Rejection is a matter of fact for all working, publishing poets.
When I was an undergraduate, I remember thinking that all living, well known poets simply had to send whatever they wrote to a magazine or (in the case of a book-manuscript) to a publisher and the work would quickly get into print.
I was taking a class from Pulitizer-Prize-winning poet Karl Shapiro at the time. He was just over 60 years old by then, had won the big prize and other prizes, had published numerous books, and had even edited arguably the most important literary magazine in the U.S., Poetry, in Chicago. He had signed a contract with the New Yorker magazine whereby he would send the prestigious magazine his new poems first before sending them elsewhere.
But one day he brought in a poem called "Humanties Building," and he said that the New Yorker would publish it only if he made certain changes, and he wanted our opinion of the poem. It was the only time he ever shared his work with us--published or not--and I think he did so because the building he described was the one in which the English Department was housed: Sproul Hall at U.C. Davis. After class, several of us students talked, and we all simply couldn't believe that the New Yorker wanted him to change the poem--or else not publish it. I remember one fellow saying that Shapiro shouldn't "give in," should refuse to make the changes. How naive we were!
Many years later, Karl's longtime publisher, Random House, simply dropped him, letting his books go out of print and expressing no interest in publishing any new books he might write. Another very well known poet was visiting the campus at the time, and I mentioned this news to him. Instead of expressing sympathy for Karl's situation, he said, "That doesn't compare with all the things that publishers have done to me!"
The experiences of these two "war horses" of American poetry helped me put my own stacks of rejection-slips from magazines and publishers in perspective, but what really helps to put rejection in perspective is poet William Kupinse's poem on the subject. Bill has kindly allowed me to post the poem on the blog:
REJECTION LETTER
By William Kupinse
It comes by stealth amid the circulars and bills,
the print of the S.A.S.E. uncanny
as catching yourself in a shop window mirror.
But instead of “who’s that . . . Hey, it’s…not so bad,”
this glimpse of self’s a backhand cheekward slap.
“Thank you, but we will not be publishing your . . .”
Or, more honestly, “We wish we could reply
to each submission individually. . .”
Something in the photocopy process makes even kind attempts
sound patronizing: “As James Fields wrote to a young
Walt Whitman, we’re sorry, Walter, but . . .”
I’ve been tearing open, reading, and resealing
through the magic of obsessive imagination
just such a letter, as I recline in Dana’s
automobile, a vehicle whose faint pungency
is liberated by a springtime afternoon
as we head north to Seattle. By the paper-mills of Fife
I confess: the letter has me blue. She nods,
recounts her psychology abstract shot down—
no expenses-paid trip to Bologna for her.
I nod; it is sometimes a kindness
to recommend your failure to a friend,
when it’s half-buried in forgetting’s murk.
We need a word for such an act;
like Schadenfreude, but more upbeat.
It could not be a German word;
it would need to come from India, or Sweden.
I lean back, farther still, into myself,
and think of all the world’s psychologists typing abstracts
and all of time’s poets licking envelopes,
and everyone trying to better everyone else,
and I think of nature red in tooth and claw,
and of chimpanzees besting other chimpanzees,
and of chimpanzees typing furiously
while glancing at the heroic couplets of other chimpanzees,
and I think of Darwin getting a leg up on Wallace and Lamarck,
and I think of every grade school boy wanting
to be an astronaut or fireman or president.
And I think of the man the country calls president
and what weird family systems therapy it would take
to sort him and America out, and how he
could never best a soul in any unrigged contest,
yet he gets to use this remarkable stationery
that always gleans a personal response.
Copyright 2007 by William Kupinse
Friday, October 26, 2007
A Few Favorite Books of Poetry
Here's some recommended reading, ten books of contemporary (meaning later 20th century or even after 2000) poetry, listed in no particular order, that one might consider buying or borrowing. And in the case of poetry-books, I almost always recommend plunging into the book randomly, rummaging about until you find a poem you like, and going from there. I'm listing the publishers from memory, so in some cases I may be wrong.
1. Gary Snyder, The Back Country--New Directions. Turtle Island won the Pulitzer, but I've always preferred this earlier book.
2. Randall Jarrell, either The Complete Poems or Selected Poems. Farrar, Strauss, Giroux.
3. Wendy Bishop, My Last Door (just published--2007, from Anhinga Press in Florida, really a splendid collection by the late Wendy Bishop.)
4. Richard Hugo, 31 Letters and 13 Dreams (they are letter-poems, not merely letters); or his collected poems, titled Making Certain It Goes On. W. W. Norton.
5. Rita Dove, Selected Poems. Vintage.
6. Langston Hughes, either The Collected Poems (edited by Rampersad and Roessel) or Selected Poems. Vintage.
7. Natasha Tretheway, Native Guard. This one won the most recent Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the paperback came out in April, from Mariner Books. A wonderful combination of personal and historical poems.
8. Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. (Dual Language Edition). Penguin--I think.
9. Kevin Clark, In The Evening of No Warning, Western Michigan Univ. Press. (Clark is a contemporary master of narrative poetry.)
10. William Stafford, Selected Poems [I think the full title is The Darkness is Deep All Around Us], Harper? Stafford consistently wrote very good poetry, and then every so often there's a perfect poem with astonishing, orginal insight combined with superb phrasing--but in an unpretentious voice.
1. Gary Snyder, The Back Country--New Directions. Turtle Island won the Pulitzer, but I've always preferred this earlier book.
2. Randall Jarrell, either The Complete Poems or Selected Poems. Farrar, Strauss, Giroux.
3. Wendy Bishop, My Last Door (just published--2007, from Anhinga Press in Florida, really a splendid collection by the late Wendy Bishop.)
4. Richard Hugo, 31 Letters and 13 Dreams (they are letter-poems, not merely letters); or his collected poems, titled Making Certain It Goes On. W. W. Norton.
