Untitled - Haiku -- Issa

Guest poem submitted by Sarah:

 Here's one for Minstrels' collection of cat poems...

(Poem #1543) Untitled - Haiku After a long nap, the cat yawns, rises, and goes out looking for love -- Issa

 (tr. Sam Hamill)

Liberally quoting Martin :) "What I personally like about haiku is the
concentration of the imagery, and the way in which each poem is a
free-floating, perfectly self-contained entity."

In this case, I see a perfectly contented, smug little cat who takes a nap,
languidly stretches herself, and then goes about life. Who knows what she's
looking for - love, a mouse, or just some amusement ?

Minstrels has featured one of Issa's poems, along with the above mentioned
quote, before:
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1136.html

Sarah.

Song of the Stygian Naiades -- Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Guest poem submitted by Catherine Pegg:

I haven't seen much Beddoes on your (excellent) site, so I thought I'd
contribute some:

(Poem #1542) Song of the Stygian Naiades Proserpine may pull her flowers, Wet with dew or wet with tears, Red with anger, pale with fears, Is it any fault of ours, If Pluto be an amorous king, And comes home nightly, laden, Underneath his broad bat-wing, With a gentle, mortal maiden? Is it so? Wind, is it so? All that you and I do know Is, that we saw fly and fix 'Mongst the reeds and flowers of Styx, Yesterday, Where the Furies made their hay For a bed of tiger cubs, A great fly of Beelzebub's, The bee of hearts, which mortals name Cupid, Love, and Fie for shame. Proserpine may weep in rage, But, ere I and you have done Kissing, bathing in the sun, What I have in yonder cage, Bird or serpent, wild or tame, She shall guess and ask in vain; But, if Pluto does't again, It shall sing out loud his shame. What hast caught then? What hast caught? Nothing but a poet's thought, Which so light did fall and fix 'Mongst the reeds and flowers of Styx, Yesterday, Where the Furies made their hay For a bed of tiger cubs, - A great fly of Beelzebub's, The bee of hearts, which mortals name Cupid, Love, and Fie for shame. -- Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Notes:  Pluto is the Roman God of the Dead (known on the Greek side as
Hades).  One of his stories is about his kidnapping of Proserpina, Goddess
of Spring, and his marriage of her.  The Styx is the river separating the
living world from the Land of the Dead, and a Naiad is a young lady with no
kit on who lives in a river, possibly drowning people.  The Furies are three
very scary ladies whose business was vengeance on oathbreakers and
kinslayers, and Cupid (Eros) is the Roman God of Love.

Why do I love this poem?  Is it the hilarity sneaking out of a mythological
theme?  The visuality and oddity of the Furies making a bed for the tiger
cubs?  The lovely metrical scanning and rhyme that characterises Beddoes'
work?  All of them, I guess.

Beddoes is known for his gory, macabre poetry, but he also did some
wonderful love songs, too.  Here's another one that I like:

 How many times do I love thee, dear?
   Tell me how many thoughts there be
        In the atmosphere
        Of a new-fall'n year,
 Whose white and sable hours appear
   The latest flake of Eternity;
 So many times do I love thee, dear.

 How many times do I love again?
   Tell me how many beads there are
        In a silver chain
        Of evening rain,
 Unravelled from the tumbling main,
   And threading the eye of a yellow star:
 So many times do I love again.

It had these beautiful images, and this nice tight metre that we just don't
see anymore, dammit.  Poetry took a turn for the worse when poets stopped
rhyming.  Not that there haven't been some wonderful free-verse poems, but
it encourages laziness and sloppy technique.  Sorry for the rant, there,
it's a pet peeve of mine.

I think there was an anniversary or festival for Beddoes last year, though
don't quote me on that.  His life and death were sad, macabre, and funny
which, considering his poems, he might have approved of.

All the best,
Cat.

