the silence of things secret." (Meade and Meade, "Amergin and Cessair," in Rag and Bone, p. 171-173). My first reaction to this poem was that it reminded me of two children one-upping each other it seemed so imaginative. The explanation at the conclusion of how Amergin and Cessair are dueling poets is awesome. For me this poem carried a mythical quality that drew me to reread the poem at least ten times just tonight.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 1:09 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 1 Rilke // The Colloseum is just a bunch of bricks.
"All these things mean nothing, are nothing, and have no worth, no heart." (Rilke, Letter 5, page 46) I never dreamed any poet's description of Rome would be quite like this. This quote is an example of one of the many times Rilke surprised me with a unique perspective. His insights frequently reminded me of being younger when I learned new information about something I thought I knew well.
One of Rilke's insights is inspirational to me: "For what I could say to you about your inclination to doubt or about your inability to bring your inner and outer life into harmony, or about everyting else that causes you concern -- It is always that which I have already said: It is always my wish that you might find enough patience within yourself to endure, and enough innocence to have faith." (Rilke, Letter 9, page 92) I think this idea of innocence is beautiful. I have until now thought of innocence as a terrific characteristic that is given at birth, but diminishes with age, not age but knowledge and experience. The concept that innocence should be sought after and maintained is wonderful.
Once in a while I get the feeling that there is nothing left to discover, but living innocently as a child makes everything a discovery since it allows you to keep your unique perspective.
Rilke describes a familiar unknown that hasn't been discovered: "Whoever will seriously consider the question of love will find that, as with the question of death, difficult as it is, there is no enlightened answer, no solution, not the hint of a path has yet been found." (Rilke, Letter 7, 69) Rilke says this among pages that talk about love extensively. It's great that along with some excellent observations of the disappointing role of love in society, Rilke maintains the mystery and wonder of love. I agree whole-heartedly with the seriousness he gives to the subject of love. I wish more people shared his perspective.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 1:05 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 4 Mallarme, Khlebnikov // The Sun Finally Shines and a Descant on Enchantment
The Sun Finally Shines
"A lace curtain self-destructs" has been one of the most challenging yet for me. The first three times I read this poem, I got nothing from it. After extensive consultation of www.dictionary.com, I finally saw something through it. I understand my view was not the author's intended vision, but maybe I can capture one connection. My fourth reading of this poem reminded me of my mother. She is constantly talking about how much she misses me and how she feels a part of her life has left since I packed up my books, my clothes, and my guitar. Sometimes when I spoke to her she seemed a little sad, sometimes nostalgic. I acknowledged that her life had changed, while assuring her that she would rediscover her passions in light of this new opportunity. Just a couple weeks ago, when I returned home for break I brought back my guitar. I didn't give up on the guitar, I just got a new one. It was important to me to return my guitar to my mother since it was her who first made music with it twenty years ago. Now it seems rather symbolic, like the lute in the poem.
Under the dreamer's golden canopy, though,
there languishes a lute
with its deep musical emptiness
which turned towards a window
could from its belly alone
give birth to you like a son.
(Mallarme, "A lace curtain self-destructs", 99 Poems in Translation, p. 70).
Descant on Enchantment
This poem struck me as especially clever. It seems to use only five words, but tells a complete story. The beginning is mysterious and exciting, but also easy.
We chant and enchant,
Oh charming enchantment!
No raving, no ranting,
No canting enchantment!
(Khlebnikov, "We chant and enchant", 99 Poems in Translation, p.56).
This description sounds very nice, of couse the tone changes quickly. After the fifth line the tone changes and the poem quickly speeds up until the last three lines. This poem sounds like a couple "losing the magic." I'm not too sure about the ending "Discant, descant." Is this a reference to music? I don't know but overall, this feels like a first fight in a romantic relationship. It sounds like two people losing their (forgive the word) enchantment with each other in a fight, but then finding each other once again.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 1:45 AM
To: Lucas, Katherine M; Thamert, Mark
Subject: 3 Response to Kate: Peacock, Eskimo, Stafford // Magical Layers
Before I start talking about your ideas, I'd like to say I enjoyed your writing. It is deep and beautiful. As I read your posting, there were two strong ideas that meant something special to me. Since I'm new to poetry, I've been almost despirately seeking new ways to look at poems. In your analysis you considered the poems as a work, generally in a manner that I would choose. You go farther, though in connecting the poem with poetry. I think your insight in the Eskimo poem is wonderful. "the magic of words through poetry...It is also interesting that the Eskimo poem speaks of this magic coming when humans and animals are connected." I didn't think of putting the creative source of poetry into the setting of this poem, an intriguing prospect. You made a similar observation when you discuss "The Pitcher." This explanation is beautiful. I thought this sentence was special: "The moment of confusion, when the rind is inpenetrable, is the time when the reader has to work to find his/her personal connection and understanding of the poem."
Thank You,
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Lucas, Katherine M
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 12:42 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Peacock, Eskimo, Stafford// Magical Layers
"A word spoken by chance / might have strange consequences. / It would suddenly come alive . . . " (Eskimo, Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 160). These lines seem to describe some of the magic of poetry, the ability to mix words in just the right combination to make an idea or an image stick out more clearly than in any other way. This is similar to Stafford's description of writing, which he says is "a process that will bring about new things [the author] would not have thought of if he started to say them" (Stafford, Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 181). Stafford describes how he begins to write about anything, however small and unimportant, and then sees what wonderful, surprising things develop from it. The authors of these two works have found the magic of words through poetry--the exciting, unpredictable revelations that can come from the writing and reading of it. It is also interesting that the Eskimo poem speaks of this magic coming when humans and animals are connected. These moments of revelation, when words come alive in poetry, do seem moments when the reader and the writer have a deeper understanding and connection to the world around them.
Peacock talks about loving the poems that strike her but which she might not undertand right away. "This toughness of resistance to meaning," she says, "feels as if the poem had an inpenetrable rind--yet how the poem glows!" (Peacock, How to Read a Poem, p. 5). Ambivalence is important in poetry, it seems, as the pitcher in Robert Francis' poem also aimed for slightly off the mark. Amibivalence adds to poetry's richness, to the layers of rind. If the poem is not understood right away, it will be thought about and reconsidered many times. Each time, a new layer can be discovered. This richness helps the meaning and importance of the poem to keep changing with the reader. Francis' pitcher throws to be "a moment misunderstood" (Francis, Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 187). At first, I wondered why an author would strive for this moment of confusion, what misunderstanding could do for the reader. I realized that it allows the reader to make the poem his/her own. The moment of confusion, when the rind is inpenetrable, is the time when the reader has to work to find his/her personal connection and understanding of the poem. I think this is what Peacock is referring to when she says "the voice of the poem allows us to hear ourselves" (Peacock, p. 4).
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 1:53 PM
To: Frerich, Stephanie G; Thamert, Mark
Subject: REPLY TO STEPHANIE Buonarroti, Khlebnikov//Mesmerizing Chant of Poetic Passion
The first few times I read Michelangelo Buonarroti's poem, I had a lot of trouble getting in to it. Maybe it was the imagery (like the goitre) that turned me away, maybe it was my strong attraction to Mallarme and Khlebnikov that stole time from this beautiful poem. In a sense, our discussion in class (that you missed) was my first reading of this poem and by the end of class I was intrigued and ready to reread the poem again. Which I did, but I still didn't feel right about it, my problem was with the last line in which he says painting is his shame. I read this as saying that his creative passion has made him physically shameful.
Your interpretation is terrific. This is the ending I was looking for. You explain, "(Michelangelo is) saying that although he is painting a part of heaven on the ceiling, he is still summarizing and feels belittled and shamed to do so." This is a beautiful perspective.
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Frerich, Stephanie G
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 11:38 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Buonarroti, Khlebnikov//Mesmerizing Chant of Poetic Passion
Mesmerizing Chant of Poetic Passion
(Sorry folks, this is one posting late but take it for what it's worth)
In Michelangelo Buonarroti's poem, "On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel," he creates a sensual, uncontrollable passion. I found it intriguing how he creatively depicted painting the ceiling as looking upward but also that he was arching upward toward the heavens. He captures the feel so well when he says,
my beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,
fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly
grows like a harp. (Buonarroti, "On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel," from 99 Poems, 76)
Wow! You can almost see how his chest is arching up, poising as a harp ready to strung by the angels. You can almost hear the heavenly music bursting through his heart out onto the giant canvas of the skies, onto his humble ceiling.
