Poetry Bookclub 4

[stlukesguild]

The poem reminds me, in some ways, of Rilke's The Raising of Lazarus:

Yes, it was necessary for this common sort,
since they required signs, signs that screamed.
Yet he dreamt how for Martha and Mary
it would be enough simply to see
That he could. But none of them believed,
they all said to him, Lord, why come now?
And so he went, to do the unallowed
to peaceful nature.
In anger. His eyes almost shut,
he asked where the grave was. Tormentedly.
It seemed to them that his tears streamed,
and they thronged behind him full of curiosity.
Even on the way he thought it monstrous,
an appalling, frivolous experiment,
but suddenly a great fire broke out in him,
such an argument
against their prized distinctions,
their death and life, their here and there,
that he was enmity in every limb
when he instructed hoarsely, Lift the Stone!
A voice shouted that he must stink by now
(for he'd lain there four days) but He
stood tensed, entirely filled with that gesture
which rose in him and heavily, so heavily
lifted his hand- (no hand had ever raised itself
so slowly- with this much weight)
until it stood there, shining in the air;
and then it clenched, almost clawlike:
for now he dreaded that all the dead might
come rushing back through the suction
of that tomb, where the thing had started
to writhe up, larvae-like, from its stiff reclining-
but then just a single shape stood there,
crooked in the daylight, and one witnessed:
the inexact, vague Life again accept it.

tr. Edward Snow excerpted from Ranier Maria Rilke: Uncollected Poems

[Jozanny]

Another way to look at it JBI, is she is using the radical transformative event of the Incarnate Being, to take an ironic jab at the natural tendency to be hostile: to the outsider in our own neighborhood, to the pure, to the vulnerability of innocence, because it lays claim to a certain kind of superiority.

I don't want to purchase any of her collections, however, so, as usual, I will be doing this on the wing, if I do it at all.

[Jozanny]

I like "Not the Sweet Cicely of Gerardes Herball" better than her evocation to the Christ up there. This, from the first stanza,

It unscrolls, glistening,
Where else the stones are white,
Sky blue.
No beetles move. No birds pass over.
The stone house is cold.
The cement has crumbled from the steps.
The gardens here, or fields,
Are weedless, not from cultivation but from
Sour unfructifying November gutters,
From winds that bore no fennel seeds,
Finally, from a sun purifying, harsh, like
Sea-salt.

invites comparisons, to me, with Vassar Miller, who I have cited on the forum before, if you remember:

Vassar Miller

Love Song for the Future

To our ruined vineyards come,
Little foxes, for your share
Of our blighted grapes, the tomb
Readied for our common lair
Ants, we open you the cupboard;
Flee no more the heavy hand
Harmless as a vacant scabbard
Since our homes like yours are sand.

She says in her article that she likes American poets. JBI, is the title a Canadian landmark? In my late 20's, I published some poetry about Canada, because I almost had an affair with my Beat editor, but his wife confronted me during her divorce proceedings. I did not learn my lesson until I fell in love later, and then I did ... the good old days

Now I could probably make some money playing one of Macbeth's witches. (sigh)

[Virgil]

Om my gosh you guys have started. I forgot to order the book over the weekend. I'll go and order it tonight and hopefully it will get here my next week.

[Virgil]

Can someone tell me which book to buy? Is it the three volume , Always Now: The Collected Poems?

[JBI]

Yeah, the final volume.

[Virgil]

Yeah, the final volume.

Oh, just volume 3. Thanks.

[Jozanny]

Only with Google could I have figured out so quickly that she was referencing a historical bontanist. I do things like that, and sometimes my editors yell at me until I learned to draw out the trope better. I am not going to Paley, which probably does have her. I am not taking the C bus in this tin can. I am not going to U of Penn. I cannot check out there, and I am not buying any texts until things get better for me, if not worse, so big old Vine Street will have to do. Maybe Wednesday. We shall see.

***
And I was wrong, it will not be today. I know none of you can ease things for me in practical terms, but I haven't been in the best of shape since before March, let alone after what the relocation team did to me and what it will cost me eventually. I am hoping, by late this afternoon, that I can start pitching again. I need to get back to work, despite my psychological duress.

