Yearly Archives: 2023

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When Something Strange Pounds on Your Door…

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In Gregory Orr’s 2002 collection of poetry-related essays, Poetry as Survival, he brings up a D. H. Lawrence poem I had not read: “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through.” Orr quotes the entire poem (see below) but is chiefly preoccupied with its last lines.

Let’s read it together first:

“Song of a Man Who Has Come Through”
by D. H. Lawrence

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the
world
Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the
Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.

First off, you can tell this was written in 1914. Only then could a poet get away with such gratuitous exclamations (!!!). Or with the now-rare “Oh.” Or with side-by-side repetitions like “fine, fine.”

A closer look at some of the word choice brings us to some interesting themes. In L5-L7 we have “I yield myself and am borrowed / By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the / world.”

It is as if the world we construct (most ostensibly in the shape of houses we hide in) is too safe, as if we must yield ourselves to a wild wind that will bear us out into the chaos that is the world. Only then will we be rewarded: “The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the / Hesperides.”

Do you have the right stuff? Clearly Lawrence did, as evidenced by the second stanza where we find “wonder that bubbles in my soul.” Necessary, don’t you think, before jumping out the door and pulling the string for your parachute?

Then, the final two stanzas. The ones that fascinate Orr. It brings to mind “The Highwayman” with all that knocking. It is as if our speaker, despite having “the right stuff” and the perfect soul for adventure, second guesses himself when hearing insistent knocking.

Fear, after all, sounds like so: “It is somebody wants to do us harm.”

But therein lies the trap. After a while, we kid ourselves into thinking everything intends to do us harm. You could call it paranoia, or you could call it many less damning things, like the well-worn expression “comfort zone,” but they’re all part of the same constrictive family.

Then, the end that Orr so delights in: “No, no, it is the three strange angels. / Admit them, admit them.”

Who are these “three strange angels,” anyway? It’s one of those magical situations where the poet is better off not explaining. That way, the angels become many things to many readers.

Orr comments: “… in the poem’s final two-line stanza, it’s as if another voice, or perhaps the voice of some other part of him, answers his fear….”

He goes on to point out the magical properties of the number three. Religion, mythology, and stories from ancient times are all rife with examples of things that come in magical troikas: the trinity, the Graces, the Magi, etc.

The word angel, Orr reminds up, comes from the Greek for “messenger.” He marvels at the strength of an adjective (as a part of speech, so seldom lauded in poetry!). Without the word “strange,” the final stanza would wither and lose all effectiveness.

More Orr: “But it isn’t just the identity of the figures that makes the poem’s ending mysterious. We also note that the same someone who knows who is outside the door also tells us emphatically what we are to do in response to the knocking: ‘Admit them, admit them.'”

“We must,” Orr continues, “…become vulnerable to what is out there (or inside us). Not in order to be destroyed or overwhelmed by it, but as part of a strategy for dealing with it and surviving it. Lyric poetry tells us that it is precisely by letting in disorder that we will gain access to poetry’s ability to help us survive. It is the initial act of surrendering to disorder that permits the ordering powers of the imagination to assert themselves.”

Chaos. Disorder. Dionysus. As Nietzsche would put it, time to set aside our inner Apollos and let the messiness in. Then, as the Bible would put it, time to wrestle with our angels. That’s called writing poetry. Struggle. Bending disorder into submission, if temporarily, if but for one poem until next time.

Do you have what it takes to “come through”?

This Christmas Gift Comes Back Every Time You Return It

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In the UK, Dec. 26th is known as Boxing Day, a more relaxed extension of Christmas Day where banks close and folks take another day off to spend with (or recover from) family and friends.

In Ireland, the 26th is called St. Stephen’s Day, with much the same relaxed schedule. Once upon a time, “Wren Boys” would go out and stone to death wrens (just as poor old St. Stephen took it on the noggin, apparently), carrying the dead birds door to door in exchange for treats.

That tradition has died, much to the wrens’ delight, but the lasting tradition remains: eating holiday leftovers, enjoying family, connecting with friends or, for the misanthropes in the crowd, reading a book in peace.

Here in the States, it’s mostly a returns day, wherein people brave the roads and stores to return ill-fitting, ill-conceived, or just ill-looking clothes to beleaguered returns cashiers.

But really, let’s dial it back to the best part of Christmas gatherings: not the materialism, not the madness of keeping six dishes cooked and hot for serving, not the excessive drinking (euphemism: “cheer”), but the connections and reconnections made with family.

