May 4, 2017

Poets’ Roundtable 

  

Welcome 

No word on absentees today. 

  

News and Jabber 

From Where The Ages Sleep... - Poem by Borys Oliynyk 

  

From where the ages sleep 

in tombs along the Nile,  

From jungles tropical 

where blooms the tamarisk -  

Birds flying high, do tell 

where do you fly the while,  

Why are you flying there 

where cold blue rime exists?  

  

Here lies first paradise  

and cinnamon's spiced air,  

Here copper-visaged Ra 

has lips of fire that burn -  

But there above the lake  

the calico sky is bare,  

There sedge and wormwood grows 

and knot-grass taciturn.  

  

But does your leader know 

the hard way you must roam,  

And know ye, brothers mine,  

what number falls and dies 

Before you get half-way 

unto your fathers' home  

And skies of ultramarine 

fade out before their eyes?  

  

The leader silent grows 

and looks into his soul.  

His biding weariness 

is gone like a broken chain… 

A sudden wave of wings!  

and up to heaven's scroll 

Arises slow but sure 

his secret sign of the skein. 

  

How many generations 

sought that secret sign:  

Both oracles and priests. 

From common man to kings. 

Still, flying wedge-skeins use 

the zodiac‘s design 

That's hidden secretly 

beneath their left-side wings. 

  

Our planet has often known 

a global shift of ice,  

And many a star in space  

in flames has gone to rest. 

But still the skeins return  

by prophecy concise,  

Through weariness and time 

at the secret call of the nest.  

  

Borys Oliynyk 

Song About Mother - Poem by Borys Oliynyk 

She richly sowed cornfields of life
with the years of her living,
Bowed low to the earth,
in the steppe gathered slow swaying grasses,
Her children she taught well
to live with their conscience untroubled,
Soft she sighed to herself
and silent set out on her way.
'Mum, where are you going? '
her children cry running behind her.
'Gran, where are you going? '
her grandchildren shout at the gate.
'I'm not going far, dears…
past the sun if I'm only not late there.
Time to go now, my darlings…
May long life and sweet joys you await'.
'What life's left without you?
How can you just go, dearest Mummy? '
'And who then, dear Grandma,
will read fairytales when we're good? '

'I'll leave you the rainbows,
the silver of dew at day's dawning,
The gold of the cornfields,
pale palm, and the bird in the wood'
'We don't want bright rainbows,
we don't want fine silver, gold riches,
If only for ever
you'll welcome us home at the gate.
Oh, dearest, will do
all the work in the house and the meadow,
Oh, stay with us, Mummy,
the sun will not mind if you're late.'
She turned away, smiling,
her face with grave pain cast in shadow,
Waved her hand,
and the cloth on her arm gently trembled.
'May joy shower upon you',
she said, and lives on in fields pensive,
In the silver of dew at day's dawning,
pale palm, and the bird in the wood. 

Borys Oliynyk

  

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Song About Mother - Poem by Borys Oliynyk

  

Borys Oliynyk 

We struggle with the translator's art but a couple of things strike me about these poems. One is the apparent love of his family and homeland. The other is how close he comes to the overly sentimental. I don't think this is great poetry but I think it is really good poetry and it reminds us that sentimentality is a useful tool. 

The Ukrainian poet, translator and songwriter Borys Oliynyk has died in Kyiv, according to journalist Mykhailo Masliy. Oliynyk was 81. 

Masliy noted on his Facebook page that Oliynyk had died on April 30 at noon, after suffering a long and severe illness. 

In his lifetime, Oliynyk published over 40 poetry compilations, as well as numerous essays and journalistic articles, and translations of texts from many Slavic languages into Ukrainian. 

From 1991-2006, he was a member of parliament for Ukraine’s Communist Party, although he was eventually suspended from the party in 2005 due to his support for the Orange Revolution of 2004. 

In October 2005, Oliynyk was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. 

“Ukrainian culture has suffered a grievous loss,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in his official statement of condolences on April 30. 

“(Oliynyk) did a lot to maintain the nation’s language and culture.” 

Now, for a little experiment: 

I'm going to ask you some questions about the following lyrics: 

[Verse 1] I married Isis on the fifth day of May
 But I could not hold on to her very long 

another version of this reads I saddled my pony and rode straight away
So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away 
For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong 

Describe the "wild unknown country" 
 [Verse 2] I came to a high place of darkness and light
Dividing line ran through the center of town
 I hitched up my pony to a post on the right 

Describe the pony
 Went in to a laundry to wash my clothes down 
 [Verse 3] A man in the corner approached me for a match 
I knew right away, he was not ordinary 

Describe the man 
He said “Are you looking for something easy to catch?” 
Said “I got no money.” He said “That ain't necessary” 

Lyrics from "Isis" by Bob Dylan  

The point of the exercise is to understand what the reader brings to the page. We all have different images of the same thing. The poet is trying to manage our images to a point where we see something she sees. As poets we guide the reader's application of her own images to an understanding we share. When we both arrive there we are both surprised.

The Current Assignment 

Who did the current assignment? I found it a little more difficult than I expected, for a couple of reasons. One is that I'm not that skillful at it, out of practice. The other is that I'm in a rut that while not dry isn't as resonant as I want. 

The Next Assignment 

Write a poem a day for 10 days straight .

The Next Meeting 

The next meeting will be on May 18, 2017. 

Other Jabber

April 20, 2017

I occasionally have dry periods when the pen won't leak a decent word for me, am sort of in one now and, although I have come up with a couple of good things, I have x-ed out pages and pages immediately after writing them. Did so three or for days in a row. I could blame it on a lot of things but I think it is the fact that I'm on the third floor and cannot see the trashman, the mailman, the milkman (even imaginary), and the crow that crows making me want to shoot it. I can see part of a pine tree and I have heard that deer walk past but I haven't seen any. I will learn to write here but I don't like to think the muse has something better to do than grease the ink that currently clots my pen. I have written the assignment and didn't like what I wrote and so extracted from my trove to bring to the meeting an old poem done as the assignment called for (he said rather clumsily).

The following poem I found interesting for its original usage of brackets, pauses and // breaks. If you look/listen carefully you'll find surprising metrics supporting the strange graphical elements.

[Somewhere in Los Angeles] This Poem is Needed

She charges her ankle bracelet // from the kitchen chair
& Sunflowers in the white wallpaper [begin to wilt].

I wilt with them // before my sister // & her probation
Officer [who comes over to the house unannounced].

Just as we are // preparing dinner // & what are we supposed to
Do now. Cook for him?! Invite him to eat with us??

I am hacking the heads [from broccoli stems] & pretending
His body is spread across the cutting board. [Ugh].

This officer keeps talking nonsense & nudging his eyes around
The apartment. Looking for—drugs, alcohol

Alchemy. My sister waits for him to leave & then begins to rant.
Ramble about // her childhood // & how she used to be

[Before house arrest]. The confines of these plastered walls
& Her monitored route to work // where

Every corner has a cop [coddling a liquor store]. Protecting their
Notion of freedom. // My neighborhood eats fear.

Mothers are getting // handcuffed & harassed. Homes are being
Crushed [like cigarette butts]. Everyone I know

Hates the racist police & wants a revolution. // But we seldom
Aim the gun… Have you heard // how the bullets

Sing their anthem // throughout the body?? // It sounds like
God shutting the door— Bang. Bang.

When it’s dinnertime in heaven [& your officer’s knocking]
Ignore him sister— let the door bruise.

[Let the bears devour our enemies]. We have no obligation
To open // ourselves // for those who do us harm.

“[Somewhere in Los Angeles] This Poem is Needed” was originally published in American Poetry Review (January/February 2016)

This project was co-curated by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and its Puffin Story Innovation Fund.

