Archaic Torso of Apollo --- Rainer Maria Rilke

Archaic Torso of Apollo



We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

---Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell



Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke


If you've followed my blog the last few years then you know that I'm a sucker for strong endings. A poem that packs a punch at the end is more likely to stick with me than one that fizzles into the ether. Sure, there are instances when a contemplative conclusion is necessary, but far too often for my tastes contemporary poets opt for the quiet fade. I'm not sure why they do this—maybe out of fear that they'll produce a nice tidy ending? In my own writing I often opt for a strong ending because it allows me to better understand the poem and to understand why I'm writing it. Sometimes the initial ending will find another part of the poem more hospitable, but that exercise of crystalizing the poem in some small way acts as the final movement in my creative process. When I'm teaching poetry workshops I often advise students to try a seemingly simple exercise in revision. I ask them to write the gist of their poem in a single short sentence. Striping their writing down to a raw, base level, students often find the extra haymaker their poem seemed to be lacking. There is some belief that wrapping everything up neatly without any questions or doubts is juvenile and not worthy of lasting, meaningful literature. I could not disagree more and offer Rainer Maria Rilke's wonder work "Archaic Torso Of Apollo" as proof to the contrary.

On first glance years ago, a poem about an "archaic" statue did not pique my interest. What did I care about the body of an old, dead, mythological god? I still don't blame anyone who sees the title of this poem and decides to flip the page, but this oversight would be a horrible mistake. Rilke makes a boring figure rustle and rumble with life. How Rilke accomplishes this feat is particularly interesting: after surveying the external body, he quickly turns his keen eye to the "brilliance from inside" that Apollo possesses. There is life inside of this lifeless statue, from his "eyes like ripening fruit" to "his gaze, now turned to low, / gleams in all its power." The key to Apollo's presence is the aforementioned "brilliance from inside." Rilke notes that the statue is "suffused" with this brilliance and makes the comparison to a lamp shining forth. Without this inner force that has permeated this sculpture, "the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could / a smile run through the placid hips and thighs / to that dark center where procreation flared." If we can view a piece of art, particularly a human sculpture, and see actual life then the artist has done a remarkable job accomplishing a challenging task. I assume Rilke would agree with that last sentence, but it is merely a launching point for the deeper issues this poem delves into.

The life we see in the sculpture is intrinsically linked with Apollo and his mythology, the sculptor and his artistic vision, the poet and his own artistic vision, and the audience (us) with our varied life experiences. Without all of these features working in unison the "stone would seem defaced…and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur…would not, from all the borders of itself, / burst like a star." Because we have the historic context, the art, and the audience all together in one quasi-community, Rilke asserts a strange consciousness that all parties share. As you read this poem, Apollo has been dead for thousands of years (if he ever actually existed) and the artist has presumably been dead for a while as well, even Rilke is dead. The only ones physically alive are us, the audience, and even when we die this poem will live on for years to come with new audiences. With that bit of contextual information, it becomes undeniably clear that the final two lines of the poem are meant for the living.

On a personal level, I find the ending to contain a grand and clever transformation---in fact, I'll go out on a limb and proclaim it the best ending of a poem that I've ever read. It's the type of ending that storms the reader's soul and conquers doubts, fears, apathies, and any other impurities. If Apollo has his "gleam" inside him, then the end of the poem is taking that gleam and lighting a proverbial fire under our backsides. Still, this isn't your typical Carpe Diem message. After all the descriptions of Apollo and his body, Rilke flips the script in the final two lines and now Apollo is the one viewing us. This inanimate sculpture is staring down each and every one of us in the audience…and it is not a pleasant gaze. "For here there is no place / that does not see you." There is an accountability and responsibility in that line that will terrify most people. If you aren't feeling the pangs of guilt, Rilke uses the final line to demand "You must change your life." If you thought this was a harmless poem about a statue, boy were you wrong! This is a poem about a poet challenging you to live your life and not resort to the comfortable complacency of a statue.

