Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Issa's Sunday Service, #168

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Until just a few days ago, I was unaware of this recording by Joni Mitchell of William Butler Yeats' monumental modern poem, "The Second Coming." And, now that I am, I'm not really sure what to think. 

Ms. Mitchell is well known for a wide strain of crankiness - ask those who have attended her concerts (she walked off at Live Aid in Giant Stadium in 1986 to the bemusement of myself and 55,000 other attendees), ask Bob Dylan, ask record executives, ask the Woodstock Generation, ask Madonna (and Grace Slick and the estate of Janis Joplin) ... well, you get the idea.

Still an artist is an artist and, though I'm not real sure that this recording is anything if not her opinion of where we are now (ok, W.B.'s opinion, too, of where we were then), it is arguably one which happens to be at least in part true (as with some of the above - eh, Woodstock generation?). 

What is beyond doubt is she has given us some of the truly great music over the last handful of decades. Here is a 30 minute concert from 1970 which shows the range of her talent early in her career: 

   

In closing, I suppose it might simply be best to let Mr. Yeats speak for himself, and all of us, in what is, if not the greatest, one of the greatest poems of the 20th century:


The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out 
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert 
A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. 
The darkness drops again; but now I know 
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

--------------- 

well, well
coming home in the rain...
god of the poor *

                                                     Issa

                                                     translated by David Lanoue

* Note by David Lanoue: Issa, who was poor, fancies that the "poverty god" (bimbô-gami) was his special tutelary deity. Like the poet, this god can't seem to catch a break. According to Shinto belief, in Tenth Month all of Japan's gods vacate their shrines to congregate at the Izumo-Taisha Shrine. The god of the poor trudges home in the rain.

 Bimbō-Gami - God of Poverty

best,

Don

 

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Power and Glory: Issa's Sunday Service, #134

Painting by Peter Paul Rubens

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There is a lot in this beautiful, intimate little song by Lou Reed, who is making a fourth appearance on the Sunday Service. The reference to Leda and the Swan is what lands the song on the list, though there are other nods to literature, too, including the title itself.

Power And Glory

I was visited by The Power and The Glory
I was visited by a majestic hymn
Great bolts of lightning
lighting up the sky
Electricity flowing through my veins
I was captured by a larger moment
I was seized by divinity's hot breath
Gorged like a lion on experience
Powerful from life
I wanted all of it--
Not some of it
I saw a man turn into a bird
I saw a man turn into a tiger
I saw a man hang from a cliff by the tips of his toes
in the jungles of the Amazon
I saw a man put a red hot needle through his eye
turn into a crow and fly through the trees
swallow hot coals and breathe out flames
and I wanted this to happen to me
We saw the moon vanish into his pocket
We saw the stars disappear from sight
We saw him walk across water into the sun
while bathed in eternal light
We spewed out questions waiting for answers
creating legends, religions and myths
Books, stories, movies and plays
all trying to explain this
I saw a great man turn into a little child
The cancer reduce him to dust
His voice growing weaker as he fought for his life
with a bravery few men know
I saw isotopes introduced into his lungs
trying to stop the cancerous spread
And it made me think of Leda and The Swan
and gold being made from lead
The same power that burned Hiroshima
causing three legged babies and death
Shrunk to the size of a nickel
to help him regain his breath
And I was struck by The Power and The Glory
I was visited by a majestic Him
Great bolts of lightening lighting up the sky
as the radiation flowed through him
He wanted all of it
Not some of it


Leda and the Swan

    A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
    Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
    By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
    He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
    How can those terrified vague fingers push
    The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
    And how can body, laid in that white rush,
    But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

    A shudder in the loins engenders there
    The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
    And Agamemnon dead.
                                          Being so caught up,
    So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
    Did she put on his knowledge with his power
    Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

W. B. Yeats

Here is Mr. Hughes with a spirited reading of what he, perhaps, admired most in nature, or man, or both.

Or neither.

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

Photo by Yashi Wong

in the lightning
how he laughs...
Buddha!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

With this post, the regular Sunday Service is back. In fact, there will be a little more activity around here once again after a bit of a working hiatus. Perhaps more on that at a future date.

