Genius: one poem, one camera, one microphone, one actor. And when the poem is Poe's "The Raven" and the actor is John De Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Q"), it's pure doom-laden magic.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Halloween 4: The New Nightmare
When all is said and done, there's only one thing to fear, right? Losing everything and everyone. In other words, death. It turns out to be not really scary, not really sad. It's just somewhat lonely and bittersweet —like the last day of October.
I do not know myself
I go to dark and am of dark
Ignorant of myself
I sleep and dream--
But not enlightened
Nor when I wake
And remember dream
All I have not seen
All I will not see again
That I will take to ignorant dark
Desire is unchanged
Year on year it is on
Each page to turn
Each face to love
If I loved
Till the end of the world
It would never be done
Once I was a son
Once I had all the time in the world
Now a day starts
Now it ends
Now a window is dark
I Do Not Know Myself
Hugh Seidman
I go to dark and am of dark
Ignorant of myself
I sleep and dream--
But not enlightened
Nor when I wake
And remember dream
All I have not seen
All I will not see again
That I will take to ignorant dark
Desire is unchanged
Year on year it is on
Each page to turn
Each face to love
If I loved
Till the end of the world
It would never be done
Once I was a son
Once I had all the time in the world
Now a day starts
Now it ends
Now a window is dark
Halloween 3: The End of the World
Vampires aren't scary, really. They've become too suave and world-weary to be ravenous killing machines. Zombies never were scary, except for maybe "The Serpent and the Rainbow." Werewolves only frighten me if I have to housebreak them.
But nuclear holocaust? It was scary even before that incredible dream sequence in "T2."
I'm always attracted to the dark side, but "The Horse" is dark for a reason. Japan is the first and — so far — only post-apocalyptic society. It's no wonder Japanese culture seems so weird to us. The image of the tortured flayed horse makes the loss of human life far grosser and more shocking.
They spoke of the horse alive
without skin, naked, hairless,
without eyes and ears, searching
for the stableboy’s caress.
Shoot it, someone said, but they
let him go on colliding with
tattered walls, butting his long
skull to pulp, finding no path
where iron fences corkscrewed in
the street and bicycles turned
like question marks.
Some fled and
some sat down. The river burned
all that day and into the
night, the stones sighed a moment
and were still, and the shadow
of a man’s hand entered
a leaf.
The white horse never
returned, and later they found
the stable boy, his back crushed
by a hoof, his mouth opened
around a cry that no one heard.
They spoke of the horse again
and again; their mouths opened
like the gills of a fish caught
above water.
Mountain flowers
burst from the red clay walls, and
they said a new life was here.
Raw grass sprouted from the cobbles
like hair from a deafened ear.
The horse would never return.
There had been no horse. I could
tell from the way they walked
testing the ground for some cold
that the rage had gone out of
their bones in one mad dance.
But nuclear holocaust? It was scary even before that incredible dream sequence in "T2."
I'm always attracted to the dark side, but "The Horse" is dark for a reason. Japan is the first and — so far — only post-apocalyptic society. It's no wonder Japanese culture seems so weird to us. The image of the tortured flayed horse makes the loss of human life far grosser and more shocking.
The Horse
Philip Levine
for Ichiro Kawamoto, humanitarian, electrician, & survivor of Hiroshima
They spoke of the horse alive
without skin, naked, hairless,
without eyes and ears, searching
for the stableboy’s caress.
Shoot it, someone said, but they
let him go on colliding with
tattered walls, butting his long
skull to pulp, finding no path
where iron fences corkscrewed in
the street and bicycles turned
like question marks.
Some fled and
some sat down. The river burned
all that day and into the
night, the stones sighed a moment
and were still, and the shadow
of a man’s hand entered
a leaf.
The white horse never
returned, and later they found
the stable boy, his back crushed
by a hoof, his mouth opened
around a cry that no one heard.
They spoke of the horse again
and again; their mouths opened
like the gills of a fish caught
above water.
Mountain flowers
burst from the red clay walls, and
they said a new life was here.
Raw grass sprouted from the cobbles
like hair from a deafened ear.
The horse would never return.
There had been no horse. I could
tell from the way they walked
testing the ground for some cold
that the rage had gone out of
their bones in one mad dance.
Halloween 2: Lighthead and Halloweenhead
Along with witches and monsters, you can add spectres from America's virulently intolerant past. This is from Terrance Hayes' collection "Lighthead."
“Do all dudes have one big testicle and one little tiny one?”
Hieronymus asked, hiking up his poodle skirt as we staggered
Down Main Street in our getup of wigs and pink bonnets
The night we sprayed NEGROPHOBIA all over the statue of Robert
E. Lee guarding the county courthouse, a symbol of the bondage
We had spent all of our All-the-Way Lives trying to subvert.
Hieronymus’s thighs shimmered like the wings of a teenage
Cockroach beneath his skirt as a bullhorn of sheriff verbs
Like Stop! Freeze! and Fire! outlined us. The town was outraged:
The red-blooded farm boys, the red-eyed bookworms of Harvard,
The housewives and secretaries, even a few liberals hoorayed
When they put us on trial. We were still wearing our lady ward-
Robes, Hieronymus and me, with our rope burns bandaged
And our wigs tilted at the angle of trouble. Everyone was at war
With what it meant to be alive. That’s why we refused to be banished,
And why when they set us on fire, there was light at our core.
I've mentioned before that in poetry you get to keep the misreadings for your personal use: all the misinterpretations, autobiography and personal allusions enrich your reading. You just have to be careful to remember that this is something you've brought to the party, not the author's hidden intention. In that spirit, I give you Ryan Adams' "Halloweenhead."
All the Way Live
Terrance Hayes
Hieronymus asked, hiking up his poodle skirt as we staggered
Down Main Street in our getup of wigs and pink bonnets
The night we sprayed NEGROPHOBIA all over the statue of Robert
E. Lee guarding the county courthouse, a symbol of the bondage
We had spent all of our All-the-Way Lives trying to subvert.
Hieronymus’s thighs shimmered like the wings of a teenage
Cockroach beneath his skirt as a bullhorn of sheriff verbs
Like Stop! Freeze! and Fire! outlined us. The town was outraged:
The red-blooded farm boys, the red-eyed bookworms of Harvard,
The housewives and secretaries, even a few liberals hoorayed
When they put us on trial. We were still wearing our lady ward-
Robes, Hieronymus and me, with our rope burns bandaged
And our wigs tilted at the angle of trouble. Everyone was at war
With what it meant to be alive. That’s why we refused to be banished,
And why when they set us on fire, there was light at our core.
I've mentioned before that in poetry you get to keep the misreadings for your personal use: all the misinterpretations, autobiography and personal allusions enrich your reading. You just have to be careful to remember that this is something you've brought to the party, not the author's hidden intention. In that spirit, I give you Ryan Adams' "Halloweenhead."
Halloween: Séance
Well, since it is Halloween, may as well include some spooky stuff. Not Edgar Allan Poe spooky or M. Night Shyamalan spooky: the real weird stuff, the stuff you have no categories or rules for.
I'll start with this one: James Merrill spent a lot of time over twenty years using a ouija board to supposedly communicate with the dead. He published an epic collection of all of these voices under the title "The Changing Light at Sandover." There's a lot of controversy as to whether he actually thought he was speaking with spirits or found it just a convenient trick to help write some poems; regardless there's some wonderful macabre moments here.
Presently at our touch the teacup stirred,
Then circled lazily about
From A to Z. The first voice heard
(If they are voices, these mute spellers-out)
Was that of an engineer
Originally from Cologne.
Dead in his 22nd year
Of cholera in Cairo, he had KNOWN
NO HAPPINESS. He once met Goethe, though.
Goethe had told him: PERSEVERE.
Our blind hound whined. With that, a horde
Of voices gathered above the Ouija board,
Some childish and, you might say, blurred
By sleep; one little boy
Named Will, reluctant possibly in a ruff
Like a large-lidded page out of El Greco, pulled
Back the arras for that next voice,
Cold and portentous: ALL IS LOST.
