Poem of the moment

[Saffron]

DW,
What is it about Dover Beach that you like? By the way, I loved reading both poems back to back. It took me several readings to figure out that I liked it. It captures mine own feeling of nakedness in the world and the need to piece together from remnants some garment to ward off the chill.

Saff

[Saffron]

Good morning!
A poem to set the tone for my day; at least I hope.

From New And Selected Poems an excerpt from The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

When I am reading Mary Oliver, especially her poems from New And Selected Poems (1991-1992) I always think of Robert Frost. I think the reason is that her poems are rooted in a careful observation of nature as are many of his. The similarity stops here I think. Oliver is a much more joyful poet.

[DWill]

What is it about Dover Beach that you like?
Saff

Hi ya, Saff,
I like several things about it. One is the lines, how they preserve some formal quality with their rhymes yet are uneven and conversational. I like the painterly quality of the opening stanza, too. Most of all, I like the cadences, especially the way the long sentences play themselves out like the waves spending themselves on the beach, esp. in lines 9-14 and 24-28. I'm always a sucker for these rhythms, no matter what the subject, but with the addition of "The eternal note of sadness", well that hits my sweet spot.

It's not that I really feel so much what the speaker feels--the loss of any possibility of religious faith, or even dismay at the modern world--but he sells me on how he must feel, and that is enough. Look at the last stanza, again one long sentence rolling in, a poignant (to me) expression of alienation and indeed a nightmarish vision. The last three lines are probably in contention for the title of most memorable in the language:

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of strugle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Thanks for asking!

DWill

[DWill]

When I am reading Mary Oliver, especially her poems from New And Selected Poems (1991-1992) I always think of Robert Frost. I think the reason is that her poems are rooted in a careful observation of nature as are many of his. The similarity stops here I think. Oliver is a much more joyful poet.

No, he doesn't seem to do joy very often. He was not a particularly happy man. Additionally, Frost is not a modern poet, even though he had contemporaries who were modern poets. He doesn't ever speak directly to us, do you think?, as Oliver and others do. We overhear him but are not addressed by him. That is the effect of formality, perhaps. Emily Dickinson strikes us as so modern partly because she does speak to us in a seemingly personal way.

DW

[DWill]

Thinking a little more about my statement about Frost, if it is true in general about him not engaging the reader closely, there are notable exceptions, poems where he speaks to "you." The very first poem in his first book is an example!

THE PASTURE

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan't be gone long--You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan't be gone long--You come too.

And then, in one of my favorites , "Directive," he takes the reader ("you") almost literally by the hand on a journey back into time.

Maybe I should say, "Never mind."

DWill

[Saffron]

DWill, shall we take "Directives" over to the Favorite Poem tread? I know this one and count it among my favorites too. So many playful images in a rather somber poem. I especially like his made up word, belilaced.


Saff

[Saffron]

Will,
I've been thinking of the Frost poem you posted this morning, all day. I love that it is the first in a collection. With an invitation like that, I'd happily tag along for the read. For me the poem brought back memories of following along after my cousin, a year older than myself; especially while she did her chores (which included barn duty - she had a pony and I still have the scars from that pony).

Saffron

[Chris OConnor]

Hey guys. Both of you should check your private messages when you get a chance.

[Indigo]

Two poems of the moment, both from well-respected poets who I don't normally like, but have still written two poems I love.


One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop


- - - -


A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Allen Ginsberg

[Saffron]

This poem so reminds me of my daughter, with the wild hair, who I am missing because she is at the beach.

Soneto XIV (Sonnet 14) by Pablo Neruda

Me falta tiempo para celebrar tus cabellos.
Uno por uno debo contarlos y alabarlos:
otros amantes quieren vivir con ciertos ojos,
yo solo quiero ser tu peluquero.

En Italia te bautizaron Medusa
por la encrespada y alta luz de tu cabellera.
Yo te llamo chascona mia y enmara