B.H. Fairchild - Body And Soul

BODY AND SOUL


Half-numb, guzzling bourbon and Coke from coffee mugs,
our fathers fall in love with their own stories, nuzzling
the facts but mauling the truth, and my friend’s father begins
to lay out with the slow ease of a blues ballad a story
about sandlot baseball in Commerce, Oklahoma decades ago.
These were men’s teams, grown men, some in their thirties
and forties who worked together in zinc mines or on oil rigs,
sweat and khaki and long beers after work, steel guitar music
whanging in their ears, little white rent houses to return to
where their wives complained about money and broken Kenmores
and then said the hell with it and sang Body and Soul
in the bathtub and later that evening with the kids asleep
lay in bed stroking their husband’s wrist tattoo and smoking
Chesterfields from a fresh pack until everything was O.K.
Well, you get the idea. Life goes on, the next day is Sunday,
another ball game, and the other team shows up one man short.

They say we’re one man short, but can we use this boy,
he’s only fifteen years old, and at least he’ll make a game.
They take a look at the kid, muscular and kind of knowing
the way he holds his glove, with the shoulders loose,
the thick neck, but then with that boy’s face under
a clump of angelic blonde hair, and say, oh, hell, sure,
let’s play ball. So it all begins, the men loosening up,
joking about the fat catcher’s sex life, it’s so bad
last night he had to hump his wife, that sort of thing,
pairing off into little games of catch that heat up into
throwing matches, the smack of the fungo bat, lazy jogging
into right field, big smiles and arcs of tobacco juice,
and the talk that gives a cool, easy feeling to the air,
talk among men normally silent, normally brittle and a little
angry with the empty promise of their lives. But they chatter
and say rock and fire, babe, easy out, and go right ahead
and pitch to the boy, but nothing fancy, just hard fastballs
right around the belt, and the kid takes the first two
but on the third pops the bat around so quick and sure
that they pause a moment before turning around to watch
the ball still rising and finally dropping far beyond
the abandoned tractor that marks left field. Holy shit.
They’re pretty quiet watching him round the bases,
but then, what the hell, the kid knows how to hit a ball,
so what, let’s play some goddamned baseball here.
And so it goes. The next time up, the boy gets a look
at a very nifty low curve, then a slider, and the next one
is the curve again, and he sends it over the Allis Chambers,
high and big and sweet. The left fielder just stands there, frozen.
As if this isn’t enough, the next time up he bats left-handed.
They can’t believe it, and the pitcher, a tall, mean-faced
man from Okarche who just doesn’t give a shit anyway
because his wife ran off two years ago leaving him with
three little ones and a rusted-out Dodge with a cracked block,
leans in hard, looking at the fat catcher like he was the sonofabitch
who ran off with his wife, leans in and throws something
out of the dark, green hell of forbidden fastballs, something
that comes in at the knees and then leaps viciously towards
the kid’s elbow. He swings exactly the way he did right-handed,
and they all turn like a chorus line toward deep right field
where the ball loses itself in sagebrush and the sad burnt
dust of dustbowl Oklahoma. It is something to see.

But why make a long story long: runs pile up on both sides,
the boy comes around five times, and five times the pitcher
is cursing both God and His mother as his chew of tobacco sours
into something resembling horse piss, and a ragged and bruised
Spalding baseball disappears into the far horizon. Goodnight,
Irene. They have lost the game and some painful side bets
and they have been suckered. And it means nothing to them
though it should to you when they are told the boy’s name is
Mickey Mantle. And that’s the story, and those are the facts.
But the facts are not the truth. I think, though, as I scan
the faces of these old men now lost in the innings of their youth,
I think I know what the truth of this story is, and I imagine
it lying there in the weeds behind that Allis Chalmers
just waiting for the obvious question to be asked: why, oh
why in hell didn’t they just throw around the kid, walk him,
after he hit the third homer? Anybody would have,
especially nine men with disappointed wives and dirty socks
and diminishing expectations for whom winning at anything
meant everything. Men who knew how to play the game,
who had talent when the other team had nothing except this ringer
who without a pitch to hit was meaningless, and they could go home
with their little two-dollar side bets and stride into the house
singing If You’ve Got the Money, Honey, I’ve Got the Time
with a bottle of Southern Comfort under their arms and grab
Dixie or May Ella up and dance across the gray linoleum
as if it were V-Day all over again. But they did not.
And they did not because they were men, and this was a boy.
And they did not because sometimes after making love,
after smoking their Chesterfields in the cool silence and
listening to the big bands on the radio that sounded so glamorous,
so distant, they glanced over at their wives and notice the lines
growing heavier around the eyes and mouth, felt what their wives
felt: that Les Brown and Glenn Miller and all those dancing couples
and in fact all possibility of human gaiety and light-heartedness
were as far away and unreachable as Times Square or the Avalon
ballroom. They did not because of the gray linoleum lying there
in the half-dark, the free calendar from the local mortuary
that said one day was pretty much like another, the work gloves
looped over the doorknob like dead squirrels. And they did not
because they had gone through a depression and a war that had left
them with the idea that being a man in the eyes of their fathers
and everyone else had cost them just too goddamned much to lay it
at the feet of a fifteen year-old boy. And so they did not walk him,
and lost, but at least had some ragged remnant of themselves
to take back home. But there is one thing more, though it is not
a fact. When I see my friend’s father staring hard into the bottomless
well of home plate as Mantle’s fifth homer heads toward Arkansas,
I know that this man with the half-orphaned children and
worthless Dodge had also encountered for his first and possibly
only time the vast gap between talent and genius, has seen
as few have in the harsh light of an Oklahoma Sunday, the blonde
and blue-eyed bringer of truth, who will not easily be forgotten.

---B.H. Fairchild


B.H. Fairchild's Body And Soul

Out of all the poems I’ve presented this month, I saved my very favorite poem for last. This is my favorite poem. Unabashedly I love this poem and the fascinating story it tells, shuffling the wide gauntlet of emotions from gritty to heart-warming. Fairchild's characters are well developed and many of the lines are well crafted lyrics. When I think of good, lasting poetry I think of this poem. You don't have to love baseball, be from Oklahoma, or have lived through WWII to enjoy this poem, probably because the poem's theme is universal. Like Fairchild's working class families, all of us endeavor to persevere through adversity and carve out our slice of greatness. Sometimes it takes the pinnacle of brilliance to deliver perspective---in this case, a baby-faced farm boy with a mischievous swing who'll eventually slug his way into the New York Yankees hallowed history.

Before I delve into the meat of Body And Soul, it's important I explain a little more about the important place this poem occupies in my mind and heart. When B.H. (Pete) Fairchild came to read at Emerson College two years ago, one of my grad school professors, Dan Tobin, introduced me to B.H. Fairchild. Dan knew the depth of my admiration for Fairchild's poetry and wanted to make sure I could pick his brain for a few minutes. After his reading, I asked B.H. about Body And Soul, specifically about the shocking turn of revealing "the kid" to be a young version of the legendary Mickey Mantle. As I was asking my question a fit of goosebumps cascaded down my arms and then over my whole body. It's rare that we come face to face with the creators of our favorites. I never met Alfred Hitchcock for coffee to ask him how he conceived the final haunting scene of Vertigo. Steve Carell and I have yet to cook up burgers on his George Foreman grill and talk about the intricacies of playing Michael Scott. I wasn't alive to sit in on an Otis Redding recording session at Stax Records in Memphis. I could continue with a litany of other favorites, but I think you catch my drift, or as Otis would have said "you dig." Poetry might be one of the last accessible art forms. Please tell me you see the inherent and wicked irony in this last sentence. Poetry isn't as difficult, high brow, or esoteric as some would have you believe.