Yet he does not let his ego climb to the ceiling with him. He lives his passion, day in and day out, and I think we all can relate in a tiny way to the feeling of being taken over by some creative obsession and how it drives us. Most of us afterwards want to go and show the world the product in which we have produced after creativity has pushed us to hidden depths. However, he invites "Giovanni" to "try / to succour my dead pictures and my fame; since foul I fare and painting is my shame" (Buonarroti, "On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel," 99 Poems, 76). I'm not sure quite yet what his exact feelings are but he seems to be saying that although he is painting a part of heaven on the ceiling, he is still summarizing and feels belittled and shamed to do so.
As far as the other poems, I have to admit I was left stumped. I didn't have the advantage of discussion to help me work through these, so I'm letting them resonate within me for awhile. I was struck by Velimir Khlebnikov's poem, "We Chant and Enchant," because of the way it sounds outloud. I wondered if he was a poet like Poe who wasn't really concerned about the meaning of a poem but the way it sounds. This poem definitely captures sound!
Uncast it, uncant it,
Discast it, Discant it,
Descant: Decant! Recant!
He can't. She can't. (Khlebnikov, "We Chant and Enchant," 99 Poems, 56)
I thought it might be discussing "traditional" romantic love from the use of he and she, but I was left confused as to who "we" and "you" were. I thought that this might be an interesting poem to see the different translations because it could lose so much if different words were used.
Those are my thoughts for now...
-Stephanie
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 11:18 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 5 Hirsch // I love a poem without words
Over the past few weeks, I seem to have developed a kind of love/hate relationship with poetry. Wow, that looks wrong; I never thought I would say I hated poetry, but this reading has helped me to narrow the source of my frustration, here it is: I spent over three hours reading the first fifteen pages of this Hirsch book. That's five pages an hour!, certainly my slowest reading ever. You see, every few lines I read something that cought my attention and caused me to spend some time thinking about it. When I came to page 9, I began my inquiry. 'Wallace Stevens asserted, "you must love the words, the ideas and images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all" ("Adagia"). Stevens lists the love of the words as the first condition of a capacity to love anything in poetry at all because it iis the words that make things happen.' (Hirsch, How to Read a Poem, p.9) This jumped at me because I don't love the words, I don't think I've ever loved any words. As long I can remember I've seen words as an opponent or a second-rate translator. Words have always been synonymous with awkwardness and misunderstanding for me. Writing has been particularly cumbersome since it isn't dynamic like speech and always seems slow, that is slower than thought or feeling.
Feeling is an absolute to me. Words can change your feeling and you can describe that change, but the substance is in your feeling, your resulting state. The real truth of anything seems to exist in what processes your perception, your reason, your emotion. It seems to me that words are always coming from here, and that something is almost always lost in the translation, at least for me. I realize some people have a wonderful ability for verbal expression and can transmit this truth, beautifully employing words (of course they also use other means like facial expression and body language). Further still, masterful writers can almost fully express an event or state, but it can requires several hundred pages of words to describe one moment. Poets then, can use very few words to express something much greater, they can insert more into their words. So perhaps the truth in poetry is not the words, but the result of those words on a reader. If I read poetry this way, it seems poetry should be the form of writing I like best. But then am I always reading the poem looking at the reader and not the poet? A better question: Where am I going with this? Is my real problem focus?
An answer is this: I approach things by feelings. I need to examine more than just the feeling of the poem, looking at the words and their interaction. As Hirsch put it, "Through this dynamic and creative exchange the poem ultimately engages us in something deeper than intellect and emotion." (Hirsch, How to Read a Poem, p.15) I think there is something deeper to a poem than just clever line or an emotion it excites in you, and that deeper something may be what I was trying to explain in the last paragraph. I think it is that which attracts me to poems. I guess for me poems are a beast with a brilliant soul.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 10:54 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Akhmatova
The link is on this page: http://dybka.home.mindspring.com/jill/akhmatova/poetry.html . This is the parent page: http://dybka.home.mindspring.com/jill/akhmatova/ .
Glad you enjoyed it. There is also some video on these pages.
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Thamert, Mark
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 10:42 PM
To: Oakland, Timothy J
Subject: RE: Akhmatova
wonderful! do you remember where you found this?
!1!*E,@@,E*!1!*E,@@,E*!1!*E,@@,E*!1!*E,@@,
Mark Thamert, O.S.B.
Director of the CSB/SJU Honors Program
Saint John's University and the College of Saint Benedict
Collegeville, MN 56321
(320) 363-2394
http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~mthamert/
***************************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 10:23 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Akhmatova
I found this wav of Akkmatova reading an excerpt of one of her poems.
<< File: akhmatova- speaking.wav >>
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 10:23 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Akhmatova
I found this wav of Akkmatova reading an excerpt of one of her poems.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 10:17 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 16. Akhmatova // Waiting for Justice
In order to avoid redundancy and since Jen and Scott provided pretty complete research, I will add only a picture.
This sketch is by A. Modigliani.
I am not among those who left our land
I am not among those who left our land
to be torn to pieces by our enemies.
Akhmatova begins her poem with I am, and I think she is talking about herself. After reading a short biography, it sounds like this is her voice. This also reminds me of the Bible, God saying powerfully "I AM". I'm not sure if this connection is intended, but it came to mind. The way she speaks of our land also reminds me of the Bible and the promised land. To change directions, the first line makes me think of flight, people physically leaving a place, but the sentence does not end, the line leaves me hanging. Sure enough, the second line changes or at least makes me rethink the first. Maybe this doesn't mean to geographically move, but just to allow it to happen. I also think it is interesting that the land is torn to pieces, not the people or anything cultural. The land is so basic to life, it seems so tragic to have the land torn to pieces. At the same time this leaves hope for survival.
I don't listen to their vulgar flattery,
I will not give them my poems.
She continues to make this poem very personal; both of these lines begin with "I". She also continues with the negatives, "I don't listen" and "I will not give". Each of these shows her personal protest, she will not comply. She will not give them her art, her voice.
But the exile is for ever pitiful to me,
like a prisoner, like a sick man.
Again, at first I thought this exile was physical, but now I think it is merely the exile of her poetry. I shouldn't say merely the poetry is of course, her. The way she uses "for ever" is intriguing. Reading the word "for" I look for reason, an answer, but I am lost when I reach "ever". She strongly describes her powerlessness when she is "like a sick man". I am reminded of our discussions of men and the vulnerability of a man who isn't strong.
Your road is dark, wanderer;
This line is a turning point in this poem for me. Your- She turns from I to you. I feel like she is talking to me. road- this word carries many meanings. This word reminds me of the journey of my life, makes me think globally of the places I'll go and have gone. The word also makes me think of where I am now. is- now I see she directs me to where I am now, where she has lead me. dark- I see how I don't understand where I am, what surrounds this road. The culture is not my own and I can't understand the setting of this. I also understand this is how she feels, she is surrounded by something foreign in her life. wanderer- she acknowledges that I am a wonderer, I have happened upon her path. I am only here temporarily, she lives her life here.
alien corn smells of wormwood.
I still feel there is a kind of duality in what I feel and what she is living. Reading thus far, I feel I have connected to something terrible, some injustice. She feels this way in her own land, in the food she eats isn't her own kind.
But here, stupefied by fumes of fire,
wasting the remainder of our youth,
we did not defend ourselves
from a single blow.
In this stanza she reminds me that I am not in her world. She moves from her individual efforts, and my place, to the people where she is. They did not get to be a youth, like me. Again, she mentions what did not happen, "we did not defend ourselves". When I think of a youth, I think of exploration, of finding yourself. When she says "wasting the remainder of our youth", I wonder if she means this youth that I think of or a youth spent defending themselves.
We know that history
will vindicate our every hour...
She shows us the endurance of her people. Waiting for justice. I like that the word our is inside the word hour.
There is no one in the world more tearless,
more proud, more simple than us.
The words she chooses to describe her people are interesting. Tearless: is she describing a stoic quality, or justice among the people? The word simple stands out to me, it reminds me of God and religion (maybe that's just because of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). I feel here she returns to her beginning "I am", by waiting for this justice it is like having faith in God or even waiting for the second coming. I might be off-base and I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like there is an underlying theme of God here somewhere. Then again, the bio that talked about the acmeist poets said they strive for clarity, not symbolism, so maybe I'm reading into the poem inaccurately.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2000 12:48 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 15 Bernard // Another beginning in the end.
