Thank you, Michael, for choosing the Tuesday poem. I’ve been trying to post some good poetry every Tuesday, and Michael has directed our attention to something interesting by e.e. cummings. It’s a bit offensive.

i sing of Olaf glad and big

whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig

westpointer most succinctly bred)

took erring Olaf soon in hand;

but–though an host of overjoyed

noncoms(first knocking on the head

him)do through icy waters roll

that helplessness which others stroke

with brushes recently employed

anent this muddy toiletbowl,

while kindred intellects evoke

allegiance per blunt instruments–

Olaf(being to all intents

a corpse and wanting any rag

upon what God unto him gave)

responds,without getting annoyed

“I will not kiss your [f-ing] flag”

straightway the silver bird looked grave

(departing hurriedly to shave) . . .

Read the rest here (It gets gross.)

I’m amazed at how many people seem to think that refusing to fight another a military power, that taking war off the table completely, is the best way for a nation’s government to conduct itself. Are these not some of the same people who riot over perceived injustice? I assume they want to maintain their comfort at all understood costs. They say each of us can live comfortably in our own homes, living as we wish, never believing the marauders wish to live comfortably in someone else’s home.

It was Darwin’s birthday this week, and I should have thought to post this on the day. Not to worry. Here’s a wee bit edification for you from C.S. Lewis. (No, he isn’t talked about the Tax-the-Future bill on the verge of becoming law when he says, “Lead us nobody knows where,” though it would apply.)

Lead us, Evolution, lead us

Up the future’s endless stair;

Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.

For stagnation is despair:

Groping, guessing, yet progressing,

Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,

In the present what are they

while there’s always jam-tomorrow,

While we tread the onward way?

Never knowing where we’re going,

We can never go astray. Continue reading Lead us, Evolution, Nobody Knows Where →

Some candle clear burns somewhere I come by.

I muse at how its being puts blissful back

With yellowy moisture mild night’s blear-all black,

Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye.

By that window what task what fingers ply,

I plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack

Of answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack

There God to aggrándise, God to glorify.–

Come you indoors, come home; your fading fire

Mend first and vital candle in close heart’s vault:

You there are master, do your own desire;

What hinders? Are you beam-blind, yet to a fault

In a neighbour deft-handed? Are you that liar

And, cast by conscience out, spendsavour salt?

“The Candle Indoors” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

On the way out, I gripped his arm, squeezed, let go.

He was talking to another black suit

—we were all black suits for the funeral—

and his bicep shifted in my grip,

lax. (Had he been ill?) We smiled, nodded.

That was all, and, for old friends,

sufficient. Outside the inn, peonies, those

great nodding heads, unstable bobbers, climbed

the wall and spilt onto the roof, storming the inn.



Continue reading

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold

How the voluminous billows roll and run,

Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun

Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,

And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold

All its loose-flowing garments into one,

Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun

Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.

So in majestic cadence rise and fall

The mighty undulations of thy song,

O sightless bard, England’s Maeonides!

And ever and anon, high over all

Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,

Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.

(BTW, Maeonides is a reference or name for Homer, who is thought to have been blind, so here Longfellow is naming John Milton an English bard like Homer.)

“Something artists ought to celebrate . . .”

Frank links to one review saying Alexander’s inaugural poem was “history’s worst inaugural poem” and to another review saying, “It is what one expects from an earnest junior-high-school student with little gift for language, or from a professor at Yale.”

That second post quotes poet Geoffrey Hill, saying society has no use for poets. “The great poet has no social function. The mediocre, yes, he finds himself delivering fashionable platitudes to the public. The true poet is completely isolated.”

THE SHADES of night were falling fast,

As through an Alpine village passed

A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice,

A banner with the strange device,

Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,

Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,

And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,

Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light

Of household fires gleam warm and bright;

Above, the spectral glaciers shone,

And from his lips escaped a groan,

Excelsior!

“Try not the Pass!” the old man said;

“Dark lowers the tempest overhead,

The roaring torrent is deep and wide!”

And loud that clarion voice replied,

Excelsior!

Continue reading one of Longfellow’s many great American poems.

Elizabeth Alexander’s poem today was a bit difficult for me, in part because I didn’t hear it all, but I wonder if I just need more in a poem than a praise song for the day. Here’s how it ends:

“In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.”

Did you hear the poem read? What did you think of it then or now when you read it?

Update: Many reviewers apparently didn’t like the poem either. David Ulin calls it “prosaic.” But her poetry books are selling well. (via ArtsJournal)