Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
JUST FOR FUN
>
Read Me a Poem Sing Me a Song
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"Among the pleasures of poetry is the sheer physical, sensual, textural, tactile pleasure of feeling the words on your lips, tongue, teeth and vocal chords."
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"Among the pleasures of poetry is the sheer physical, sensual, textural, tact..."
I like that!
This morning I discovered a website called the Advocate that had asked all the Lambda nominated poets to choose a poem or extract to share. So many good poems but this is the one I kept going back to From Metaphysical Dog by Frank Bidart
Queer
Lie to yourself about this and you will
forever lie about everything.
Everybody already knows everything
so you can
lie to them. That's what they want.
But lie to yourself, what you will
lose is yourself. Then you
turn into them.
*
For each gay kid whose adolescence
was America in the forties or fifties
the primary, the crucial
scenario
forever is coming out—
or not. Or not. Or not. Or not. Or not.
There are more here but be warned many are profoundly sad and moving and possibly not what you want to read at your office desk.
Johanna wrote: "Found a quote today that I wanted to share with you. This is Stephen Fry in his guide to poetry An Ode Less Travelled:"Among the pleasures of poetry is the sheer physical, sensual, textural, tactile pleasure of feeling the words on your lips, tongue, teeth and vocal chords." ..."
Aww bless I can hear him saying it. He does go on a bit in that book though.
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Thank you for sharing the poem and the link, Caroline. Powerful stuff.
Lately I avoided this topic because I had promised to post an Arabic poet, but I still have to retrieve it ;-).But today is the first anniversary of the death of the partner of a friend, so I sent her a poem which helped me when my mother died. I thought I'd share it also here.
The poem ''Souffles'' by the Senegalese Birago Diop (1906 - 1989) is variously translated in English as ''Spirits'' or ''Breaths'' or even ''Forefathers''. I had already written this post and I lost it, so now I don't copy everything once more, you'll find the English version at page 5 of this article:
Souffles
Ecoute plus souvent
Les choses que les êtres,
La voix du feu s'entend
Entends la voix de l'eau
Ecoute dans le vent
Le buisson en sanglot :
C'est le souffle des ancêtres.
Ceux qui sont morts ne sont jamais partis
Ils sont dans l'ombre qui s'éclaire
Et dans l'ombre qui s'épaissit,
Les morts ne sont pas sous la terre
Ils sont dans l'arbre qui frémit,
Ils sont dans le bois qui gémit,
Ils sont dans l'eau qui coule,
Ils sont dans l'eau qui dort,
Ils sont dans la case, ils sont dans la foule
Les morts ne sont pas morts.
Ceux qui sont morts ne sont jamais partis,
Ils sont dans le sein de la femme,
Ils sont dans l'enfant qui vagit,
Et dans le tison qui s'enflamme,
Les morts ne sont jamais sous terre,
Ils sont dans le feu qui s'éteint,
Ils sont dans le rocher qui geint,
Ils sont dans les herbes qui pleurent,
Ils sont dans la forêt, ils sont dans la demeure,
Les morts ne sont pas morts.
Ecoute plus souvent
Les choses que les êtres,
La voix du feu s'entend
Entends la voix de l'eau
Ecoute dans le vent
Le buisson en sanglot :
C'est le souffle des ancêtres.
Le souffle des ancêtres morts
Qui ne sont pas partis,
Qui ne sont pas sous terre,
Qui ne sont pas morts
Ecoute plus souvent
Les choses que les êtres,
La voix du feu s'entend
Entends la voix de l'eau
Ecoute dans le vent
Le buisson en sanglot :
C'est le souffle des ancêtres.
Il redit chaque jour le pacte
Le grand pacte qui lie,
Qui lie à la loi notre sort;
Aux actes des souffles plus forts,
Le sort de nos morts qui ne sont pas morts;
Le lord pacte qui nous lie aux actes
Des souffles qui se meuvent.
Dans le lit et sur les rives du fleuve,
Dans plusieurs souffles qui se meuvent
Dans le rocher qui geint et dans l'herbe qui pleure
Des souffles qui demeurent
Dans l'ombre qui s'éclaire on s'épaissit,
Dans l'arbre qui frémit, dans le bois qui gémit,
Et dans l'eau qui coule et dans l'eau qui dort,
Des souffles plus forts, qui ont pris
Le souffle des morts qui ne sont pas morts,
Des morts qui ne sont pas partis,
Des morts qui ne sont plus sous terre.
Ecoute plus souvent
Les choses que les êtres...
Birago Diop, Les contes d'Amadou Koumba
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But today is the first anniversary of the death of the partner of a friend, so I sen..."
This is such a comforting poem, Antonella. Thank you for sharing it.
