Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Here’s something you might not know: Lucinda Williams, an excellent songwriter for whom Jules and I share a deep and abiding love, is the daughter of a poet. I think I had maybe read that in an interview or two, long ago, and then more or less forgot about it. But I recently stumbled across this article about the two of them, and my interest was piqued. So I looked up Miller Williams, and I found out that he read a poem at President Clinton’s second inauguration. I also discovered this poem, “The Curator.”

There are images here that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Seriously.

The poem takes place during the Siege of Leningrad in WWII. The narrator, a young curator at the State Hermitage Museum (Did you see Russian Ark? Yeah, that place), describes how the museum staff had prepared for the German onslaught by packing up the paintings and storing them elsewhere. But they left the frames hanging on the walls to make it easier to rehang the paintings when it’s safe again…

Nothing will seem surprised or sad again
compared to those imperious, vacant frames.

Well, the staff stayed on to clean the rubble
after the daily bombardments. We didn’t dream—
You know it lasted nine hundred days.
Much of the roof was lost and snow would lie
sometimes a foot deep on this very floor,
but the walls stood firm and hardly a frame fell.

Here is the story, now, that I want to tell you.
Early one day, a dark December morning,
we came on three young soldiers waiting outside,
pacing and swinging their arms against the cold.
They told us this: in three homes far from here
all dreamed of one day coming to Leningrad
to see the Hermitage, as they supposed
every Soviet citizen dreamed of doing.
Now they had been sent to defend the city,
a turn of fortune the three could hardly believe.

I had to tell them there was nothing to see
but hundreds and hundreds of frames where the paintings had hung.

“Please, sir,” one of them said, “let us see them.”

And so we did. It didn’t seem any stranger
than all of us being here in the first place,
inside such a building, strolling in snow.

There’s one of the images that has seared itself into my brain: soldiers, standing in an opulent gallery strewn with rubble and snow, staring at empty picture frames while the curators… well, you really must read the rest of the poem. Goosebumps guaranteed.

Apparently this is based in fact, too. Here’s an article from an exhibition at the Hermitage about the Siege years that describes what life was like for the curators:

“The museum not only withstood the bombings, but continued its routine work, safeguarding its exhibits and buildings, hosting surrealistic tours of its vacant halls… The starving defenders of the Hermitage found solace in the thought that core collections would survive though they themselves might die.”

Amazing, isn’t it? What a story. And what a poem. And what a weird confluence of topics in this one blog post.

Poetry Goddess Elaine is on round-up duty at Wild Rose Reader. Do check out the other entries, if you haven’t already.

For the past couple of days I’ve been fighting off a raging blue funk. No particular reason, really – just a combination of seasonal affective disorder, travel fatigue, the endless grind of the job search, politics, world events, Dreamweaver 8, and… okay, fine, I’ll say it: PMS.

Blah. Blah-de-blah-blah-blah. Whatever.

Times like this, I gotta call in the big guns. Plath? No, did that already. Lowell? Nope, him too. Sexton? Meh. Millay?

Millay… Yeah, that’s it. When it comes to blue funks, Edna St. Vincent Millay knows how to throw down. Here’s “Spring”, a perfect little jewel of a downer poem:

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?

Ahhh… Nothing like a little Edna to make me feel like I’m in good company. But you really have to read the rest of the poem. The last line is the best.

Jama’s hosting the round-up today at Alphabet Soup. AND she’s got a contest going for anyone posting about Bob Dylan lyrics. So, here’s a couple verses from one of my favorites, “Song to Woody.” Thanks, Jama!

I’m out here a thousand miles from my home,
Walkin’ a road other men have gone down.
I’m seein’ your world of people and things,
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings.

Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
‘Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along.
Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn,
It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born.

As mentioned yesterday, I happily stumbled upon the site for Fairy Tale Review, an annual literary journal devoted to contemporary fairy tales and a co-publication of The University of Alabama Press. It’s edited by Kate Bernheimer, an assistant professor of creative writing at The University of Alabama, who penned her first children’s book, a beguiling creation covered here at 7-Imp yesterday. Fairy Tale Review even has its own blog for keeping up with the latest news. This publication looks fabulous and is in excellent hands (check out the distinguished Advisory Board).

The current issue of Fairy Tale Review includes some poetry. One poem, “Diana, Hunting Words,” by the late Sarah Hannah — “equally fervent about the Monkees and Metallica” (I had to throw that in; she seemed like a fascinating person) — is accessible here in this current issue.

Wow.

But today I’m going to share another one by Brent Hendricks — from a previous issue — entitled “Hansel.”

He decided to do it anyway—walked out the door
and dropped his first memory at the driveway’s edge.
It was the beginning scene, way back when,
of the kid with the miraculous leg of wood
galloping across a neighbor’s yard.

And on from there. At the city line
he left his grandmother’s smile
and by the time he strolled the frontage road
his friends from high school were roadside trash.

In the suburbs he unloaded his father’s funeral,
a cast of lovers, the Mexican sunset
that glazed the ocean red,
all images littering the path he walked
like bread crumbs leading back somewhere.