We'll just have to see. Meanwhile, Bix Beiderbecke beckons.




best,
Don 

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Song of Wandering Aengus: Issa's Sunday Service, No. 122

Today's selection of a W. B. Yeats poem performed by Donovan was a suggestion from a Facebook friend that I couldn't resist, particularly while still in mourning over the passing of Bert Jansch.


The Song of Wandering Aengus

Went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

William Butler Yeats

There are have been any number of great renderings of this W. B. Yeats poem.  Two follow, the first a delightful animation to a recitation of the poem and the second a great rendition by the Dutch band Fling, who specialize in Irish music.











I can't shake the Bert Jansch blues, so here is Donovan's song, "Bert's Blues," for his old friend, from way back in 1966.  R.I.P., Mr. Jansch:

Finally, a set of 6 tunes by Bert: "Blues," "October Song," "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Gypsy Dave," "Nobody's Bar," and "Rosemary Lane."





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



Had a couple of guesses, via email and Facebook, of what poem it might be that the artwork I posted was based on but nobody got it.  I guess that it will have to remain a mystery for all except the artist and myself.

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


This week's poem comes from the Lilliput Review archive comes from  #66, a broadside of the work of Albert Huffstickler.  Enjoy.




Please No Applause Till After the Performance is Over

He walks to the corner,
stops,
turns back, walks
halfway down the block,
stops,
gathers himself together,
turns decisively,
and marches back
to the corner.
He's been doing this
for an hour.
He's rehearsing something,
God knows what.
He may not know himself anymore.
There was something
he was going to do
and never did.
Now he's rehearsing
getting back on track.
Don't mock him.
If you've
never been there,
you don' know how he feels.
If you have
and aren't now,
be grateful

            Albert Huffsticker

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

autumn wind--
walking along the valley's cliff
my shadow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Yeats's Grave: Issa's Sunday Service, #95

This week's selection for Issa's Sunday Service is "Yeats's Grave" by The Cranberries.  I'm not sure where I ran across this one but it is a fine example of LitRock.

The lyrics quote directly from a Yeats's poem and, as such, are actually worth a look see:


Yeats's Grave

Silenced by death in the grave
W B Yeats couldn't save
Why did you stand here
Were you sickened in time
But I know by now
Why did you sit here?
In the grave

Why should I blame her,
that she filled my days
With misery or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways
Or hurled the little streets upon the grave
Had they but courage
Equal to desire

Sad that Maud Gonne couldn't stay
But she had Mac Bride anyway
And you sit here with me
on the isle Inistree

And you are writing down everything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here
In the grave...

Why should I blame her
Had they but courage equal to desire

The second verse of "Yeats's Grave" is a quotation from "No Second Troy," which follows:

No Second Troy

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

William Butler Yeats

The poem deals with his former lover, Maud Gonne, an actress and Irish revolutionary.  Yeats takes issue with Gonne's revolutionary ways, comparing her classic beauty by implication to Helen of Troy, whom the Trojan War was supposedly fought over.   The last line, the last of a series of questions in the poem, asks "Was there another Troy for her to burn? and the title, "No Second Troy," supplies the answer.   Background info for the poem may be found here and here ...

When folks think of Yeats,  this rendition of "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" by Shane McGowan and the Cafe Orchestra sometimes comes to mind, especially for the musically inclined:






For no particular reason at all having to do with Yeats, here is a stunning version of Dominic Behan's "The Auld Triangle" (written for his brother, Brendan) by Luke Kelly and a couple of his Dubliner band mates:





Finally, to get back to Mr. Yeats, here's himself, reading his work:





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

This week's poem gives the dirt a little turn to see what it is we are about in the northern temperate climate these days.  Originally published in Lilliput Review #103, back in another century (April 1999), it has the lasting power of, well, a world.  Enjoy.

Think Of

silkweed and larch
milkweed
silkwood

honey and thyme

sweetgum

snow

and feel
the world
crack open

Jeanne Shannon

the cure for
this raucous world...
late cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Jungleland: Issa's Sunday Service, #66

Asbury Park

Outside the streets on fire in a real death waltz

Between what's flesh and what's fantasy 

  and the poets down here 

Don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be.

And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment

And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded,

  not even dead,

Tonight in Jungleland.