This emphasis is captured by Gary Short in his poem “Brothers Playing Catch on Christmas Day.” It’s one humble poem, focused on simple things that really matter. And though it’s a football that’s being caught, Short is really trying to capture a certain je ne sais quoi about brotherhood — the blood ties that bind.

“Je ne sais quoi-ing” is what good poetry does, no? Let’s unwrap this box and take a look:

Brothers Playing Catch on Christmas Day
by Gary Short

Only a little light remains.
The new football feels heavy
and our throws are awkward
like the conversation of brothers
who see each other occasionally.
After a few exchanges,
confidence grows,
the passing and catching
feels natural and good.
Gradually, we move farther apart,
out in the field,
the space between us
filling with darkness.

He leads me,
lofting perfect spirals
into the night. My eyes
find the clean white laces of the ball.
I let fly a deep pass
to his silhouette.
The return throw
cannot be seen,
yet the ball
falls into my hands, as if
we have established a code
that only brothers know.

The last two lines of the first stanza are the surprise you get when lifting a box’s lid and peering in: “the space between us / filling with darkness.” It works especially well in contrast to the ending of the second, where the ball-throwing leads to an unspoken connection, where they’re throwing a ball that cannot so much be seen as understood on an instinctive level:

“The return throw
cannot be seen,
yet the ball
falls into my hands, as if
we have established a code
that only brothers know.”

The darkness that separates brothers comes under many names: time, distance, misunderstandings. And yet the bond, forged by fire on the anvil of childhood, connects them no matter what. You go deep, look up into that good starry night, and a ball drops into your hands like some perfectly-boxed and wrapped gift.

American brothers wouldn’t know Boxing Day from Muhammad Ali (no connection), but they surely know the awkwardness of reconnecting and, once it’s done, how it brings you back to where you were so many years ago in simpler, more graceful times. Merry Christmas, readers. To you and your parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, and fellow men no matter what country they live in.

Imagery + Contrast = Effective

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cherries

As Confucius never said, “A two-fer is always better than a one-fer.”

In poetry-speak, this means it’s all well and good to strut your stuff with metaphor, alliteration, anaphora, et and cetera, but it always becomes that much more effective when you yoke two devices together like a pair of oxen.

As a brief example, see Athena Kildegaard’s poem, “Ripe Cherries,” below. Short and sweet, it marries imagery (the taste of cherries) with unexpected contrast (the firing of guns). Granted, you might not call “unexpected contrast” a poetic element, but I call it a tool that writers of all genres should have in their toolboxes.

Let’s see how it’s done:

Ripe Cherries
Athena Kildegaard

I read that the men,
on their way to Gettysburg,
stopped along the road
to pick and eat ripe cherries.

That the fruit should not
go to waste.

That they should take
such pleasure before battle.

That the oldest among them
should shake the trees
and the youngest gather
the fallen fruit.
That they should aim rifles
with the taste of cherries
against their teeth.

Simple, right? Plain-spoken and honest, the speaker gains our trust as someone who knows of what she speaks—Gettysburg. The anecdote sounds right, after all, given the specifics of old soldiers shaking cherries loose while young soldiers gather them from the ground.

Kildegaard also uses anaphora to good effect via four waves of “That the….”

What surprises nicely, though, is pairing the taste of cherries in one’s mouth with firing guns to kill your fellow man. Even if you are a veteran of the armed services, chances are you have never experienced that.

Thus does a simple technique, imagery, become a more complex one on the reader’s palate thanks to the well-aged (in oak barrels) surprise of juxtaposition.

Mmm. Two-fers are better than one-fers! Hats off to apocryphal sayings from The Analects, then!

Jane Hirshfield as Scheherazade

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hirshfield

In education, lectures are vilified with good reason. They are boring. They are so much bombast. They are inflicted by vainglorious pontificators on passive victims who must endure or find ways to daydream through it all.

What happens, though, when a speaker is so knowledgeable, silver-tongued, and interesting that the restless audience (or reader) begins to sit up and pay attention like the Sultan before Scheherazade? That’s what happens when I read a collection of Jane Hirshfield essays on poetry, last year Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and these past few days Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World.

The poetic title points to the ten essays, here as chapters titled “Kingfishers Catching Fire: Looking with Poetry’s Eyes,” “Language Wakes Up in the Morning: On Poetry’s Speaking,” “Seeing Through Words: An Introduction to Basho, Haiku, and the Suppleness of Image,” “Thoreau’s Hound: Poetry and the Hidden,” “Uncarryable Remainders: Poetry and Uncertainty,” “Close Reading: Windows,” “Poetry and the Constellation of Surprise,” “What Is American in Modern America Poetry: a Brief Primer with Poems,” “Poetry, Transformation, and the Column of Tears,” and “Strange Reaches, Impossibility, and Big Hidden Drawers: Poetry and Paradox.”