I read this poem often. And even though it has a tightly constructed ending, it is a immensely challenging piece of literature. Wherever you are in life this is a poem that requires you to take a step back, evaluate, and then act. Recently as I've read this poem I've looked at the final line as the beginning of another poem. This has morphed into a fun mini writing exercise that produces different results from day to day. Take the final line of Rilke's poem (You must change your life) as a first line and from there go ahead and produce nine lines of your own. I'm curious to see what you come up with and if this exercise works for you like it has for me. Here's a recent effort that I came up with; it's not anything groundbreaking, but I like it:

YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE
(After Rilke)


Charge into the unknown darkness
and crack those useless fears
staking you to the tidy tract,
release the past—people, places, words
you promised you'd never forget—
feel them traveling within you,
sharing your breath, embracing
your most beautiful struggle. Each of us
must discover our joyful purpose;
you are almost there. Go!

The Kiss --- Stephen Dunn

The Kiss

"She pressed her lips to mind" --- a typo



How many years I must have yearned
for someone's lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.

She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.

Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she's missed.
How had I ever settled for less?

I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek's ear,
speaking sense. It's the Good,

defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. We married as soon as we could.


---Stephen Dunn



The Kiss by Stephen Dunn


Oh how I love when greatness comes out of a mistake. Are there any more humble origins for successes than mistakes? A stale, moldy piece of bread trumps countless hours of lab research in the discovery of powerful antibiotics; a misplaced comma or two is the difference between one million dollars and one dollar; a fluttering of wind steers a ship far enough off course that it reaches a new land, America, and not the West Indies. An abundance of world-altering discoveries are rooted in mistakes. Powerful business minds, people like Jack Welch, Bill Gates, even Oprah, are often critical of young students and their fear of mistakes. The fear of being wrong pigeonholes us to a safe tract; what great discoveries have been made from the safe tract? I see what these folks are getting at. Mistakes provide the best learning experiences possible. In fact, our missteps are sometimes not even missteps at all, but mere launching off points for epiphanies. In his poem The Kiss, Stephen Dunn seizes upon a harmless, mindless typo to create a beautiful poem that plumbs the emotional depths a single kiss can accomplish. Someone else's mistake is the catalyst for Dunn's treasured poem.

Before anything else it is funny: "She pressed her lips to mind." Reading that line surely induces a chuckle, as it should. Mistakes are funny because they are unexpected and goofy. It would be simple to stop at that and move on, maybe telling someone about the typo over coffee later in the day. Dunn doesn't take the simple path. Pressing lips to mind is a fascinating image, both scientific, spiritual, sensual, and strangely comforting. This realization is where the poem begins, asking "How many years I must have yearned / for someone's lips against mind." Yes, he's having a little fun with a pun of his own, but again this is just the beginning. He imagines "Pheromones, newly born, were floating / between us," and with that we are transported to a new world where "there was hardly any air." This breathlessness gives an immediacy and magic to the world and to the kiss.

"She kissed me again, reaching that place / that sends messages to toes and fingertips." Wow, that is some deep kiss, but it makes sense that lips upon mind would achieve such a cerebral connection. This melding of mind and body, of the physical with the intellectual, seems indicative of the purest love. How many times do you hear 'I love her for her personality' or 'He has an exquisite mind' and question the validity of these statements? Dunn is showing us a true representation of loving someone's mind with your body; a kiss to the mind, a transfer of the physical, emotional, and intellectual at the same time. Pardon the pun, but it's mind-blowing. The kiss doesn't just orbit to his bodies furthest points, but it probes inward "all the way to something like home." While it reaches for his most comfortable and guarded places, Dunn obliges, noting "some music was playing on its own."