I attended April Bernard's reading, but neglected to bring a notebook, or a good memory, so I can't write about that. I will write on April Bernard's poem "Pierced" which Fr. Mark distributed in class and Ms. Bernard read.
Pierced
So Eros, upon arrival, lies back like a cat
and feeds me cigarettes.
I these first images are terrific. First Eros, then a cat, then cigarettes. These seem ridiculous out of the context, but I can see how each is connected to that time of initial infatuation, of smite. The time when you are attracted to a person, but you don't know what might happen with them. Back to the images. The cat is great, I can see the sleek, slippery, timid, coy figure. I can't tell what the motives or personality is exactly. The cigarettes are equally cool. The addictive nature and smoothness associated with cigarettes parallel that of a first attraction perfectly.
A tandem swoon is not to be expected,
yet
This is great. The other party is not expected to swoon as the speaker does, but that will come in time. I can just see the speaker plotting to get the other's attention, it all seems so manipulative, but real at the same time. I like the clinical nature of this sentence. The statement is not personal, the speaker uses "is not to be expected" like this is the rule that is learned and known, that with an empirical approach, the speaker will make their move. I'm not assigning a gender to the speaker because I don't think it is necessary, that the poem works for either gender thusfar.
How many surrogate cylinders
press against the tongue before
The cigarettes are a poor substitute, they are only surrogates. This goes against my earlier interpretation, but I think it is interesting the speaker is not focused on anything but the physical characteristics of the cigarettes. This is remarkable how Bernard continues to use these almost sterile words "surrogate cylinders" "press against the tongue". It's not my tongue or her tongue or his tongue. Also the last line leaves me hanging, like the speaker, waiting.
Proximate dissatisfaction is achieved?
Charcoal's bitter.
Now I question my earlier interpretation further. Now I think the cigarettes might not be actual. The cigarettes may be the kisses of the shallow love. The speaker tastes the charcoal of the filter. Is it a real love if you taste only the filter, should there be a filter at all. Maybe the cigarettes are real and this taste is the speaker questioning how long they should wait. How much waiting and trying will occur before something, anything happens, this wait is undesirable.
Farther out in the thickened night,
carnival colors rise and fall in two four time.
I wonder why the night is thickened. Maybe tonight is a special night, there is something more in the air. Maybe it is mardi gras with its "carnival colors". I like the second line about the rising and falling. This reminds me of parties, or a night of fun spent with many different people. One moment you are having the time of your life, the next you are wonder why all of these have packed into such a small space to act ridiculously. I like the predicability of it "two four time", it sounds like a ballroom dance. This timed regularity reminds me again of the speaker, working to get the attention of the other. The calculated, precise moves toward achieving the goal, but I'm not exactly sure what the goal is.
How well I can read the requisite
to and fro, he owns the name
This is the first section in which the speaker is mentioned directly "I". It is also the first time a gender is applied; in this section "he" pops up. I don't really understand the second line, so I'll take a guess. The section "he owns the name", may be referring to the male-dominant (or so we think) nature of the attraction dance. By name she is referring to last name, traditionally carried forward by men. So she understands what she must do, she doesn't just understand, but she reads. She is reading the man. She is questioning this supposed male-dominance in the mating ritual, as she shows her control throughout, she is in control of the situation, the man is only to a limited extent, at least that's what we see.
But I have played him many times before.
He is forever innocent and does not remember me.
This section largely confirms what I wrote under the previous stanza. I like how she says "he is forever innocent", this reminds me of the Garden of Eden. This is an intriguing concept, begining every romantic relationship with this Garden scenario.
I hope my lack of experience with this kind of love has not led my analysis too far astray. I was intrigued by this poem and wanted to explore it; I will certainly return this poem again.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2000 1:26 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 14 Rumi // The End is the Beginning is the End
The Core of Masculinity
The core of masculinity does not derive from being male,
This first line makes the poem universal. The title makes me think of muscles and toughness, all kinds of other manly things. It makes me think of myself (how I don't really fit many of those images), and how this poem is for men. This first line debases these thoughts by separating masculinity's core from the male body.
nor friendliness from those who console.
I think "those who console" is referring to women. This line continues the previous by removing male/female relationships and sexuality as the core of masculinity.
Your old grandmother says,
This figure of my old grandmother is an interesting one. It makes the poem personal, directs it at me. My old grandmother makes me think the following words will be encouraging and supportive. It is unexpected that the first person in a poem about masculinity is an old grandmother.
Maybe you shouldn't go to school.
You look a little pale.
This line is what I expected, grandmother is being careful, maybe too careful.
Run when you hear that.
This instruction contradicts every feeling I would have had given this chance in high school. I can think of nothing better than spending a day with grandma instead of the boredom of school. The strong, powerful voice of the narrator makes this command. Who is this voice of the narrator? Is it a father/my father/ my grandfather? Is it a man or a woman (both, neither)? Or am I thinking too much, and its Rumi?
A father's stern slaps are better.
The first time I read this I thought it was a very negative image, but now I see it as slightly less negative. The slaps are stern, they are disciplinary. I think in my position this line carries with it more weight than in the author's time. It sounds like he is saying this discipline is better than receiving sympathy, which should be avoided. I strongly disagree with this and hope there is something different coming (I know there is something greater than that ahead).
Your
This single word brings the focus of the poem back to me, the reader. Not just me, but something of mine. Something connected to me. I remember that this is the me of earlier, when I was very young.
bodily
The line is leading to something strong and personal about me and everyone. Maybe not, maybe it is just something physical.
soul
This word next to the last is paradoxial. The previous adverb describes something as temporal and relating to matter, while this noun is spiritual and weightless. This is the strongest word of the line, but it seems weakened by its modifier.
wants
Now this word feels very weak. It reminds me of a person's childhood; it is assumed that needs will be met, children are concerned more with wants than needs. This soul doesn't need or thirst or starve, it merely wants.
comforting
This ends unfulfillingly, as it should. I now feel this comforting is of little consequence, there must be something greater, perhaps a spiritual soul alluded to earlier. I think this is the goal of the author. To show that this comforting appears to hold great value, but it is not complete.
The severe father wants spiritual clarity.
The father wants spiritual clarity as the child's bodily soul wants comforting. The father's want is different, though. For some reason this want seems almost admirable. I believe this is because it is the father's want, carrying more clout as the father is wiser and more experienced than the child and because he wants spiritual clarity, but not bodily spirituality.
He scolds, but eventually
leads you into the open.
The father doesn't employ the comforting support of the old woman, he pushes you down a difficult, independent path. This path leads to the open, to clarity, to reaon, logic, to reality. I wonder here if this open is where a person should be led. Do we want to be led to this reality? In the last class we talked about people's illusions, which I think it was Fr. Mark who said these illusions were necessary. If these illusions are necessary, and aid us in our lives, should true reality (if there is such a thing) be a goal. And does the father's path really lead to the open? Or is it just a set of illusions that so many people share it seems to be the truth? Or is the open simply independence?
Pray for a tough intructor
to hear and act and stay within you.
Maybe my previous interpretations were wrong, maybe my thoughts have been overtaken by philosophy and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Either way, I'll consider a new one. The father's action and what he gives is maculinity. That maculinity is discipline, reason, and morality. This masculinity is opposed by the empathy and feeling of the old woman, but does not seek to destroy it. They are opposites that work together. The tough instructor holds the father's role after the father is gone. It is the rules and morality, the character of the individual. The instructor is reasonable enough to hear, to perceive. The instructor is disciplined enough to act, life is action. The instructor is strong enough to endure. This instructor is part of the bodily soul, the very same soul the father seeks clarity in. The father seeks clarity, clarity in the balance of the soul. This balance is achieved between the instructor and its counterpart femininity, which seeks its own goals. I see this balance in the poem in its images. The second stanza is warm, with the old grandmother and her caring words. The third is harsh. In the fourth stanza the first two lines are mixed with positives and negatives. The fourth line is negative, scolding, but it slides into the fifth line which is beautiful. The fifth stanza is first stiff, second flexible. The first and last stanzas are different, they bring the poem in and out of the example and bring the poem out of reality and into the theoretical, the discussion of masculinity.
I have one more thing to add about this stanza. I think it is wonderful how the visible instructor is connected to the spiritual with pray as the first word of the first line.
We have been busy accumulating solace.
Make us afraid of how we were.
