Recently, in my day job, the poetry group I moderate had a session on the mystic poet Rumi. It was the second best attended meeting, after our session on haiku. I read lots of Rumi in preparation since, though I appreciated what I'd come across of his work randomly, I hadn't delved deeply. I learned a lot, including the controversy over the 'Americanization,' or New Age approach, to translating his works, which de-emphasizes certain specific religious aspects for a more general spiritual approach. While doing some background work, I ran across the following intriguing brief poem, or quatrain:
O my God, what irony it is That we are at the bottom of hell, And yet are afraid of of immortality.
Rumi translated by Nevit Oguz Ergin
Which immediately called to mind this:
In this world we walk on the roof of hell, gazing at flowers.
Issa translated by Robert Hass
Could it be that, at the core of both these poems, from markedly different cultures, there is a single message?
Could they be about our lack of attention to what is, both invisible and visible?
Of course even between two brief poems, there may be much that is dissimilar. Still, what is more important: the common ground or the disparities?
In just under two weeks, I will be conducting a poetry appreciation class, entitled "How to Read a Poem (& Why)" (not a very original title, but to the point, and a tad better than last year's "Poetry: Mystery and Magic") for a local lifelong learning program. This will be followed a week after with the first meeting of a new poetry discussion group at the library, called "3 Poems By..., which will focus on 3 representative poems by one particular poet, this time round Emily Dickinson. And a week after that, I'll be speaking to a class at the library and information service school on topics a tad arcane for general interest.
After that, my calendar is relatively free for the next 49 or so weeks.
I've mentioned the poetry appreciation class in passing previously and a number of folks asked me to elaborate, so here goes. The class consists of a general introductory "lecture" wherein I prat on for 40 or so minutes about essentially what poetry means to me and why it is important in people's lives, even folks who only encounter it a handful of times in their lives. Two basic texts that I found very helpful in preparing are both entitled "How to Read a Poem", one by Molly Peacock and the other by Edward Hirsch. They help a great deal with the how part of the program and Peacock is also very strong with the why. I use a few poems to illustrate some points in the introduction and open the lecture with James Wright's The Jewel. This year I'm going to try and tuck in some Issa haikus based on Robert Hass's reading and may also use Billy Collins's poem Introduction to Poetry to illustrate how not to read a poem. I heavily stress that poetry is not about answers, it's about questions, usually the big ones, to which there are no pat answers, hence the frequent refrain "oh, poetry, yeah, it's great, but I just don't get it." The great poems are a constant rephrasing of the big questions. As the great haiku critic, R. H. Blyth, said: "Poetry is never in the answers but in the questions - or rather between question and answer, between the known and unknown." I try to reassure everyone by hammering this home a number of ways and then follow with a single sheet handout of tips on how to read a poem.
Then we'll just plunge into the poetry.
I've prepared 10 or 11 poems for discussion and base what I do on the tried and true method of book discussion groups: I prepare between 5 to 10 open-ended questions based on each individual poem and use some of these to get the discussion going. Once the ice is broken, I simply guide the discussion of each work to help elucidate and provide clarity.
Since this is my second year doing this program and there is a slim possibility that there might be one or two folks in the class that where in it last year, I'm thinking, based on Elvis Costello's tour of a few years back (the one when he brought out a spinning wheel with 70 or so songs from his catalog and spun it on stage to create the evening's set), I may let the class choose which poems to do. Previously, I had a prepared order because I chose some poems with shared themes and imagery (in Auden's case borrowed imagery, in the kindest sense of the word). I'll have to see how that goes. I also have some video and audio to break up the monotony of me and that seems to go over well with the older crowd.
Some of these poems have subtle relationships (the first two), others more direct (the next 3, plus the last of that group of three and the next poem), the next two subtle again (with the Kenyon harking back to the 2nd group) and finally two unrelated individual poems. If past experience is any measure, we'll get through 4 or 5 poems. If I was to do them in order, and I still may, this would probably be the order I would do them in. I have video for the Frost (Voices and Visions), Donal Og (in John Huston's excellent film adaptation of James Joyce's story The Dead), and the Auden (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and audio for the Bishop. There is audio available for some of the others but it just doesn't have the "sparkle" that video brings; the Bishop I love, however, since she laughs at her own poem while reading it.
Here is the recitation of Donal Og from The Dead, to give you a taste:
"September 3 (The William Carlos Williams Mistake" I had severe insomnia last night with the past, the present, and the future detailing ----themselves like: Oh, the shit we run through our minds! Then I remembered it was Dr. William Carlos Williams' birthday and that made me feel better -----until almost dawn.
---------Note:
---------September 3rd is not ---------Dr. William Carlos Williams ---------birthday. It is the birthday ---------of a girlfriend. ---------Dr. William Carlos Williams ---------was born on September 17th, 1883.
- Hmn, it's amazing how this man's mind worked and how he found poetry in the most minute things.
I'm happy to report that I've received over 100 haiku for the Basho Haiku Challenge. The great response has sparked still more manic ideas on my part, so keep the haiku coming and pass the word on to friends. More about the manic ideas later.
This week's smash from the past is Lilliput Review #77, from March 1996. Hope something grabs you here.
Zen American Style If you don't want to hear anymore talk about the void
then say hello to the trojan horse
Mark Hartenbach
Landlocked You can't drive the seagulls away by pointing toward the horizon
Tom Riley
insatiability rewinds old sorrow and records lust over it
Sheila E. Murphy
frompoems for Leecia written when she was little -----------------If in sleep -----------------beside you -----------------I should -----------------murmur -----------------"Shiva" -- -----------------will you answer -----------------with just "Mama -- -----------------go to sleep now?"
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