I want to pause for a moment from the analysis to look at a few technical aspects Dunn has mastered with this poem. While the poem is eighteen lines in length, I would still contend it is a modified sonnet. The subject matter certainly fits the bill for a sonnet, focusing on a kiss, albeit a metaphysical one, and the romance that accompanies it. Most of the lines are roughly similar in length and syllables. The stanzas are organized into quatrains, with a final couplet at the end. There is also the skeleton of a rhyme scheme within the poem, especially apparent in the middle of the poem. 'Home' and 'own' provide a near perfect rhyme in the second stanza, while 'missed' and 'less' deliver the same in the third stanza. The near rhymes (or slant rhymes, if you prefer) in the fourth stanza and final couplet are a little less obvious, but they are there. It might seem lackadaisical at first, but Dunn has done something very clever with rhyme scheme in this poem. Think about the action that is taking place in the poem and the theme it represents. The rhyme scheme begins to appear in the second stanza when the kiss is first beginning and Dunn has music playing on its own. As he slips into the trance the kiss creates and considers the woman doing the kissing, the rhymes continue in the third stanza. In the fourth stanza he tries to evaluate the kiss, and this breaking free to the rational also represents a departure from the rhyme scheme that was popping up in the poem. Dunn has given us a dashing example of tying all of the poem's moving parts together, without drawing attention to his handiwork.

In the midst of this amazing kiss Dunn makes sure to praise the woman for the wonderful gift she is giving him. "Nothing like a woman who knows / to kiss the right thing at the right time." Sure, I could focus on the innuendo in those lines, but that innuendo belies a skillfully buried feature within the compliment. The woman "knows," meaning she has knowledge, not just of the kiss, but of what Dunn loves. This knowing carefully loops back to the poem's beginning when "she pressed her lips to mind." A sign that she is completely knowledgeable, caring, and aware, she "then kisses the things she's missed." I get the sense that she missed things on purpose so that in returning to them there's extra emphasis, but one could easily argue that she doesn't miss anything at all. Either way, Dunn knows, without a doubt, that he is a lucky man, asking about this new kiss, "How had I ever settled for less?"

As with all good kisses, the brain seems to get in the way and force an ending. When Dunn begins to analyze the kiss and thinks "this is intelligence, / the wisest tongue / since the Oracle got into a Greek's ear," he's dooming the kiss to an end. Maybe "dooming" is too strong a word, because as we see the end is a happy one with a marriage, but still his thinking gets in the way of the kiss. Yes, "It's the Good, / defining itself," but this revelation feels somewhat bittersweet, almost like a mistake. We know full well that mistakes might be bad in the short term, but they pay long term dividends that future generations will reap. Maybe Dunn's mistake to end the kiss gave him the chance to go forth and write this poem, to loose her lips from his mind and share with us all that was inside.

Symptom Recital - Dorothy Parker

SYMPTOM RECITAL



I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of me…
I'm due to fall in love again.

---Dorothy Parker


Dorothy Parker's Symptom Recital


Dorothy Parker was one of those immensely talented, yet tortured souls that seem to populate the history of literature. A quick skim of her Wikipedia page (if you accept the validity of anything Wikipedia has to say) reveals a colorful life brimming with brilliance and turmoil. Her mother died when she was a young child and her relationship with her father and stepmother was horrible. She helmed the famed Algonquin Roundtable and was an early contributor to Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Ms. Parker has been the subject of numerous movies---and while we're speaking of movies I should mention that Dorothy was a talented screenwriter, as her Academy Award nomination for A Star Is Born confirms. Sadly, Parker experienced failed marriages, a Hollywood blacklisting, severe depression, alcoholism, and the suicidal overdose of one of her husbands. There is much to be surprised about in the trajectory of Parker's life, but the one thing I noticed that surprised me more than anything else was about her collected works, The Portable Dorothy Parker. In the Viking Press Portable Books series there are only three books that have never gone out of print: The Bible, William Shakespeare, and Dorothy Parker.

As much as I'd like to continue a study into Dororthy Parker's fascinating life, we have a poem to discuss and coincidentally it's by Ms. Parker. Symptom Recital is typical Dorothy Parker: impeccably witty, slightly exaggerated, and undeniably raw. The poem is a quick moving and well-rhymed list of all the reasons the poet hates herself and has issues with the world. It's not what many would consider uplifting or positive, until the wry final line turns the poem and its readers completely on their heads. One of the great achievements of this poem is its pacing. Because each line in the poem is eight or nine syllables with a clear AABB rhyme scheme the poem takes on a rhythm that is in unison with the poet's snappy, complaining mindset. From the outset Parker is definitive about the poet's voice: "I do not like my state of mind." I'm not sure there is a more direct first line in all of poetry. Such displays of directness are not always taken well; literary scholars want to be tested, they want a riddle to unravel over the course of the poem. Parker effectively says to hell with that and does it her way in Symptom Recital.

