no light, no light

Buchenwald

Listening to a podcast while I do online banking, which caused me pause,

hearing Anthony Hecht’s poem, “More Light, More Light.”

Two deaths in two different centuries—one in Renaissance England

and one outside Buchenwald. Christoper Hicks, professor of

Humanities at Boston University, mentions so rightly

that the rhyme is hard for the first several stanzas and breaks

up in the last stanzas, disintegrating, if you will. I feel haunted by the

line, “and every day mute /  Ghosts come drifting from the ovens . . .”

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/poetry-off-the-shelf/id138752347

For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses, and being brought at that time
Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
"I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime."

Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible,
The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite.
His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap
Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light.

And that was but one, and by no means one of he worst;
Permitted at least his pitiful dignity;
And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,
That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility.

We move now to outside a German wood.
Three men are there commanded to dig a hole
In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down
And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole.

Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse.
A Luger settled back deeply in its glove.
He was ordered to change places with the Jews.

Much casual death had drained away their souls.
The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin.
When only the head was exposed the order came
To dig him out again and to get back in.

No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth.
The Luger hovered lightly in its glove.
He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death.

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

Filed under: Uncategorized , "More LIght, Anthony Hecht, Christopher Hicks, poetry, Poetry Off the Shelf

Let us remember . . .

that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.

Christian Wiman, Editor of Poetry Magazine

Good exhausted tonight. I picked William Logan up from school, (was it just yesterday?), took him to tea (the Anglophile), dropped him at his hotel, wrote for two hours , cobbling together an introduction for his reading, printed it at like 5 minutes and ocunting, introduced him, heard his reading, went with a big group to take him to a French bistro, woke up, went to Body Pump, picked him back up, coffee and croissants at a French bakery, to the airport, all of this time spent with one of the most important men in poetry today, all of this only to realize that I am woefully ignorant of the current poetry scene in America, Britain, anywhere. It’s hard starting late, playing catch-up, trying to learn all that I’ve missed, much less what is being written now, today, yesterday. LIfe is short, I’m reminded once again. “Life is short,” is a cliche for good reason. It’s because it’s true. And life is full of choices. Choose wisely. What you read, what you care about, who you care about.

Filed under: Uncategorized

So, what is the novel?

I started my last class for this degree last night (besides my thesis hours). I know. It’s about time. I think I have dragged this degree out so much because I love school so much. I mean I think I know that. I love, love, love learning. And last night was a high for me. The Modern British novel. So guess how many we are reading? NINE. They call it the Book of the Week club. My teacher is brilliant. He is a Joycean expert. He has written many articles in his field. So. You will never guess what “they” consider the first Modern novel. Not the first novel, but the first modern novel. MADAME BOVARY. Book it. I was so gratified that I had read it during all those child-bearing, nursing, child-dragging around, picking up for a living years. Not that I didn’t enjoy them. Not that I don’t have regrets for how driven I’ve been. Not that I’m any less driven now. It’s a tool in my toolbox. It numbs pain. And it really, really works. SO. Heart of Darkness, Sons and Lovers, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A Clockwork Orange, Mrs. Dalloway, Saturday Morning, Saturday Evening, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, The Good Soldier. Is that nine? It better be. I finished Conrad today, read Joyce’s short story “Araby,” am about to study British Imperialism and the reasons for mass Irish immigration to America in the Twentieth Century. I can’t stop. But back to Bovary. I have so much to say about that. This woman, I can relate to. Her pain. But, the real thing that makes it a “Modern” novel is that it makes no overt judgments. That, and the fact that Flaubert wrote painfully, rather than painlessly—as we believe Dickens and Scott did. He chose “le mot juste,” the right word—which of course makes perfect sense in poetry and should be always the rule of writing. The right word makes the right sentence makes the right novel. Ad infinitum. Ad glorious infinitum.