As I said before I think this stanza brings me out of the reality of the father and the old grandmother and brings me back to the greater idea of masculinity. For me, these lines say that our childhood was spent in what Masculinity would consider inactivity. We were accumulating our feelings of sorrow (perhaps from the pain of entering this world and that adjustment), once we grow older we must look back in fear at a tragically long grief period and a painful maturing process.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 12:48 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: A poem
In our exploration into families, I found myself thinking about my own and eventually led me to write a poem about my mother the other night. It's quite rough, but I wanted to submit it to you. I probably feel I need to submit this to you to show you I'm trying to work for this class, but you've been nothing but reassuring, so really I'm not overly concerned. I'm going to stop being so analytical now.
Mom
Her perfectly warm smile
and knowingly direct gaze
are allowed in exchange
for play.
She grips her briefcase with
unrelenting gentleness.
This exploding container
carries names,
dozens then thousands,
her own is split in two,
one at the top, one somewhere else.
Sometimes she has to set it down
while she fights a war of peacemaking
with herself,
But when she holds it, she
earns what can't be collected,
and charges only faith.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 12:32 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 13 LI-YOUNG LEE // I must find my keys!
A Story
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
The first word of this poem is "sad". For me this sets a solemn tone and creates confusion at the end of the first line. It would seem a man asking for a story is a nice thing. Now I notice that the man isn't asking, but asked, this has already happened and there is more to this story.
and can't come up with one.
This line makes the previous complete and concrete. The expression "come up with" grabs my attention. I wonder where this is coming from. I like thinking of this as coming up. It seems to me that we would think of a wonderful story and it would fall from our thoughts to our mouth and suffer verbal transmission. Coming up with a story implies a story rises, but a man that cannot create makes the mood very sad.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
The boy is so young, there should be nothing between them holding the father back. This time is special to the boy, he waits, the patience of a five-year-old is a rare commodity.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
I can see the father as one who has seen the tumultuous world and holds tightly to stability. This man seems characteristically male and familiar, but the boy uses "Baba" which sounds foreign and exotic to me. The author is getting to a universal level. The boy asks his father for something new, which for him is almost everything and the father has thousands of experiences the boy has not, but labors to bring just one to his son.
In a room full of books in a world
This is a powerful image for me. The room of books is his father's life, documented. That room exists in a world, it is almost impossible that his father cannot pick something from his library, but he doesn't just have this library, he can make something from the everything in the world.
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
(I didn't mean to write a synopsis of this stanza in my previous notes, it was subconcious I suppose.) These lines are wonderful, but sad. Each line is connected to the next. The image of a man telling his boy a story is so beautiful, I want there to be verbal communication, I want something to happen to change this unwaveringly calm and sad mood. The end of each line leads me to hope that the man will begin his story, but the begining of the next lets me down. "he can recall...not one" "the boy...will give up" In this second quote the author turns back to the boy, the young, catalytic, imaginative, but I am let down. The boy gives up, moves on, moves up to something else.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
This reminds me of some fathers I have met, it also reminds me of myself greatly. The man is looking ahead, he is protecting his security. He is preparing himself for a time that may never be.
the day the boy will go. Don't go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
The man is pouring his emotion, his creativity, his passion into an event in his head. This event is only happening in his head, while the boy sits waiting in his lap. He should be sharing himself with his child, but he uses his thoughts for something imaginative, but it is for himself. He even imagines some stories for his child, he doesn't just give them to his child. His voice changes to the italics instead of the child's. This inner-dialog shows the man's creativity and expression, but this is all internal.
But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god
The roles are still reversed, the boy is doing the rational, logical, while the father becomes impassioned and angry. The boy is looking for his keys, symbolic of his responsibilities and securities. I think the keys can also symbolize his independence and freedom from his father's life. The keys can also be like the keys his father searches for. His father is bound by his logic and cannot unlock his emotion and allow it to pass into the world. The grown boy is dealing with his own rationality.
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
The man struggles with himself. He is not uncaring or unfeeling as someone watching him might think. He realizes the folley of his ponderings, his anger falls on himself. I think there is something to the "are you a god...am I a god" statements. I think many men try to be everything to everyone (forgive the phrase, I listen to too much everclear) or try to perfect every word. I see myself in this same inner-dialog daily.
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical question,
These lines are encouraging to me and plainly labels the man's strangulating logic. It is encouraging that the boy is still there, the man understands, and the father still has the chance to tell his son the story. This second line clearly identifies the father's overwhelming logic. What is interesting is that the father is emotional within his logical. The emotional is present, it does not escape into the world. The boy still speaks in the italics, in the emotional. The man cannot speak this way.
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.
This ending shows the circular nature of the father-son relationship and the transfer of ideals. My dictionary gave this for a definition of supplicate: To ask for humbly and earnestly by or as if by praying to God (Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary, 1984). This is interesting considering the lines about trying to be a god. The boy sees his father as a god, he knows his dad loves him. He knows that his requests and his questions lead to silence. What is most intriguing to me is that the father sees this and his inability to express emotion to his child and dislikes it. The boy thinks this is love, but not until he is grown will he see there is a better way, then he will search for his keys.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 12:38 AM
To: Schultz, Ryan M; Thamert, Mark
Subject: Response to Ryan -- 6 Baudelaire//The passion of the Albatross
Ryan,
Your interpretation here is awesome. You really nailed this one down for me. When I first heard someone connect the albatross with the cross, I thought of it as just another sign of the author's vision of himself. And after I left class, I felt a little disappointed in this poem. I had once seen it as powerful, and then as an arrogant boast, it just didn't feel right. Through your interpretation it seems abundantly clear that the albatross is a metaphor for christ. My only point of contention with you is your closing, where you mention this interpretation fits in with our discussion on the arrogance of the author. I think (and hope) the author was merely applying another beautiful vocation to Christ. In the final stanza, when he begins "The Poet's", I think he acknowledging the divinity of Christ and separating that from the poet (himself). I now think my interpretation from class was entirely wrong and I'm thrilled about it.
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Schultz, Ryan M
To: Thamert, Mark
Sent: 02/15/2000 6:35 PM
Subject: 6 Baudelaire//The passion of the Albatross
In reading the assigned poems in 99 Poems, none struck me as much as The
Albatross. The first time I read this poem, I did not like it at all.
The more I read it though, the more it seemed to jump out at me. This
poem is filled with symbols and metaphors that are not very evident in
the first couple readings. Furthermore, after class yesterday, many
comments about this challenged my interpretation and forced me to read
the poem yet again. I now feel that this poem is a metaphor for the
passion of Christ. The imagery of a large, majestic bird of the heavens
being ensnared by a cruel group of men who exist in a tiny boat
hopelessly and aimlessly adrift in an enormous ocean. The stately,
peaceful bird is mocked just as Jesus was by his captors. "They're
scarcely set on deck, these heavenly kings..." (Baudelaire in 99 Poems,
Pinter p. 20). This reference raises the captured albatross to the
status of a "heavenly king." Another reference to support this
interpretation, "See this winged traveler, so awkward, weak!"
(Baudelaire in 99 Poems, Pinter p. 20) is an image of a being not from
this world, but a far worthier place. This symbol made me think of an
angel with broad feathery wings flying to earth and cruelly mistreated
until its fragile wings drooped. This creature, once fine and lovely,
is now mistreated and broken. Much like Christ was during the story of
the passion. Baudelaire in the final stanza changes the tone and
direction of this poem and begins to speak of a "Poet," who is like " a
monarch of the clouds/ who haunts the tempest, scorns the bows and
slings;/ Exiled on earth among the shouting clouds,/ He cannot walk for
he has giant's wings." (Baudelaire in 99 Poems, Pinter p. 20) This
stanza, I believe is the heart and soul of this poem. The imagery is
staggeringly profound in scale while encapsulated in so few words. This
poet, Christ, is the son of the monarch of the clouds who has infinite
powers. This poet is sent to the hostile crowds who cannot accept his
simple message, and is condemned to die. Yet in all this imagery, no
line is as powerful as the last. The image of Christ, a divine creature
sent from heaven staggering through hostile, mocking crowds, who
stumbles under the weight of his enormous wings; a heavy cross. Oh how
Christ is like the Albatross in this poem.
