The Minotaur's Song: Issa's Sunday Service #155

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This week's selection is by a group that defied categorization: folk, pop, rock, psychedelic,world, gypsy, surreal, you name it, the Incredible String Band has probably done it, at least in passing.  There were a number of similar groups, believe it or not: Pearls Before Swine and Tyrannosaurus Rex (Marc Bolan's T-Rex before the glam) come to mind.


The Minotaur's Song

Straight from the shoulder
I think like a soldier
I know what's right and what's wrong
He knows what's right and what's wrong.

I'm the original discriminating buffalo man
And I'll do what's wrong as long as I can
He'll do what's wrong as long as he can

I live in a labyrinth under the sea
Down in the dark as dark as can be
I like the dark as dark as can be
He likes the dark as dark as can be

I'll even attack you or eat you whole
Down in the dark my bone mills roll
Porridge for my porridge bowl
Porridge for his porridge bowl

I'm strong as the earth from which I'm born
He's strong as the earth from which he's born
I can't dream well because of my horns
He can't dream well because of his horns

Moo

I'm strong as the earth from which I'm born
He's strong as the earth from which he's born
I can't dream well because of my horns
He can't dream well because of his horns

A minotaur gets very sore
His features they are such a bore
His habits are predicta-bull
Aggressively relia-bull, bull, bull

I'm strong as the earth from which I'm born
He's strong as the earth from which he's born
I can't dream well because of my horns
He can't dream well because of his horns

I'm the original discriminating buffalo man
And I'll do what's wrong as long as I can
He'll do what's wrong as long as he can



I'm not quite sure why, but listening to this particular number I got to thinking about another tune. So, if you've made it this far, here's your treat:



     

Trying to get back on track, I somehow got it in my head that Ray Harryhausen had created a minotaur and so went searching. He did, in fact, create a Golden Minotaur in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger; said GM can be found doing some yeoman rowing in the following wonderful compilation of Harryhausen creatures:

 

   

The original Minotaur story can be found in Ovid's Metamorphoses. There is the connection between Daedalus and the Minotaur (he and Icarus built the labyrinth) ; unexpectedly, while listening to mp3s on the way to work, Anne Sexton came up, reading her poem that alludes to that connection:


To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph

Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made!
There below are the trees, as awkward as camels;
and here are the shocked starlings pumping past
and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well.
Larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast
of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings!
Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually
he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling
into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea?
See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down
while his sensible daddy goes straight into town.  

~ Anne Sexton 

So the lesson I suppose is that when you write a poem for your friend, a fellow poet, it's a fine thing to allude to her most famous poem in the last line.  

Or maybe not.

It sure is a wonderful life ...


------------------

Art by Kuniyoshi Ishiyakushi

cherry blossoms scatter--
even the devil in me
has lost his horns 

 Issa

 translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

   

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The Other Anne Sexton: It Is A Spring Afternoon

I've spent the summer very slowly reading through the complete poems of Anne Sexton for the 3 Poems By discussion group, which will be meeting this Thursday at my other job. I recently posted about this over at a different blog and, in that post, I talked about one of her lesser known poems, "Young," and how it highlighted an aspect of Sexton that one doesn't often hear about. I continue to slowly read through her work, a poem or two at most per day, because frankly it is all I can absorb.

Last week I ran across this poem, again emphasizing an aspect of Sexton not often discussed:

It Is A Spring Afternoon

Everything here is yellow and green.
Listen to its throat, its earthskin,
the bone dry voices of the peepers
as they throb like advertisements.
The small animals of the woods
are carrying their deathmasks
into a narrow winter cave.
The scarecrow has plucked out
his two eyes like diamonds
and walked into the village.
The general and the postman
have taken off their packs.
This has all happened before
but nothing here is obsolete.
Everything here is possible.

Because of this
perhaps a young girl has laid down
her winter clothes and has casually
placed herself upon a tree limb
that hangs over a pool in the river.
She has been poured out onto the limb,
low above the houses of the fishes
as they swim in and out of her reflection
and up and down the stairs of her legs.
Her body carries clouds all the way home.
She is overlooking her watery face
in the river where blind men
come to bathe at midday.