See for yourself. Read Heart of Darkness. What is the heart of darkness? Is it found only in the hearts of British Imperialists or do we all have this heart of darkness. Why didn’t Conrad write an easy adventure novel like Sir Walter Scott might have done? Why did Kurtz go mad? Why was it “Horrible, horrible,” and most of all, why can I not forget those two words. I hear them now, “Horrible, horrible.”

Filed under: Uncategorized , Gustave Flaubert, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Madame Bovary, short story araby, the Modern novel

Today I am full of thoughts

“To-day I am full of thoughts and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the same thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world; but yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this will not be strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882, U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. “Circles,” Essays, First Series 1841, repr. 1847.

via Today I am full of thoughts, Ralph Waldo Emerson | Dictionary.com.

Well, a little pantheism never hurt anyone.

Did it?

Filed under: Uncategorized , Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing

At least

some things in life are constant. The best ice, the best char-grilled burgers, the best strawberry milk shakes.

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meaningless expectations

So. I was just thinking to myself how much I really, truly enjoy writing. Not writing like this, but concentrated writing. It’s like waking up every day to a puzzle that is intensely and at the same time beautifully, brutally frustrating. Kind of the way I fell about love, I guess. An insane puzzle that is beautifully, brutally frustrating.
The article excerpt below (from Harvard Business Review blog) reminds me that the expectations I have for these words I write, although it takes a certain level of hubris to think this—my expectations for these words has only to do with what I hope and how I want them to fulfill a certain purpose. But, really, it all has only to do with me, which makes it all feel like a giant journey in self-absorption. I want my words to go out and give someone pause, cause someone to consider what is “forbidden, what is hidden,” what is not being said in the words and in every day of our lives. So, this business article, although quippy and clever reminded me that I don’t really write to meet anyone’s expectations. I can’t. I don’t know what they are. And in that terrific zero-gravity airspace, I know. I know that I can really only know my expectations for what must be said. And don’t even think of telling me that you have no idea what I just said. heh.
Meaningless Expressions
I wrote about the phrase “thinking outside the box” recently and how overused and utterly misunderstood the expression is. There are many more. Another term that has lost its meaning is “Let’s exceed the customer’s expectations.” Employees who hear it just leave the pep rally, inhabit some kind of temporary dazed intensity, and then go back to doing things exactly the way they did before the speech. Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. How can you exceed the customer’s expectations if you have no idea what those expectations are? I was at a Hilton a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation.” The best way to start would be to take down that bullshit sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do. My expectation is not to have signs around that tell me you want to exceed my expectations.

Abstract Valley Girl 2.0 Acronymitis Using Meaningless Expressions
This is when you combine the four diseases above. So you get phrases like, “You should meet this guy with the SIO. He’s sort of this kind of social entrepreneur thinking outside of the box in the sustainability space and working on these ideas around sort of web-based social media, and he’s in a round two capital raise in the VP space with the people at SVNP.” How many times have you heard what you now recall to be precisely this sentence?

This would all be funny if it weren’t true. People just don’t make sense anymore. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you internalize this. Observe it, deconstruct it, and appreciate just how ridiculous most business conversation has become.

You will gain tremendous credibility, become much more productive, make those around you much more productive, and experience a great deal more joy in your working life if you look someone in the eye after hearing one of these verbal brain jammers and tell the person, “I don’t have any idea what you just said to me.” http://blogs.hbr.org/pallotta/2011/12/i-dont-understand-what-anyone.html

 

Filed under: Uncategorized , Dan Pallotta, Harvard Business Review, writing

How could I

forget that today is the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor? When I got home from my last Poetry class (not mandatory, but a fun meeting off-campus), I turned on the movie channel that plays old movies, and From Here to Eternity was playing. Of course, I walked in on the most passionate, scandalous scene of all with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing in the waves. Took me a few minutes, but I realized why that movie was playing today. And I remembered this: my father delivered the first “Extra” that the newspaper in Warrensburg, Missouri had ever experienced. I don’t know if it would have been today, December 7, or tomorrow, December 8, but he had a red bicycle and a paper route and can you imagine the excitement a boy of eleven felt delivering news of this magnitude.
In other news, a man at the poetry party said I was a genius (but smart is not enough, he said.) I’m not, but my father was. Two good reasons to remember him happily, today. Oh, and the same man said I’d written my best poem yet. And it’s about a MIdwestern couple. Actually, it’s a story about my dad’s one time best friend.
That makes me a little bit glad today, too.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Pearl Harbor

Did Emily Dickinson know about SAD?

