The Sentence -- Robert Creeley

Guest poem sent in by Don José

  "We'll definitely be running more of Creeley's work in the
  future...."  --thomas, 20 Sep 2000

I figured, after three years, I'd step up!

(Poem #1400) The Sentence There is that in love which, by the syntax of, men find women and join their bodies to their minds --which wants so to acquire a continuity, a place, a demonstration that it must be one's own sentence. -- Robert Creeley

Poem #552 needed some company.  I was introduced to Creeley this past summer
in a poetry workshop, my last undergraduate class at university.  Studying
him and his contemporaries (like Williams) definitely opened my eyes to
different styles, not the least of which was the attractiveness of sparse
rhyme; more accurately, perhaps, he uses rhyme where it is most effective.

And it's this that sets Creeley apart, I believe, his "efficiency of design"
as I explained in a critique.  Not a word is out of place; no line break is
unintentional; no punctuation left unconsidered.  He communicates multiple
thoughts with minimal words through his line break, thus the efficiency.
Also interesting, is how the form of his poems often "fit" the poem, if only
subtly ("Water" is a good example).  (His line break is quite deliberate --
to hear him read a selection will go a long way in elucidating this.  Some
performances are downloadable via
[broken link] http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/linebreak/programs/creeley/.)

As was described of Creeley in the bio of "Morning" [Poem #552], his style
of poetry relied on conversational American English.  He writes, "I love it
that these words, 'made solely of air,' as Williams said, have no owner
finally to determine them....for these words which depend upon us for their
very existence fail as our usage derides or excludes them.  They are no more
right or wrong than we are, yet suffer our presumption forever" (in his
preface to _Selected Poems_, 1991).

There were many poems I could have easily chosen for this selection, but did
this one if for no other reason than it is definitely one of my favourite
Creeley pieces.  Not all of Creeley comes through in this, but one can see
how not only does language convey the poem, it is also a part of the poem,
as Creeley joins together love with a sentence.  Short, to the point,
creative -- Creeley.  I'll leave dissection to the reader.

DJ

Critics Nightwatch -- Gwen Harwood

Guest poem sent in by Michelle Chapman

(Poem #1399) Critics Nightwatch Once more he tried, before he slept, to rule his ranks of words. They broke from his planned choir, lolled, slouched and kept their tone, their pitch, their meaning crude; huddled in cliches; when pursued turned with mock elegance to croak his rival's tunes. They would not sing. The scene that nagged his sleep away flashed clear again: the local king of verse, loose-collared and loose-lipped. read from a sodden manuscript, drinking with anyone who'd pay, drunk, in the critic's favourite bar. "Hear the voice of the bard!" he bellowed, "Poets are lovers. Critics are mean, solitary masturbators. Come here, and join the warm creators." The critic, whom no drink had mellowed, turned on his heel. Rough laughter scoured his reddening neck. The poet roared "Run home, and take that face that soured your mother's lovely milk from spite. Piddle on what you cannot write." At home alone the critic poured gall on the poet's work in polished careful prose. He tore apart meaning and metaphor, demolished diction, syntax, metre, rhyme; called his entire works a crime against the integrity of art, and lay down grinning, quick, he thought, with a great poem that would make plain his power to all. Once more he fought with words. Sleep came. He dreamed he turned to a light vapour, seeped and burned in wordless cracks where grain on grain of matter grated; reassumed his human shape, and called by name each grain to sing, conducting, plumed in lightning, their obedient choir. Dressed as a bride for his desire towards him, now meek, the poet came. Light sneaked beside his bed. The birds began their insistent questioning of silence, and the poet's words prompted by daylight rasped his raw nerves, and the waking world he saw was flat with prose and would not sing. -- Gwen Harwood

For me this poem captures the ineffable magic of poetry - that no matter how
desperately you try, it will not be forced. It may fool others but the
writer will always be aware of the gap between the object and the ideal.

We see the critic dissecting the poet's work with clinical precision yet
failing to pin down the spark of life. This inspires him - he is certain he
can do better - and in his dreams he does. The illusion is fleeting. He
wakes to find his mundane self unchanged, unmagical. His prose is polished
and careful. He cannot share in the carefree drunken flights of poesy and
yet he yearns to do so... I believe anyone who appreciates poetry has
moments like this - where the absolute delight of a poem's song in your
heart cannot quite shoulder aside your jealousy - why can't I write like
that???

There are several ways to read the poem - was Gwen reacting to criticism of
her own poems by mocking the critic... was she sympathising with those of us
who can never quite seem to pin down that spark (those who can, write, those
who can't, criticise).... or was she exploring two different aspects of her
own personality as a writer???

