September 28, 2017

Poets’ Roundtable

Welcome

Apologies for deferring the meeting to today. Everything worked out and I'm happy to be here.

News and Jabber

I have been asked to comment on tension in poetry. I can either give brief bits about it or perhaps we can schedule a separate meeting to devote to tension and perhaps another topic. Below is a poem that is not only one of my favorites but also a poem replete with elements of tension that are worthy of study.

I will let you know when I have a date for a meeting on tension in poetry.

The Need of Being Versed in Country Things

Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place’s name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept. 

But, poetry. Is. Hard. Poetry is so hard. Poetry is me staring at a page for an hour and getting a three line stanza that’s really only half a sentence. Poetry is me looking at the first draft of a poem and then staring at one word for three hours because it’s not the one I want. Poetry is metaphor and analogy and sound and image. There are so so so many things you have to think about when writing a poem that you don’t have to think about when writing a novel. There’s still planning. There’s still pacing. But you’ve got to say it faster and different and topsy-turvy. You’ve got to understand yourself. You’ve got to understand other people. You’ve got to understand syllables and rhythm. You’re still story-telling, but in a tighter space. There is no margin of error in poetry. You might be forgiven for an entire page of filler in a novel. One wrong word in a poem? Bam. It’s over. For a long time I only wrote prose because I thought poetry was too hard. You have to think about shape. You have to think about what style (free verse, haiku, sestina, villanelle, ghazal, sonnet, limerick, cinquain, etc., etc., etc.) is the best way to make your point. It’s not random. It matters. It’s a mental rotation task with words. It’s untangling the twisted web of life with your toes. I could give you so many other analogies, but I’m sure you get the point. Poetry. Is. Hard. And that’s why I love it.

http://ndsmcobserver.com/2017/09/poetry-is-hard/

Sydney Lea says:

You'd better discover a more important motive than publication for your work or else you'll go crazy. My sense is that you'll be writers only if you are convinced that to write is something for which there is no substitute in your life. You must therefore be ambitious for your work rather than for its promotion. The good news here is that if you assign secondary importance to publishing and primary to writing itself, you will write better, and will thus increase your odds of getting published.

Sidney Lea
http://www.sydneylea.net/

The Current Assignment

The current assignment was to reduce the father poem by half or to write another poem but in the voice of the father. 

The Next Assignment

One of my pastimes is to look in the upper corners of the yellow pages or the dictionary and see what peculiar word combinations appear in the guide words. For example, in the business directory left on the doormat yesterday I found:optometrists-overhead, swimming-taverns, garage-garbage, and locks-maids. So, the assignment is to find several of these combinations and work them into a poem. Any work with guide words will do. It's kind of fun to find a use for the printed dictionary and yellow pages once again.

The Next Meeting

The next meeting will be in ONE WEEK, one puny week, Oct 5, 2017.

Other Jabber

George Moses Horton

1798–1883

Born a slave on William Horton’s tobacco plantation, George Moses Horton taught himself to read. Around 1815 he began composing poems in his head, saying them aloud and “selling” them to an increasingly large crowd of buyers at the weekly Chapel Hill farmers market. Students at the nearby University of North Carolina bought his love poems and lent him books. As his fame spread, he gained the attention of Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz, a novelist and professor’s wife who transcribed his poetry and helped publish it in her hometown newspaper. With her assistance, Horton published his first collection of poetry, The Hope of Liberty (1829), becoming the first African American man to publish a book in the South—and one of the first to publicly protest his slavery in poetry.

Horton hoped to earn enough money from the publication of his book to buy his freedom, but his attempts were denied despite significant support from members of the public, including the governor.

He learned to write in 1832. In the early 1830s, with a weekly income from his poems of at least $3, Horton arranged to purchase his time from his owner, and became a full-time poet, handyman, and servant at the university. He continued to buy his own time for more than 30 years while publishing a second collection of poetry, The Poetical Works (1845), and continuing to appeal for his freedom.

After the Civil War, Horton traveled with the 9th Michigan Cavalry Volunteers throughout North Carolina. During those travels, he composed the poems that make up his third collection, Naked Genius (1865), published in Raleigh. After 68 years as a slave, he settled in Philadelphia for at least 17 years of freedom before his death, circa 1883.

His legacy is celebrated by the residents of Chatham County: he is the namesake of Horton Middle School, June 28 was declared George Moses Horton Day in 1978, and in 1997 he was declared the Historic Poet Laureate of Chatham County. Horton’s poetry is featured in the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and in 1996 he was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. A selection of his poems appears in The Black Bard of North Carolina: George Moses Horton and His Poetry (1997, ed. Joan R. Sherman).

Horton’s poetry displays a keen ear for rhythm and rhyme and a circumspect understanding of human nature. His poetry explores faith, love, and slavery while celebrating the rural beauty of Chatham County, home of the plantation on which Horton spent much of his life.

A historic marker stands near where Horton’s plantation was located.

On Summer

BY GEORGE MOSES HORTON

Esteville begins to burn;

   The auburn fields of harvest rise;

The torrid flames again return,

   And thunders roll along the skies.

Perspiring Cancer lifts his head,

   And roars terrific from on high;

Whose voice the timid creatures dread;

   From which they strive with awe to fly.

The night-hawk ventures from his cell,

   And starts his note in evening air;

He feels the heat his bosom swell,

   Which drives away the gloom of fear.

Thou noisy insect, start thy drum;

   Rise lamp-like bugs to light the train;

And bid sweet Philomela come,

   And sound in front the nightly strain.

The bee begins her ceaseless hum,

   And doth with sweet exertions rise;

And with delight she stores her comb,

   And well her rising stock supplies.

Let sportive children well beware,

   While sprightly frisking o’er the green;

And carefully avoid the snare,

   Which lurks beneath the smiling scene.

The mistress bird assumes her nest,

   And broods in silence on the tree,

Her note to cease, her wings at rest,

   She patient waits her young to see.

Compare this with Keats's "Ode to Autumn"

To Autumn  Launch Audio in a New Window
BY JOHN KEATS

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 
      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
   Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? 
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies