Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
JUST FOR FUN
>
Read Me a Poem Sing Me a Song
Water by Wisława SzymborskaA drop of water fell on my hand,
drawn from the Ganges and the Nile,
from hoarfrost ascended to heaven off a seal's whiskers,
from jugs broken in the cities of Ys and Tyre.
On my index finger
the Caspian Sea isn't landlocked,
and the Pacific is the Rudawa's meek tributary,
that same stream that floated as a little cloud over Paris
in the year seven hundred and sixty-four
on the seventh of May at three a.m.
There are not enough mouths to utter
all your fleeting names, O water.
I would have to name you in every tongue
pronouncing all the vowels at once
while also keeping silent–for the sake of the lake
that still goes unnamed
and doesn’t exist on this earth, just as the star
reflected in it is not in the sky.
Someone was drowning, someone dying was
calling out for you. Long ago and, yesterday.
You have saved houses from fire, you have carried off
houses and trees, forests and towns alike.
You’ve been in christening fonts and courtesan’s baths.
In coffin and kisses.
Gnawing stone, feeding rainbows,
In the sweat and the dew of the pyramids and lilacs.
How light the raindrop's contents are.
How gently the world touches me.
Whenever wherever whatever has happened
Is written down on the waters of Babel.
That's lovely. Thank you. Water is on my mind more than usual lately, as we enter another season of extreme drought. Our governor declared a drought state of emergency this week. Hopefully it will lead to some positive changes around here, where people seem to think they live in the wet tropics and not the desert, with their giant green lawns and hydrangeas.
Mod
There are catalogues of catalogues.
There are poems about poems.
There are plays about actors played by actors.
Letters due to letters.
Words used to clarify word..."
It's sad and it makes me smile because this is the--well, one--definition of humans and civilization.
I forgot to publish this when he died:Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
(Translated, from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh.)
See also
- Adam Zagajewski, Poet of the Past’s Presence, Dies at 75
- Adam Zagajewski obituary Poet and leading voice of Poland’s Generation of ’68, who wrote ‘to understand the world’
You start dying slowly by Martha Medeiros ((and not by Pablo Neruda, don't listen to the internet!))
You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.
You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.
You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.
You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.
You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice.
Original: A morte devagar
Antonella wrote: "You start dying slowly by Martha Medeiros ((and not by Pablo Neruda, don't listen to the internet!))"
Sad for sure, Antonella, but a thought-provoking, spectacular read. Thanks for posting this.
Susan wrote: "Sad for sure, Antonella, but a thought-provoking, spectacular read. Thanks ..."You are welcome.
Strangely, for me it is not sad, I see it as an invitation to change.
Antonella wrote: "Susan wrote: "Sad for sure, Antonella, but a thought-provoking, spectacular read. Thanks ..."You are welcome.
Strangely, for me it is not sad, I see it as an invitation to change."
Agreed. Sad only if one cannot or will not see the path forward. Thanks again.
Mod
((and not by Pablo Neruda, don't listen to the internet!))
You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the s..."
Hear, hear. This is such a good reminder.
Distraction by Wislawa SzymborskaI misbehaved in the cosmos yesterday.
I lived around the clock without questions,
without surprise.
I performed daily tasks
as if only that were required.
Inhale, exhale, right foot, left, obligations,
not a thought beyond
getting there and getting back.
The world might have been taken for bedlam,
but I took it just for daily use.
No whats — no what fors —
and why on earth it is —
and how come it needs so many moving parts.
I was like a nail stuck only halfway in the wall
or
(comparison I couldn’t find).
One change happened after another
even in a twinkling’s narrow span.
Yesterday’s bread was sliced otherwise
by a hand a day younger at a younger table.
Clouds like never before and rain like never,
since it fell after all in different drops.
The world rotated on its axis,
but in a space abandoned forever.
This took a good 24 hours.
1,440 minutes of opportunity.
86,400 seconds for inspection.
