Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Day 10: "Constantly Risking Absurdity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a member of the Beat Generation, who founded the City Lights bookstore which published a lot of early Beat poetry, including the first edition of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems. As a poet, Ferlinghetti's collections include A Coney Island of the Mind and Pictures of the Gone World, as well as the poem "Constantly Risking Absurdity". "Constantly Risking Absurdity" uses imagery and eccentric formatting to compare the craft of poetry to acrobatics.

CONSTANTLY RISKING ABSURDITY
Constantly risking absurdity
                                             and death
            whenever he performs
                                        above the heads
                                                            of his audience
   the poet like an acrobat
                                 climbs on rime
                                          to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
                                     above a sea of faces
             paces his way
                               to the other side of day
    performing entrechats
                               and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
                               and all without mistaking
                     any thing
                               for what it may not be


       For he's the super realist
                                     who must perforce perceive
                   taut truth
                                 before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
                                  toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
                                     with gravity
                                                to start her death-defying leap


      And he
             a little charleychaplin man
                                           who may or may not catch
               her fair eternal form
                                     spreadeagled in the empty air
                  of existence

Tomorrow: Pablo Neruda.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Day 9: "After the Flood" by Arthur Rimbaud

Described by Victor Hugo as an "infant Shakespeare", Arthur Rimbaud was an extremely talented poet who gave up writing before the age of 21 and died before the age of 40, after having had a turbid affair with Paul Verlaine and traveling on three continents. "After the Flood" is found in his collection Illuminations, and is a prose poem that features very surrealist imagery.

AFTER THE FLOOD
As soon as the idea of the Flood was finished, a hare halted
in the clover and the trembling flower bells, and said its prayer to the rainbow through the spider’s web.
Oh! The precious stones that hid, - the flowers that gazed around them.
In the soiled main street stalls were set, they hauled the boats down to the sea rising in layers as in the old prints.
Blood flowed, at Blue-beard’s house - in the abattoirs in the circuses where God’s promise whitened the windows. Blood and milk flowed.
The beavers built. The coffee cups steamed in the bars.
In the big greenhouse that was still streaming, the children in mourning looked at the marvellous pictures.
A door banged, and, on the village-green, the child waved his arms, understood by the cocks and weathervanes of bell-towers everywhere, under the bursting shower.
Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps. The Mass and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral.
Caravans departed. And the Hotel Splendide was built in the chaos of ice and polar night.
Since then, the Moon heard jackals howling among the deserts of thyme – and pastoral poems in wooden shoes grumbling in the orchard. Then, in the burgeoning violet forest, Eucharis told me it was spring.
Rise, pond: - Foam, roll over the bridge and under the trees: - black drapes and organs - thunder and lightning rise and roll: - Waters and sadnesses, rise and raise the Floods again.
Because since they abated - oh! the precious stones burying themselves and the opened flowers! - it’s wearisome! And the Queen, the Sorceress who lights her fire in the pot of earth, will never tell us what she knows, and what we are ignorant of.
Translated by Tony Kline
Tomorrow: Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Day 8: "In the Library" by Charles Simic

Charles Simic, a Serbian-American poet who served as Poet Laureate for a time, is one of the masters of modern American poetry. Simic's poem "In the Library", from the collection The Book of Gods and Devils, contains one of my personal favorite images in all of poetry: in the second stanza, when Simic says that "angels were once as plentiful as species of flies." The poem seems to suggest that modern life has a dearth of wonder and spirituality.

IN THE LIBRARY
There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

Tomorrow: Arthur Rimbaud.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Day 7: "Babi Yar" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was a Russian poet of the Soviet era. Throughout much of his career, he seemingly walked a fine line between being anti-Soviet and being supported by the suppressive Soviet government. His best known work, "Babi Yar", is a harsh criticism of the Soviet policy towards Jews, and especially the Holocaust. The official policy of the Soviet government of the time was to acknowledge only the Soviet citizens that had been killed in the Holocaust. Yevtushenko here says that that policy is anti-Semitic. The poem was set to music by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich as part of his 13th Symphony, which is often called the "Babi Yar" symphony.

BABI YAR
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself.
The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.
I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"
My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The "Union of the Russian People!"

