What One Approves, Another Scorns -- Arthur Guiterman

(Poem #1140) What One Approves, Another Scorns What one approves, another scorns, and thus his nature each discloses. You find the rosebush full of thorns, I find the thornbush full of roses. -- Arthur Guiterman

The combination of a good epigram and good verse is one I can seldom resist,
and while today's poem is hardly earthshattering in its originality, the
delightful way in which it is worded more than makes up for it. It doesn't
really have a 'punchline' in the way "On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness"
([Poem #24], and yes, Guiterman was way overdue to show up again <g>) does -
but it doesn't suffer for the lack. I'm reminded of bits of Piet Hein, and, to
a lesser extent, Stephen Crane. This definitely goes on my list of poems that
are both memorable and quotable.

martin

Links:
  Thanks to H. Paul Lillebo, whose wonderful poetry site provided not just
  today's poem, but a long-sought online biography of Guiterman:
    http://www.newtrix.com/poems/poetbio_e-l.htm#Guiterman

  Someday, this shall be a complete collection of epigrams on Minstrels :)
    [broken link] http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/collections/35.html

martin

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes -- Billy Collins

Guest poem sent in by Martin Alexander

(Poem #1139) Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer's dividing water, and slip inside. You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom, motionless, a little wide-eyed, looking out at the orchard below, the white dress puddled at her feet on the wide-board, hardwood floor. The complexity of women's undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a polar explorer through clips, clasps, and moorings, catches, straps, and whalebone stays, sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness. Later, I wrote in a notebook it was like riding a swan into the night, but, of course, I cannot tell you everything - the way she closed her eyes to the orchard, how her hair tumbled free of its pins, how there were sudden dashes whenever we spoke. What I can tell you is it was terribly quiet in Amherst that Sabbath afternoon, nothing but a carriage passing the house, a fly buzzing in a windowpane. So I could plainly hear her inhale when I undid the very top hook-and-eye fastener of her corset and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed, the way some readers sigh when they realize that Hope has feathers, that reason is a plank, that life is a loaded gun that looks right at you with a yellow eye. -- Billy Collins

Here's a poem I like. It's sensual without being sordid and seems to do some
dignified baring of Dickinson's heart without making her stand naked and
humiliated - as the title of the poem might lead one to expect. And of
course it's full of references to her work which are affectionate without
smirking. Collins' touch is so delicate here - in both senses.

Martin

Luthien Tinuviel -- J R R Tolkien

Guest poem sent in by Aseem Kaul

(Poem #1138) Luthien Tinuviel "The leaves were long, the grass was green, The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, And in the glade a light was seen Of stars in shadow shimmering. Tinuviel was dancing there To music of a pipe unseen, And light of stars was in her hair, And in her rainment glimmering. There Beren came from mountains cold. And lost he wandered under leaves, And where the Elven-river rolled He walked alone and sorrowing. He peered between the hemlock-leaves And saw in wonder flowers of gold Upon her mantle and her sleeves, And her hair like shadow following. Enchantment healed his weary feet That over hills were doomed to roam; And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, And grasped at moonbeams glistening. Through woven woods in Elvenhome She lightly fled on dancing feet, And left him lonely still to roam In the silent forest listening. He heard there oft the flying sound Of feet as light as linden-leaves, Or music welling underground, In hidden hollows quavering. Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, And one by one with sighing sound Whispering fell the beachen leaves In wintry woodland wavering. He sought her ever, wandering far Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, By light of moon and ray of star In frosty heavens shivering. Her mantle glinted in the moon, As on a hill-top high and far She danced, and at her feet was strewn A mist of silver quivering. When winter passed, she came again, And her song released the sudden spring, Like rising lark, and falling rain, And melting water bubbling. He saw the elven-flowers spring About her feet, and healed again He longed by her to dance and sing Upon the grass untroubling. Again she fled, but swift he came, Tinuviel! Tinuviel! He called her by her elvish name; And there she halted listening. One moment stood she, and a spell His voice laid on her: Beren came, And doom fell on Tinuviel That in his arms lay glistening. As Beren looked into her eyes Within the shadows of her hair, The trembling starlight of the skies He saw there mirrored shimmering. Tinuviel the elven-fair, Immortal maiden elven-wise, About him cast her shadowy hair And arms like silver glimmering. Long was the way that fate them bore, O'er stony mountains cold and grey, Through halls of iron and darkling door, And woods of nightshade morrowless. The Sundering Seas between them lay, And yet at last they met once more, And long ago they passed away In the forest singing sorrowless." -- J R R Tolkien

Jan 3rd was apparently Tolkien's eleventy-first birthday. So I figured the
best way to celebrate it was with his poetry.

