"Silence," by e.e. cummings

A recording/video of a very short poem by e.e. cummings, "Silence."

The link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTNKM0znIrM

"in unjust Spring"

(with apologies to e.e.)


"in unjust Spring
after the po-
lice state had arisen (peo-
were dis-
tracted)(fires
burned in Baltimore,well
known to be
a terribly terribly racist
city:plagued
by the pale doom of
american history.
Baltimore is all the rage
that builds up:frus-
tration & americans rather
likesitscities to die,
especially
black&brown
spaces,"
he spoke, in despair and not
knowing what else to do.



hans ostrom 2015

["Buffalo Bill"], by e.e. cummmings

"it is so long since my heart has been with yours," by e.e. cummings

Quick Updates!

Regarding poets who paint, etc., my colleague Professor Nimura has reminded me that, yes, indeed, e.e. cummings painted as well as wrote, and she has sent along a link:

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cummings/paintings.htm

And another blogger (regarding "Out Here") noted that, yes, we may or may not be meant to work in relative obscurity, but it's still nice to share. Indeed. It did make me think of Dickinson, among others, however, who seemed to have an inkling that her work would be shared--except later, when she was Elsewhere. I think she might have capitalized Elsewhere, too.

(How great would it be if Dickinson returned and wrote a blog? The posts would be terse and completely original. She'd make the genre her own.)

I may have to get serious about this and develop a real list of poet/painters and painter/poets.

But not tonight. I have sleeping to do before I go more miles.

Anyway, thanks for the info/input.

Translating "Nothing"; Hounds online; cummings on blogging

(photo: e.e. cummings)



The recent post on "What Should I Say [When I Have Nothing to Say]" produced comments better than the post, as hard as that may be to comprehend. The comments deserve their own post.

A blogging colleague, Rethilbe, who happens to like poetry as much as I and who blogs on Poefrika (please check out the site), had this to write:

[About how to translate/pronounce "nothing" in other languages] "/Heetchee/ in farsi and /Leet-aw/ in Sesotho, my mother tongue. In French? "Rien", pronounced /Ree-young/"

[I knew the French one but not the others. I think I prefer "Heetchee" to "Nothing," and I know I prefer "Leet-aw" to "Nothing." Now when people ask me what I'm doing as a way of suggesting I should stop doing it, I think I'll answer, "Leet-aw; how about you, sir [or madame]?'

"Frost might have enjoyed this, and would have perhaps told us about a man who blogged his way because blogging was what he was all about, far into the reaches of his youth. Cummings might have insisted that glee was a glad blog."

["A glee was a glad blog": how great is that?]

"I'd have loved to have heard Plath on this one. She'd have found some catastrophe linked to blogging: Screen, you do not seem to understand the lifting of my skin."

[or "Screen, you will not do, Pixelated You."]

"lol. But we unfortunately can't hear these voices anew."

[But Rethilbe has helped us hear the improvised echoes.}

Another commenter (as opposed to commentator, which is someone who talks a lot about nothing on television), notes that Full Cry, the magazine all about "coon hounds" to which my father subscribed [Until I was about 9, I thought all families subscribed to it, kind of like TV Guide or Life magazine], now has a howling web presence. The commenter, from the great and icy upper Midwest, writes,

"Full Cry is still going strong:

http://www.treehound.com/html/fullcry.html

Also, this:
http://www.coondawgs.com/

And if you're some kind of goddamn flatlander:
http://urbancoonies.blogspot.com/"

I realize these links may not appeal to a massive percentage of the population, but be careful: once your interest in hunting-dogs of this kind is piqued, you find yourself becoming more and more interested, and pretty soon, you're out in the woods, it's past midnight, the hounds are up to no good, you're freezing and waving a flashlight around, and you're interpreting the different howls, barks, and yelps that are filling the air.

A recent student of mine had an internship with a dog-related publications. She and I were trying to remember the names of hound-breeds that are officially "coon hounds."

I think they are Black and Tan, Plot, Redbone, Blue Tick, and English, but I could be wrong. They tend not to be large dogs, probably because the have to be quick, fast, and durable. They are all very excitable but not, I would say, temperamental. A Redbone has a gorgeous rust-colored, very short-haired coat. The Black and Tan is pretty much self-describing, although there is more black than tan. A shiny coat.

Blue Ticks are black and white, or white with a lot of black spots and mottling, except the black really is almost blue. Plot hounds migh well be the smallest of the breeds and are dark brown or black. The ones my father owned seemed much more composed than their hound-colleagues. They seemed to take a cool professional attitude toward hunting.

Anyway, here's a shout out and a howl out to two commenters. [Someone just asked me what I'm doing. "Leet-aw," I responded. "Why do you ask?']

What Would Jeffers Say?

Two of the most intellectually interesting and nimble people I know are an historian of science and a political scientist, the latter specializing in Constitutional law and how the media report on matters of law. In some ways the two are different intellectually, but they share at least three qualities that help account for the quality of their minds. They are empiricists. They are willing to follow the data wherever they (the data) lead, as opposed to taking a theoretical short-cut to a destination and forcing the data to come along on the vacation Second, they have a sense of irony--about the world and themselves. Third, they're widely read, far beyond their academic specialities. Their reading includes the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.