Something of an epic, part of which was used as an epigraph for Stephen King's monumental post-apocalyptic novel, The Stand (the title of which comes from a line above), in its final verses Bruce Springsteen's Jungleland almost seems to transcend the medium itself.  Something I never noticed before is the tip o' the hat to F. Scott Fitzgerald with a line in the previous verse

Beneath the city two hearts beat,
Soul engines running through a night so tender

Anytime a night is described as tender, the lyrical Fitzgerald is recalled. Without getting too carried away, the debt to Dylan is fairly obvious.  What might be less obvious is what I perceive as a Yeats feel.  Maybe it's just me; still, the naming of the characters in this narrative certainly recalls Yeats's Crazy Jane, who was directly referenced in Springsteen's earlier minor epic, Spirit in the Night.  

Then there are these lines from Jungleland:

Man there's an opera out on the turnpike,
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley

For this edition of the Sunday Service, I'll leave it with this great live performance of Jungleland from a 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show.

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

Featured from the archive this week is a poem I believe may have appeared on Facebook and the Twitter feed but not here.  A monostitch in 7 mere words, it opens up worlds:

     childhood:        train track leading into the forest

        M. Kettner

completing
the green mountain
a pheasant cries

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


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PPS Don't miss a transcendent performance by Skip James over at Miss Late July.  I'm thinking Nick Cave should cover this one. 

Yeats and Arnold: Some Short Poems and A De-mused Reader

While last week was very busy with teaching, readings, and judging contests (two), I managed to tuck in my satchel a tiny volume of poems by Yeats I picked up somewhere. It was published in Glasgow, so I don't know whether I got it in the UK or stumbled on it in a used bookstore stateside. I have a number of these tiny little books; I throw in my sack for times like these. Light in weight, they pack a wallop. Imagine my surprise in discovering, between "Leda and the Swan" and "Coole Park," the following:

The Nineteenth Century And After

Though the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.

Three Movements

Shakespearean fish swam the sea, far away from land;
Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand;
Where are all those fish that lie gasping on the strand?

Both of these poems were composed in 1933 and follow each other immediately in this little anthology. There seemed to be much more to them and, though frankly the imagery is rich enough for a fine, small meal all its own, I poked about and discovered a couple of things.

Originally, both poems appeared in the 1933 volume The Winding Stair and Other Poems, separated in their presentation by one other poem, "Statistics."

Statistics

‘Those Platonists are a curse,’ he said,
‘God’s fire upon the wane,
A diagram hung there instead,
More women born than men.’

Now here is a hard little nut that needs some cracking; we'll see about that later.

In further investigation, I learned that the primary image (and this overt, secondary allusion) in "The Nineteenth Century and After," which Yeats riffs off in "Three Movements," comes from the classic we've all encountered time and again, the era-encapsulating "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold:

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

So, era-encapsulating, are we? The waters are, literally and figuratively, quite deep here and I'm no scholar, just an innocent reader with a little volume of Yeats in his bag. A fourth short poem to add to the mix, "Spilt Milk," also appeared in the Winding Stair collection:

Spilt Milk

We that have done and thought,
That have thought and done,
Must ramble, and thin out
Like milk spilt on a stone.

Now, in my amateur rambling about, I've confused things even further by presenting these poems out of order, as I had discovered them myself, thereby creating a fine muddle, indeed. The original order in The Winding Stair was "Spilt Milk," "The Nineteenth Century and After," "Statistics," and "Three Movements."

And so, to get it completely bass-ackwards, here is the poem that proceeds them all, entitled "Symbols:"

Symbols

A storm-beaten old watch-tower,
A blind hermit rings the hour.

All-destroying sword-blade still
Carried by the wandering fool.

Gold-sewn silk on the sword-blade,
Beauty and fool together laid.

Evidently something of a key to the whole sequence, I'll not touch any of it with the longest available bargeman's pole. We have found ourselves, in fact, washed up in the land of modernist symbolism and I've discovered I can't swim very well and neither am I possessed of a grating roar or even the poet's belittling rattle.

It seems I should be more careful about which teeny book of poems I slip into my bag for a few minutes respite. Suffice it to say there is much allusiveness (and elusiveness) here, political (Whiggery, anyone?), lyrical, symbolic, and historical. I'm sure there is more to this all that I've forgotten or plain don't know. Where is the Derrida encyclopedia when I need it?

Oh, that's right, I don't own one. Or, in fact, that there is one at all.

