In Memoriam A. H. H., Section 5 -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney :

(Poem #1809) In Memoriam A. H. H., Section 5 I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given outline and no more. -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

So _In Memoriam_ is vast, and kind of out of style.  But that doesn't mean
that it doesn't have some great stuff in it.

A. H. H. stands for Arthur Henry Hallam.  Hallam was a close friend of
Tennyson's who was also engaged to Tennyson's sister.  He died before the
wedding; he was 22.  Naturally enough, this caused Tennyson to be catatonic
with grief.  As a way of working through it, Tennyson wrote _In Memoriam,_
which consists of 133 sections; each section is in turn composed of
quatrains of iambic tetrameter rhymed abba.  Since Tennyson invented that
stanza form for this poem, and since you've read several hundred of them by
the time you're done reading the poem, that form is called the "In Memoriam
stanza".

The poem as a whole, as you might expect, is about coming to terms with
grief.  Tennyson assays his grief, expiates it, and finds a way to move on.
That's the arc, anyway.  In the midst of that, you get an idea of who Hallam
was and what he meant to Tennyson.  There are also digressions on a few
other topics.  The In Memoriam stanza is a perfect microcosm of the arc of
the poem as a whole:  abba:  conflict, then resolution.  Does that make any
sense?

I love this section in particular: it's about the inadequacy of words to
express grief; and yet at the same time words are the only tool we have.  So
what can you do?  Wrap yourself in words, like weeds.  Weeds, as in mourning
dress, but also weeds as in the plants that clog an untended garden.  Words,
too, like narcotics, numbing the pain.  And what is this poem, but words?
The grief is literally too large to be contained here, but somehow he has to
find a way to cram it in, so he knows his project will never work: it's
"given outline, and no more".  In short, words must fail, yet _must_
succeed.  There's a lot of punch packed into these twelve lines.

Mark.

Looking Out -- Mitsuye Yamada

Apologies for the hiatus - this should mark a return to your regularly
scheduled Minstrels...

(Poem #1808) Looking Out It must be odd to be a minority he was saying. I looked around and didn't see any. So I said Yeah it must be. -- Mitsuye Yamada

How can you not love a poem like this? I had never heard of Yamada before I
read today's little gem, but the combination of pointed message and dry wit
she displays here have definitely marked her as someone I need to read more
of (recommendations welcomed!).

A quote I found in her Wikipedia entry is telling:

  "I have thought of myself as a feminist first, but my ethnicity cannot be
  separated from my feminism."

It is an uncomfortable truism, but a truism nonetheless, that "minority
artists" are almost forced into having their minority status inform their
work, if only by the legions of critics who insist on loudly analysing their
output through that lens, or by other members of the group who expect them
to be Making a Statement. Yamada's poem is richly ironic when viewed in that
light, simultaneously speaking for her status as an ethnically Japanese
American and shaking her head at people who can't see her as anything else.
To quote her again:

"White sisters should be able to see that political views held by women of
color are often misconstrued as being personal rather than ideological.
Views critical of the system held by a person in an out-group are often seen
as expressions of personal angers against the dominant society."

martin

[Links]

  Yamada's Wikipedia entry:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuye_Yamada

  An essay on "Cultural Diversity and the Use of Literature":
    [broken link] http://www.mtsu.edu/~socwork/frost/crazy/culturaldiversitypaper.htm

Crossing the Frontier -- A D Hope

Guest poem sent in by William Grey

(Poem #1807) Crossing the Frontier Crossing the frontier they were stopped in time, Told, quite politely, they would have to wait: Passports in order, nothing to declare And surely holding hands was not a crime Until they saw how, ranged across the gate, All their most formidable friends were there. Wearing his conscience like a crucifix, Her father, rampant, nursed the Family Shame; And, armed with their old-fashioned dinner-gong, His aunt, who even when they both were six, Had just to glance towards a childish game To make them feel that they were doing wrong. And both their mothers, simply weeping floods, Her head-mistress, his boss, the parish priest, And the bank manager who cashed their cheques; The man who sold him his first rubber-goods; Dog Fido, from whose love-life, shameless beast, She first observed the basic facts of sex. They looked as though they had stood there for hours; For years -- perhaps for ever. In the trees Two furtive birds stopped courting and flew off; While in the grass beside the road the flowers Kept up their guilty traffic with the bees. Nobody stirred. Nobody risked a cough. Nobody spoke. The minutes ticked away; The dog scratched idly. Then, as parson bent And whispered to a guard who hurried in, The customs-house loudspeakers with a bray Of raucous and triumphant argument Broke out the wedding march from Lohengrin. He switched the engine off: "We must turn back." She heard his voice break, though he had to shout Against a din that made their senses reel, And felt his hand, so tense in hers, go slack. But suddenly she laughed and said: "Get out! Change seats! Be quick!" and slid behind the wheel. And drove the car straight at them with a harsh, Dry crunch that showered both with scraps and chips, Drove through them; barriers rising let them pass Drove through and on and on, with Dad's moustache Beside her twitching still round waxen lips And Mother's tears still streaming down the glass. -- A D Hope