As you can see, Hirshfield covers a lot of poetic turf in this collection, my favorite being the lengthy section on the enigmatic but interesting 17th-century haiku master, Basho. Buddhism is a Hirshfield specialty, and if anyone can rescue haiku from American elementary school classrooms (where it is being held for ransom), raising them to the adult art form they were and still are, it’s Jane Hirshfield.

Equally compelling is the essay with the intriguing title “Thoreau’s Hound.” As a fan of Henry David Thoreau (my poetry collection features as an epigraph his famous line from Walden, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”), I wondered where this would doggone lead.

Turns out, the essay is based on another Thoreau line from Walden: “I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travelers I have spoken to concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.”

Hirshfield pairs this with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir tree.”

The point? Mankind, as Jane Hirshfield points out, “wants to know,” yet there is an equal attraction to mystery, to not knowing, to the chase and the journeys such pursuits entail. This, too, is a province of poetry, which is forever looking at the intangibles of mystery and trying on various concrete forms. With metaphor and imagery comes the hunt for le mot juste, the baying of hounds on the scent, the nearness of capture… and yet, and yet, despite not finding our quarry, we are often grateful for the closeness, the magical proximity, we enjoy when reading a good poem.

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of Hirshfield’s essay collections is the number of poems, both complete and excerpts, she introduces as concrete examples of her abstract points. Among these I find new poets, new poems, new possibilities to explore. One of my favorites in this book was an excerpt from Jack Gilbert’s “Going Wrong.” I found one line–about the eyes of dying fish, of all things–that led me to the entire poem online. I leave it for you to enjoy. The line “the grand rooms fading from their flat eyes” is worth the price of admission alone. Only a poet could conceive of the sea as “grand rooms” captured in the eyes of the fish who live there.

GOING WRONG

by Jack Gilbert

The fish are dreadful. They are brought up
the mountain in the dawn most days, beautiful
and alien and cold from night under the sea,
the grand rooms fading from their flat eyes,
Soft machinery of the dark, the man thinks,
washing them. “What can you know of my machinery!”
demands the Lord. Sure, the man says quietly
and cuts into them, laying back the dozen struts,
getting to the muck of something terrible.
The Lord insists: “You are the one who chooses
to live this way. I build cities where things
are human. I make Tuscany and you go to live
with rocks and silence.” The man washes away
the blood and arranges the fish on a big plate.
Starts the onions in the hot olive oil and puts
in peppers. “You have lived all year without women.”
He takes out everything and puts in the fish.
“No one knows where you are. People forget you.
You are vain and stubborn.” The man slices
tomatoes and lemons. Takes out the fish
and scrambles eggs. I am not stubborn, he thinks,
laying all of it on the table in the courtyard
full of early sun, shadows of swallows flying
on the food. Not stubborn, just greedy.

from The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 (Knopf, 1994)

Writing Prompts for Every Vignette in Sandra Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street”

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Although they are technically vignettes, the short chapters in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street are deeply poetic in their use of figurative language. And why wouldn’t they be? Cisneros herself is a poet as well as a prose writer who has a solid collection of poems to her credit.

My teaching history included a long stretch of years teaching Mango Street. During that time, I invited my students to write as well as read. In fact, they named their short collections after their own homes’ street names and selected a number of prompts below for inspiration.

The result? A greater appreciation of Cisneros’ style and no small amount of pride among student-writers once their little books of five vignettes (though teachers can pick any number) were written, critiqued, revised, published, and shared not only with the class but with their own families and friends.

“The House on Mango Street” (p. 1)

Describe your house in detail. Include the sounds and smells typical of your home, and perhaps how certain structures/objects feel in it or outside of it. Use figurative language to describe a few of its features (windows, doors, etc.). Finally, embed one brief anecdote in your description that shows something about your house (like the nun anecdote in Cisneros’ vignette).

“Hairs” (p. 6)

Use personification and/or a series of similes/metaphors to describe your hair and the hair of other members of your family. Make sure your figurative language is both original and accurate.

“Boys & Girls” (p. 8)

How are boys and girls different socially? In what ways do they “live in separate worlds,” in your opinion? Bring to life a brief example.

“My Name” (p. 10)

What does your name mean? How did you get it? Do you like it? Why or why not? Do you have a nickname? What would you name yourself? Why? Any stories associated with how you got your name?