Body And Soul is by no means a short poem. It's probably the longest poem I've presented this month, but I would surprisingly contend it's the easiest to read. The long lines Fairchild utilizes mirror a storytelling speech pattern that is just as easy to fall into as a sing-song-Dr.Seuss-rhyming-speech pattern. Fairchild makes this clear, telling us "our fathers fall in love with their own stories, nuzzling / the facts but mauling the truth." Some poems beg to be read to a crowd; Body And Soul is one of these poems. Colloquialisms and slang take the poem from the page and put words into the reader's mouth. I've never been to Commerce, Oklahoma but I feel like a townie when I read " grown men, some in their thirties / and forties who worked together in zinc mines or on oil rigs, /sweat and khaki and long beers after work, steel guitar music / whanging in their ears, little white rent houses to return to / where their wives complained about money and broken Kenmores / and then said the hell with it and sang Body and Soul /
in the bathtub and later that evening with the kids asleep / lay in bed stroking their husband’s wrist tattoo and smoking /Chesterfields from a fresh pack until everything was O.K." Now that he has us firmly entrenched in the life and lore of small town Oklahoma, it's time for the story to begin.

The teams gather and the visiting team is one man short, "but can we use this boy, / he’s only fifteen years old, and at least he’ll make a game." Sure as hell he'll make a game, he'd make any game, especially in a sandlot with a crowd of has-beens and never-was ball playing mechanics and factory workers. They look forward to this game with a vigilant enthusiasm that makes all the hardships smaller. They look forward to putting on the uniform, loosening up their arms, swinging the lumber, tasting dirt and spitting tobacco, rubbing the balls seams against their fingertips. The game is an event, even if there is no great crowd watching and even if they'll never gain a dime off their efforts. And the game heats up: "But they chatter /
and say rock and fire, babe, easy out, and go right ahead / and pitch to the boy, but nothing fancy, just hard fastballs / right around the belt, and the kid takes the first two / but on the third pops the bat around so quick and sure / that they pause a moment before turning around to watch / the ball still rising and finally dropping far beyond / the abandoned tractor that marks left field. Holy shit. / They’re pretty quiet watching him round the bases, / but then, what the hell, the kid knows how to hit a ball, / so what, let’s play some goddamned baseball here." Yes sir, let's play some baseball. Fairchild captures the nuances of the game and playing it so naturally. It's obvious that he grew up playing and knows what it's like to drive the winning run in, but also give up the winning run.

After another home run by the kid, the order turns around and he's at bat again. The pitcher has seen him take two solid pitches and park them deep outside the park. He's determined not to give up a third homer to the kid, who lines up left-handed for his third at bat. "They can’t believe it, and the pitcher, a tall, mean-faced / man from Okarche who just doesn’t give a shit anyway / because his wife ran off two years ago leaving him with / three little ones and a rusted-out Dodge with a cracked block, / leans in hard, looking at the fat catcher like he was the sonofabitch / who ran off with his wife, leans in and throws something / out of the dark, green hell of forbidden fastballs, something / that comes in at the knees and then leaps viciously towards / the kid’s elbow." I have to pause to point out how seamlessly Fairchild moves between the characters and the action in this poem. Here, he moves from the kid, to all the players, to the pitcher, and then back to the kid. The pitcher's life melds with his process and we, yet again, understand just how important this game is to these men. The pitcher is using it as a release and an emblematic reminder of happier days. But even though his anger is magnificent and his love for the game is true, he was not kissed with talent like the kid he's pitching to. The kid "swings exactly the way he did right-handed, / and they all turn like a chorus line toward deep right field / where the ball loses itself in sagebrush and the sad burnt / dust of dustbowl Oklahoma. It is something to see." It sure is something to see and, thank God, Fairchild makes sure we see it.

The kid will come to bat more times and smack more balls into oblivion. He wins the game single-handedly for his team. "And it means nothing to them / though it should to you when they are told the boy’s name is /Mickey Mantle. And that’s the story, and those are the facts." The whole poem has been tinged with magic, but this is where the spell is cast. This is where the poem finds its gravity and cements itself in our minds. In finding this gravity, Fairchild has created the exact moment where the most incisive question must be asked: "why, oh / why in hell didn’t they just throw around the kid, walk him, / after he hit the third homer? Anybody would have, / especially nine men with disappointed wives and dirty socks /and diminishing expectations for whom winning at anything / meant everything." We've seen the dust that accumulates in their lives and we've seen the broken parts in need of repair but lacking the funds necessary to have them replaced. So many of the characters in this poem are bankrupt in some way. To see them lose this baseball game, especially to this kid, is heart wrenching. You can't help but think these men deserve better. But why didn't they pitch around Mantle? Fairchild seizes this question with an elegant sweeping answer: "And they did not because they were men, and this was a boy...And they did not / because they had gone through a depression and a war that had left / them with the idea that being a man in the eyes of their fathers / and everyone else had cost them just too goddamned much to lay it / at the feet of a fifteen year-old boy. And so they did not walk him, / and lost, but at least had some ragged remnant of themselves / to take back home. But there is one thing more, though it is not / a fact. When I see my friend’s father staring hard into the bottomless / well of home plate as Mantle’s fifth homer heads toward Arkansas, / I know that this man with the half-orphaned children and / worthless Dodge had also encountered for his first and possibly / only time the vast gap between talent and genius, has seen / as few have in the harsh light of an Oklahoma Sunday, the blonde / and blue-eyed bringer of truth, who will not easily be forgotten." Wow, I still get chills reading these final fourteen lines. This is the type of writing that changes lives. I know this because it has changed my life, it has made me understand that writing a poem of this magnitude goes beyond working remarkably hard. The pitcher in this poem worked remarkably hard in all facets of his life and still came up empty. I don't want to be that pitcher. I don't want my hard work to go by the wayside. I want affirmation that I've been blessed with unique talent and, although I might not be a genius, I have poems and stories worth telling.

Langston Hughes - A Dream Deferred

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

---Langston Hughes



Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred


All month long I’ve shared my favorite poems with all of you. I’ve taken you into my thoughts and laid out my interpretations, leaving it up to you to agree or disagree. Truthfully, I don’t think you have a choice; the poem will speak to you or it will fall on deaf ears. The poem might not speak to you the first time you read it, but in later encounters it will resonate (as I pointed out last night with Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening). Joseph Brodsky, the Russian writer who spent much of his life in the US, theorized that every person should know one poet cover-to-cover. There are many poets that I know thoroughly, but I’m still searching for the poet that I’ll know completely in the way Joseph Brodsky advocated. This search, this quest, is about making a dream come true, about avoiding the deferment and explosion.

Langston Hughes is for many people the poet Joseph Brodsky spoke of. Hughes was a witty, courageous writer. A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, he was more than a witness and activist; you need only look at a handful of his poems to understand how diverse a writer Langston Hughes was. A Dream Deferred is undoubtedly Langston Hughes’ most famous poem. (Yes, Lorraine Hansberry borrowed from Langston for the title of her iconic play A Raisin In The Sun) I’m consistently intrigued by poems that “crossover” and achieve mainstream appeal and significance. Why will Rudyard Kipling’s If or Robert Frost’s The Road Less Traveled be quoted at a thousand high school and college graduations this spring? Why will a young man woo his beautiful would-be girlfriend with Pablo Neruda’s Love Sonnets? Why does A Dream Deferred seem to spread, seem to “explode” and dazzle young minds? These are questions with simple answers, in fact I’ve already answered them. These poems speak to people en masse. So, then, the ultimate question becomes why do these poems not just speak to people, but speak to overwhelmingly large groups of people. Poetry lab is in session, let’s take on A Dream Deferred as experiment number one.

The poem begins with a question that excludes no one. I’ve never met anyone who has no dreams (and I hope to never meet anyone so hopeless as to have no dreams). Dreams are a universal currency, stockpiled at night when the world itself slows, but never sleeps. Why are dreams important? They serve as motivation, inspiration, and the almighty hope that each of us requires. Our society is plagued with circumstances that are disheartening; Langston Hughes knew this---he lived this---but he still had dreams. He had dreams he acted on and dreams that dried “up / like a raisin in the sun.” I love that simile; I love all the similes in this poem. A dream deferred would seem to die from inactivity and lack of effort, but it would also seem to die from constant thought and the inability to release it, hence the reference to a dream that “fester(s) like a sore---And then run(s).”

