Category: Poetry

House of Blue Light

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Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“The Bells Are Ringing…”

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Winch, Terence. “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall.” The Great Indoors. Brownsville: Story Line Press, 1995. pp 41.

Sexy. That’s the first thing I think when I read “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall.” I want to know who is Chagall? and I want to know more about those bells that are ringing. Do they signify great sex and is Chagall the reason? The entire poem comes off (in the end) as a sage on the stage admonishment about relationships. There is a hint of warning and more than a little advice and it all boils down to this: if your sex life is over-the-top the relationship is doomed to fail. But, if the sex you are having is pleasant, and, in a word, satisfying, you are in a stronger commitment. Interesting.

I think the title of the poem is a play on words. Judy Garland once sang a song with the lyrics, “the bells are ringing for me and my gal” and it was all about getting married (or so I thought whenever I heard it). Marriage defines a level of commitment so it makes some sense to compare the two.

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

“Two Tramps in Mud Time”

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Frost, Robert. “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. New York: Library of America, 1984. pp 251-252.

Too many people have tried to analyze Frost’s poem, “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” giving me license to not even try.  Long, rambling, didactic essays have been written explaining Frost’s position on charity, society, and the psychological differences between need versus want. I will refrain. Instead I will look at the poem for what it meant to me. At first blush I took the poem personally. The words “mud time” in the title made me think of Monhegan. We have a whole season dedicated to muck and mire and mud – early spring when everything is thawing more quickly than the sun can dry up. This runoff of excessive, exuberant water creates deep, thick, oozing traps of mud. The kind of mud you sink 4-5″ inches in; strong enough to suck a man’s Bean boot right off his foot.
Then, there is Frost’s description of a fickle spring. I can relate. Here it is, a week into spring and we have a snow storm on our doorstep. April Fools we are for living in New England. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute – as they say.

Another aspect of “Two Tramps in Mud Time” that I took to heart is the concept of loving your work so much that work is not the operative word to describe your actions. The narrator is chopping wood. Not because it is a necessity – winter is over. It is April and presumably he wouldn’t need to light another fire again until fall. No. He enjoys the physical labor of chopping wood. Love what you do. Do what you love. It’s something my father has (countless times) drummed into my head. But, along come two unemployed tramps, looking to take the narrator’s work away from him. They need the work whereas the narrator wants the work. Herein lies the psychological babble about questioning obligation, confronting humanity with charity.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the introduction (p xi).

“Exorcist of Notre-Dame”

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Kirby, David. “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. pp 75-77.

This poem made me sad. Maybe it’s because the narrator wants to talk to an exorcist about seeing someone who reminded him of his dead dad. Maybe it’s because the narrator doesn’t speak French so even if he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to communicate effectively with the exorcist. So, technically, there are two different disappointments at play here – missing one’s father and the inability to communicate. I can relate to both but connect on a deeper level with the loss of a father. There is a little reprieve from the sadness when the narrator imagines the exorcist trying to describe him: “a stuttering sort of spastic hillbilly zombie hayseed type person” (p 77).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

Night Before Christmas

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Moore, Clement Clarke. A Visit From St. Nicholas. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper Press, 1950.

When I was a child no five words filed my head with more wonder than, “Twas the night before Christmas…” On Christmas Eve my sister and I would crowd around the cb radio and listen to a local fisherman read Moore’s famous poem. When did he start this tradition, I have no idea. When did he stop, I haven’t the faintest. But while I was young and believed with a capital B I hung on his every word.

Who doesn’t know the rest of that first line, “Twas the night before Christmas”? It has got to be the most recited, most beloved poem of Christmas and all year round. I went years without knowing who wrote it but could recite it line for line.