“Cathy, Queen of Cats” (p. 12)

Describe in detail a neighbor who is special in some way OR a friend you had when you were younger. Tell what the person looked like and, using dialogue and actions, show what made that person unique.

“Our Good Day” (p. 14)

Choose a “good day” from your childhood or more recent days where you and some friends had an “adventure.” Zoom in to the highlight of this day (the best part) and tell the story of what happened. Be sure to embed important descriptions of the characters involved, the setting, and dialogue. Use a few original similes/metaphors as well.

“Laughter” (p. 17)

Write a vignette describing what your laughter is like. Pick a few friends’ or family members’ laughs to describe with figurative language, too. How are they all similar or different?

“Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold” (p. 19)

Choose a place that’s cluttered and describe it using specific nouns and figurative language. It could be a store like Gil’s, a room, a garage, a closet, a basement, or an attic.

“Meme Ortiz” (p. 21)

Describe a person who owns a cat or dog (or other pet). How are the person and pet alike? How are they different? Compare and contrast; include an anecdote about the person and pet.

“Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin” (p. 23)

Either describe a favorite car (old car, cool car, junk car) in your family OR tell the story of a fender bender or any other car-related incident you’ve been in or witnessed.

“Marin” (p. 26)

Describe someone who has great dreams. Be sure the reader can see both the character AND his or her great dreams.

“Those Who Don’t” (p. 28)

Are you afraid of cities? Of people in some way different from you? Why? Tell a story of an encounter with people you felt uncomfortable around. How did you behave and, in retrospect, how did this makes you feel? Did you overcome your fear? Share details on how.

“There Was An Old Woman…” (p. 29)

Were there ever kids who your parents warned you to stay away from? Describe a few of them and, briefly, how they looked, spoke, and behaved.

“Alicia Who Sees Mice” (p. 31)

Share a story that illustrates one of your fears or, if you prefer, one of someone you know.

“Darius & the Clouds” (p. 33)

Describe a time when someone surprised you by saying something enlightening, revealing, or just plain cool.

“And Some More” (p. 35)

Tell an anecdote (using dialogue, actions, description) of a time when you and some friends got in an argument over something stupid.

“The Family of Little Feet” (p. 39)

Can you recall a time when you played dress up or did something that made you feel much older and more sophisticated? Show (vs. just tell) the story.

“A Rice Sandwich” (p. 43)

Bag lunches and school cafeterias. Describe in detail some unique sandwiches and designs, some interesting foods and surprises, you’ve found in your brown bags/lunch boxes or pouches at school lunch. Ever trade foods? Which ones and why? Do you have any funny cafeteria stories? Share your story using showing details, figurative language, and sensory details.

“Chanclas” (p. 46)

Describe a time when you were mortified by having to wear clothing you considered to be ugly, inappropriate, or embarrassing. Where were you and why did you feel this way? What happened?

“Hips” (p. 49)

Create some jump-rope rhymes (or “Choosing It” rhymes) of your own. Share a few actual ones (like Nenny does) that you used when you were a kid.

“The First Job” (p. 53)

Describe a situation when you were shy almost to the point of self-conscious embarrassment.

“Papa Who Wakes” (p. 56)

Has there ever been a death in the family? Describe your emotions. How did you deal with the pain or help others deal with it? How did others help you? What did you gain from the experience?

“Born Bad” (p. 58)

Have you ever picked on someone only to be torn by guilt for doing it? Describe the incident and the feelings it caused.

“Elenita, Cards, Palm, Water” (p. 62)

Describe a memory involving a superstition, astrology, or fortune telling.

“Geraldo No Last Name” (p. 65)

Has an interesting stranger ever passed in and out of your life in one day? Provide details.

“Edna’s Ruthie” (p. 67)

Describe an adult who behaves like a kid. Show the reader how this person acts and remains young.

“The Earl of Tennessee” (p. 70)

Read the quote on p. 71 that begins and ends with the following words: “At night Nenny and I can hear… lets loose its sigh of dampness.” Using the sense of sound only, describe a daily ritual someone goes through at home or elsewhere that you can recognize by listening from another room.

“Sire” (p. 72)

Describe a time when you had to force yourself to be brave around people who made you nervous.

“Four Skinny Trees” (p. 74)

Use personification and simile/metaphor to describe an inanimate object.

“No Speak English” (p. 76)

Have you ever met someone who could not speak English or been in a country where you could not speak the native language? Share your experience with a brief anecdote.

“Rafaela Who Drinks…” (p. 79)

Rafaela wishes she were Rapunzel. Describe a fairy tale character or a mythological character you wish YOU were. Explain.