5. Rita Dove, Selected Poems. Vintage.
6. Langston Hughes, either The Collected Poems (edited by Rampersad and Roessel) or Selected Poems. Vintage.
7. Natasha Tretheway, Native Guard. This one won the most recent Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the paperback came out in April, from Mariner Books. A wonderful combination of personal and historical poems.
8. Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. (Dual Language Edition). Penguin--I think.
9. Kevin Clark, In The Evening of No Warning, Western Michigan Univ. Press. (Clark is a contemporary master of narrative poetry.)
10. William Stafford, Selected Poems [I think the full title is The Darkness is Deep All Around Us], Harper? Stafford consistently wrote very good poetry, and then every so often there's a perfect poem with astonishing, orginal insight combined with superb phrasing--but in an unpretentious voice.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Fresh
Fresh Poem For Anyone
by Hans Ostrom
Here's a fresh poem for you. It snaps
crisply like a cold carrot just pulled
out of hard ground. It shocks like the time
the politician simply told the truth. It
loves like a woman sailing on a voyage
of her beauty. It's awkward and generous--
a large barn of a poem. It's a knock-kneed,
unsophisticated singer a crowd stayed
late to hear. It's a scar left by a dog's tooth,
the stench of a rattlesnake-den, a
satisfaction long denied, a time after
weeping, the thing you've known for sure
all along, and the words you were hoping
to hear. It explodes right here
into the poem you need to write, to read,
and to remember. Take it. It's fresh
and it's yours and it's free. It belongs to
you now. Start writing it, keep going, and hold on.
Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom
by Hans Ostrom
Here's a fresh poem for you. It snaps
crisply like a cold carrot just pulled
out of hard ground. It shocks like the time
the politician simply told the truth. It
loves like a woman sailing on a voyage
of her beauty. It's awkward and generous--
a large barn of a poem. It's a knock-kneed,
unsophisticated singer a crowd stayed
late to hear. It's a scar left by a dog's tooth,
the stench of a rattlesnake-den, a
satisfaction long denied, a time after
weeping, the thing you've known for sure
all along, and the words you were hoping
to hear. It explodes right here
into the poem you need to write, to read,
and to remember. Take it. It's fresh
and it's yours and it's free. It belongs to
you now. Start writing it, keep going, and hold on.
Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom
A Stoic Poem By Emily Bronte
Although the 19th century British writer Emily Bronte is best known, obviously, for having written Wuthering Heights, she also wrote poetry, as did her sisters Anne and Charlotte. Here is one of Emily Bronte's poems:
The Old Stoic
"To endure calmly" might be one brief, adequate way to summarize stoicism in general, although Stoic philosophy as elaborated upon by (first) the Greeks (Zeno) and then Romans such as Epictitus and Seneca, had a lot of parts to it. These fellows seemed to believe in a supreme being, but a rather indifferent one, and, like Buddhists, believed that such emotions as fear and dread were the result of false perception or false attachment. Nonetheless, Stoicism still seems to come down to the individual's having the ability to "gut it out," whereas I guess the Epicurean outlook was to fill the gut and otherwise enjoy life as you were gutting it out.
But what a wonderfully concise and musical way Bronte has of expressing a Stoic's outlook.
It's possible that following poem may reveal a hint of Stoicism. It concerns a heat stroke. I hadn't heard the term until after I had suffered what it describes.
The Old Stoic
RICHES I hold in light esteem;
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn:
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, " Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty !"
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.
"To endure calmly" might be one brief, adequate way to summarize stoicism in general, although Stoic philosophy as elaborated upon by (first) the Greeks (Zeno) and then Romans such as Epictitus and Seneca, had a lot of parts to it. These fellows seemed to believe in a supreme being, but a rather indifferent one, and, like Buddhists, believed that such emotions as fear and dread were the result of false perception or false attachment. Nonetheless, Stoicism still seems to come down to the individual's having the ability to "gut it out," whereas I guess the Epicurean outlook was to fill the gut and otherwise enjoy life as you were gutting it out.
But what a wonderfully concise and musical way Bronte has of expressing a Stoic's outlook.
It's possible that following poem may reveal a hint of Stoicism. It concerns a heat stroke. I hadn't heard the term until after I had suffered what it describes.
Heat Stroke
One day in July,
Sierra Nevada
(sun unblocked, high, blazing)
--I was splitting and
stacking tamarack rounds
for somebody
in town. Heat
came up
through my body to my head.
I
went blind, was seventeen,
had learned by then to be
more embarrassed
than frightened
by affliction. I saw
just well enough
to stagger down to the general store,
stumbled
into an old man, who laughed. I found
a bench,
waited for
eyesight to clear.
Somebody got water. I went
back to the wood pile
eventually.
This has been
a pattern of sorts in my
life—
work hard until I go blind or fall over,
recover, go back to
work.
Tamarack sap smells sweet, and a person’s brain
can get too hot--
how odd.
from The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006, Hans Ostrom
Actually, "tamarack" is a misnomer. It's what most local people called the softwood conifer whose appropriate name is Lodgepole Pine. I think the real tamarack tree lives back East. Nonetheless, that was the local name, and that's what I thought I was splitting.
1954 and I
I love what the OED online has to say about "autobiography," so I will cut and paste the whole main entry:
"The writing of one's own history; the story of one's life written by himself.
The complaint from 1797 about the word's combining Greek and Saxon roots is lovely. (I have a colleague who loathes words that combine Greek and Latin words.) I almost never agree with Carlyle, but I agree with him on this sentiment: oh, for an autobiography by Shakespeare. And calling geology the autobiography of the earth: inspired. Thank you, Sir C. Lyell. And finally: how surprising that the word seems to have entered English as late as the late 18th century. I wonder when the term "celebrity autobiography" was first deployed.