After commenting on her attitude, Parker turns her focus to her physical appearance, her ambition, and her anxieties. "I hate my legs, I hate my hands, / I do not yearn for lovelier lands. / I dread the dawn's recurrent light; / I hate to go to bed at night. / I snoot at simple, earnest folk. / I cannot take the gentlest joke." She does not sound like a fun person to be around, right? Down on herself and down on others, Parker is making a case for being the world's unhappiest and most unlikable person. Out of all the descriptive lines in the poem she might have it spot on when she asserts "I'm disillusioned, empty breasted." Parker's lacing the truth with a little exaggeration because that is the perfect formula to set readers up for her planned twist at the end. Just as the list is beginning to grow stale, the poem speeds up to its grand finale. In this build up the tone subtly shifts; the direct lines that characterized the first half of the poem are replaced by more mysterious lines like "I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse. / I ponder on the narrow house." But this is a mere reprieve from the poem's in-your-face nature. Parker slams the ending upon readers and it works particularly well because of the penultimate line. "I shudder at the thought of me… / I'm due to fall in love again." In a poem that has adhered to strict rhythm and rhyme rules, the variation that caps the poem is the perfect punchline to an intricately crafted joke. All the quibbles she has with the world and all the distresses she has with herself are the human factors that signal she's ripe for redemption by the bittersweet uber-force of love.

Ripening --- Wendell Berry

RIPENING



The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!

---Wendell Berry



Ripening by Wendell Berry


As I "ripen" and the "signs of this world" present themselves in a variety of unpredictable ways I find myself repeating a common refrain: If I had knew then what I know now…To have the knowledge I do now, when I could have used it sooner is absorbing, tantalizing, and slightly mischievous. Yet again fate seems to have the upper hand, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe, as Wendell Berry shows us in his poem Ripening, there is nothing more natural than taking the bitter with the sweet, using our lives and taking risks rather than allowing our days to expire routinely toward inevitable death.

"The longer we are together / the larger death grows around us." Yep, now that's an uplifting beginning to a poem; I can almost feel the sunshine, smell the fragrant flowers in bloom, see the rainbow, and hear the sweet notes of a harp. It may not be fun or comforting, but Berry's blunt first lines plant us squarely into the mindset he wants us to be in. Those of us that are lucky to live long enough will have a moment where we look around and see tangible clues that death is venturing toward us. Maybe death is still a long ways out, but it's clear that his itinerary includes a visit with us. You see it in the friends and family that are no longer with you. When your bones ache, thoughts of death are not far off. When you can't remember the name of the restaurant you ate at on your first date with your spouse, death will remind you exactly what it is you're forgetting. These are just some of the "costs of having been," but as Berry reminds us the collection of these costs coincides with refreshing discoveries. Similar to those aha moments I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, as we "grow familiar with the world" we lose some of our ignorance and "come to know / each other in love." With our accomplishments and motives mixing, Berry notices that we carry sparks of passion and long suffering dreams, contained and "bearing the seed / of what we know." He compares our gray and thinning hair, falling off and away to those seeds of ourselves scattering amongst the world. I'd like to think this image, this metaphor, is a little late. We give these pieces of ourselves once we realize, with confidence, that what we have to give is worth any sacrifice we might incur. Berry assumes this moment arrives later in life, but this is where I beg to differ.

Yes, it is "bitter to learn / that we come to death as we come / to love," that is to say it is bitter to learn that we are ill-prepared, a little selfish, and undoubtedly afraid. Yet, in both cases, we loosen and allow ourselves to transform, often changing for the better. I've heard friends comment on married couples saying "they help the other person to be the best possible version of themselves." This is not the work of a moment, but rather a gradual learning of each other as they ripen to different places in their lives. When this proverbial perfect couple is afraid of the next step they discuss those fears, they live those fears, and they plan for what those fears might become. What might seem "just and solving" at one point in life changes with perspective. Acquiring experiences seems to shift the prism through which we view our lives and these new vantage points are what allows Berry to surmise that death is "bitter / only to the ignorant, who pray / it will not happen." I don't need to tell you what they say about death and taxes, but still there are people who live in utter denial (and I'm not talking about paying their taxes!). I feel sorry for those people, but I know how difficult their load is to bear. It only dawned on me within the last five years that I would someday die. It took me to my mid twenties to figure out that I was not immortal, when even a child could have told you that simple bit of knowledge. I didn't really pay death much mind and in some ways that was a great thing I can never have back. But when I came to the realization that myself and all the people I care about will one day die, I was immediately awestruck with a chilling, debilitating fear. I would think about it all the time, even in moments of joy when there was no reason to think about anything bad at all, let alone death. I couldn't reconcile the truth with what I wanted to be true. As I've continued to ripen, I've come my own "bitter way to better prayer." By the way, how great is that line! The internal rhyme of bitter and better is genius and there's even a little something going on between way and prayer. The poem's epiphanous conclusion is "the sweetness of ripening" and fittingly it is not given, but earned over a lifetime. I know I haven't completely tasted the sweetness of my ripening, but each time I have a moment where the signs of the world present themselves I know I'm on the right track and it feels as good as bittersweet can.

It Is This Way With Men --- CK Williams

IT IS THIS WAY WITH MEN



They are pounded into the Earth
like nails; move an inch,
they are driven down again.
The earth is sore with them.
It is a spiny fruit
that has lost hope
of being raised and eaten.
It can only ripen and ripen.
And men, they too are wounded.
They too are sifted from their loss
and are without hope. The core
softens. The pure flesh softens
and melts. There are thorns, there
are the dark seeds, and they end.

---CK Williams



IT IS THIS WAY WITH MEN ----- CK WILLIAMS


I was introduced to this poem and a few others I will share this month in the Robert Bly edited collection The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. Bly and his fellow editors included this CK Williams poem in a section that began with a scathing essay on American culture and our unabashed perfection of denial. The stirring indictment of practical ignorance was aimed at the United States circa 1992, when the book was first published. It goes without saying that the United States of 2010 is quite different. Think, for a moment, of all the things that have contributed to the maturation of our society since 1992—The OJ Trial, The First Gulf War, Hip Hop, Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, CDs, Napster, Microsoft, Ipods, Cell Phones, Iphones, 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, Columbine, Virginia Tech, The Second Gulf War, Hanging Chads, Global Warming, The Internet, Email, Reality Television, Barack Obama, Y2K, Starbucks, Tiger Woods, Big Oil, Modern Medicine, Bernie Madoff. Add in a witty turn of phrase or two and you've got an updated version of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire. Still, there's a valid and valuable reason for presenting this list. With all that has occurred in the last eighteen years are we still the global leaders in denial? There's no denying that a close look at CK Williams' It Is This Way With Men will provide insight on this topic, and possibly insight on why people insist on perpetuating bad puns like the one at the beginning of this sentence.

The men that populate CK Williams' poem, whether they are CEOs, soldiers, or night shift workers, each face the crippling weight of being a man. They can put on happy faces, hiding their fears, doubts, and anxieties from the people they love, but this will eventually catch up with them. These men attempt to provide, reassure, and protect, even as all redemptive beauty slips away from their lives like seaweed carried out with the tide. Williams starts off with a hard charging analytical simile: "They are pounded into the earth / like nails; move an inch, / they are driven down again." We quickly know that man is not in control; Williams is so forceful that readers cannot deny the inherent weaknesses of man in the face of a world relentlessly pursuing not only his body, but also his soul. If he struggles or rebels, man must be put in his place until "the earth is sore with them." Williams shifts the focus from man to where he is being pounded and struck into painful submission. It is not Earth's fault that man is suffering his horrifying fate. In fact, Earth is a surrogate for much of man's pain, becoming "a spiny fruit / that has lost hope / of being raised and eaten." While it has become common to view humans as culprits in the destruction of Mother Earth, Williams displays the shared futility of human beings and the land they inhabit. Readers could see this as a denial on Williams' part to acknowledge mankind's share of the blame in Earth's deterioration, but as the poem moves denial is sharply peeled away.

