The News from Inside

Inside me, still,

lurks the baby who could walk
but chose not to
(wanting instead to stand up,
hands grasping the rail
of what they called a play-pen)--
and to watch. It seems

I was born wary
and passively resistant.
And that's who I stayed.
In the 17th month, I walked
because, having watched them,
I noted that they
seemed to want me to walk.

Inside me, I don't
contain multitudes,
and Walt Whitman can
go fuck himself. Inside me
there's the DNA of a woman
living in Africa
160, 000 years ago:
it's inside you, too.

And then inside there there's
a few people who worked like dogs
but not as hard as slaves. Maybe
a failed preacher, certainly
a Skid Row drunk, and possibly
the funniest patient in what
they called a mental ward:
no proof of this.

Inside me, I think it's
population: 12. Or so.
But no apostles. In there,

an old non-descript tree
finally gives up, accepts
a lightning-smash, explodes,
and falls. Deer, squirrels,
owls, a cougar, a bear,
and maybe some hiker with
a bandana tied around
dirty hair mark
the arboreal collapse,
but, god damn it,
there's never a Zen monk
around when you need one.
And Walt Whitman
can go fuck himself.

Inside me, there's
a startling, chronic
mild terror--maybe because
at month 15 or so,
I learned from informed
intuition that very little
in this life-thing makes sense,
although we must pretend
that much of it does.

And Walt Whitman...
was one great self-publicist:
American, that is.

A Sultan at Sunset

Thirty feet up, the hummingbird hovered,
looking at sunset behind blue, wrinkled
Olympic Mountains. After a long day
of nectar-hauling, why not? Sitting facing

East, I watched the bird watch. I then
saw it trace with its body an enormous
precise circle in air.  Wondering what
or if this circle signified was a gift

grand enough for a sultan.  The invisible,
unforgettable shape suggested geometric
graffiti, avian ritual, or a secret signal
to the sun.  I almost applauded.

The whirring bird zipped off to close
the astounding performance: what a pro.
As Sultan, I decree my hummingbird
equal to Whitman's eagle, Poe's raven,

the crows of Ted Hughes and Al
Hitchcock, Shelley's and Mercer's
skylark, and Bukowski's murdered
mockingbird. (I refuse to discuss

Yeats's rapist Zeus-goose.) The effect of
this decree, the Sultan does not know.


hans ostrom 2017

"The News from Inside"

Inside me, still,
lurks the baby who could walk
but chose not to
(wanting instead to stand up,
hands grasping the rail
of what they called a play-pen)
and to watch. It seems

I was born wary
and passively resistant.
And that's who I stayed.
In the 17th month, I walked
because, having watched them,
I noted that they
seemed to want me to walk.

Inside me, I don't
contain multitudes,
and Walt Whitman can
go fuck himself. Inside me
there's the DNA of a woman
living in Africa
160,000 years ago:
it's inside you, too.

And then inside there there's
a few people who worked like dogs
but not as hard as slaves. Maybe
a failed preacher, certainly
a Skid Row drunk, and possibly
the funniest patient in what
they called a mental ward.

Inside me, I think it's
population: 12. Or so.
But no apostles. In there,

an old non-descript tree
finally gives up, accepts
a lightning-smash, explodes,
and falls. Deer, squirrels,
owls, a cougar, a bear,
and maybe some hiker with
a bandana tied around
dirty hair mark
the arboreal collapse,
but, god damn it,
there's never a Zen monk
around when you need one.
And Walt Whitman
can go fuck himself.

Inside me, there's
a startling, a chronic
mild terror--maybe because
at month 15 or so,
I learned from informed
intuition that very little
in this life-thing makes sense.


hans ostrom 2015

"Animals," by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's Birthday: "A Hub for the Universe"

"The Last Invocation," by Walt Whitman

Official American Poetry

Official American Poetry is a corporation like
any other. It has executive officers, middle-
managers, salespeople, controllers, and share-
holders. It operates major retail outlets

such as anthologies, presses, workshops,
and MFA programs. There are Academies
and Institutes, with canons on the parapets
and reviewers pouring hot grease on the mob.

Official American Poetry (OAP) frequently
says, "We are unamused by most american
poetry." When OAP notes an Interesting
Development, then OAP buys it up to

maintain market control. It bought up
Dickinson and Whitman, Plath and Sexton,
the Beats and LANGUAGE. There is insider-
trading, lobbying, and influence-peddling.

