The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Forty (Dickinson)

This Thursday, 12/13/12, I'll join twenty other fabulous poets to read at the Annual Gathering of the Poets Emily Dickinson Birthday Bash. The reading, which is hosted by Dave Parsons and the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council, will take place at at 7 PM at The Corner Pub in Conroe, TX. We'll each read one poem of Emily's and one of our own. I've selected the lovely little poem, "How happy is the little Stone" for both the birthday reading and this week's Mnemosyne Weekly. My favorite thing about memorizing Emily Dickinson poems is having her unusual syntax, slant rhymes, and coupling of the concrete and abstract bouncing around in my head. I hope you enjoy this one too--

How happy is the little Stone

Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears --
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity --

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Thirty-Four (Rengetsu)

Image by 松岡明芳

Poem by Ōtagaki Rengetsu

I found this week's poem in a beautiful little book called Lotus Moon: The Poetry of the Buddhist Nun Rengetsu, translated by the Eastern philosophy professor, John Stevens. The poet, Ōtagaki Rengetsu lived from 1791 – 1875 and was known not only for her poetry, but also for excelling at pottery, painting, calligraphy, dance, sewing, and martial arts. How lovely it is to imagine her seduced from the convent walls and out onto the lawn by by a simple, unknowing maple leaf--all that blazing color in such bright contrast to her black robes. Though she was accomplished in many fields, and no doubt a sophisticated intellect, in this poem she is as lovely, simple, and innocent as a deer drawn to a berry bush.

As a Nun Gazing at the Deep Colors of Autumn

by Ōtagaki Rengetsu

Translated by John Stevens

Clad in Black Robes

I should have no attractions to

The shapes and scents of this world

But how can I keep my vows

Gazing at today's crimson maple leaves?

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Thirty-Three (Nye)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Onions

I'm always a fan of that which praises something humble--in this case, the onion of Renoir's still and of Naomi Shihab Nye's beautiful poem, "The Traveling Onion." Leave it to a poet to look at a passage in a cookbook, and from it, create something so full of depth and beauty--so simultaneously simple and complex. The onion, the stew, the efforts in the kitchen--these may all be transient--but the poem is forever.

The Traveling Onion

Naomi Shihab Nye

“It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an object of worship — why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.” — Better Living Cookbook

When I think how far the onion has traveled
just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise
all small forgotten miracles,
crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
pearly layers in smooth agreement,
the way the knife enters onion
and onion falls apart on the chopping block,
a history revealed.

And I would never scold the onion
for causing tears.
It is right that tears fall
for something small and forgotten.
How at meal, we sit to eat,
commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma
but never on the translucence of onion,
now limp, now divided,
or its traditionally honorable career:
For the sake of others,
disappear.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Thirty-One (Cisneros)

Painting: The Clown and the Tightrope Walker by Herbert Schondelmaier

Little Clown, My Heart

Sandra Cisneros

Tonight Sandra Cisneros is reading in Houston, and though I intended to go, it turns out I cannot make it after all. So here's my consolation to myself: I get to memorize "Little Clown, My Heart." I only discovered and read this poem a week ago, and I fell instantly in love with its rollicking stunts and jumps--with the humor, the sorrow, and the joy--the amazing imagery and energy--the eyes-closed leaps of creativity. I would have loved it no matter what, but I loved it even more due to the fact that it came to me in a serendipitous way: Just two days before I found Cisneros' book, I'd written a poem about death in which the predominant metaphors and images were circus and carnival related. So, as soon as I saw this poem, I knew I was meant to buy the book and share the poem here. I hope some of you will join me in memorizing this one. 

The Ever Beautiful Cisneros

Little Clown, My Heart

Little clown, my heart,
Spangled again and lopsided,
Handstands and Peking pirouettes,
Back flips snapping open like
A carpenter's hinged ruler,

Little gimp-footed hurray,
Paper parasol of pleasures,
Fleshy undertongue of sorrows,
Sweet potato plant of my addictions,

Acapulco cliff-diver corazón,
Fine as an obsidian dagger,
Alley-oop and here we go
Into the froth, my life,
Into the flames!

"Little Clown, My Heart" is the first 

poem in the collection Loose Woman.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Thirty (Strand)

Mark Strand

Keeping Things Whole 

"Keeping Things Whole," is one of Mark Strand's most frequently anthologized poems, and it's easy to see why. In so few words, he accomplishes not only his own fascinating meditation on self, emptiness, identity, and more; in koan-like fashion, he also invites readers to their own meditations on these subjects. The speaker may embrace change and continue moving to keep things whole, but we are left feeling that, however clever, this is not the entire answer. The emptiness that has become the speaker's identity moves forward in space and time, impacting, always, the next field and leaving behind it not only a return to wholeness but a trail of questions too. 