The cosmic savoir vivre
may keep silent on our subject,
still it makes a few demands:
occasional attention, one or two of Pascal’s thoughts,
and amazed participation in a game
with rules unknown.
From Map: Collected and Last Poems, translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh
In September I'll visit again Piedmont and the places of one of my favourite writers, Beppe Fenoglio, so I'm rereading his books or reading stuff about him. He died of cancer at 40. He was an Anglophile and I've just found out that the friends let print Shakespeare's Sonnett 73 on his memorial keepsake.Sonnett 73 by William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang;
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest;
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by;
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Meena* was an Afghan revolutionary political activist, feminist, women's rights activist and founder of Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)**. She was assassinated by fundamentalists in 1987, she was then 31 years old.I'll never return by Meena Keshwar Kamal
I’m the woman who has awoken
I’ve arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of my burnt children
I’ve arisen from the rivulets of my brother’s blood
My nation’s wrath has empowered me
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred against the enemy,
I’m the woman who has awoken,
I’ve found my path and will never return.
I’ve opened closed doors of ignorance
I’ve said farewell to all golden bracelets
Oh compatriot, I’m not what I was
I’m the woman who has awoken
I’ve found my path and will never return.
I’ve seen barefoot, wandering and homeless children
I’ve seen henna-handed brides with mourning clothes
I’ve seen giant walls of the prisons swallow freedom in their ravenous stomach
I’ve been reborn amidst epics of resistance and courage
I’ve learned the song of freedom in the last breaths, in the waves of blood and in victory
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, no longer regard me as weak and incapable
With all my strength I’m with you on the path of my land’s liberation.
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women
My fists are clenched with the fists of thousands compatriots
Along with you I’ve stepped up to the path of my nation,
To break all these sufferings all these fetters of slavery,
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, I’m not what I was
I’m the woman who has awoken
I’ve found my path and will never return.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meena_K...
** http://www.rawa.org/index.php.
Mod
Wow. This says so much.
Nature is what we see by Emily Dickinson“Nature” is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.
Mod
Jordan wrote: "Wondering what a bobolink is now..."LOL! I thought I didn't know just because I'm not a native speaker.
Thank you, SamSpayed!
Mod
Here you go:
https://youtu.be/eLD3zlxvvJA"
I'll have to watch this when I'm not at work. Thanks!
Mod
That was gut-wrenching.
Mod
“Nature” is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—..."
Lovely.
Vietnam by Wisława Szymborska“Woman, what’s your name?” “I don’t know.”
“How old are you? Where are you from?” “I don’t know.”
“Why did you dig that burrow?” “I don’t know.”
“How long have you been hiding?” “I don’t know.”
“Why did you bite my finger?” “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you know that we won’t hurt you?” “I don’t know.”
“Whose side are you on?” “I don’t know.”
“This is war, you’ve got to choose.” “I don’t know.”
“Does your village still exist?” “I don’t know.”
“Are those your children?” “Yes.”
Hatred by Wisława SzymborskaSee how efficient it still is,
how it keeps itself in shape—
our century's hatred.
How easily it vaults the tallest obstacles.
How rapidly it pounces, tracks us down.
It's not like other feelings.
At once both older and younger.
It gives birth itself to the reasons
that give it life.
When it sleeps, it's never eternal rest.
And sleeplessness won't sap its strength; it feeds it.
One religion or another -
whatever gets it ready, in position.
One fatherland or another -
whatever helps it get a running start.
Justice also works well at the outset
until hate gets its own momentum going.
Hatred. Hatred.
Its face twisted in a grimace
of erotic ecstasy…
Hatred is a master of contrast-
between explosions and dead quiet,
red blood and white snow.
Above all, it never tires
of its leitmotif - the impeccable executioner
towering over its soiled victim.
It's always ready for new challenges.
If it has to wait awhile, it will.
They say it's blind. Blind?
It has a sniper's keen sight
and gazes unflinchingly at the future
as only it can.