TOPICS: ARTS & CULTURE

TAGS: ARTS, CIVIC POETRY, CULTURE, POETRY

CHRISTOPHER SOTO

Christopher Soto aka Loma is a poet based in Brooklyn. He is the author of Sad Girl Poems (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016) and the editor of Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, 2018). In 2017, he was awarded the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism by Split This Rock. In 2016, Poets & Writers honored Christopher Soto with the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. He frequently writes book reviews for the Lambda Literary Foundation. His poems, reviews, interviews and articles have appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, The Advocate, Los Angeles Review of Books, American Poetry Review, Tin House and more. He is currently working on a full-length poetry manuscript about police violence and mass incarceration. He co-founded the Undocupoets Campaign and worked with Amazon Literary Partnerships to establish grants for undocumented writers. Learn more about his work at his website and follow him on Twitter: @loma_poetry.

Terza Rima

Edward Hirsch also writes about the terza rima in his book A Poet’s Glossary (Harcourt, 2014): 

terza rima: A verse form of interlocking three-line stanzas rhyming aba, bcb, cdc, etc. The terza rima form was invented by Dante Alighieri for the Commedia (The Divine Comedy, ca. 1304–1321), using the hendecasyllabic (eleven-syllable) line common to Italian poetry. In De vulgari eloquentia (“On eloquence in the vernacular,” 1304–1307), Dante called rhyme concatenatio (“beautiful linkage”), and the triple rhymes beautifully link together the stanzas. Rhyming the first and third lines gives each tercet a sense of temporary closure; rhyming the second line with the first and last lines of the next stanza generates a strong feeling of propulsion. The effect of this chain-rhyme is both open-ended and conclusive, like moving through a series of interpenetrating rooms or going down a set of winding stairs: you are always traveling forward while looking back.
Here is a poem written in terza rima by Robert Frost. Following is a much looser use of something like terza rima in a selection from "Gabriel" written by Edward Hirsch, a poem in which he eulogizes his son. More info here: http://www.edwardhirsch.com/books/gabriel-a-poem/. 

Acquainted with the Night

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROBERT FROST

I have been one acquainted with the night. 

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. 

I have outwalked the furthest city light. 

I have looked down the saddest city lane. 

I have passed by the watchman on his beat 

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. 

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet 

When far away an interrupted cry 

Came over houses from another street, 

But not to call me back or say good-bye; 

And further still at an unearthly height, 

One luminary clock against the sky 

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1964, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine. Copyright 1936, 1942 © 1956 by Robert Frost. Copyright 1923, 1928, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Co. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt & Company, LLC.

Source: Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2004)

from Gabriel
I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path

Because there is no path
There is only a blunt rock
With a river to fall into

And Time with its medieval chambers
Time with its jagged edges
And blunt instruments

I did not know the work of mourning
Is a labor in the dark
We carry inside ourselves

Though sometimes when I sleep
I am with him again
And then I wake

Poor Sisyphus grief
I am not ready for your heaviness
Cemented to my body

Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders

That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day

[Previous Poem] [Next Poem]
[Return to the book Gabriel: A Poem]

To Poetry
Don’t desert me
just because I stayed up last night
watching The Lost Weekend.

I know I’ve spent too much time
praising your naked body to strangers
and gossiping about lovers you betrayed.

I’ve stalked you in foreign cities
and followed your far-flung movements,
pretending I could describe you.

Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee
and obsessing over your features
year after jittery year.

I’m sorry for handing you a line
and typing you on a screen,
but don’t let me suffer in silence.

Does anyone still invoke the Muse,
string a wooden lyre for Apollo,
or try to saddle up Pegasus?

Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,
indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,
pleasance and half wonder, hell,

I have loved you my entire life
without even knowing what you are

or how—please help me—to find you.

You might find this, "Bey the Light" interesting for it's source:

Words by Beyoncé

Remixed by Forrest Gander

It's my daughter, she's my biggest muse.

There's someone, we all find out soon,

more important than ourselves to lose.

I feel a deep bond with young children --

all those photos in my dressing room --

especially those who've been stricken,

Children I've met across the years --

they uplift me like pieces of moon,

and guide me, whispering in my ear

I'm turned to spirits, the emotions of others.

And I feel her presence all the time

though I never met my grandmother.

I learned at a very young age,

when I need to tap some extra strength,

to put my persona, Sasha, on stage.

Though we're different as blue and red,

I'm not afraid to draw from her

in performance, rifts, even in bed.

