David's comments
(member since Jul 22, 2008)
David's comments from the Constant Reader group.
(showing 1-20 of 47)
This paraphrase (not really a translation) of Rihaku/Li Po by Pound is one of my favorites:While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.
My daughter, ever-ambitious, plans to participate in National Novel Writing Month.
Reminds me of Kerouac, of whom it was said, "He doesn't write; he types." Everyone does that nowadays. Still, a good experience for an 18-yr-old, whatever the outcome.
Anyone else playing?
That's true, Mary Ellen, although there have always been "fools for Christ," too.In Ferlinghetti there is the picaresque element, which is very strong.
No one who reads the Desert Fathers, or the The Philokalia The Complete Text, is likely to think voluntary poverty and all that goes with it, is a lark or in itself a problem-solver.
But still, it's a recurrent fantasy that has some truth in it:
Salutation
O generation of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.
"Junkman's Obbligato" to some extent romanticizes poverty, but in both the western and eastern traditions, voluntary poverty has been seen as a road to a kind of freedom. Consider the cynics, Christian and Buddhist monastics. There is also a picaresque sensibility very much present in "Junkman," going back to the Lazarillo de Tormes and beyond to Apuleius's Golden Ass, for example.
Certainly the notion of the enslaving quality of possessions is not a new one.
I like Ferlinghetti because he's madcap rather than mad, cheerfully anarchistic rather than demoniac. Witty:
"helicopters from Helios
flew over us
dropping free railway tickets
from Lost Angeles to heaven
promising free elections
* * * *
shortly after reaching
the strange suburban shores
of that great American demi-democracy
looked at each other
with a mild surprise
silent upon a peak
in Darien"
One of my faves. I like the dog poem, too:The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees
are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
and the things he smells
smell something like himself
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddles and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn't hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit's Tower
and past Congressman Doyle of the Unamerican Committee
He's afraid of Coit's Tower
but he's not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog's life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master's Voice
and looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramophone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything
The Mantle of the Prophet, by Roy Mottahedeh. I once wrote the author to tell him what a great book he had written about Shi'ism in Iran.
Mad cow, kuru. Dangerous to eat a brain if you don't know where it's been!
If penguin behavior refutes the notion that homosexual behavior is against nature, then women should bite the heads of their men off after sex, and eat them, as the praying mantis female does.
Chicken Little, Henny-Penny, Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance Reflections on Raising Chickens.
Interesting, Candy. I will clue Kiddo into these thoughts. (Kiddo is 17 1/2 and values her privacy; hence the nickname.)Perhaps America is a Mme. Bovary--bored with our provincialism, we have sought meaning in things, placing our finances and our souls in jeopardy. Just a thught.
I took two years of college French 48 years ago, but I read it from time to time. I was able to get fed in French Polynesia.
Thanks. Ruth, you are an ever-flowing well (bottomless pit?) of useful and amusing information.
Kiddo is reading Madame Bovary in translation for AP Lit. I borrowed a student edition in French from the library. Flaubert is considered the consummate stylist, and I wondered why.
His French is quite elegant, though not stuffy. I'm not Francophone enough to really tell, but it seems--elegant prose about prosaic people.
Any thoughts about Flaubert (or his parrot: Flaubert's Parrot)?
Amazing technology.A bit Nuremburgy to me, the whole thing.
Where's his halo?
Well, if he's a Calvinist, he must believe his sensuality is predestined.
I love it.
You're more published than Emily Dickinson.Think on't.
Report:The WaPo is giving up its book review section. Publishers spend their ad dollars with Barnes & Noble and Borders, subsidizing the promotion of their books.
It's too early to predict the demise of the book, but the times they are a-changin'.
Thoughts?