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed - very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-"They come!"

-"No, fear not - those are sounds
Of spring itself. She's coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!"

-"They break the door!"

-"No, river ice is breaking..."

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I'm every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.
May "Internationale" thunder and ring
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that's corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!
Translated by Benjamin Okopnik
Tomorrow: Charles Simic.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Day 6: A Daily Triple of modern Polish poets

The "Three Bards" of the nineteenth century (Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, and Zygmunt Krasiński) were eminently influential Polish poets. However, twentieth century Polish literature has not exactly been left without great poets. Two Polish poets have won the Nobel (Wislawa Szymborksa and Czeslaw Milosz), and both they and Zbigniew Herbert are celebrated as masters of the craft of poetry around the globe. Here is some of their work.

FAREWELL by Czeslaw Milosz
I speak to you, my son,
after years of silence. Verona is no more.
I crumbled its brickdust in my fingers. That is what remains
Of the great love of native cities.

I hear your laughter in the garden. And the mad spring’s
scent comes toward me across the wet leaves.
Toward me, who, not believing in any saving power,
outlived the others and myself as well.

Do you know how it is when one wakes
at night suddenly and asks,
listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want,
insatiable? Spring, a nightingale is singing.

Children’s laughter in the garden. A first clear star
above a foam of buds on the hills
and a light song returns to my lips
and I am young again, as before, in Verona.

To reject. To reject everything. That is not it.
It will neither resurrect the past nor return me to it.
Sleep, Romeo, Juliet, on your headrest of stone feathers.
I won’t raise your bound hands from the ashes.
Let the cat visit the deserted cathedrals,
its pupil flashing on the altars. Let an owl
nest on the dead ogive.
In the white noon among the rubble, let the snake
warm itself on leaves of coltsfoot and in the silence
let him coil in lustrous circles around useless gold.
I won’t return. I want to know what’s left
after rejecting youth and spring,
after rejecting those red lips
from which heat seemed to flow
on sultry nights.

After songs and the scent of wine,
oaths and laments, diamond nights,
and the cry of gulls with the black sun
glaring behind them.

From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife,
what grain will be saved.

My son, believe me, nothing remains.
Only adult toil,
the furrow of fate in the palm.
Only toil,
Nothing more.
translated by Renata Gorcyznski
* * *
HUNGER CAMP AT JASLO by Wislawa Szymborska
Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow. How much grass
for each one?" Write: I don't know.
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
an ABC never read,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in the line.

We stand in the meadow where it became flesh,
and the meadow is silent as a false witness.
Sunny. Green. Nearby, a forest
with wood for chewing and water under the bark-
every day a full ration of the view
until you go blind. Overhead, a bird-
the shadow of its life-giving wings
brushed their lips. Their jaws opened.
Teeth clacked against teeth.
At night, the sickle moon shone in the sky
and reaped wheat for their bread.
Hands came floating from blackened icons,
empty cups in their fingers.
On a spit of barbed wire,
a man was turning.
They sang with their mouths full of earth.
"A lovely song of how war strikes straight
at the heart." Write: how silent.
"Yes."
Translated by Grazyna Drabik and Austin Flint
* * *
MR. COGITO by Zbigniew Herbert
Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust

you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony

be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important

and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten

let your sister Scorn not leave you
for the informers executioners cowards--they will win
they will go to your funeral and with relief will throw a lump of earth
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography

and do not forgive truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn

beware however of unnecessary pride
keep looking at your clown's face in the mirror
repeat: I was called--weren't there better ones than I

beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
light on a wall the splendor of the sky
they don't need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you

be vigilant--when the light on the mountains gives the sign--arise and go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star

repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand

and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap

go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes

Be faithful Go
Translated by John and Bogdana Carpenter
Tomorrow: Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

Day 5: "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a literary critic and poet of the late Victorian age. His most famous works include Culture and Anarchy, "The Scholar Gipsy", and, of course, "Dover Beach". A lot has been written about "Dover Beach" by scholars much smarter than me, so I will just let the poem speak for itself today.

