July 28, 2004

Wednesday Is Poetry Day

A history lesson with the poetry this week, because i have chosen a sonnet written by a man who might not be a household name, but perhaps should be.

Not generally remembered for his poetry, the author of this week's poem was better known for his passionate devotion to the abolition of slavery. William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) was a firebrand and so uncompromising, he even managed to piss off Frederick Douglass. Here's a typical W. L. Garrison quote:

I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.
Thank goodness he was heard, eventually, though at the time not many seemed to want to listen. Georgia's antebellum House of Representatives even offered a bounty of $5000 for Garrison's capture. He was ahead of his time in many ways.
In speaking engagements and through the Liberator and other publications, Garrison advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves. This was an unpopular view during the 1830s, even with northerners who were against slavery. What would become of all the freed slaves? Certainly they could not assimilate into American society, they thought. Garrison believed that they could assimilate. He believed that, in time, all blacks would be equal in every way to the country's white citizens. They, too, were Americans and entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
Garrison was also an early advocate of women's rights, and non-violent civil disobedience.

In the following sonnet, you get a pretty good picture of the man's intensity and righteousness.


Liberty for All

THEY tell me, Liberty! that in thy name
I may not plead for all the human race;
That some are born to bondage and disgrace,
Some to a heritage of woe and shame,
And some to power supreme, and glorious fame:
With my whole soul I spurn the doctrine base,
And, as an equal brotherhood, embrace
All people, and for all fair freedom claim!
Know this, O man! whate’er thy earthly fate—
God never made a tyrant nor a slave:
Woe, then, to those who dare to desecrate
His glorious image!—for to all He gave
Eternal rights, which none may violate;
And, by a mighty hand, the oppressed He yet shall save!


It's a basic Italian form sonnet, in spotless iambic pentameter, until the final line, which tripped me up a bit. It reads like there's an extra foot in there, and i had to read the line a few times to figure out the meter. All in all, a decent sonnet from a famous non-poet.

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July 21, 2004

Wednesday Is Poetry Day, Every Wednesday

i must confess, e.e. cummings is not my favorite poet. i don't like visual gimmick poetry, and i don't like indecipherable poetry. In that respect i am not alone. When my favorite poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, was in charge of vetting poets for the Guggenhiem Fellowship, she turned down cummings because she couldn't figure him out. (i wish i had her exact quote; you can find it in the wonderful biography of Millay, called Savage Beauty.)

Thankfully, not all of e.e. cummings' work is hard to read. Take out the weird shit, and what remains is remarkably brilliant. Not surprisingly, i'm especially drawn to his erotic stuff. Sometimes i'm not sure whether he's talking about what i think he's talking about, or whether it's just my own dirty mind. I like that in a poem. Plausible deniability.

An example:


because i love you)last night

clothed in sealace
appeared to me
your mind drifting
with chuckling rubbish
of pearl weed coral and stones;

lifted,and(before my
eyes sinking)inward,fled;softly
your face smile breasts gargled
by death:drowned only

again carefully through deepness to rise
these your wrists
thighs feet hands

poising
          to again utterly disappear;
rushing gently swiftly creeping
through my dreams last
night,all of your
body with its spirit floated
(clothed only in

the tide's acute weaving murmur


Nice, isn't it? Less subtle is this racy example:

my girl's tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge--my girl's tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that's spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.

Whew, there's a little bit of excitement for your blog reading day!

But sometimes, e.e. could throw all subtlety out the window, as in this bawdy piece:


the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

Dang, that's some kick-ass poetry. i'm not crazy about a lot of his stuff, but if he were around today, i'd bet e.e. could take the prize at any poetry slam contest.

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July 14, 2004

Poetry Wednesday

After missing two and a half days of work, i spend my morning searching the web for this Wednesday's poem. That's how much i love you all.

You may see that i changed the blog's epigram over there on the left. The new epigram is a verse from Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier," which states one of my main purposes for doing this blog, however arrogant or ironic the epigram might sound.

The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters is a classic of American literature. If this book was not assigned to you in high school, you should call your principal and demand to know why.

i saw Spoon River performed a few years ago at a little theater in L.A., and i also acted one of the parts for an acting class in college. The idea of the book is that each poem is what one of the dead persons in Spoon River's graveyard might say if they were able to talk. It's heavy on irony, but there's a good amount of wry humor, too.

So, to balance the sentiment of the Bob Marley quote on my sidebar, you might find the theme of the following poem from Spoon River useful.


Oaks Tutt

My mother was for womanÂ’s rights
And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
In order to learn how to reform the world.
I traveled through many lands.
I saw the ruins of Rome,
And the ruins of Athens,
And the ruins of Thebes.
And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
There I was caught up by wings of flame,
And a voice from heaven said to me:
“Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth!
Preach Justice! Preach Truth!”
And I hastened back to Spoon River
To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
They all saw a strange light in my eye.
And by and by, when I talked, they discovered
What had come in my mind.
Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate
The subject, (I taking the negative):
“Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World.”
And he won the debate by saying at last,
“Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt,
Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate:
‘What is Truth?’”


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July 07, 2004

Wednesday Is Poetry Day

Inspired by Ginger and Candace's recent post about their fabulous meeting in the city of New York, i decided to select a poem from my favorite New York poet, Frank O'Hara.

The following is one of O'Hara's best known poems, and it deserves to be. Reading it, one can imagine what it must have been like to be young and hip in the city back in 1959.

"Lady," by the way, is the great jazz singer Billie Holiday, who died on July 17, 1959 at New York's Metropolitan Hospital.


The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
                                        I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or
Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing


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July 01, 2004

Poetry Wednesday Thursday

Lazy schlub that i am, i forgot to do a Poetry Wednesday post. When i realized this too late, i toyed with the idea of just letting it go and hoping my two or three readers didn't notice.

Then this morning, surfing, i came across a lovely poem from 1911 that i just had to share with y'all. So here it is. The poet is Constantine P. Cavafy, an Egyptian born poet who wrote in Greek.


Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.


Link thanks to All Things Jen(nifer) for finding this poem in Thomas Cahill's book, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter.

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