Photo of Mark Strand by Lilo Raymond

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

From Sleeping with One Eye Open, Also found in Selected Poems

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Nine (Stevens)

Wallace Stevens

"Gray Room"

Sometimes a poem builds in perfect and unanticipated ways towards the last line. The journey is beautiful, though seemingly not extraordinary, and then BAM--we're hit with that line--the one that makes our bodies shudder and our minds and hearts split open. "Gray Room" had that sort of impact on me. I was lured in by the lovely description--which is polite, composed, and refined--but it felt pleasant and nothing more--until I got to the end. The last line, which is so vital and alive, hit me with all the more force due to the contrast in tone to all of the lines preceding it. I went from being a tourist looking out the window at a mountain to realizing I was in my native land, right at the lip of the volcano.

Gray Room

Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl--
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Eight (Rabia)

Rabia, depicted in an Islamic miniature

Image is in public domain (expired copyright)

Poem translated by Charles Upton from Persian

This week I'm still thinking about stars, but we've stepped back a few centuries to 717–801 C.E. to read the work of the female Muslim saint and Sufi mystic, Rabia. Rabia is often considered the most important of Sufi mystics and is credited with having introduced the concept of Divine Love, or loving God for God's own sake, rather than out of fear. I love the raw simplicity of this poem, which so perfectly exemplifies Rabia's life choice to remain in contemplative solitude instead of marrying. Enjoy!

O my Lord, the stars glitter 

O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.

Here, I am alone with you.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Seven (Sexton)

The Starry Night 

painting by Vincent Van Gogh

poem by Anne Sexton 

Planning my December ekphrastic poetry course for The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative has got me thinking about ekphrasis, and though I may not use this particular pairing for the workshop, Sexton is one of my favorite poets, and Van Gogh is one of my favorite painters, so, needless to say, this poem thrills and delights me, despite the grim subject matter! In fact, as you will see below, Sexton herself expresses a great deal of zest and ecstatic feeling--again, despite (or maybe because of) the grim subject matter. 

I'm sure everyone already knows who Van Gogh is, and I hope everyone knows who Sexton is, but if you are not familiar with her, she was one of the confessional poets of the 1950's and 1960's era of American poetry. I've always admired her unique voice, her incredible gift with imagery, and her capacity to lay herself bare on the page.

So here's one masterpiece inspired by another:

The Starry Night

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. –Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Five (Rukeyser)

Muriel Rukeyser

"The Sixth Night: Waking"

From Out of Silence

Sometimes it only takes a few words to make a stunning poem that shoots into the heart of truth. These poems seem to roll into the waking world as if from a dream--effortless and surreal. Bless Muriel Rukeyser for this one!

If you're not familiar with Rukeyser's work, she was an extraordinary poet and human being. She was also a reporter and political activist, and she's known for her poems about feminist issues, social justice, and equality. 

In an interview with the Paris Review, former US Poet Laureate William Meredith said, "She was a very amazing human being and any traces of honesty in my life come from having seen how beautifully honest she was in administering her life and her poetry without any separation—you couldn't get a knife between the two things with her."

This poem, though short, so perfectly exemplifies the central role that poetry played in Rukeyser's life and what her poetry meant to other people. I hope you will join me in memorizing it this week!

The Sixth Night: Waking

That first Green night of their dreaming, asleep beneath the

   Tree,

God said, "Let meanings move," and there was poetry.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Four (Jeffers)

"Praise Life"

Robinson Jeffers

First, just let me say that, without question, there should be more postage stamps of poets. I'm sure all of you reading this entry would agree--and you might even tell me that there should be more magazine layouts, billboards, coffee cups, and t-shirts too. I wholeheartedly concur. But more importantly, we should be reading poems and carrying them with us in our hearts and minds. 

This week, I'll be carrying "Praise Life," by Robinson Jeffers, with me wherever I go.  "Praise Life" strikes me because it reminds me that anguish and despair are a very true and intrinsic part of this glorious thing we call life. Every time I think I'm so happy that I can never feel low again, some deep sorrow drops into my life to remind me that I am not immune--that, really, every moment carries the twin seeds of suffering and joy. Yet, like Jeffers, I choose to make the brave decision to praise life anyway and to remember, even when I'm happy, that suffering exists and needs our care and compassion.

Praise Life

This country least, but every inhabited country
Is clotted with human anguish.
Remember that at your feasts.

And this is no new thing but from time out of mind,
No transient thing, but exactly
Conterminous with human life.

