Songs of Self and Perception Highlight Fourth Week

This week we looked into two poems that offered challenges and opportunities for insight and interpretation.

In Elizabeth Macklin's "Three Views of a Woman Inhaling," we were dazzled by images of sound, sight and small as we pondered "the mysteries," which. we concluded, referred to the wonder and necessity of sensory perception. I found an interesting critical appreciation of Macklin's work:

Elizabeth Macklin is a poet of the city. Her subjects are everywhere: inside apartment houses and alongside towering buildings, on streets and sidewalks, or beneath them, at the water's edge and in the changing heavens. Here the large questions are posed, the small joys celebrated. 'Here a loving sky's come out of a deep clear blue.' From beginning to end, in her able hands, through her painterly eye (Italics mine) and rich vision, the odd scraps of urban life are converted into a sort of Platonic dialogue of fruitful enigmas, paradoxes and playful epiphanies."

Melanie Rehak's poem held for some a deeper resonance, a love poem of a sort, certainly a carpe diem poem--reminding her and us to "seize the day"--balancing the seasons of the "sweet green park" with the individual who longs for the near-misses of her life. The trees, "certain their time has come," are aware that they are part of a perpetual cycle (their "delicate arrogance") and we have only once shot. Or is there more than that?

Regarding the title and subtitle: Clear enough why these are appropriate musings for a birthday. Modernism refers, in part, to a movement in literature and the arts following World War I that challenged the traditions and assumptions of the past--poets like Pound and Eliot; novels such as James Joyce's Ulysses; Picasso, Dali and Duchamp in art; and the composer Stravinsky are all examples. You see the phrase "the modernist impulse" in book titles, such as The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism, and The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women's Poetry. So how Rehak sees 'the modernist impulse' applying to her life and narrative is still not completely clear, and may even be used ironically.

In Kathy's poem--Walt Whitman on Facebook--there is a layer of social commentary ("aisles of tuna, paper towels), but beneath that, phrased mostly as questions, a tender evoking of what is truly important.

Remember that we will not meet on Thursday, February 21. For our last session on February 28, please note two corrections to the text, in "At the Art Museum": in the sixth line, tips should read tops, and the second line in the last stanza should read "...in the Rodin courtyard."

Great Kindness in Poems of Fathers and Daughters

The poems of fathers and daughters we read this morning held a sense of warmth and caring—a favorite line by Howard Nemerov says, “May great kindness come of it in the end.”

In Dan Masterson’s poem we see a father preparing his child (maybe nine or ten)for what will come, strong images of things heard and seen. We puzzled over the last two stanzas, and conclude that the pronouns they and them refer to the rainbows, the term the little girl uses to describe the halos of light she sees around objects, a sign that things are getting worse. The parents had meant to explain this in advance. But they would be there nonetheless. “She wonders if we can see them (that is, the way she sees them)…and we say/we do.”

Note the power of the two lines with just two words: “And sit” in the second stanza and “we do.” What is most poignant is not just the fact but the process of losing vision.

And Emma was right—it is the kitchen lamp, not camp.

It is possible the child suffered from retinitis pigmentosa, an inexorable disease over a long period of time.

We meet a different kind of loving and likeable family in “Fish Fry Daughter.” Here “the double knot of father and daughter” includes “haddock-scented hands.” Even the sub-plots of who said what to whom and why have a cheerful tone. The wise daughter knows that a father has many obligations.

We also felt warmth and kindness in the poems of two other wise daughters, Cynthia and Kathy. Memory is often the beginning of a poem, but we saw here how care in selecting and arranging the details is what makes memory into poetry.

Next week we will continue to observe sensory perception in Elizabeth Macklin’s “Three Views.” I suggested the views are of the same person. You may read it differently—we’ll discuss next week.

Links:

Articles about Dan Masterson

http://nyack.patch.com/articles/masterson-teaches-poetry-life-at-rcc

http://rockland.lohudblogs.com/2011/06/01/ten-plus-two-things-poet-dan-masterson/

More poems by Dan Masterson

http://capa.conncoll.edu/masterson.onearth.html

More poems by Sara Ries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM8fOtov0uY

:

Articles about Sara Ries

http://www.tleavesbooks.com/ries.htm

http://www.examiner.com/article/buffalo-books-sara-ries-on-poetry-at-the-diner

George Bilgere: Light Touch, Serious Business

We found the work of George Bilgere anything but “glib and trivial.” Certainly “well meaning,” though.

