In Praise of My Sister -- Wislawa Szymborska

Guest poem submitted by Kimbol Soques:

(Poem #1546) In Praise of My Sister My sister doesn't write poems, and it's unlikely that she'll suddenly start writing poems. She takes after her mother, who didn't write poems, and also her father, who likewise didn't write poems. I feel safe beneath my sister's roof: my sister's husband would rather die than write poems. And, even though this is starting to sound as repetitive as Peter Piper, the truth is, none of my relatives write poems. My sister's desk drawers don't hold old poems, and her handbag doesn't hold new ones. When my sister asks me over for lunch, I know she doesn't want to read me her poems. Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives. Her coffee doesn't spill on manuscripts. There are many families in which nobody writes poems, but once it starts up it's hard to quarantine. Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations, creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder. My sister has tackled oral prose with some success, but her entire written opus consists of postcards from vacations whose text is only the same promise every year: when she gets back, she'll have so much much much to tell. -- Wislawa Szymborska

        tr. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

NPR is so handy for the well-intentioned American autodidact!  When
Szymborska won the Nobel Prize for Poetry in 1996, _All Things Considered_,
the NPR evening news show, ran one of her poems.  I fell enough in love to
cause my loved ones to give me two of her translated books for Christmas.
This poem is from "View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems" (Harcourt
Brace and Co., 1995).  I don't have the original Polish, or I'd try to
reproduce it.

As for a gloss on this one -- it made me think of my own sister, and it made
me laugh.  What better reason to share?

For a pithy biography - and good head shot! - see
        http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1996/szymborska-bio.html

Kimbol Soques.

if everything happens that can't be done (LIV) -- e e cummings

Guest poem sent in by Kimbol Soques

(Poem #1132) if everything happens that can't be done (LIV) if everything happens that can't be done (and anything's righter than books could plan) the stupidest teacher will almost guess (with a run skip around we go yes) there's nothing as something as one one hasn't a why or because or although (and buds know better than books don't grow) one's anything old being everything new (with a what which around we go who) one's everyanything so so world is a leaf is a tree is a bough (and birds sing sweeter than books tell how) so here is away and so your is a my (with a down up around again fly) forever was never till now now i love you and you love me (and books are shutter than books can be) and deep in the high that does nothing but fall (with a shout each around we go all) there's somebody calling who's we we're everything brighter than even the sun (we're everything greater than books might mean) we're everyanything more than believe (with a spin leap alive we're alive) we're wonderful one times one -- e e cummings

Pretty format:
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/ifeverything.shtml

My comments:
I've always had a strong urge to play ring-around-the-rosy while reading
this because of the strong rhythm (dare I say 'meter'?) and the second
parenthetical sections in each stanza.  Physically it's one of Cummings'
easier poems to read -- or stick in an email, for that matter.  At the same
time it has many of his hallmark constructions - "everyanything", odd syntax
("deep in the high that does nothing but fall"), and striking free verse
enjambment.

The last stanza is my favorite, and brings me back time & again.  I
especially like the closing "one times one" -- an effective description of
the 'two become one' idea behind marriage (and many love affairs), carrying
the idea of multiplication while still emphasizing unity.

Kimbol

The Idea of Order at Key West -- Wallace Stevens

Guest poem sent in by Kimbol Soques

(Poem #988) The Idea of Order at Key West She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she. The song and water were not medleyed sound Even if what she sang was what she heard, Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred The grinding water and the gasping wind; But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew It was the spirit that we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea That rose, or even colored by many waves; If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, However clear, it would have been deep air, The heaving speech of air, a summer sound Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that, More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres Of sky and sea. It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. She measured to the hour its solitude. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know, Why, when the singing ended and we turned Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights, The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there, As the night descended, tilting in the air, Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles, Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, The maker's rage to order words of the sea, Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds. -- Wallace Stevens

Mr. Wright's theme of 20th century American Modernist poets focusing on
the sea called Wallace Stevens' lovely _The Idea of Order at Key West_  --
though the poem is as much about the singer as the sea.

This was one of the first poems I read after becoming serious about
being a poet (at age fourteen) -- that, and _Thirteen Ways of Looking at
a Blackbird_.

In the interest of speed I have little more than that for you -- other
than I link the Modernist idea of poets having an "innocent eye" with
Stevens, though I can't find a citation on the Web to prove he really
did say something about it.

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