FLEE THIS HOUSE. OTTO VON THURN UND TAXIS.
OBEY. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.
Frightened, we stopped; but tossed
Till sunrise striped the rumpled sheets with gold.
Each night since then, the moon waxes,
Small insects flit round a cold torch
We light, that sends them pattering to the porch . . .
But no real Sign. New voices come,
Dictate addresses, begging us to write;
Some warn of lives misspent, and all of doom
In way’s that so exhilarate
We are sleeping sound of late.
Last night the teacup shattered in a rage.
Indeed, we have grown nonchalant
Towards the other world. In the gloom here,
our elbows on the cleared
Table, we talk and smoke, pleased to be stirred
Rather by buzzings in the jasmine, by the drone
Of our own voices and poor blind Rover’s wheeze,
Than by those clamoring overhead,
Obsessed or piteous, for a commitment
We still have wit to postpone
Because, once looked at lit
By the cold reflections of the dead
Risen extinct but irresistible,
Our lives have never seemed more full, more real,
Nor the full moon more quick to chill.
I'll start with this one: James Merrill spent a lot of time over twenty years using a ouija board to supposedly communicate with the dead. He published an epic collection of all of these voices under the title "The Changing Light at Sandover." There's a lot of controversy as to whether he actually thought he was speaking with spirits or found it just a convenient trick to help write some poems; regardless there's some wonderful macabre moments here.
Voices from the Other World
James Merrill
Then circled lazily about
From A to Z. The first voice heard
(If they are voices, these mute spellers-out)
Was that of an engineer
Originally from Cologne.
Dead in his 22nd year
Of cholera in Cairo, he had KNOWN
NO HAPPINESS. He once met Goethe, though.
Goethe had told him: PERSEVERE.
Our blind hound whined. With that, a horde
Of voices gathered above the Ouija board,
Some childish and, you might say, blurred
By sleep; one little boy
Named Will, reluctant possibly in a ruff
Like a large-lidded page out of El Greco, pulled
Back the arras for that next voice,
Cold and portentous: ALL IS LOST.
FLEE THIS HOUSE. OTTO VON THURN UND TAXIS.
OBEY. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.
Frightened, we stopped; but tossed
Till sunrise striped the rumpled sheets with gold.
Each night since then, the moon waxes,
Small insects flit round a cold torch
We light, that sends them pattering to the porch . . .
But no real Sign. New voices come,
Dictate addresses, begging us to write;
Some warn of lives misspent, and all of doom
In way’s that so exhilarate
We are sleeping sound of late.
Last night the teacup shattered in a rage.
Indeed, we have grown nonchalant
Towards the other world. In the gloom here,
our elbows on the cleared
Table, we talk and smoke, pleased to be stirred
Rather by buzzings in the jasmine, by the drone
Of our own voices and poor blind Rover’s wheeze,
Than by those clamoring overhead,
Obsessed or piteous, for a commitment
We still have wit to postpone
Because, once looked at lit
By the cold reflections of the dead
Risen extinct but irresistible,
Our lives have never seemed more full, more real,
Nor the full moon more quick to chill.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
I Am Amazing and Will Never Die
I actually taught this one to a class of advanced English as a Second Language students in Ukraine one summer, it was a pretty big hit. I like how it's both funny and somewhat sobering, the rhymed couplets leading you to think it's pretty lightweight until the sucker-punch at the end. Once again — form and function, folks.
The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.
On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
Arthur Guiterman
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.
A Recipe for Syllabub
And while we're in an evil frame of mind for All Hallow's Eve:
When
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,
Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the sea,
(Rocking and shocking the barmaid).
Nobody comes to give him his rum but the
Rim of the sky hippopotamus-glum
Enhances the chances to bless with a benison
Alfred Lord Tennyson crossing the bar laid
With cold vegetation from pale deputations
Of temperance workers (all signed In Memoriam)
Hoping with glory to trip up the Laureate's feet,
(Moving in classical metres) ...