Funny, you have to wonder: what did all our forebears do with their ADD, ADHD children? Was there autism, Asperger’s, occupational, physical, speech therapy? What about depression? No Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac? So did Emily understand or respond to Seasonal Affective Disorder, to lower light in winter? And more importantly, rather than being medicated, do we have her words—shared—with us that helped her cope and now gift us with her reality? I am particularly lonely of late. I wonder if there is this in the writing: the hope that not only is it cathartic for me to write, could it help someone else someday: my helping me?
academy@poets.org

There’s a certain Slant of light (258)
by Emily Dickinson

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the Seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –

 

 

Filed under: Uncategorized

i love the ridges.

Sundown
by Jorie Graham

(St. Laurent Sur Mer, June 5, 2009)

Sometimes the day
light winces
behind you and it is
a great treasure in this case today a man on
a horse in calm full
gallop on Omaha over my
left shoulder coming on
fast but
calm not audible to me at all until I turned back my
head for no
reason as if what lies behind
one had whispered
what can I do for you today and I had just
turned to
answer and the answer to my
answer flooded from the front with the late sun he/they
were driving into—gleaming—
wet chest and upraised knees and
light-struck hooves and thrust-out even breathing of the great
beast—from just behind me,
passing me—the rider looking straight
ahead and yet
smiling without looking at me as I smiled as we
both smiled for the young
animal, my feet in the
breaking wave-edge, his hooves returning, as they begin to pass
by,
to the edge of the furling
break, each tossed-up flake of
ocean offered into the reddish
luminosity—sparks—as they made their way,
boring through to clear out
life, a place where no one
again is suddenly
killed—regardless of the “cause”—no one—just this
galloping forward with
force through the low waves, seagulls
scattering all round, their
screeching and mewing rising like more bits of red foam, the
horse’s hooves now suddenly
louder as it goes
by and its prints on
wet sand deep and immediately filled by thousands of
sandfleas thrilled to the
declivities in succession in the newly
released beach—just
at the right
moment for some
microscopic life to rise up through these
cups in the hard upslant
retreating ocean is
revealing, sandfleas finding them just as light does,
carving them out with
shadow, and glow on each
ridge, and
water oozing up through the innermost cut of the
hoofsteps,
and when I shut my eyes now I am not like a blind person
walking towards the lowering sun,
the water loud at my right,
but like a seeing person
with her eyes shut
putting her feet down
one at a time
on the earth.

Filed under: Uncategorized , "Sundown, Joorie Graham, poetry

I have not wasted my life.

I said this yesterday, wrote this line to my mentor/teacher/now, friend—ABV.

He wrote back, “Me either. I have lived a full one already. All of the rest from here on out is more than I deserve.”

This reminds me, as so often I need to be reminded, there is so much, I have so much,

have been given so much. Just the thoughts in my head, the poetry and psalms I have

hidden there, the photographs and artwork I can see—from the Louvre, the Met, Florence,

Venice, Rome, the experiences I can recall . . . . births, baptisms, firsts, honors, gifts.

I have all of that now, right now. This poem reminds me that I have not wasted my life.

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

By James Wright

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,

Asleep on the black trunk,

Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.

Down the ravine behind the empty house,

The cowbells follow one another

Into the distances of the afternoon.

To my right,

In a field of sunlight between two pines,

The droppings of last year’s horses

Blaze up into golden stones.

I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.

A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.

I have wasted my life.

James Wright, “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. Copyright � 1990 by James Wright. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

www.poetryfoundation.org

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