I will join in when I can if I can, maybe a couple of days.

[quasimodo1]

from Always Now, Volume Three
from Concrete and Wild Carrot

THE CRUX

Ever see somebody hit bedrock
too messed up to
say so too
hopeless a mess to get his chin
far enough off the ground to
even give in?
deadbeat?

Know what that's like yourself?

Now can you credit
anyone figuring he had to
steer his fair steady days and nights
deliberately
to some as yet (I'm guessing)
point of light beyond that
abysmal (other people's) living
end?
right down, past, the dead end
to the worst? There wasn't
a 'Lamb of God' for the
then lamb the wolf had torn.
But there gleamed
the point.

{excerpt}

[JBI]

To get this thing moving, since I haven't really been able to do any serious posting, because of exams, these past few weeks; let me get back to the first poem Quasi sent me. If anyone needs it, I'll forward it, but I think it is time to get into a little bit of close reading.

PACING THE TURN OF THE YEAR

A sudden season
has changed our world.
Everybody is out
to see, or bask, or
with their kind to exuberate.

The sudden changing implies a big step forward, the word exuberate seems to imply an overflowing - people are going outside to bask and see, which implies people were on edge, and remaining indoors.

Everything is new.

This line to me seems to be purposely hyperbolic. The opening of the poem comes off as overly confident, but I can't help but feel this line really is ironic, in the development, as what comes marks a very direct shift.

Trees that were only sticks
into the overcast
yesterday, are
soft and full of catkins
like newly shampooed children being
readied for the party.

Again, I feel a trace of hyperbole. This implies a certain freshness, and the youthful images imply a sort of coming into maturity, but readied for the party again has a dark layer floating over it, which will anticipate what is to follow. After all, the verb shampooed has a sense of someone else preforming the action, and of shaping these children for the occasion, and giving them this facade of cleanliness. The metaphor is unsettling to an extent, as it seems to be confident. The link between the Catkin, which would imply a blooming, and the shampoo, which would imply a grooming, seems to be rather difficult to believe. The metaphor doesn't seem to match well with the simile that follows it, and therefore creates a sense of presentation over reality.

Slender young saplings
shine, all the tender leaves
distinct, notes of music
atremble for a chance musician
strolling by to hear and
play -- for everybody, on bikes
or park benches or
wandering along

Again, the musicians are playing for someone, putting on the show, instead of just playing. The music of the trees feels arranged, and constructed for the passers by. The trees seem to be imbued with a romantic optimism, and seem to be constructed to show it. The strolling-day-in-the-park imagery that follows, implies a sense of natural pastoral, where everyone is relaxed, and not working.

the way
wended their way anywhere
on the odd quiet morning
the European war
was somehow ended; nobody
felt like cavorting, singing,
dancing, as their parents, 1918
in November, had.

Now the poem gets specific. We know we are now talking about the end of the Second World War, and the optimism of the people at it finally being concluded. However, the poem throws in a sharp jab here, by bringing up how the earlier generation had gone through the same thing, 27 years earlier. How then can a reader continue reading, without failing to notice that this dream of a better tomorrow wasn't actually a reality? There was a flaw in the end the last time, and this sense of false hope now begins to unsettle the poem.

A muted celebration
this sudden season.
All but the oak.

They had a muted celebration, and that implies that they had perhaps a darker finish. There was, I would think it can be argued, no cause for celebration after the First World War. Certainly for the Victors of the war, I would argue, there was a greater sense of having vanquished an enemy the second time. After all, World War 2 had more of an enemy surrendering feel to its end, rather than a ceasefire ending. And I think that is touched upon here. The Old oak, an Evergreen tree, which will take over a lot of the poem from this point onward, has not undergone anything. The Old grudges as misunderstandings still pervade the forest. The old hostilities are still there.

Rusty tatters left from far-off August's
leafy towers and gables,
in deeps and fullness, the amassing
in gloom and shadow of
greenness; now
ruined arthritic knobs and wrenched
limbs; next to nothing now
covering his nakedness.