The comments in class about Baudelaire being very arrogant can be seen
in this interpretation. If Christ is the poet who suffers because of
his message, then Baudelaire, being a poet himself, rises himself to the
level of the divine.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 11:27 PM
To: Lindquist, Jennifer M; Thamert, Mark
Subject: Reply to Jen: 7 Holm, Bill // I'll rhumba anytime
Jen,
I'm glad you chose this poem, it is one that stood out for me, but I pursued a different poem so I didn't get a chance to think about this one much. You made a couple of statements that really helped me connect to this one. You wrote, "The speaker is functioning in a limiting environment, which has restricted him to what is expected of that individual by the culture and society around him." and "She represents new experiences, but much more than that, she represents a difference from the norm."
These two images, the one of the man stuck in normal settings and the exotic woman you describe so well, remind me travel. The week of New Year's Eve I took a cruise with a friend. I found that about half of the passengers on the ship were from Mexico City. This meant that from time to time I would find myself surrounded by people with a different culture and even a different language. This experience helped to remind me how narrow my perspective can become out here in the woods of Minnesota.
Throughout the week I spent on this ship, I had the wonderful opportunity to look outside of my normal. In the end, I found I had a feeling of centeredness and I was even thinking differently. (This is where the poem comes back in)
My interpretation then, is that it is the introduction of the foreign is what changes life, what lets you LIVE. The poem suggests that you must choose, either to go with the woman or stay near the light. This choice can mean just one moment, or a lifetime committment.
The woman in the poem was especially intriguing to me. I love the way the woman is foreign and the speaker may dance with her, but there is nothing beyond that mentioned. There is some intangible quality about dancing with a strange woman that is indescribable (but I'll still try). Dancing with a foreign woman means sharing yourself exclusively, for a time, with a someone you know nothing about. The poem shares little concrete information about this woman (she has black eyes), but there is still something attractive and even seductive about her. I think her mystery is most of that. You are thinking about where she is from and who she is. Is she from a city or a village? Is she an artist or a monarch? Does she dream of being a world traveller or escaping to a quiet tropical island for eternity? The best part is that she is all of these things.
Jen, thanks again for sharing your insight, you've helped me find something beautiful.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lindquist, Jennifer M
To: Thamert, Mark
Sent: 02/15/2000 11:03 PM
Subject: 7 Holm, Bill // Explore new worlds!
Someone dancing inside us
learned only a few steps:
the ôDo-Your-Workö in 4/4 time,
the ôWhat-Do-You-Expectö waltz.
These first four lines seem to be expressing the pressures of society as
they are felt by the speaker of this poem ( I think the speaker of the
poem is male because he later images a man inside of him intrigued by a
woman. This could be interpreted differently.). The speaker is
functioning in a limiting environment, which has restricted him to what
is expected of that individual by the culture and society around him.
This is an individual performing a tap dance around his own instincts in
order to follow a pre-established plan or path of existence.
He hasnÆt noticed yet the woman
standing away from the lamp,
This image opens up possibility for the speaker of the poem. I can
picture the speaker of the poem standing before two paths. One flows in
his current direction, the direction that everyone else is following
that gives into societal pressures and maintains a ônormalö existence.
The other is one that he hasnÆt noticed yet. One that may take him to
new places and ideals. One that can expose him to a world completely
and utterly different from his own. He hasnÆt become exposed to the
path (the woman) that lies away from the obvious (the lamp).
the one with black eyes
who knows the rhumba,
and strange steps in jumpy rhythms
from the mountains in Bulgaria.
This portion of the poem opens up the world of opportunity that may or
may not be exposed to the speaker if he chooses to search for something
outside of his normal boundaries. The woman represents things
completely alien to him. A rhumba rather than the basic waltz.
ôStrange stepsö rather than the ô4/4 timeö of his daily existence. She
offers new worlds to be explored. She represents new experiences, but
much more than that, she represents a difference from the norm.
If they dance together,
something unexpected will happen.
If they donÆt, the next world
will be a lot like this one.
This last portion of the poem promotes the exotic, new, unexpected
experience over the hum-drum existence presently being lived by the
speaker of the poem. If the speaker dares to allow the man inside him
to turn to the new and unusual side of his nature, in the form of the
exotic woman, he will be rewarded with the experience of not knowing
what tomorrow will bring him. If he chooses to follow the path he is
presently on, he will continue into the next world, passing on the same
inability to try new things to the people around him, maintaining the
norm, rather than testing the waters.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 8:38 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 7 Williams // Clark Kent hold the Superego
Danse Russe, Rag and Bone Shop, p.6
If when my wife is sleeping
The speaker is a man. Since his wife is sleeping, it seems he is going to talk about something secret, something personal.
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
I can imagine this man, maybe in his thirties. He seems pretty ordinary, almost boring. I feel like he is going to tell me about the deepest thoughts he has after everyone else is asleep, when his responsibilities are all but gone. I wonder what this man will say or do, since the speaker is a normal guy, what must happen?
and the sun is a flame-white disc
This image of the moon is very lively. The moon isn't pale it is a flame hotter than the sun during the day. The night time brings something powerful and passionate to this seemingly ordinary man.
in silken mists
above shining trees, --
Silken mists and shining trees sounds more tranquil than the previous statement; It seems like an opposing image. Maybe the image isn't tranquil, but beautiful, carrying the passion forward.
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
Since he is in his north room, he probably isn't doing this in the room his wife is sleeping in. He dances grotesquely, there is no beauty, there is something else. This is crazy.
before my mirror
He is doing this dance for himself. My friend adds: the mirror is like the relationship of the moon to the sun (described earlier).
waving my shirt round my head
This image is certainly wild, even primitive. I think of the time when I am through with classes and meeting and I take off my top shirt so that I can relax wearing just a tee-shirt. For me, this is like shedding my conventional posture, dropping my social conscience. The speaker's celebration shows his delight in experiencing his primal state.
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
His chant is interesting. He is lonely, he had this energy that he can't share with anyone but his reflected self. He can't do this wild dance with his wife and kids, they would worry about his sanity and their safety.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
The statement that his loneliness is innate, catches me. I assumed his primitive energy was contained by societal norms, but he is saying that he is born to do this dance alone. Perhaps he is saying that it is best if you only see yourself do this dance, it is not meant to be shared, but to reinforce individuality.
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
His dance is grotesque, yet he admires each part of himself in action. Also, he admires his body parts, not his character or his soul.
against the yellow drawn shades, --
This image brings the story back into its setting. He is in his house, in a room where no one can see him.
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
I find it intriguing that he asks who shall say when no one knows about his dance. I wonder now if he is the happy genius of his household. Does his wife have a similar rite even later in the night, or during the day? I also wonder about the title, I have taken only two semesters of French and no other languages, but in French this title means Russian Dance.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 12:50 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 6 Baudelaire // Come down from up there!
My first reading of this poem left me believing it is a nice description of a poet. The poem reminded me of Michelangelo's poem in a way. I connected with it the aloneness and alienation of some brilliant people. I thought of Michelangelo's work in the painting of Sistine Chapel and how that must have set him aside from people in his proximity. Consider these words, "Exiled on Earth" (Boudelaire, 99 Poems in Translation, p.20). I hate to use such a strong word, but I almost felt the persecution of the artist. After a while longer I thought maybe I didn't sympathize with Baudelaire as much as before. Upon further inspection, his words seem arrogant.
The Poet's like the monarch of the clouds
Who haunts the tempest, scorns the bows and slings;
Exile on earth amid the shouting crowds
(Boudelaire, 99 Poems in Translation, p.20).
He sounds like he sees himself far higher than "the shouting crowds." Unfortunately for him he is not up where he belongs, he is stuck here on earth.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 3:00 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 26. Cavafy // Berated by a Friend
Today, I chose "The City" for reflection. I think I chose this poem because (or what I can put my finger on) the title and the polar contrast of the two stanzas. First the title, "The City" says to me a single geographical place, an institution of humanity, usually a lack of nature, a symbol of progress, endless opportunity, where the great happening of humanity not reality take place. Now for the content of this loaded container. The first stanza begins with such hope, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea. Another city will be found". That's funny, I remembered the second half of the first stanza as more uplifting, oh well. I read this poem at least a half-dozen times and I just noticed how negative most of the first stanza is, but that fits into my reading even better; I will continue. The contrast is not between the stanzas, but within the first stanza. The quote of the first line and a half is positive and hopeful, but after that all of the images are negative. It begins with a better one than this (not just a great city), then a condemnation, then the nice heart image is overturned with a corpse -- buried. What an empty feeling. The quote continues talking about the terrible things in this city. The "You said" at the beginning of all of this undoes all that is positive in the beginning and creates a gloomy mood for the whole poem. The second stanza relentlessly pounds "your" life into a hell of emptiness. This is a message to someone though, advice. The speaker is saying that the city any city is you in a place and if you dwell on what you lost or missed here, even for a moment, you won't move on. You will find yourself in the same place because you are in the same place, your surroundings have just changed. The speaker is insisting that you control what you can, not blame something outside. Your hope and optimism and belief must go farther than the first line and a half, it must have the fortitude to survive being berated by a friend to succeed.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 5:01 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 25. Al-Harizi // 31 Words to God
Since Al-Harizi's poems in A Book of Luminous Things (pg.58- 59) are quatrains, I'll include them in their entirety.
