Yeats 2015: Lines to Remember

Here in Ireland we're in the midst of a Yeats frenzy. This year sees the celebration of our esteemed national poet's 150th birthday (13 June) and a series of events and publications to mark the occasion. (You can check out the content with the hashtag #Yeats2015). 

Yeats is our great national poet, the poet responsible for the forging of the national character in letters. We owe him a great deal. Yeats the smiling public man, Yeats the learned man, the politician, the arts and culture activist who was involved in the Anglo-Irish Literary movement and more, who campaigned for the place of the arts in our new national consciousness, Yeats the Nobel-Prize winning poet whose skill sharpened as the years went on, Yeats the lovelorn suitor forever in love with Maud Gonne, his greatest muse, his unrequited love, Yeats the dreamer, the romantic, the believer in fairies and magic. I like this last persona of him best I think. The story of how his neighbours in Sligo would see him out walking, muttering away to himself, 'talking to himself' as they put it, or 'away with the fairies', as locals were wont to say, is one I always think of first when I think of Yeats. Of course as every poet knows, he must have been only testing his lines, trying out their rhythm, measuring and moving the words until they were pitch perfect. A man whose profession was a projection of who he was, and vice versa.

Truthfully, I must admit that Yeats wouldn't be one of my favourite poets.  I admire him greatly, but a lot of his poems for me seem either too coded what with all the allegories and references both classical and mystical, or, too vague. (It was with a certain degree of glee alright that I debunked his rural idyll construct in an essay once, preferring the realists of contemporary writers.) But I do love his language. All the lyrical ardor of it. And I love his romanticism ,even if it is misplaced at times. I especially love the descriptive word 'Yeatsian' for all that it implies: the dreamy, romantic, magical, lyrical world in which his poems are set and scripted, the lyrical, finely-wrought verse that pleases the eye as well as the ear, the heart as well as the head.

I find that I love specific lines from his poems more than the entire poems themselves. I couldn't really name you a favourite poem of his (there's a few that wrestle for attention), but I could joyfully recite many favourite lines like: "Come away oh human child, to the waters and the wilds, for the worlds's more full of weeping than you can understand," or the beautiful and evocative "the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun," or that dramatic tragic declarative refrain of Easter 1916: "All changed,changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born." In all historical accounts of the 1916 Easter Rising I've read, nothing has so effectively summed it up as those terse lines.

I love Yeats's lines as they are so condensed: so much is said in so short a space and said so eloquently. They are resplendent with deep reverie. Feelings, theories, politics, lessons are mashed down into a compact pulp that carries all the meaning of the poem, and can relay a lengthy thesis into a bite-size caption, one that will stick in the head and heart. Truths are coined and contained in the concrete of his sentences: 'The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity' from 'The Second Coming' is a simple way of explaining the complex problems inherent at the heart of all world crises. Yeats has so many of these lines and it is them that I think of when I think of Yeats' poetry.  Lines that lap on the shores of my mind with syncopated loveliness. Lines that  rhyme just enough to be easily remembered.  Lines that soothe and swoon. Lines that shine the bright light of epiphany. Lines that demand recitation, that long to be spoken aloud, sounded on the breath. Lines that are like words from a spell, incantations of dreaminess. Lines as fragile as dew drops that loop an ethereal idea. Lines that are hearts ease. Lines that are stepping stones to a different plane of existence, that transform and transcend.

Yeats' lines are famous, not only on the tip of tongues but in popular culture too. Did you know that Cormac Mc Carthy's book (and the subsequent film) 'No Country  For Old Men' took its title inspiration from that very line in 'Sailing to Byzantium'? And that Spielberg's film 'A.I.' about artificial intelligence used the refrain from 'The Stolen Child' as a way of illustrating the young robot boy's wish to be human? And I remember once reading a book which took its whole premise and plot from the main character's remembrance of the poem 'The Song of Wandering Aengus'. 

For my marking of #Yeats 2015 here, I'm going to share some of these lines here. I hope you enjoy them and, if you feel so inclined to, share your experiences or favourite lines or poems of Yeats. 

~ Siobhán  



*WB Yeats at 150 The Irish Times Supplement

 

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree...

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes

dropping slow...

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple 

glow...

I hear it in the deep heart's core."

~The Lake Isle of Innisfree

"And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun."

~ 'The Song of Wandering Aengus'

"From our birthday, until we die,

Is but the winking of an eye;"

~'To Ireland in The Coming Times'

"A line will take us hours maybe;

Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught."

~'Adam's Curse'

"How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

~'Among School Children'

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst

are full of passionate intensity."

~'The Second Coming'

"Too long a sacrifice 

can make a stone of the heart."