Schelle

PS. Here are some biographies of Gwen Harwood:
[broken link] http://dargo.vicnet.net.au/ozlit/writers.cfm?id=346
http://tarnish.net/gwen.html

Unfortunately her poems are under-represented on the Internet.

A Man Doesn't Have Time In His Life -- Yehuda Amichai

Guest poem sent in by Abhishek Singh

(Poem #1398) A Man Doesn't Have Time In His Life A man doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything. He doesn't have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes Was wrong about that. A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, to laugh and cry with the same eyes, with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them, to make love in war and war in love. And to hate and forgive and remember and forget, to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest what history takes years and years to do. A man doesn't have time. When he loses he seeks, when he finds he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves he begins to forget. And his soul is seasoned, his soul is very professional. Only his body remains forever an amateur. It tries and it misses, gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing, drunk and blind in its pleasures and its pains. He will die as figs die in autumn, Shriveled and full of himself and sweet, the leaves growing dry on the ground, the bare branches pointing to the place where there's time for everything. -- Yehuda Amichai

Note: From "The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai", translations by Chana
Bloch and Stephen Mitchell.

I was sent this poem by a friend of mine, who adores Amichai. Frankly
speaking, I had not heard of this late Israeli poet, before this poem. But
this one encounter was enough to put me in awe of his art.  What I found out
was that Amichai is the most translated poet in Hebrew after King David!
Like all translations something IS lost from one language to the other.
Amichai's poetry in fact either renders very well or not well at all into
English depending on the point of view taken. His poetry is simple, direct,
colloquial (my friend tells me that he is read by soldiers, shopkeepers...),
while also drawing on history and playing with words and sounds. The wit and
word-play are of course lost in English. In this poem for example, the
second-last stanza seems a bit ackward, with unwieldy words like
'professional' and 'amateur' breaking the flow, but the overall message of
the simplicity of the body and the sophistication of the soul is one that is
powerful beyond words.

Anyway I admit to not knowing a lot more about Amichai, but would love it if
someone told us more about him and his poetry. This write- up has been more
about the poet, because I think the poem itself is amazing enough to speak
for itself! Finally there's nothing more to be said, apart from the final
imagery...

"He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
...
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything."

Amichai died in 2000...you can light a candle in his memorium and
read more at http://www.ithl.org.il/amichai/

Abhishek

We've run one other poem by Amichai: Poem #1108

Biography: http://www.ithl.org.il/amichai/on.html

Introduction to Poetry -- Billy Collins

Guest poem sent in by Phebe Haugen

(Poem #1397) Introduction to Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. -- Billy Collins

Not long ago, when my teenage son was struggling with poetry in his English
class, I gave him this wonderful poem.  For a kid trying to figure out what
imagery is all about, this little gem offers itself as a color slide, a
hive, a dark room, a lake, a knowing, but silent, defendant.  It invites
us to engage all these images - except the last one - so that we might see
into the heart of a poem without bludgeoning the poor thing to death.

And who among us doesn't know that feeling of being the mouse dropped into
the poem, trying to probe its way out?

Phebe

The Children’s Hour -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Guest poem sent in by Matthew Brooks

(Poem #1396) The Children’s Hour Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall-stair, Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. A whisper, and then a silence: Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall! By three doors left unguarded They enter my castle wall! They climb up into my turret O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me; They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old moustache as I am Is not a match for you all? I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeons In the round-tower of my heart. And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away! -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Note: Published in The Atlantic Monthly; September 1860.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, 1807-1882. A narrative poet in
the grand tradition; his poems are full of images, atmosphere, suspense, and
emotion. He is identified with American history and legend: his most
well-known works include poems The Song of Hiawatha, The Midnight Ride of
Paul Revere, The Courtship of Miles Standish. I always picture the
illustrations of N.C. Wyeth when I read these poems. During his lifetime he
was popular, widely read and celebrated, sometimes to the disdain of more
literary poets and critics.

This is one of the first poems I ever remember hearing. I think it was in a
book of poetry that my mother would occasionally read from to my sisters and
me. More than the words themselves, it's the rhythm and pace of it that
sends me back in time – the poetry equivalent of Proust's madeleine. I
always loved the images of the little girls sneaking down the stairs, and
the exotic idea of the "Mouse-Tower" on the Rhine. And I always thought that
the last stanza was oddly adult and melancholy for a children's poem, but
now, from an adult's perspective, it has a different meaning.

Matthew

Here's a link to some of Wyeth's illustrations:
http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/is/enroom/illustrators/wyeth2.htm

[Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of his "Courtship of Miles Standish"
illustrations, but those should convey the general flavour - martin]