Praise life, it deserves praise, but the praise of life
That forgets the pain is a pebble
Rattled in a dry gourd.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Three (Berry)

Wendell Berry

"The Peace of Wild Things"

Photo Credit: Dan Carraco

I believe in serendipity, destiny, and what is meant to be. Not too long ago my friend Paula Todd King suggested this poem for The Mnemosyne Weekly, and then, last week, for Tiferet Talk, I interviewed Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, who told me that it's one of her favorite poems. Next, my boyfriend walked up to me with a printed out copy of the poem to suggest that I use it for Mnemosyne. At that point, I was already sold, but to top it all off, my Facebook friend, Corey Mesler, posted a list on my wall yesterday of people who share my August 5th birthday, and Wendell Berry was on it! So, here it is, the much beloved, highly recommended "The Peace of Wild Things." The poem comes from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Two (Divakaruni)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

"The World Tree"

from Leaving Yuba City

Just a couple of hours ago, I had the most exhilarating conversation with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni for Tiferet Talk. If you were not able to listen live, I urge you to listen to the archive as soon as possible. She said the most beautiful things about the importance of telling stories and building communities. As well, in honor of her recent novel, One Amazing Thing, she shared with us a truly amazing story from her own life. What a gift this interview was!

Needless to say, I've chosen one of Divakaruni's poems to memorize this week. It comes from the collection Leaving Yuba City, which was published in 1997 and encompasses a variety of topics. Here's a blurb from Booklist: “Everything Divakaruni touches with her exquisitely sensitive writer’s mind—whether it’s a memory, or a scene between wife and husband—turns to gold. She demonstrated her mastery of the short story in Arranged Marriages, and of the novel in The Mistress of Spices , and now shows her mastery of poetry in this bittersweet volume, her third collection. Each of her lyrical and haunting poems opens slowly, like a flower, then rapidly picks up speed and intensity until it glows like a meteor as it plunges into the deepest recesses of the heart. Divakaruni begins with devastatingly eloquent evocations of a sorrowful childhood in Darjeeling, then moves on to imaginative and compelling poems inspired by the photographs of Raghubir Singh, paintings by Francesco Clemente, and films by Indian directors, including Satyajit Ray and Mira Nair. In the final section, she dramatizes the circumscribed lives of persecuted Punjab farmers who immigrated early in this century to Yuba City, California. Strongly narrative, shimmeringly detailed, and emotionally acute, Divakaruni’s poetry embraces pain and beauty in its affirmation of grace."

I hope you enjoy the poem and the interview as much as I did!


The World Tree

The tree grows out of my navel. Black
as snakeskin, it slithers upward, away
from my voice. Spreads
across the entire morning, its leaf-tongues
drinking the light. It bores its roots
into my belly till I can no longer tell them
from my dry, gnarled veins. And when it is sure
I will never forget the pain
of its birthing, it parts its branches

so I can see, far
in that ocean of green,
a figure, tiny and perfect, pale
as ivory, leaning
on his elbow. He looks down and I know
that mouth, those eyes. Mine.
I raise my arm. I am calling
loud as I can. He gazes
into the distance, the bright, rippling
air. It is clear
he sees, hears nothing. I continue
to call. The tree grows and grows
into the world between us.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-One (Lorca)

Federico García Lorca

"Farewell"

Translated by W. S. Merwin

Here's a gorgeous little poem by Federico García Lorca. What hunger for life he conveys, even in death! And so much is said with just a few simple images. It's like the first and last stanzas are the balcony doors swung open, and the stanzas between them are a glimpse into an exotic, yet familiar, realm. I can see the gauzy curtains blowing in the wind, the corpse listening from the bed. 

If you are new to Lorca, his full name is Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca, and he was a Spanish poet and playwright and part of a group of avante-garde artists known as Generación del 27, which included Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel and other notables. Lorca lived from 1898 - 1936. 

If you're new to the blog, you might want to look at the first Mnemosyne Post to find out what this project is all about.

Enjoy!

Despedida

Si muero,

dejad el balcón abierto.

El niño come naranjas.

(Desde mi balcón lo veo).

El segador siega el trigo.

(Desde mi balcón lo siento.)

¡Si muero,

dejad el balcón abierto!

Farewell

If I die, 

leave the balcony open.

The little boy is eating oranges.

(From my balcony I can see him.)

The reaper is harvesting the wheat.

(From my balcony I can hear him.)

If I die,

leave the balcony open.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty (Hopkins)

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pied Beauty 

What a delicious poem this is. I could just eat it. The glorious, delight in sound is a true celebration of language, infused with divinity--dappled, pied, plotted, and pieced. As you can tell by now, I have drifted far from my original intention not to talk about the poems in the body of the post. They're just too exciting.

