Poetry

[johncorrigan]

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

Sheenagh Pugh

[silvestrione]

Star of the Nativity
by Boris Pasternak

Winter had set in.
Wind blew in from the steppe
and the child was cold in a dark den
on the slope of a hill.

He was kept warm by an ox’s breath.
Other beasts also
stood in the cave.
Above the manger floated a warm haze.

After shaking bits of straw and millet
from their thick furs,
herdsmen gazed sleepily
into the midnight distance from a cliff.

Far off lay a snowfield and churchyard,
fences and headstones,
a plank in a snowdrift,
and a sky full of stars above the graves.

Nearby, unknown until that night,
more timid than a candle
in a watchman’s window,
a star glimmered on the road to Bethlehem.

It flared up like a dry hayrick, apart
from God and heaven,
like an arson’s gleam,
like a farm and threshing-floor in flames.

The new star hung like a blazing stack
of hay and straw
at the heart of a world
unsettled by its very presence.

The blaze glowed red above the world,
signifying something,
and three stargazers
raced toward the call of unprecedented fires.

Behind them, camels bore lavish gifts,
and donkeys in harnesses, each more stunted
than the next, trod slowly down the mountain.

And all that was yet to come rose up
in a strange vision of future times:
all the dreams and thoughts of centuries,
all worlds, all galleries and museums,
all antics of fairies, all sorcerers’ spells,
all Christmas trees and childhood fancies,
all garlands and flickers of lighted candles,
all the splendor of bright-colored tinsel…
(the wind blew ever fiercer from the steppe)
…and all the apples, the shining ornaments.

Part of a pond lay hidden by alders,
but part could clearly be seen from the cliff
through rooks’ high nests and crowns of trees.
The herdsmen distinctly saw how donkeys
and camels were passing along the water.

“Let’s go with the others to witness this miracle,”
they said, wrapping themselves in their sheepskins.

Shuffling through snow had made them hot.
Across the meadow, like sheets of isinglass,
sets of bare tracks led behind a shack.
By blazing starlight, sheepdogs growled
at the tracks, as they would at flared-up embers.

That frosty night was like a fairy tale:
someone new would always materialize
on a windswept ridge and join their ranks.
The tired dogs, glancing around in fear,
huddled together and waited for the worst.

Along the same road, through the same place,
angels walked in the thick of the crowd.
Their unearthliness had made them invisible,
yet every step they took left a footprint.

Hordes of travelers gathered at the rock face.
Day was breaking. Cedar trunks emerged.

“And who are you?” Mary asked.

“We are the herdsmen’s tribe and heaven’s envoys.
We have come to exalt you with our praise.”

“You cannot all come in.
Some must wait here.”

Amid the early morning haze, gray as ash,
shepherds and camel-drivers stamped about,
those on foot cursed those on horseback,
and, at the hand-dug watering trough,
camels bellowed and donkeys kicked each other.

Day was breaking. The dawn swept the last
of the stars from the sky like cinders.
And among the innumerable crowd, only
the magi did Mary let into the cave.

He slept, radiant in his oaken manger
like a moonbeam in a tree trunk’s hollow.
His sheepskin blanket had been exchanged
for donkeys’ lips and oxen’s nostrils.

The magi stood in the barn-like shadows,
whispering yet barely conversing in words.
Somebody reached out a hand in the dark
to move one of them to the left of the manger,
and he glanced at the door: the star, he noticed,
like one more guest, was watching the Virgin.

1947

Translated from the Russian by Jamie Olson

[Padraig]

Star of the Nativity

by Boris Pasternak

1947

An old familiar tale, polished and looking like new.

[silvestrione]

An old familiar tale, polished and looking like new.

Yes! One of the Dr Zhivago poems, of course.

[johncorrigan]

'Hamnavoe' by George MacKay Brown is a favourite poem of mine, but until last week's 'Poetry Please' on Radio 4 I had not heard 'Hamnavoe Market'. They don't make markets like they used to.


Hamnavoe Market

They drove to the Market with ringing pockets.

Folster found a girl
Who put wounds on his face and throat,
Small and diagonal, like red doves.

Johnston stood beside the barrel.
All day he stood there.
He woke in a ditch, his mouth full of ashes.

Grieve bought a balloon and a goldfish.
He swung through the air.
He fired shotguns, rolled pennies, ate sweet fog from a stick.

Heddle was at the Market also.
I know nothing of his activities.
He is and always was a quiet man.