I saw a TV preacher when I was scared,

at four or five, about bad dreams,

who promised he'd say a prayer

If I put my hand to the TV.

That's the first time I remember prayer,

an electric current humming through me.

You call me a singer, but I'm called to transform,

to suck up the grief, anxiety, and loss

of those who hear me into my song's form.

I'm a vessel for all that isn't right,

for break-ups and lies and double-cross.

I sing into that vessel a healing light.

To let go of pain that people can't bear.

I don't do that myself, I call in the light.

I summon God to take me there.

Utopias, they don't much interest me.

I always mess things up a bit.

It's chaos, in part, that helps us see.

But for my daughter I dream a day

when no one roots for others to fail,

when we all mean what we say.

The next meeting will be May 4, 2017 from 1-2:30. See you then. Show up and bring three friends!

April 6, 2017

April 6, 2017

Poets’ Roundtable

Welcome

News and Jabber

So here we are, finally, again. It seems a long time. In that time we have seen the deaths of Derek Walcott, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Chuck Berry.

I have seen Chuck Berry in concert, up close. I have met Derek Walcott (in 1990 or so, before he won the Nobel in 1992 and before he published Omeros). Yevtushenko I have read a little of. Click the links for the two poets. Chuck Berry had a lot to do with my formative years, first heard on WMGM from New York, I think. I remember seeing his picture in the paper and being surprised that he was black.

The Current Assignment

The assignment, one I thought of without much thought was to write an acrostic poem that would down the side read Bigelow Poets, I think, although the one I did reads Bigelow Writers. Whatever.

Broken-hearted Melody

I remember you--

Get back,

Evil woman.

Love hurts.

Only love can break a heart.

Where is the love?

Where were you (when I wanted you)?

Rolling on the river?

It’s all right;

Time is on my side,

Even now.

Release me.

Stay, just a little bit longer.

Unpublished Work Copyright 2017 Emerson Gilmore

The Next Assignment

I have ruminated a lot about the deaths of Walcott and Berry. As I did so I found myself gravitating back to the poems of Weldon Kees. This may have been little more than, having not read or written much since I started packing to move, Kees's was the first book of poems I unpacked and so I stopped and read. Now, being in a new place, unsettled and dead tired I wasn't ready to write. My space doesn't have to be elaborate but it has to be set and comfortable to the unwinding of my mind. When I cannot get into the zone I resort to finding interesting new lines from other poets and then ruminating upon them until I begin forming my own lines. Then I write something. I have now written several poems prompted by lines/phrases of Kees's, especially from The Fall of the Magicians. So, here is the assignment for next time: Find a new writer, one you haven't read. Find a poem/poems you like. Find a particular phrase that really brings you in. Ponder it. Then write a poem of your own that comes from this seed. For example, I like the line "learn sunlight/ if you can:". Here is the poem:

A Grace in Lies?

“Learn sunlight/if you can:”

Weldon Kees, “The Ambassadors”

Did he think

he was learning sunlight

when he disappeared?

Was it afternoon and

him traveling west

into a revelation of sun?

Or had he decided

that it could not be,

that one, he, could not

learn sunlight

and he in fact did not know

what he wrote?

Did he believe there are

those who can

and therefore should, must

for those of us who cannot;

or that no one can

but there must be some

to lie about it,

and with conviction

so that more of us

do not sharpen the blade,

mount the railing

to gash, pitch out and down

in the shining,

unlearned sun?

Unpublished Work Copyright 2017 Emerson Gilmore

What I'm getting at in the assignment is echoed by Octavio Paz in The Bow and the Lyre. "...poetry is a grace, something external that descends on the poet." p. 144.  In meditating upon a line that profoundly catches me, I approach a state in which I can accept poetry. That's the essence of the assignment.

The Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on Thursday, April 20, 2017 from 1-2:30PM. Remember to bring two friends.

Other Jabber

I draw your attention too to this article about  baseball and poetry found on ESPN.com: http://www.espn.com/espnw/culture/article/19069292/how-baseball-poetry-bring-us-home. 'Tis the season.