THE LIGHTNING
And the lightning laughs at the clouds,
like a warrior who runs without growing weary or faint.
Or like a night watchman who dozes off,
then opens one eye for an instant, and shuts it.
THE LUTE
Look: the lute sounds in the girl's arms,
delighting the heart with its beautiful voice.
Like a baby crying in his mother's arms,
while she sings and laughs as he cries.
I was drawn to Judah Al-Harizi's poems for two reasons. First, the titles of these poems caught my attention. They are in The Secret of a Thing section and the things in Al-Harizi's poems made me expect something, well, banal. I was intrigued by what might make this writer's insight on these highly symbolic but frequently invoked images interesting enough to be included in this anthology. Secondly, I hold an interest in short poems. Throughout the semester I've been fascinated by the linguistic prowess of an author who can express a great deal with a limited number of words. My first impression then, was that Al-Harizi set up two obstacles for himself, clearly a man who likes a challenge. And, of course, his poems are great.
The first poem I connected with of the three is "THE LUTE", perhaps that's because of Mallarme. I'm amazed what can happen in thirty-one words. Al-Harizi begins with "Look:', wonderful. He draws my attention immediately, telling me to see. He shows me a lute, the subject. I wonder why the only connection between the lute and girl is that the lute is in the girl's arms. In the second stanza I get lost; I wonder for a moment if the baby crying is the lute or the girl, but decide it's the lute. The stanza turns the first on its head. In the first sentence, the lute has a beautiful voice and delights the girl's heart, while in the second the mother is singing and laughing, but the baby cries. I have only one explanation for this enigma. The baby is crying, it is feeling and expressing reality. Babies are one connection people have to God. Babies are so new to our world that they can in a sense remember what it is like to not be here. The baby cries with the pain of our world. The mother sings and laughs for what reason? Maybe she is consoling the child, trying to make them happier. I think she is celebrating her connection to the baby and the baby's connection to God. Al-Harizi establishes a connection between the baby and the lute, so he is putting a connection to God in the lute and the cries of the lute, music.
This connection to God is the similarity I see between these two poems. Al-Harizi performs a similar trick in "THE LIGHTNING", though I think he gives this one away sooner. The first stanza made me think the warrior was godlike. The second sentence again leads me to God. I like that Al-Harizi uses a night watchman who dozes off, both of these things are human, but what human produces something as powerful as lightning when they open just one eye. This scale indicates God must be here, but I still wonder why a dozing night watchman?
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2000 11:27 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 24. Wagoner, Guillen // Flight & Ornithology
The Guillen poem "Flight" is a beautiful poem about a gull that describes the bird so vividly, I feel I am the bird.
Through summer air
The acending gull
Dominates the expanse, the sea, the world
Under the blue, under clouds
Like the whitest wool-tufts,
And supreme, regal,
It soars.
All of space is a wave transfixed.
Guillen creates a strong image lifting the gull to a God-like position in the solitary line that renders everything motionless for this bird. Here Guillen is putting God into the image of this bird, showing the powerful connection of animals and nature and God. The gull is supreme and regal, King of all. But the bird is under the blue sky and the white clouds. I see this blue and white as a reflection of the earth, the blue is the sea and life, the white is purity or the most pure of the sheep of God as the next line suggests. So this bird is between the heavens and clouds above, but above the earthly counterparts, perhaps this bird also represents Jesus.
I will jump ahead to the final stanza, as it is most pertinent to my discussion of the relation of the two poems.
And suspended, its wings abandon themselves
To clarity, to the transparent depths
Where flight, with stilled wings,
Subsists,
Gives itself entirely to its own delight, its falling,
And plunges into its own passing--
A pure instant of life.
In this stanza the gull experiences death, "its own passing", but does so plunging, it throws itself wholly into this experience. Guillen says that it is this bird giving of itself that makes this moment life. I most identify with this poem as I compare it to my next, I would say predictably so as in poetry I generally prefer the beautiful rather than the tragic. This poem adds strength and beauty to my paradigm of understanding. I found an interesting contrast to this perspective in Wagoner's "The Author of American Ornithology Sketches a Bird, Now Extinct" (Milosz, pg. 13).
Wagoner's poem has an opposing approach. In this poem God is put into a Man. But the man is not God, but has power like God. The man's goal is to catalogue a bird by drawing a picture from real life. To accomplish this feat, the man shoots the bird and locks it in his workroom. The woodpecker expresses emotion throughout the poem while the man is stolid. "began to cry like a baby" "still wailing and squealing" "It fell silent at last" "it started wailing again" The man only hints at feeling in the final line "He watched it die, he said, with great regret." This death should be the most intense pain of the poem, but the man manages only an empty sentiment. This man has committed himself to the birds and to making "them live forever inside books" yet he it seems his commitment isn't authentic. He is capturing the lives of the birds and holding them for other people, not for the birds or something greater. The emptiness of this man is apparent as I read the stanzas of five lines each, finally reaching the final stanza containing only one line followed by space.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 10:12 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: My object poem // Hats
Hats
Suspended above all
is the unassuming protection or
sparkling extension of person or
reverence to God;
an ordinary crown.
tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 7:49 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 23. Lucas // Capturing Lightning
Cool! This poem jumped at me the first time I read it and continued to hold my attention through several readings. I'll approach this posting by articulating some of the aspects of this poem that made it especially interesting for me.
The concept behind this poem is great. After my first reading I was thinking, creativity is like capturing lightning. Your description is just how I see the creative power. "The torrent come in my mind, through my fingers, / Pounding against the windows, flashes of light / Illuminating for moments the trees bending in the wind" This image is powerful, for just a moment you see the world turned sideways. I also like that the storm, the words you choose ("torrent"), and the images are not always positive. Storms are destructive and sometimes cathartic. I like that you don't talk about creativity as something flowery and sunny.
The tempo and language of the poem are intriguing. The first thing that I notice is the first word of the second stanza "Waits". This word has a great effect of stopping everything just when the poem is about to pick up. The poem's first stanza is setting up for something big. It begins with "My mind" very close, then "the whole world", then "the sky hazes", then the animals, then their ears, next "everything". But it stops with everything, suspense, then wait. This is a great effect. The movement in tempo throughout the poem is brilliant. When I read this poem out loud, I could feel the change in speed. The first stanza is slow, then speeds up, then stops. After that it speeds up until the last stanza when things finally slow down again. "The torrent begins to lessen and subside, becoming a more / Steady rain, a low rumble of thunder sounding," Here the words slow me down; the soft s'es of lessen and subside are easy. The word more appears, but immediately slows at the end of the line and is helped down by the contentment of steady rain and quiet thunder. Nice.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2000 5:33 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: Group Topic 14 (our own poetry magazine): Ann, Jen, Jeff, Tim
Fr. Mark,
We have decided to keep our Nasrin group together for these next projects. We are most interested in topic number 14, and would also be interested in numbers 12 and 13. I apologize for sending this e-mail to you so late, I intended to send it after class on Friday.
Thank you,
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 12:41 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 22. Gonzalez // Death and the Womb
The poems of Angel Gonzalez have left me intrigued. I really enjoy this process of reading several poems from one author, I feel that I get a chance to become familiar with the writer's style. I thoroughly enjoyed each of Gonzalez' poems, each for a different reason. I will discuss the last poem in the collection "Diatribe Against the Dead" because it struck me so intensely. I started reading this poem with this question: Why are the dead so bad?