~'Easter 1916'

"An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing..."

~'Sailing to Byzantium'

"Irish poets learn your trade,

Sing whatever is well made."

~ 'Under Ben Bulben'

"I shall have written him one

Poem maybe as cold

And passionate as the dawn."

~'The Fisherman' 

"I must lie down where all ladders start

In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

~ 'The Circus Animals' Desertion'

"I have spread my dreams under your feet;

tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

~ 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven'

"Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric, 

out of the quarrel with ourselves, 

we make poetry." 

Love Poems To Make You Smile (And Maybe Swoon)

Love poetry is of course, the jewel in poetry's crown. It is the main reason why many a poet first got into the tricky business of writing poems. I'm willing to bet that almost every one of us has attempted to write a love poem at least once in our lifetimes, if not for a Valentine's card then as a spontaneous diary scrawl, be it in a moment of mirth or stoic seriousness. As Plato said, 'at the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.' When love has assaulted our every sense, poetry is the only medium that is capable of relating and understanding. It can measure up in words to the glorious heights of feeling love inspires and as such, is proof proper of its power.

When I say 'love poem' I'm curious - what pops into your head? The cliched juvenile refrain of 'Roses are red, violets are blue' I bet? Or the reliable posturing of Shakespeare's 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day'?  Maybe Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways'? It seems to  me that when we think of a love poem, it is nearly always an antiquated one with whorling sentiments galore, or an overly sentimental slushy thing that we should approach only with caustic cynical caution. But, I am here today to tell you, that needn't be the case. 

I'm so fed up with finding traditional love poems everywhere, from articles to anthologies with the usual suspects: Ben Jonson, John Donne, Byron, Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sydney, Cristina Rosetti, Shelley and the likes all trumpeting on about some airy-fairy notions of love in some trumped-up verse! As an English major, I am aware I may be committing some act of treason here, but as a truth-devoted opinionist, I feel it my duty to admit that these old traditional love poems just don't do it for me, or for that matter, a majority of readers. Well, some of them (like Keats) are just fine (and sublime) in moderation, but to have every article - 'Love Poems Everyone Should Know' (I'm looking at you The Times) - and love poem anthology saturated with them is just bloody tiresome at this stage! Not to mention a tad elitist and stuffy.  Especially when there are so many GREAT contemporary love poems out there, unanthologised and often unacknowledged. 

In comparison, these 'classic' love poems all sing to the same beat, like manufactured pop today (well they were a manufactured sort of genre back in the day). Hello editors - there are other love poems out there!! What are you trying to do - put people off reading poetry? Have them see love as something frilly and fluffy and farcey? Because face it, some of these old woo-some gems are simply boring, trite and puffed-up pomp.

Contemporary love poetry is a genre full of wit and originality. It is not so much concerned with generating feeling as more attesting to it, as subtly and surprisingly as possible. It doesn't spurn sentimentality; rather it transforms it into something more tangible and real.  No trumped-up embellishments here. It is genuine, born from real emotion not a competitive literary trend and therefore forced inspiration, and each poem, most especially, is marked by a personal testament that touches on love as a thing universally felt, but uniquely experienced. Tolstoy said 'there are as many types of love as there are hearts' and today's love poetry adheres and showcases this opinion. 

So I've picked out a few of my favourites to share with you here today on Valentine's Day, in an effort to convince any of you thinking that love poems are waffle to show you evidence of the contrary. And of course, to jump at the chance of showcasing more poetry on this blog (as always).

The first poem that pops into  my mind when I think of an 'original' love poem is this ode, by Kenneth Koch, a wonderfully inventive poet who always uses language in the most vivid way. Here he talks of how much he loves his lover, in an almost puzzling and flummoxing original set of comparisons:

To You - Kenneth Koch 

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut

That will solve a murder case unsolved for years

Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window

Through which he saw her head, connecting with

Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red

Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;

For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not

Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a

Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails

In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from

The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;

I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields

Always, to be near you, even in my heart

When I’m awake, which swims, and also I believe that you

Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to

The place where I again think of you, a new

Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow

Of a ship which sails

From Hartford to Miami, and I love you

Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun

Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

 

Don't you just love that line -  'I am crazier than shirttails in the wind'?! The whole poem is 
vivaciously vibrant in its choice of content and uncanny descriptions. There can be doubting 
its sincerity when the poet went to these lengths to describe something that has fallen into 
an one-size-fits-all description territory. The result is a fanfare of the fantastic potential of 
love to push boundaries and the exuberant feelings it evokes.