Because of this
the ground, that winter nightmare,
has cured its sores and burst
with green birds and vitamins.
Because of this
the trees turn in their trenches
and hold up little rain cups
by their slender fingers.
Because of this
a woman stands by her stove
singing and cooking flowers.
Everything here is yellow and green.

Surely spring will allow
a girl without a stitch on
to turn softly in her sunlight
and not be afraid of her bed.
She has already counted seven
blossoms in her green green mirror.
Two rivers combine beneath her.
The face of the child wrinkles
in the water and is gone forever.
The woman is all that can be seen
in her animal loveliness.
Her cherished and obstinate skin
lies deeply under the watery tree.
Everything is altogether possible
and the blind men can also see.

Anne Sexton

I see this poem as a companion piece to "Young," portraying a time in a young woman's life when she is on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. Though both these poems have slightly portentous undercurrents, both also emphasize a youthful promise the idea of which Sexton obviously cherished.

The loss for her of this innocence and for us of Sexton herself is almost too much to bear.



*****************************************************



This week's featured back issue is #164, from July 2008. And the war drags on ...

turned back & got lost.

John Martone

The Numbers of the Dead

which appear in the headlines
to be perfectly round
like the planets

aren't really round.
They only appear that way
when seen from a great distance.

Up close they bulge.
They are gouged, pocked, frigid,
infinitely lonely numbers

divisible only by themselves and one.

Paul Hostovsky

war$pin
war$oil
war$hip
war$ink
war$end
war$aid
war$hit
war$hot
war$how
war$own
war$old
war$pun

LeRoy Gorman

Muddy ditch water,
& dimples beneath
waterspider's feet–

---------tenuous, this life.

Hosho McCreesh

in the footprints
of the warrior...
poppies

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

René Daumal: Memorables

Longhouse Publishers & Booksellers has been putting out some of the finest publications of poetry, particularly in the short form, for many years. Their little accordion booklet series (4¼ x 11, folded 3 times) has always been a source of wonder and great delight for me. One of their latest publications is a new translation by Louise Landes Levi of René Daumal's 1939 work Memorables.

Memorables is, as translated, a prose poem of 18 individual verses of intermittent length. Each of the individual verses stand on their own, yet the entire work is very much a piece, with a powerful cumulative effect. Each verse opens with the injunction to remember:

Remember your first insult ...

Remember the evenings of terror ...

Remember your accomplices and deceits ...

Remember the day when you split open the web ...

Remember the beautiful mirage of concepts ...

Remember you have to pay for everything ...

At first, it can almost seem as though the speaker is gently reminding her/himself to remember certain incidents, certain pivotal moments. As the poem builds, however, it feels to me that the speaker is using direct address and that the tone is not so gentle.

Of course, perhaps, it is both simultaneously.

Sometimes the instances remembered seem literal, at others metaphoric to the point of being surreal. In any case, each seems to a be a piece of a larger whole, resulting in a fragmented yet lyrical of the collective unconscious.

Remember: your mother and your father, and your first lie, the
indiscrete odor of which crawls in your memory.

Remember magics, fish and tenacious dreams - you wanted to
see, you stopped up your two eyes in order to see, without knowing
how to open the other.

Ultimately the poem is the mystery of existence; the details are real, with the aforementioned cumulative effect just beyond understanding, no matter how focused one's awareness. It is a beautiful, at times frightening piece, finely translated and beautifully produced. I suspect each reader will be moved by different particular verses. These two touch something deep within, a remembrance of a shared dream, true for all, just as ephemeral, yet as real as the setting sun, as the rising moon.

Remember that you have to pay for everything, remember your
happiness but when your heart was run over, it was too late to
pay in advance.

But remember that love is of no one, that in your heart of
flesh is no one, that the sun is no one, blush seeing the
swamp in your heart.

In a recent post at the excellent Longhouse Birdhouse blog, here is the booklet in its entirety. They describe the Daumal booklet thus:

Three color foldout booklet of one long poem Memorables translated by Louise Landes Levi tucked into sky blue papers with signed and unsigned wrap around band. Unsigned $8.95 / signed $12.95.

The signature, of course, is that of the translator as Daumal died back in 1944. Why buy the booklet when you can read it in its entirety at the website? Why, indeed. Well, it seems to me the Arnolds know the answer to that question and the answer is the reason they published it electronically. Holding it now in my hands, I know the answer.

Hold it in your own and you will, too.