I see these two and talk with them frequently (one of the perks of this academic job of mine). This week especially I've had them in mind, however, because of the financial debacle and accompanying political circus related to the alleged collapse of Wall Street. Here I must break for a brief rant about conservatives who like to stress "personal responsibility." Arguably, excessive de-regulation (also known as chaos) led to this mess, so how about if some conservatives take personal responsibility for having pushed de-regulation too enthusiastically since, oh, about 1981? How about a simple, "I'm sorry. We were wrong"? It is, however, somewhat amusing to see Congressional Republicans saying No to Bush with regard to the bail-out. Typically, Bush seems to have seen the alleged crisis as an opportunity to try to give the Secretary of the Treasury the powers enjoyed by Henry VIII.

At this moment, when crisis meets farce, I am of course tempted to think of Jeffers and of my two colleagues who like his work. Jeffers thought the U.S. was crumbling by the mid-1940s, as demonstrated by his poem, "Shine, Perishing Republic," in which "this America settles in the mold of its vulgarity, heavily/thickening to empire,/And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out,/and the mass hardens." Later in the poem, he writes, "corruption/Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet/there are left the mountains."

Well, I don't know if even the mountains are left, what with ski resorts, open-pit mining, the spread of suburbia, drought in the Rockies, and all those noisy snow-mobiles and three-wheelers out there. In any event, today I seem to hear Jeffers whispering "See, I told you so."

I suppose it's only fair to concede that Jeffers was a bit of a misanthrope and pessimist; a few friends and family excepted, he tended to prefer the sea, large rocks, and hawks to humans. There is a chance, however, that the current corruption, mismanagement, and inept political spectacle might shock even Jeffers. I'll have to check with my colleagues to see what they think.

Anyway, Robinson, the republic (or empire) seems to be living down to your expectations these days. Maybe this is a good day to read some of e.e. cummings more exuberant, life-affirming poetry and take a break from Jeffers' rocks and hawks

Beyond the Chortle

I saw a clip of President Bush today; he was giving a speech to conservatives in his party, attempting "to rally the base" behind the next Republican candidate. Whenever any politician speaks, not just Bush, I tend to think of e.e. cummings' poem that parodies political speech:

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water


(I seem to have landed myself in a different font.) Bush himself seems
to have lost interest in his own speeches.In the speech today, and the
State of the Union, he seemed almost too relaxed--burned out, fatalistic.
He seems to be a man who has done whatever it was he was
going to do, a man who thinks this pageant, life, is a bit of a joke.
Who can blame him if he feels this way? He seems tohave become
president in spite of himself. When I saw the clip of him
speaking, I chortled.

He did say one thing that interested me.  He encouraged the audience
to stand up for "faith in our values." I assume he meant "conservative"
values,but I decided to broaden the term and assume, further, that
he meant "American values."  Then I asked myself, "What are American
values?"  Of course,some ironic, sarcastic, answers spring to mind.
But if I had to try to answer the question straight up, without a chortle,
I'd say the following:

1. Work. Americans value work, and statistics show we tend to
work ourselves to death, at least in comparison to folks in Europe,
for example. We tend to drive ourselves.

2. Consumption. We're mad for things. We make millions of things,
or have them made abroad, and we sell them to each other. Gadgets,
cars, stuff.  "Home improvements." Clothes, shoes, trinkets. Little boxes
of entertainment. I've spent some time inGermany and Sweden, two
industrialized countries, and while they're certainly modern
nations with all the "amenities," they simply aren't as obsessed with
things as we are. I don't think any nation is as obsessed as ours is with
things.And the statistics in this case don't lie: we consume the most
fuel and produce the most waste, per capita, of any nation.

3. Control.  How we got to the place where we think we can and should
control global politics is a complicated story, but I think that's the place
we're in, for better or worse. Nobody's business globally is not our
business. We can always rationalize its being our business because
of "national security" or "human rights" or "the global economy" or "the
spread of freedom." But these pieces of language really don't get at
why we Americans love control so much. I think it's more than just
greed and more than the fact that we're convinced our way is the way.
We have imperial instincts, in my opinion, but they're different from
those of England, for example. The net effect, however, may look the
same to those countries we try to control.

4. Immaturity.  Europeans are fond of saying that Americans never grow
up (somewhat ironic, given the trouble some Europeans get into, but
nonetheless . . .). We tend to try to extend youth perhaps even more
frantically than the rest of humanity.

5. Privilege. We like imagining that we are on top of the world. Lord
knows a lot of Americans are not privileged, to say the least, but still
I think there's an American way of looking at the world, one that sees
America at the top of a hierarchy.

I don't know, for sure, what President Bush meant when he spoke of
"values." In private,he may say something like, "It was just a speech,
okay? Grow up." Or he may really mean something, or at least believe
he means something, when he says "values." He may mean "freedom"
or "individuality" or whatever, but these are empty signifiers. As far
as I know, he never deigns to complicate such terms, to reflect on
them, even to define them. He says "values," and he counts on the
fact that his audience will read the code-word correctly. In this respect,
he's just like every other politician. Politicians speak in code.

And so, once more, I think of cummings' poem.