Poem of the Week

[Jozanny]

I've heard this one read from The Library of America edition.

[Scheherazade]

How strange - this poem turned up last night in a film I was watching - In Her Shoes - I don't remember it being in the book but I didn't read the book too closely not being much of a reader of ChickLit, nor much of a watcher either but I was too tired to switch it off and just lolled and watched it instead of going to bed.

I heard the poem in that movie too, Kasie!

In the film, the professor character got the (not-so-dim-but-mightily-mixed-up) dim chick character to say she thought the 'loss' was of a friend rather than of a lover but I've always read it as a lost lover. What do you think?

When someone is talking about losing someone, I think we naturally assume that it is a lover but the poem is so nicely written that it could be anyone really... anyone one cares for. I will take it as a friend.

I always seem to like poems by Elizabeth Bishop. This one, while it does flare out with any remarkable lines, is another good poem. I believe that's a villanelle. I really like this stanza:

I cannot say I am familiar with Bishop's poetry but I like this poem very much.

I think the line "The art of losing isn't hard to master." is rather memorable and remarkable because of its simplicity and straightforwardness.

My favorite stanza is the very last one:

--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.

[Virgil]

I think the line "The art of losing isn't hard to master." is rather memorable and remarkable because of its simplicity and straightforwardness.

I agree, that is a great line. And it seems so simple.

[Jozanny]

I am not well studied in Bishop, which is why I haven't posted much, but when I do gain access to her work, I marvel at how crisp and fresh it is, and this piece is a good example of that. If it was your selection Sche, thanks, she wrote such a small selection of gems!

[Scheherazade]

When heard the poem in the movie, I fell in love with the line "The art of losing isn't hard to master." and decided to hunt the poem and read it myself (and share it with you guys too).

What do you think of the little entry "(Write it!)" in the very last line?

[Jozanny]

When heard the poem in the movie, I fell in love with the line "The art of losing isn't hard to master." and decided to hunt the poem and read it myself (and share it with you guys too).

What do you think of the little entry "(Write it!)" in the very last line?

Okay, I'll bite, even though my analysis sells the piece short:

Purely as a technical matter (Write it!) saves the line from being weakened by repetition "like like", but I also think Bishop was... creating a closed loop back into the poem itself. Like disaster is a comparison, not the actual thing itself, so "writing it" is a way to protect oneself from disaster, because the poet has given it form. It is a great piece, and I hardly do it justice.

For some of my work you need a search engine on standby just to dig up my allusions and what I mean by it, but I suppose you can also blame my publishers

[Scheherazade]

Thanks for your reply, Jozanny

I will copy the last stanza here again:

--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.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212

I am not sure double "like/like" is needed here: "It's evident/ the art of losing's not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." Do you mean she uses it to mean "disaster-like"?

I am wondering if losing this person is really a disaster... But trying to persuade herself that it is not? By forcing herself to write it?

[Jozanny]

Thanks for your reply, Jozanny

I will copy the last stanza here again:

--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.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212

I am not sure double "like/like" is needed here: "It's evident/ the art of losing's not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." Do you mean she uses it to mean "disaster-like"?

I am wondering if losing this person is really a disaster... But trying to persuade herself that it is not? By forcing herself to write it?

You are onto something, but I was focused on how the last line feeds the reader back into the poem again, and I am so lazy these days, but I will give it one last try. The first stanza ties losing to art and to disaster. The routine everyday things like losing a watch, then bigger and more expansive, losing a house and lands, even these do not amount to a cataclysmic event. Then losing you, (the reader?) may seem "like" disaster--and this is the first time she writes "like".

In the rest of poem disaster stands on its own as the thing not happening but maybe the reader is put on alert for it to happen, and that perhaps only art itself prevents it from happening, because art is a kind of stop-gap tool against loss itself. So the Write It invokes the poem, which encapsulates memory, becomes a thing itself which stands against loss, even if loss is what motivates the creation of the poem. It isn't disaster because we have the poetry.

Losing and writing are one art? Intricate stuff.

[JBI]

Has this thread died? Seems like no one is posting on it? I know it isn't monday yet, but if I am allowed, since no one seems to be posting here -

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry - Walt Whitman.

1
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious
to
me
than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my
meditations, than you might suppose.

2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet
part
of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the
street, and
the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to
the
south
and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of
the
ebb-tide.

3
It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was
refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was
hurried;

Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of
steamboats, I
look’d.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river, the sun half an hour high;
I watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls—I saw them high in the air, floating with motionless
wings,
oscillating their bodies,
I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the rest in strong
shadow,
I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.

I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light around the shape of my head in the sun-lit
water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops—saw the ships at anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars,
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sun-set,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and
glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite store-houses by
the
docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the
barges—the
hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly
into
the
night,
Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, over the tops
of
houses,
and down into the clefts of streets.

4
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;
I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.

I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them;
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5
What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

6
I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution;
I too had receiv’d identity by my Body;
That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.

7
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?

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting.

8
But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud!
I was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me
approaching or
passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me
as I
sat,

Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet never told them a
word,

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

9
Closer yet I approach you;
What thought you have of me, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance;
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

It is not you alone, nor I alone;
Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries;
It is that each came, or comes, or shall come, from its due emission,
From the general centre of all, and forming a part of all:
Everything indicates—the smallest does, and the largest does;
A necessary film envelopes all, and envelopes the Soul for a proper time.

10
Now I am curious what sight can ever be more stately and admirable to me than my
mast-hemm’d
Manhattan,
My river and sun-set, and my scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide,
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated
lighter;

Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call
me
promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach;
Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my
face,
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.

We understand, then, do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish, is accomplish’d,
is it
not?
What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not?

11
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sun-set! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women
generations
after
me;
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!

Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting
current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all downcast eyes have
time to
take
it from you;
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the
sun-lit
water;

Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops,
lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset;
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and
yellow
light
over the tops of the houses;
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are;
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul;
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas;
Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers;
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual;
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

12
We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all;
We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids;
Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality;
Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of
ourselves.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you novices!
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward;
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us;
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us;
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also;
You furnish your parts toward eternity;
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

[quasimodo1]

4
"These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;
I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.

I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them;
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5
What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not." This is an excellent piece by Whitman. I happened to use that ferry although I don't think it was a steamship. Whitman, I'm sure you kinow, was a Camden, NJ resident, poet,and nurse during the Civvil War. He does get taken for granted and is one of the greater lights.

[Jozanny]

The Genesis of Butterflies

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies.

[Virgil]

I've never read a Victor Hugo poem before. That was exceptional. Not much for me to say but that i enjoyed it.

[Jozanny]

I've never read a Victor Hugo poem before. That was exceptional. Not much for me to say but that i enjoyed it.

I have not been able to find much of Hugo's corpus online, even though he is in the public domain. I am still looking, but luke was right about the strength of his work as a poet; I am beginning to understand his flaws in prose in this respect, because his strength is verse.

I cannot say much about it yet, I have to go brush off my notes about forms and couplets, but I can say that I hate rhyming couplets because most practitioners of A/B get stuck and cannot constrain the form, but Hugo is remarkable, absolutely.

PS: It is too long for a sonnet yes? I am really rusty on formalism.

[Virgil]

A sonnet is 14 lines. These are just couplets. Of course it's in translation, so we're never sure what form the original is in. Without looking at it of course.

[JBI]

Chances are it was in Alexandrine Couplets. Couplets are somewhat rare in English after the Enlightenment, so I doubt it was a translator's choice to use them.