The Curse of Wealth?

*
*
*
*
The Curse of Wealth?

Hear the penniless man howl
when you tell him wealth's a curse.
"Then curse me," he'll say, and
there's no argument good enough
to silence his derision. Still,

there was that rich man--he
just died--who seemed to drag
an invisible bag behind him,
full of capital, a father's
ambitions for his sons, blunt
and sharp weapons of politics,
all of it weighing so much, too much.

There was a family compound, also
a family-machinery that melted laws.
Amidst it all, the man was cursed
with living long, knowing secrets
and sin, and staying married to
noblesse oblige. He's elsewhere

now. Maybe God will have treated
him as just another soul relieved
of life, as someone blessedly
obscure. The penniless man scoffs
at such notions of tragedy and
theology, as well he might. Still,

the rich and public man knew misery,
a special kind, a gilded curse.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Philip Larkin's "Toads" For Monday

In the unlikely event you're feeling just a wee bit glum about going to work on Monday, please enjoy this reading of a poem by Philip Larkin, "Toads," which is not so much about toads as it is about being both a soul and a body and, more specifically, about being a person who works. The reading is accompanied by images of the text. If you like the dour humor of Larkin in this poem, you might (if you have not already done so) look at a famous poem by him, "This Be The Verse."

But for now, "Toads":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xso6A_51w

A Few Paragraphs About Swedish Poetry

*
*
*
(photo: Uppsala, Sweden, castle in foreground, cathedral further back)





A few words about Swedish poetry, then:


"The poetry of Karl Vennberg (1910-1995), with echoes from T.S. Eliot, was critical of his age in much the same way as that of Lindegren. Vennberg was an analytical skeptic who sought to re-evaluate poetic and political truths. He made his debut in 1937 with Hymn och hunger (Hymn and Hunger) and continued to write poetry until his death.

One of Vennberg's disciples was the modernist poet Werner Aspenström (1918-1997), who was a successful playwright as well. Although his breakthrough came in 1946 with the collection Skriket och tystnaden (The Scream and the Silence), he is mostly associated with the fifties. One of the most widely read Swedish poets, he remained active as a writer until the end.

A number of women authors appeared during the forties, as well. The poet and prose writer Elsa Grave (b. 1918) wrote colorfully grotesque and angry poems about everything from motherhood to the threat of nuclear war. Taking her heroines from ancient mythology, Rut Hillarp (b. 1914) created an erotic surrealism and became an example for many female writers.

Stina Aronson (1892-1956) received her literary and public breakthrough with the modernist novel Hitom himlen (This Side of Heaven), 1946, in which she portrayed the taciturn women in the hardscrabble farming areas of northern Sweden."

I might add that my grandfather, Isaak Åström, came from Boden, "in the hardscrabble farming areas of northern Sweden." Here's to you, "Ike."

To read more, please follow the link:


http://www.samenland.nl/auteurs/inleiding_si_20eeuw.html

Canada's Poet Laureate

Who is Canada's Poet Laureate? I'm glad you asked, and, actually, you asked a trick question. Canada doesn't have a Poet Laureate, per se; it has a Parliamentary Poet Laureate--an important distinction, or so I infer, because the parliament decides who fills the post, as opposed to the prime minister, or in the case of the U.S., the president, or at least the Executive Branch.

Answer: Pierre DesRuisseaux

Here's a bit of information about DesRuisseaux:

Regarding Pierre DesRuisseaux

"Born in Sherbrooke, in the Eastern Townships, in 1945, Pierre DesRuisseaux graduated from the Université de Montréal in philosophy. He was successively an editorial writer for regional and national weeklies, including Le petit journal, a proofreader and a foreign correspondent (Middle East) for the magazine Sept-Jours.

Mr DesRuisseaux has published 14 collections of his poetry. His first book of poems, Lettres, published by Hexagone in 1979, was greeted as a revelation in Quebec’s literary world. In 1989, Monème earned Canada’s highest literary honour, the Governor General’s Award.

Another of his books, Le Noyau, was described by Louise Proulx in Livres et auteurs québécois as an extraordinary mingling of philosophy, semantics, literature, politics and poetry."

The information comes from the following site:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/Poet/index.asp?lang=e¶m=2

Queen Victoria's Favorite Poet

Adelaide Anne Procter is widely considered to have been one of Queen Victoria's favorite poets, if not the Queen's very favorite. The poet was the sister of Bryan Waller Procter, a writer who knew both Romantic (early 19th century) and Victorian (the subsequent era) writers.

Here is a link to several sites that include information on Adelaide Anne Procter:



http://gerald-massey.org.uk/procter/index.htm

Arguably her best known poem is "The Lost Chord."

The Lost Chord

by Adelaide Anne Procter


SEATED one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an Angel's Psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the
Organ, and entered into mine.

It may be that Death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,—
It may be that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen.



http://gerald-massey.org.uk/procter/index.htm

Franklin Roosevelt's Favorite Poem

According, at least, to one Web site I perused, one of Franklin Roosevelt's favorite poems was the well known "If," by Rudyard Kipling. Its rhetorical framework is that of a father speaking to a son. I need to say a word on behalf of my colleagues in the field of philosophy, however, who sometimes quite rightly think AND make thoughts their aim. First, the site; then the poem.


http://www.classbrain.com/artbiographies/publish/FDR.shtml


If

by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Keats's "To Autumn" Read Aloud

Well, here comes fall, often known as autumn in poetic circles, perhaps most famously in Keats's ode "To Autumn," which is read in a traditional (and deep) British voice in the following recording:

http://classicpoetryaloud.podomatic.com/entry/2007-05-28T23_15_03-07_00

If I Were A Werewolf

*
*
(photo: Lon Chaney, Jr., as The Werewolf, in a hirsute werewolf-suit; photo courtesy Corbis)
*
*
That "werewolf" includes the word/verb "were" has interested me for some time, and then I decided to write a poem called "If I Were A Werewolf," but one two-part hurdle I had to get over first is that I kept hearing "If I Were A Werewolf" sung either to the tune of "If I Were A Carpenter" or "If I Were A Rich Man." I shall leave the lyrics to those potential parody-songs to someone else. At any rate, I knew I had to go with free verse instead of anything resembling a ballad.


If I Were A Werewolf

If I were a werewolf, I'd know
where werewolves reside. Most
must hail and howl from
imagination, I imagine, but some
might come from outside Loreville.

Were I a werewolf, how would I behave?
Hirsutely, rudely, carnivoraciously?
I guess so, but maybe less so
than cinema would have it. Perhaps
I'd chiefly want to be alone,

denned up on some steppes, serenading
the loony moon, napping and scratching
like any other mammal. Or maybe
werewolves run in packs like lawyers,
politicians, and beer, in which case

I might have to have a role, a niche,
a boss, a pledge of loyalty, a werewolf
oath or anthem--the usual frightening
stuff that makes the atavistic hair
on the back of the neck stand up.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Gary Snyder Reading at Noon

Here is a link to a video of Gary Snyder reading at the noon-time series, U.C. Berkeley, not that long ago--and after Snyder had retired from teaching at U.C. Davis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxVZxJIYj6o&feature=related

Diane Di Prima Reads

Here is a link to a good video of Diaen Di Prima's reading of a poem about her grandfather. Like many other of her poems, this one contains references to things Italian and things political:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVN9lamJyoQ

Big Mama Thornton and Buddy Guy

Big Mama Thornton doing "Hound Dog" (she recorded it before Elvis did) with Buddy Guy on guitar: what's not to like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XUAg1_A7IE

Johnny Cash On Labor Day

No one can touch Tennessee Ernie Ford's recording of "Sixteen Tons." One does wonder, by the way, how many people nowadays even know what "a company store" is. Johnny Cash did all right in covering Ford's song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXa8c6OuRQ&feature=related

Brief of History of the Working Class

*
*
*
*
*
Labor Day seems like a good occasion to mention the following book:

A Short History of the U.S. Working Class: From Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century (Revolutionary Studies), by Paul Le Blanc (Humanity Books, 1999).