“Sally” (p. 81)

Write a monologue to a person (real or imagined) you have frequently seen but never met. What do you already know about this person? What speculations do you have about him/her? What would you ask him/her? Add a description of the person.

“Minerva Writes Poems” (p. 84)

Write a letter of advice to Minerva. Include an original poem of your own about something cheerful.

“Bums in the Attic” (p. 86)

Who (or what) might you invite to sleep in your attic? Why?

“Beautiful & Cruel” (p. 88)

Write about ways you have tried to show your independence by doing things your own way.

“A Smart Cookie” (p. 90)

What lesson about life has YOUR mother or father tried to share with you? Bring the reader there through dialogue and description.

“What Sally Said” (p. 92)

Detail a time when you or your family had to help someone in trouble. Use the key moments only.

“The Monkey Garden” (p. 94)

Describe in detail a garden or other secret spot you visited or hid in (or still go to now) as a kid.

“Red Clowns” (p. 99)

Use description and imagery to make an otherwise common location seem scary.

“Linoleum Roses” (p. 101)

Tell a brief story that uses irony to make a point.

“The Three Sisters” (p. 103)

Share a story where the supernatural plays an important role.

“Alicia & I Talking” (p. 106)

What might your home and your town look like if you returned to it after 20 years away? Describe your return and the surprises it might involve.

“A House of My Own” (p. 108)

Give readers a tour of your dream house – one that reflects your interests as a person. Avoid describing cliché mansions where every detail is provided via endless sums of money. Rather, let even humble details show readers something about YOUR personality and values.

“Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes” (p. 109)

Write a vignette showing how much you care about someone from your present or past. “Rescue them” by bringing their hidden, unknown, or misunderstood story to life for others to see and appreciate.

*****

Enjoy writing/poetry/teaching-related posts like this? I don’t ask for donations or that you “buy me a coffee,” but rather that you help me maintain the site while getting something for yourself. This can be done by purchasing one of my poetry collections available on the BOOKS page of this website. When it arrives, give it a home on your bookshelf at home or in the classroom library beside some of Cisneros’ poetry collections such as My Wicked Wicked Ways.

Lunch with Frank O’Hara

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blue angel

What will you have for lunch? The filling and beautifully-messy pastrami and rye? The “who-am-I-kidding?” rabbit-food special of salad and soup? The send-me-back-to-the-60s special of three martinis?

For Frank O’Hara, I’m seeing on my reread of Lunch Poems, it’s a deceiving mix of prepared nonchalance with a dash of oxymoronic condiment. Seemingly off-the-cuff, many of these poems likely took more time and revision than first glance might indicate.

A good example is his poem called (exotically enough) “Five Poems,” which looks suspiciously like one poem divided into a 5-layer cake by dividers. In the first, O’Hara alludes to a “white night,” which brings Russia’s white nights and Dostoevsky to mind for this reader. It also contains two wonderful similes: “calm as a rug or a bottle of pills.” Valley of the Dolls, anyone?

Stanza (er, Poem) #2 has a line in all caps, showing that O’Hara would be a natural in the Age of the Internet (pass the emoticons, please). What I love here is how he draws a lesson from his lack of money. The guy has 16 cents and a package of yogurt (spelled the British way, yet: yoghurt) and what does it bring to mind? A leaf falling in Chinese poetry. But of course! Li Po in Central Park!

Poem #3 really hits it out of the park. O’Hara struts his learned ignorance big-time, playing casual while casually dropping names: Cadoret, Varése, and Adolph Gottlieb. Cadoret is a name recognized by connoisseurs of oysters and fine wines, Monsieur (which is why I didn’t recognize it). Et Edgar Varése was a French composer (who is now decomposing, no doubt). Gottlieb? An American abstract painter. How’s that for an unlikely holy trinity at noon? O’Hara ends this poem sleeping on the British yoghurt and dreaming of the Persian Gulf (pre-Revolutionary Guards, I take it).

In Poem #4 we get the lines “I knew why I love taxis, yes / subways are only fun when you’re felling sexy / and who feels sexy after The Blue Angel / well maybe a little bit.” Funny, but esoteric, too. More “prepared nonchalance” for the reader, thank you, The Blue Angel being a 1930 German film starring the lovely Marlene Dietrich.

What I like is the prophetic final poem, the one-liner: “I seem to be defying fate, or am I avoiding it?” Poor guy. Given his tragic end, being run down by a beach taxi only a few years after this collection came out, I’d say he was only avoiding it, as fate–greedy as it is–will not be denied. Fate and fatal are not second cousins twice removed for nothing!

Here is the poem in full, con brio!