So, it would seem, I've chased myself back, tail nipped off a bit at the nether reaches, to the land of the plain and apparent. Wait, now: really, there is nothing apparent about haiku.

Is there?

in the beach breeze
my travels forgotten...
evening cool

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS That hard little nut? I chipped a tooth.

Stolen Child: Issa's Sunday Service, #33

Monday the 14th of December is the birthday of Mike Scott of The Waterboys. From perhaps their finest album, certainly my favorite and their most successful commercially, Fisherman's Blues, comes their rendition of W. B. Yeats's haunting, dark fairy story, "The Stolen Child," which is this week's Litrock selection for Issa's Sunday Service. Here's the original poem by Yeats:

The Stolen Child

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
---than you can understand

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
---than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
---than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
---than he can understand.

Scott adds the refrain from Yeats's poem at the opening and so its serves as the chorus for the song. Very nicely done, indeed. This is the first appearance for both The Waterboys and Yeats on the LitRock list, but I have a feeling it won't be the last.

The Waterboys have put together and will be performing an all-Yeats show in March 2010 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The 5 shows have almost completely sold out. No doubt this will be something of an historical event; one can only hope that a recording will be made, either live or in the studio afterward.



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


This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #52, from December 1993. Here's a number from Pittsburgh's finest purveyor of the short poem, Bart Solarczyk. Enjoy.

Words (for Keith Richards)

Most things come & go.
Some things last forever.
We are all forgiven.
None of us is saved.

Bart Solarczyk

And the master:

have you come
to save us haiku poets?
red dragonfly

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

William Butler Yeats

As mentioned this morning on The Writer's Almanac, today is the birthday of William Butler Yeats. They have three excellent short poems by Yeats at the site. In addition to those, I'd like to add this one:


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

The Coming of Wisdom with Time

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

William Butler Yeats

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

In addition, here is an audio of Yeats reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

best,

Don



Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have your current subscription extended two issues), just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books page.

The Near Perfect Book of Poems

In a past post, I talked about the fact that most collections of poetry contain about 3 to 5 good poems; anything over that I consider to be a good book of poems, a success if you will. It is so rare that an entire book of poetry, poem by poem, is engaging, with perhaps the exception of a selected poems (and even then ...).

Here's a comment on that thought:

I was quite intrigued with your idea of the poetry book that a particular reader might find nearly perfect from beginning to end. Readers choices would certainly be subjective and very interesting! I've thought of four. They were published in 1609, 1923, 1928 and 1962.

Regards,

Jeffery

I, too, was intrigued and was also curious as to what were Jeffrey's 4 choices; for that matter, I, too, am curious if anyone else has any thoughts about what they consider to be a perfect or near perfect book of poems. So, my reply:

I think you have a great idea about asking for readers' choices of poetry books that are consistently good throughout. Maybe I'll see if folks would be interested in sharing which books they feel are nearly perfect in a future post.

Since you obviously have 4 in mind, would you like to begin by sharing which ones they are?

best,
Don

Here are Jeffrey's 4 volumes of near perfect poems:

1. The Sonnets (William Shakespeare/1609)
2. Harmonium (Wallace Stevens/1923)
3. The Tower (W.B. Yeats/1928)
4. Silence In The Snowy Fields (Robert Bly/1962)


Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Is there one (or more) book(s) of poems you think is near perfect, including selected poems? Small press, big press, classic, contemporary, and everything in between, it doesn't matter - it just needs to fit the bill.

Honestly, I'm not sure if there are any that I can think of myself offhand that fit the definition, so obviously I need to go back and think this through a bit more thoroughly. I can think of a lot of my favorite books of poetry but I'm not sure they would make the cut. If you are so inclined, send responses (including if you think there is no such thing) via the comment link and I'll post them as I get them.

To add some incentive to all this expended brain power, for the next week anyone responding to this question will receive a 6 issue gift subscription to Lilliput Review. If you are already a subscriber, I'll extend your current subscription by 6 issues.

Deadline: May 6th.



Till tomorrow,
Don

PS If you are completely stumped, how about sending along the name of your favorite (if imperfect) book of poems? If you do before the deadline, the subscription offer applies. Please do however let me know if it's just a fav or if it really is near perfect. I'll continue to encourage people to send in their thoughts after the deadline; just no gift subscriptions after the 6th.