“Janitorial” In an easy, entertaining style, Bilgere comments on race and class in America, and on college life. The skillful choice and placement of detail (“dumpster-colored/Olds…heads home/Across the barge-laden river in servitude/To East St. Louis…”) suggest why Billy Collins found Bilgere’s work worthy of the University of Akron Poetry Prize.

A couple of small touches not mentioned this morning. “Gleaner” (line 2) is interesting—refers to someone who picks things up bit by bit, but the basic reference is to gathering of grain left behind by reapers. Note also that while Kant, Heidegger and Bergman are identified by name, the ambassador is not.

This link will take you to another poem by Bilgere and an interview in which he says he works at “a sleepy Midwestern college, teaching sleepy Midwestern students.”

http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2012/05/george-bilgere.html

“The Garage”  “The Garage” is a more complex poem, which seems to juxtapose the triviality of ping-pong (“the problem of topspin”) with the unspeakable horror of the accidental death of a child (he lets us conclude that the child dies) The narrator speaks of the loss in matter-of-fact terms and may appear at first self-absorbed and insensitive. But it’s more complicated than that: retrieving an “errant smash,” he realizes that his reality can never be the same as the young mother’s—she will have fewer boxes of family history. He returns to the garage, his cave, like Plato’s, a world of shadows. The stanza break before the last two lines lets us breath and appreciate the complexity of emotions, “the white moon of the ball”—a satellite alone in space, “a fragile, weightless thing.”

In Martha Golensky’s lovely poem “For Henry Shapiro,” we have a tender appreciation of the poet/editor, his city, his faith and culture, the first and last stanzas surrounding two stanzas that deal with strangers, nameless, who likewise value language.

Next we will look at poems about fathers and daughters, the first, the more challenging of the two, in the voice of the father, the second in that of the daughter. We will look at two other poems by daughters (Cynthia Schaub’s “Dumas-pere”” and Kathy Coe’s “Business Man”) and, time permitting, another by a father.

Two Poems Stimulate, Invite Different Interpretations

In our second session we looked at poems by Debora Greger and D. Nurkse which set us to pondering pronouns and reminded us that the poet is not bound by the requirement of journalists to make it clear who is who and what happened.

In Greger’s “Autumn.” contrasting images of heat and chill, darkness and light create a tension, things not working (a meow that fails…a garden no longer tended), and we see the narrator alone, deep in nostalgia and loss.

D. (for Dennis) Nurkse seems to be writing about a relationship gone wrong (perhaps more than one). The narrator, a poet, considers human affairs global (bomb the rebel cities) and personal (walk by the breakwater), but the world goes on—the ant under its burden, as the other person (she) seems to chide. The end of the second and third stanzas suggest a darkness and sadness that one critic thinks characteristic of Nurkse: whose poems “trace with rueful accuracy the locked-together waltz of romantic attraction and dissolution.”

A couple of other interesting points about Nurkse: Mike reminded me that Nurkse’s father was a well-known economist. The poet himself has written extensively on human rights issues and has taught at the Rikers Island prison in New York.

We may not know if the “she” in the second stanza of “August” is the narrator or the cat, or what Nurkse’s she actually wrote or said. Asking these questions helps us approach the poet’s art and see different implications. Coming to definitive conclusions may be neither possible or necessary.

Further reading—bio, commentary, more poems:

On Debora Greger: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/debora-greger

                                    http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21646

On D. Nurkse:  http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/articles/6116

Here is a link to Richard Blanco reading the Inauguration Poem. Interesting to hear him reading and have the text in front of you. A commercial may come first—be patient!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/today-richard-blanco-poem-read-barack-obama-inauguration/story?id=18274653

We also mentioned Natasha Thethewey, the current U.S. Poet Laureate. Check out her fine poems and her life story.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/natasha-trethewey

http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_02_012353.php (don’t be put off by the name of this site)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/books/natasha-trethewey-is-named-poet-laureate.html?_r=0

Next week will look at two poems by George Bilgere, winner of a competition judged by Billy Collins. Some may remember his “Grecian Temples” from last year. His breezy style is entertaining and moves along quickly, which is not to say his subject matter is not serious.