What about mankind's culpability? Surely, we are to blame for the evils we perpetuate upon each other and our world? Before assigning blame, Williams begs that we take a closer look at man. Through the poet's eyes men, "they too are wounded. / They too are sifted from their loss / and are without hope." Well if that doesn't make you excited and proud to be a human then I don't know what will! Obviously I'm kidding, but this is a seriously bleak assertion from Williams. First he identifies our scars. They could be our own, they could be from previous generations and handed down to us, or they could be a startling mixture of both. Then Williams notices that we are "sifted from (our) loss." This line puzzled me on my first reading of the poem, but I've come to believe that it represents both a separation from our losses and a marking by these losses. The inability to forget is both the greatest blessing and most painful curse of being human. What we had and lost clearly reminds and remains with us. Finally, Williams concludes that we are hopeless; this is his diagnosis. If we, as a people, are as good at denial as Robert Bly surmises then we must possess hope, even if it is a miniscule sliver of hope. At the root of denial is the faint belief that someway, somehow things will get better. It might be a weak, roundabout philosophical argument on my part, but I'm holding out hope that CK Williams is wrong about us, and I'm willing to accept Bly's ideas on American denial to fortify my argument.

From Williams' viewpoint, the hopeless man decomposes in a clear, biological manner. "The core / softens. The pure flesh softens / and melts. There are thorns, there / are the dark seeds, and they end." It does sound rather similar to the aging process we go through as humans, minus the part about thorns. As the body ages, the physical changes include a softening of the skin, weight gain in the center, age spots on the skin, wrinkles, less energy and strength, even the loss of memory and mental function. But do we lose our ability to feel? If our core is softening then we could assume that Williams is targeting our hearts with that line. The heart is widely accepted as our symbolic emotional center. If our hearts soften then we lose the ability to feel. The implications of such a change on a human being are incredibly wide reaching; no more romance or love of any kind, no more regretting past indiscretions or hurtful words better left unsaid, no more thoughts about the legacies we leave for future generations. All of those results aside, consider that when our "core softens" we also lose the ability to live in denial. There would be no reason to deny anything; we would become robotic. It would make complete sense that we would seems to be swallowed by the ground with our thorns and dark seeds, unceremoniously written off with the line "and they end."

I've given this poem a great deal of thought, so much thought that at times I knew I was thinking too hard about the poem and reading things into the poem, but in the end I couldn't let it go without a fight. Seemingly gritty and simple, the poem is multilayered and imbued with complicated philosophical questions. Like many great questions and like many great poems, we don't need a definitive answer to enjoy CK Williams' It Is This Way With Men. All we need is to draw upon our own experiences, the times when we felt like some forces in the world were pounding us into the Earth like nails, or the times when we took a moment to look around us and see others pushed to their breaking points in dire conditions. The wealth of experiences we carry with us as human beings are not all rosy, but the pain is what makes it all real. We have cultivated the ability to deny many things, but because of the balance of good and bad, joy and pain, we read this poem and realize that there is no denying that at times this poem will be true for us and at times it will be as far from the truth as humanly possible.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why --- Edna St. Vincent Millay

WHAT LIPS MY LIPS HAVE KISSED, AND WHERE, AND WHY (Sonnet XLIII)




What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

---Edna St. Vincent Millay


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why


In listening to a recent poetry podcast about notable winter poems, I was surprised when the conversation turned to Edna St. Vincent Millay and her poem "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why." The commentators on the podcast discussed how Millay has somewhat of a less than stellar reputation among academic poetry readers. You can take "academic" out of the last sentence and insert snobby in its place if you would like; I was just trying to be polite. For some reason Millay's poetry has not stood the test of time. Successive generations have not only found reasons to dismiss her poetry, but they've seemingly searched for reasons. I'm not in the camp that feels Millay was a temporary curiosity. She wrote countless poems that are just as stirring today as they were in the first part of the previous century. Today we are privileged to look at this wonderful sonnet of regret and bewilderment courtesy of the unappreciated Edna St. Vincent Millay.