What else would a dream deferred resemble? Rotten meat. A Syrupy Sweet. I buy both of these. I can smell the stink of my deferred dreams. I can taste the sugar of the dreams I pursued but never fully realized, still hoping that I can bring them to fruition. And I’ll always feel the weight of the dreams I waited on and said I’d one day pursue. Those are the “heavy load.” With that heaviest of similes looming over the end of the poem, Langston Hughes steers the poem in a completely fresh direction. He bookends the poem’s initial question that launched us into a world of memorable similes with another question: “Or does it explode?” This ending is pure genius. It’s so natural that I wonder if it was the first piece of the poem to arise in Langston Hughes’ mind. The ending is not cartoonish as some of the other similes in the poem are, it opens into the most frightening possibility: that our dreams can explode. With no other similes, no other images, this is what Hughes leaves us with---the abrupt ending of a catastrophically exploding dream. This is why the poem has crossed over: the daunting mystery of imploding and exploding dreams, the hanging silence, and the new dreams that will rise like dust from the kicked up tracks of dreams deferred.

Robert Frost - Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

---Robert Frost


Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

I did not love this poem the first time I read it in high school. I did not love it when, like a boomerang, it returned to me in college. And just last year, this was a poem I would skip over if I saw it in an anthology. There didn't seem much I could gain from this poem. It was straightforward; why should I waste my time and thinking power on a poem that clearly didn't need me. Frost had created a world that was compact and confined, or so I thought. Mary Oliver deserves much of the credit for this poem finding its way into my favorites. (Please do yourself a favor and pick up her Poetry Handbook from your library or bookstore. It's a spirited read on basic poetry concepts with an intended audience of writers and readers alike) In reading her Poetry Handbook earlier this year, I found Oliver's close reading and clinical treatment of Frost's Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening to be enthralling and highly educational. As Oliver proved, this just might be the ideal teaching poem. It has rhythm and meter, a fully developed structure, characters and images, an underlying story, and much mystery. I did not love this poem at first sight, but I've grown to love this poem---as often is the case with love.

Frost begins this iconic poem with a declaration that establishes a sense of the relationship between the poem's speaker and other characters. He starts, "Whose woods these are I think I know." Aha, I know who lives here, but wait, "His house is in the village though." Because he lives a distance from this spot, "He will not see me stopping here / To watch his woods fill up with snow." The observing of nature and people has always been central to poetry; dare I say poets are glorified voyeurs...Frost's speaker in this poem is pausing for a rest in these woods filling with snow. He doesn't need to do much in terms of imagery to make this beautiful, a snowy woods is naturally incandescent and requires little to grow beautiful in our minds. Instead, Frost utilizes the first stanza to establish much of the poem's framework. He answers questions of where we are and what season we are in, while also texturing the poem's circumstances.

The second stanza turns our view to the speaker's horse, further flesching out the image of him stopping on this snowy evening. He has dismounted from his horse, who "must think it queer / To stop without a farmhouse near / Between the woods and frozen lake / The darkest evening of the year." Frost's generousity in endowing his horse with perceptiveness and intelligence is curious. He intends to raise our eyebrows with this bit of personification. Are we seriously to believe that a horse can discern all of the qualities in this situation that Frost lists? He gives these qualities to his "little horse" as a way of supplying them to readers. We can't avoid these questions, if nothing else for fear of being upstaged by a horse who rivals Mr. Ed in intellect. But why would we want to avoid these questions---they are, indeed, intriguing. Why is he stopping? What appeal does this woods hold? Are his intentions creepy? holy? sincere? for profit? And, like that, Frost has me hooked. Part of his ability to reel me in is certainly due to the tight rhyme scheme and carefully crafted lines with no extraneous words or repetitive line structures.

The third stanza picks up where the previous one left off with more personification. The horse's movement causes his bells to shake, which Frost interprets as asking "if there's some mistake." The horse has become a full fledged character and a mouthpiece for the reading audience. He has transitioned from a "little" insert to complete a rhyme scheme to a vital component in the poem's story. Frost is notorious for his attention to sensory detail. Notice his ear for sound in this poem, especially the third stanza. The calming quiet of a snow storm settles into our hearing when Frost describes the outside as "the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake." But in this excellent bit of description, Frost is also omiting attention to the pivotal question of why the speaker is stopping, allowing tension and mystery to build. Oh, that Robert Frost was a crafty bugger.

Reaching the concluding stanza, we wonder if this reason for stopping will emerge and if a sight will be laid out before our speaker that will catalyze his respite into something larger and emblematic. Frost is direct and evasive at the same time in this final stanza, a very difficult task to accomplish. He praises the woods as "lovely, dark and deep," which seems to be an unlikely compliment. Dark and deep imply unease and impending danger or surprise, making their use as complimentary all the more intriguing. Why has he stopped? We'll never know, but we do know why he's leaving---well, we sort of know why: "But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep." These are the type of last lines that deserve a haunting voice and an eerie wink. They leave me wanting another stanza, but I know another stanza would just about ruin their intrigue that Frost so carefully built in this poem. If we know what these promises are then they are less meaningful---as they are in this poem, these promises can be molded to fit readers specific impressions. The haunting refrain that ends the poem is unexpected and represents a tonal surprise. The sleep is obviously an allegory for much more, but again Frost is evasive and vague, which suits this poem very well. It teeters on the fringes, a perfect place for the poem's location and speaker.

Wallace Stevens - A Postcard From The Volcano

A POSTCARD FROM THE VOLCANO

Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
There had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion’s look
And what we said of it became

A part of what it is … Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,

Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,

A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

---Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens’ A Postcard From The Volcano

Poetry lends itself to nostalgia. Words---like pictures, sounds, smells, and other sensory perceptions---trigger memories. At my cousin Kenny’s wedding this past weekend I spent time with extended family members. It is always special to share updates and swap old stories, but I’m partial to the stories or phrases that remind us of the family members that are no longer with us. A simple word, such as Zulch, immediately and vividly conjures up my grandfather. I can picture him eating the jiggling, brown gelatin meat dish one holiday after another, imploring the rest of the family to join him. It didn’t matter to him that the cow’s brain was primarily used to make Zulch, but to us it did. I’m thankful for memories like this and the weight that a single word or phrase can carry within an entire family.

In Wallace Stevens’ A Postcard From The Volcano words are majestic treasures, especially when coming from the mouths of the next generation. Stevens frames the poem with a complete first tercet. He sets up the characters (children and the collective “we” narrator/speaker), he introduces the primary conflict (time’s relentless cycles), and he supplies a stunning metaphor ( “our bones…these were once / as quick as foxes on the hill”). This thoroughness is not a rarity within Wallace Stevens’ poetry. His writing was lyrical and imaginative, thoughtful and experimental, story driven and sound driven. It would be fair to say that Wallace Stevens endeavored to stretch himself as a poet like a child stretches a piece of taffy.

Many lines from A Postcard From The Volcano have made their way into my memory bank. The distant story and the direct address are balanced nicely in this poem, provided Stevens’ lines to have their maximum impact. For example, the third stanza, chock full of ideas, is nestled tightly between two image driven stanzas. “with our bones / We left much more, left what still is / The look of things, left what we felt.” These lines jump off the page and nearly jump out of the poem. It is a declaration of fulfilled experiences to future generations. They are to carve out their own places in this world, but not before knowing they owe much to their ancestors, much more than they might believe possible. The past generations, for which Stevens becomes a spokesperson in this poem, are naturally creators. Stevens mentions a specific mansion in the wind and summarizes “We knew for long the mansion’s look / And what we said of it became / A part of what it is.” Through their words, the act of naming and describing, they crafted the essence of their times and, as aging requires, they bequeathed these accomplishments to the children growing rapidly into the places they previously occupied. These children, as Stevens points out, “Will speak our speech and never know.”

