a poem by Robert Bly

[Ann]

I hope you don't mind me doing this, but Dale's poem with the ensuing discussion made me think of this poem by Pat Mora. Its sort of a continuation or maybe the anthesis, not sure which:

Small white fairies dance
on the <i>Rio Grande </i>. Usually they swim
Deep through their days and nights
hiding from our eyes, but when the white
sun pulls them up, up
they leap about, tiny shimmering stars.

The desert says: feel the sun
luring you from your dark, sad waters,
burst through the surface

dance

[dubhlinn]

I would argue though that not being able to see the light does not mean that there is no light to see.

Or else a belief that there is light to see, whether there is or not.

Carol

Indeed.
Without getting too metaphysical here - and I'm not even sure what that means but it sounds good - I believe that there is always a light.
That's why I mentioned Faith. Not in any religious sense but in an optimistic, it'll be O.K in the end kinda sense.

I've been down a few deep wells in my time but always believed that I would find a way out sooner or later. That, I would call belief. So far it has worked for me which is where the patience comes in.

Hope that makes sense...

Slan,
D.

[Dale]

I'm glad this poem has generated some smart discussion. I really like Robert Bly's work.

This is my favorite:

Things to Think

Think in ways you've never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

[scottielvr]

Lovely; thank you for posting that.

"To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven.... or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die."

Wonderful.

[Walden]

I'm glad this poem has generated some smart discussion. I really like Robert Bly's work.

I've been looking for a poem by Captain Bligh to post, but I can't seem to find anything. Guess I'll have to write one myself.

Does anything rhyme with Bounty besides county and mounty?

[jim stone]

I don't like poems about rain much anymore, whether it's literal rain or figurative rain. There are lots and lots of them out there, though...

Try this one...

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

- e.e. cummings

[Whistlin'Dixie]

wow, things like that remind me how much I dislike poetry in general.

[Dale]

wow, things like that remind me how much I dislike poetry in general.

Hate any good movies lately?

[Dale]

wow, things like that remind me how much I dislike poetry in general.

In general, I'd have to agree with you. Bly's poem I could at least understand. The e.e. cummings was ... um ... beyond me, I guess. My favorite line about poetry comes from Patrick Dennis in "Genius."

"This isn't poetry. It happens to be crap."

Susan

There is a lot of crap poetry but this e.e. cummings piece isn't crap, or even crapoid.

A lot of people--most people, probably--either don't care for poetry or actively dislike it. Poets and poetry, in a way, have only themselves to blame. There's been a steady trend over several decades to make the poetry journals more and more inside-baseball, elitist, opaque, and mostly for poets reading other poets. The BEST AMERICAN POETRY volume edited by Robert Creeley a few years ago is good example of this trend. So, I think that the problem with the sharp decline in appreciation of poetry is the fault of poets. At the same time, readers share some small part of the blame. Generally, there's a loss of interest in study and attention and the putting some effort into careful reading, I think.

People from middle school on up get really bent out of shape over the fact that a given poem doesn't make sense. Poetry is an alternate and artful use of language that's usually not designed to just clearly and flatly spill out its meaning to the casual reader. People seem to mistrust that, or something.

I encounter poems with some regularity which, in some sense, I don't understand, and which I love anyway. Some people are able, for example, just to let the language of that e.e. cummings poem flow without worrying too much about what exactly he is trying to convey. One can appreciate the music of the language. You just have to relax and kind of "let it go."

But, I fear it's one of those things that divide people on an almost genetic level. Some people get & appreciate poetry and some don't and I think conversion is rare.

[Dale]

Susan,

If I somehow deleted your post in the processing of responding to it, I don't know how in the world I did it and, if I did, I sure do apologize.

Dale

[susnfx]

Oh dear. I deleted it, Dale. After thinking about it, I realized you had a nice thread going here with poetry appreciated by a group of readers who were responding thoughtfully--my post was just throwing clods at it. There was no point to that, so I deleted it.