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Anyway, I've been feeling like that since I finished reading Stranger on the Shore and I've tried to fulfill the need by reading a bit of this and that. Today I read some poems from a Danish (contemporary) poet Henrik Nordbrandt. His poems are often about a world where loss and fulfilment occur simultaneously, and where presence, arrival and possession cannot erase absence, departure and loss. Here is his poem Sailing. I find it beautiful. Strangely, it also reminds me strongly about Josh's Stranger on the Shore. It has the same lovely feel of finding your place in the world, but not without pain. A steady, hopeful feel of belonging with a hint of sacrifice and melancholy.
SAILING by Henrik Nordbrandt
After having loved we lie close together
and at the same time with distance between us
like two sailing ships that enjoy so intensely
their own lines in the dark water they divide
that their hulls
are almost splitting from sheer delight
while racing, out in the blue
under sails which the night wind fills
with flower-scented air and moonlight
- without one of them ever trying
to outsail the other
and without the distance between them
lessening or growing at all.
But there are other nights, where we drift
like two brightly illuminated luxury liners
lying side by side
with the engines shut off, under a strange constellation
and without a single passenger on board:
On each deck a violin orchestra is playing
in honor of the luminous waves.
And the sea is full of old tired ships
which we have sunk in our attempt to reach each other.
Also the next poem turns my thoughts towards Stranger on the Shore, because Portrait Of The Heroine, Far Out At Sea seems to remind us how memory can't be trusted, any more than time itself. But what if active imagination is capable of bridging memory and time?
PORTRAIT OF THE HEROINE, FAR OUT AT SEA by Henrik Nordbrandt
The summer is over.
It was like the other summers
as much as they were like each other
and were different
and as the Easter Island statues
opened their eyes
the moment one turned one’s back on them.
And each summer
remembered more than what happened.
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These are wonderful. Both of them.
I went to a lecture about literature and WWI. So I was reminded of one of the greatest Italian poets, Giuseppe Ungaretti. While basically all other writers during World War I became automatically officers, with a less risky stance, he served in the Italian infantry, many of his poems were literally written in the trenches, like this one:Veglia
Un’intera nottata
sdraiato accanto
ad un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
contratta dalla morte
rivolta verso la luna piena
con il gonfiore e il rossore
delle sue mani
penetrato
nel mio intimo
ho scritto
lettere piene d’amore.
Non sono mai stato
tanto
attaccato alla vita.
Vigil
A whole night long
crouched close
to one of our men
butchered
with his clenched
mouth
grinning at the full moon
with the congestion
of his hands
thrust right
into my silence
I've written
letters filled with love
I have never been
so
coupled to life
Here a review of his Selected Poems http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003...
Poems in English and in the Italian original here:
http://books.google.ch/books?id=efGiS...
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Here are a couple of poems I wanted to share with you today. I find them both beautiful and strangely soothing. They are both about life, about love. Especially Lullaby makes me think how, inevitably, time is passing and how we should enjoy today as it is.
THE MORE LOVING ONE by W.H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
LULLABY by W.H. Auden
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guility, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit’s sensual ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find your mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
Johanna wrote: "I've been listening to Michael Nava's The Death of Friends today and I've been crying. About life and about death, I guess. I haven't yet finished listening to the book, but I escap..."Thank you for these, dear Johanna.
Thank you, Johanna. Both are thought-provoking and masterful.
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I was reading your post to "What we're listening to" and began to wonder if there's something about summer break for teachers — well, for those of us inclined to thinking (or over-thinking?) about things in a certain way — that gives us almost too much time to think. Because I'm definitely once again swimming in the pond of midsummer melancholy. I find "The More Loving One" oddly comforting. : )
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I know exactly what you mean about Lullaby. There is this intimate, lovely moment when a person tenderly admires his sleeping lover at the same time knowing that his joy eventually fades when life interferes and its beauty vanishes. I think the soothing thing for me is the fact that this person IS taking a moment to be thankful for what he has right now, his sleeping lover in his arms, even though he fears it's nothing permanent — because nothing really is.
Karen wrote: "And I've found myself unable to read past the first few pages of The Death of Friends since I first picked it up a few weeks ago."
I finished listening to it today and gave it solid, bright 5 stars. I think it might even be my favorite in the series so far. The only problem was that it made me so incredibly sad. And knowing your history and how you've lost friend(s?) for AIDS it'll be a tough one for you, dear. I did set up a thread for it this week, so I'll wait there with my shoulder and kleenex ready when you'll decide to start reading it again.
Karen wrote: "I was reading your post to "What we're listening to" and began to wonder if there's something about summer break for teachers — well, for those of us inclined to thinking (or over-thinking?) about things in a certain way — that gives us almost too much time to think. Because I'm definitely once again swimming in the pond of midsummer melancholy."