You can read the rest here. Happy Poetry Friday. The round-up is at The Simple and the Ordinary today.

{Note: I really wanted to include in this post this illustration by W.C. Burgard, but I didn’t think to ask him for permission in enough time. But go check it out, if you’re so inclined.}

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’d seen Mark Doty at a reading at Cornell. I had only very recently been introduced to Mark Doty’s poetry, by the same friend that invited me to the reading and snuck me into the secret reception afterwards. I can never thank her enough.

If it weren’t for her, I might never have encountered Doty’s spare, tightly-wound verse, and the elegance with which he portrays the natural world.

If it weren’t for her, I might not have had the profound pleasure of hearing said verse read by the author himself, who is blessed with the perfect voice for poetry: edgy, rich, intense, and with a welcome hint of self-mockery.

If it weren’t for her, I almost certainly wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to Mark Doty in person, and find out that he was born in Maryville, Tennessee: the very same tiny town where my husband grew up, where he and Jules and I attended college, and where for a fun post-college year or two Jules and I shared a tiny old four-room farm house with an excellent porch swing and a wicked ant problem.

So thanks, Dana. And now I pay it forward, and share him with the rest of you. Here’s a snippet of Mark Doty’s poem “Pipistrelle:”

Then Charles saw the quick ambassador
fret the spaces between boughs
with an inky signature too fast to trace.

We turned our faces upwards,
trying to read the deepening blue
between black limbs. And he said again,

There he is! Though it seemed only
one of us could see the fluttering pipistrelle
at a time—you’d turn your head to where

he’d been, no luck, he’d already joined
a larger dark. There he is! Paul said it,
then Pippa. Then I caught the fleeting contraption

speeding into a bank of leaves,
and heard the high, two-syllabled piping.
But when I said what I’d heard,

no one else had noticed it, and Charles said,
Only some people can hear their frequencies.
Fifty years old and I didn’t know

I could hear the tender cry of a bat
—cry won’t do: a diminutive chime
somewhere between merriment and weeping…

You can read the entire poem here, and you can listen to Mark Doty reading it here. And to read about the soprano Pipistrelle bat, and hear it’s echolocation call, go here.

I decided to share a poem on this Poetry Friday that has always been one of my very favorites. I discovered it in college, and I am so in love with this love poem (hey, why not celebrate Valentine’s Day each day of the year?) that I thought for sure I had already shared it here at 7-Imp. But, no, a quick search tells me I haven’t.

This perfectly lovely creation sprung from the mind of poet John Frederick Nims (pictured below). Reading that link about him reminds me that this is one of those poets about which I know nothing (well, until reading that link — and this Wikipedia link in which I learned he was Editor of Poetry magazine from 1978 to 1984) and that I’ve never read any of his other works. I need to remedy that, because this poem SLAYS ME IN HALF every time I read it, particularly the final stanza (“Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses— / I will study wry music for your sake. / For should your hands drop white and empty / All the toys of the world would break.”) It makes me swoon, people.

Read the rest of this entry �

Happy Day-After-Valentine’s Day! I hope you all managed to fit in a little quality time with your significant others, or at least ate a bunch of chocolate.

In keeping with the general romantic and indulgent mood, I thought I’d share one of my all-time favorite love poems, “I Knew a Woman” by Theodore Roethke. I first encountered this poem in an “Introduction to Literature” class as an undergrad, and it made quite an impression. I loved the contrast. The sing-songy rhythm of the Fletcher Spenserian stanzas (did I really just say that?) and the dashes of humor and self-mockery belie the profoundly sensual imagery (“She moved in circles, and those circles moved”) and the genuine emotion behind such statements as “I’m martyr to a motion not my own.”

Even now, fifteen years later (dude, did I really just say that?) bits of it still float unbidden to the surface of my brain at odd moments. Read the right poem at the right moment, and that’s what happens. Scarred for life.

Here’s a particularly sexy bit of it:

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Read the rest here. It goes really well with leftover Valentine candy. The serious chocolate kind. Not those chalky little word-hearts. Those are nasty.

Everything’s been comin’ up J. Patrick Lewis for me lately, as I’ve been reading two of his anthologies from last year, not to mention he sent 7-Imp a new one from an upcoming anthology, and I thought I’d share some of that Lewis goodness today. All three poems are printed in their entirety with permission from Lewis.

First things first, then: Last year, Creative Editions released Michelangelo’s World, an anthology of poetry by Lewis which serves as “a small homage in sonnets” to one of history’s most celebrated artistic geniuses. Through fifteen sonnets, Lewis explores Michelangelo’s life (from his birth in the village of Caprese to his death at the age of 88); his temperament (“short-tempered, arrogant, and aloof”); and a handful of his most famous pieces of art, including the Doni Tondo, the David, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s. Each poem is accompanied with brief notes about that time period in the artist’s life and/or the piece of art which the poem celebrates. Images of his art work are also included along with a few original illustrations (including the cover art) from Swiss artist, sculptor, illustrator, and animator Etienne Delessert. I’m going to share Lewis’ poem about the sculpture of Moses, part of the tomb of Julius II in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, which I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in person (and now that my father-in-law and his wife are about to head to Rome for a trip, I’m pining for it all once again).