So, this week our poet is Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins was a Victorian poet and Jesuit priest, known for developing a poetic technique known as sprung rhythm, which sought to imitate the natural patterns of speech.

To hear a beautiful reading of the poem, please click HERE.

If you're new to the blog, you might want to look at the first Mnemosyne Post to find out what this project is all about.

                                             Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Eighteen (Harper)

Reuben, Reuben

Michael S. Harper

My selection this week is the powerful Michael S. Harper poem, "Reuben, Reuben," from the collection Images of Kin, which came out in 1977 and was nominated for a National Book Award.  It has been pointed out by the scholar Michael G. Cooke that although Harper writes of blood relations in several poems, his use of the word “kinship” in this collection is much broader, spanning out "across time, across space, even across race" to refer to "social bonding, a recognition of likeness in context, concern, need, liability, value.” It's a beautiful thing.

If you're not familiar with Michael S. Harper, he was born in Brooklyn in 1938, has published more than ten collections of poetry, and was the first poet laureate of the state of Rhode Island.

As well, if you're new to the blog, you might want to look at the first Mnemosyne Post to find out what this project is all about.

Reuben, Reuben

I reach from pain

to music great enough

to bring me back,

swollenhead, madness,

lovefruit, pickle of hate

so sour my mouth twicked

up and would not sing;

there's nothing in the beat

to hold it in

melody and turn human skin;

a brown berry gone

to rot just two days on the branch;

we've lost a son,

the music, jazz, comes in.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Fourteen (Wordsworth)

The Thames below Westminster

Claude Monet

1871

This week I'll be memorizing "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" by William Wordsworth. Here we're invited to observe a beautiful, peaceful, blissful moment that, in its description and stillness, has always felt like a painting or photograph to me--hence the Monet, for me the ideal accompaniment. And though Monet's painting portrays a little more activity than Wordsworth's sonnet, it nevertheless shares a tranquil quality and the same lovely subject matter. If you're not familiar with Wordsworth, he was an English poet of the Romantic era and lived from April 1770 – April 1850.

If you're new to the blog, please check out the first Mnemosyne Post to see what this project is all about. And please keep suggesting titles! I always learn the most from the ones I would have never thought to select myself.

Have a great week, everyone!Wishing you many moments like Wordsworth's on Westminster--

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Three (Rilke)

Thanks to all of you who are participating in The Mnemosyne Weekly! If you're new to the blog, you might want to look at the first Mnemosyne post to find out what this project is all about. 

Our poem this week is by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell). This is my favorite translation of one of my all time favorite poems. It's a little bit longer than the other ones we've memorized, but I'm sure you'll agree that it's worth the effort. As well, I'd like to mention that Rilke was a wonderful prose writer. If you haven't yet read his Letters to a Young Poet, I highly recommend picking up a hardcover edition so that when you finish reading it you can keep it on your shelf forever!

I love hearing your thoughts about the poems and what your experience was of memorizing them, so please continue to leave comments at the posts. Leave comments for last week's poem by Emily Dickinson at The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Two.

Here is your poem for the week. Enjoy!

I.3 (from The Sonnets To Orpheus)

A god can do it. But will you tell me how
a man can penetrate through the lyre’s strings?
Our mind is split. And at the shadowed crossing
of heart-roads there is no temple for Apollo.

Song, as you have taught it, is not desire,
not wooing any grace that can be achieved;
song is reality. Simple, for a god.
But when can we be real? When does he pour

the earth, the stars, into us? Young man,
it is not your loving, even if your mouth
was forced wide open by your own voice – learn

to forget that passionate music. It will end.
True singing is a different breath, about
nothing. A gust inside the god. A wind.

— Rainer Maria Rilke (1923), trans. Stephen Mitchell (1989)

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Two (Dickinson)

Thanks to all of you who memorized last week's poem with me! I've noticed some wonderful comments coming in under the post. I love, in particular, what Lois P. Jones said about how if "One Heart" were a calligraphy "the birds would be a fine press of ink fading into the tips of freedom." Please continue to leave your comments about "One Heart" under The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem One post. If you are new to the blog, you might also want to look at that first post to find out what The Mnemosyne Weekly is all about.

Our poem this week is by Emily Dickinson, and it is certain to make your brain and your toes and the tips of your ears tingle. Enjoy!

He fumbles at your spirit

He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,

Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow

Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool, --
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.

*Note* When posting, quoting from, or otherwise using poetry online or in any format, please be sure to honor the “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry.”