Here’s the basic premise for a poem you all know by heart. It’s the night before Christmas and an overly observant man is just getting ready for bed. He makes comments about how still the house is, how the kids are sleeping, and so forth when suddenly he hears something. His wife must be a heavy sleeper for only the man hears a commotion outside. A portly man driving a sleigh with a herd of deer leading the way flies across the sky. They land on the roof and enter the house via the chimney. Somehow this doesn’t faze the homeowner at all. He takes his time describing the intruder and accepts the gifts he leaves. I suppose the detailed description would come in handy for the police should the homeowner later report the odd event. When the little man has finished unpacking his sack he disappears up the chimney again and drives out of sight exclaiming my favorite line, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!” (p 16).

Author Fact: Moore was a professor at Columbia and taught Oriental and Greek literature.

Book Poem Trivia: Since A Visit From St. Nicholas was first published anonymously there is some controversy surrounding the true author. Interestingly enough, Nancy Pearl doesn’t give any author credit.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Christmas Books for the Whole Family” (p 55). I have a confession to make. Because Nancy Pearl called it “The Night Before Christmas” and not “A Visit From St. Nicholas” I am assuming they are one and the same.

ps~ the version I borrowed from the library had sign language as an accompaniment to the story. Very cool.

April ’10 was…

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April was that kind of month that just flew by without warning. When Just’ Cause is over I will get back to writing in the real sense… for now here is the literary month of April.

For books it was:

  • Affliction by Russell Banks ~ can’t wait to see the movie
  • Belshazzar’s Daughter by Barbara Nadel ~ speaking of movies, this should be one
  • Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King ~ probably my second favorite read of the month
  • South Wind Through the Kitchen by Elizabeth David ~ a collection of “best of” Elizabeth David
  • Without End by Adam Zagajewski ~ a collection of poetry
  • Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian ~ my favorite read of the month

For poetry it was:

  • “Luncheon on the Grass” by Carl Phillips (In the Blood, 1993.)
  • “Rebus” by Jane Hirschfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt, 2002.)
  • “Hospital” by Karl Shapiro (Poems: 1040-1953, 1953.)
  • “A Secret Life” by Stephen Dunn (Landscape at the End of the Century, 1999.)
  • “The Welcoming” by Edward Hirsch (Earthly Measures, 1994.)
  • “Prophet” by Carl Dennis (Practical Gods, 2001.)
  • “Funeral II” by — (New & Collected Poems, 2000.)
  • “Days of Pie and Coffee” by — (Shroud of the Gnome, 1997.)
  • “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski (Without End, 2002)
  • “Kaddish” by Allen Ginsberg (Kaddish and Other Poems 1958 – 1960, 2001)
  • “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers” by Katha Pollitt (the mind- body problem, 2009)
  • “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins (Sailing Alone Around the Room, 2002)

For poetry set to music it was Natalie Merchant’s long awaited Leave Your Sleep. This is the track listing for the fantastically amazing album:

Part I

  1. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience by Charles Causley
  2. Equestrienne by Rachel Field
  3. Calico Pie by Edward Lear
  4. Bleezer’s Ice-Cream by Jack Prelutsky
  5. It Makes a Change by Mervyn Peak
  6. The King of China’s Daughter by Anonymous
  7. The Dancing Bear by Albert Bigelow Paine
  8. The Man in the Wilderness by Mother Goose
  9. maggie and milly and molly and may by E.E. Cummings
  10. If No One Ever Marries Me by Laurence Alma-Tadema
  11. The Sleepy Giant by Charles Edward Carryl
  12. The Peppery Man by Arthur Macy
  13. The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe

Part II

  1. Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash
  2. The Walloping Window Blind by Charles Edward Carryl
  3. Topsyturvey World by William Brighty Rands
  4. The Janitor’s Boy by Nathalia Crane
  5. Griselda by Eleanor Farjeon
  6. The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson
  7. Vain and Careless by Robert Graves
  8. Crying, My Little One by Christina Rossetti
  9. Sweet and a Lullaby by Anonymous
  10. I Saw a Ship A-Sailing by Anonymous
  11. Autumn Lullaby by Anonymous
  12. Spring and Fall: to a young child by Gerard Manley Hopkins
  13. Indian Names by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program it was: a browse through a weight training book. Full review coming next month…

For fun it was: The Book of Calamities by Peter Trachtenberg

“Funeral II”

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Szymborska, Wislawa. “Funeral II.” New and Collected Poems. New York: Mariner Books, 2000. p 206.