Now the poem questions the destruction. These above lines don't seem to distinguish whether they are talking about the First or Second World War, and that seems to darken them. What is being focused is the pragmatic butchery, and not the celebration. The rawness of the world, and the damage - the celebrations of August - the month in which V. J. Day happened, and also referencing the summer season - are offset by the winter that follows, as people try to recover, and peace together what has happened - families are torn, countries in pieces, and generations of people wiped out - cities destroyed, and nuclear bombs dropped. The image of the naked man who dominates the end of the verse, then, seems to me a metaphor for an old, warn out world, which tries to cover itself up. Everything has been exposed - the butchery and the savageness of humanity - and there is no where to hide from this revelation.

The new is going to last?
These celebrants
toss their curls and
rollerblade past
the question.

Now then, the poem turns back on itself and asks the important question - after all this, has anything changed - this momentary peace and celebration for the end of fighting, is it really going to last, or are we just going to go back and do it all over again, which is what happened last time.

It was not posed by the
dour oaks,
stolider even than
the firs, their shabby
winter wear refurbished
at the tips,
standing there woodenly under
scrambling squirrels, a warm bath of
sunshine, thunderstorm,
by turns.

Now the Oaks reenter the poem. They are unmoved, the poem argues, they are evergreen, and have not been shaken by the winter, the sunshine, thunderstorms, or turns. They aren't putting on the celebration, they don't perpetuate this sense of cause for celebration. The unmoving oak remains standing, and the squirrels just scramble around them. The oaks have been cleaned, and made to look new, but they have not changed. The Oak knows too much, and knows nothing has changed. In it is a sense of realization that nothing changes.

Part of a celebration
is to discover
patience? And how
painful hope can be?

These questions, being rhetorical, seem imbued with the negative answers ingrained in rhetorical questions. The celebration is a celebration that is not going to last, or is just one step forward. The celebration then is just celebrating that we may have learned something, not that everything is made OK. Perhaps from this, something may change, despite the fact that not everything will, and this is just one step. The final question though, suggests hoping for anything to really change perhaps can be more painful. One can't help but recall the romantic sense of life after the French Revolution, that seemed to die before it was born with the rise of Napoleon. In that sense then, the poem asks if whether hoping for a brighter future is perhaps more painful, and whether celebrating something isn't just getting your hopes up, before they are squashed with the next catastrophe.

Alone, and mute stands
dark, one huge oak tree.

These final two lines then, set the poem off with a dark perspective. Of course, this poem was published way after 1945. It can be understood then, that the poem questions what has really changed, and what the world has really learned. The Old Oak remains solid and Large, and unmoving. The fact that the poem is a reflection allows it to acknowledge that right after World War II, the world didn't get less violent, but went on as if nothing had changed. The bearing of the world, symbolized by the naked man earlier seems not to have shaken anyone. The hope and optimism seems in vein, there really wasn't cause for celebration.

A very dark and pessimistic poem, I would think. Though, I think the poem does offer a sense of hope within it, and isn't completely dark. I think it, by making the Oak Tree Mute seems to imply that perhaps this demon can be silenced, and that perhaps maybe later we can achieve an end.


In many ways, this poem reminds me of On The Marginal Way by Richard Wilbur (another deeply haunting, yet unbelievably powerful poem), available here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=171784

I think, if one is an optimist, one could compare the celebrants in Pacing the Turn of the Year to Wilbur's girls lying on the red rock:

That now recline and burn
Comely as Eve and Adam, near a sea
Transfigured by the sun’s return.
And now three girls lie golden in the lee
Of a great arm or thigh, and are as young
As the bright boulders that they lie among.

For this brief moment, the land with the people are in harmony - though the tide will change and wipe flood the picture, there is a brief pause, where everything is calm and peaceful, and I think the pessimism of Avison is not complete - there is still the hope, and though painful, perhaps things may change.

[Jozanny]

The spirit wants to join in, but my flesh has been a muted disappointment since birth. Quasi, I am sorry. I am terribly busy with bills and trying to get back to work. My uncle is repairing my old chair since I never expected these obstacles toward getting a new one, and with that back, I can dash around. I am a bit of a diehard about poets, and whose collections I will and won't buy, and I don't want Avison even though my vote altered the whole course of nominating. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday I can dare to make a go at it with the bucket here, but I'd only be able to make that one trip to the library to see, but they should have her, given her age.