It might be true that every word, sentence, and paragraph has been written before. It might be true that original ideas are nearly impossible to come by these days. And it just might be true that we owe our art to the generations that preceded us, especially the most recent generation for continuing the traditions and styles. Still, don’t we also deserve credit. We recognize the “mansion” just as others have before us and we don’t shy away from describing it because Wallace Stevens or some other writer, actor, musician has described it as “A dirty house in a gutted world, / A tatter of shadows peaked to white, / Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.” There’s no rule stipulating that only one poem can be written about nightingales, sunsets, marching bands, or a host of other topics. The world would be a bland and uniform place is this was true. Fortunately for us, we have words, tethered to our memories, collectively supplied by our ancestors---immediate and ancient. Because of the generations before him, Wallace Stevens was able to write this poem, shining a poetic spotlight on the diminishing emphasis of gratitude to our ancestors, both blood and artistic. And in a small way, this brief essay continues the fight that Wallace Stevens took up with this poem, a fight he was almost certainly continuing for someone else before him.

Emily Dickinson - My Life Closed Twice

1732 (MY LIFE CLOSED TWICE BEFORE ITS CLOSE)

My life closed twice before its close–
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

--- Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson’s My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are the foremost American poets of the 19^th Century. This dazzling duo represents stark differences in writing styles. As we’ve already seen this month, Whitman’s imagination and vitality are incomparable. He subscribes to no rules and believes a holy world of possibility exists inside and around each of us. His contemporary, Emily Dickinson, could not be more different stylistically. Dickinson published very few poems in her life, kept to herself, and lived a life of morals and mystery. Her poems adhere to a strict rigidity in terms of rhyme, meter, and tone. Still, Dickinson shows immense flashes of creativity within the constructs of order she imposed upon her poems. I read her poems and marvel at the challenges she faced (mostly self created) as a writer. Ms. Dickinson and Mr. Whitman are the mother and father of American poetry. As one of their many children, it’s only fitting that I delve a little deeper into their poems.

My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close is a classic. If you were to check out poetry anthologies with Emily Dickinson included, I’m almost certain this poem would be one of her selections. Well received because of the depth and widespread appeal of the topics it addresses, this poem tackles the inescapable: life and death, heaven and hell. Dickinson begins the poem with a curious quartet of lines: “My life closed twice before its close— / It yet remains to see / If immortality unveil / A third event to me.” She creates the illusion of small deaths, the closures that exist in our life and dispatch feelings so final they appear to be preparation for our ultimate end. These crushing moments of loss and sorrow do little to make us excited for death, but after reflection and quiet moments we can glean some worth and value from them. Dickinson wonders if more small endings are in store; even though she doesn’t directly ask, there are undertones of anticipation. The tone she employs is not overtly angry, terrified, or dumbfounded. There is resignation in her simple lines, a forfeiting to the impending end that should be more than frightening to readers.

In the second quatrain, Dickinson clarifies that these events---the small closures---are not positive and, furthermore, they can’t be avoided. “Huge” and “hopeless” in her past, these endings have left a tangible scar on Dickinson. She expects more of the same. Humans are creatures of habit and routine; to draw from experiences in predicting the future is natural. What does she deduce? A memorable closing couplet “Parting is all we know of heaven / And all we need of hell.” What does that mean? Seriously, what does that mean? I’ve read this poem enough times to ask that question and formulate a varied assortment of answers. Tonight, as I read the poem, this is what it means to me: Heaven requires a faith driven separation from those still on earth with a distinct belief in a blessed reunion, while hell is a pariah and the ultimate punishment. We’ve only had one person come back from heaven, proving that the “parting” is particularly permanent. In the same breath, that parting is all we want of hell. We don’t need anyone to come back from hell to tell us how it is down there. Our imaginations are good for many things, and in this case they suffice to create our own conceptions of heaven and hell, conceptions that are more amazing and more terrifying than anything a first hand account could supply.

More so than any other poet, my interpretations of Emily Dickinson’s poetry changes as I acquire life experiences. Perspective is a strange thing---it can, and will, revolutionize our tastes in a gradual way. I might have read My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close when I was sixteen and hated it. Then, I might have revisited it at twenty five and loved it. And I could reread it at sixty two and abhor it again. These interpretations are contingent upon my life experiences coloring my readings of this poem. This is certainly the case with most poetry and artistic work in general, but I find certain writers trigger these evolving tastes more than others. Ms. Dickinson and Mr. Whitman are two I grow to love and respect more with each expiring breath. I get the feeling this fondness is bound to grow, rather than retract.

Bertolt Brecht - And I Always Thought and I Need No Gravestone

AND I ALWAYS THOUGHT

And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough. When I say what things are like
Everyone’s hearts must be torn to shreds.
That you’ll go down if you don’t stand up for yourself---
Surely you see that.

I NEED NO GRAVESTONE

I need no gravestone, but
If you need one for me
I wish the inscription would read:
He made suggestions. We
Have acted on them.
Such an epitaph would
Honor us all.

---Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht’s Two Poems

Today I include two poems from Bertolt Brecht, who some of you might know for his contributions to theater. These poems are from the same collection of East German writing as Peter Huchel’s poem Roads that I wrote about yesterday. Up to this point I’ve shared a poem a day, but I figured with their length it might be worth packaging these two poems together. They share a direct and honest tone, a reflection seemingly near the end of life, and the belief that simple resolutions might exist. Many people would read these poems and find little poetic about them. Heck, you might have read them and wondered why are these some of Matt’s favorite poems. I’ll tell you why: they are brave. While one admits wrongs and reverses beliefs, the other encapsulates a whole life into two lines. There is undeniable courage in both of those things.

And I Always Thought unravels a held belief for the sake of exploring the good and bad sides of it. The title segues into the first line and Brecht’s ideal that “the very simplest words / must be enough.” Brecht is laying his writing style on the line. Simple words---many writers have extolled the values of using the simple words and not clouding essays, stories, and poems with ostentatious words. We shouldn’t use words for the sake of showing that we know how to use them, we should use words because they are meant to be used in a specific situation. Brecht also believes whole-heartedly in the power of his words: “When I say what things are like / Everyone’s hearts must be torn to shreds.” I’m fascinated by his idealism and the hope he has in his own talents and their ability to profoundly impact others. He becomes a coach in the final two lines, telling us: “That you’ll go down if you don’t stand up for yourself--- / Surely you see that.” It is almost as if all of these lines are the personal credos Brecht has operated under for his entire life; now, he is reexamining them. The ambiguity of the poem’s title and first line is worth considering. And I Always Thought could imply a rethinking of these ideals, while it could also represent a reaffirmation of them. The poem lends itself to either interpretation, but in reading it countless times I think it’s clear that Brecht is not yet ready to give up on his beliefs. After all, he’s willing to record them in a poem and share them with others.

I Need No Gravestone is a frighteningly assured poem. From the very first line, the poet is convinced of his place in the world. He deals in absolutes. He doesn’t need a gravestone, but he’s willing to make a concession and offer to accept one if the world (and we) require one. Where would the poem go without this clever turn---we wouldn’t have a gravestone or inscription to consider. It’s sly, but after admitting he doesn’t need or want a gravestone, the poet then offers explicitly what it should say. This decisiveness and attention shows he’s been thinking about this---a lot. And in this inscription he compresses his life (and his words that he idealized in the first poem) to two lines: “He made suggestions. We / have acted upon them.” For someone who always thought the very simplest words must be enough, I wouldn’t have expected anything else.

Peter Huchel - Roads

ROADS

Choked sunset glow
Of crashing time.
Roads. Roads.
Intersections of flight.
Cart tracks across the ploughed field
That with the eyes
Of killed horses
Saw the sky in flames.

Nights with lungs full of smoke,
With the hard breath of the fleeing
When shots
Struck the dusk.
Out of a broken gate
Ash and wind came without a sound,
A fire
That sullenly chewed the darkness.

Corpses,
Flung over the rail tracks,
Their stifled cry
Like a stone on the palate.
A black
Humming cloth of flies
Closed their wounds.

---Peter Huchel (translated by Michael Hamburger)

Peter Huchel’s Roads

20^th century Eastern European poets were (and some still are) consumed with images. Their eyes are different than most poets’; their vision is sculpted by harsh landscapes, mysterious disappearances, and the lingering cloud of the state and communism. Michael Hamburger, the editor of the anthology East German Poetry, provided insight as to why poets like Peter Huchel are important, writing , “All of them, beginning with Brecht, have been preoccupied with moral and social problems to a degree rare among non-communist poets; and that is another reason why their work is, or should be, of special interest to American and British readers with no direct experience of an almost totally collectivized society.” Hamburger is correct; the artists, actors, writers, and poets are sometimes the best lens through which to view a society, especially one that is vastly different. Who knows, maybe during the Cold War our government was employing literati to pore over volumes of fresh writing from Soviet and Communist Bloc nations? That might have been military money well spent.

What can we learn now through a close reading of Peter Huchel’s poem Roads about life in East Germany during communist rule? Of course, we won’t learn logistics, statistics, and government secrets. What we will learn is the intricacies and nuances of being a citizen. The fears, which there were many, of the average man. The poem begins in violence: “Choked sunset glow / Of crashing time. Roads. Roads.” So many poems focus on the serene beauty of sunsets, whereas Huchel destroys that immediately by terming it a “choked” sunset. This implies violence, but also an unknown person or force committing the choking of the sunset. Additionally, the sunset isn’t a calm end to the day, instead it is “crashing time.” This introduction of time and place leads us to the poems main focus: roads. Already, we’re off to a bumpy start.

I find it interesting that in the examples of roads Huchel provides, the first is overtly the most positive of the bunch, yet it is also the most vague. “Intersections of flight” is an interesting definition of roads, but it also implies an industrious voyage beyond the constraints of the ground. I view this line as a glimpse of hope, because the rest of this first stanza is marred by death: “Cart tracks across the ploughed field / that with the eyes / of killed horses / saw the sky in flames.” These are the type of lines that jolt you from your seat. I remember reading this poem for the first time on a plane and I literally grabbed the armrest when I reached the end of the first stanza. The tracks of a ploughed field are representative of a valuable local road, but Huchel has them viewed through the eyes of killed horses. These horses aren’t just dead, they’ve been killed. There is a large difference, the kind that writers in communist countries would have noticed immediately.

From the flames the dead horses view, we land in a second stanza “with lungs full of smoke” and “hard breath of the fleeing.” We are now citizens of this dangerous state. Huchel invites us to join him as inhabitants of this broken land. Broken is an apropos adjective; Huchel uses it to describe a gate in this stanza, but so much of the land seems broken. There are shots that trigger the fleeing and a fire that “sullenly chewed the darkness.” There is no respite from the onslaught of disturbing images. The third stanza begins: “Corpses, / Flung over the rail tracks.” These corpses are treated to “a black / Humming cloth of flies” to shore up their wounds and gashes. The poem ends so gruesomely, and yet I’m in awe of the commonplace presentation of death. Death is not the rare moment that comes after a life has reached its completion; rather, death is common and indiscriminate, arriving for everyone, even the young. Is this the type of thing we might have found valuable to learn about life in East Germany years ago?

Claribel Alegria - Time Of Love

TIME OF LOVE

When you love me
I drop my polished mask
my smile becomes my own
the moon becomes the moon
and these very trees
of this instant
the sky
the light
presences that open
into vertigo
and are newly born
and are eternal
and your eyes as well
are born with them
your lips that in naming
discover me.
When I love you
I am sure I don’t end here
and that life is transitory
and death a transit
and time a blazing carbuncle
with no worn-out yesterdays
with no future.

---Claribel Alegria

Claribel Alegria’s Time Of Love

How can you not like a poem that utilizes the word “carbuncle”? I’ve found varying definitions of carbuncle, including deep skin inflammation, but the definition I believe Claribel Alegria to be working with is “any rounded red gem.” (Thank you Random House Webster’s College Dictionary) In all seriousness, what is there not to like about this poem? The most remarkable pieces of writing take a complex topic and simplify it, creating points of access for all readers. I think we can all agree that love is certainly a complex topic, and I would argue that Claribel Alegria streamlines love for us. Realizing the influence love exerts on her, the poem’s speaker details just how she changes, how her beloved changes, and how the world around them becomes different because of their love. The usage of carbuncle is just an added bonus.

The poem clarifies just where it’s going to take us in the title (Time of Love) and very first line (“When you love me”). There are no surprises here, we are entering a special moment in the speaker’s existence, a moment that we will come to learn is epiphanous. Her initial reaction to love is to a dropping of her “polished mask.” Love breaks us down to our bare bones, it requires that we come as we are when no one is watching, when we are alone amongst our truths. But love also rewards us, as Alegria’s speaker finds. She comments, “my smile became my own.” It wasn’t at some other instance of material gain or fleeting happiness that she first owned her smile. No, it was when he loved her. This is not to say that the “he” in this case, or any case, holds an immaculate power. Love requires two parties in concert with each other, aware of what is happening among them, yet completely unwilling to divert from their chosen course. In all honesty, those in the gentle grasp of love, such as Alegria and her lover, are powerless to prevent love from altering them. And who would want to resist such a sublime phenomenon?

“The moon becomes the moon / and these very trees / of this instant / the sky / the light / presences that open / into vertigo.” The natural world surrounds us every day; it has yet to go on vacation for well over 2000 years. Yet, we notice little of the world around us unless we are specifically looking. What causes our senses to heighten and focus---Love, of course. The convergence of nature and love in this poem is seamless. Alegria’s previous lines on the trees, moon, sky and light stretch and reach a point where they are “newly born / and are eternal / and your eyes as well / are born with them / your lips that in naming / discover me.” The love that creates her realization of the natural world around her also creates the features of her lover that are responsible for the love. I won’t even pretend that the concepts from that last sentence are clear, still I will offer this bit of explanation: the love that Claribel Alegria guides us through in this poem is reaching her core and in doing so it’s manifesting itself at her beginning, end, and all points in between. This is a poem not just about love, but time also. The ending hones in on the pressure love can exert on time. As Alegria notices, “When I love you / I am sure I don’t end here.” In the poem’s world, time is a red rounded gem, it made beautiful and blazing by love. Maybe the only pure way to reach true immortality is to wholly, and unabashedly love another person, submitting yourself completely to the changes they create in your world and the changes you make in theirs.

Stanley Kunitz - The Portrait

THE PORTRAIT

My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long lipped stranger
with a brave mustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

---Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz’s The Portrait

If you are like me, you have a penchant for poems that end with an explosion. The final lines need to ratchet up the intensity and send us on our way saying “wow” or “what just happened.” Poems that end with a serene, pastoral image can be refreshing as well, but I’m drawn to the grand finale. The blank, white space after the end of a poem provides a natural pause and ending with an emotionally charged image or declaration allows the poet to take advantage of that white space. Stanley Kunitz provides us with The Portrait, a perfect example of a poem that ends with a boom. Intensely personal and daringly introspective, Kunitz braves the tempests of his family’s tragic past to better understand his place in the world today.

My affinity for bold closing lines also extends to bold opening lines. “My mother never forgave my father / for killing himself.” That certainly is a strong way to begin the poem. Bookending that beginning with the slap at the end of the poem creates two powerful points of emotion through which the poem passes (See, I’m hearkening back to our Amichai Geometry lesson). From those beginning lines, Kunitz threads out another important detail. As if his father’s killing himself wasn’t reason alone for his mother to be angry, Stanley details further circumstances: he did it in a public park, it was spring, and it was an awkward time because Stanley was “waiting to be born.” The poet builds those details upon each other, saving the juiciest and most troubling for last, allowing the sting to build and linger. Clearly, this is preparation for a similar sting at the poem’s close.

What was his mother’s reaction to her husband’s tragic suicide? “She locked his name / in her deepest cabinet / and would not let him out, / though I could hear him thumping.” Her efforts to erase his existence and suppress the pain and anger he has caused are ultimately counterproductive. Stanley “hears him thumping” and that is enough for him to liberate his father by at least recognizing his previous existence. He retrieves a portrait of his father from the attic. Notice Stanley’s description of his father: “a long lipped stranger / with a brave mustache / and deep brown level eyes.” I can’t locate in my mind exactly why I adore that description. It seems to capture the tension and awkwardness of not knowing this person who gave him life and wanting to love him even though he left in such desperation and mystery.