Here's a (non-celebrity) autobiographical poem:
1954: The Situation
On January 29, 1:06 a.m. I was made available for appointments
with the world.
Meetings occurred between me, air, light, milk, mother, father,
brothers, snow, odors, trees, fabric, belly aches, noise. Like
other newborns, I did not know who or where I was. Did I know
that I was? Like some other newborns, I had the makings
of brown hair, blues eyes, and one hammer-toe.
Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
Permanent Committee on Investigaions. Korean Peninsula. Eli
Lilly designs LSD for the CIA.
Rather late in the game, I walked: May of 1955.
I was neither reluctant nor satisfied. Lore says
I walked for a beer held by my Aunt Nevada;
more is the pity.
I wouldn’t have walked just for beer or
just for Aunt Nevada,
but the beer and smiling
Nevada (nicknamed "Babe") together
were too much to resist, says the lore.
Questions persist: If your name
is Nevada, why do you need a nickname,
and if you do need a nickname, why must
it be Babe?
Emmett Till. Allan Freed coins “Rock `n Roll.”
Sun Records signs Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins,
Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. Emmett Till.
Also, I gathered (I gather) that walking
was expected of me. Okay, fine.
Distant Early Warning. The French withdraw
from Viet Nam. Good idea.
Many years later I took up dancing.
Also, I costumed myself in pajamas,
six-gun holsters, a variety of hats.
I was a humorless, earnest dancer
and had general problems with specific gravity.
Brother Sven was always quicker on the draw.
I learned to fall down dead.
Dick Nixon. Little Richard. The deaths of Henri
Matisse and Charles Ives. Emmett Till.
I took up reading and shadow-boxing.
I’ve since abandoned shadow-boxing
except in the most figurative sense.
"Friday Night Fights" on black-and-white TV.
At six I sat on slate steps, warm in
Sierra Nevada sun. My father had built them.
Mother was inside the house or sun-bathing
on the vast porch beneath a vast Sierra sky.
I thought,
I remember this because I willed myself
to remember this then: Memory for its own sake.
The invention of TV Dinners, advertised on TV.
Also I remember the magpie that would not
leave the woods. It let me come close and stare.
A rational bird, it was not afraid of me.
A discerning boy, I appreciated the gesture.
It seemed to want to be more than a magpie
or at least not wild. Having not been entirely
committed to walking, I understood the magpie’s
reluctance to fly, migrate, act frightened, etc.:
That is to say, “What’s the point—in what ways
will flying, migration, and fear materially
change the situation?”
It is much later now.
I have completed another sentence.
Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom
Bring in `Da Noise?
There is an excellent chance that tolerance of noise may be age-related: youth tend to be more noise-tolerant than the aging and the aged; that may be the situation. There is an excellent chance that this situation, if in fact it is the case, is ironic, for with age comes a diminishing capacity to hear, so one might think that the older one got, the more tolerant s/he would be of noise.
Of course, folks from my generation think back reflexively to all those loud concerts we blithely attended, decibels smashing into ear-drums. Huh?
I'm a wee bit surprised that, based strictly on the profit-motive, more developers don't build and "market" more houses and condominiums based on the noise-factor. There is a cornucopia of new and venerable noise-reducing and noise-eliminating products in the building trades. Of course, they add cost, but I believe a significant percentage of potential buyers would be willing to pay the extra cost for the extra silence. Quiet Estates. Come Home. . . To Silence-Ridge Properties! Wouldn't You Like to Live in Shhhhh! Towers?!
A small, quiet poem about noise, then:
Of course, folks from my generation think back reflexively to all those loud concerts we blithely attended, decibels smashing into ear-drums. Huh?
I'm a wee bit surprised that, based strictly on the profit-motive, more developers don't build and "market" more houses and condominiums based on the noise-factor. There is a cornucopia of new and venerable noise-reducing and noise-eliminating products in the building trades. Of course, they add cost, but I believe a significant percentage of potential buyers would be willing to pay the extra cost for the extra silence. Quiet Estates. Come Home. . . To Silence-Ridge Properties! Wouldn't You Like to Live in Shhhhh! Towers?!
A small, quiet poem about noise, then:
I Beg Your Pardon?
It’s so noisy here, what
with automobiles, airplanes,
motors, guns, missiles, TVs,
ear-pods, crowds, amplifiCAtion, snarling
gasoline-drunk tools. The
blasting, roaring, whirring, whi-
ning, humming, droning, rum-
bling are incessant. How
funny if God were to turn out to be
slightly hard of hearing, willing
but unable to catch the melodies
of most prayers because of
these furious sounds we manufacture
all the time. How odd if God
would love to care, if it just
weren’t for the blare, the volume,
of our self-debilitating decibelity.
More Pressing Poetic Questions Posed to Presidential Aspirants
Here are some more questions that I wish moderators (many of whom seem immoderate) would ask the presidential aspirants as the aspirants stand on stage in full makeup under lights and behind podiums (or is it podia?):
1. An aphorism attributed to the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats goes as follows: "Of our arguments with others, we make rhetoric; of our arguments with ourselves, we make poetry."
Politics is largely about arguments with others, and of course many of these arguments are staged or gratuitous; they are as much theater as rhetoric: that's the way politics works. What is one important argument you have had or continue to have with yourself? Of course, you might begin you answer with a quip, but after that, please describe a serious argument you have had or continue to have with yourself.
2. In the poem "Harlem" and in other works, American poet Langston Hughes wrote of "the dream deferred," referring perhaps to the aspirations of many African Americans, many working-poor families, and other groups. In your opinion, for whom is the American dream, so to speak, still deferred, why, and what have you done about it in your career as a politician?
3. American leader and orator Malcom X once observed, rather poetically, that "We [African Americans] didn't land on Plymouth Rock; it landed on us." What is your reaction to this observation?