PS: Not to ignore JBI's analysis, but to return back for a moment to luke, Rilke's Lazarus is far superior to The Dumbfounding, and I am not sure if this was the note of comparison for you. To my sense, Avison was writing a love poem to Christ's martyrdom, which kind of turned off my enthusiasm for her, unfairly or not, as I was not looking for CS Lewis in Canadian garb, though she is apparently capable of appealing to my hedonism, on another level.

[quasimodo1]

Rilke is superior to most poets so "The Dumfounding" is no suprise but that is inherently unfair given the mixed fruit of all poetry. I am navigating around Avison's religiosity as best as possible but must admit it's a block. There's no doubting her belief which IS something remembered.

[Virgil]

I've been reading the poem. I'll try to post some comments tomorrow.

[JBI]

Rilke is superior to most poets so "The Dumfounding" is no suprise but that is inherently unfair given the mixed fruit of all poetry. I am navigating around Avison's religiosity as best as possible but must admit it's a block. There's no doubting her belief which IS something remembered.

Her religiosity however, seems very similar to someone like Eliot's, and in many ways, she is a follower of the later Eliot, it would seem. There is certainly a preoccupation with a similar tradition, and I feel, reading her concept of metaphor in many places, that there must have been a direct reaction, probably profound, caused by a reading of Four Quartets. That being said, I think she worked in metaphor and symbol which is outside the archetype and tradition, whereas Eliot built on familiar images, and seems to recast them to understand the world around him (for instance, Four elements in the Quartets, and the Rose which dominates the close of Little Gidding), and certainly their metrics are different, as Eliot certainly was first dominated by the Iambs of Elizabethan Verse and Drama, and then later Accentual forms, whereas Avison seems to mix more of a open form, in the style of some of Stevens' work.

Still though, that sense of religiousness is strong. Though, even though I am non-religious, to me it doesn't seem a block, since she goes beyond it always. To me, it feels her religious sensibility just stands in the background, and allows her to make sense of her surroundings, in a way that she can understand.

[Virgil]

from Always Now, Volume Three
from Concrete and Wild Carrot

THE CRUX

Oh I had been reading "The Crux."

I did think this was an interesting poem. I'm not sure I completely understand the ending.

I was taken a little aback with the very coloquial openning stanza, but I do think that is important to the poem. That everyman experience of hitting bedrock she pulls the reader in with "Know what that's like yourself?" I think anyone who's lived into their thirties at some point hits what seems like bedrock. So it's a common experience that is almost of an existential moment.

And then I think the theme takes shape:

Now can you credit
anyone figuring he had to
steer his fair steady days and nights
deliberately
to some as yet (I'm guessing)
point of light beyond that
abysmal (other people's) living
end?

To "steer" one's life to "some...point of light" given one's existential moment is I think what she is expressing. But how does one do that? She offers an example:

...There wasn't
a 'Lamb of God' for the
then lamb the wolf had torn.
But there gleamed
the point.

For the lamb, it too was at its existential moment, and it reached its fate. "But there gleamed/the point." The word "poiint" is repeated several times in the poem with different shadings of meaning. The lamb did not have a Lamb of God," i.e. Christ. Christ is the point. She then follows with another example, a child who only understands only his physical needs.

Ever see a child in his
highchair twisting with the
urgency of now, not knowing how
or what, only the
pangs, the poignancy
of Don't you see
that I need everything
right now?

The child is a microcosm of a mature man caught in his existential momnet of crises. And the "point" comes to the child in the concluding stanzas his needs are met:

He hears help coming.
Hope stills the moment.
Eagerness drums with heels and spoon
in a blissful lurch
towards all tomorrow.

The one the radiance touched
does see
and smile there, in that kitchen.
The point.

For Avison, I think the "steering" that life requires is Christ. It is impossible given our human pangs and desires to break through that existential crises without Him. Powerful and well crafted poem!