Category: BookLust II

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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Black Cat Red House

Eliot, T.S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 343.

Who hasn’t read this in high school or at least college at least once? I can remember combing through line after line like primates looking for bugs. We scrutinized each word asking ourselves and each other what it all meant. Half the time we wanted to make stuff up because we just didn’t get it. Even today, there is so much to this poem that I have a hard time sorting it all out. Here are some of the ideas I have (and I would love it if someone could tell me how far off (or on) I really am). Okay, so the first idea is a comparison to Dante’s Inferno, and the whole idea of deciding who you really are. The second idea is a rant about aging, or society, or time, or relationships…or all of the above. I do know that it’s a monologue; someone talking to his or her “me, myself and moi”; or in my world, someone just having a good rant. Any takers on this theory?

Here is my favorite imagery: the cat. Of course. I love, love, love T.S. Eliot’s imagery when he decribes the yellow smoke as a cat, “…rubs its back upon the window-panes…licked its tongue into the corners of the evening…curled once about the house, and fell asleep.” It’s brilliant.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust  in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). Are you sick of me saying that yet?

Celestial Music

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IMG_1223
Gluck, Louise. “Celestial Music.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Ed. by David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 991.

I want to call this ‘Friends Argue then Agree to Disagree.’ For it is about (I think), two people seeing life differently. While they focus on the subject of religion (one believes in God, the other doesn’t), it is a metaphor for how each of them sees life as a whole – living, dying, coping with everything in between. It’s poignant. As the two friends walk they come across a dying catapillar. One friend can hardly stand to watch it fall victim to a swarm of ants while the other can. In the end, they know they are both right. As they should be.

My favorite line, “The love of form is a love of endings.”

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lustin the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Dulce Et Decorum Est

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Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. London: Chatto & Windus, 1964. 55.

I think this has to be one of the most famous poems of all times. It is certainly the most famous poem about World War I that I can think of. It’s imagery is so vivid I often recoil from the words as I try to read them. I only think I can imagine the horror of what the soldiers experienced on the battlefields. I can only pretend to feel the pain of their mental and physical traumas. Wilfred Owen has you standing in the trenches with stench of blood and mud in your nose. He has you hearing the bombs whistle and explode in your ears. He has your eyes tearing as they burn from the green gasses and the death of friends.

Lines that killed me:
“As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”
“His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin…”

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Edited to add: Some people prefer their poetry in a more lyrical manner. Check out “The Latin One” (10,000 Maniacs, Hope Chest – 1990) for their interpretation.

Search for Baby Combover

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Kirby, David. “The Search for Baby Combover.” The Ha-Ha. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Univeristy Press, 2003. 41.

This is my third (and final) poem from The Ha-Ha that I had to read for the BookLust challenge. Later on, I will read a different book of poetry from David Kirby. But, for now “The Search for Baby Combover” is it. (see yesterday’s post for another Kirby.)
I couldn’t have asked to end Kirby’s collection on a better poem. “Baby Combover” is beyond delightful. It’s not a flowery prosey-prissy kind of thing. Instead, it’s inventive, sarcastic and wildly funny. It’s the story of a man who gets a knock on his door one night. His downstairs neighbor stands before him and proceeds to ask him to please refrain from (whoops wrong story) not move furniture around so late at night…because it wakes the baby. What baby? As far as our man is concerned he’s never seen a baby. Never heard a baby. So, he goes on to think the guy has invented a baby…It’s hysterical.

Here are a few of the best lines (and there are more so you might as well read the whole thing):
“…and I see he’s got something on his head, like strands of oily seaweed, something you’d expect to find on a rock after one of those big tanker spills in the Channel…”
“Baby Combover: the world’s first silent baby.”

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Ha-Ha Part II

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David Kirby poetry
Kirby, David. “The Ha-Ha, Part II: I Cry My Heart, Antonio” The Ha-Ha Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2003. 53.

