The Leader -- Roger McGough

(Poem #1788) The Leader I wanna be the leader I wanna be the leader Can I be the leader? Can I? I can? Promise? Promise? Yippee I'm the leader I'm the leader OK what shall we do? -- Roger McGough

This skirts perilously close to my "why is this even a poem?" line, but for
all that, I enjoyed it. McGough has a fine feel for the rhythms and patterns
of colloquial speech, which makes his poetry a delight to read. Also, he has
perfectly captured a common behaviour pattern in a few well-chosen lines -
the image made me laugh, and I can imagine several of my famous cartoonists
doing a great job illustrating the verse.

This is the sort of poem that, while not precisely epigrammatic, I
nonetheless find myself quoting when events or discussions take a
predictable turn. If nothing else, poems like this provide an entertaining
way of recognising and commenting (even if only to myself) upon life's
little, commonplace absurdities.

martin

Diving into the Wreck -- Adrienne Rich

Guest poem submitted by Janice:

(Poem #1787) Diving into the Wreck First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear. -- Adrienne Rich

I remember studying this in college and loving the way the poem draws the
reader in... just as the poet is diving so are you. There have been many
interpretaions of what the diver is looking for; the wreck has been called
the bulk of sexual definitions of the past, the treasure has been seen to be
knowledge, the book of myths patriarchy itself.

But I like to see the peom as one of transformation: the diver almost
'becomes' an androgyne, land is transformed into ocean, even breathing is
different there... the ocean changes from blue, green to black and the
shipwreck takes on mythical connotations. It is a journey of self-discovery
in more ways than one. There is a quest, a treasure and the journey she/he
makes is into the past, to look beyond myths and discover the truth behind
the wreckage.

Hope you enjoy the poem.

Janice.

The Moon is Distant from the Sea -- Emily Dickinson

Guest poem sent in by Rachel Rein

(Poem #1786) The Moon is Distant from the Sea The moon is distant from the sea, And yet with amber hands She leads him, docile as a boy, Along appointed sands. He never misses a degree; Obedient to her eye, He comes just so far toward the town, Just so far goes away. Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand, And mine the distant sea, -- Obedient to the least command Thine eyes impose on me. -- Emily Dickinson

As the 22nd Dickinson poem on Minstrels, there isn't much left to say about
the formidable woman herself, though I will touch upon the text for a
moment. I was introduced to it while singing an arrangement by David Childs
in a woman's chorale.

I've seen the poem written with a dash in nearly every phrase instead of
commas or periods, though I do not know which version, if either, is the
"correct" one.  I've also heard some say Dickinson was writing about God. I
would broaden the scope to say I believe this poem to be about any strong
male figure, be that father, brother, or a deity. Strong, though, to a
fault; we cannot tell whether the sea wishes to be so conforming, does not
have a choice, or does not know the difference. It is also interesting to
note the gender of the moon and the sea, then the seeming reversal in the
last stanza: the man becomes the formerly feminine moon while Dickinson
becomes the manchild sea. While I do not know what to make of this, I hope
someone will comment and illuminate.

In all, this is one of my favorite Dickinson poems and I'm proud to add it
to the Minstrel archive.

-Rae Rein

Stray Birds -- Rabindranath Tagore

Guest poem sent in by Sarah Korah

I was reminded of this poem when I recently read Keats 'To Autumn' on
minstrels:

(Poem #1785) Stray Birds Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh. -- Rabindranath Tagore

In this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, when night comes early and
remains long, this poem reminds me of summer days which fly away all too
soon. It also made me realise that while there is beauty in fall colors and
a certain poignancy in falling leaves, there's little music in them.

Tagore through and through, simple and beautiful.

Sarah Korah

Thinking of Russia -- Harold Harwell (H H) Lewis

(Poem #1784) Thinking of Russia I'm always thinking of Russia I can't keep her out of my head. I don't give a damn for Uncle Sham. I'm a left wing radical Red. -- Harold Harwell (H H) Lewis

     (c. 1932)

I first read this amusing little ditty over a decade ago, quoted (without
attribution) in a newspaper opinion piece. I've been searching for it on and
off ever since, and finally found a reference to it via google (I love the
internet!). As an unexpected bonus, I found it embedded in an excellent
review (see links) of Harold Bloom's "The Best Poems of the English
Language", where the reviewer, Cary Nelson, has this to say:

  And, finally, like many steeped in high literary traditions, I have some
  favorite pieces of doggerel whose capacity to burlesque literary ambition
  and bring it down to earth is a necessary cultural and personal antidote.
  My all-time favorite remains H. H. Lewis's "Thinking of Russia".

I agree with Nelson - this is indeed a brilliant piece of verse. It has that
indefinable quality called "catchiness", which is sadly missing from most
classroom discussions of literary theory, but which is nonetheless a very
real measure of a poem's merits (witness the fact that I remembered it
fifteen years after seeing it quoted). Some combination of the easy metre,
the deliciously irreverent tone and the wonderfully rhythmic phrase "left
wing radical red" make this a poem far more timeless than its overtly
political content would suggest. It might never make the pages of Bloom's
august tome, but I'm more than happy to run it here.

martin

[Links]

The Bloom review:
  http://www.vqronline.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/8880