Like Balaclava, the lava came down from the
Roof, and the sea's blue wooden gendarmerie
Took them in charge while Beelzebub roared for his rum.
... None of them come!
Notes: syllabub is a dessert made from rich milk or cream seasoned with sugar and lightly curdled with wine.
Man, does that thing move in weird, trippy ways: incredible stuff. It's like an honors seminar in meter and tone, like Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo" mixed with Tennyson's "In Memoriam."
Sir Beelzebub
Edith Sitwell
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,
Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the sea,
(Rocking and shocking the barmaid).
Nobody comes to give him his rum but the
Rim of the sky hippopotamus-glum
Enhances the chances to bless with a benison
Alfred Lord Tennyson crossing the bar laid
With cold vegetation from pale deputations
Of temperance workers (all signed In Memoriam)
Hoping with glory to trip up the Laureate's feet,
(Moving in classical metres) ...
Like Balaclava, the lava came down from the
Roof, and the sea's blue wooden gendarmerie
Took them in charge while Beelzebub roared for his rum.
... None of them come!
Notes: syllabub is a dessert made from rich milk or cream seasoned with sugar and lightly curdled with wine.
Man, does that thing move in weird, trippy ways: incredible stuff. It's like an honors seminar in meter and tone, like Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo" mixed with Tennyson's "In Memoriam."
The Inexorable Sadness of Pencils
I've loved this poem for a long time, I think it's a break-up letter to Office Depot.
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces
One of my favorite parts about going back to school has always been the supply run: notebooks and loose-leaf paper, pencils both mechanical and traditional, colors of pens, binders and folders... It made me feel as though I had some kind of structure and organization instead of the actual random chaos that is going back to school.
But there is something about everything lined up just so, stuck in its perfect place, no alteration or chance able to alter the uniform steadfastness of its precise necessary order. I know that sadness, and it happens with word processors and Google Docs, too. Sometimes the only way to shake it off is to let a little insanity in. Two-minute dance party!
Dolor
Theodore Roethke
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces
One of my favorite parts about going back to school has always been the supply run: notebooks and loose-leaf paper, pencils both mechanical and traditional, colors of pens, binders and folders... It made me feel as though I had some kind of structure and organization instead of the actual random chaos that is going back to school.
But there is something about everything lined up just so, stuck in its perfect place, no alteration or chance able to alter the uniform steadfastness of its precise necessary order. I know that sadness, and it happens with word processors and Google Docs, too. Sometimes the only way to shake it off is to let a little insanity in. Two-minute dance party!
Crazed and Hooded Creatures
It's almost Halloween, so here's another spooky one.
In the midst of words your wordless image
Marches through the precincts of my night
And all the structures of my language lie undone:
The bright cathedrals clatter, and the moon-
Topped spires break their stalks.
Sprawled before that raid, I watch the towns
Go under. And in the waiting dark, I loose
Like marbles spinning from a child
The crazed and hooded creatures of the heart.
For some reason it's bringing to mind part of Disney's "Fantasia" that was on a Halloween TV special when I was a kid. Feel free to freak.
(Feel free to skip the yakkety-yak at the beginning, the good stuff starts at about 2:00.)
The Heart
Harvey Shapiro
Marches through the precincts of my night
And all the structures of my language lie undone:
The bright cathedrals clatter, and the moon-
Topped spires break their stalks.
Sprawled before that raid, I watch the towns
Go under. And in the waiting dark, I loose
Like marbles spinning from a child
The crazed and hooded creatures of the heart.
For some reason it's bringing to mind part of Disney's "Fantasia" that was on a Halloween TV special when I was a kid. Feel free to freak.
(Feel free to skip the yakkety-yak at the beginning, the good stuff starts at about 2:00.)