Clever. This poem is so very clever. I like the story within a story concept. Like Shakespeare only a play on words. Here’s the quick and dirty premise: a man is having dinner with a companion. He is loving the meal and makes a comment about it. The comment reminds him of something horrible, so horrible that when his companion asks about his tragic face, he makes up another sad story to compensate for something too horrible to be discuss. The story he makes up becomes his ha-ha, his “structure against chaos”, as Kirby says.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Elephant of the Sea

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elephant of the seaKirby, David. “Elephant of the Sea,” The Ha-Ha.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. 46.

Crack me up. This poem is really funny. It’s one of those comments on culture and keeping up with what’s cool. It’s also about language. Words and meanings. A French man wants to buy an automobile just like his American friend’s. Right down to the manatee on the license plate – the “elephant of the sea.” The friend doesn’t get it. He’s imagining what the clerk at the DMV are going to say and how the whole incident will shape her future.
And this is just one poem. Everything David Kirby writes is great. He is like geek rock of poetry. He’s smart and too funny for words.

Favorite line: “‘I can have zuh elephant of the zuh sea on my matriculation?’ to a clerk who’s got this grin on her face like she’s either seeing God or having an aneurysm” (p 46). 

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lustin the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). He’s also mentioned in Book Lust in the chapter “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Musee des Beaux Arts

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Auden, W.H. “Musee des Beaux Arts.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 501.

What do you see when you look at art? Does a painting create question in your mind? W.H. Auden wrote “Musee des Beaux Arts” in response to seeing the painter Brueghel’s Icarus. A ploughman calmly going about his business as a boy falls from the sky. While he had clues to the tragedy (a splash or cry) he does nothing. Auden’s larger observation is about how human response to an event or tragedy can vary; how life goes on beyond that event or tragedy. “Human position” as Auden puts it.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

What He Thought

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McHugh, Heather. “What He Thought.” Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968-1993. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1994.

I loved the conversational tone of this poem. I can see them perfectly. Intellects sitting around after dinner discussing what makes poetry poetry. In the beginning there is a snobbishness to the language, an air of I Know Better. Yet at the end there is a hint of mistaken identity which peeks through – an apology, mea culpa, my bad. It’s almost like a weak joke with a killer punchline.
Not to spoil the poem, but here’s the line that got me: “poetry is what he thought, but did not say.” How crazy is that? While this poem is in Hinge & Sign you can also read “What He Thought” on Heather’s humorous site.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p187).

Case for Three Detectives

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Case for Three Detectives
Bruce, Leo. Case For Three Detectives. Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1936.

First things first: Leo Bruce is actually a pseudonym for Rupert Croft-Cooke. Just had to get that out there. Second, I have to say how disappointed I am to not be up on my mysteries – or at least the detectives of pop culture! Nancy Pearl compares the three detectives in Case for Three Detectives with Peter Wimsley, Father Brown, and Hercule Peirot. I have only vaguely heard of Peirot so I had no idea what she was talking about! My loss, I guess.
Maybe it’s a generational thing (because this book was written over 70 years ago). Maybe it’s a cultural thing (because this book is decidedly British). Either way, I wasn’t able to get over the fact that, despite a murder (a woman’s throat was slashed), not only were people capable of carrying on as if nothing happened (washing cars and entertaining), but the guests were included to help solve the mystery. Now, I have to keep in mind in those days guests stayed overnight and became “house guests” and dinner parties consisted of four or five house guests, each with his or her own room. 
Pearl included this in her “humor” section but warned I probably wouldn’t laugh outloud, and she’s right. I didn’t. It’s the mystery of three off the wall detectives trying to solve a murder. Each comes up with a completely different yet plausible scenerio for what could have happened. You find yourself saying, “but, of course!” until you hear the final Who Really Did It story. 
A line that made me smile: “‘If you mean spiders,’ he said, ‘I know only two things about them. And those are the things which everyone knows. They kill flies. And they hang on threads.'” (p53).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Tickle Your Funny Bone” (p 218).

Oven Bird

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Robert Frost II
Frost, Robert. “The Oven Bird.” You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Young Readers. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1959. 50.

