January 18, 2018

Poets’ Roundtable

Welcome

It has been a short time but it's good to see you anyway.

News and Jabber

This from the South China Morning Post: http://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/2128480/ts-eliot-prize-goes-vietnam-born-us-poet-debut-collection-night-sky.

TS Eliot prize goes to Vietnam-born US poet for debut collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds

Two years after Hong Kong-born Sarah Howe became first poet to win the prize with debut collection, Ocean Vuong repeats the feat; at a London ceremony, the chairman of judges hails ‘the definitive arrival of a significant voice’

7 Jan 2018

After becoming the first literate person in his family and a prize-winning poet festooned with awards, Vietnam-born Ocean Vuong has now won perhaps his most prestigious accolade yet for his debut collection: the TS Eliot prize.

Reflecting on the aftermath of war over three generations, the collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, has already landed 29-year-old Vuong the Forward prize for best first collection, as well as the Whiting and the Thom Gunn awards.

I’m always trying to look for words inside words. It’s so beautiful to me that the word laughter is inside slaughter

The book has also been critically acclaimed, with Observer critic Kate Kellaway describing it as “a conduit for a life in which violence and delicacy collide”, and The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani praising Vuong’s “tensile precision reminiscent of Emily Dickinson’s work, combined with a Gerard Manley Hopkins-like appreciation for the sound and rhythms of words”.

Vuong is only the second debutant poet to win the TS Eliot prize, two years after Hong Kong-born Sarah Howe became the first, winning for Loop of Jade in 2016.

Ocean Vuong reads from Night Sky With Exit Wounds

Before announcing Vuong as the winner at a ceremony at the Wallace Collection in London on Monday, chair of judges Bill Herbert called Night Sky With Exit Wounds “a compellingly assured debut, the definitive arrival of a significant voice”.

Vuong was the only non-white poet in the running for the prize.

“There is an incredible power in the story of this collection,” said Herbert. “There is a mystery at the heart of the book about generational karma, this migrant figure coming to terms with his relationship with his past, his relationship with his father and his relationship with his sexuality. All of that is borne out in some quite extraordinary imagery. The view of the world from this book is quite stunning.”

Hong Kong-born poet’s TS Eliot prize win ‘will change British poetry’

The cover of Vuong’s Night Sky With Exit Wounds.

Vuong was selected as the winner by judges Herbert, James Lasdun and Helen Mort from a 10-strong shortlist, which was initially criticised by some for its lack of diversity. Vuong was the only non-white poet listed, in a year when several poets of colour had been nominated for and won other big poetry prizes.

Born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vuong spent a year in a refugee camp as a baby and migrated to America when he was two years old, where he was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt. Two aspects of Vuong’s life – his sexuality and the absence of his father – recur in his work, with several poems evoking Greek myth to explore the roles of fathers and sons.

“Western mythology is so charged with the father,” he told The Guardian in 2017. “Personally, I’m always asking who’s my father. Like Homer, I felt I’d better make it up.”

Hong Kong-born Sarah Howe, winner of the TS Eliot prize two years ago. Photo: Dickson Lee

Vuong, who now lives in the US state of Massachusetts and works as an assistant professor in the Master of Fine Arts programme for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, only gained a taste for poetry in his 20s. He initially put together Night Sky With Exit Wounds for a competition that promised personal rejection to all entrants.

“I said, ‘Oh my, a personal rejection. Maybe that’ll give me some tips and push me back out there with a better idea,’” Vuong has recalled – but he received a publishing deal instead.

Hong Kong writers have much to say – and not just about democracy and politics

After winning the Forward prize, Vuong told The Guardian that he suspected dyslexia runs in his family, but felt it had positively affected his writing. “I think perhaps the disability helped me a bit, because I write very slowly and see words as objects. I’m always trying to look for words inside words. It’s so beautiful to me that the word laughter is inside slaughter.”

To mark the 25th anniversary of the prize, Vuong received £25,000 (US$34,500) – up from £20,000 last year – and will feature on a special UK postmark issued by Royal Mail.

Vuong joins a prestigious list of previous winners, including Don Paterson, Ted Hughes, Sharon Olds and Carol Ann Duffy, and will also be the first poet inducted into the new TS Eliot prize winners’ archive, which has been established to preserve the voices of winning poets online for posterity.