***************************************


For those who might be interested, I recently posted "Why Anne Sexton Matters" over at the Eleventh Stack blog. I've spent the better part of this summer rereading the complete poems of Anne Sexton for the first time in 20 years and am even more moved, amazed, and saddened than I was first time round.

Finally, here's a selection from an issue so recent it hasn't made it into the Back Issue Archive. Issue #167 was published in March 2009. Enjoy.

#134

I recall myself
As I was in the spring
Of my twentieth year
A peony-pale outside
But crimson inside.

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

this
stream
bed's

my
spine
too

John Martone

Mountain River

In the mountains run
--the hieroglyphics of trout
Read them if you will; they will
--nonetheless draw you down into their water.

Jeffrey Skeate

Chrysanthemums slow
to bloom I find
no joy in autumn.
The west wind heartless
Blowing my gray hair.

Dennis Maloney

the emaciated chrysanthemum
totters
into bloom

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #8

I've been reading the complete works of Anne Sexton for a second time, the first being over 20 years ago. It is every bit as powerful, if not more so, than the last time, but in a different way. I'm not ready to articulate that difference; I haven't put it together yet, so I thought I'd let Peter Gabriel do the talking for me in this 8th segment of Issa's Sunday Service. This week's LitRock song is "Mercy Street" by Peter Gabriel, his paean to Anne Sexton.


While poking around in YouTube I found a video that has Sexton reading the poem "All My Pretty Ones" over the instrumental intro and breaks (and some of the performance near the end) in the Gabriel song. Despite the static "video" presentation, or perhaps because of it, the juxtaposition works and both performances are enhanced.

bird hunter--
even for a fox
no mercy

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

The Deep Dark of Robert Frost

Back at my day job, the 3 Poems by Discussion group will be reading and talking about Robert Frost. The three poems we chose are not those one thinks of first when considering Frost: "Design," "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same," and "Acquainted With the Night." The reason I selected these poems is that they expose a deep, dark strain in Frost which, though often overlooked, is present even in his most famous works.




Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.




These are simply 3 masterful poems by a true poetic genius. All are 14 lines and sonnets to varying degrees and that is the least important thing that could be said about any of them (Frost's famed comment that writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net more than suffices in regard to his approach to form). Though all these have certain elements of the formality of an earlier era, they all, again in varying degrees, replicate the natural patterns and cadences of speech in pacing and rhythm.

Of late, I've been reading Anne Sexton's dazzling The Awful Rowing Toward God and Frost's "Design" fits in perfectly with its themes, if not its execution and conclusion. Though Sexton might be thought of as the ultimate doubter, when it comes to the Ultimate in this poem, Frost has got her beat by a mile in the pessimism department. "What but design of darkness to appall?," indeed.

The white on white on white imagery is brilliant once again in execution, and certainly in irony, when invoking the absence of the Good.

"Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same" is one of the finest love poems ever written in English. If this seems hyperbolic, ask yourself this question: in the big picture, what exactly has Eve in the poem done? I would posit nothing short of changing the world, but that's just me. The poem has quite a few levels of resonance (Eve and garden, anyone), seems to be written in a voice in which the speaker is attempting to convince him/herself, and yet one of the only two declarative statements in the poem says it, qualification and all: "Be that as may be, she was in their song."

In tone, "Acquainted With the Night" seems close to "Design:" one might even speculate that the poet of "Design" is the persona of "Acquainted." "Be that as may be," that person is about as far from the usual folksy, rural farmer image normally conjured when thinking of the protagonists of many of Frost's poems. This persona seems to have wandered onto the streets of some unnamed American city from Baudelaire's Paris, philosophy in tact. Besides the narrator's seeming deep ennui, the lines

I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

strike deeply and with considerable power. Frost, too, seems unwilling to explain and yet the narrative itself more than suffices; perfectly capturing the feeling, the details become unnecessary.

We have all dropped our eyes and looked way at one time or another, so we are as readily acquainted with the unsupplied details as the narrator is the night.


*****************************


Today is Gary Snyder's birthday, so least I let it go by unnoticed, here is a dandy from Gary's Songs for Gaia:

As the crickets' soft autumn hum
------------is to man,
-------so is man, to the trees

-------as are they

-----------to the rocks and the hills.

