The Icelandic Language -- Bill Holm

(Poem #1349) The Icelandic Language In this language, no industrial revolution; no pasteurized milk; no oxygen, no telephone; only sheep, fish, horses, water falling. The middle class can hardly speak it. In this language, no flush toilet; you stumble through dark and rain with a handful of rags. The door groans; the old smell comes up from under the earth to meet you. But this language believes in ghosts; chairs rock by themselves under the lamp; horses neigh inside an empty gully, nothing at the bottom but moonlight and black rocks. The woman with marble hands whispers this language to you in your sleep; faces come to the window and sing rhymes; old ladies wind long hair, hum, tat, fold jam inside pancakes. In this language, you can't chit-chat holding a highball in your hand, can't even be polite. Once the sentence starts its course, all your grief and failure come clear at last. Old inflections move from case to case, gender to gender, softening consonants, darkening vowels, till they sound like the sea moving icebergs back and forth in its mouth. -- Bill Holm

Icelanders are very protective of their culture: of their literature and
language in particular. It used to be (and possibly still is) the law in
Iceland that babies have to be given traditional Icelandic names;
immigrants, likewise, are required to change their names to Icelandic
ones [1]. New concepts and imports are not described using modified
forms of foreign words (the way Japanese, for instance, has 'terebi' for
television and 'hochikisu' for stapler [2]).

No wonder, then, that speaking (or reading) Icelandic can seem like
stepping back in time. This is what Bill Holm is talking about in
today's poem, and a marvellous job he does of it, too. I especially like
the last stanza, wherein the progression of what is and isn't possible
in the Icelandic language comes to a magnificent and stirring climax.

thomas.

[1] an exception - the only one - was made for Vladimir Ashkenazy.

[2] from the name of Connecticut manufacturer E. H. Hotchkiss, who
invented the modern stapler.

[Links and stuff]

Here's a nice oveview of the Icelandic language:
 http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/icelandic_language.htm

Pico Iyer's "Falling Off The Map" captures the beauty and mystery of
Iceland very, ermm, evocatively. Also strongly recommended is his "Video
Night in Kathmandu" (not about Iceland).

The Icelandic sagas are masterpieces of world literature. Penguin
recently published a compulsively readable edition of the entire corpus
(edited by Ornolfur Thorsson, with a preface by Jane Smiley). Various
translations of the Elder Edda and the Prose Edda are also available.

Bill Holm has written a travel book, "Eccentric Islands", in which he
describes his journeys to and through five islands. Iceland is one of
them. Mr Holm, though born in Minnesota, is of Icelandic ancestry; the
name "Holm" actually means 'island' in Icelandic. I haven't read the
book itself, but online reviews seem mostly positive.

Incidentally, "The Icelandic Language" forms an interesting companion
piece to my previous post to the list, David Huddle's "Ooly Pop a Cow".
The former depicts the majesty and power (and yes, occasional
impracticality) of a language that has refused to be swept along in the
current of modernity; the latter captures the joy and energy (and yes,
occasional shallow vulgarity) of a language that's constantly changing,
mutating, evolving. A lovely contrast, and a though-provoking one.

Polterguest, My Polterguest -- Ogden Nash

Guest poem sent in by atheos

(Poem #1348) Polterguest, My Polterguest I've put Miss Hopper upon the train, And I hope to do so never again, For must I do so, I shouldn't wonder If, instead of upon it, I put her under. Never has host encountered a visitor Less desirable, less exquisiter, Or experienced such a tangy zest In beholding the back of a parting guest. Hoitful-toitful Hecate Hopper Haunted our house and haunted it proper, Hecate Hopper left the property Irredeemably Hecate Hopperty. The morning paper was her monopoly She read it first, and Hecate Hopperly, Handing on to the old subscriber A wad of Dorothy Dix and fiber. Shall we coin a phrase for "to unco-operate"? How about trying "to Hecate Hopperate"? On the maid's days off she found it fun To breakfast in bed at quarter to one. Not only was Hecate on a diet, She insisted that all the family try it, And all one week end we gobbled like pigs On rutabagas and salted figs. She clogged the pipes and she blew the fuses, She broke the rocker that Grandma uses, And she ran amok in the medicine chest, Hecate Hopper, the Polterguest. Hecate Hopper, the Polterguest Left stuff to be posted or expressed, And absconded, her suavity undiminished, With a mystery story I hadn't finished. If I pushed Miss Hopper under the train I'd probably have to do it again, For the time that I pushed her off the boat I regretfully found Miss Hopper could float. -- Ogden Nash

I think there's something about Nash that's irresistible. He just
sweeps you up and away with him.