Part of what interests me about this sculpture (other than its majestic beauty) is something Lewis references in his note about Moses next to the poem (so I’ll use his words): “The horns protruding from his head are a mistake of the Latin Vulgate Bible. ‘Rays of light’ in Hebrew was erroneously translated in the Vulgate as ‘horns.'”

There’s something about that mistake getting caught in stone for all eternity that is fascinating to me. Here’s the poem: Read the rest of this entry �

I had something of a religious experience last weekend: I saw Neko Case perform live at the State Theatre in Ithaca.

“Country Noir” is one phrase I’ve heard used to identify her style, and it’s probably the best description I’ve heard. I’ve been a big fan for a couple of years now, thanks to Jules, and seeing her live just crystallized it. If you ever have the chance, GO.

I’ve always thought her lyrics have a strong tendency towards poetry. So I was looking online for a link to something of hers I could share with you all for Poetry Friday, and found something kind of unusual: an article she wrote for Poetry Magazine, entitled “My Flaming Hamster Wheel of Panic About Publicly Discussing Poetry in This Respected Forum.” Besides having perhaps the best title of a poetry essay EVER, the article is great because it addresses a misconception that I think a lot of people have: that poetry is for “other people… smarter people.” Even Neko, a bonafide poet in her own right, feels inadequate in the face of Poetry-with-a-capital-P:

I think it’s because I don’t want to let poetry down. Poetry is such a delicate, pretty lady with a candy exoskeleton on the outside of her crepe-paper dress. I am an awkward, heavy-handed mule of a high school dropout. I guess I just need permission to be in the same room with poetry.

But she goes on to recognize that these feelings are wrong, that “we all have the right to poetry!” And she notes that she doesn’t feel the same reservations about poetry in the context of music.

So, in the hopes that it will lead you to some of Neko’s poetry-as-music, here are some lyrics from one of my favorite songs, “Deep Red Bells.”

He led you to this hiding place
His lightening threats spun silver tongues
The red bells beckon you to ride
A handprint on the driver’s side
It looks a lot like engine oil and tastes like being poor and small
And Popsicles in the summer

The rest of the lyrics are here. And trust me – it’s even better with music.

“Because it is occasionally possible, just for brief moments, to find the words that will unlock the doors of all those many mansions inside the head and express something — perhaps not much, just something — of the crush of information that presses in on us from the way a crow flies over and the way a man walks and the look of a street and from what we did one day a dozen years ago. Words that will express something of the deep complexity that makes us precisely the way we are, from the momentary effect of the barometer to the force that created men distinct from trees. Something of the inaudible music that moves us along in our bodies from moment to moment like water in a river. Something of the spirit of the snowflake in the water of the river. Something of the duplicity and the relativity and the merely fleeting quality of all this. Something of the almighty importance of it and something of the utter meaninglessness. And when words can manage something of this, and manage it in a moment, of time, and in that same moment, make out of it all the vital signature of a human being — not of an atom, or of a geometrical diagram, or of a heap of lenses — but a human being, we call it poetry.

-– Ted Hughes *

It’s Poetry Thursday here at 7-Imp, because we have something else lined up for tomorrow. I didn’t want to miss the chance to mention a wonderful poetry anthology, published last year. To the children’s poetry devotees who read this post this will seem So Last Year. I have been slooooowwwwwly reading and enjoying it, and I’m so behind on reviewing it that I’m pretty much going to offer up a review round-up post here for those of you who might be interested in this title. Read the rest of this entry �

There’s this wonderful episode of Firefly called “Jaynestown,” where the gang sets out to do business on Canton, a little backwater planet that uses slave labor to harvest clay. While there, they discover that a botched robbery a few years before has led the “mudders” to revere Jayne – crass, mercenary, borderline-despicable Jayne – as a folk hero. Since I saw it again the other night, I can’t get the mudder’s tribute song out of my head. So once again I’m stretching the concept of Poetry Friday to indulge my own obsessions. Here’s the chorus to “Hero of Canton,” or “Jayne’s Theme,” depending who you ask:

Oh, He robbed from the rich
and he gave to the poor.
Stood up to the man
and he gave him what for.
Our love for him now
ain’t hard to explain.
The hero of Canton
the man they call Jayne.

Click here to read the rest of the lyrics; or better yet, watch the clip from the show:

And… here’s a website, where you can buy your own version of the cunning hat that Jayne’s mom sends him in the mail in the episode “The Message.” It totally gets shipped to you in a box with funky Firefly-esque postmarks all over it, and a handwritten copy of the letter from Jayne’s mom. Serious! And it’s even for a good cause: the knitter is funding her autistic daughter’s occupational and speech therapy with the proceeds. My sister-in-law and her husband got ’em – but then, they had to, ’cause they’re Firefly fans AND THEY TOTALLY LIVE IN CANTON!!! Okay… Canton, North Carolina… but still. Awesome.

Thanks, as usual, for indulging me. Next week we’ll have some proper poetry, I’m sure.