The Sun

April is National Poetry Month, and every year Knopf sends me a poem a day during April. (Though it's a bit late, they'll send you one too, if you send a blank email to: sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com. They'll keep you on the list for next year, too.)

I received the most wonderful poem yesterday, by Dan Chiasson, from his book Natural History:

The Sun

There is one mind in all of us, one soul,
who parches the soil in some nations

but in others hides perpetually behind a veil;
he spills light everywhere, here he spilled

some on my tie, but it dried before dinner ended.
He is in charge of darkness also, also

in charge of crime, in charge of the imagination.
People fucking flick him off and on,

off and on, with their eyelids as they ascertain
with their eyes their love's sincerity.

He makes the stars disappear, but he makes
small stars everywhere, on the hoods of cars,

in the compound eyes of skyscrapers or in the eyes
of sighing lovers bored with one another.

Onto the surface of the world he stamps
all plants and animals. They are not gods

but he made us worshippers of every
bramble toad, black chive, we find.

In Idaho there is a desert cricket that makes
a clocklike tick-tick when he flies, but he

is not a god. The only god is the sun,
our mind—master of all crickets and clocks.

To Boredom

A lovely poem by Charles Simic, from the New Yorker:

To Boredom

I'm the child of your rainy Sundays.
I watched time crawl
Over the ceiling
Like a wounded fly.

A day would last forever,
Making pellets of bread,
Waiting for a branch
On a bare tree to move.

The silence would deepen,
The sky would darken,
As Grandmother knitted
With a ball of black yarn.

I know Heaven's like that.
In eternity's classrooms,
The angels sit like bored children
With their heads bowed.

Two Searches

I don't look at my search engine referrers very often - they tend to be pretty repetitive (e.g., from a few minutes ago: 'late in night we clothless photo') - but yesterday I did, and I found two interesting ones:

--'at what does watermelon laugh when it's murdered.' That was intriguing enough that I did the search myself, and found this page. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I gathered that it was a line from a poem by Pablo Neruda, and, searching further, found this.

--'I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer'. That turned out to be from 'Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams' by Kenneth Koch. Here it is, from this site:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

-- Kenneth Koch

That's two excellent discoveries. I must read my referrers more often.

Pattern

I've been making books lately, using a good new book-making book. These two have covers made of cut-down photographs by R. The photograph, called Pattern (the link is to the complete photograph), was silk-screened on handmade paper. He also wrote a poem called Pattern, which was exhibited alongside the photograph:

A PATTERN IS
EVEN IF
ASSYMETRICAL
INTRINSICALLY
AN ORDER
IN CHAOS

LIKE A VAGABOND
BREEZE
PLAYING UPON
THE RESPONSIVE
STRINGS OF A
CARESS-HUNGRY LEAF
TO EXPLODE
INTO RAPTUROUS FRAGMENTS OF AN
UNFORGETTABLE
SYMPHONY

Poems of Summer

from Sanskrit Poetry from Vidyakara's "Treasury", translated by Daniel H. H. Ingalls

199
Above the fledgling of the wild goose,
although he rests in coolness of a flowering water-lotus,
the loving mother bird will hold her wings,
a handsome white umbrella.
The little parrot, parched with thirst,
resting on a fair maid's bosom,
will sip at the necklace pearls which grace her breasts
in hope that they are water.

201
Coolness, which stayed a while beneath the waters,
made brief acquaintance with unguent of sandalwood,
set foot on lily stems and moonlight,
and rested later in the shade of tasty plantains,
now is found alone
within my sweetheart's arms.

214
The summer breaks the tight embrace
of God Narayana and Goddess Sri
already sleepy from the ocean's rocking
of their water-dripping palace.
And now the sun's fierce rays
do fry the moon, deprived of all its spendor,
as if it were a pancake
on the heated potsherd of the sky.