4. What is your favorite poem about war, and why is it your favorite poem about war?
5. What is your favorite poem about peace, and why is it your favorite poem about peace?
6. In "Sunday Papers," the new poet laureate Charles Simic writes, "The butchery of the innocent/Never stops. That's about all/We can ever be sure of, love,/Even more sure than the roast/You are bringing out of the oven." To what extent has the United States been involved in the butchery of the innocent?
7. In "Fire and Ice," Robert Frost speculates about whether the world will end in fire or ice. What is your view? Will the world end in fire or in ice?
8. In the poem, "Motto," Langston Hughes writes, "I play it cool/And dig all jive./That's the reason/I stay alive./My motto,/As I live and learn,/is/Dig and Be Dug/In Return." What is your motto--0r at least one motto, by which you live as you learn?
9. In the widely anthologized poem, "This Be The Verse," British poet Philip Larkin writes, "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." [The moderator may have to say "eff" or be willing to be "bleeped".] In what ways did your mum and/or your dad "eff you up," and how have you dealt with this circumstance? By the way, on his Actor's Studio show, James Lipton likes to ask guests what their favorite curse-word is. What is your favorite curse-word? Do you tend to use the f-word in private conversation, or not?
10. In the poem "God's Grandeur," poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, "Glory be to God for dappled things. . . ." Assuming for the sake of argument that you believe in God, what would you praise God for creating? Please don't say "the United States"; everyone will see that one coming. Instead, try to think of some particular thing or set of things, as Hopkins does. The more specific, the better. Thank you!
11. Poet Adrienne Rich writes about "The Phenomenology of Anger," a title of one of her poems. Will you please identify one feature of American society that has made you espeically angry in your adult life. Why has this feature made you so angry?
1. An aphorism attributed to the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats goes as follows: "Of our arguments with others, we make rhetoric; of our arguments with ourselves, we make poetry."
Politics is largely about arguments with others, and of course many of these arguments are staged or gratuitous; they are as much theater as rhetoric: that's the way politics works. What is one important argument you have had or continue to have with yourself? Of course, you might begin you answer with a quip, but after that, please describe a serious argument you have had or continue to have with yourself.
2. In the poem "Harlem" and in other works, American poet Langston Hughes wrote of "the dream deferred," referring perhaps to the aspirations of many African Americans, many working-poor families, and other groups. In your opinion, for whom is the American dream, so to speak, still deferred, why, and what have you done about it in your career as a politician?
3. American leader and orator Malcom X once observed, rather poetically, that "We [African Americans] didn't land on Plymouth Rock; it landed on us." What is your reaction to this observation?
4. What is your favorite poem about war, and why is it your favorite poem about war?
5. What is your favorite poem about peace, and why is it your favorite poem about peace?
6. In "Sunday Papers," the new poet laureate Charles Simic writes, "The butchery of the innocent/Never stops. That's about all/We can ever be sure of, love,/Even more sure than the roast/You are bringing out of the oven." To what extent has the United States been involved in the butchery of the innocent?
7. In "Fire and Ice," Robert Frost speculates about whether the world will end in fire or ice. What is your view? Will the world end in fire or in ice?
8. In the poem, "Motto," Langston Hughes writes, "I play it cool/And dig all jive./That's the reason/I stay alive./My motto,/As I live and learn,/is/Dig and Be Dug/In Return." What is your motto--0r at least one motto, by which you live as you learn?
9. In the widely anthologized poem, "This Be The Verse," British poet Philip Larkin writes, "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." [The moderator may have to say "eff" or be willing to be "bleeped".] In what ways did your mum and/or your dad "eff you up," and how have you dealt with this circumstance? By the way, on his Actor's Studio show, James Lipton likes to ask guests what their favorite curse-word is. What is your favorite curse-word? Do you tend to use the f-word in private conversation, or not?
10. In the poem "God's Grandeur," poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, "Glory be to God for dappled things. . . ." Assuming for the sake of argument that you believe in God, what would you praise God for creating? Please don't say "the United States"; everyone will see that one coming. Instead, try to think of some particular thing or set of things, as Hopkins does. The more specific, the better. Thank you!
11. Poet Adrienne Rich writes about "The Phenomenology of Anger," a title of one of her poems. Will you please identify one feature of American society that has made you espeically angry in your adult life. Why has this feature made you so angry?
Jack and Jill: What Really Happened?
For some reason, "Jack and Jill" seems to be the main nursery-rhyme to have stuck in my memory since childhood. It's from the Mother Goose collection, of course. According to mothergoose.com . . . ,
The first collection of stories to bear the name "Mother Goose" was produced by Charles Perrault in 1697. His book of ten fairy tales was entitled Tales from the Past with Morals, and under the frontispiece picture of an old woman telling stories to children and a cat appeared a subtitle for the book: Contes de ma mère l'oye, or "Tales from My Mother Goose."
The name "Mother Goose" and the tales and rhymes seem to have sprung from France, although no one is sure about this. Apparently in the 800s, Queen Bertrada--mother of Charlemagne--was known as Bertrada Greatfoot and/or Queen Goosefoot. Really. And she was married to Pepin the Short, Chuck's dad. "Honey, do you want to meet Queen Goosefoot and Pepin the Short for coffee this weekend? They're in town for a few days."
But the connection between the big-footed queen and the Mother Goose collections is tenuous.
I do love the fact that in Perrault's book, the old woman is telling tales to children and a cat. Even back then, apparently, people knew cats liked a good story. The part with the pail of water must have terrified the cat.
To the matter of Jack and Jill, then:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
To people who read or write poetry, this is great stuff because of the meter (a mix of trochaic and iambic), the alliteration, the internal rhyming, and the half-rhyme (very modern!): water and after. Like all children, I just loved saying this rhyme, back in the day, and that was one part of Mother Goose's genius: it got children immersed in the play of language.
However, the plot of the nursery rhyme confused me then and confuses me now. Who sent Jack and Jill up the hill for water? Were they friends or brother and sister or cousins or what? Why was the water on a hill? Shouldn't it have been in a creek or a well or a pond? Who goes up a hill for water? As a child, I wondered whether Jack a) figuratively broke his crown and literally suffered major skull-trauma or b) literally broke a crown he was wearing. If b, where did he get the crown, why was he wearing it (for fun, for looks, or was he a prince?), why would the crown break when he fell (wouldn't it just fly off?), and why did he wear it on the water-run? If a, did he recover? This worried me, no end.
How and/or why did Jill tumble after? Did she stumble over Jack's body? Or was she shocked by Jack's tumble and did she then lose her footing? And did the pail of water spill? What is the moral of "Jack and Jill"? Don't go uphill for water? Leave the crown home? Boys are clumsier than girls? Don't send young children up a hill for water? Install indoor plumbing? These and other questions have been with me since childhood. You're right: I need a life.
Nonetheless, why hasn't there been more investigative reporting on the Jack and Jill story?! There's so much we don't know! In the meantime, I have sought to play a riff on the old n-rhyme:
The first collection of stories to bear the name "Mother Goose" was produced by Charles Perrault in 1697. His book of ten fairy tales was entitled Tales from the Past with Morals, and under the frontispiece picture of an old woman telling stories to children and a cat appeared a subtitle for the book: Contes de ma mère l'oye, or "Tales from My Mother Goose."
The name "Mother Goose" and the tales and rhymes seem to have sprung from France, although no one is sure about this. Apparently in the 800s, Queen Bertrada--mother of Charlemagne--was known as Bertrada Greatfoot and/or Queen Goosefoot. Really. And she was married to Pepin the Short, Chuck's dad. "Honey, do you want to meet Queen Goosefoot and Pepin the Short for coffee this weekend? They're in town for a few days."
But the connection between the big-footed queen and the Mother Goose collections is tenuous.
I do love the fact that in Perrault's book, the old woman is telling tales to children and a cat. Even back then, apparently, people knew cats liked a good story. The part with the pail of water must have terrified the cat.
To the matter of Jack and Jill, then:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
To people who read or write poetry, this is great stuff because of the meter (a mix of trochaic and iambic), the alliteration, the internal rhyming, and the half-rhyme (very modern!): water and after. Like all children, I just loved saying this rhyme, back in the day, and that was one part of Mother Goose's genius: it got children immersed in the play of language.
However, the plot of the nursery rhyme confused me then and confuses me now. Who sent Jack and Jill up the hill for water? Were they friends or brother and sister or cousins or what? Why was the water on a hill? Shouldn't it have been in a creek or a well or a pond? Who goes up a hill for water? As a child, I wondered whether Jack a) figuratively broke his crown and literally suffered major skull-trauma or b) literally broke a crown he was wearing. If b, where did he get the crown, why was he wearing it (for fun, for looks, or was he a prince?), why would the crown break when he fell (wouldn't it just fly off?), and why did he wear it on the water-run? If a, did he recover? This worried me, no end.
How and/or why did Jill tumble after? Did she stumble over Jack's body? Or was she shocked by Jack's tumble and did she then lose her footing? And did the pail of water spill? What is the moral of "Jack and Jill"? Don't go uphill for water? Leave the crown home? Boys are clumsier than girls? Don't send young children up a hill for water? Install indoor plumbing? These and other questions have been with me since childhood. You're right: I need a life.
Nonetheless, why hasn't there been more investigative reporting on the Jack and Jill story?! There's so much we don't know! In the meantime, I have sought to play a riff on the old n-rhyme:
Nursery Rhyme
Yet and Still
Went up a hill
To fetch
A connotation.
Yet met Fret,
A mongrel pet
Owned by
Procrastination.
Still fell ill
From sipping Nil,
Disgorging
Agitation.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Science Poetry, As Opposed to Science Fiction
I'm not quite sure how I ended up writing the following poem or what led me "into" it. Ultimately the poem turned into a little science-fiction scene. "Science poetry" isn't an expression parallel to "science fiction." I think to most people, "science poetry" would mean poetry that somehow concerns the topic of science, not poetry that speculates about other worlds or creates imaginary futures (and so on).
I think I added the title, which obviously alludes to Coleridge's famous "Kubla Khan," after the poem was pretty much done, or as done as it was going to be. Sometimes I write the title, or a title, first, but more often than not, the title comes late if not last.
I believe this is the only thing I've published in a science-fiction magazine. It was published in Hadrosaur Tales, which prints mostly science-fiction stories but also takes some "science poetry," so to speak. Anyway, I think I was playing around with the idea that one day, nobody will go outside; already a great number of American teenagers don't outside, except to get in a car or a bus to go to school--or so they tell me. Maybe--who knows?--"outside" is over-rated. I still like it quite a bit, but that's just me. The poem:
I think I added the title, which obviously alludes to Coleridge's famous "Kubla Khan," after the poem was pretty much done, or as done as it was going to be. Sometimes I write the title, or a title, first, but more often than not, the title comes late if not last.
I believe this is the only thing I've published in a science-fiction magazine. It was published in Hadrosaur Tales, which prints mostly science-fiction stories but also takes some "science poetry," so to speak. Anyway, I think I was playing around with the idea that one day, nobody will go outside; already a great number of American teenagers don't outside, except to get in a car or a bus to go to school--or so they tell me. Maybe--who knows?--"outside" is over-rated. I still like it quite a bit, but that's just me. The poem:
Suburban Xanadu
In this present
mood, mist filters
through massive
oaks, settles on
gravestones. Birds
are not far off.
It’s all computer-
generated, of course.
We haven’t been
outside our assigned
dome for thirty years.
We suffer from VTS—
Virtual Trauma Syndrome,
in which even
thoughts of visiting
a forest or an un-domed
sector give us terrors,
savage this present mood.