There is nothing in this poem to lead us to believe that Stanley’s mother would show any compassion or forgiveness to her deceased husband. It must take overwhelming energy to banish him from her memory, to erase him from the past. When Stanley presents the portrait of his father she reacts in the only way she can: “she ripped it into shreds / without a single word / and slapped me hard.” The matter-of-fact nature of her actions, and his recounting of them, is shocking. Certainly emotion exists in this situation, but the removal of it supplies the poem with a rush of terror. With that terror still fresh in our minds, Kunitz lets us into his mind: “In my sixty-fourth year / I can feel my cheek / still burning.” The courage it took to write this poem and expose himself to the world is bountiful and admirable. Stanley Kunitz was regarded as a great teacher of poets, an old sage who young poets flocked to, but he was also a masterful poet himself. The Portrait very well might have the best combination of opening and closing lines of any poem I’ve ever read. It starts with a bang, ends with a bang, and the lines in-between aren’t too bad either.

Yehuda Amichai - Through Two Points Only One Straight Line Can Pass

THROUGH TWO POINTS ONLY ONE STRAIGHT LINE CAN PASS

(Theorem in geometry)

A planet once got married to a star,
and inside, voices talked of future war.
I only know what I was told in class:
through two points only one straight line can pass.

A stray dog chased us down an empty street.
I threw a stone; the dog would not retreat.
The king of Babel stooped to eating grass.
Through two points only one straight line can pass.

Your small sob is enough for many pains,
as locomotive power can pull long trains.
When will we step inside the looking-glass?
Through two points only one straight line can pass.

At times I stands apart, at times it rhymes
with you, at times we’s singular, at times
plural, at times I don’t know what. Alas,
through two points only one straight line can pass.

Our life of joy turns to a life of tears,
our life eternal to a life of years.
Our life of gold became a life of brass.
Through two points only one straight line can pass.

---Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai’s Through Two Points Only One Straight Line Can Pass

Even though I rocked a B+ in 9^th Grade Honors Geometry, I wasn’t much of a geometry student. Students are taught many subjects, exposed to different ways of thinking and diverse skill sets that will prove useful in the ultimate quest to figure out what it is they enjoy and are suited for. Still, students are prone to asking and re-asking viable questions. Will I need to know this in the real world? How will I use these skills? And my personal favorite: Do I need to know math if I’m going to be famous and someone else will handle all my finances for me? To all of these questions I would offer a unified response: yes you will use these skills in the real world, yes they are important, and just stop asking questions and pay attention for once. There are vast portions of me that wish I could go back and study some of the subjects that I treated with vague and pretentious disinterest in high school. I always tried hard and cared supremely about my grades, but I can’t say that I cared as much about mastering these topics and skills so that I could use them in the future.

It’s strange---I don’t utilize the Pythagorean theorem or measure angles on a daily basis, but I notice the principles of geometry in dealings with people. At a party, the group of three folks chatting on the balcony forms a fine equilateral triangle. The boy stocking in the frozen foods section at the grocery store stacks cylindrical tubs of butter. And the line I’ve walked every morning for a month to the subway station includes two points: the front doors of my apartment and the covered station where I stand beside the beautiful woman who listens to God-knows-what upon her Ipod, diligently ignoring me. Other branches of math may be more readily applicable, but geometry is the thinking man’s math because it is consistently with us just waiting to be plucked and put to work.

The Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai was blessed with one of the most active and reactive imaginations this world has ever seen. He has the astonishing ability to take happenings, on a personal and historical level, filter them through his imagination, and then reveal them to readers in surprising images, similes, and metaphors. The surprise arrives in how easily these images grow, or sometimes appear fully-grown. If you have not had the chance to sample some of Yehuda Amichai’s poems, I highly recommend starting with The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. In this fine collection you will find a tapestry of poems focused on love, longing, religion, Judaism, the holocaust, Israel, family, and nature. Amichai’s poems are refreshing; I read them and feel myself overwhelmed by awe and comfort, as if the poems and words are familiar, but that familiarity enhances, rather than weighs down, the poems.

Through Two Points Only One Straight Line Can Pass is a poem that carved its way into my mind and then stomped back and forth for days, like a new soldier learning to march in formation. It is the type of poem that makes sure you will not ignore it and you will not read it just once. The connections between the stanzas and characters in this poem exist, but they are loose at times. The thumbtack that pins them all together is that oddly poetic geometry theorem ending each stanza. I often catch myself describing a poem by looking at its trajectory: how does the poem rise and fall, what causes these undulations, and other metaphorically inclined questions allowing me to act as if I know a thing or two about science and believe it to be useful in poetry. Amichai’s poem follows the theorem, but spends just as much time walking the straight line as it does exposing the peripheries surrounding the line. This poem isn’t just about the road, its about the forest that borders the road, the cottage in the forest, the lumberjack in the cottage, and the memory of his mother’s voice singing him to sleep firmly planted in the lumberjack’s mind. It may be true that only one straight line can pass through two points, but there is much starting, stopping, and zig-zagging before that line straightens out.

The poem begins at the beginning. We have a planet and stars, a strange union that precipitates and presupposes impending war. The speaker washes his hands of the ending point of war by introducing the poem’s refrain: “I only know what I was told in class: / through two points only one straight line can pass.” From the wide lens focus of the world beginning and ending, Amichai narrows the focus to the speaker and a trusted friend, or lover. They are chased by a persistent stray dog, undeterred by stones. He notes the strength of his companions sobs, comparing them to the “locomotive power” that fuels trains. In these instances we see the departure point and the arrival point, but we also miss the filling, and in the omission we realize how deprived a straight line is.

The penultimate stanza introduces some grammar play into the poem. The unexpected is declared true. We know “I” and “you” are far from forming a perfect rhyme, yet Amichai theorizes this. I want to believe him (and I do believe him, on some level) but this is an instance of showing how much can be lost in the unflinching path blazed by a straight line, especially one that is characterized by only two points. We don’t know the circumstances or the word bending that took place to cause these words to rhyme, or to make “we” simultaneously plural and singular. I smile when I read the mock give-up that Amichai includes in this stanza: “at times I don’t know what.” But what the speaker does know is “through two points only one straight line can pass.” The application of geometry to real life hits a thumping stride in the final stanza when the view shifts back to the world in general. Joy and tears; eternal life and a life measured in years; gold and brass; all of these are poles through which the proverbial straight line passes. The math doesn’t lie in this case, but it requires poetry---on behalf of literature and the arts---to illuminate the line’s texture. Unlike geometry, the lines that comprise our lives are defined by the space between the points, by the un-straightness of our lines.

Walt Whitman - Song Of The Open Road (section 5)

SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD

-5-

From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds
that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and the north and
the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me
I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

---Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman’s Song Of The Open Road

As I’ve compiled the poems and essays for this blog, I’ve treated myself to the task of retyping some of my favorite poems into Microsoft Word files, which I’ve saved into a folder titled FAVORITE POEMS. The act of typing these great poets’ poems has the same impact as sticking my finger into a light socket, minus the burns and serious injuries. I can’t help but record these courageous poems and not spark a little something beautiful and tidy inside myself. Typing their words, I feel a debt of gratitude accruing inside of me, but I also notice the words breaking free and becoming my own. By the time I’ve reached the ends of most of these poems I’ve felt the words clinging to me like a child to a parent’s leg on the first day of preschool. The poems don’t want me to go. This could all be wishful thinking on my part, but there is a transfer of ownership in the process of copying these poems. I’m not sure what to compare this to; it is surreal and just might be native to poetry. Does repainting the Mona Lisa allow you to bond with Da Vinci? Does sitting at a piano and playing Moonlight Sonata commence a meeting with Beethoven? I’m not sure, but I know that in typing this fifth section of Song Of The Open Road I felt Walt Whitman joining me. What a privilege his presence was. (Notice the use of “presence.” And now the blog comes full circle. Yes, it was Walt who coined the phrase “we convince by our presence.” In fact, that phrase first appeared in a later section of Song Of The Open Road.)