           

BACK TO SCHOOL: 2013 SHEPHERD’S CENTER UNDER WAY

In our first session for Winter 2013 we looked at poems by Jay Parini and Billy Collins which used the setting of the American high school to make rather different points. Parini sees high school as a crucible, “a kind of furnace...a kind of maw”  where young people are “taken…assimilated, saturated, swept,” a difficult and necessary rite of passage. We discussed possible differences between boys and girls suggested in this poem, and the effective use of repetition. The poem begins and ends: “Everyone must go there/None returns.”

“The Effort” of Billy Collins’ title is explained at the end of the first stanza: “What is the poet trying to say?” Mrs. Parker joins other teachers (e.e. cummings says “the stupidest teacher will almost guess…”) who parse poems for students with baseball caps on backwards,  waiting for “that orgy of egg salad and tuna fish known as lunch…that whirlwind of meatloaf.” Collins’ characteristic wit surrounds the central part of the poem, in which he reflects on the absence of a loved one, details of which are deliberately omitted. This segment is more difficult than it looks. With his characteristic wit and sadness Collins leaves it to Mrs. Parker (and to us) to figure it out.

A couple of other Collins poems on the subject of poets and poetry:

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html   (“Introduction to Poetry”)

http://www.edutopia.org/trouble-poetry (“The Trouble with Poetry”)

My favorite school poem is “September: The First Day of School” by Howard Nemerov. Text and some commentary at: http://gonemild.com/2010/02/28/sunday-poetry-september-the-first-day-of-school-by-howard-nemerov/

We enjoyed a nice poem by Cynthia Schaub on the subject of a different kind of high school, and one by Martha Golensky with a metaphor that hit home for several of us—an old Buick. You are invited to bring your poems to share with the group--they need not be on the "theme" of the day's reading.

Next week we will look at poems by Debora Greger and D. Nurkse (pay particular attention to the pronouns!).

(e e cummings quote from "if everything happens that can't be done")

Shepherd's Center Poetry Anthology 2012

Poems

from the Shepherd’s Center

Winter—Spring 2012

This short collection is the fifth by our Shepherd’s Center Poetry Group.

These pages are meant to be a memento of our weeks together during the winter and spring of 2012, which I believe have emboldened us to find and affirm the poet in ourselves and others. Thank you again for sharing your talent and insight with the group.—Bob Demaree

“Bro”

Leo Kelleher

The family called him “BROTHER” from birth-at-home  to a Green Mountains grave.  If he had not become famous his mailbox name could have died with him. He walked with God from his youth.  He was still an altar boy when his peers had outgrown that.  Their home was north of the city.  Tall pines formed colonnades for Gods Temple, right next door. 

He had a dozen siblings and three dozen young folks called him “Uncle Brother”  .He had a special care for his little sister.  She was so alone in the crowd.  She would sit on the floor by his chair.  He would regale her with fleecy-cloud stories.  How her knight in shiny armor, astride his white steed, would gallop  into her life.  He would sweep her away to his sky castle. They would  live happily ever after.

Their street climbed a hill and turned west into a broad meadow, their meadow. They often took home the bright colored wild-flowers to replace those that had died yesterday. It was a sea of green.  When the Mariah wind blew green waves rolled from one end to the other.  It had been carved from the forest for a failed housing project, She asked him why they wanted to build many houses so near theirs.  He answered in jest hat maybe there were just not enough caves for all the people.

One day they discovered a treasure.   The gentle forest light glimmered on a shard of  glass partially buried.  Clay covered, she washed it inn the creek.  It was blue, a happy blue, a sky blue.  He told her it was her  special secret treasure, just hers, a no show no share treasure.  Like all treasures it should be buried.   To help mark her secret shrine   they dug under the only dogwood in the forest.  As time passed she came to her shrine only on her blue days.