----------------Gary Snyder

******************************



And, just because things do get a bit too serious sometimes, here are the breakfast cereal follies of one poet laureate, one great 20th century Polish poet, and three astute apprentices:








he knows the meaning
of the breakfast bell...
baby sparrow
Issa
translated by David Lanoue




best,
Don

Anne Sexton on Writer's Almanac

For those unfamiliar with Anne Sexton, whose Selected Poems is on the "Near Perfect" list, there is this, from this morning's Writer's Almanac:

Locked Doors

For the angels who inhabit this town,
although their shape constantly changes,
each night we leave some cold potatoes
and a bowl of milk on the windowsill.
Usually they inhabit heaven where,
by the way, no tears are allowed.

They push the moon around like
a boiled yam.
The Milky Way is their hen
with her many children.
When it is night the cows lie down
but the moon, that big bull,
stands up.

However, there is a locked room up there
with an iron door that can't be opened.
It has all your bad dreams in it
It is hell.
Some say the devil locks the door
from the inside.
Some say the angels lock it from
the outside.
The people inside have no water
and are never allowed to touch.
They crack like macadam.
They are mute
They do not cry help
except inside
where their hearts are covered with grubs.

I would like to unlock that door,
turn the rusty key
and hold each fallen one in my arms
but I cannot, I cannot.
I can only sit here on earth
at my place at the table.

Anne Sexton

This encapsulates so much of her profound work, vacillating between child-like fable and hellish nightmare, all in modern vernacular, this time with a somewhat uncharacteristic wish for redemption.

As powerful as it gets ...


best,
Don

The List: Near Perfect Books of Poems

Cover by Albert Huffstickler

Over the last two weeks, I've been soliciting ideas from readers concerning what they consider to be perfect or near perfect books of poems, offering a free 6 issue subscription to Lilliput Review as enticement (or punishment, depending on your pov). Here is the list so far:


(Please note: this list continues to grow. See webpage listed below for details. The list is now over 170 titles)

The List

Basho And His Interpreters by Makoto Ueda

Silence In The Snowy Fields by Robert Bly

The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan

Thirst by Patrick Carrington

Variations by Bill Deemer

Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac

The Haiku Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by Cor van den Heuvel

Letters to Yesenin by Jim Harrison

book of resurrection by mark hartenbach

The Waiting Room at the End of the World by Jeff Rath

New Poems (1908), the Other Part by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Snow)

Selected Poems by Anne Sexton

The Sonnets (William Shakespeare/1609)

Harmonium (Wallace Stevens/1923)

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

The Prelude - William Wordsworth

The Tower (W.B. Yeats/1928)

Seventeen books of poems in all, covering the gamut ranging from classical to small press. I have to admit this is a sort of cheap way to bump up my own personal reading list and I'm hoping that other folks find a title or two here that they might be interested in taking a gander at. Thanks to everyone that participated; a number of free subscriptions went out, so some sort of balance has been established.

Because, however, I can't get enough, here's what I've decided to do. I am going to continue to solicit titles for the list as new folks pass through or come on board. Since I don't want to take up anymore time shilling for titles on the blog, I've created a webpage with the list at the Lilliput Review homepage. As an incentive to contribute, I'm going to offer the two current issues (or two issues added to subscriptions for current subscribers) of Lilliput free on an ongoing basis. People interested in Lillie who go to the homepage looking for a sample or info will see they can get free copies for their thoughts. I'll set some arbitrary end point for the list (25 titles, 50, 100?) and call it quits when that point is reached. To me, it's a win/win/win situation; the reading list grows, people get free issues, Lillie gets out there to more folks.

So, spread the word. Send titles along anytime. I'll put a link on the sidebar of the blog to the new webpage for ease of access.

In other news, I've received a chapbook by Michael Kriesel, Feeding My Heart to the Wind: Selected Short Poems 1999-2005, from sunnyoutside press. Michael has published some excellent work in Lillie over the years and I was delighted to see this collection. Here is a poem from Lilliput #152 that is reprinted in this fine collection of short work:

Rented Room

Fall window sill
the beer's cool

watching a maple
I start to pay attention

to the light
the way trees do

And here's a second beauty:

Landing Road


Old pine trees
line the road

so many tongues
for the wind

Get a hold of a copy of this; you won't be disappointed.