There's the awkward American imitation
of royalty (Pound crowning Eliot). OAP
is a tower of glass and steel. If you want
to try to try to trade independence for

recognition, go for it. Good luck.
Otherwise, just keep walking. And
writing. That's what Walt and Emily would do.
Bukowski and Bob Kaufman, too,

and this is not to mention,
and this is not to mention
all the poets alive, above and
under ground both at once.


hans ostrom 2013

Walt Whitman Sees

Known for his volubility, Walt Whitman (1819-1892) can be a pithy poet, too, as in the poem below. Written in an age of supreme anxiety about what Darwin's ideas meant for those with mystical or religious beliefs, the poem seems to sidestep a "science" vs. "religion" duality and simply regards evolution as one more element to admire, mystically, about the universe. Not surprisingly (in the case of Whitman), the poem ends with a surprise, as the "real" subject of the piece is the unseen "soul"--human consciousness, another mystery of evolution. Thus the poem finally settles into an old philosophical question about whether reality exists independently of perception, whether perception is reality, and whether these are the correct philosophical questions to ask. Happily, for him and for us, Whitman chose his genre wisely--lyric poem, not treatise; so he's not obligated to sort out the philosophical question fully. Instead he ends with an exclamation, an homage to the soul his intuition grasps but does not see. It's a grand little poem, the way I see it.

Grand is the Seen

Walt Whitman

GRAND is the seen, the light, to me—grand are the sky and stars.
Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space,
And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary;
But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those,
Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the sea,
(What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount without thee?)
More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul!
More multiform far—more lasting thou than they.

Anne Finch Likes Herself

You get the feeling from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself that Walt loved himself. Good for him; and he got some fine poetry out of that self-regard.

A more difficult, or at least an as difficult, kind of poem to write is one in which the poet describes satisfaction with herself, or at least self-acceptance.

Anne Finch (1661-1720) seems to have written such a poem, logically titled "On Myself."

On Myself

by Anne Finch

Good Heav'n, I thank thee, since it was designed
I should be framed, but of the weaker kind,
That yet, my Soul, is rescued from the love
Of all those trifles which their passions move.
Pleasure and praise and plenty have with me
But their just value. If allowed they be,
Freely, and thankfully as much I taste,
As will not reason or religion waste.
If they're denied, I on my self can live,
And slight those aids unequal chance does give.
When in the sun, my wings can be displayed.
And, in retirement, I can bless the shade.

This is an intricately original poem. As can often be the case with sonnets from the period, the syntax isn't always easy. To what, for example, does "their" refer to in line four? My guess is that it refers to "other people," not to trifles, for it wouldn't make sense for the trifles to move their own passions.

To some degree, the poem seems to concern a self-restraint that comes easily to the person. She doesn't deny herself things by means of excruciating self-discipline, but if she doesn't experience certain pleasant things, she is content nonetheless. Both reason and religion seem to serve as guides, but she seems to work easily within the guidelines, which do not seem oppressive. She describes herself as "weaker"--meaning what? That she is "of the 'weaker' sex"--a woman? Or that she doesn't have appetites as powerful as those of other people?

The concluding couplet sets itself apart from the rest of the poem; the couplet seems to leap to the image of a winged creature--butterfly? bird?--in sun and shade. But the leap seems to work, reinforcing the sense in which the person is both balanced and content with the balance.

Holding Back; Emerson

Here's a lesser known poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Forebearance

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk;
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;
And loved so well a high behavior
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?—
O be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

This is a complex little poem. It certainly is about holding back, refraining from killing birds when looking at them will do just fine; from picking a wild rose; from letting fear get the better of you in a tough situation; and--perhaps my favorite--refraining from complimenting someone for their good behavior. In one sense, of course, we have been taught that such compliments, when properly offered, are polite and generous. Emerson's poem seems to suggest, however, that there are times when withholding the compliment leaves all the nobility to the person who behaved nobly; one refrains from "joining in," I guess, or from basking in the other person's glow. Perhaps the one puzzling reference is to being invited to a rich man's "table"--to his house for dinner--and to be served "bread and pulse." In this case, "pulse" doesn't refer to heart-beats or, obliquely, blood. It refers to food deriving from anything in the bean-family--probably a kind of mash made of beans. So I guess if you're invited to a rich man's house and expect the food to measure up to the stock-portfolio and instead you get "mere" bread and beans, hold back. Don't complain or let on that you're disappointed. Eat what is put before you. Thank the hosts.

I enjoy the last line very much because the speaker suggests that he's "not quite there yet." He can admire forebearance but hasn't gotten the hang of it yet, so he'd like a forebearing friend to teach him.

I believe the poem was published in 1842. Sometimes now you see forebearance spelled without the e after r.

Since Emerson's often linked to (Walt) Whitman in a Transcendental way, I thought I'd toss in a little poem about the sort of person who is not Whitman-like, who prefers not to "sing myself" (sing herself), who holds back (the "light under a bushel-basket syndrome"):

Not Whitman

She, too, would sing herself
if such a song seemed not so
indulgent, presumptuous.
She leaves her blades of grass
lying under drifts of reticence.
What she knows, you may
know, but only if you ask,
and even then she may answer
only by asking you to sing a little
something of yourself.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom