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Hello All!

I know - it's been a while. The last two and a half months of my trip abroad were hectic - filled with wonderful travels, memorable parties and just a hell of a lot of fun. It felt strange coming home, but luckily I have the most remarkable support here in Tennessee, so it makes me happy to come back and be with the people I love and care for. If there is one lesson I could take away from my time in Finland, it would be that life is all about the people. You can go anywhere and have anything, but in the end it means nothing if you can't enjoy life with amazing and interesting people.

But back to the poetry. I am so lucky to have a poet for a mother! As soon as I returned, she was waiting for me with a stack of new books, some from authors I know, some from authors I don't know - and as any voracious reader can tell you, this mix is ideal. One of the books is the most comprehensive collection of Wallace Stevens's poetry. I had never read Stevens before, but I had always wanted to. Sure enough, The Collected Poems is not disappointing me. Stevens seems to have a way with titles, a way with words, a way with relating to the world around him - in other words, Stevens has a way with poetry. I'd like to share one of his poems from this great collection.

The Ordinary Women

Then from their poverty they rose,
From dry catarrhs, and to guitars
They flitted
Through the palace walls.

They flung monotony behind,
Turned from their want, and, nonchalant,
They crowded
The noctunral halls.

The lacquered loges huddled there
Mumbled zay-zay and a-zay, a-zay.
The moonlight
Fubbed the grandioles.

And the cold dresses that they wore,
In the vapid haze of the window-bays,
Were tranquil
As they leaned and looked

From the window-sills at the alphabets,
At beta b and gamma g,
To study
The canting curlicues

Of heaven and of the heavenly script.
And there they read of marriage bed.
Ti-lill-o!
And they read right long.

The gaunt guitarists on the strings
Rumbled a-day and a-day, a-day.
The moonlight
Rose on the beachy floors.

How explicit the coiffures became,
The diamond point, the sapphire point,
The sequins
Of the civil fans!

Insinuations of desire,
Puissant speech, alike in each,
Cried quittance
To the wickless halls.

Then from their poverty they rose,
From dry guitars, and to catarrhs
They flitted
Through the palace walls.

- Wallace Stevens

I particularly enjoy the narrative aspect of this poem. On my first read, I didn't really catch the story behind it, though I loved the language and rhythm and how the verses were strung together. But then I realized the story being told, and the message behind it struck me as poignant and poetic. Of course, I won't go into my interpretations, but I wanted to point out the rhythmic use of language and how it can affect our interpretations of the subject matter. This poem, with it's internal rhyme scheme and approximate form, creates an almost ballad-like feel to it. I love it, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Peace & Love,
Austin

Happy World Poetry Day!!

Oh, what a fine day indeed! It's almost spring (although you wouldn't know it in Finland), health care reform is on the verge back home and it's World Poetry Day. As such, it's only proper that I present you with some terrific poetry to bring the day's festivities into full swing. I'll post a few gems from my most favorite poets, and then you can peruse them at your leisure.

**Note: For some reason, Blogger is being difficult...Olds's and Collins's poems are not formatting correctly. However, both of these poems can be found in their correct form on poets.org.

The First Night

The worst thing about death must be
the first night.
—Juan Ramón Jiménez

Before I opened you, Jiménez,
it never occurred to me that day and night
would continue to circle each other in the ring of death,

but now you have me wondering
if there will also be a sun and a moon
and will the dead gather to watch them rise and set

then repair, each soul alone,
to some ghastly equivalent of a bed.
Or will the first night be the only night,

a darkness for which we have no other name?
How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death,
How impossible to write it down.

This is where language will stop,
the horse we have ridden all our lives
rearing up at the edge of a dizzying cliff.

The word that was in the beginning
and the word that was made flesh—
those and all the other words will cease.

Even now, reading you on this trellised porch,
how can I describe a sun that will shine after death?
But it is enough to frighten me

into paying more attention to the world’s day-moon,
to sunlight bright on water
or fragmented in a grove of trees,

and to look more closely here at these small leaves,
these sentinel thorns,
whose employment it is to guard the rose

~ Billy Collins

Voices

Our voices race to the towers, and up beyond

the atmosphere, to the satellite,

slowly turning, then back down

to another tower, and cell. Quincy,

Toi, Honoree, Sarah, Dorianne,

Galway. When Athena Elizalex calls,

I tell her I'm missing Lucille's dresses,

and her shoes, and Elizabeth says "And she would say,

"Damn! I do look good!'" After we

hang up, her phone calls me again

from inside her jacket, in the grocery store

with her elder son, eleven, I cannot

hear the words, just part of the matter

of the dialogue, it's about sugar, I am

in her pocket like a spirit. Then I dream it —

looking at an illuminated city

from a hill, at night, and suddenly

the lights go out — like all the stars

gone out. "Well, if there is great sex

in heaven," we used to say, "or even just

sex, or one kiss, what's wrong

with that?!" Then I'm dreaming a map of the globe, with

bright pinpoints all over it —

in the States, the Caribbean, Latin America,

in Europe, and in Africa —

everywhere a poem of hers is being

read. Small comfort. Not small

to the girl who curled against the wall around the core

of her soul, keeping it alive, with long

labor, then unfolded into the hard truths, the

lucid beauty, of her song.

~ Sharon Olds

When the Storm is Forgotten 

When the storm remains distant
We are heroes of complacency
Puffed chest and swollen pride
We hate ourselves in ways
Only the deepest love could recognize

When the storm remains distant
There is no such thing as us
There is only dollar and dynamite
Gunpowder and fiery God
The churches are filled with women and children
The men pray only in case of emergency
We worship a foreign truth
And only death will stamp our passport

When the storm remains distant
There is no afterlife
Most die unborn
Most live unloved
Disappointment takes on new names and costumes
The future is stillborn and disfigured
The womb becomes an airtight safe
Darkness swallows darkness

When the storm remains distant
Nothing is as is
Songs are opiates
Sleep is the burial ground of dreams
Happiness is a lie
Sex is where love is not

When the storm remains distant
We are unreminded and dare to forget
School is a fashion show
Violence is comfort food
Family is nothing
And nothing is real

When the storm remains distant
Niggas are free to be Niggas
Niggers, Black, you name it

Anything but one thing
Everything but nothing
Even with a shitload of platinum
Wrapped around his neck
Like a southern tree gone petrified
Screw face pearly gate-mouth
Tangled nectar of the stars

When the storm remains distant
Stars are retired drug dealers nicknamed God
Rapists with pretty voices
And anyone but anyone who shines

When the storm remains distant
The sun is flawless in its magnitude
The heavens reflect breath of angels
The people bask in themselves
The storm is forgotten

When the storm is forgotten
The waters, 'though they rise,
Fail to threaten
The people march backwards
from ashes to ashen,
Whiplash, car crash, Cash Money,
Some Niggas eat diamonds for breakfast
Pursue cheap labor, Enslave God

When the storm is forgotten
Poets are meteorologists
Behold, the farmers almanac
The sheep wake up and congregate
The litany begins

When the storm is forgotten
The struggle ends

May the storm never be forgotten.


~ Saul Williams
Famous


The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,   
which knew it would inherit the earth   
before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   
watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom   
is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,   
more famous than the dress shoe,   
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men   
who smile while crossing streets,   
sticky children in grocery lines,   
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   
but because it never forgot what it could do.  
  

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

St. Francis and the Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow. 

~ Galway Kinnell

The Great Fires

Love is apart from all things.
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.
It is not the body that finds love.
What leads us there is the body.
What is not love provokes it.
What is not love quenches it.
Love lays hold of everything we know.
The passions which are called love
also change everything to a newness
at first. Passion is clearly the path
but does not bring us to love.
It opens the castle of our spirit
so that we might find the love which is
a mystery hidden there.
Love is one of many great fires.
Passion is a fire made of many woods,
each of which gives off its special odor
so we can know the many kinds
that are not love. Passion is the paper
and twigs that kindle the flames
but cannot sustain them. Desire perishes
because it tries to be love.
Love is eaten away by appetite.
Love does not last, but it is different
from the passions that do not last.
Love lasts by not lasting.
Isaiah said each man walks in his own fire
for his sins. Love allows us to walk
in the sweet music of our particular heart.

~ Jack Gilbert

A Triple-Dog Dare

There isn't much I can say about Dorianne Laux as a poet that her poems don't say for themselves. Therefore, I'm not going to try. I dare you to tell me that this poem isn't incredible. I triple-dog dare you...

Facts About the Moon

The moon is backing away from us
an inch and a half each year. That means
if you're like me and were born
around fifty years ago the moon
was a full six feet closer to the earth.
What's a person supposed to do?
I feel the gray cloud of consternation
travel across my face. I begin thinking
about the moon-lit past, how if you go back
far enough you can imagine the breathtaking
hugeness of the moon, prehistoric
solar eclipses when the moon covered the sun
so completely there was no corona, only
a darkness we had no word for.
And future eclipses will look like this: the moon
a small black pupil in the eye of the sun.
But these are bald facts.
What bothers me most is that someday
the moon will spiral right out of orbit
and all land-based life will die.
The moon keeps the oceans from swallowing
the shores, keeps the electromagnetic fields
in check at the polar ends of the earth.
And please don't tell me
what I already know, that it won't happen
for a long time. I don't care. I'm afraid
of what will happen to the moon.
Forget us. We don't deserve the moon.
Maybe we once did but not now
after all we've done. These nights
I harbor a secret pity for the moon, rolling
around alone in space without
her milky planet, her only child, a mother
who's lost a child, a bad child,
a greedy child or maybe a grown boy
who's murdered and raped, a mother
can't help it, she loves that boy
anyway, and in spite of herself
she misses him, and if you sit beside her
on the padded hospital bench
outside the door to his room you can't not
take her hand, listen to her while she
weeps, telling you how sweet he was,
how blue his eyes, and you know she's only
romanticizing, that she's conveniently
forgotten the bruises and booze,
the stolen car, the day he ripped
the phones from the walls, and you want
to slap her back to sanity, remind her
of the truth: he was a leech, a fuckup,
a little shit, and you almost do
until she lifts her pale puffy face, her eyes
two craters and then you can't help it
either, you know love when you see it,
you can feel its lunar strength, its brutal pull.

Dorianne Laux

Haiku and the Zen lifestyle

I was trying to fall asleep last night, but I couldn't. The wheels kept turning, and I kept thinking of words and phrases that I could use for poetry. This is not irregular for me, as I probably take a longer time to fall asleep than the average person because I can't shut things down. People have called me Wordsworth...that's fairly accurate.

All of a sudden, it hit me like a 300 ton boulder - these phrases and words I always think of are haiku. The brief images that flash through our minds before we move onto something else - these are haiku. It makes me reassess my pre-conceived notions about the craft. In its essence, haiku represents the bare bones of language, the minimum amount of diction needed to make something beautiful and meaningful. In that way, haiku could be considered the root of all poetry...I don't necessarily mean from a historical sense but more from an imagistic, poetic sense. I think that analysis holds some serious weight.

I used to dislike Haiku. In the past, the 5-7-5 pattern and obligatory proposition of revelation through nature bothered me. It seemed too simple and not important enough. I thought people who wrote haiku were lazy and didn't appreciate the full-fledged lyricism I assumed to be superior, both linguistically and artistically. I was so wrong, and I know that now. While I don't think I'll consistently try to write haiku, I will now be able to turn to it when I feel overwhelmed by the complexity of contemporary language.

I find it interesting that my discovery of the beauty and inventiveness of haiku coincides with my development as a person. As I discover more about the benefits of a Zen way of life, I become more aware of simplicity and leaving the desire for epic, over-dramatic pieces of fluff at the door. My lines of poetry are becoming shorter and more concise, which parallels my thought-processes and respect and admiration for what's always been in front of me. Creation is an extension of what is right in front of our senses.

Here is a BEAUTIFUL haiku from Arakida Moritake (1473-1549). He was a Japanese poet and a Shintoist.

The falling flower

I saw drift back to the branch

was a butterfly.

Each word in this poem compels the reader to think simply but deeply. Although that sounds like a contradiction, I don't think it is. There is SO MUCH going on in this poem. We should not search for any answers in Moritake's bare language, but we should consider the scene he presents, if only to see the beauty in it. Think about the connection between each of the three lines, between the flower, the branch and the butterfly. Man, I could go on and on about this, but I'll let you, the faithful poetry enthusiast, take it from here.

Yet Another Finland-Swedish Poem

This time, it's Claes Andersson. He is one of the most eclectic individuals in the Finland-Swedish writing community. He is a politician, playwright and has practiced medicine in hospitals and mental institutions for years (among other endeavors). This variety in his experiences has given him some diverse and intriguing poetry material. As I read each of his poems we were assigned to read, I had a difficult time uncovering one common aesthetic or mood to his poetry. He weaves through darkness and light - cynicism and optimism - without making blatant statements of self-identification. I found his poetry, while not always great, to be intriguing in the subject matter. However, like any poet, there are some gems, some poems that made me want to leave class, come back to my flat and bury myself in a day and night of writing. And to me, that's what good poetry does - it invigorates the mind and the creative streak of humanity and inspires more great writing. Poetry is like an avalanche in that respect - Claes Andersson has certainly contributed his bit of poetic voice to the tumbling mass of figurative snow. Here is my favorite poem of the collection I read - a wonderful meditation on suicide from a past medical professional. Enjoy!

A Man Once Thought, in Desperation

A man once thought, in desperation:

The best thing would be to hang myself

in the nearest ocean.

Down a rope he clambered into the sea

and found his Atlantis.

Another man thought, in desperation:

The best thing would be to drown myself

in the nearest tree.

In its crown he found happiness

and quenched his thirst on dew and rain.

A third man thought, in desperation:

The best thing would be to put a sleeping

pill through my forehead.

He was transformed into the good moon

and nightly companion of all the sleepless.

Claes Andersson

What I like so much about this poem is the integration of all elements of nature. There is a indescribable fluidity to his voice in this poem, as he moves from location to location, almost as if this were a dream sequence. The Zen influence on this poem is convincing, and Andersson conveys an optimistic message through his calm, meditative language. I love the lyrical movement of this poem - it's the kind of work that gets the wheels turning in my head. I can think of no better compliment.

The Finland-Swedish tradition - Edith Södergran

While in Turku, Finland, I have been taking an introductory course in Finland-Swedish literature. I assumed that this course would compare Finnish and Swedish literature, but to my (pleasant) surprise, the Finland-Swedes are actually their own minority culture. This culture is very small and waning, but it has produced some compelling poetry that can be enjoyed and appreciated throughout the literary world. It's interesting how different minority cultures tend to have many parallels (at least thematically) within their literatures. For example, a theme that pervades most of the writing is the search for some sort of concrete identity. Minority cultures tend to see themselves as outcasts and separated from the majority culture, so naturally the need for identity is increased. This is, of course, only one example.

One poet in particular has caught my attention. Edith Södergran was perhaps the most important poet in the Finland-Swedish tradition, although most would likely give that honor to Johan Runeberg. She was a pioneer of the modernist movement, a shift from the romantic nationalism that preceded her. Her poetry is considered radical for its time, in that it searched the self and its identity in the collective, as opposed to conservative poems from poets of the romantic tradition that praised patriotism and an acceptance of the status quo. Similar modernist literary movements have occurred around the world and many at about the same time period...makes me wonder if there isn't some kind of connecting force driving the evolution of literature and, by extension, humanity. Enjoy these two poems by Södergran, and keep in mind the idea of the minority culture and the revolutionary nature of her work for its time.

On foot I had to cross the Solar System

(1919)

On foot

I had to cross the solar system

before I found the first thread of my red dress.

I sense myself already.

Somewhere in space hangs my heart,

shaking the void, from it streams sparks

into other intemperate hearts.

Vierge Moderne

(1916)

I am no woman. I am a neuter.

I am a child, a page and a bold resolve,

I am a laughing stripe of a scarlet sun...

I am a net for all greedy fish,

I am a skoal to the glory of all women,

I am a step towards hazard and ruin,

I am a leap into freedom and self...

I am the whisper of blood in the ear of a man,

I am the soul's auge, the longing and refusal of the flesh,

I am an entrance sign to new paradises.

I am a flame, searching and brazen,

I am water, deep but daring up to the knee,

I am fire and water in free and loyal union...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

In honor of one of the greatest men to ever live on this earth, I have a poem by Langston Hughes that I feel is a accurate representation of what Dr. King believed in. "I do not need freedom when I'm dead/I cannot live on tomorrow's bread." We must love each other now, not in the future or in the past - now. I find it fascinating and quite sad that a poem like this one can still ring true years after it was written. Enjoy and much love!!

Democracy

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

Langston Hughes