A Prison Evening

I was looking for a transliteration of an Urdu poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and found it; but then I found this also, and it was amazingly beautiful -- from The Wondering Minstrels :

A Prison Evening

Each star a rung,
night comes down the spiral
staircase of the evening.
The breeze passes by so very close
as if someone just happened to speak of love.
In the courtyard,
the trees are absorbed refugees
embroidering maps of return on the sky.
On the roof,
the moon - lovingly, generously -
is turning the stars
into a dust of sheen.
From every corner, dark-green shadows,
in ripples, come towards me.

At any moment they may break over me,
like the waves of pain each time I remember
this separation from my lover.

This thought keeps consoling me:
though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed
in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,
they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,
nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,
no poison of torture make me bitter,
if just one evening in prison
can be so strangely sweet,
if just one moment anywhere on this earth.


-- Faiz Ahmed Faiz (translated from Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali)

(The beauty and clarity of this translation became even more apparent when I compared it to the one by Shiv K. Kumar in my copy of Selected Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, which begins: "From the sinuous pathways of evening stars / the night climbs down, step by step...")

Read about Faiz (1911-1984) in the Wikipedia.

For Once, Then, Something

I suddenly wanted to read poems by Robert Frost. I had read him in high school, then did not for many years. I found this poem, which I had not known before, but which I found beautiful:

For Once, Then Something

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths-and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

In the Waiting Room

HappenStance

My poetry friend Helena Nelson has started a new venture to publish poetry chapbooks; and a magazine, Sphinx: A Magazine for Poetry People. The website is www.happenstancepress.com. I rushed over there as soon as I heard, and bought Helena's chapbook, Unsuitable Poems, and also subscribed to the first two issues of Sphinx. Support clever, talented and hardworking poets! Go there and do the same!

Here's one of my favourite poems from Unsuitable Poems, reprinted by permission from the author:

Poetry Virgin

The Onboard Customer Service Team
welcomes you to this poem.
There is a pause provided at the end of most lines
and at the end of every stanza.
We apologise for the absence of rhymes.

A quiet stanza is situated near the rear of the poem
for readers who do not like howling.
Passengers should familiarise themselves
with the safety exits
and the lay-out of the poem.

Due to problems with signalling devices
the message of the poem has been somewhat delayed.
We apologise for the delay
but recommend the scenic views from stanza four
and the excellent wordplay in the buffet.

The Customer Service Team wishes to assure travellers
that this poem is equipped with the latest enjambement
and is not a sonnet of the Petrarchan variety.
If you have any cause for discomfort,
write, please, to the Poem Mistress at Barking.

the poem is due to arrive at its destination
in approximately one

minute.

Please

make sure you take all your belongings with you
and nothing that does not belong to you.
thank you for travelling Poetry Virgin.

Poet's Choice

I really like the Poet's Choice in the Washington Post Book Review every Sunday. The poems are currently being presented by Robert Pinsky; they are always worth reading. I'm going to post last Sunday's article here because I love the poems, and because I don't know how long they are going to stay up:

Poet's Choice

By Robert Pinsky
Sunday, June 5, 2005

A great parody is a great tribute: To be considered worth imitating and worth laughing at is a compliment. Moreover, to be truly seen and understood is close to the pinnacle for a work of art, and no critical essay can see and understand as deeply as the best parodies.

There's an additional thrill for the reader if the object being parodied has not seemed ridiculous -- until the parody wakens the sleepy perception that, yes, even a charming and indelible work may have its ridiculous aspects. Here is a fine and famous poem by William Carlos Williams (1893-1963):

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Williams's insouciance and offhand apology, his delight in his own capricious taste, and, underlying all of that, a certain male, maybe even professional, assurance -- these qualities do not diminish the poem. Still, it is bracing to notice them here and in Williams's other work. The late Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) leads us, hilariously, to take such notice. Somehow, substituting long lines for short ones, while keeping some of the rhythms, is another satisfying part of the joke:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together

and then sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.

The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me. I was clumsy, and

I wanted you here in the wards, where I am a doctor.