Poe; Cats and Echoes in the Coliseum
|
The poem is of interest, however, because it's in blank verse, whereas Poe in most of his other poetry prefers to rhyme. In a couple of places, he seems to rhyme almost accidentally here (Gesthemane/Chaldee). Also, as far as I know, Poet didn't ever visit Rome--or Italy. As a youth, he did live and go to school in England, but I don't think he visited Italy then, and I'm pretty sure he didn't visit Italy as an adult, but I could be wrong. His not having actually visited the Coliseum may explain why, a few lines into the poem, he turns literal thirst into figurative thirst, so that the speaker is thirsting for lore, not for water (after having traveled a ways to see the Coliseum).
The Coliseum |
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary I do like how the Echoes insist that they and the Coliseum still matter; that's rather charming. |
Fishing for Poetry
James Henry Leigh Hunt, known now and in his lifetime as simply Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), was among the lesser British Romantic poets. His most important achievement occurred in journalism, especially with The Examiner, which he edited, but also with other journals. He changed the reviewing of drama from a kind of inside-job to a more objective assessment of plays, and for calling the Prince Regent "a fat Adonis of fifty," he was thrown in jail for a while. British defamation laws then were and now are more strict than American ones with regard to the press and public figures.
In politics, Hunt tended to support such left-leaning issues as enfranchising common citizens and other kinds of reform, things that don't seem so left-leaning now to most people. He produced a lot of poetry, much of it so-so; he published one novel, a piece of historical fiction called Sir Ralph Esher; and he was known as being a tad silly and as being cheerful but improvident. He and Lord Byron were friends for a while, but Byron got tired of Hunt, especially after Hunt visited him in Italy, large family in tow; the Lord got annoyed with the kids. Hunt also helped John Keats get published early on. His most famous poems, perhaps his only famous poems now, are "Jenny Kissed Me" and "Abou ben Adhem." Both are widely available on the web and elsewhere. The following poem by Hunt intrigues me:
To a Fish
You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced,
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste;
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,—
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry,
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:—
The poem is actually part one of a three-part poem called "The Fish, The Man, and the Spirit." In part two, the fish answers the man (in English, not bubbles--this is called poetic license), and in part three the fish turns into a man who turns into a spirit, who observes the extent to which humans are rather a lot like fish. Part one, "To a Fish," interests me in part because, refreshingly, it doesn't like the fish much. I'm surprised the speaker doesn't go even further and ask the fish, "Hey, why don't you get a job?!"
I guess fish were "infamously chaste" back then--because they make little or no contact when reproducing? I reckon there's some logic to the view.
The poem does get a bit silly, with the joggles and boggles and the "How pass your Sundays?" But it's still amusing--and unexpected.
It's difficult to say what fish-poem is the best fish-poem, but I might have to go with Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish." I include the poem in courses often, and students tend to like it.
The following poem includes ten fish, but they're dead. It's an odd little poem, I must admit. I wrote it quite a while ago, but I think the idea was to "answer" hum-drum questions with references to creatures, and in the last line, I think I was going for a wee echo of Basho's poetry. The poem first appeared in Poetry Northwest.
In politics, Hunt tended to support such left-leaning issues as enfranchising common citizens and other kinds of reform, things that don't seem so left-leaning now to most people. He produced a lot of poetry, much of it so-so; he published one novel, a piece of historical fiction called Sir Ralph Esher; and he was known as being a tad silly and as being cheerful but improvident. He and Lord Byron were friends for a while, but Byron got tired of Hunt, especially after Hunt visited him in Italy, large family in tow; the Lord got annoyed with the kids. Hunt also helped John Keats get published early on. His most famous poems, perhaps his only famous poems now, are "Jenny Kissed Me" and "Abou ben Adhem." Both are widely available on the web and elsewhere. The following poem by Hunt intrigues me:
To a Fish
You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced,
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste;
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,—
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry,
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:—
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,
What is't ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?
How do ye vary your vile days and nights?
How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles
In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes, and bites,
And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles?
The poem is actually part one of a three-part poem called "The Fish, The Man, and the Spirit." In part two, the fish answers the man (in English, not bubbles--this is called poetic license), and in part three the fish turns into a man who turns into a spirit, who observes the extent to which humans are rather a lot like fish. Part one, "To a Fish," interests me in part because, refreshingly, it doesn't like the fish much. I'm surprised the speaker doesn't go even further and ask the fish, "Hey, why don't you get a job?!"
I guess fish were "infamously chaste" back then--because they make little or no contact when reproducing? I reckon there's some logic to the view.
The poem does get a bit silly, with the joggles and boggles and the "How pass your Sundays?" But it's still amusing--and unexpected.
It's difficult to say what fish-poem is the best fish-poem, but I might have to go with Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish." I include the poem in courses often, and students tend to like it.
The following poem includes ten fish, but they're dead. It's an odd little poem, I must admit. I wrote it quite a while ago, but I think the idea was to "answer" hum-drum questions with references to creatures, and in the last line, I think I was going for a wee echo of Basho's poetry. The poem first appeared in Poetry Northwest.
From Another Part of the Forest
How are you today?
Ten dead fish float in the lake.
May I help you?
Five cattle lie in the shade.
Won’t you please sit down?
A bobcat rakes a deer’s back.
Do you love me?
A butterfly folds up its wings.
What are you waiting for?
Seven geese waddle toward a pond.
Are you sure?
A frog jumps from a log into mud.
Copyright 1986, 2007 Hans Ostrom
Does Being Alone Equal Solitude?