From the beginning this is a poem of questions…and equally a poem where answers are absent. Starting with the image of the lips she has kissed, the poet launches back into memory asking what, where and why. Almost immediately she responds with uncertainty: "I have forgotten, and what arms have lain / Under my head till morning." Millay's syntax is worth a closer look. Notice how she admits her ignorance and lacking memory, only to resume the list with another concrete image of lovers arms under her head as she sleeps. By breaking up her initial list to admit she has "forgotten," Millay infuses the poem with a back and forth tension. Admittedly, the syntax also must work in congruence with the sonnet's rhyme scheme. Honestly, the end words that compose the infrastructure of the poem's rhyme scheme are far from exotic, yet this is a poem where the rhymes are organic and unassuming. When a poem can execute a rhyme scheme this seamlessly without sacrificing the poem's tone, diction, or theme it is a masterwork and worth studying. The natural rhyme scheme also enables the poem's tense inner struggle to move forward by moving backward into the past: "the rain / is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply." The ghosts of past lovers in the cold, damp evening rain fall upon our poet, who claimed to have "forgotten." Millay uses rain as a transformative force to evoke the past and rustle the ghosts from the tidy spots where each of us tucks them away. When something—anything—triggers your past and you are presented with long buried memories of former love how real does it feel?

Millay's trip through her past is not that of a valiant hero returning home. Her heart "stirs a quiet pain / For unremembered lads that not again / Will turn to me at midnight with a cry." The fact that Millay will hear their cries at midnight implies that she is anxious and sleepless over the disruption of her present life with echoes from her past. At this particularly tense moment the poem turns again, this time shifting to a "lonely tree" in winter in a very clear metaphor. Like Millay who forgot her lovers, the tree does not know "what birds have vanished one by one," but the distance from herself afforded by the metaphor allows her to use the tree to admit that it "knows its boughs more silent than before." It is a metaphorical revelation that sets up the poem's sharp and emotion laden ending. At the point where traditionally a sonnet turns, Millay succumbs to the truth: "I cannot say what loves have come and gone, / I only know that summer sang in me / A little while, that in me sings no more." The identity of the lovers, the specifics of their features, is ultimately not what she, or any of us, need to concern ourselves with. Even though details are crucial to reality, the end impact is something that can't be replicated: emotional recall. Where Millay's emotional state was balanced at the beginning of the poem, she is certainly fatigued by the end. This fatigue isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does bring with it an honest pain. Admitting to herself that the full warmth of summer that we associate with being in love has long ago left her is very brave. Millay's courage exists in making herself vulnerable and sharing her unfulfilling truth with the world by writing and publishing the poem. The next time a poetry blueblood stoops to disparage Edna St. Vincent Millay I hope he or she will pause and remember this poem and numerous others where Millay crafts startlingly powerful lines and images.

The Changed Man --- Robert Phillips

THE CHANGED MAN



If you were to hear me imitating Pavarotti
in the shower every morning, you'd know
how much you have changed my life.

If you were to see me stride across the park,
waving to strangers, then you would know
I am a changed man—like Scrooge

awakened from his bad dreams feeling feather-
light, angel-happy, laughing the father
of a long line of bright laughs—

"It is still not too late to change my life!"
It is changed. Me, who felt short-changed.
Because of you I no longer hate my body.

Because of you I buy new clothes.
Because of you I'm a warrior of joy.
Because of you and me. Drop by

this Saturday morning and discover me
fiercely pulling weeds gladly, dedicated
as a born-again gardener.

Drop by on Sunday—I'll Turtlewax
your sky-blue sports car, no sweat. I'll greet
enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors

with a papal largesse. It's all because
of you. Because of you and me,
I've become one changed man.