A lovely poem from The Writer's Almanac:

Teaching a Child the Art of Confession

It is best not to begin with Adam and Eve. Original Sin is
baffling, even for the most sophisticated minds. Besides,
children are frightened of naked people and apples. Instead,
start with the talking snake. Children like to hear what animals
have to say. Let him hiss for a while and tell his own tale.
They'll figure him out in the end. Describe sin simply as those
acts which cause suffering and leave it at that. Steer clear of
musty confessionals. Children associate them with outhouses.
Leave Hell out of the discussion. They'll be able to describe it
on their own soon enough. If they feel the need to apologize
for some transgression, tell them that one of the offices of the
moon is to forgive. As for the priest, let him slumber a while
more.

by David Shumate, from High Water Mark: Prose Poems © University of Pittsburgh Press.

A Brief for the Defense

I was reading the November 15 New Yorker, and I came upon this poem:

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

-Jack Gilbert

Okay, now that you have read this, please help me. I'm unable to catch the tone. Is he serious? Is it irony? It was the line, "...we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants" that first pulled me up. Maybe the fact that I don't share this belief kept me from being able to understand. Parts of the poem make sense to me -- I believe that one should try to face this terrible world with as much delight as one can muster. But should one give thanks when the locomotive of the Lord runs one down?

Is this really a brief for the defense? Or for the prosecution? I don't usually feel at such a loss. I'd be very interested in your comments on this poem, especially on what you think the author intended.

(Read twelve more poems by Jack Gilbert at the plagiarist poetry archive. I particularly like one of them, The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart.)

The Moon

I found this beautiful poem through Malville. It came from this page, which includes the original Spanish text:

The Moon

You can take the moon by the spoonful
or in capsules every two hours.
It's useful as a hypnotic and sedative
and besides it relieves
those who have had too much philosophy.
A piece of moon in your purse
works better than a rabbit's foot.
Helps you find a lover
or get rich without anyone knowing,
and it staves off doctors and clinics.
You can give it to children like candy
when they've not gone to sleep,
and a few drops of moon in the eyes of the old
helps them to die in peace.


Put a new leaf of moon
under your pillow
and you'll see what you want to.
Always carry a little bottle of air of the moon
to keep you from drowning.
Give the key to the moon
to prisoners and the disappointed.
For those who are sentenced to death
and for those who are sentenced to life
there is no better tonic than the moon
in precise and regular doses.


Jaime Sabines

-- Poemas sueltos, 1981
translated by W. S. Merwin

To her friend

Here's a song from In Praise of Krishna: Songs From the Bengali, translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr., and Denise Levertov. The poems in the book are kirtans, hymns of praise, which rose out of a devotional movement in Bengal which flowered from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries.

To her friend

My mind is not on housework.
Now I weep, now I laugh at the world's censure.
He draws me - to become
an outcast, a hermit woman in the woods!
He has bereft me of parents, brothers, sisters,
my good name. His flute
took my heart --
his flute, a thin bamboo trap enclosing me --
a cheap bamboo flute was Radha's ruin.
That hollow, simple stick -- fed nectar by his lips, but issuing
poison...

If you should find a clump of jointed reeds,
pull off their branches!
Tear them up by the roots!
Throw them
into the sea.

Dvija Chandidasa says, Why the bamboo?
Not it but Krishna enthralls you: him you cannot uproot.

Another poem for the Monsoon

From today's Poetry Daily - by Ravi Shankar, from his book Instrumentality:

Return to Mumbai

Bombay no longer, the island
Circumscribed by water exhausts
Herself in rain. For six months,

Her suitors, Vasai, Ulhas, Thane,
Spar, each swelling, vigorously
Surging, empurpling against

The horizon's taut washboard.
She, placid, stares breathless,
Smiles the smile of a schoolgirl

Whose step-father has just left
For London and decidedly opens
To each. Already, her soil soaks.