The prize was founded by the Poetry Book Society in 1993 and is now run by the TS Eliot Foundation.

Eurydice

By Ocean Vuong

It’s more like the sound

a doe makes

when the arrowhead

replaces the day

with an answer to the rib’s

hollowed hum. We saw it coming

but kept walking through the hole

in the garden. Because the leaves

were bright green & the fire

only a pink brushstroke

in the distance. It’s not

about the light—but how dark

it makes you depending

on where you stand.

Depending on where you stand

his name can appear like moonlight

shredded in a dead dog’s fur.

His name changed when touched

by gravity. Gravity breaking

our kneecaps just to show us

the sky. We kept saying Yes—

even with all those birds.

Who would believe us

now? My voice cracking

like bones inside the radio.

Silly me. I thought love was real

& the body imaginary.

But here we are—standing

in the cold field, him calling

for the girl. The girl

beside him. Frosted grass

snapping beneath her hooves.

Jenny Joseph: 'I shall wear purple' poet dies

16 January 2018

The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.

The sea laps the great rocks
Because I love you
And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away
And saying coldly 'Constancy is not for you'.
The blackbird fills the air
Because I love you
With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

The people walk in the street and laugh
I love you
And far down the river ships sound their hooters
Crazy with joy because I love you.


Jenny Joseph

Here is the link to the article about her:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-42700952

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."

Jenny Joseph, whose poem Warning was twice voted Britain's favourite poem, has died at the age of 85.

It is perhaps best known for its opening lines: "When I am an old lady I shall wear purple / With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me."

Despite it being about old age, Joseph was in her 20s when she wrote it.

She wrote several poetry and prose collections, the most recent being published in 2009. Joseph died earlier this month after a short illness.

'One of best-loved poets'

Born in Birmingham, Joseph studied at the University of Oxford and went on to work as a newspaper reporter, pub landlady and lecturer.

Her agents described her as "one of Britain's best-loved poets".

Warning was voted Britain's favourite modern poem in 2006 - having previously been named the nation's favourite post-war poem 10 years previously in a BBC poll.

It went on to inspire the launch of the Red Hat Society - a women's group whose members wear purple, accessorised with a red hat.

However, the success of the poem is said to have annoyed Joseph, according to her publishers Bloodaxe Books.

"At the same time, she was delighted that it had been translated into numerous languages and was known throughout the world," they said. "What she disliked most was that this early poem written in her 20s overshadowed the rest of her work, which was largely concerned with the duality of existence...

"She viewed her poems as attempts to present 'how things work' at the core, at the edge."

'New ways of telling stories'

Joseph was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999 and won the James Tait Black Prize for fiction for her work of prose and verse Persephone. She had previously won the Cholmondeley Award for her second poetry collection, Rose in the Afternoon.

She also had work published with Enitharmon Press. Its director Stephen Stuart-Smith, who worked with her on 2009's Nothing Like Love, described that last collection as "exploring a wide range of literary forms, new ways of telling stories, and demonstrating her skill in introducing cadences and everyday speech into the lyrical movement of her verse.

"As a person and as a poet she was warm and witty, as a friend loyal and supportive, as a performer entertaining as well as unpredictable."

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The Current Assignment

3/5/3/3/7/5 is a total of 26 syllables, shorter than a tweet. I started by lifting lines of the right length from another couple of poems of mine. This didn't work but did prompt me to start experimenting with the words I had chosen. The result wasn't bad.

The Next Assignment

The next assignment is to write an anti-Valentine's Day poem. Make it serious, or not. Any form, any topic as long as it connects in some way to Valentine's Day. Here is a link to the wikipedia entry for Valentine's Day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day.

The Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on February 1, 2018.

Other Jabber

The South African Poet Laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile died recently. He is a pot worth checking on. Here is one of his poems.

CASSANDRA WILSON WILL SING

                             - Poem by Keorapetse Kgositsile

Let me sense the chaos

I will respond

with a song

why else 

was I 

born

says Jimi of the purple haze 

through Kalamu ya Salaam

Now look, at those eyes

look at her arms 

follow her little finger

I wonder what

Jean Toomer who could see

the Georgia Pike growing

out of a goat path

in Africa

would say about

Cassandra Wilson tonight

Perhaps Cassandra

does not even sing.