The dead are selfish:
they make us cry and don't care,
they stay quiet in the most inconvenient places,
they refuse to walk, we have to carry them
on our backs to the tomb
The word "tomb" in the fifth line ignites this poem, when my eyes reach the 'b' my mind fills the following space. The word 'cry' three lines back, and "refuse to walk" and "have to carry them" just one line back force me to think "womb". I think that the dead are connected to those living in a womb. What is more, the dead are bringing these living in a womb out of that womb and into the world. There is a clue in the next line "as if they were children. What a burden!" this burden at the end of the sentence reminds me of the burden of original sin. The problem with this interpretation is that the children in the poem are the dead, not the living. As I think more deeply, this makes perfect sense. The living are not yet born, they are in the womb, the dead are the children (of God). The dead bring reality to the living, they bring humanity. This poem speaks of the dead passionately and negatively because the speaker is expressing the pain of humanity.
The final line of the poem is especially powerful. "they don't realize what they undo." It seems like there is a kind of circularity within this line; they do (not) realize what they (un)do. 'They do' and 'they do', but each is different. The first 'they do' makes a paradox (I think that's it), in my interpretation the dead bring reality to the world, they realize the world. The second 'they do' is another negative, undo. Here what they undo is the perfection of the garden, the warmth of the womb. I suppose then, that this is a backwards sort of circularity as the first part is making real and the second is undoing the perfection, the opposite of the order of the creation story. Since it begins with the end and returns to the beginning, it completes the circle.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 4:03 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 21. Ravikovitch // Talking About Fortune Cookies
This easily fickle poem gave me a few problems, but now feels close to my heart. After reading the second and third stanzas I felt a connection to this poem. I knew just what she meant about the way things change when you're alone, all of your senses finding an always new intensity. Exploring your imagination and reflecting over your life. Reaching the sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas of this poem, I found I wasn't so sure about the meaning here. When I read "A sun sets at midnight." (Ravikovitch, "Surely You Remember" pg. 330-331 Vintage), I was certain this line was referring to a shift of thought that involved becoming a person of the night, losing one's inhibitions, that the thoughts would change next. I found that this interpretation was wrong when I read "Only a fool lets the sun set when it likes." This line seems to say that the day ends when the sun sets. So maybe she is saying that a sun setting at midnight is a person making more of their day, maybe it is saying that a person can control through their imagination something as constant as the sun, or maybe this second sun line is completely unrelated to the first. You can see why I was thrown off of my path of simple understanding (I should have learned by now that poems never fit into a nice little package after one reading). After dozens more readings, I have come to terms with this poem again and I'm content with my original interpretation about imagination, aloneness, and reminiscing.
One of the images in the first stanza was especially striking to me. It falls not far before she gives the poem to the reader, changing from first person to second. "I remain quiet, and slowly // the knot in my throat dissolves." This is great, it can say so much for me. She is saying that speaking is actually wounding her. Talking with other people has unnaturally caused her an uncomfortable abnormality. This knot shows how ineffective spoken words can be, especially in a day-to-day setting. People try to communicate through a mediocre translator of their voice and their word. When this is gone, she remains, as does the poetry. There are just two things in the poem right now, her and the poems. The words of the poem aren't like the spoken words though, they don't result in a lump, but "infinite treasures". She is telling me right here that this poem I'm reading isn't a conversation and it cannot be. Ravikovitch is giving a defining characteristic of poetry, it may feel like a conversation, as this poem does at times, but poetry has something else. You can return to poetry and relive it, years later, minutes later, or even a word later.
I have one other little observation about the final stanza.
Sun and moon, winter and summer
will come to you,
infinite treasures.
Ravikovitch seems to take off and float away with this last line, which is fine, but it seems it may be a bit overboard. The first thing that popped into my head after reading this was fortune cookie. It's interesting that fortune cookies usually hold aimless platitudes that everyone uses inventively to explain a real part of their lives which inevitably starts a conversation on the matter.
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 9:31 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 20. Jeff, Ann, Jen, and Tim // Nasrin presentation
Wow! That's the center of most of my thoughts about our discussions on Taslima Nasrin last Thursday. Ann and Jeff performed an awesome debate. It's funny that when Ann and Jeff were planning this part of the presentation, they said their presentation would be mostly them, with little class interaction. That turned out to by quite backwards. I was greatly impressed with the way this debate and following discussion incited great energy and produced meaningful thought. This dynamic quorum made my experience vastly positive. The class' participation made the presentation work.
I look forward to to the remaining presentations!
Tim
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 1:00 AM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 19 Bishop // Penultimate Peril
Since I read the poems in this chapter of Hirsch before I read the chapter, I will try writing about my poem of choice before I read the chapter, then again after I read the chapter.
The most outstanding aspect of this poem for me is the progression from strict rationality to genuine feeling. The first stanza leads me to think that the poem is a sort of instruction, something I should consider as a lesson. Bishop begins, "The art of losing isn't hard to master; / so many things seemed filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster." (Hirsch How to Read a Poem, pg. 32) My academic training tells me this is a thesis and it looks like one. There is a simple and strong statement along with some logic for support. The rhyme of this first stanza and throughout the poem makes it sound like a mnemonic device from elementary school. The phrase "the art of losing isn't hard to master" starts spinning in my head over and over. I sense discord when I reach the word "fluster" in the second stanza; in my first reading I simply breezed forward, not noticing. The second reading I stumbled and noticed the foreshadowing this word holds. This messy rhyme is reality and emotion sneaking into this tidy lesson.
The third stanza manages to hold itself together, but the fourth is different entirely. The fourth stanza begins with "I", a person has entered this poem and is talking, this entrance alerts me to the fallibility of first person. There is even an exclamation point as this person conjures support for the trembling thesis. In this stanza the person has lost things that may hold memories and may be connected with emotions, but they are still only objects.
The fourth stanza holds it shape like the third, but that is because it focuses on something easier. These lines recall some places the speaker has been. Emotion is finally expressed directly "I miss them". This is a big step which shows the speaker lost more objectivity. While she is surrendering her logic, the thoughts aren't strong enough to evoke her deeper held emotion. She recalled the cities to contain herself, she only misses the cities.
The speaker must recollect herself before she can begin the last stanza as I must wait for the pause "--". In this stanza I can read her thoughts in parentheses. The thought of the joking voice is an idea that perfectly captures a person. The implied humor comes from a person's sense of comedy, their intellectual qualities, their perspective in life. The voice holds importance as a person's translator for thought and feeling. The next thought "a gesture / I love" has great strength as it unveils the deep emotion (dramatically with "I love" leaping out after the line break). I finally see where this poem has led me. It is not a lesson for me, but a poem (almost inner monologue) about this woman trying to manage her grieving. The poem resolves in the last line when the speaker pushes herself to write the last word.
I've written quite a bit about this poem, so I will limit my thoughts on Hirsch a bit and comment on two things.
Hirsch writes, "This brings us to the final stanza where, in an extraordinary turn, the lyric becomes a love poem." (Hirsch, How to Read a Poem pg. 35) Later he makes another comment about the author "addressing her lover directly". I'm not convinced of Bishop's loss as a lover. I should rephrase that. I'm not convinced the "lyric becomes a love poem" in the final stanza. I think Hirsch's statement limits the feeling of Bishop. I think what she says is more universal. Hirsch uses "I love" thereby "summoning and representing the beloved". I feel the powerful words reflect not on the loved, but on the feeling, the admitting and surrender of "I love". These seemingly romantic words give power to the dramatic journey from the cold, inhuman beginning.
Hirsch's first line about "One Art" struck me. "'One Art' is a kind of instruction manual on loss." At my last understanding of this poem before reading the Chapter, I was pleased to discover that this poem was not an instruction manual on loss. I had very logically devised that the poem sounds like one at start, but unravels into a untidy emotional experience. I felt a surge of frustration as the sentence entered my thoughts. I quickly saw the simplicity of it. Since this poem isn't an instruction manual and is instead an emotional experience, it is an instruction manual. I think this experience, typical of poetry, is terrific.
On a side note, what is up with Hirsch using 'penultimate' twice within five lines? It seems like he's trying to be lofty. Is this word poetry jargon, or is he just being smart?
Tim
* about the title- I have one more homework assignment to do after this one.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 7:47 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 17. Term Paper // Nasrin // Back
Tim Oakland
HONR 250- Great Poets
17 March, 2000
Group Project Poet
Taslima Nasrin
Back
"You're a girl." Surely an insult on the playground, but now it means something different. Nasrin's strong voice and clear perspective force us into character and let us feel a different world. Nasrin's first poem in our book Contemporary World Poetry is an important introduction. It would have been easy for my first reading to simply unveil Nasrin and her perspective, but this poem did much more. The first line of this poem is powerful; it puts me in character to read the rest of her poems. I think it is wonderful that this poem is titled "Character", it describes what a woman of character is for her, but it also presents me with my character. Nasrin forces me into a character that might be a little uncomfortable, one that I might usually resist. This character lets me see things differently, I am not trying to see as a woman does, I am a woman and that is how I see.