John Muir on Mt. Ritter -- Gary Snyder

Guest poem submitted by Kaustubh Rau:

(Poem #1541) John Muir on Mt. Ritter After scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds With intense caution. About half-way To the top, I was suddenly brought to A dead stop, with arms outspread Clinging close to the face of the rock Unable to move hand or foot Either up or down. My doom Appeared fixed. I MUST fall. There would be a moment of Bewilderment, and then, A lifeless rumble down the cliff To the glacier below. My mind seemed to fill with a Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse Lasted only a moment, when life blazed Forth again with preternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed Of a new sense. My trembling muscles Became firm again, every rift and flaw in The rock was seen as through a microscope, My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision With which I seemed to have Nothing at all to do. -- Gary Snyder

I recently picked up a wonderful book titled 'The High Sierra of
California'. The book contains woodcut prints of the Sierra Nevada by Tom
Killion in the manner of the Japanese masters Hokusai and Hiroshige. The
beauty of the prints is further brought out by notes, commentaries and poems
by Gary Snyder. The poem really brought out for me the fine line between
control and diaster that a mountain climber deals with, along with the waves
of panic he has to stave off to get to the  top. That it is about John
Muir's first ascent of Mt Ritter is of added significance.

Gary Snyder's biography:

Snyder was born in San Francisco, and brought up in Oregon and Washington
State. He received his BA in anthropology at Reed College, Portland, in
1951. His subsequent career has been a remarkable combination of the
academic and the contemplative, spiritual study and physical labour. Between
working as a logger, a trail-crew member, and a seaman on a Pacific tanker,
he studied Oriental languages at Berkeley (1953-6), was associated with Beat
writers such as Ginsberg and Kerouac, lived in Japan (1956-64), later
studied Buddhism there, and won numerous literary prizes, including a
Guggenheim fellowship (1968) and the Pulitzer Prize (1975). He now teaches
literature and 'wilderness thought' at the University of California at
Davis.
        -- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/snyder/life.htm

Kaustubh Rau.

I'm not Lonely -- Nikki Giovanni

Guest poem submitted by Aseem:

(Poem #1540) I'm not Lonely i'm not lonely sleeping all alone you think i'm scared but i'm a big girl i don't cry or anything i have a great big bed to roll around in and lots of space and i don't dream bad dreams like i used to have that you were leaving me anymore now that you're gone i don't dream and no matter what you think i'm not lonely sleeping all alone -- Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni is (IMHO) one of the most under-represented poets on
Minstrels - you have just one poem by her! So figured I would put in one of
my favourites to even things up a little. Actually started thinking about
her after reading National Brotherhood Week, reading her more political
poems (see the Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr, for example) but finally
settled on this one to send in.

What I love about this poem is the aching simplicity of it - the almost
tearful courage of lines like "i'm a big girl / i don't cry or anthing" and
the bitter irony of getting over your bad dreams by having them come true
(also the brilliant double edge to "now that you're gone / i don't dream").
The real beauty here is that Giovanni does not protest too much - there's a
part of you that's tempted to believe her and there's a part of you that
knows it isn't true and you kind of get the sense that she doesn't believe
herself either. But would like to.

Aseem.

National Brotherhood Week -- Tom Lehrer

Guest poem submitted by Anita B.:

(Poem #1539) National Brotherhood Week Oh, the white folks hate the black folks, And the black folks hate the white folks; To hate all but the right folks Is an old established rule. But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week, Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek. It's fun to eulogize The people you despise As long as you don't let 'em in your school. Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks, And the rich folks hate the poor folks. All of my folks hate all of your folks, It's American as apple pie. But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week, New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic. Step up and shake the hand Of someone you can't stand, You can tolerate him if you try! Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics And the Catholics hate the Protestants, And the Hindus hate the Muslims, And everybody hates the Jews. But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week, It's National Everyone-Smile-At-One-Another-Hood Week. Be nice to people who Are inferior to you. It's only for a week, so have no fear; Be grateful that it doesn't last all year! -- Tom Lehrer

This song is from Tom Lehrer's album 'That was the year that was'. I heard
it for the first time in a friend's house where we laughed out loud for
nearly 5 minutes after listening to this one. The song is a very good
example of how politically incorrect he can get. The man starts being
irreverent from the word go. When you think about it you realise he has
neatly packaged all the superficiality of brotherhood days, or 'any other
cause' days for that matter, when it really does not make a major
difference. Totally cynical but I guess also too true. The best way to enjoy
this song of course is to listen to Lehrer say 'national brotherhood week'
in lofty tones and then deliver his punch lines in a bland understated
manner.

There is already a lot of background material on Lehrer in the Minstrels
archives, so I shall not include more. On this song specifically: when it
was performed live, Lehrer introduced it with these words: "During National
Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the
message of brotherhood -- this year, for example, on the first day of the
week, Malcolm X was killed, which gives you an idea of how effective the
whole thing is. I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and
I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human
beings, and I hate people like that! Here's a song about National
Brotherhood Week. "

Regards,
Anita B.