Well, I can't say I'm glad to hear this, but it's certainly interesting because that pond of midsummer melancholy ;-) sure reaches all the way here. :-) And yes, I'm afraid it does have something to do with over-thinking and *gulp* over-doing things. For example I'm not happy with myself right now because (and I would love to kick MY ass for even thinking this way!) I haven't gotten a lot done around the house while on holiday. It's awfully difficult to JUST BE and feel satisfied with myself.
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OMG, you hit it (nail on the head)! Why can't we just allow ourselves to rest?! I have a huge pile of bags and boxes of teacher files/materials that I was carrying around in my old minivan (AKA teacher's portable storage unit), that I just unloaded this week so I can finally donate the car to our local public radio station (uh, after I find the title which is in another pile of boxes). So this is sitting in a corner of our living room and I'm still trying to talk myself into tackling it today. Oh, and we have tango visitors next week coming here for a holiday weekend tango "marathon." Yikes! : )
I do get what you're saying about expressing thankfulness for the right now, and how amazing that is, because there's a human tendency to take the good for granted or waste our time worrying over the past and projecting future losses. And saying that, I confess there's something about midsummer that always makes me begin to notice harbingers of fall. Here's my own version of that mix, one I'd thought of sharing here last fall, then thought better of it.
(view spoiler)
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[Jean Marais died in France (a day passes)
I looked up
and all the leaves had turned..."
Oh, that's beautiful and so touching, Karen! Wow. I'm... speechless. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
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LOL. I'm chuckling here because I have an exact same kind of huge pile of boxes and maps and papers I've brought from school to go through, but my pile is taking up part of our guest room. :-)
And what I REALLY should start doing as soon as possible is to start sorting out closets and cupboards and drawers in the whole house (including garage!!!) — the same think you did last summer. I wonder why I keep postponing that task... hmmm. ;-)
Johanna wrote: "It's awfully difficult to JUST BE and feel satisfied with myself."Zen wisdom: «Don't just do something, stay there!». It is difficult, but when you stray, you just go back to this goal, possibly without berating yourself ;-).
Johanna wrote: "Oh, that's beautiful and so touching, Karen! Wow. I'm... speechless. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. "What Johanna said!
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Nah, you should be reading poetry and listening to Michael Nava's books. : ) If it makes you feel any better, that was just a dint into my garage, closets, etc. last summer. Well, every little bit helps. Or so they say. I always want it all done at once! Fairy godmother syndrome?
And thanks to you and Antonella for your response to the poem.
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Nah, you should be reading poetry and listening to Michael Nava's books. : )"
I will gladly obey. And maybe just a little bit more comfort reading from Josh Lanyon tonight... :-)
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Zen wisdom: «Don't just do something, stay there!». It is difficult, but when you stray, you just go back to this..."
:-)
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Anyway, I like how this one ponders time.
IF I COULD TELL YOU by W.H. Auden
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.
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Lovely. It seems so brave to say, "If I could tell you I would let you know." Sleep well!
A reminder to never stop dreaming and livingDreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
— Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967
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Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren f..."
Yes. I like it! This is so true.
Johanna wrote: "Carlita wrote: "A reminder to never stop dreaming and livingDreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Li..."
I never cry or very, very seldom, but now you can find me here in tears.
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Sonnet 30 — William Shakespeare
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning composer and author/diarist.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
After Reading Shakespeare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A36Qi2...
Thank you for the sonnet. As for the music... you said it, ''definitely not easy listening'' ;-).
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If it's of interest, Rorem's Paris & New York diaries are available in a Kindle book for the absurd price of $2.51 (U.S. Amazon). I skimmed an excerpt (be sure to move past the preface). It may be an acquired taste. ; )
http://www.amazon.com/Paris-Diary-New...
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Ah, But if the while I think on thee, dear friend(s),
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end. : )
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Ah, But if the while I think on thee, dear friend(s),
All losses are restor'd and sor..."
:-)
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What a startling thought. And yet kinda sorta cool too.