This poem disturbed me to the core. To read it quite literally it is people standing around before (or after, or anytime in between) a funeral and gossiping. This sort of thing happens all the time. Events like funerals and weddings bring people together. Conversations are bound to happen, especially when people haven’t seen each other since the last milestone – wedding, or funeral…
I think what disturbed me the most is that I could identify with it so readily. I, too, have stood around making small talk; commenting on the people strangers around me. Call it catty. Call it human nature. It happens.

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

Without End

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Zagajewski, Adam. Without End: New and Selected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.

Nancy Pearl mentions “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” in Book Lust in the chapter called, “Polish Poems and Prose” (p 187), but she also recommends the book from which the poem is from, Without End: New and Selected Poems.

I quite enjoyed reading Without End from start to finish. The diversity of poetry within the 270+ pages is refreshing. I especially liked the poet to poet dedications. It’s as if Zagajewski is saying, “from one writer to another, I feel your craft and it influences mine.”

“Try to Praise the Mutilated World” reminds me of Natalie Merchant’s song “Life is Sweet” in that they both try to point out the beauty in the world in spite of the glaring ugliness.

Favorite lines:
“The innkeeper’s daughter was so thin
that she kept bricks in her backpack to outwit the wind…” (p14).

Favorite poem: “Treatise on Emptiness”
A friend and I both agree that this poem moved us in startling and profound ways.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Polish Poems and Prose” (p 187). Yeah, I know I already said that.

“Kaddish”

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Ginsberg, Allen.”Kaddish.” Kaddish and Other Poems; 1958-1960 San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2001. 7.

This took me forever to read. I think part of the reason was I wanted to find the absolute right moment to read it. I know that sounds odd, but consider this: “Kaddish” is said to be autobiographical. That, in and of itself, is extremely interesting to me because of how interesting and controversial Ginsberg was and still is to this day. Secondly, “Kaddish” is about mourning the passing of Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi Ginsberg. She was schizophrenic and  Natalie Merchant’s line “praise a crazy mother’s son” (King of May, Ophelia – 2006) only eludes to Naomi’s troubled mind. Thirdly, there is the religious aspect of Kaddish to consider, and finally, the poem “Kaddish” is said to be Ginsberg’s finest work. Having said all that it should be obvious why I wanted to devote my complete and undivided attention to reading it.

At first read “Kaddish” seems to be all over the place with only two central themes running through it: the death of Naomi Ginsberg and the strain her mental illness put on Ginsberg as a child. After the second reading I began to see how much of an influence art and history also had on the author. He is haunted by his mother’s fears of Hitler and the inability to escape the past. Her history is his history. By the third reading I was so moved by the descriptions  Naomi’s “treatments” that I couldn’t read any more.

One of these days I will research “Kaddish” to the fullest. I will find out why Naomi was afraid of Louis. I will discover the answer to the riddle of the Key in the window. Someday I will know what phrases like “Grand Canyons of asshole” and ” Lung Stew, & Stenka Razin” mean. Someday soon.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “The Beats and Their Generation” (p 17). PS ~ I should note this was not indexed in More Book Lust but since it was mentioned in the chapter I wanted to include it.

“Days of Pie and Coffee”

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Tate, James. “Days of Pie and Coffee.” Shroud of the Gnome. Hopewell: Ecco Press, 1997. pp 2 -4.

This is such a simple image. A man is walking his dog (a golden retriever no less) along a country road. He and the dog are startled by a motorist roaring up and looking for directions. A stranger in this part of the world is such a shock to the man and yet he finds easy conversation with the stranger…as if they are sitting down to a meal of pie and coffee.

I like the powerful descriptions in the poem. It’s not just a poem, it’s a story when you can see the images and feel as if you are there. The act of being startled because you don’t expect a motorist in your little part of the world. A conversation that haltingly starts with mistrust and grows easier with familiarity.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138). Note: this missed getting included in the index.