This one is my absolute favourite. You find yourself in sympathy
with his - even if only in jest - homicidal tendencies. Everybody
has met one of these irritating people. Heck, it could even be
ourselves... Grin.

atheos.

From The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash, with an introduction by Louis
Untermeyer (I personally think Untermeyer gushes too much, but I thought I
should type everything out because it has some rather nice lines
interspersed between the longwinded prose.):

 "There seem to be at least three Ogden Nashes. There are, for
 example: 1. the experimental craftsman 2. the social critic 3. the
 skylarking humourist. Sometimes Nash keeps these three selves
 fairly well segregated. But, more often than not, he lets down the
 bars and allows 1. the innovator, 3. the philosopher, and 3. the
 funny fellow to kick up their heels in happy unison. This volume
 is chiefly given over to the best of those tripartite romps.

 It was Nash in the role of experimental craftsman who first made
 readers aware that something new had happened to light verse in
 America. Accustomed to smoothly paired rhymes and neatly measured
 stanzas, readers were suddenly stopped by the impact of lines
 like:

 I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
 And say to myself you have a responsible job, havenue?

 Cajoled by talk of babies, even parents were startled to find:

 A bit of talcum
 Is always walcum.

 The reader of Nash learned his lessons in a new school; he learned
 of too much affection which:

 .. leads to breaches of promise
 If you go lavishing it around on red hot momise.

 He pondered the theatrical reflection that:

 In the Vanities
 No one wears panities.

 He learned to decipher the weird but comforting axiom that:

 A girl who is bespectacled,
 She may not get her necktacled;
 But safety pins and bassinets
 Await the girl who fassinets.

 Here and elsewhere Nash invents lines that run blithely on without
 benefit of metre and rhymes so madcap as to be irresponsible.
 Instead of pleasing the reader with the customary niceties, Nash
 assaults him with a series of breathless outrages. One or two
 fanatical source-hunters claim to have found the origin of Nash's
 eccentric lines in W.S. Gilbert's "Lost Mr. Blake". But an
 unprejudiced comparison will show that the two styles have little
 in common and that, whereas Gilbert made the experiment just once,
 Nash uses it so freely and so efficiently that he has put his
 trademark upon it.

 So with the rhymes. Nash is the master of surprising words that
 nearly but do-not-quite match, words which rhyme reluctantly,
 words which never before had any relation with each other and
 which will never be on rhyming terms again.
 Here are those apparently improvised monologues in which the
 distortions are more lively - and more quotable - than any
 prepared accuracy.

 What would you do if you were up a dark alley with Caesar Borgia
 And he was coming torgia...

 But the slightly lunatic manner is deceptive. Disguised as a
 buffoon who cannot resist a parody and a pun, there is the social
 critic. Here again Nash has a fresh set of surprises up his ample
 sleeve... Even without his unique bag of technical tricks, Nash
 creates the deftest light verse being written today. The longer
 and more elaborately contrived poems are topical and timely; but
 there is something timeless in the nimble gallantry of "To a Lady
 Passing Time Better Left Unpassed". the whimsical appeal of
 "Complaint to Four Angels", the submerged but not too supressed
 anger of "To a Small Boy Standing on My Shoes While I Am Wearing
 Them", the affable sentiment of "An Introduction To Dogs". and the
 merry malice in what is perhaps the most philosophic and certainly
 the funniest poem in the collection, "The Seven Spritual Ages of
 Mrs. Marmaduke Moore".

 Nash the rhyming clown may win us first, but it is Nash the
 laughing philosopher who holds us longest. Only Nash could have
 combined the tones of banter and burlesque to tell us:

 Our daily diet grows odder and odder-
 It's a wise child that knows its fodder.

 Finally there emerges from this collection a portrait of Nash
 himself, the whole person not quite concealed by the poet. We are
 made aware of his intimate dislikes or (since most of them begin
 with a "p") his prejudices; they include politicians and people's
 names and parsley ("parsley is gharsley") and poems by Edgar A.
 Guest and professors and parties next door. We see him leaping
 about without effort from childlike fancy to mature irony; a crazy
 storyteller one moment, a satirist the next, a wry clown and a
 chuckling critic. It is then that we recognize how rounded the man
 really is, how much more than the haphazard rhymer he reveals. His
 is an inspired method which has just the right measure of madness
 in it, a recklessness that is never without reason. In other and
 flatter words, Nash is our greatest combiner of common sense and
 uncommon nonsense, the undisputed American heir of Edward Lear,
 Lewis Carroll and W. S. Gilbert.

