The Shepherd's Center Poetry Group began the Spring Term with a series of "bittersweet, conflicted" poems about fathers, perhaps flawed, but nonetheless loved. We examined "Elegy for my father" by current U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey, as well as Harvey Shapiro's "The Generations." Martha had introduced Harvey Shapiro to us in the Winter Term and at my request read again the poem she wrote on learning of his death. More reading on Tretheway and Shapiro below.
Next week we will consider some verbal pyrotechnics: first, a Billy Collins poem, an entertaining narrative involving history, philosophy, social commentary, and perhaps a bit more. Then, of Terese Svoboda's "Neighborhood Watch," I'll say simply watch the pyrotechnics.
For further reading:
Tretheway: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/how-poet-laureate-natasha-trethewey-wrote-her-fathers-elegy/261126/
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_02_012353.php
Shapiro: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/books/harvey-shapiro-poet-of-new-york-and-beyond-dies-at-88.html?_r=0
Friday, April 26, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
We conclude with Apocalyptic Images, A Terse Summation
In our concluding session, we considered the apocalyptic, cinematic imagery of Nicholas Christopher's "The Graveyard Shift" (which appeared in The New Yorker March 19, 2007) and John Hollander's terse, perfectly framed meditation on writing.
"The Graveyard Shift" examines the role of the functionary who is complicit in terrible things, ending on a note of a little hope, or perhaps none at all. Christopher may have in mind a larger metaphor, the place of the individual who either will or will not go along with society's program. Finally, we considered, as we always do, the personal level: Christopher's father had worked on the Manhattan Project.
Hollander suggests that our fidgeting with the "worry beads of words" is what defines the poet's task: as Dave aptly reminded us, the right words in the right order.
In Martha's poem the antiheroine misjudges the pitch and crashes again, unlike Sisyphus, sentenced only by her own actions. We agreed that the five-line stanzas make it a more complex and compelling poem.
The visitor to the art museum has greatly enjoyed our six weeks together. I hope we can say, with Melanie Rehak, "here,/I was here and I knew it." For those so inclined, we will reconvene on Thursday, April 25, at 10:45 a.m. at First Baptist Church on West Friendly Avenue in Greensboro.
"The Graveyard Shift" examines the role of the functionary who is complicit in terrible things, ending on a note of a little hope, or perhaps none at all. Christopher may have in mind a larger metaphor, the place of the individual who either will or will not go along with society's program. Finally, we considered, as we always do, the personal level: Christopher's father had worked on the Manhattan Project.
Hollander suggests that our fidgeting with the "worry beads of words" is what defines the poet's task: as Dave aptly reminded us, the right words in the right order.
In Martha's poem the antiheroine misjudges the pitch and crashes again, unlike Sisyphus, sentenced only by her own actions. We agreed that the five-line stanzas make it a more complex and compelling poem.
The visitor to the art museum has greatly enjoyed our six weeks together. I hope we can say, with Melanie Rehak, "here,/I was here and I knew it." For those so inclined, we will reconvene on Thursday, April 25, at 10:45 a.m. at First Baptist Church on West Friendly Avenue in Greensboro.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
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."
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."
Thursday, February 7, 2013
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
More poems by Dan Masterson
More poems by Sara
Ries
:
Articles about Sara
Ries
Thursday, January 31, 2013
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.”
“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.
Friday, January 25, 2013
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
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!
We also mentioned Natasha Thethewey, the current U.S. Poet
Laureate. Check out her fine poems and her life story.
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_02_012353.php
(don’t be put off by the name of this site)
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.
Friday, January 18, 2013
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")
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