“Five Poems” by Frank O’Hara

Well now, hold on
maybe I won’t go to sleep at all
and it’ll be a beautiful white night
or else I’ll collapse
completely from nerves and be calm
as a rug or a bottle of pills
or suddenly I’ll be off Montauk
swimming and loving it and not caring where

—

an invitation to lunch
HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?
when I only have 16 cents and 2
packages of yoghurt
there’s a lesson in that, isn’t there
like in Chinese poetry when a leaf falls?
hold off on the yoghurt till the very
last, when everything may improve

—

at the Rond-Point they were eating
an oyster, but here
we were dropping by sculptures
and seeing some paintings
and the smasheroo-grates of Cadoret
and music by Varese, too
well Adolph Gottlieb I guess you
are the hero of this day
along with venison and Bill

I’ll sleep on the yoghurt and dream of the Persian Gulf

—

which I did it was wonderful
to be in bed again and the knock
on my door for once signified “hi there”
and on the deafening walk
through the ghettos where bombs have gone off lately
left by subway violators
I knew why I love taxis, yes
subways are only fun when you’re feeling sexy
and who feels sexy after The Blue Angel
well maybe a little bit

—

I seem to be defying fate, or am I avoiding it?

Poetry: Where Opening Lines Speak Volumes

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Grab ’em by the lapels, they say in poetry. First impressions are everything. This negative-zero morning in January, I decided to put it to the test by reading first “sentences” of poems to see if they do, indeed, wow the reader. Randomly pulling a book from the poetry section of my library shelves, I found a copy of Thomas Tranströmer poems translated by Patty Crane. Let’s have a look and pick a favorite, shall we?

“The stones we have thrown I hear / fall, glass-clear through the year.” (“The Stones”)
“Daylight touched the face of a man who slept.” (“Secrets on the Way”)
“Two o’clock at night: moonlight.” (“Tracks”)
“Sometimes my life opened its eyes in the dark.” (“Kyrie”)
“The black grand piano, the gleaming spider / stood trembling in the midst of its music-net.” (“Balakirev’s Dream”)
“There’s a tree walking around in the rain, / hurrying past us in the pouring gray.” (“The Tree and the Sky”)
“In February existence stood still.” (“Face to Face”)
“He laid down his pen.” (“Lament”)
“I play Haydn after a black day / and feel a simple warmth in my hands.” (“Allegro”)
“Depression breaks off its course.” (“The Half-Finished Heaven”)
“The storm put its mouth to the house / and blows to get a tone.” (“A Winter Night”)
“I feel asleep in my bed / and woke up under the keel.” (“Winter’s Formulas”)
“The blue sky’s engine-drone is loud.” (“Under Pressure”)
“Rushing rushing water’s rumbling old hypnosis.” (“From the Snowmelt of ’66”)
“The tugboat is freckled with rust.” (“Sketch in October”)
“On the main approach to the city / as the sun sinks low.” (“Further In”)
“Apple trees and cherry trees in bloom help this city float / in the sweet dirty May night, white life vest, my thoughts widen out.” (“Late May”)
“It was before the time of radio towers.” (“Baltics”)
“An icy wind in my eyes and the suns dance / inside a kaleidoscope of tears as I cross / the street I’ve followed for so long, the street / where Greenland’s summer shines up from the puddles.” (“The Crossing Place”)
“I spent the night at a motel by E3.” (“The Gallery”)
“The organ stops playing and it’s dead-quiet in the church, but just for a couple of seconds.” (“Brief Pause in the Organ Recital”)
“Tired of all who come with words, words but no language, / I headed for the snow-covered island.” (“From the March of ’79”)
“A June morning when it’s too early / to wake but too late to fall back asleep.” (“Memories Watch Me”)
“I lean like a ladder and reach / with my face in to the cherry tree’s first floor.” (“Winter’s Glance”)
“A train has rolled in.” (“The Station”)
“During the dismal months, I sparked to life only when I made love to you.” (“Fire Scribbles”)
“We have many shadows.” (“The Forgotten Captain”)
“In the black hotel a child sleeps. (“Six Winters”)
“In the green midnight by the nightingale’s northern limit.” (“The Nightingale in Badelunda”)
“The forest in May.” (“Alcaic”)
“I am a mummy who rests in the forest’s blue coffin, in the incessant roar of motor and / rubber and asphalt.” (“Lullaby”)
“The white butterfly in the park is being read by many.” (“Streets in Shanghai”)
“I a dark hull floating between two floodgates / rest in bed at the hotel while the surrounding city wakes.” (“Deep in Europe”)
“The silent rage scribbles on the inward wall.” (“Leaflet”)
“It’s spring 1827.” (“The Indoors Is Infinite”)
“Capitalism’s buildings, hives of the killer bees, honey for the few.” (“Epigram”)
“Her voice is smothered by the dress.” (“Portrait of a Woman, 19th Century”)
“Beneath our enchanting facial expressions / the skull always waits, poker-face.” (“Medieval Motif”)
“On a hunt for a mailbox / I carried the letter through town.” (“Air Mail”)
“I inherited a dark forest where I seldom walk.” (“Madrigal”)
“The slow-worm that leg-less lizard flows along the entryway stairs / calm and majestic as an anaconda, differing only in size.” (“Golden Vespid”)