        -- Louis Untermeyer

In a Library -- Emily Dickinson

Guest poem sent in by Sutirth Dey

(Poem #1347) In a Library A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty. And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true; He lived where dreams were sown. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize, just so. -- Emily Dickinson

Comments:
I love to collect books. Recently my quest led me to a dingy shop in
Bangalore that is famous all over India for its collection of old and rare
books. I was in a hurry and intended to spend no more than 10-15 minutes
there. Ended up spending approximately three hours and during almost the
entire duration, this poem kept on going through my mind. I had read this
poem several times before, but that day I felt it!!

As far as the poem goes, I hardly find any need for comments. The
personification of the old book, the 'time machine'-like ability of the book
to transport the readers to its own era and finally the crash back to the
reader's own time- is entirely magical. Anyone who has read an old,
musty-smelling, slightly tattered volume will vouch for whatever is
expressed here. Obviously, this feeling is lacking entirely when you read
poems/books over the internet!!!

Sutirth Dey

[Martin adds]

I liked Sutirth's commentary, since I have often had the same experience - a
poem, or perhaps a single line, attaches itself to a particular occasion,
and my experience of both the poem and the occasion are enhanced thereby.
Poetry truly is a collaborative effort between the writer and the reader, a
fact that overly analytical critics often forget.

Sutirth also asked
>  Can you tell me what happened to the site:
>      [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems
> The site has been removed and I can not find its new location. It is a great
> loss to the entire poetry reading community of the world.

Since the answer is of general interest, here's the new location:
  http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/

martin

Ooly Pop a Cow -- David Huddle

(Poem #1346) Ooly Pop a Cow for Bess and Molly My brother Charles brought home the news the kids were saying take a flying leap and eat me raw and be bop a lula. Forty miles he rode the bus there and back. The dog and I met him at the door, panting for hoke poke, hoke de waddy waddy hoke poke. In Cu Chi, Vietnam, I heard tapes somebody's sister sent of wild thing, I think I love you and hey now, what's that sound, everybody look what's ... Now it's my daughters bringing home no-duh, rock out, whatever, like I totally paused, and like I'm like ... I'm like Mother, her hands in biscuit dough, her ears turning red from ain't nothing butta, blue monday, and tutti frutti, aw rooty! -- David Huddle

David Huddle, (b. 1942, Ivanhoe, VA) was a parachutist in Vietnam. He
lives in Vermont, where he writes fiction and essays as well as poetry.
Today's poem is from "Summer Lake", published in 1999. It's a simple and
direct offering that uses language and popular music to personalize the
passage of time, in just five short stanzas. Nothing spectacular, but
nice nonetheless.

thomas.

PS. Gene Vincent, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, the
Troggs, Buffalo Springfield... yeah.

Remembrance -- Emily Bronte

Guest poem sent in by "Maid Stone"

(Poem #1345) Remembrance Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee! Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave! Have I forgot, my Only Love, to love thee, Severed at last by Time's all wearing wave? Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover Over the mountains on Angora's shore; Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover That noble heart for ever, ever more? Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers From those brown hills have melted into Spring - Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers After such years of change and suffering! Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee While the World's tide is bearing me along: Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong. No other sun has lightened up my heaven; No other star has ever shone for me: All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given - All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee. But when the days of golden dreams had perished And even Despair was powerless to destroy, Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy; Then did I check the tears of useless passion, Weaned my young soulfrom yearning after thine; Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten Down to that tomb already more than mine! And even yet, I dare not let it languish, Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain, Once drinking deep of the divinest anguish How could I seek the empty world again. -- Emily Bronte

Emily's poetry is often overshadowed by her undeniable materpiece, Wuthering
Heights.  This poem is an astonishing example of the imaginative powers of a
woman who grew up in the shletered environment of a small village in
Yorkshire, daughter of a minister.  I love the use of punctuation in this
poem - see the use of capitals and of exclamation points?  And who could
failed to be moved by the stanza:

"No other sun has lightened up my heaven;
No other star has ever shone for me:
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given -
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee."

The reference to Angora's shore suggests this poem formed part of the
imaginary world she created with her sister Anne.

Louise