Yes - especially the one on Hatred.
Refugees by Adam Zagajewski (1945-2021)bent under burdens which sometimes
can be seen and sometimes can’t,
they trudge through mud or desert sands,
hunched, hungry,
silent men in heavy jackets,
dressed for all four seasons,
old women with crumpled faces,
clutching something – a child, the family
lamp, the last loaf of bread?
It could be Bosnia today,
Poland in September ’39, France
eight months later, Germany in ’45,
Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt.
There’s always a wagon or at least a wheelbarrow
full of treasures (a quilt, a silver cup,
the fading scent of home),
a car out of gas marooned in a ditch,
a horse (soon left behind), snow, a lot of snow,
too much snow, too much sun, too much rain,
and always that special slouch
as if leaning toward another, better planet,
with less ambitious generals,
less snow, less wind, fewer cannons,
less History (alas, there’s no
such planet, just that slouch).
Shuffling their feet,
they move slowly, very slowly
toward the country of nowhere,
and the city of no one
on the river of never.
Mod
bent under burdens which sometimes
can be seen and sometimes can’t,
they trudge through mud or desert sands,
hunched, hungry,
silent men in ..."
Oh, this hurts... and is a picture, a moving picture.
It also reminds me of Parable of the Sower, which I just read last month for my book group.
Song Of Those Who Died In Vain by Primo Levi (1985)Sit down and bargain
All you like, grizzled old foxes.
We’ll wall you up in a splendid palace
With food, wine, good beds and a good fire
Provided that you discuss, negotiate
For our and your children’s lives.
May all the wisdom of the universe
Converge to bless your minds
And guide you in the maze.
But outside in the cold we will be waiting for you,
The army of those who died in vain,
We of the Marne, of Montecassino,
Treblinka, Dresden and Hiroshima.
And with us will be
The leprous and the people with trachoma,
The Disappeared Ones of Buenos Aires,
Dead Cambodians and dying Ethiopians,
The Prague negotiators,
The bled-dry of Calcutta
The innocents slaughtered in Bologna.
Heaven help you if you come out disagreeing:
You’ll be clutched tight in our embrace.
We are invincible because we are the conquered,
Invulnerable because already dead;
We laugh at your missiles.
Sit down and bargain
Until your tongues are dry.
If the havoc and the shame continue
We’ll drown you in our putrefaction.
((The innocents slaughtered in Bologna is a reference to the 85 victims of the bomb left by neofascists in the station of Bologna in 1980, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna...))
Children of the Age by Wisława SzymborskaWe are children of our age,
it’s a political age.
All day long, all through the night,
all affairs—yours, ours, theirs—
are political affairs.
Whether you like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin, a political cast,
your eyes, a political slant.
Whatever you say reverberates,
whatever you don’t say speaks for itself.
So either way you’re talking politics.
Even when you take to the woods,
you’re taking political steps
on political grounds.
Apolitical poems are also political,
and above us shines a moon
no longer purely lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
and though it troubles the digestion
it’s a question, as always, of politics.
To acquire a political meaning
you don’t even have to be human.
Raw material will do,
or protein feed, or crude oil,
or a conference table whose shape
was quarreled over for months:
Should we arbitrate life and death
at a round table or a square one.
Meanwhile, people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political.
((translated by Stanisław Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh, from Poems New and Collected))
Mod
Yes. All too accurate.
Mod
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it
Frank O’Hara - 1926-1966
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_O...
A classic poem for autumn:Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost - 1874-1963
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Mod
Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost - 1874-1963
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subs..."
One of my all time favorite poems. ♥
There is no Frigate like a Book by Emily DickinsonThere is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –
Mod
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poor..."
Deceptively simple. And beautiful.
Mod
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poor..."
I like that!