That gives you an idea of how “golden rules” of poetry are often violated successfully (unless you’re willing to say all of these opening lines compel you to read on this minute or else you’ll hold your breath and stamp your foot so help you God).

In fact, some of the openers are, indeed, cool, such as those for “The Stones,” “Winter’s Formulas,” “Late May,” “Baltics,” “The Crossing Place,” and “Winter’s Glance.” My favorite? The intriguingly simple opener to “The Forgotten Captain”: “We have many shadows.” Why? Because I’ve never thought of it, yet feel it’s true. Figurative shadows we don’t think about–until Tranströmer forces us to.

But then you have openers which are clearly setting the stage–simple openings for a narrative or for a mood, like those in “The Station,” “Alcaic,” and “The Gallery.”

Note, too, that a series of opening lines from one poet begin to show his interests, quirks, methods, and techniques. Tranströmer, for instance, loves to use color in unusual ways. We have “pouring gray,” “green midnight,” “white butterfly,” and “blue coffin,” by way of example.

Whether it is a hook or not, I appreciate most how concise T-Squared is. He does not waste words. His muse is a strict task master. Simple and Swedish, he reaps, as the title of this book I pulled says in big blue letters, with a Bright Scythe.

And may all your Sunday be merry and bright, too….

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If you enjoyed this post and would like to see 62 more opening lines based on TT’s tutelage, check out Reincarnation & Other Stimulants.

Ars Poetica Hunting: An Inexact Science

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I’ve written before about that rite of passage for poets, Ars Poetica, by sharing this Archibald MacLeish entry by that same Latin name.

“The art of poetry,” it means, and lucky for us, there are as many definitions of this “art” as there are mosquitoes running blood banks.

Today we start with an exchange between a teacher of poetry and her students in Elizabeth’s Alexander’s “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe.” Right out of the gate, Alexander lays it on the line: “Poetry… is idiosyncratic.” (Gee, do you think?)

Let’s listen in on her class:

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
by Elizabeth Alexander

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I'”)
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love
and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?

First of all, I haven’t a clue who the opinionated Sterling Brown is. I DuckDuckGo’d him and found an actor. Could be the right one, as actors make their “I’s” dramatic for a living (giving their “you’s” a rest).

The way this poem “finds” poetry in mundane places is a well-worn trope by now. Some editors love poems about poetry. Others steer clear. I once read, in the writer’s guidelines of a poetry journal something to the effect of “please, no poems about poems.” Elizabeth would have been left at the gate at that journal.

Still, I endorse the sentiment designed to break beginners’ hearts: “Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love / and I’m sorry the dog died.”

As for the last line, it brings us back to the oft-mentioned tree falling in the wilderness. “Poetry… / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?”

Man, that finish is just asking for trouble, because, truth be told, the answer is more often than not “no.” You need “voice lessons” to be interesting to others, especially in a world of poetry-phobic readers.

It’s the gist of the creative battle. It’s the eye of the beholding reader / editor skimming a tsunami of submissions. The pool of possibly-interested eyes, in other words, is dazed with distraction known as the competition and already-established poets eating up an already-thin publishing bandwidth. And that’s not even getting into the distractions of the internet and social media where everyone’s creative spirit becomes passive. (“What? Hunt for poetry? Me?”)

For similar “ars poetica” action, consider Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Valentine for Ernest Mann,” the second and fourth stanzas in particular:

Valentine for Ernest Mann
by Naomi Shihab Nye

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

See a trend here?

If you are inspired to write an ars poetica by looking in all the wrong places, you must also contend with the fact that the “wrong places” have been written up in the press and have now been overrun by tourists (read: a large posse of poets) as well.

So, yeah. The beauty of writing an ars poetica lies in going where no man or woman has gone before—even those obscure places which have been made famous by poets who preceded you.