She never really dug up her treasure.  Eons later she did dig it up in her mind as she told  Brothers fleecy cloud stories to her children.

“Paperwhites”

Sherry A. Kelly

He brings paper whites and places them beside the Crèche

To celebrate my birthday on this winter solstice, the darkest day of the year.

One lone blossom bends gracefully over the manger,

Its gold center a beacon for the hope and promise

Of the Christ Child.

We’ve had forty nine years of paper whites.

Paper whites and diplomas to earn, careers to begin,

Mortgages to pay, children to cherish and pets as well, travels abroad and
    chores at home.

Planting and pruning, watering and weeding.

Papers to write and papers to grade. Lessons to plan and classes to teach.

Celebrations and tribulations.

Agreeing and disagreeing and through it all remaining true

To our promises to love unendingly til the end.

On Epiphany morning as we shower, letting streams of water pelt us awake,
   pelt us alive,

I see our now listless skin is the shade of the lather that cleanses us;

Stunned by the promise our paper white shrouds hold for us now in the dead of
   winter.

“Ten and Counting”

Martha Golensky

I watch him smile in his sleep—

probably dreaming of a chance

encounter between some alien

and his alter ego, Astronaut Alex.

Space is his passion now,

supplanting dinosaurs.

Baby fat virtually gone,

every day I see his father

more clearly in the contours

of my boy’s still downy chin.

The lanky frame so like his;

no visible Mom traces left.

Don’t grow up too soon.

Don’t lose the ability

to love spontaneously,

arms wide in generous hugs,

flashing your whole-face smile,

cuddling with me just because

it’s where you want to be.

“Dawn & Dusk”

Dave Upstill

Out of the dark womb of night

Day begins as the sun is born

So fast we are enchanted

By the growing glow.

When fully rounded

The infant sun begins its crawl

Less noticeably up the sky of day

It has aims to carry through

Measurable in shadows shrinking

We likewise have things to do

Turn to give them our attention

At mid-day we may ;pause to notice

Shadows disappearance.

Then growing again in afternoon

Pointing toward time departing

The sun again demands remark

With perceptible speed in leaving

Pulling the light of day with it.

No wonder awesome dawn and dusk

Inspire so many rites of celebration.

“Airy Confidences”

Lois Losyk

One from the west

One from the south

our lives intersect

southeast heading north.

Squeezing into too tight

for comfort seats

we fly  into gentle,

pillow clouds miles away

from our every day.

We circle each other,

search for a connection,

with meaningless words,

polite questions.

We chat about our families,

ourselves; the circle

widening and deepening,

a canyon in our reveal.

Spouses gone, one by death

one by divorce.

We share pain that resembles

each other’s but different

somehow.

Deep regrets, secret desires,

future dreams,  hopes

unrealized, all laid out naked.

Some of it unknown,

even to ourselves.

We arrive north. Goodbyes

and good wishes expressed.

Moving out of our circle

into our lives.

Our names never revealed.

“The Necropolis”

Cynthia Schaub

We walked the hills

My old love and I

A grey drizzly day

Perfect

For Glasgow, for us

And saw the mausoleums

Stolid, grey stone

Built for lawyers, grocers

Solid burghers

To last forever, so remembered.

But now,

Not even a century,

Fallen, marked by yellow

Tape – “Danger”

And so forgotten.

“What Matters “

Kathy Coe

some measure

the worth of a thing

by the attention it is paid:

how many votes,

how many viewers,

how many sponsors it attracts.

at our home away from home,

nestled in the wrinkle

between high windblown hills,

it is not so.

there a thing’s value

is noted by the rising sun

as it creeps over the eastern ridge,

tinting first our treetops

then their outstretched arms

and soon the lower yard where

a mess of squawking turkeys

forages.

what matters there is the slow healing

of a certain tulip poplar

on the facing hill,

ravaged by last year’s ice storm,

or the ponderous parade

of slow-marching clouds eastward

across the wide valley,

shifting shapes and hues

in convincing display of evolution,

in case you had harbored any doubts.

what matters is the scent

of rain in the mist that meanders

up the ravine of a morning,

rendering our panorama

a blank grey screen,

or the wood-smoked air

filling the den

where stacked books await,

and the only sound

that matters

is the roar of wind in the pines.