Here of course a voice there is

possessed by music like the rest of her

her whole body is song

her whole body has sensed the chaos

I say look at those eyes 

look at her arms

follow her little finger 

and understand perhaps why 

you were born with ears 

Keorapetse Kgositsile

And here is a link to Cassandra Wilson singing "Fragile": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTsOyV0k4QU

January 11, 2018

Poets’ Roundtable

Welcome

We'll meet both today and next Thursday so I'll make the assignment short, or maybe not.

News and Jabber

The last couple of meetings have, while fun, devolved into too many competing conversations, sometimes at the expense of whoever was trying to read. I counted twice when we had three distinct conversations going on around the table at the same time, all while someone was waiting to read. Let's return to a more attentive respect to the reader and the poem. We'll all be the better for it. I take this new year moment to remind you too of the words of my good friend, former Director of The Robert Frost Center for the Performing Arts, Don Sheehan, that when the choice is between intelligence and compassion, choose compassion and the result will be a higher intelligence. I also remind myself and you that we critique poems, not poets. 

Don remains one of the few saintly men and women I have been privileged to know. This picture is from a review of a collection of his essays. It is a religious work but I urge you to check out the review since the language in it is the very language this wonderful, gentle man used when he spoke. 

Here is the link: http://myocn.net/grace-incorruption-selected-essays-donald-sheehan-orthodox-faith-poetics/

 A quotation from the article:  “...the ruining oppositions of actual experience are held within the musical disciplines of lyric art...”  Don believed this simply, beautifully and lived accordingly.

The Current Assignment

This assignment was somewhat of a revelation to me, something I'll get to when we read. I suspect many of you had fun with it. I didn't so much have fun as I made a discovery-- a re-discovery really-- as a by-product of the project. 

DaCosta Muckenfuss...I still await a second response from him on Facebook. He has confirmed that he did basic training in 1968 at Fort Jackson  so  I'm certain I have found him.

The Next Assignment

Write a Shadorma:

I recently discovered a poetic form called shadorma (thanks to P.J. Nights via Tammy Trendle) that I had no record of in my two poetic form handbooks [kind of like my recent posting about hay(na)ku]. Shadorma is a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively. Simple as that.

Also, you can link multiple shadorma (shadormas? shadormae?) like in my example below:

“Miss Shadorma”

She throws birds
at the school children
on playgrounds
made of steel
who run intense spirals to
the chain-link fencing.

Sad teachers
watch as they spiral
into air
like reverse
helicopter seeds searching
for their maple trees.

The Next Meeting

The next meeting will be one week from today on January 18, 2018.

Other Jabber

Although Richard Wilbur died in October, 2017, and I spoke of him then and included a remembrance from some other source, in a recent (January 10, 2018) edition, The Times of London printed an excellent piece on him that has brought me to reconsider my somewhat cool attitude toward his writing. One of the quotes I like is:

"Wilbur’s Walking to Sleep opens thus:

As a queen sits down, knowing that a chair will be there,

Or a general raises his hand and is given the field-glasses,

Step off assuredly into the blank of your mind.

Something will come to you."

This is how I write. 

Here is a link to the article:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/obituary-richard-wilbur-zd8p6klb2

And, consider this poem:

First Snow in Alsace

The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on
What shellbursts scattered and deranged,
Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.

As if it did not know they'd changed,
Snow smoothly clasps the roofs of homes
Fear-gutted, trustless and estranged.

The ration stacks are milky domes;
Across the ammunition pile
The snow has climbed in sparkling combs.

You think: beyond the town a mile
Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes
Of soldiers dead a little while.

Persons and persons in disguise,
Walking the new air white and fine,
Trade glances quick with shared surprise.

At children's windows, heaped, benign,
As always, winter shines the most,
And frost makes marvelous designs.

The night guard coming from his post,
Ten first-snows back in thought, walks slow
And warms him with a boyish boast:

He was the first to see the snow.

Several things to note about the poem:
Rhyme scheme, very tight.
The almost drowsy texture against the fury of war
The age of the soldier-- it is not given but we know him to be young
The presence of the children in a war zone, both as civilians and soldiers
The presence of beauty draped over the scene
"Absolute snow" implying absolution
The presence of white, a heavenly cover
The chilling feel when the poem is done.
The contrast between the last line and the 14th and 15th lines, which come at the center of the poem.