"Shake and Cough" Apparently Rhymes with "Nabokov"
I Hope I Don't Have You Next Semester, But
Edwin Godsey
before you step out
Aphrodite
honey
hold your ear down close to the conch
and see can you make out
any
noises.Another one I read early in my poetry obsession, this one I've never been able to quite nail down. At first it just seems to be a great teacher-student kiss-off but after a few reads it starts to get a creepy, abusive "Don't Stand So Close to Me"-type vibe.
Then after a few more reads there's a mythological undertone that's almost more haunting than the other stuff. Just think of all the fun things teachers have to look forward to...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
300... THIS!.... IS!.... BELLLOC!
That's right, this is the 300th day of the year! And this is everybody's fourth-favorite Oxford writer (after Tolkien, Lewis and Chesterton. And maybe Charles Williams)!
The observant among you might note this is not the 300th blog post this year, I'm getting right on that. I promise that once I take a standardized test, play 3 different shows with 2 different bands and finish my critical paper which I haven't yet started, I'll make this a priority. So what I'm saying is, I'll be spending all of December 31st getting caught up. Dangit.
Another poem I enjoyed in high school, this one a fun bit of verse that appeals to the Seussian side. As a dyed-in-the-wool Augustinian I very much appreciated some Pelagius-bashing back then. Now that my wool is greying, I'm a little less appreciative of the sentiment, but it sure is fun to say out loud!
Pelagius lived at Kardanoel
And taught a doctrine there
How, whether you went to heaven or to hell
It was your own affair.
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own affair.
No, he didn't believe
In Adam and Eve
He put no faith therein!
His doubts began
With the Fall of Man
And he laughed at Original Sin.
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
He laughed at original sin.
Then came the bishop of old Auxerre
Germanus was his name
He tore great handfuls out of his hair
And he called Pelagius shame.
And with his stout Episcopal staff
So thoroughly whacked and banged
The heretics all, both short and tall --
They rather had been hanged.
Oh he whacked them hard, and he banged them long
Upon each and all occasions
Till they bellowed in chorus, loud and strong
Their orthodox persuasions.
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Their orthodox persuasions.
Now the faith is old and the Devil bold
Exceedingly bold indeed.
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth
And still can drink strong ale
Let us put it away to infallible truth
That always shall prevail.
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword
And howling heretics too.
And all good things
Our Christendom brings
But especially barley brew!
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Especially barley brew!
The observant among you might note this is not the 300th blog post this year, I'm getting right on that. I promise that once I take a standardized test, play 3 different shows with 2 different bands and finish my critical paper which I haven't yet started, I'll make this a priority. So what I'm saying is, I'll be spending all of December 31st getting caught up. Dangit.
Another poem I enjoyed in high school, this one a fun bit of verse that appeals to the Seussian side. As a dyed-in-the-wool Augustinian I very much appreciated some Pelagius-bashing back then. Now that my wool is greying, I'm a little less appreciative of the sentiment, but it sure is fun to say out loud!
The Pelagian Drinking Song
Hillaire Belloc
And taught a doctrine there
How, whether you went to heaven or to hell
It was your own affair.
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own affair.
No, he didn't believe
In Adam and Eve
He put no faith therein!
His doubts began
With the Fall of Man
And he laughed at Original Sin.
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
He laughed at original sin.
Then came the bishop of old Auxerre
Germanus was his name
He tore great handfuls out of his hair
And he called Pelagius shame.
And with his stout Episcopal staff
So thoroughly whacked and banged
The heretics all, both short and tall --
They rather had been hanged.
Oh he whacked them hard, and he banged them long
Upon each and all occasions
Till they bellowed in chorus, loud and strong
Their orthodox persuasions.
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Their orthodox persuasions.
Now the faith is old and the Devil bold
Exceedingly bold indeed.
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth
And still can drink strong ale
Let us put it away to infallible truth
That always shall prevail.
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword
And howling heretics too.
And all good things
Our Christendom brings
But especially barley brew!
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Especially barley brew!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tempus Fugit Ditties
Cool Tombs
Carl Sandburg
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? ... in the dust, in the cool tombs?
Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns ... tell me if the lovers are losers ... tell me if any get more than the lovers ... in the dust ... in the cool tombs.