“The Library Table”

Elmer Billman

It was in the living room of the home in which I was born.

The living room was my favorite. It had two French windows,

And two double windows with window seats flanked the fireplace.

A Seth Thomas clock on the mantel struck the hour.

In the large armchair my father would hold me in his lap and read to
    me
 from the daily paper “Little Benny’s Notebook”

And the happenings in a family of rabbits.

The family was headed by Uncle Wigglety

And looked after by Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

The library table had two crescent leaves and six legs.

Perhaps the adjacent bookcase legitimized its name.

It has followed me to my present home.

I hope it will travel on.

“Wedding March”

Caren Masem

In the White Garden

where Lohengrin will play

through June’s warmth,

rose bushes stand bare,

their lace covered

white gowns still

not pulled down

over shivering shoulders.

They wait at the alter

patient in March’s

lingering chill.

“Witch Hazel”

Jenny Ward Angyal

autumn

a handful of berries

opening

a blue glass bubble

of remembered light

burnishing

the trunks of birches

sorrow

the old crone’s shadow

on the white moth’s wing

dust motes

in a circle of light

the bubble

shrinking to a stone

inside the chest

stone

to build a fire ring

kindling

flame from ashes

before dusk

the scent

of apples—

bubbles rising

each a different mirror

to a changing face

hearthstone ashes

the price of wisdom  paid—

but

can witch hazel bloom

so deep in winter

firelight fades

the old crone follows

the glint

of drifting bubbles

through the dark wood

“Witch Hazel” appeared in Lynx, February 2011

Untitled

Judy Harris

Proud design of bare branches.

Medallion? Badge?

Pasted on a heavy winter sky,

You know. And you speak.

Yes, I know you speak.

Strange calligraphy?

Teasing segment of the jigsaw puzzle?

Affirmation of existence?

Your message is cleverly coded;

But is that what you are saying?

I will know, too, someday.

“Red”

Judy Gecinger

Red comes unannounced at dawn's dim light.
It stabs at the day.
It rouses expectation.
It drapes and clings to body form
As it creates the day.
Red almost justifies oppression.
It challenges the exuberance of life's unfolding
Because it makes my day.
Red comes unannounced at dusk's closing light.
Then, it fades away.

“Three Milestones”

Audrey Elmore

I looked around and there you were!

Growing so tall, it seemed too rapidly.

So fair, with grace—astounding!

And now—almost fourteen—ready to make your

Commitment of faith in the belief

Of that awesome power behind us,

Seeking possibilities we can only imagine.

Good journey, cherished grandson.

Today, my son, you too reach a milestone

And I am blessed to be the one

Who has watched, and often cared too much!

As you followed the path of delight in living

And with all the good, the inevitable scariness.

Now, through pride and total acceptance

Of the man you have become.

I salute you with deepest love.

Here in act three of my existence, still young in my heart,

I am grateful and humbled by gifts received;

For lessons learned—some painfully

Of blessings through God’s grace bestowed on

   such an errant one as me!

My desire is that of giving more than taking.

Seeing love’s power overcome disappointment

   and shortcomings, leading forward

To the greater knowing promised!

“Batterymates”

Bob Demaree

At 73, I have long since given up

Soccer and basketball with him,

So we have devised a new game,

My grandson and I,

To play in the back yard on afternoons

Thick with the warmth of late spring.

I am the pitcher,

He the rest of our baseball team.

We toss the ball back and forth,

Field grounders and pop flies,

Each catch an out.

Sometimes the other guys reach base,

An errant throw skittering

Into the monkey grass, hidden by

Fallen azalea blooms.

My teammate, playing deep,

Somewhere between childhood and

Adolescence, applies tags to phantom foes

As they foolishly try to stretch a hit.

Our team scores a run

Each time we retire the side.

We have never lost.

2012 Anthology Due in September

The 2012 Shepherd's Center Poetry Anthology, featuring writing by participants in the winter and spring terms, will be posted during September.  Contributors will be notified by e-mail when the anthology is "live."