DOVER BEACH
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Tomorrow: A special overview of modern Polish poetry.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Day 4: "The Defenseless" by José Emilio Pacheco

José Emilio Pacheco has been called the greatest poet of the Mexican generation succeeding the generation of Octavio Paz and Alfonso Reyes. In 2009, he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, a highly prestigious literary prize for Spanish-language authors. His novel Las batallas en el desierto is viewed in Mexico with the same regard as Americans have for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. His poem, "The Defenseless", found in the collection City of Memory, depicts the moment between consciousness and sleep that accompanies anesthesia during an operation. The final line is as good a meditation on the nature of life and humanity that can be found in any poetry.

THE DEFENSELESS
You never could stand operations
in the movies or on TV. And now you, too
will be a lump of bleeding flesh.
Maybe one more dead man among the dead.

How the tyranny of anesthesia
has humbled you as it enters your being.
But first you comprehend,
in that lucid instant before the darkness,
why we commit Evil, why we seek
the omnipotence that breeds hatred.

We are the defenseless sinking into
the unbidden night.
Translated by Cynthia Steele and David Lauer

Tomorrow: Matthew Arnold.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Day 3: "On the Death of Friends in Childhood" by Donald Justice

About Donald Justice, David Orr wrote, "In the world of American poetry, Donald Justice wasn't a bit player, he was an Olivier." Justice, a nostalgic formalist poet, used simple style and the hands of a master craftsman to create memorable poems, including the beautiful "On the Death of Friends in Childhood". The poem itself is very short, but, like much of Justice's poetry, contains a lot of powerful emotion packed tightly in each phrase. The imagery is brilliant, and very emotive.

ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS IN CHILDHOOD
We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.

Tomorrow: José Emilio Pacheco.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Day 2: "The Answer" by Bei Dao

Zhao Zhenkai, better known by his pseudonym Bei Dao, is a Chinese poet and member of the Misty Poet movement. The Misty Poets were Chinese youths who grew up during the Cultural Revolution and subsequently reacted against the Communist regime.  "The Answer" was written, as noted by Wikipedia, during the 1976 Tiananmen riots, and published in the literary magazine Jintian, a short-lived publication of Misty poetry.  "The Answer" has a lot of the hopefulness found in Bei Dao's poetry, and reflects the attitude of many of the Chinese people at the time the poem was written, in that they refused to be treated like they had been by the Communist government for so long.  The poem itself is a powerful affirmation of humanity, and very well-written.

THE ANSWER
Debasement is the password of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
See how the gilded sky is covered
With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead.

The Ice Age is over now,
Why is there ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?

I came into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow,
To proclaim before the judgment
The voice that has been judged:

Let me tell you, world,
I—do—not—believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number thousand and one.

I don't believe the sky is blue;
I don't believe in thunder's echoes;
I don't believe that dreams are false;
I don't believe that death has no revenge.

If the sea is destined to breach the dikes
Let all the brackish water pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise
Let humanity choose a peak for existence again.

A new conjunction and glimmering stars
Adorn the unobstructed sky now;
They are the pictographs from five thousand years.
They are the watchful eyes of future generations.
Translated by Bonnie S. McDougall
Tomorrow: Donald Justice.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Day 1: "Durer: Innsbruck, 1495" by "Ern Malley" aka, James McAuley

Of course, everyone knows the story of Ern Malley by now, the fake Australian modernist poet created by James McAuley and Harold Stewart to mess with Max Harris.  However, "Durer: Innsbruck, 1495" was a poem McAuley had written and not published that he used as part of the hoax.  Maybe the other poetry was not up to par, but "Durer: Innsbruck, 1495" is sheer genius.  The word choice is exquisite (see: "slumbrous heavy air"), and McAuley conveys a very post-modern sense of detachment and loneliness.  The last line, too, is one of my favorites. Read it now, and never forget it.

DURER: INNSBURCK, 1495
I had often, cowled in the slumbrous heavy air,
Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,
As I knew it would be, the colourful spires
And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back
All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters –
Not knowing than that Durer perceived it too.
Now I find that once more I have shrunk
To an interloper, robber of dead men’s dreams,
I had read in books that art is not easy
But no one warned that the mind repeats
In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still
The black swan of trespass on alien waters.


Tomorrow: Bei Dao.