Already she sings in preparation,
Rust-colored flames smoldering
Compost, plastic tarps flapping,

Held down by planks, stones,
Discarded tires; dirt roads gravid
With rickshaws, vegetable wallahs

Whipping bullocks, Tata trucks
Distended with diesel, yellow
And black taxis like so many drones

Evacuating the hive, bicycles,
Ambassadors, Maruti Suzikis,
Creaking double decker buses

Emblazoned with the latest
Bollywood star, women in fraying
Saris, barefoot men collecting

Alms, children praying, their shape
More rail than real. From an island
Mother, rising water fathers

This mitotic bharathanatyam,
An embryonic dance held
Until the obstetrician's arrival.

(Note)

Poems for the Rainy Season

From Sanskrit Poetry From Vidyakara's Treasury, translated by Daniel H. H. Ingalls:

226
In the paddy field flooded with fresh water
where the frogs begin to croak
and where the prickly cane along the bank is whiter than heaped pearls,
the children, sticks in hands and smeared with mud,
run after the rising fish,
yelling "chubhroo, chubhroo!"

228
A cloth of darkness inlaid with fireflies;
flashes of lightning;
the mighty cloud mass guessed at from the roll of thunder;
a trumpeting of elephants;
an east wind scented by opening buds of ketaki,
and falling rain:
I know not how a man can bear the nights that hold all these,
when separated from his love.

233
The cloud by miring the road has spoiled the red lac of her soles
and with his rain has washed the cosmetic from her cheek;
but for these sins he makes quick recompense:
his lightning shows the wanton girl
the path that leads her to her lover's house.

refrigerator magnet poetry: make your own poem. (It's for kids,so it has lots of animals and play words, but I'm having fun with it anyway.)

Nancy Willard

During April, which is Poetry Month, Knopf Poetry sends out a poem by email every day, from the authors whom they publish. If you’d like to subscribe, send a blank email to sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com. The month is half over, but they’ll remember you next year, too.

A recent poem was by someone whose work I like very much, Nancy Willard: she is one of those who manages to make ordinary things extraordinary.

A Hardware Store As Proof of the Existence of God

I praise the brightness of hammers pointing east
like the steel woodpeckers of the future,
and dozens of hinges opening brass wings,
and six new rakes shyly fanning their toes,
and bins of hooks glittering into bees,

and a rack of wrenches like the long bones of horses,
and mailboxes sowing rows of silver chapels,
and a company of plungers waiting for God
to claim their thin legs in their big shoes
and put them on and walk away laughing.

In a world not perfect but not bad either
let there be glue, glaze, gum, and grabs,
caulk also, and hooks, shackles, cables, and slips,
and signs so spare a child may read them,
Men, Women, In, Out, No Parking, Beware the Dog.

In the right hands, they can work wonders.

A beautiful poem at Savoradin: Valentine's Day Green Poet's Lament

Nammalvar

Here are three poems from A. K. Ramanujan's Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Vishnu by Nammalvar. Nammalvar (approx. AD 880-930) was one of the twelve Alvars, Tamil saint-poets devoted to Vishnu. They wrote the earliest devotional poetry in any Indian language. (I have already posted a couple of poems from this book here.)

Poets,
beware, your life is in danger:

the lord of gardens is a thief,
a cheat,
master of illusions;

he came to me,
a wizard with words,
sneaked into my body,
my breath,

with bystanders looking on
but seeing nothing,
he consumed me
life and limb,

and filled me,
made me over
into himself.

(10.7.1)


My lord
who lives in the city
of names
came here today

said he'd never leave
entered me
filled my heart

I've caught him
the big-bellied one
not content yet
with all that guzzling
on the sevenfold clouds
the seven seas
the seven mountains
and the world that holds them all

I've caught him
I contain him now.

(10.8.2)


Instead of getting his praises
sung by the great poets

he
comes here today,
gently

makes me over into himself
and gets me to sing of him,

my lord of paradise.

(7.9.6)