Solutions? That’s your Rubik’s Cube assignment for the day. Devilishly enough, the answer might even be hiding in a blanket of love or a box of my-dog-just-died. It’s the Muse’s trickster spirit (where Loki reigns over Odin).

Known or unknown, clichéd or unique, the places for a brilliant ars poeticas are everywhere and nowhere at once.

Confused? Good. Now you can get cracking and start looking. Once you find poetry in quirky places unique to YOU yet relatable to US, you can take up the pen and begin. Good luck!

The Sea as Healer and Muse

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Something there is about the sea and its curative powers. Physically, the salt is credited with doing many a skin ailment and wound good. Spiritually, though, its force is even greater. Consider Herman Melville’s famous lines from the opening pages of Moby-Dick:

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

It even affects landlubbers like Emily Dickinson who live far inland (read: Amherst, Massachusetts) from any ocean surf. Consider this Dickinson poem, connecting the sea’s powers with exultation (no small emotion, that!):

Exultation Is the Going
by Emily Dickinson

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea —
Past the houses — past the headlands —
Into deep Eternity!

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

In our ways, we are all “inland souls” who often conflate place with all manner of problems — misery, boredom, social turmoil, failure, depression, etc. What better solution than to move away, start over, make of ourselves a tabula rasa for complete restarts?

But moving from Point A to Point B on land is nothing compared to going out to sea. There’s something about the sound of the ship on the water, the seagulls calling overhead, the sun glinting off the water, the smell of saltwater, the silver backs of dolphins playing catch in the ship’s wake, the wind tossing our hair.

Even better, there’s something about land growing smaller and smaller as we deliver ourselves to Mother Ocean’s understanding arms. That promontory or lighthouse back there, we tell ourselves, is us. What we were. What we will never be again.

Out here? Out here is complete freedom. Nature in its most raw form. Forgiveness. Love. Exultation.

Of course, in Miss Emily’s hands, the whole “going” can be read as “going for good,” but it still flies. Death and the Sea as co-conspirators of liberation. Anyone with a terminal illness or debilitating pain can relate.

Even people who have never left the confines of Nebraska’s landlocked prairies can sense all of this. There’s something mysterious and lovely about the sea….

Political Poems Big and, Better Yet, Small

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shihab nye.jpg

Political. It’s a big-tent word, all right. And these days most folks focus on the “big” as in bigmouths that crowd the field we should call “government” but instead call “politics” because there’s more politics than government going on by far.

You can write a political poem about this bigness, sure. But it’s a tricky business that walks a thin line between proselytizing in poetry’s chapter and verse and art-for-art’s-waking with a bit of mind-shifting meaning. Me, I prefer the “small politics” strategy, wherein you write about an everyday topic that takes a stand and demands a soap box. One that does not fit into the narrative being writ large on Washington D.C.’s gluttonous stage.

Materialism, for instance. Or raising children. Political acts? In their way, yes. And what better vehicle than poetry to prove the point? Today’s poem is from one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye–her name itself a poem. It’s called “Rebellion Against the North Side” and, like any rebellion, can be considered a “shot heard ’round the world” to its readers.

Rebellion against the North Side
by Naomi Shihab Nye

There will be no monograms on our skulls.
You who are training your daughters to check for the words
“Calvin Klein” before they look to see if there are pockets
are giving them no hands to put in those pockets.

You are giving them eyes that will find nothing solid in stones.
No comfort in rough land, nameless sheep trails.
No answers from things which do not speak.

Since when do children sketch dreams with price tags attached?
Don’t tell me they were born this way.
We were all born like empty fields.
What we are now shows what has been planted.

Will you remind them there were people
who hemmed their days with thick-spun wool
and wore them till they fell apart?

Think of darkness hugging the houses,
caring nothing for the material of our pajamas.
Think of the delicate mesh of neckbones
when you clasp the golden chains.
These words the world rains back and forth
are temporary as clouds.
Clouds? Tell your children to look up.
The sky is the only store worth shopping in
for anything as long as life.

I don’t know about you, but I smell poetry in the lines “We were all born like empty fields / What we are now shows what has been planted.” Also: “The sky is the only store worth shopping in / for anything as long as life.”

Only a poetic politician could pound her fist on the lectern and say, “The mall? It’s in the sky right above your noses! Look up! Look up!”

Does it preach a bit, like every political poem, to the choir? Yes. But “small-ly,” to coin a word from you-know-who’s “bigly” life. And if it convinces only the already-convinced (read: parents) more than any can’t-be-convinced teens, so be it. The point is that small political poems can be bigger than any two-party, power-grabbing, ego-massaging big ones. Easier to write and read, too.