R.I.P. Maya Angelou

By Jack Brummet, Lit Ed.

I was not a fan of her poetry, but I loved her prose.  And I loved her as a public figure, speaking up, and being an inspirational figurehead for a diverse group of people.  Safe travels to you Ms. Angelou.

---o0o---

Poem: The Sun Plays Its Song

By Jack Brummet

The sun plays

Its song

On mountains

Blueing in the dusk

And climbs

Another yellow horizon.

A pale flare

In the distant east

Sets off roosters

And alarms

And coaxes
Dew from the grass.   
---o0o---

Ezra Pound: Canto 120

By Ezra Pound [1]

[Richard Avedon's 1958 photos of Ezra Pound, shortly after he was released from his 13 year stint in St. Elizabeth's mental hospital in Washington, D.C., where he was committed in lieu of being tried for treason for his broadcasts from Italy during WW II]

"I have tried to write Paradise

Do not move
let the wind speak
that is paradise

Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.”

[1] E.P. wrote many wonderful and some baffling works.  I truly love a lot of the Cantos.  The problem with liking E.P. are the broadcasts, and his virulent rants about the the Jews and the alleged international banking conspiracy.  He broadcast hundreds of addresses over Italian radio, paid for by the Italian government.  And of course, when the Americans liberated Italy, one of the first persons they came looking for was Ez.   So, how do you reconcile this?  Do good works somehow ameliorate the invective and hate speech?  I've read about anti-Jewish comments coming from people I admire (just a sampling: Harry Truman, T.S. Eliot, Lennin, Churchill, Martin Luther, George Washington), , and whose work I love. My best friend (R.I.P.) had a thing about Jewish people...not hatred I don't think, but a very deep mistrust  Do you forgive and forget, or forgive but never forget?  Maybe it all falls under "hate the sin; love the sinner."

Of the mainly poor blue collar families people I grew up with, there was plenty of animosity toward African-Americans.  Until I was maybe in high school, I don't think I ever heard anyone describe them as black, or even negro.  Except on television.  They used the other four words--the n word, the c word, the j word, and the s word.
             ---o0o---

Spring has sprung (but not quite in Seattle) - William Carlos Williams' poem Spring And All

by William Carlos Williams

I

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind.  Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter.  All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens:  clarity, outline of leaf


But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them:  rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

                ---o0o---

Marginalia in a Harvard University copy of Ezra Pound's cantos

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Editor

Ezra Pound, who made all the famous cuts and marginal comments in T.S. Eliot's Waste Land, gets the sama marginalia treatment from the undergrad and grad students at Harvard.  This is a shot of one of the circulating copies of the book in their library.  This is really appropos of nothing at all; I just love marginalia, corrected proofs and manuscripts, and in general, the now soon to be lost analog methods of interacting with text.

---o0o---

the needle

By Jack Brummet, American Poetry Editor


This poem was printed in a 1971 Whole Earth Catalog, in a section edited by Ken Kesey.  It was attributed to Robert Service, but was probably created by Kesey, or Ken Babbs, or some collaboration of various pranksters. . .

THE NEEDLE 

First, brothers and sisters and spirits of our sphere,
I wish to make one thing perfectly clear;
During these last ten turnings of a year I have been
Jacked-up, jerked-off, brought down, strung-out, and I've
Holed up, come on, cooled off and hung out, and I've
Rushed and flashed and flushed and twitched and I've
Sniveled and snorted and bellowed and bitched and I've
Been spaced out atoms in the heartless void
And a slightly-plotted tightly-knotted paranoid,
I've watched friends grin goodby as I spiraled down the drain.
I've had doctors shake their fingers at the fungus on my brain;
And I have called, friends and doctors, oh I have roared out my soul
From the compass busting bottom of the false magnetic pole,
But it was a place beyond friends or medicine's reach--
A senseless 3-D cry from a binary breach--
And the heartless void can listen but doesn't seem to care
And my call was never answered until the needle turned to prayer.