While some poems reflect on the past, this poem---like so many of Whitman’s masterpieces---takes the immediate present as a launching point for a momentous and well-lived future. The first four sections of Song Of The Open Road are chained to the journey’s expectations and preparations. They represent unlocking the car, buckling the seat belt, checking the mirrors, turning the key in the ignition, tuning the radio station, and shifting into reverse to ease from a parking space. This fifth section is revving the motor. Ensuing sections will screech down “the open road” at blazing speeds. The extended metaphor of a car ride works in this case. Walt was a daring and voracious traveler; he was a connoisseur of people; he stretched his days so they would contain more encounters and experiences. The open road was home to him. He pursued, but even Walt needed a declaration to steady his nerves and unleash his limitless sense of adventure.

I could have chosen many other more famous and beloved Whitman poems, but I chose this brief section from Song Of The Open Road for a specific reason: it is an undeniable affirmation of confidence and discovery. No matter where you are in your life, this poem delivers hope and possibility, two qualities Walt Whitman is always good for. From the epic strength of the first line (“From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines”) to the come-what-may acceptance of the final lines (“Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, / Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me”), this poem exudes a contagious confidence and comfort in self. These are not false platitudes meant to sell greeting cards, steer troubled celebrities from rehab, or provide ammunition for bullied youths. Whitman’s declarations in this poem are rooted in a truth that many of his followers believe to be spiritual, with Walt as the high priest and prophet. He declares his independence endearingly, when he very easily could have bungled many of the lines in this poem by overcompensating with a brash swagger. There is nothing but truth and magnetism in his central realization “I am larger, better than I thought, / I did not know I held so much goodness.” Each of us deserves an epiphany of self like the one Walt experiences in this poem.

Amazingly enough, Whitman balances the large revelations of self with intrinsic connections with others. He pauses to “inhale” the gravity of his decision to fully explore the “open road,” but the pause is brief; Whitman appreciates that the beauty he finds is tied to others. He connects with others saying “You have done such good to me I would do the same to you, / I will recruit for myself and you as I go.” This isn’t a hollow promise; indeed, Walt Whitman made no hollow promises. He will go on to make you proud---the you he will know hundreds of years later through the faint connection of reading his words, absorbing a spindle of his magnificent spirit, his boundless imagination, his incomparable zeal for life. He may be long dead, but Walt continues to convince by his presence.

Philip Levine - They Feed They Lion

THEY FEED THEY LION

Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.
Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride,
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps,
Out of the bones’ need to sharpen and the muscles’ to stretch,
They Lion grow.
Earth is eating trees, fence posts,
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones,
“Come home, Come home!” From pig balls,
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness,
From the furred ear and the full jowl come
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose
They Lion grow.
From the sweet glues of the trotters
Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower
Of the hams the thorax of caves,
From “Bow Down” come “Rise Up,”
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels,
The grained arm that pulls the hands,
They Lion grow.
From my five arms and all my hands,
From all my white sins forgiven, they feed,
From my car passing under the stars,
They Lion, from my children inherit,
From the oak turned to a wall, they Lion,
From they sack and they belly opened
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth
They feed they Lion and he comes.

---Philip Levine

Philip Levine’s They Feed They Lion

It's no wonder that the Bible is a storytelling masterpiece. The use of literary techniques, such as anaphora (repetition of the same word or phrase to start numerous lines), was groundbreaking. The influence the Bible has had on ensuing generations of writers continues to remain monumental, case in point: Philip Levine’s They Feed They Lion. The poem’s incantations combine with volatile and strange images to leave readers mesmerized. Like the writers of the Bible, Levine charts a history around central themes. Exploitation, greed, and consumption---often disguised, but heavily utilized---are at the forefront of this poem. When these serious topics collide with an authentic, psalm-like voice, the resulting string of images is ominous and prepares the way for a shocking arrival.

I can’t help but read this poem and hear strains of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, although the brands of disillusionment that Levine and Kerouac subscribe to are vastly different. While both express frustration with a societal system that rewards hard work at high risk (but low cost for employers), Levine’s take on the plight of the average worker is desperate, dangerous, and determined to break free. Kerouac’s characters sought to “live” restlessly, traveling and experiencing because they knew the alternative was to end up like the workers that populate Levine’s They Feed They Lion. Maybe it doesn’t matter how you get out, or how you make the decision to leave, but that you do break free.

The list that Levine begins the poem with is startling. “Out of” the gritty foods, fuels, and tools of manual labor, “They Lion grow.” Many essays of criticism I’ve read on this poem suggest this strange syntax of “They Lion grow” is meant to imitate the speech patterns of the factory workers and other laborers Levine grew up with and amongst in Detroit. I enjoy this unorthodox wording that defines the poem and serves as a frightening refrain. The lion that consistently grows throughout the poem is disturbing because it grows inside these average folks scraping away to survive. People in this poem are always a quantity to be measured, they are “stumps” or “bones” or “muscles’ to stretch.” And these people are the most susceptible to the harshness of the world, the reality that comes knocking on their doors whether they have the owed money or not. With the frenetic pace Levine employs in this poem, it seems effortless and natural that “Earth is eating trees, fence posts, / Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones.” Levine reverses the course of nature, flipping it so that the unnatural is natural. I see clear brilliance in this move and I credit this brilliance to a preponderance of vivid images, an excellent command of syntax, and a trance-like repetition and refrain that propels the poem and pauses it for a breather at just the right moments.

How can I write about this poem and not devote my attention to the shocking and disturbing ending. Ingrained policies and prophecies would have us believe that a returning “he” in the final stanza is a good thing. Christian theology and teaching would intrinsically point to the resurgence of Jesus Christ. But is there anything in this poem up to that point to make one believe that Jesus is present, or would even return to the desolate landscape Levine has captured? The workers, compared to animals (pigs) throughout the poem, is far from the beautiful view of unique human beings created in the image of God. The poem’s land is one where workers, the nature of their work, and the distant, mysterious owners all are complicit, to varying degrees, in the growth of the proverbial lion. When the poem reaches its crescendo in the final stanza, pulling on children, forgiveness, and a car passing under the stars---seemingly positive images---we should be prepared for these unlikely beacons of hope to mutate before our eyes, but there is an awesome quality to the precise destruction that Levine leaves us with. The “belly opened / And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth / They feed they Lion and he comes.” There is an amplified level of terror in this end, particularly because the ultimate evil, the impending “he” that very well could be the anti-Christ, lies within. He springs from the open belly and the oil stained earth (a side question, just who is responsible for the oil-stains on earth? The answer to that is a large indicator of if this "he" character is good or bad). The abrupt end with this distressing revelation is a near perfect contrast to the repetition, anaphora, and stunted syntax that has fueled the poem up to that point. Using biblical literary techniques, utilized previously to prepare the way for the Lord, to prepare the way for an anti-Lord is haunting. While I don't want to live in this type of world, I do want to read about it.

Gwendolyn Brooks - We Real Cool

WE REAL COOL

---The Pool Players. Seven At The Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

---Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks’ We Real Cool

Voice is imperative in writing, especially poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks’ We Real Cool is the poem I read when I try to understand voice. This poem proves why voice is imperative to good poetry, how effortless it can truly be, and the invariable difficulty of sustaining an authentic voice. The third person plural narrative that dominates this relatively short poem is an intriguing access point. I’ve read this poem hundreds of times and I see two major interpretations, both of which are contingent upon a feature of the poem’s and poet’s voice. Are we, as readers, meant to be included in the “We” group that this poem focuses upon, or are we, as readers, meant to be viewing them, and thus the “We,” as a brazen means of self-identification with a hint of self-publicity? I can go either way on that one because I could make a case for either side. In fact, that’s a great idea, let me put my thinking cap on and see how this works out.

Case #1: “We” includes the audience. Plainly put, the poem is more shocking and influential if we are members of the pool players at The Golden Shovel. We didn’t make the decision to join this fast living crew, we chose to read a poem and became members of a group on the fringes of upstanding society. We are gritty; we are dangerous; we are ill-informed. Gwendolyn Brooks makes us one of these young fools and in becoming one of them we fully comprehend just what the poem is about: the invincibility of youth gone a step too far to the ultimate waste of life.

And here we have Case #2: “We” does not include the audience. The speaker of the poem is the oral secretary for a group that wants nothing more than to live life on their own terms, which includes letting the world know just how they live. You, reading this poem, are not one of them. There is a sense of exclusivity to their inherent stupidity. The code they operate on is transparent, and yet it is solely theirs. The declarations made with “We” are meant to clarify that these are things “We” do, not you. Heck, you can try and do these things on your own, but you won’t be a part of our group.