Garson fought three rounds with a negro boxer,
And received thirty shillings,
Much applause, and an eye loaded with thunder.

Where did they find Flett?
They found him in a brazen circle,
All flame and blood, a new Salvationist.

A gypsy saw in the hand of Halcro
Great strolling herds, harvests, a proud woman.
He wintered in the poorhouse.

They drove home from the Market under the stars
Except for Johnston
Who lay in a ditch, his mouth full of dying fires.

George MacKay Brown

I know that Ian McMillan is not universally popular, but his choices on 'Poetry Please' last week were, I thought, excellent.

[johncorrigan]

From Sunday's 'Poetry Please' chosen by American poet, Eve L. Ewing

Theme for English B
BY LANGSTON HUGHES

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

[Pulcinella]

Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb

(Published online, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/20/aman...full-text.html, so presumably not breaking any copyright.)

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

[Padraig]

After Langston Hughes and Amanda Gorman, here is another American poet writing about - Poetry. In this poem Emily Dickinson is not writing about herself, but about an Unnamed Poet (Shakespeare? whom she adored) to represent the Art.

This was a Poet -
It is That
Distills amazing sense
From Ordinary Meanings -
And Attar so immense

From the familiar species
That perished by the Door -
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it - before -

Of Pictures, the Discloser -
The Poet - it is He -
Entitles Us - by Contrast -
To ceaseless poverty -

Of Portion - so unconscious -
The Robbing - could not harm -
Himself - to Him - a Fortune-
Exterior - to Time -

Emily Dickinson 1862, Published 1929.

[subcontrabass]

Technical question: what makes Amada Gorman's piece a poem as distinct from a very good piece of prose rhetoric?

[DracoM]

Exactly. Stuff and nonsense. Nice writing, but poem.....????

[vinteuil]

Technical question: what makes Amada Gorman's piece a poem as distinct from a very good piece of prose rhetoric?

I think it is a good question : one answer might be that she is a recognized poet (I don't know her work, but I understand it is well regarded) and, if she says it is a Poem, then it is a Poem. In the same way that an artist may claim that their creation is a work of art because it is in an Art Gallery.

.

[Pulcinella]

Technical question: what makes Amada Gorman's piece a poem as distinct from a very good piece of prose rhetoric?

I wondered that, too.

I think it is a good question : one answer might be that she is a recognized poet (I don't know her work, but I understand it is well regarded) and, if she says it is a Poem, then it is a Poem. In the same way that an artist may claim that their creation is a work of art because it is in an Art Gallery.

.

My partner (whose PhD subject was an American poet) would agree; I've just asked him.

He says that the poem Robert Frost wrote for JFK's inauguration would take some beating.

Here it is.
But I've just asked him what makes it a poem, too!
I only studied English up to O Level, and I've always had problems with 'poetry'!


The Gift Outright
BY ROBERT FROST

The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53013/the-gift-outright

[Dermot]

I think it is a good question : one answer might be that she is a recognized poet (I don't know her work, but I understand it is well regarded) and, if she says it is a Poem, then it is a Poem. In the same way that an artist may claim that their creation is a work of art because it is in an Art Gallery.

.

Yes, that is the orthodox academic view.

I once attended an art history course which was held at Queen Mary's College on the Mile End Road, London. As part of the course, the students visited Tate Modern and one of the works we looked at was Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII. In the afternoon, back at the college, we discussed what we had seen during our gallery visit.

Irate student: ''So, if I dumped a pile of bricks here on the classroom floor that would be a work of art?''

Tutor: ''No''

''Why not?''

''You are not an artist''

''Why am I not an artist?''

''You have not been to art school. You have not trained to be an artist''

Explosion of the student in exasperation.

[agingjb]

'The artist constructed a bed
Unmade and chaotic, and said:
“You shall not lie on it.
It is art, like a sonnet.
And if you don’t like that, drop dead.”

“But Tracy,” the critics replied,
“You’re taking us all for a ride.
Just look at your bed. It
Won’t scan, parse, or edit.
It’s art and not us that has died.'

[johncorrigan]

'The artist constructed a bed
Unmade and chaotic, and said:
“You shall not lie on it.
It is art, like a sonnet.
And if you don’t like that, drop dead.”

“But Tracy,” the critics replied,
“You’re taking us all for a ride.
Just look at your bed. It
Won’t scan, parse, or edit.
It’s art and not us that has died.'