I'm rereading the wonderful Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. I found two quotes from two different poems by W.S. Merwin (I underlined them).Youth
Through all of youth I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for
or what to call you I think I did not
even know I was looking how would I
have known you when I saw you as I did
time after time when you appeared to me
as you did naked offering yourself
entirely at that moment and you let
me breathe you touch you taste you knowing
no more than I did and only when I
began to think of losing you did I
recognize you when you were already
part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you
from what we cannot hold the stars are made
Inheritance
At my elbow on the table
it lies open as it has done
for a good part of these thirty
years ever since my father died
and it passed into my hands
this Webster’s New International
Dictionary of the English
Language of 1922
on India paper which I
was always forbidden to touch
for fear I would tear or somehow
damage its delicate pages
heavy in their binding
this color of wet sand
on which thin waves hover
when it was printed he was twenty-six
they had not been married four years
he was a country preacher
in a one-store town and I suppose
a man came to the door one day
peddling this new dictionary
on fine paper like the Bible
at an unrepeatable price
and it seemed it would represent
a distinction just to own it
confirming something about him
that he could not even name
now its cover is worn as though
it had been carried on journeys
across the mountains and deserts
of the earth but it has been here
beside me the whole time
what has frayed it like that
loosening it gnawing at it
all through these years
I know I must have used it
much more than he did but always
with care and indeed affection
turning the pages patiently
in search of meanings
Mod
..."
Merwin is not a poet I know/have known. I find these to be particularly poignant now. I'd have to do some research to see how old the poet was when these were written, but I will say they are the kind of thoughts that resonate deeply when the reader is older.
We kept a couple of my father's dictionaries. He used them a lot for crossword puzzles. :)
Karen wrote: "Merwin is not a poet I know/have known."Oh, interesting! I thought I should have known him because he got twice a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Now I've also seen this article from 2010:
W.S. Merwin Named Nation's 17th Poet Laureate
https://www.npr.org/2010/07/01/128245...
Mod
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poor..."
That's nice! It reminds me of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, which for the life of me, I can't remember the title of...
Parable by Wisława SzymborskaSome fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep.
It held a piece of paper, with these words:
“Somebody save me! I’m here.
The ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!”
“There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said.
“And he doesn’t say where.
It’s not even clear which ocean,” the second fisherman said.
“It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,” the third fisherman said.
They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with universal truths.
Poems New and Collected: 1957-1997, translation by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh
Mod
Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep.
It held a piece of paper, with these words:
“Somebody save me! I’m here.
The ocean cast me on this deser..."
LOL. That's so good!
The Poet’s Occasional Alternative by Grace PaleyI was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper
the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor
everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one
this does not happen with poems
because of unreportable
sadness I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along
From Begin Again: Collected Poems (spaces and everything are like in the original)
Pity the Nation (After Khalil Gibran) by Lawrence FerlinghettiPity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
Mod
My reaction to the second: 😔
This by Hermann Hesse is not a poem, but almost:«Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.»
NB: I quoted only the end of a longer text: https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/0...
Mod
I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem wo..."
What an interesting take on what it means to create--and what it means to share a creation with an audience.
I always say, we write for ourselves. We publish for others. They're actually two very different things.
Which is why I can't imagine not writing. But I can imagine not publishing.
Mod
«Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as lo..."
I like that so much!
Mod
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, who..."
Ah. The sad truth is this is every nation at some time or another. I believe the goal has to be keeping the fascism phases to a minimum.
I found out only now that Louise Glück passed away (April 22, 1943–October 13, 2023). She got the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Here her poem taken from the site by Maria Popova (https://www.themarginalian.org/2020/1...), where you can also hear her reading it.CROSSROADS by Louise Glück
My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer
I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar,
like what I remember of love when I was young —
love that was so often foolish in its objectives
but never in its choices, its intensities
Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised —
My soul has been so fearful, so violent;
forgive its brutality.
As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,
not wishing to give offense
but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:
it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.
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)
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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...
Mirror (1930) by Salvatore Quasimodo
And suddenly on the trunk
buds break open:
a green newer than the ..."
A gorgeous and emotionally comforting poem.