Lord Byron wrote a poem that presents an unconventional view of solitude; the poem is conveniently called "Solitude":
Solitude
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
I like the simple organization of the poem. Stanza one explains what solitude isn't. One may read the poem as an implicit disagreement with Wordsworth, one of Byron's contemporaries. Wordsworth did, in fact, celebrate the kind of solitude in which one is alone "in nature." Indeed, Wordsworth believed that such solitude brought out the best in him and others. Wordsworth would probably not take issue with the idea of "conversing" with nature--not literally talking to a tree, maybe, but allowing one's consciousness, for lack of a better term, to be influenced subtly by nature. Ironically, Byron, very much an urban, cosmopolitan creature, thinks of genuine solitude as a condition of being alone in a crowd, which seems to be a paradox and brings to mind one of Yogi Berra's dry comments: "Ah, nobody likes to go to that restaurant anymore; it's too crowded!"
So stanza two presents the second "thesis": real solitude occurs when you are in the midst of a crowd.
Certainly it's easy to grasp Byron's implied rhetorical question: Is there a greater feeling of "aloneness" than that of feeling all alone amongst a crowd of strangers? And the crowd, according to Byron, is composed of "the flattered, followed, sought and sued." That phrase might well apply to Hollywood these days.
Perhaps Byron has highlighted what is chiefly a semantic distinction. Perhaps his "solitude" is someone else's "loneliness," and it is true that you (or you and another person) can feel a sense of belonging--of not being lonely or isolated--when you are "in nature." --Maybe not literally in nature, but, say, staying in an isolated cabin in the hills. Here's a poem that contemplates that circumstance:
Solitude
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
I like the simple organization of the poem. Stanza one explains what solitude isn't. One may read the poem as an implicit disagreement with Wordsworth, one of Byron's contemporaries. Wordsworth did, in fact, celebrate the kind of solitude in which one is alone "in nature." Indeed, Wordsworth believed that such solitude brought out the best in him and others. Wordsworth would probably not take issue with the idea of "conversing" with nature--not literally talking to a tree, maybe, but allowing one's consciousness, for lack of a better term, to be influenced subtly by nature. Ironically, Byron, very much an urban, cosmopolitan creature, thinks of genuine solitude as a condition of being alone in a crowd, which seems to be a paradox and brings to mind one of Yogi Berra's dry comments: "Ah, nobody likes to go to that restaurant anymore; it's too crowded!"
So stanza two presents the second "thesis": real solitude occurs when you are in the midst of a crowd.
Certainly it's easy to grasp Byron's implied rhetorical question: Is there a greater feeling of "aloneness" than that of feeling all alone amongst a crowd of strangers? And the crowd, according to Byron, is composed of "the flattered, followed, sought and sued." That phrase might well apply to Hollywood these days.
Perhaps Byron has highlighted what is chiefly a semantic distinction. Perhaps his "solitude" is someone else's "loneliness," and it is true that you (or you and another person) can feel a sense of belonging--of not being lonely or isolated--when you are "in nature." --Maybe not literally in nature, but, say, staying in an isolated cabin in the hills. Here's a poem that contemplates that circumstance:
Cabin in Snow
Outside a cabin in snow,
we are, and hear our, breathing here.
And wind in pines shucks
itself through sound like snakes
slipping through their summer skins.
And it is easy out here. And out
here it is easy to admire
an image-aided concept
of cabins in snow. And
it is easy inside a cabin
now to believe in an Idea
of Winter, for notions of snow
furnish our true cabin,
consciousness—which, fragile amidst
oblivion’s drifts, stays sturdy against howling.
--Hans Ostrom
In other words, I think one's mind can feel quite occupied and connected when one is alone, and I certainly agree with Byron that it's possible to feel isolated and lonely in a crowd, especially a crowd that seems to be a "shock of men." What a great phrase. We might bring it up to date by writing "shock of humans" or "shock of people" (and thereby ruin the rhyme--oops), but a crowd can "shock" one even if it isn't doing something shocking, even if it isn't a mob. And sometimes, I think, a person can be quite comfortable walking in a crowded city, but maybe the person turns a corner and for some reason sees the crowd differently and is shocked by a sense of the sheer mass of people.
The converse of Byron's thesis can be true as well, of course; a hermit who has chosen to be contentedly alone might wake up one morning and feel terribly lonely, and a person in a crowd may feel quite connected to others in the crowd.
D.H. Lawrence and Thinking Too Much
Here's a poem by D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930):
Conceit
It is conceit that kills us
and makes us cowards instead of gods.
Under the great Command: Know thy self, and that
thou art mortal! we have become fatally self-conscious, fatally self-
important, fatally entangled in the cocoon coils of
our conceit.
Now we have to admit we
can't know ourselves, we can only know about ourselves.
And I am not interested to know about myself any
more, I only entangle myself in the knowing.
Now let me be myself,
now let me be myself, and flicker forth,
now let me be myself, in the being, one of the gods.
D. H. Lawrence
Lawrence was an extraordinary writer, truly as accomplished in poetry as he was in novels and short fiction. His most famous poem might well be "Snake," and his novels include Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterly's Lover and Women in Love. "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" is an oft-anthologized story. He was "counter-Modernist" insofar as he believed that 20th century humans thought themselves to death and that they should be more spontaneous, earthy, and instinctive. He found middle-class British bourgeois, "Victorian" values especially stifling. A professor of mine once pointed out the irony that Lawrence, who celebrated the body and earthly life and opposed "over-thinking" things, wrote poems and novels that were actually full of ideas--even if they were anti-idea ideas.
Obviously, "Conceit" is written in opposition, so to speak, to psychology and to the classical adage, "know thyself." The poem implicitly advises, "Be thyself" or, even more simply, "Be. Live." Nowadays, of course, our culture seems obsessed with our knowing ourselves; this is the age of self-help books and programs, of thinking about oneself almost constantly. I guess Lawrence saw it coming, back there in the teens and the 1920s; he died in 1930.
