Poem of the moment

[Saffron]

I want to revisit the Hamlin Garland poem. All the bolds are mine. In fact, my plan is to take the poem apart in order to show what I love about it. I'll just start by saying I love the rhythms in this poem.

from A Dakota Wheat-Field

Like liquid gold the wheat-field lies,
A marvel of yellow and russet and green,

I find the long "e" sounds that repeat (assonance) very pleasing.

That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,

In this line it is the alliteration of the "r" and the "f". Somehow the sounds of "r" and "f" give a sense of movement, especially the movement of air or something being moved by air.


With the subtle shadows, the change,
the sheen,

Again, it is the alliteration.

That play in the golden hair of a girl, --
A ripple of amber -- a flare
Of light sweeping after -- a curl

In these three lines the repetition of the "r" sound and the location of the rhythms give them an interesting movement - kind of the way sunlight moves around due to the movement of clouds or just the way an object in motion will catch the light.


In the hollows like a swirling feet
Of fairy waltzers, the colors run
To the western sun
Through the deeps of
the ripening wheat.


And the poem winds up by winding down; literally the lines get shorter and shorter. The rhyme of the first and last lines of stanza pull the poem, as well as the day, to a close.

[DWill]

It never occurred to me that the stanza was sad! There is the mournful choir of gnats, true, but overall this last living season is musical and beautiful. Keats implies that spring is overrated and too easy to sing the praises of.

DWill

[Saffron]

DW
It is interesting that I picked up sadness in the Keats poem and maybe telling. For sure there is a touch of it, but on several more readings the poem seemed much less sad. I went hunting for more info on the poem. I did find this little tidbit.

It was written in Winchester on 19 September 1819 and first published in 1820. Keats described the feeling behind its composition in a letter to his friend Reynolds, 'Somehow a stubble plain looks warm - in the same way that some pictures look warm - this struck me so much in my sunday's [sic] walk that I composed upon it.'

[Saffron]

This poem fits both as my poem of the moment and as a favorite.


The Red Wheelbarrow


so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

- William Carlos Williams

[Grim]

thank you for the very vivid imagery

[Saffron]

Hey, I know you're out there. Somebody want to post a poem?

Here are a few lines of Whithman that capture this particular moment for me:

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw patches down upon me also;
The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious;
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? would not people laugh at me?

Excerpt from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman (1819

[Saffron]

Still on a melancholy jag. The following is a few lines from Izumi Shikibu translated by Jane Hirshfield.

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roofplanks
of this ruined house.


For further information on Izumi Shikibu:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumi_Shikibu

[Thomas Hood]

Still on a melancholy jag. The following is a few lines from Izumi Shikibu translated by Jane Hirshfield.

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roofplans
of this ruined house.

Isn't the word "roofplans" a misuse of language? Apparently roofplans means 'the architectural design of a roof' or 'the blueprint of a roof'. Hirshfield should have said "rafters."

Tom

[Saffron]

Still on a melancholy jag. The following is a few lines from Izumi Shikibu translated by Jane Hirshfield.

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roofplans
of this ruined house.

Isn't the word "roofplans" a misuse of language? Apparently roofplans means 'the architectural design of a roof' or 'the blueprint of a roof'. Hirshfield should have said "rafters."

Tom

Tom, my oops. It is merely a typo. It should read and I will go back and edit to read: roofplanks. Silly, huh?

[DWill]

I've said before I tend to like an extravagance of language in poetry, poems in which, as Keats said, every rift is loaded with ore (or something like that). So I offer another sonnet by G.M. Hopkins.

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord


I CAUGHT this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,