I feel she is using this strong voice to counteract the overpowering voices telling me what I must be. She tells me I must let some cultural traditions go, I should step over the threshold of my house, not be carried over his. When I walk down the lane, men will follow me. They will be at my back, not at my side. They will whistle at my back, at my body, not facing me, at my soul. When I walk down the lane the men whistle from behind, lurking. The men are faceless and put me in my place as a body. When I become daring and step onto the main road, throwing aside the place they have given me, the men will be forced to more direct forms of subversion. The men must speak, overtly communicate using human words. They still do not look into me. Nasrin leaves my future wide and bright. I am a girl who is on the right path. I haven't yet been pushed away, all I have to do is keep on going.
At the conclusion of this first poem, I will allow myself to resurface, fading from my character. I notice that Nasrin uses the image of a back in this poem and those to come. In this poems she places the men whistling behind the girl. This shows how men (at least the men Nasrin is describing) do not approach women directly on a level field. They subvert women early in their lives and continue, this subversion becoming brash as women move toward independence. I will return to this idea later, but now I will return to my character.
"At the Back of Progress" tells me the story of three men. The first is a white-collar upper-class man in a nice office. It angers me that the number of girls this man raped isn't fixed; it's a dozen or so. The destruction of youth for one or more people is insignificant for this man. He is unreformed. He lusts after the woman at the cocktail party, the belly button. For me this is a sign of umbilical connection, of motherhood and childhood. But the man wants to make that his, he continues to destroy. Sex isn't his only medium for abuse, he goes home and turns to violence over the insignificant objects in his privileged life, an excuse. He doesn't treat his workers well, he is unkind, but he treats them better than any woman in his life. This man gives references, he is given the privilege of judging a person's character. He has power to control people's futures. He wouldn't judge character as I judge character. This poem sets a scene in an office, with three characters. The next character introduced is an employee, a subordinate of the first man. This second man is quiet and timid, but not always. He pretends to be a great man when he is out of the office. He takes what his manager gives him and gives that to his wife. She accepts this from her husband because she doesn't know anything else. She has learned this role. The page turn in the text (page 403-404) strengthens the effect of the next line. I can see this learning process from one generation to the next. But it is not transferred through the women, the men carry on this horrible cycle. The outcome is suicide of every woman in its path. Nasrin's break in the line gives me just a moment to think about what I know is coming. The subsequent lines, each ending with mother, each stretching a little farther to the edge of the page, amplify the tragic message that shows the progression, the depth of this man's actions. In the next stanza the man beats his wife, but Nasrin pulls this line in closer, as if it weren't so bad and it isn't after the previous stanza. The last man, the bearer is a worker, the most common of the group. His story is in neat lines, one after another. He keeps a lighter in his pocket, a convenient portable pre-packaged container for his fire. Someone else made this for him; he can use this powerful tool without thought. He makes a small tip, being just a waiter. He divorced a wife for sterility, a wife for having a daughter, and the last for not bringing dowry. He beats his wife now. One after another, systematically and without emotion. This man has the system so well engrained he doesn't even need to think or feel. Nasrin is explaining that the cause for this injustice is hidden, in the back, but it exists at all levels, there is not one responsible group. This hidden injustice looms beneath even our highest progress.
In this poem the back is of progress. Nasrin's poem includes modern things like air conditioning, movies, art, literature, politics, the white-collar worker, and the commodity of leisure time. These symbols of progress are lost in the terror of the crimes committed by these everyday men. This is the opposite of what we know. Nasrin calls us to remember progress is measured by meaningless things and we must forget what we are told sometimes in order to find truth. She shows us the back of progress, its weakest point.
In "Another Life" I see the perspective of a woman living a simple, agrarian life, not the progressive air-conditioned city. The women's lives and the poem begin in the afternoon. I feel the connection of women and the simplicity in life with these women picking lice from each other's hair like apes. This isn't derogatory though; the line about picking lice shows the women's relaxation in this activity as the line slides farther from the rigid left margin. The alliteration in the line "they spend the evening feeding the little ones" makes this line lyrical and playful. This line continues the women's relaxation as the women approach personal centeredness. I see with the simple glow of the lamp, the line still slides to the right. Next the women "offer their backs"; they are at their most vulnerable, now they may be healed from the troubles of their lives. This vulnerability is betrayed by the men. Women are forced to the left away from the warm completion of the right side. The wise crow oversees the beginning of the other half of the women's lives. In this half, they operate at the left, they are pragmatic. The women start the fire, start life. They oversee another world, another life. In this life the women are given the backs of the winnowing tray. With this back, the women tap carefully with five fingers. Even more carefully, they remove the hard stones with only two fingers from the food, the life they give to all. The winnowing tray is allowed to fall to the right and stay. The women spend half of their lives operating this just world of gentle humanity, but they don't get to live in a world like this. They must endure as the cycle continues with the ellipses.
In this poem the backs are the women's and winnowing trays. The women offer their backs, where they are most vulnerable. The men use this vulnerability selfishly to retain control, to keep his stones in order. In this process he forces a woman to carry more than her share and takes away humanity. In this poem I feel the men's actions are caused by difference of understanding. In previous poems these terrible acts seemed more like the problem of men, but now I see universal understanding as a goal for Nasrin. In this poem she shows the sadness and small joy in women's lives. Also, this poem expresses the almost quality in the women's lives. When I look at the world of the women and the winnowing tray, I can't help but see the Garden of Eden. It seems so perfect, but it is at the same time imperfect since the rocks are still there. Instead of the famous Garden, I think this is the beautiful gentleness women seem to carry so easily. I think Nasrin is putting out a goal or at least a consideration for everyone. Despite the excruciating ellipses, this poem is hopeful. Nasrin gives us the beauty and injustice, then the goal, then the sign of another cycle, which suggests the same, but allows for change.
In the first poem, Nasrin has men only interacting at the back of women, they don't act in front overtly, that is dangerous. The second poem exposes a reality of what most people think is improvement. The back in the third poem belongs to the women who offer this vulnerability to men. The backs in these poems make a sequence. The first shows how the men take advantage of the access women give them and tells women how not to let men abuse this. The second exposes the widespread reach and depth of this problem. The last poem gives insight and hope for the future.
Works Cited
Nasrin, Taslima. The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry. Ed. J. D. McClatchy. New York: Vintage
Books, 1996. 401-05.
From: Oakland, Timothy J
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 7:42 PM
To: Thamert, Mark
Subject: 18 Sachs // Playing God
The first thing I noticed about this poem is the frequent Biblical references. I see Abraham, Job, and God twice. After a couple more readings I can't help but feel a resonance with the apocalypse. A few more readings and I see this poem as the story of an imposed apocalypse. It is not the heavenly one of the Bible, this is earthly.
Screams, shut tight with the shredded mandibles of fish,
woe tendril of the smallest children
and the gulping train of breath of the very old,
slashed into seared azure with burning tails.
Cells of prisoners, of saints,
tapestried with the nightmare pattern of throats,
seething hell in the doghouse of madness
of shackled leaps--
This imagery is very strong. The unnatural misplacement of a fish's mouth in a person's closing the voices, the light spinning cry of a child, and the laborious breathing of an older person, all ending in blood, life, trailing off into seared water, also life. The life of the blood and water was expunged. The cells (both biological and imprisoning) are tapestried with this nightmare. Why is this a tapestry, something so carefully crafted and beautiful? Here it is grotesque. Senseless.
from the skeletons of Hiroshima and Maidanek.
This line expresses again the purposeless injustice of these events. But these are not isolated incidents, they are one, a tapestry.
This event is terrible because it is so wasteful of life, and has no purpose. This is not God's apocalypse, it is humankind's.
Ashen screaming from visionary eye tortured blind--
O you bleeding eye
in the tattered eclipse of the sun
hung up to be dried by God
in the cosmos--
The foresight and wisdom of people is destroyed in the visionary eye. We took the power of God. An eclipse and control of the sun was once something only in God's hands. We took this power in destruction, throwing the remains of wasted life in to the air in trade for this power. We also gave up this eye, the responsibility for our actions. We took that power for a moment and left it up for God to repair.