I just read the last several weeks of this topic and you all have cheered up a particularly uninspiring day. Thank you for your poems and your thoughts. :)
The House Murderedby the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
In one minute, the whole life of a house ends. The house murdered is also mass
murder, even if vacant of its residents. It is a mass grave for the basic elements
needed to construct a building for meaning, or for an insignificant poem in a time
of war. The house, murdered, is the amputation of things from their relations and
from the names of emotions, and it is tragedy’s need to guide eloquence to
contemplate the life of a thing. In each thing there’s a being that aches . . . the
memory of fingers, of a scent, of an image. And houses get murdered just as their
residents get murdered. And as the memory of things get murdered—wood, stone,
glass, iron, cement—they all scatter in fragments like beings. And cotton, silk,
linen, notepads, books, all are torn like words whose
owners were not given time
to speak. And the plates, spoons, toys, records, faucets, pipes, door handles, and
the fridge, the washer, the vases, jars of olives and pickles, and canned foods, all
break as their owners broke. And the two whites, salt and sugar, are pulverized,
and also the spices, the matchboxes, the pills and oral contraceptives, elixirs,
garlic braids, onions, tomatoes, dried okra, rice and lentils, as happens with the
residents. And the lease contract, the marriage and birth certificates, the utility
bills, identity cards, passports, love letters, all torn to shreds like the hearts of their
owners. And the pictures fly, the toothbrushes, hair combs, make-up accessories,
shoes, underwear, sheets, towels, like family secrets hung in public, in ruin. All
these things are the memories of people who were emptied of things, and the
memories of things that were emptied of people . . . all end in one minute. Our
things die like us, but they don’t get buried with us!
Translated by Fady Joudah
I took it from here.
Antonella wrote: "The House Murderedby the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
In one minute, the whole life of a house ends. The house murdered is also mass
murder, even if vacant of its resid..."
Very powerful.
Anne wrote: "Very powerful."The thing is, at the moment many houses in Gaza are not even vacant of their residents when they are ''murdered''. This is so sad. It looks like peace loving people are a tiny minority on both sides.
Antonella wrote: "Anne wrote: "Very powerful."The thing is, at the moment many houses in Gaza are not even vacant of their residents when they are ''murdered''. This is so sad. It looks like peace loving people ar..."
Yes, I despair of the situation in Gaza and all the hatred there.
Mod
by the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
In one minute, the whole life of a house ends. The house murdered is also mass..."
It's the list of "things" that makes it so poignant. It really is a brilliant poem.
Antonella, here's my war poem from 2003. I wonder if you remember the horrific incident that inspired it. The sad thing is that afterwards I never could find much information about what happened to the survivors. Now I can't even find the original news stories.
(view spoiler)
Karen wrote: "Antonella, here's my war poem from 2003. I wonder if you remember the horrific incident that inspired it. The sad thing is that afterwards I never could find much information about what happened to the survivors. Now I can't even find the original new stories."Thank you for sharing, the poem is beautiful!
Maybe you could remind us of the episode you refer to, because I don't have a clue, even though I searched the internet.
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And Karen — I love your poems. They are so rich and alive. They are lovely.
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That's the saddest part for me. I searched yesterday and found almost nothing, as if the incident never happened or had been made up as propaganda. Or perhaps so many horrible things had happened since then, that it was somehow diminished. Some years ago after some of my poems were posted on a online anthology, I was emailed by a stranger who wanted to know what had happened to Hassan and her family. I had to explain that I knew nothing more than the initial news reports and that my poem was a fictionalized homage.
The story is a about an Iraqi family driving through an American checkpoint and misunderstanding their instructions. The Americans opened fire. My response was as a parent of two daughters, as one opposed to the war, but also imagining the impact on those young soldiers. It was spring in New Mexico and the purple plum blossoms were falling.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/0...
Karen wrote: "That's the saddest part for me. I searched yesterday and found almost nothing, as if the incident never happened or had been made up as propaganda."Thank you for your explanation. I don't know about that incident, but you'll find online several such episodes, for ex. the one involving the journalist Giuliana Sgrena, kidnapped in Iraq, freed by Italian intelligence officers and shot by US soldiers at a roadblock: one Italian agent was killed, another one and Sgrena were wounded
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuliana...
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Thank you for your explanation. I..."
Yes, I remember the Sgrena story. Yes, a lot of sad stories.
I've often thought that an amazing book or film could be made, not of the Hassan story from the little we know of it, but from the perspective of a decade+ later, regarding the people involved on all sides — the surviving family members, the soldiers who fired, the medical staff, the damage controllers, the media. And I wonder how many of any of these are still living now. A sobering thought.
Both these stories and many similar ones, like all the soldiers shot by their own for instance (called friendly fire, a terrible expression if there ever was one),says something about what war does to people. Not only the civilians that are caught in a fight they hardly know anything about, but the soldiers who are doing the job. They are young, they are scared and often far from home, thus nervous and too trigger-happy. And those who survive has to live with it for the rest of their lives. No wonder veterans have such trouble adjusting afterwards. There are no winners in wars like these.
Q&A with Josh Lanyon
Books mentioned in this topic
Mr. Cogito (other topics)Don't Mention the Children (other topics)
Writing Haiku: A Beginner's Guide to Composing Japanese Poetry (other topics)
Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life (other topics)
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Zbigniew Herbert (other topics)Vanni Bianconi (other topics)
Pablo Neruda (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
Michael Rosen (other topics)
More...
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submis..."
Thank you, Anne. I like this a lot. Thank you, also, Carlita.