“Wisdom of the Desert Fathers”

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Pollitt, Katha. “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers.” The Mind-Body Problem. New York: Random House, 2009, p.76.

If my father were alive he would want this poem to read “Wisdom of the Dessert Fathers” because he had such a voracious sweet tooth. Don’t know why I decided to say that. Just felt it was right. (And, and. And! I refrain from inserting a, “so there!”)

The first three times I read “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers” I almost wished desert were spelled with a double s. I didn’t get it at all. The wisdom of a dessert father I would get because they would say things like, “it is best to eat your whoopie pie before the broccoli,” or “ice cream melts faster in the sun,” or “there’s no such thing as bad chocolate.”  That kind of wisdom I can wrap my brain around and eat wholeheartedly. This desert stuff is something dry and different. I need to step outside the literal because maybe the word ‘father’ is not patriarchal in nature, but rather spiritual…dare I say religious?

I do. The more I read “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers” I saw religion in the picture. It was if the narrator was saying, “If you follow the scripture too closely life will pass you by.” You take the wisdom of the fathers quite literally and life happens without you. It was the line, “Even the demons hardly come round anymore with their childish bribes of money and sex” (p 76) that did it. I highly doubt I am right about this.

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

“The Welcoming”

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Hirsch, Edward. “The Welcoming.” Earthly Measures. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. p 54.

This was one of my favorite poems of the month. It’s not complicated in a tangle of words meter or rhyme, but rather complicated in a tangle of emotions. The pain of not being able to have children. The frustration over the red tape of adoption. the anticipation of bringing a newborn home. The hope of parenthood and perfection. The poem spans the duration of agony and heartbreak to excitement and hope. The travel is worth reading about.

My favorite line, “jet lag instead of labor” (p 54).

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

“Secret Life”

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Dunn, Stephen. “A Secret Life.” Landscape at the End of the Century. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991, p 72.

“A Secret Life” has got to be one of my favorite poems of the month. Stephen Dunn isn’t exactly explaining why people have secret anythings. He’s more of the understanding nature. He simply gets it – the idea that people simply must have something they keep to themselves. The line, “It becomes what you’d most protect” defines the secret life perfectly. It isn’t wholly formed from the start. It grows and progresses. It becomes. I think a secret life starts early in the way that an obsession starts without notice. There is no cause for concern when the hoarder furtively buys and smuggles home one china cat, but about the 1001th one when it comes tumbling out of a closet?

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

“Prophet”

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Dennis, Carl. “Prophet.” Practical Gods. New York: Penguin Poets, 2001, 16.

The tone of this poem is didactic and more than a little condescending. It’s as if the speaker is the all-knowing on how to be a prophet and cannot keep from sharing his knowledge. “You’ll never be much…” are the first four words of the poem. There is a sense of prophesy, “you’ll land…” and “you’ll have to…” and “you’ll be…” It’s almost as if the speaker wants the wanna-be prophet to think like Jonah in the whale, making comparisons of journeys by whale and donkey. There is no kindness in this poem, only stern words of how it’s going to be. And yet…yet, I liked it.

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

“Luncheon on the Grass”

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Phillips, Carl. “Luncheon on the Grass.” In the Blood. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992. p 33

Art examining art. That is how I see “Luncheon on the Grass.” Carl Phillips is commenting on Edouard Manet’s oil painting of the same name. In Carl’s poem, two individuals are having lunch on deserted property. The speaker is in a similar state of undress as the woman in Manet’s painting, yet the unknown companion is fully dressed, same as the men in Manet’s piece. There is a sarcasm to the voice in the poem, “Luncheon on the Grass” that mimics the visual caustic attitude in the painting. There is a feeling of fake in both pieces. While Carl is comparing surroundings – poem to art – the voice is childish, “you didn’t remember I hate chicken salad.”

I found the poem funny because without knowing Manet’s piece you wouldn’t even begin to understand Carl Phillips’s poem of the same name.

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