I like these tempus fugit ditties - nobody gets more, but some people get less. And like Tom Petty said, even the losers get lucky sometimes.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Ecclesiastes Love Song
Another one from my childhood that's short enough to remember. Despite being a little trite, there's a nugget of world-weariness and hard-won wisdom that puts me in mind of Ecclesiastes. Get while the getting is good, because the getting that's got will eventually get you.
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.
Jenny Kiss'd Me
Leigh Hunt
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.
Men & Women & the Publishing Industry
This is a poet who stood at an interesting crossroads. It has long been an acceptable — even a mandatory — activity for women to write poetry, from medieval courtiers to the blue bloods of the Back Bay. But it was a much later development when the ban was lifted on women actually publishing poems.
Looking back at the most renowned female poets, a lot of it is pretty mushy and predictable. That's what there was a market for, and there undoubtedly was some misogyny in thinking that's all that women would be able to write. In some ways, we still have that lingering prejudice - women can write children's fiction, romance novels, helpful how-to books, but we leave the really powerful, deep writing to the XY crowd. Witness what's been nicknamed "Franzengate," after all the hoopla about Jonathan Franzen's new book "Freedom" and how so-called Great American Novelists lauded by the media are invariably men.
Edna St. Vincent Millay was a poet, translator, critic who could definitely go toe-to-toe with any of her peers, regardless of gender. But she still was stuck in some of this late-Romantic tradition even though she was eight when the 20th century rolled around. So there's a lot of flowery language and decidedly non-Modernist leanings in her work even though her personality and philosophical bent are very much in the dark, depressing and recognizably contemporary mood.
Exhibit A: this sonnet that has all the outward forms of courtly love songs that extend from the Tudor court to Miley Cyrus. But there's a different flavor here, something that's more A.E. Housman than Anne Bradstreet, something inconsolable and irrevocably interior.
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 to-night, 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 the 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.
Looking back at the most renowned female poets, a lot of it is pretty mushy and predictable. That's what there was a market for, and there undoubtedly was some misogyny in thinking that's all that women would be able to write. In some ways, we still have that lingering prejudice - women can write children's fiction, romance novels, helpful how-to books, but we leave the really powerful, deep writing to the XY crowd. Witness what's been nicknamed "Franzengate," after all the hoopla about Jonathan Franzen's new book "Freedom" and how so-called Great American Novelists lauded by the media are invariably men.
Edna St. Vincent Millay was a poet, translator, critic who could definitely go toe-to-toe with any of her peers, regardless of gender. But she still was stuck in some of this late-Romantic tradition even though she was eight when the 20th century rolled around. So there's a lot of flowery language and decidedly non-Modernist leanings in her work even though her personality and philosophical bent are very much in the dark, depressing and recognizably contemporary mood.
Exhibit A: this sonnet that has all the outward forms of courtly love songs that extend from the Tudor court to Miley Cyrus. But there's a different flavor here, something that's more A.E. Housman than Anne Bradstreet, something inconsolable and irrevocably interior.
"What lips my lips have kissed"
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts to-night, 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 the 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.
Sudden Upwelling of Thanks
Another early poem I read in school which has cropped up at odd moments in my life. When I lived in Boston and toured the Sam Adams brewery, someone had used chalk to write the whole text out on an alley doorway nearby.
This never ceases to make me grateful or at least feel guilty at my ingratitude. Especially on amazing fall days like today, full of zoo animals and sushi and movies and fondue and iPad and cupcakes and family who don't hold a grudge when you drink too much and hurl into a plastic bag while driving through downtown Seattle. I believe it was Björk who said it best: "All is full of love."
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
This never ceases to make me grateful or at least feel guilty at my ingratitude. Especially on amazing fall days like today, full of zoo animals and sushi and movies and fondue and iPad and cupcakes and family who don't hold a grudge when you drink too much and hurl into a plastic bag while driving through downtown Seattle. I believe it was Björk who said it best: "All is full of love."
I thank you god for most this amazing day
e.e. cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
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