A poem that reminds me somewhat of this is a riff on the traditional Valentine's poem, from 

Ogden Nash. In it Nash,  another gung-ho stylist, compares how much he loves his lover not 
in the conventional sense, but on the flip side - in negative ccomparisons, citing all the pains 
and irritations in life. The effect is startlingly original, not to mention funny and clever. The 
rhyme adds to the overall humour:

To My Valentine -  Ogden Nash

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oaths,
That's how you're loved by me. 

To be loved 'more than a toothache hurts' is a love that can't be denied I suppose!  
Powerful, to say the least, ahem.

But wait, if you think that was blunt, have a look at this one from him: 

Reflections on Breaking The Ice - Ogden Nash

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker. 

Indeed... You can't argue with that. 

A real love poem I think has to have one main ingredient: sincerity. And what's the best way 
to express sincerity? Simple language, ordinary scenario. In this poem by Wendy Cope, we 
encounter the effects of  love in the subtle realisation that the ordinary things of life have 
suddenly become extraordinary for the speaker, and the result is sheer gladness, a kind of 
citrus blaze:

The Orange - Wendy Cope  

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—

The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

The simplicity of this poem is disarming. Wendy Cope is master of such affecting understatement. Another love poem of hers similar to this one is 'After the Lunch', which expresses the reality of love in the midst of the commonplace:

After the Lunch - Wendy Cope

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. You’re high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.
The head does its best but the heart is the boss —
I admit it before I am halfway across.

Falling in love is perfectly rendered here. She doesn't mince words and there are no airs or graces to it. From this, the effect is all the more true and believable. Love not as some grand orchestra-strung event, but a 'jukebox inside playing a song', a homely kind of epiphany.

Speaking of fruit comparisons, how's this for a neat summing up of love? -

What Love Is Like - Piet Hein

Love is like

a pineapple, 

sweet and

undefinable.  

Is a pineapple undefinable? What about its prickly exterior? Hmm, there might be more metaphors to be got there... 

Another poem that shows a manifestation of love in the commonplace is Billy Collin's 'Love.' In it the narrator is witness to a love story playing out beside him on a train.  His deadpan factual observance of a young besotted boy and his muse gives way to a sort of miraculous revelation at the end:

Love - Billy Collins

The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

The poem ends with a resounding crescendo of love manifesting in the midst of the ordinary. Love, as a miraculous phenomenon, is easily believable here as compared to all of  those traditional wordy cooings. It's in the simple gestures of love, that its divine nature is to be caught.

But maybe you find these all a tad saccharine? Well contemporary love poems do take account of this entitled cynicism. Trust Margaret Atwood to debunk the romance, attacking the meaninglessness of the word 'love' itself:

Variations on The Word Love - Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go. 

Yes, you might relate better to Mrs Atwood's sharp sentiments. You can't deny that it's not 
true or real - always refreshing traits when it comes to good love poetry. That description of 
love as a 'mouth that says O again and again in wonder and pain' is a pretty accurate 
description to me. 

Contemporary love poetry is nothing if not surprising.'The Kiss' from Stephen Dunn is 
maybe one of the most original love poems I've come across in a while, taking its inspiration 
from a typo, of all things:


The Kiss - Stephen Dunn

She pressed her lips to mind.
                                —a typo

How many years I must have yearned
for someone's lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.

She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.

Nothing like a woman who knows 
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she's missed. 
How had I ever settled for less?

I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek's ear,
speaking sense. It's the Good,

defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. we married as soon as we could.

A mind kiss - not that's something not to be dismissed. Marvelous musing.

Former American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser can do short and sweet love poems faultlessly. 
Sparingly, he creates little notes on love with a deft hand and endearing results.  This one 
particularly like:

Map of The World - Ted Kooser

One of the ancient maps of the world

is heart-shaped, carefully drawn

and once washed with bright colors,

though the colors have faded

as you might expect feelings to fade

from a fragile old heart, the brown map

of a life. But feeling is indelible,

and longing infinite, a starburst compass

pointing in all the directions

two lovers might go, a fresh breeze

swelling their sails, the future uncharted,

still far from the edge

where the sea pours into the stars.

Like this? You can read more of Ted Kooser's love poems over on my Poem a Day blog 
today. He has an entire collection of Valentine poems he's written over the years that 
showcase his ability to take anything and write a love poem about it, in the most unexpected 
ways. A keen  characteristic of love itself.

Another deftly written poem celebrating love is Alice Oswald's 'Wedding'. What I love about 
it is the soaring swinging language that evokes the effect of a lifting-off from the ground, in 
what is an imagined progression of love's evolution in a relationship. It speaks of  reeling 
heights, and the lanuage reels out to accomodate this, without being superfluous or 
overdone. Rather, tentative and revelatory to make a sublime finish:

Wedding - Alice Oswald

From time to time our love is like a sail
and when the sail begins to alternate
from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions…
and this, my love, when millions come and go
beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything. 