This is submitted as a juxtaposition and contrast with Seamus Heaney [1].
Both Hope and Heaney use the frontier metaphor, but each uses it to explore
very different themes. Heaney's concern is the struggle of the writer in
what is experienced as a hostile environment. (I read Heaney's menacing
antagonists as his readers and critics.) Hope is writing about pre-marital
sex, an issue of not much concern today, but one which was more problematic
for an earlier generation. (In particular before the advent of reliable oral
contraceptives.  The poem is dated 1963.)  In Hope's case the menacing
antagonists at the frontier are conventional morality and its upholders
(parents, head-mistress, the parish priest). Interestingly in Hope's poem
the decisive move to break the shackles of conventional morality is taken by
the woman. (John Taber remarked earlier on Hope's characteristically
positive treatment of women in his comment on [2]. This is further support
for Taber's claim.)

The poem was published in [3].

William Grey

[1] Poem #1807, 'From the Frontier of Writing, Seamus Heaney
[2] Poem #1568, 'His Coy Mistress to Mr Marvell', A.D. Hope
[3] A.D. Hope, 'Collected Poems (1930-1965)'. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1966.

From the Frontier of Writing -- Seamus Heaney

Guest poem submitted by Janice:

(Poem #1806) From the Frontier of Writing The tightness and the nilness round that space when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect its make and number and, as one bends his face towards your window, you catch sight of more on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent down cradled guns that hold you under cover and everything is pure interrogation until a rifle motions and you move with guarded unconcerned acceleration -- a little emptier, a little spent as always by that quiver in the self, subjugated, yes, and obedient. So you drive on to the frontier of writing where it happens again. The guns on tripods; the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating data about you, waiting for the squawk of clearance; the marksman training down out of the sun upon you like a hawk. And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed, as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall on the black current of a tarmac road past armor-plated vehicles, out between the posted soldiers flowing and receding like tree shadows into the polished windscreen. -- Seamus Heaney

Another favourite of mine. Exquisity Heaney: compact, compressed,
beautifully simple yet spiralling with meaning upon meaning. Here an
unfortunately commonplace event - a road check - is compared to the act of
writing, or perhaps the struggle of the act of writing. Again fraught with
tension, "pure interrogation", the poem captures the mood, the silent
watchfulness of a politically unstable area. There are various
interpretations of this poem and I personally find it difficult to pinpoint
what the Frontier of Writing is -- is it a space (mental or physical), an
idea or the act of writing itself? When I reach the last few lines however,
it doesn't even seem to matter -- "out between / the posted soldiers flowing
and receding / like tree shadows into the polished windscreen". It is an
image that is startling and stays with me.

Hope you enjoy it!

True Love at Last -- D H Lawrence

Guest poem sent in by Sarah Korah

(Poem #1805) True Love at Last The handsome and self-absorbed young man looked at the lovely and self-absorbed girl and thrilled. The lovely and self-absorbed girl looked back at the handsome and self-absorbed young man and thrilled. And in that thrill he felt: Her self-absorption is even as strong as mine. I must see if I can't break through it And absorb her in me. And in that thrill she felt: His self-absorption is even stronger than mine! What fun, stronger than mine! I must see if I can't absorb this Samson of self-absorption. So they simply adored one another and in the end they were both nervous wrecks, because in self-absorption and self-interest they were equally matched. -- D H Lawrence

Here comes D.H.Lawrence's take on true love... in the land of the self
obsessed :) This quirky, irreverent counterpoint to True Love makes the case
that there is something essentially selfless about love; or it is not the
real thing.

Sarah Korah

[Martin adds]

In a lighter - or, at least, friendler - vein, I was reminded of Lawrence's
playfully romantic "Intimates" [Poem #110] - it is interesting to note the
superficial similarity of theme, but wide disparity of intent, between the
two poems.

[Links]

Wislawa Szymborska's beautiful True Love poem can be read at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/694.html

Minstrels has more D.H.Lawrence poems at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1282.html
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/77.html