Lots more things out there to discuss, but time flys by when your making new webpages and coming up with goofy ideas. So it's on to the archive for a peek at Lilliput #91, September 1997. For those keeping score, #92 is a broadside by small press impresario ave jeanne, entitled Old Man Sez Young Man. It is available for a buck, as are all previous broadsides and back issues. Here are a couple from #91:

"Precious"

Nothing precious is not concealed at the start.

Robert P. Vierling

Haiku #17

Heart beating so fast
and under my fingernails
acorns and oak trees.

Bill DiMichele

Wondering

how is it done,
the vanishing,
to step behind an atom
the oak crown still roaring

Georgette Perry

And you too shall
pass, the autumn
tells me, shaking
its leaves
in my face.

Albert Huffstickler

Till next time,

Don

Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, and Five Poets with Staying Power

Cover by Oberc

As noted on today's Writer's Almanac, it is the poet Gary Snyder's birthday (in addition, don't miss Patrick Phillips's sad and beautiful poem "Matinee" on today's WA posting). Recent winner of the 2008 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, Snyder, along with poet, novelist and activist Wendell Berry, is one of our finest living writers; both celebrate and advocate for the earth from which we come and to which we return. As Alan Watts used to say, we are not born "into" the world, we are born "out" of it.

Rus Bowden's Poetic Ticker pointed me to the following Gary Snyder video on YouTube. I'm linking directly to part 1 for convenience. Click here for parts 2 through 4.






As part of the reorganization of the sidebar (look right) on this site, I've put together a group of links to the work of Issa, patron of all things small. Lots of interest may be found there.

There are two other notes before getting to this week's selection from the Lilliput archive. The Washington Post recently had a posting on their "Short Stack" blog entitled "Five Poets With Staying Power." There are at least two on the list I agree with. The comments that follow the posting are even more interesting than the choices. Any thoughts on your 5 poets with staying power (I'll take Whitman, Dickinson, Sexton, Shakespeare, and cummings - Frost would be 6th)? And, for those who might have missed it here, my review of Mary Oliver's new book, "Red Bird," has been posted at the library blog "Eleventh Stack."

This week's issue of Lilliput is #93, from December 1997. Here are three tiny highlights:



Before the wake ...
the eldest daughter helps
with her mother's make-up.

Patrick Sweeney

at the zoo
not a single
human face

George Ralph

ancient headstones
the names and numbers
worn to mutters

William Hart

And one to lighten the day:



Another Contributor's Notes
"I learned at the Iowa
Writers' Workshop that if you don't
jiggle the toilet's knob two or three
times, it won't ever stop flushing."

Wayne Hogan

Today is the last day for the free 6 issue gift subscription offer to Lilliput Review. Details at the link.


best,
Don

National Poetry Month and the Nature of Argument

As part of the celebration known as National Poetry Month, I think it's time to let the poems speak for themselves. So here are a few of my favorite poets, in no particular order. Reading a poem or two by each of them should help combat the persistent rumor that poetry is dead. Or will it? Of course, not many people know who Bruce Wexler is, but if Martin Amis says it's dead, who can argue? Or, really, who would want to?

William Wordsworth

Louise Glück

Issa

Mary Oliver

Gerald Stern

Amy Lowell

Allen Ginsberg

Audre Lorde

e.e. cummings

Langston Hughes

Sharon Olds

Yehuda Amichai

Emily Dickinson

Walt Whitman

Han-shan

James Wright

Charles Baudelaire - in sidebar

Li Po

Anne Sexton

D. H. Lawrence

Franz Wright

Cover by Bob Zark

Since starting a Lilliput blog back in July 2007, samples of most issues from #100 through #150 have been posted, with the exception of some broadside issues it would be a disservice to excerpt. Beginning with this posting, we're going to step into the way back machine and begin posting poems from #99 (October 1998) down. Here's a couple of tiny gems from #99:




I'm getting old now
I think I'll marry
the rain
and settle down

Albert Huffstickler

poetry
the flowering morning
broken away.

John J. McDonald

An Imitation of Hsü Kan (171-218 A.D.)
4.
Since you, sir, went away,
my tiny trellis shakes with grief.
Red Chinese poppies you planted last fall
grow like tears --- immeasurable.

Linda Joan Zeiser

Before the ride ends she wants to go again

Patrick Sweeney

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the one line poem? Till next week,

Don