- "Robert Service"

---o0o---

[in Just-] (spring) by e.e. cummings

[in Just-]

by e.e. cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
---o0o---

The Trouble With Poetry (A Billy Collins poem)

By Jack Brummet, Poetry and Classics Editor


I just finished reading a couple of books of Billy Collins's poetry (now starting on Ted Berrigan's collected poems).  This poem captures the marrow of what it means to write poetry.  The passages on thievery are wonderful, as is the sly reference to Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island Of The Mind.  I realize there is debate on Billy Collins' merits in the "poetry community,"  but I find his plain speaking and humor exhilarating.  Most of all I think I love his exuberance and world-weary optimism. 

 

The Trouble With Poetry
By Billy Collins

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night --
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky --

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
to be perfectly honest for a moment --

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

---o0o---

Billy Collins's poem--Consolation

While I don't necessarily agree with the underlying premise (I believe in travel), I love this poem by Billy Collins.

Billy Collins looking awesome at 70


How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.
---o0o---

One of the greatest poems of all time--Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart: excerpt [For I will consider my cat Jeoffry]

By Jack Brummet
Poetry and Literature Editor

Jubilate Agno ("rejoice in the lamb") by Christopher Smart is one of my favorite poems.  This is probably the most famous part of the poem, and without a doubt, the great cat poem ever.  When I lived in NYC, I was lucky enough to attend a poetry reading celebrating a new edition of the book.  It was fantastic--I remember the readers included Robert Lowell, Muriel Rukeyser, Allen Ginsberg, James Wright, Robert Bly, Gerald Stern, Mark Strand, and many others, all taking a turn reading a chunk of the poem.

Jubilate Agno is a religious litany--a rollicking call and response poem based on the Hebrew poetry form of antiphonal responses.   In this section, instead of one line beginning Let... and the next line being For.. he went straight with the response...a wonderful piling up of imagery and thoughts on his cat.  This is by far the most famous section of the poem, although it is just 74 lines of the 1200 line poem.

If you love either poetry or cats, or both, you will enjoy this.   For me, this is where modern literature really began.  Kit Smart wrote this poem when he was confined to the rubber room between 1757 and 1763.  The poem was not published until 1939!


from Jubilate Agno
By Christopher Smart (1722–1771)

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.
---o0o---

John Berryman reads his Dream Song No. 26. You've probably never seen anyone read poetry like this before.

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Editor

I've never seen John Berryman read poetry before tonight, although Dream Songs is one of my favorite books of 20th century poetry, and I have read most of his other books of poetry, prose and fiction. 

This poem is scary, jangled, beautiful, elusive, creepy, and slangy with amazing rhythms and chiming internal rhyme. I've never seen anyone read poetry like this before.  It's riveting and disturbing, especially when you know the dénouement of his story: leaping from a bridge to his death in the Mississippi River five years after this.

---o0o---

John Berryman's Dream Song 64

Dream Song 64
by John Berryman


Supreme my holdings, greater yet my need,
thoughtless I go out. Dawn. Have I my cig's,
my flaskie O,
O crystal cock,—my kneel has gone to seed,—
and anybody's blessing? (Blast the MIGs
for making funble so

my tardy readying.) Yes, utter' that.
Anybody's blessing? —Mr Bones,
you makes too much
démand. I might be 'fording you a hat:
it gonna rain. —I knew a one of groans
& greed & spite, of a crutch,

who thought he had, a vile night, been-well-blest.
He see someone run off. Why not Henry,
with his grasp of desire?
—Hear matters hard to manage at de best,
Mr Bones. Tween what we see, what be,
is blinds. Them blinds' on fire.
---o0o---

John Berryman's Dream Song 29

Dream Song 29
by John Berryman

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry’s ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;
thinking.


But never did Henry, as he thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.

---o0o---

A poem written by an online poetry Generator: The Cloud Endures

1
The cloud endures like a red sun.
Winds calmly rise like a dead captain.

2
Love, adventure, and anger.
Work, anger, and death.

3
Laughter, anger and death.
The dusty skyscraper grabs the truck.
---o0o---

A favorite poem: James Wright's "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota"

"Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota"
By James Wright

Listen to the recording on Poets.org.

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
---o0o---

Poem: The Odds by Jack Brummet

1.
The odds are your luck
Will run out one day.

We know this from cemeteries
And the dearth of hundred year olds

Stomping around
This sweet blue sphere.

2.
Simple probability
And distributed statistics

Tell us ineluctably

That the more times

You stick your head

In the lion's mouth,

The more likely it is

that one day, he will close it.

----o0o----