I love Lawrence's poetry. His free-verse has a hint of Whitman's about it, though much less oratorical, and with regard to style, he and Robinson Jeffers are certainly first cousins. His novels, once scandalous (Lady Chatterly's Lover was banned for a time in the U.S., partly because of the f-word), now seem a bit old-fashioned, mannered--partly, I think, because we look at them from the other side of the sexual revolution and the influence of feminist criticism. To me, his poetry remains fresh, but even with "Conceit," I will certainly acknowledge that Lawrence may seem naive. Is it possible now simply to be oneself in the manner he desires? And what if "oneself" is a self-absorbed self? Good for him or her, I suppose, bad for the ones who have to deal with that person. Nonetheless, the poem does seem refreshingly to suggest "get on with it": you may not be perfect, but you're all you've got!
(Incidentally, there's an interesting "bio-pic" about Lawrence, a film made some 20 years ago called Priest of Love. It is not well known and may not have made it to DVD. I believe it may be Ava Gardner's last film. There is a better known film that dramatizes Women in Love, with Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, and Alan Bates. The nude wrestling in front of the fireplace is an especially famous scene from the novel/film. I think there was also a film made of the short story, "The Fox.")
I'm not sure whether Lawrence would have liked the following poem. I'm going to go with the odds and guess "No." To some extent, the poem may concern "just" being oneself, although there is a bit of a paradox in being oneself because if you change yourself, are you still yourself? Naturally (pun intended), Lawrence would accuse me of over-thinking, but then I like to read books and write poetry, and these activities can call for (but need not necessarily include) thinking. Put more broadly, maybe some people are being themselves when they think, even if they're over-thinking or not thinking very well. The poem:
You and You
You must be you for you to be.
I know to be the only you
is difficult. You must repeat
the same old strengths and flaws, ensure
quirks and habits stay organized,
a regiment of personhood.
You cannot disappear from you.
When you’re asleep, you’re sleeping you;
you’re altered consciousness is al-
tered you, but you-never-the-less.
It could be worse. I know you can
supply examples of just how.
But still—how strange to have just one
attempt at consciousness in all
of Time, to have to spend it on
one incarnationality—
the only I you’ll ever be.
from The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006, by Hans Ostrom.
Conceit
It is conceit that kills us
and makes us cowards instead of gods.
Under the great Command: Know thy self, and that
thou art mortal! we have become fatally self-conscious, fatally self-
important, fatally entangled in the cocoon coils of
our conceit.
Now we have to admit we
can't know ourselves, we can only know about ourselves.
And I am not interested to know about myself any
more, I only entangle myself in the knowing.
Now let me be myself,
now let me be myself, and flicker forth,
now let me be myself, in the being, one of the gods.
D. H. Lawrence
Lawrence was an extraordinary writer, truly as accomplished in poetry as he was in novels and short fiction. His most famous poem might well be "Snake," and his novels include Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterly's Lover and Women in Love. "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" is an oft-anthologized story. He was "counter-Modernist" insofar as he believed that 20th century humans thought themselves to death and that they should be more spontaneous, earthy, and instinctive. He found middle-class British bourgeois, "Victorian" values especially stifling. A professor of mine once pointed out the irony that Lawrence, who celebrated the body and earthly life and opposed "over-thinking" things, wrote poems and novels that were actually full of ideas--even if they were anti-idea ideas.
Obviously, "Conceit" is written in opposition, so to speak, to psychology and to the classical adage, "know thyself." The poem implicitly advises, "Be thyself" or, even more simply, "Be. Live." Nowadays, of course, our culture seems obsessed with our knowing ourselves; this is the age of self-help books and programs, of thinking about oneself almost constantly. I guess Lawrence saw it coming, back there in the teens and the 1920s; he died in 1930.
I love Lawrence's poetry. His free-verse has a hint of Whitman's about it, though much less oratorical, and with regard to style, he and Robinson Jeffers are certainly first cousins. His novels, once scandalous (Lady Chatterly's Lover was banned for a time in the U.S., partly because of the f-word), now seem a bit old-fashioned, mannered--partly, I think, because we look at them from the other side of the sexual revolution and the influence of feminist criticism. To me, his poetry remains fresh, but even with "Conceit," I will certainly acknowledge that Lawrence may seem naive. Is it possible now simply to be oneself in the manner he desires? And what if "oneself" is a self-absorbed self? Good for him or her, I suppose, bad for the ones who have to deal with that person. Nonetheless, the poem does seem refreshingly to suggest "get on with it": you may not be perfect, but you're all you've got!
(Incidentally, there's an interesting "bio-pic" about Lawrence, a film made some 20 years ago called Priest of Love. It is not well known and may not have made it to DVD. I believe it may be Ava Gardner's last film. There is a better known film that dramatizes Women in Love, with Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, and Alan Bates. The nude wrestling in front of the fireplace is an especially famous scene from the novel/film. I think there was also a film made of the short story, "The Fox.")
I'm not sure whether Lawrence would have liked the following poem. I'm going to go with the odds and guess "No." To some extent, the poem may concern "just" being oneself, although there is a bit of a paradox in being oneself because if you change yourself, are you still yourself? Naturally (pun intended), Lawrence would accuse me of over-thinking, but then I like to read books and write poetry, and these activities can call for (but need not necessarily include) thinking. Put more broadly, maybe some people are being themselves when they think, even if they're over-thinking or not thinking very well. The poem:
You and You
You must be you for you to be.
I know to be the only you
is difficult. You must repeat
the same old strengths and flaws, ensure
quirks and habits stay organized,
a regiment of personhood.
You cannot disappear from you.
When you’re asleep, you’re sleeping you;
you’re altered consciousness is al-
tered you, but you-never-the-less.
It could be worse. I know you can
supply examples of just how.
But still—how strange to have just one
attempt at consciousness in all
of Time, to have to spend it on
one incarnationality—
the only I you’ll ever be.
from The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006, by Hans Ostrom.
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