Though this isn't perhaps the most adept of Tolkien's poems (the rhyme
pattern is fairly weak - for Tolkien [my problem with the form is that it
lays undue emphasis on the fourth and eighth lines of each stanza -
martin]), I love it for the mythic charm of the stanzas, for the way the
words roll of your tongue, so that you can almost imagine that the poem is
not in English, but in Quenya. The story of Beren and Luthien, with its
operatic ardour, has always been for me one of the most memorable parts of
the Silmarillion. And Tolkien here makes of it a song fit for the grandest
minstrel, so that I am left nostalgic not only for these two lovers but for
all the Eldar and all the lost and forgotten histories of Middle Earth.

Happy Birthday, JRRT. And thanks.

Aseem

The Smoking Frog -- Robert Service

Guest poem sent in by Dave Mueller

(Poem #1137) The Smoking Frog Three men I saw beside a bar, Regarding o'er their bottle, A frog who smoked a rank cigar They'd jammed within its throttle. A Pasha frog it must have been So big it was and bloated; And from its lips the nicotine In graceful festoon floated. And while the trio jeered and joked, As if it quite enjoyed it, Impassively it smoked and smoked, (It could not well avoid it). A ring of fire its lips were nigh Yet it seemed all unwitting; It could not spit, like you and I, Who've learned the art of spitting. It did not wink, it did not shrink, As there serene it squatted' Its eyes were clear, it did not fear The fate the Gods allotted. It squatted there with calm sublime, Amid their cruel guying; Grave as a god, and all the time It knew that it was dying. And somehow then it seemed to me These men expectorating, Were infinitely less than he, The dumb thing they were baiting. It seemed to say, despite their jokes: "This is my hour of glory. It isn't every frog that smokes: My name will live in story." Before its nose the smoke arose; The flame grew nigher, nigher; And then I saw its bright eyes close Beside that ring of fire. They turned it on its warty back, From off its bloated belly; It legs jerked out, then dangled slack; It quivered like a jelly. And then the fellows went away, Contented with their joking; But even as in death it lay, The frog continued smoking. Life's like a lighted fag, thought I; We smoke it stale; then after Death turns our belly to the sky: The Gods must have their laughter. -- Robert Service

Comment:

My favorite Robert Service poem: Without pretense, he simply, sardonically
documents three men at a bar enjoying an inconsequential diversion. But how
do we, the victim in this saga, endure our fate? Pleased, because our
importance and the glory of our death ensures that our name will live on?
Nope; Service tells us it is a 'Pasha' frog, and documents its suffering --
but, what was its name? Instead we stoically proceed to our ridiculous
destiny for the horribly mundane reason that we cannot avoid it.  In this
poem, I think more than any other, Service skewers the concept of the
benevolent Sunday-school God.

Dave

[Martin adds]

While the last verse is clearly inspired by Shakespeare's

 As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,
 They kill us for their sport

from King Lear, I actually find Service's use of "laughter" more effective
than the bard's "sport".

Untitled -- Issa

Thanks to Raj Bandyopadhyay for suggesting today's poem

(Poem #1136) Untitled What good luck! Bitten by This year's mosquitoes too. -- Issa

        (trans. Robert Hass)

Today's wry little haiku should strike a responsive chord in anyone who's
ever lived in a mosquito-infested place (i.e., everyone). I read the tone as
being one of gently amused irony rather than acid sarcasm, reinforced by
finding another of Issa's haiku (trans. L. Stryk):

        Swarms of mosquitoes
        but without them
        it's a little lonely.

embedded in a fascinating essay on Issa as entomologist (see links).

Needless to say, I loved the poem - indeed, the more I read it, the more
impressed I am at how concise and expressive it manages to be (though haiku are
often like that - they tend to grow on me, especially if they make a good
initial impression).

Haiku translation raises a number of issues, some of which apply to any
translation effort (you *have* all read 'Le Ton Beau de Marot', have you
not?), but a few of which are unique to the ultracondensed form. One obvious
one is whether to follow the letter or the spirit of the seventeen syllable
constraint (and any serious writer of English haiku, I think, invariably
chooses the former - seventeen syllables are simply a very different
constraint in English and in Japanese). A less obvious decision (indeed,
something I'd never even thought of on my own) is the three-line format. But
why 'decision'? Surely, one would think, poetry translation should preserve
the line breaks of the original. Not so:

    the three-line rule is not really a classical rule (in the Japanese
    sense). It is merely a Western invention to accommodate seventeen
    syllables.
       -- [broken link] http://www.haikai.info/articles/swede.definition.html

Not to be confused with 'true' English haiku are senryu[1], haiku-like poems
which adhere to the literal structure of a haiku while ignoring the
(numerous) poetic guidelines of the form. Porter's "Japanese Jokes"
[Poem #188] remains the best example of the genre I've seen.

[1] yes, I know this is not a complete definition of the form. However,
'senryu' is still the most appropriate word I've found to describe the
vastly popular unconstrained 5/7/5 English poem.

martin

Links:

Biography:
  [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/5022/issabio.html

A look at Issa's poetic development:
  [broken link] http://www.ahapoetry.com/haiku.htm#issa

Issa as entomologist:
  [broken link] http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/grads/rdunn/issa.htm

English Haiku:
  [broken link] http://www.haikai.info/articles/swede.definition.html