In hindsight, I’m not sure either of the two preceding cases are overly compelling, which just might be the evidence necessary to declare that it doesn’t matter how you interpret the poem; the voice is what matters. The voice is always what matters, and Gwendolyn Brooks was a dazzling curator and technician of poetic voice. Her collection The Bean Eaters features one poem after another enriched with memorable voices. In We Real Cool, voice propels the poem forward, aided by hard enjambments that manipulate repetition. The hanging “We” that ends every line (except for the conspicuous final line) adds pace to the poem. This pace is the heartbeat of the poem’s voice. The emphasis on the “We” also serves to augment the poem’s theme, clearly spotlighting the premium these young folks place on being part of a group. I’m also enamored with the fact that this poem is strictly made of single syllable words. Simplicity oozes from this poem’s pores, but these monosyllabic words are still capable of deep meaning. And how can I write another sentence without mentioning the clever rhyme scheme. The hanging “We” embeds the rhyme within the line, where we find two additional off rhymes in the middle stanzas (lurk and strike, as well as sing and thin). The haunting, abrupt end mirrors the impending fate that this group has resigned themselves to. How do we know they will “Die soon”? Gwendolyn Brooks made sure they tell us with their own voice.

April 16, 2008 - A Prayer For Understanding

Today, I'm breaking with the format that has served this blog so well for two and a half weeks to provide a special poem on the one year anniversary of the massacre at Virginia Tech. April 16, 2007 was the worst day of my life. That last sentence is not hyperbole, it represents stark truth. The ensuing days, weeks, and months of grief continue to change me and many other Hokies. In the year that has passed, I've thought about our school and our community every day. How can I not think about Virginia Tech? I work for a college recruiting students; a natural question at college fairs or in my daily dealings with students is 'where did you go to school?' My pride in Virginia Tech trumps my pride in anything or anyone. Watching our students, alumni, faculty, and staff eloquently articulate their shock and grief in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy was nearly as mind-boggling as watching the breaking news coverage of the tragedy itself. Even now, a year later, I can't utilize the cognitive and analytical skills necessary to fully convey, in words, the depth of my thoughts and emotions. For these students to have been able to complete this task on cameras that were transmitting their images all around the globe mere days after this happened is a miracle. To my understanding, I have not seen any coverage of the tragedy that showed Virginia Tech community members espousing hatred and rage. We love each other, we love our school, and our instincts lead us to heal together, rather than divide. This was not a time for blame or accountability, a time for politics or policy. We invited others outside our community to grieve with us; we needed them to lift us.

I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever be able to quantify what I have learned or what I was supposed to learn from the April 16th tragedy. Living in New England, far from the New River Valley and Blacksburg, I find myself an ambassador for my school. When I drive my jeep with the Virginia Tech Alumni license plate holder, people stop me to ask about my opinions on the tragedy. When I wear my orange Virginia Tech sweatshirt to the grocery store, strangers approach me and say they are sorry. These types of encounters are dwindling now, but I still have them. In these moments, I feel called to represent my school with the integrity and poise others have shown. The current motto in Virginia Tech's marketing campaign, "We are Virginia Tech," borrows heavily from Dr. Giovanni's stirring speech. It is simple and it is true. Maybe I will continue to learn new things, gather new bits of wisdom, from this tragedy for the rest of my life. What I know now, one year later, is this: The greatest compliment someone can give me is that when you think of Virginia Tech you think of me.

In my blog this month I've focused on some poems that masterfully internalize grief and pain to externalize these emotions in art. For a year I've been trying to write about April 16th and for most of that time I couldn't produce anything without getting a few lines in and finding it to be too painful. A few months back I decided to try writing a poem in the format of a prayer asking for understanding on the behalf of the Virginia Tech community. I think each of us wonders why this happened, why it happened to us, and why God let it happen? These are questions without answers, but that doesn't mean our ability to ask them should be stifled. Since I've started working on this poem it's undergone more than 50 drafts and I have the feeling it will probably undergo 50 more. I'm not sure it will ever feel complete to me, but my hope is that it will someday become more than a therapeutic exercise, that it will become a piece of art.



A Prayer For Understanding
for Virginia Tech


I will swallow this tragedy.
It will travel in my blood.
And when I am gone
These words will stir
The chill of that morning
Into the veins of others.
There will be no forgetting.
We could have clenched
Our fists around mercy
And released none.
We could have declared
'If anyone has the right
To be ruthless, it is us.'
We could have succumbed
To questions. Certainly,
This happened for a reason?
I am tired of being told
I must understand
In times like these
There are no answers.
Our pain entitles us
To be heard, to ask
When we will lift
Our eyes to a sunset
Rolling from the Blue Ridges
Upon our stone campus
And in the pink twilight
That could be dawn or dusk,
Speak with their silenced voices
The truth that remains:
This is our home,
These are our people.

---Matthew Kaberline

William Carlos Williams - This Is Just To Say

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

---William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams’s This Is Just To Say

For every person that loves vanilla ice cream there’s another who absolutely abhors vanilla. It’s simple, it’s bland, it’s what many would call flavorless. What’s exciting about that? Is it not predictable? Flip that coin and you’ll find the folks who adore vanilla cream and find it hard to imagine the world without it. These people point to vanilla’s simple flavor as the base of many other flavors. Would we have cookies and cream, cookie dough, and countless other flavors without vanilla? Vanilla provides a flavor to combine with and contrast against. My extended ice cream metaphor is causing my sweet tooth to ache; it has dragged on for long enough. Like vanilla ice cream, the poetry of William Carlos Williams is polarizing.

The venerable Dr. Williams is probably most well known for the image driven, sixteen- word poem The Red Wheelbarrow. A staple of many high school English classes, The Red Wheelbarrow has been known to drive sixteen year olds in hives and cold sweats. What is the red wheelbarrow a symbol of? What does it mean? Why does so much depend upon it? These are the types of questions that teenagers hate. They read something that seems simple on the surface and when they’re asked to find a deeper meaning (even if there isn’t one…oh this is cruel, indeed) they freak out, questioning their intelligence. William Carlos Williams’s reputation for crafting tiny, difficult poems is a travesty. In examining his poetry as a whole, you would find the majority of his poems don’t resemble This Is Just To Say or The Red Wheelbarrow. It is a mistake to pigeonhole Williams, and yet many readers do after being exposed solely to one of the aforementioned poems.

Whereas The Red Wheelbarrow made me shrug my shoulders the first time I read it, This Is Just To Say made me chuckle. It didn’t make me laugh, it made me chuckle. Chuckling is far more pleasant, far less boisterous, and requires a realization of the wit and intelligence that went into a humorous construct. William Carlos Williams earns a hundred thousand chuckles for This Is Just To Say. It’s undoubtedly simple (like vanilla ice cream) but the poem manipulates so many things to brilliant levels. Just by reading the poem, we’re made into characters, complicit in a situation that’s both amusing and frustrating. The title functions effortlessly as the first line of the poem, acting as a disclaimer for the admission of guilt that serves as the poem’s reason for existence. There’s a “good old days” quality about this poem that is oh so easy to fall head over heals in love with. Our speaker has eaten the plums that were in the icebox. No, they weren’t in a fridge or a freezer, but they were in an icebox. If that doesn’t take you back some years, well, I don’t know what will.

In the second of the poem’s three mini stanzas, the speaker indicates a knowing sense that transforms his act. Eating the plums could have been careless, but when he confides: “and which / you were probably / saving / for breakfast,” his act of petty thievery reaches a plateau of egregiousness. There is a sarcasm in the apology that follows: “Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold.” The apology’s sincerity evaporates into the taunt that describes the goodness of the consumed plums. But there’s also a wicked cuteness to his mock contrition, almost a flirty, catch-me-if-you-can quality. I’ve often wondered how William Carlos Williams accomplishes so much in so few words. It is a poem worth studying for that question alone. I could go every day with a helping of this little poem, even if some folks would write it off as vanilla.