I am definitely unsure of an oven bird. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, nor heard one. I can’t even imagine one. But, I do know I love Robert Frost’s poetry – whether it be for children (as this one is) or for adults. What I keep coming back to about this particular poem is the circulation of the seasons. The flowers that bloom, and the bird that sings. It’s delightful. No favorite lines. It’s too short.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Blind Heron

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Tate, James. “The Blind Heron.” Shroud of the Gnome. New Jersey: Ecco Press, 1997. 11.

From just the title of Tate’s book I knew I would be in for a treat. I love 20th century poetry, especially when it has a sense of humor, a sense of the playful. Before I even got to “The Blind Heron” I read the table of contents and had a good laugh over some of the other poems: “Where Babies Come From” (made me think of that birds and bees talk – ahem!), “Restless Leg Syndrome”, “Shut Up and Eat Your Toad”, and “Sodomy in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”…I’ll have to blog about those at another time.
But, I will say this – Remember that scene in the movie ‘Tommy Boy’ when Tommy is trying to sleep at a motel. Richard keeps knocking on the door with different suggestive suggestions until finally, Tommy bolts out of bed yelling, “what kind of place is this?”? Well, that’s me with this collection of poetry. After seeing a poem called “In His Hut Sat Baba Jaga, Hag Faced” all I could ask was “what kind of poetry is this?!” The only answer: fun!

“Blind Heron” is clever and impish. Kiki is missing her cockatiel. Kiki is called a liar yet you, as the reader, are not really sure if that’s the truth. It’s more probable that you are only suppose to think of Kiki as a nontruth telling person because the poem concludes rather suddenly. Everything you thought you knew has been changed based on a confession.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Provide, Provide

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Frost, Robert. “Provide, Provide.” The Oxford Book Of American Poetry. Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 234.

I couldn’t tell if Frost was trying to be funny here, if he was being what they call Tongue in Cheek, or if he really was serious in “Provide, Provide.” The first time I read it I thought it was one of those BeAllYouCanBe poems. Die great if you can help it. Seriously. But, the second time I read it I realized there is a sly sense of humor to this poem, a sort of sarcasm that if you can’t be great, lie about it. Don’t die a nobody. The line “Make the whole stock exchange your own!” sends me smiling every single time. I’m thinking of my Bull Lynch uncle and all his greatness in the arena. 
But, this part cinched it for me & are my favorite lines, at the end (of course):
“Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, Provide!”

BookLust Twist: More Book Lust  in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Incident

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Cullen, Countee. “Incident.” On These I Stand: An Anthology of the Best Poems of Countee Cullen. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927.

Don’t let the shortness of this poem fool you. It packs a punch. “Incident” can be defined as one of those defining moments I blogged about earlier – where one instance stays with you, shapes you, defines you. Written in the first person, “Incident” is about an eight year old boy visiting Baltimore. Even though he spends some considerable time there the only thing he can recall is being called “nigger” by another young boy. There is so much below the surface of this poem. The hurt seethes.
Incidentally, this poem comes from an anthology of poems personally picked by Mr. Cullen. He dedicates this particular one to Eric Walrond, a Harlem Renaissance writer. This is the second Countee Cullen poem on my list.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

 

The Mercy

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The Mercy
Levine, Philip. “The Mercy.” The Mercy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

Why is it that I can see some poems as mini movies? “The Mercy” paints a picture of Levine’s mother and her immigration to New York. It’s simple and short, but loaded with imagery. I can see the boat, waiting off-shore (quarantined until all illness had passed), or the sailor who teaches the eight year old girl how to say “orange” as she enjoys the juice-laden fruit.
There is respect and love woven into the words. Levine’s entire book of poetry is dedicated to his mother and the cover of the book depicts immigrants waiting to come ashore. Who knows? Maybe his mother is in the picture? I do not know.

BookLust Twist:From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

Clouds Above The Sea

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Storm II
Levine, Philip. “Clouds Above the Sea.” The Mercy. New York: Random House, 2000.

There is a melancholy air to this poem. Levine is simply describing his parents side by side, watching a storm roll in. He gives more decription to his mother, wanting to give her gifts to compensate for child bearing. She sounds as if she is taken for granted and Levine is just figuring that out. He sounds as if he is imaging the scene long after his parents’ passing. There is a tinge of regret in the language that cannot be ignored.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).