---Robert Phillips



The Changed Man by Robert Phillips


In those carpe-diem moments where the past and future stretch out nicely and the present slows to a standstill, seemingly with the whole wide world waiting on you to make a decision, one key element is so often neglected. Whether we seize the day or let it slip away, far too often we fail to express gratitude. There is so much to be thankful for: the moment, the experiences that lead you there, the skills and talents you possess, the good weather, the bus being on time, the free ticket to the concert or game or museum where you'll bump into a long lost friend or a soon-to-be love of your life. Along the way there are many features that factor into our stations in life, particularly the people who nudge us in the right direction and help us to see elements of ourselves that we couldn't see on our own. Robert Phillips is "The Changed Man" because he decided to make changes to his life, but he would never have made those changes without a catalyst, someone who supplied him with a small amount of courage that would grow fearless inside of him. This poem is about thanking those who help us along the way, not just by saying thank you but also by living our gratitude.

We must start with the poem's tone. Comfortable and conversational, the poem speaks in such a direct and intimate manner that readers cannot do anything but assume the role of Phillips' "you" character. The tone of the poem levels the playing field immediately by breaking down the distance between readers and the poet's influential "you." Of course he is writing this poem to his beloved, but we are given an all-access pass. How else would we know he imitates "Pavarotti / in the shower every morning" or more importantly, why he does this? Because the tone is utterly personal, the emotional reveals in the poem slap readers with tremendous, yet subtle force. There is nothing remarkable about "striding across the park, / waving to strangers," and yet this comparison to Scrooge is heartwarming on the surface, but unwittingly complex. "Feather- / light, angel-happy, laughing the father / of a long line of bright laughs" and somewhere in this description it ceases to describe Scrooge and the image of our poet-speaker rounds out in the minds of readers. I would argue the images pack such a punch because of how they interact with the poem's tone. A veritable tidal balance is at work here with the personal tone pulling us in, while the quotidian images and actions push us back to the universal, only to tug us back again with underlying emotional significance. Still, this current is anything but choppy, in fact it feels perfectly natural.

Just when we're thinking the homage to A Christmas Carol is running a bit thick, Phillips abruptly shifts gears with a mind-numbing, soul-rocking compliment. "Because of you I no longer hate my body." For the depressed and the weak, for the fearful and the ashamed, for the sick and the guilty, sometimes the incarnation of all they hate about being alive is the vessel they are traveling the world in. It is too painful to ask you to put yourself in these places of these fellow human beings, although some of you may know their plights very well---hell, some of you might have been in these stages in the past or are in them now. Take a deep breath and imagine what it is like to love yourself…completely…without judgement. It is a beautiful thing, possibly the most beautiful thing. This is the blessing his beloved has given Phillips; no wonder he would proclaim the role this loved one has played in his immense transformation. "Because of you I buy new clothes. / Because of you I'm a warrior of joy. / Because of you and me." There's an earnest vigilance to the poet's joy, a commitment that isn't ostentatious but runs distinctly through his bones and his whole being as something immeasurable and outside the bounds of science, yet just as sustaining as breath and water.

Yes, there are religious and spiritual undertones in this poem. Bells should toll within the cathedral of your soul when you read the lines "dedicated / as a born-again gardener" and "I'll greet / enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors / with a papal largesse." But these religious issues could fill a whole essay on their own. Instead, I'm turning my focus to how the end functions as a final movement sailing swiftly upon the poem's tidal balance. The poet asks the person responsible for his changes to "Drop by / this Saturday morning and discover me." He goes on to also recommend a chance visit on Sunday, almost as if he anticipates it might be challenge getting his beloved catalyst for change to visit him. This part of the poem is mysterious and I'm quite curious about the distance it assumes between the poet and his beloved. In fact, it makes me wonder if I've assumed things all wrong. Is this person responsible for his change an actual representative of romantic love? Could it be a mentor? A father figure? A young soul rejuvenating his old tired one? As the questions shuffle us further from certainty on the relationship between the poet and his "you" character, we have that saving current, once again, pulling us back to the poem's clear depth. The gardening and the car waxing are by-products of a life and attitude change that the poet is unabashedly living out with each passing day. Recognizing how he arrived at such a path, he must share with the person most responsible, but he also shares with all of us, that "It's all because / of you. Because of you and me, / I've become one changed man."