I think in one way appreciation of poetry and other art forms is part of our personalities. What I mean is, I'm a realist. I don't like modern poetry (and some not so modern) and I don't like modern art (by that I mean abstract). I like things in my world to have a basis in reality. And it isn't that I don't take the time to ponder these things...I just don't see any reason. I can be deeply moved by a beautifully painted landscape, almost (I nearly said "literally" ) pulled inside it, while abstract art leaves me positively chilled. And it's the same with poetry. I'm afraid I can't appreciate a poem because of it's "rhythm" if I feel I'm simply reading jumbles of words that mean absolutely nothing to me--and I'm not certain meant anything to the author.

Bottom line: I always have the feeling when viewing abstract art or reading modern poetry that there's a hidden camera and the artist or poet is behind it, laughing his/her head off.

Susan

[Innocent Bystander]

Bottom line: I always have the feeling when viewing abstract art or reading modern poetry that there's a hidden camera and the artist or poet is behind it, laughing his/her head off.

Susan

I can get behind that. I feel the same way about some modern novels too. And if you read some of the "poetry" on the internet - well. The less said the better.

But to return to the original poem, I think there is a case to be made for saying that "And never see the light" refers only to the period of waiting. While the water waits it never sees the light, but it does not always wait. It can be a qualified "never".

[carrie]

Bottom line: I always have the feeling when viewing abstract art or reading modern poetry that there's a hidden camera and the artist or poet is behind it, laughing his/her head off.

I don't feel this way. First, I think a poem will deliver the goods to a reader or not. When I read poetry, I know by its effect on me whether there is something in it that warrants a closer reading. It will move me in sometimes inexplicable ways, but I usually know just where the moving part is, even if I don't quite know why I am moved. For me, each poem has a "payoff" line, so to speak, the one (or several, or a whole stanza) that takes the disparate pieces of the poem and reveals something otherwise inexpressable (sp?) about them and the world of the poem. I don't think that can be faked. Further, among the few poets I know personally, I would say that the "laughing his/her head off" is as far from accurate as possible. Those I know (and I admit it is only a few) feel vulnerable before a reader, as full of self-doubt as any of us.

I was interested in Innocent Bystander's views on the waiting water. (Btw, those lines for me were the "payoff" part.) I felt after I posted my reading of those lines that it was hugely inadequate, that it didn't really say what I meant or felt, and I'll be damned if I can even now figure out how to say it in plain language. That's why we need poetry--or why I do, anyway. Of course there's bad poetry--I've written enough of that myself.

Carol

[Dale]

I think in one way appreciation of poetry and other art forms is part of our personalities. What I mean is, I'm a realist.

I think that's exactly right. It's not that I think of myself as NOT having any grounding in reality, but I need an aspect of my life that attends to mystery. I think there is a tremendous amount of mystery and ambiguity in life and some of that I just prefer to embrace. So, in the case of the 2nd Bly poem, there's an image of a moose coming out of a lake with a "child of your own whom you have never seen" on its antlers. Now, there's nothing whatever realistic about that; I don't even know exactly what he's trying to suggest; but I find it immensely moving and a beautiful image. No way, though, I can convince anybody of that. You feel it or you don't.

Not to be argumentative about this, but I what I do find interesting is that there's really nothing realistic about instrumental music. But a lot of folks who object to art & literature for it's lack of connection to realism appreciate instrumental music which is, really, when you think about it, entirely abstract.

[FJohnSharp]

For people who do not like ee cummings, here is an alternative.

met a man on the street

who said, "you've kept me going for two
years, it's really amazing to meet you."

"thank you," I answered," but who's
going to keep me going?"

I've asked this question before and
all I ever get back is a gentle
smile.

but it’s a good question.

they have no notion that I may consider
suicide several times a
week.

they've read some of my books
and that's enough for
them.

but I only write that stuff,
I can't read
it.




or this one



neon

today at the track they gave
all the patrons
neon caps.
the caps glowed and
said
HOLLYWOOD PARK.

some of those jerk-offs
wore their cap
backwards.

25 thousand neon
heads.

faces of greed,
stone
faces.
faces of
horror.
blank wall
faces.

idiot eyes
under neon.

fat white
stupefied
husbands and
wives.

Oakies with
blond hair.

screechers
preachers
poachers
punks…

left-overs,
half-dead,
part warm.

neon
neon.

cement
faces
blithering
voices.

nothing.

neon over
nothing.

I thought I was
in hell.

maybe I was in
hell.

a day-glow
inferno of
festering
hell.


Charles Bukowski, from "Betting on the Muse."