Ohio with James and Franz Wright

In week five we visited Ohio with James and Franz Wright, father and son and both Pulitzer winners. "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, " a frequently anthologized poem written in 1963, shows us how in a depleted social environment, violence--in the form of football--becomes acceptable, even hopeful. Part of the sadness of this poem lies in the fathers, beaten down by the world, failing to move up a ladder of success, failing even as husbands; the other sadness lies in the sons, the "suicidally beautiful" sons who in 1963 had only a life in the mill to look forward to. In 2015 the mill is closed and those jobs are no longer there.

Kathy provided us with further insight into Martin's Ferry with memories that were happier but nonetheless poignant.

Franz Wright's prose poem pictures the writer returning to the house he'd lived in as a teenager. Dust permeates the poem. The final third of the poem admitted of different interpretations: some saw the narrator going to his father's grave at a cemetery; others saw the son sitting down with the father in death. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but no one is home in Zanesville, Ohio.

Air Travel in Week #3

Our consideration of the subject of "Flying" centered on Norman Dubie's "Sky Harbor," which we felt could also have been called "Traveling to a Funeral." Who is meant by the person "I" in the fifth stanza? Several thought it refers to the mother; but there is the possibility it might refer to another relative, another narrator on the plane, other than the brunette. The other interesting person is the man at the end who "has recognized her," knows why she is flying. The tension between grief and triviality is perhaps what he means when he says "nothing happens."

One small point we did not explore: why does he use ellipsis in the sixth stanza (the three dots). What has been left out for us to understand.

The most striking image in the poem by my New Hampshire friend Andrew Periale's is the luggage carousel at the end, joining the company of other metaphors such as the River Styx and the Pearly Gates.

Our travels this week take us to the Midwest, to the work of James and Franz Wright, father and son who both won Pulitzer Prizes. We will have additional insight on Martin's Ferry, Ohio from Kathy Coe.

Second Session Features Pulitzer Winners

In our second session for Winter 2015 we read poems by Pulitzer Winners Rae Armantrout (2010) and Natasha Trethewey (2007). The spare lines and stanzas of "Prayers" offered many contrasts and opportunities for interpretation (we took seriously the responsibility the "Language Poets" give us to "bring meaning out of a poem"): between praying and asking, between the personal and the global, between verbal shots and real shots--"the fear/that all this/ will end./The fear/that it won't."

Trethewey's poem is based on the experience of her maternal grandmother in Mississippi in 1937. We see the details of time and place through specific choice of words (e.g., Octagon soap), but are left with a much broader theme: "dandelion spores, each one/a wish for something better."

This Thursday we will consider airports and air travel as metaphor, again with poems of descending difficulty.

Winter 2015 Begins with Fireflies

In our first Winter 2015 session we saw how three different poets use the image and metaphor of fireflies. Fireflies were compared by Linda Pastan and Marilyn Kallet to "constellations cut loose from the night sky," or "flashes of insight" or "the presence of ghosts." Dave Smith's narrative is more complex--"that's the trick of it all." In all three fireflies (lightning-bugs) recall past time and range from sparks and tiny headlamps to bugs at windows. In two of the three poems, it matters that the blinking light of the firefly is its mating call--a fact some of us had not known!

Next week we will read Rae Armantrout and Natasha Trethewey--thanks to Cynthia for the heads-up about Trethewey's reading at UNC-Greensboro at 5:00 p.m. next Tuesday, January 20. More info at: http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/eventcalendar/show/?title=554-evening-of-poetry-with-natasha-trethewey

Mewling means "whimpering." As Lee mentioned, Shakespeare uses the word in the "All the world's a stage" portion of As You Like It.

Extra Session Features Festive Luncheon

In our extra session on June 5, we enjoyed an excellent luncheon, courtesy of the Penny Byrn retirement community, and good discussion of poems by Laura Kasischke, Janet Warman and others.

In "Hospital Parking Lot, April" we found a haunting and complex interweaving of images, the world of nature and the sad world of hospitals, but winding up in the "Parking Lot of the Sun." "Our Father's War" seemed appropriate to the anniversary of D-Day.

Our annual "Shepherd's Center Poetry Anthology" will appear in September or October. Thanks again for sharing your talent and insight with the group. We expect to reconvene in January 2015.

Journeys of Place and Time in Session #6

In our last regular session of the term, we saw two poets use detail and image to open new worlds for us. Janet Warman's "Gaffney, South Carolina" tells the story of that painted water tower you see driving along I-85 toward Atlanta and how the peach economy came to that part of the world. Knowing the :"inside story" behind all this helped us enjoy a warm and kind poem.

Affection is also what Toi Derricotte feels for Julia in "Weekend Guests from Chicago, 1945," a celebration of the success of an African-American family ("the clunky music/of a pound of real gold charms....shoes soft as old money..."). A poem rich in physical detail hints at contrasts through juxtaposition ("an apron over a French cotton dress"), and we puzzled some over the role of Marilyn Monroe in the final stanza.

We will gather this Thursday at Penny Byrn in High Point. Again we appreciate the hospitality of Penny Byrn in hosting us, and thank Lee, Barb, Carol and Elmer for arranging it. We will look an another poem by Janet Warman, and "Hospital Parking Lot, April," by a poet highly recommended by the critic Stephen Burt, whose "Flooded Meadow" we read earlier in the spring.

Visits to the Exercise Room and a Motel Room

In Robert Pinsky's "A Poetry Reading at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas" we considered the place of poetry in American life--relegated to smaller quarters, poetry ("when the words all agreed to point in one direction") has the power to be uplifting and ennobling: "Maybe we could all do something brave if we tried...Our lives might change today."  We saw again that the actual source material matters far less than the poem itself, and when we suspected that a reading my Robert Bly had inspired this poem (http://www.robertbly.com/r_e_billstafford.html), it was the words of Robert Pinsky that put us in the room with Sister Faith.

In another room--a shabby motel--Peter Cooley's narrator provides telling details (red shoe under the bed...tracery of cigarette ash) and ponders "what has been ended here/or what begun"). But against the tawdry stories of past occupants of this room is the narrator's life, a long marriage with "repeated passages of middling weather." His conference is over, he is going home: a lovely and unusual tribute to a certain kind of love.

In Session #6 will will consider again the evoking of time and place, and then conclude on June 5 with our luncheon meeting at Penny Byrn in High Point.