So there you have it, a small selection that shows love poetry doesn't have to be a pompous 
affair or a bland bore!

There's probably so many more good love poems I've not mentioned here  - the popular and
unconventional 'Valentine' by Carol Ann Duffy is one that came to mind of course,  but I've 
posted it already on this blog so had to leave it out. EE Cumming's 'i carry your heart' too 
has become a popular staple of contemporary love poetry. If I've missed any of your 
favourites - please feel free to share them here and share the love.

Have a happy poetic Valentine's!


~Siobhán 

Sunday Morning Musing: A Poet's Advice to Students

 

EE Cummings portrait ~ by Fabrizio Cassetta on Fine Art America

'A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.' 

On individuality, voice, and the real feat of feeling in poetry, there is much to mull over here in this advice (posted below) from one of my favourite poets, EE Cummings. 

I'm particularly struck by his surmise that when we use words like other people 'we are not poets.' In being a poet as he sees it (feels it), it is essential to be an individual too ('nobody-but-yourself') and to have a distinct voice of one's own, one that is imbued with feeling. Of course his poetry is a demonstration of this, an unique eureka of originality with an individual style so grand it could almost stand alone as a genre. In his manipulated syntax and grammar Cummings found a style that readily expressed modes and depths of feeling like none before, eliciting a 'feeling first' reaction in the reader. In fact, to wholly interpret an EE Cummings poem, it is necessary to feel it first - to probe at it with the antennae of the subconscious and sensory self, not that of the logical analytical mind. Logic impedes it, feeling frees it.

Language is a medium full of possibilities Cummings' poetry proves. Much like the human brain, we only use a small percentage of its capability, leaving its vast potential mostly untapped. To write poetry is to tap in to some of it, but here Cummings urges us to tap more. To go beyond. To not settle for the norm. His poetry pushed the boundaries of language to open up a whole new realm of discourse: one of feeling first. He succeeded (most dazzlingly) in finding an individual and authentic voice, unparallelled in the poetry canon. 

If you're not familiar with his work, I urge you to have a look. You will be amazed, puzzled and dazed. And more liberated to push the boundaries of your own voice into the wonderful colourful domain of Individual. 

*(You can read a selection of ee cummings poems: here)

 

To individuality and authenticity!

~ Siobhán 

Lines for Winter, Lines For Life & Death: Mark Strand

~ Mark Strand 1934-2014

I was so saddened to hear of the death of Mark Strand yesterday. Every time a poet dies, I think all fellow poets, including aspiring ones, and even ardent poetry lovers, feel the loss keenly; almost as that of a comrade, a mentor, an inspiration, a kindred spirit. We are all part of the 'connection',  as Strand called it, that poetry creates.

Mark Strand was a Canadian-born American poet and writer. He was the American Poet Laureate in 1990 and the following year won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection 'Blizzard of One.' As well as a poet, Strand was a great writer too. Very interested in art (he studied it at Yale), he published two monographs on the artists Edward Hopper and William Bailey. He wrote prose too, as well as translating works. He has held teaching positions at many prestigious universities including Princeton and Columbia University.  

I first came across Mark Strand when I read 'Eating Poetry', his felicitous ode to the craft. But it was 'Lines in Winter', a beautiful meditative lyric on the season that truly enchanted me. Here was the most simple language, but with a stunning effect. As he said himself of his style: "My preference has always been for simple, declarative sentences, simple words." I bought his 'New and Selected Poems' last year in winter and found it the most perfect accompaniment to the season: white and bright reflections on life, on loss, on absence, and a lot on death.

 

Strand was often accused by critics of writing poetry that was overtly 'dark' but he  replied to these ripostes, saying that no, he thought it was infact "evenly lit". If ever there was a poet, or even a person, prepared for death, it would surely be him. So many of his poems reflect on death as a great unknown, a riddle-some mystery that he pries into, wondering, questioning, debunking and believing. Some of these meditations end in defeat, some in elated hope.  Strand was an atheist, but there's an innate belief in the power of art and the nature of the human soul running through his work that shines light upon it. There's not so much a fear of death as an acceptance of its mystery, regret for life that has passed, but also a reveling in it, a wondrous faith in its workings.  He put it best when he said: "It’s (death) inevitable. I feel myself inching towards it. So there it is in my poems. And sometimes people will think of me as a kind of gloomy guy. But I don’t think of myself as gloomy at all. I say ha ha to death all the time in my poems... The thing to rejoice in is the fact that one had the good fortune to be born. The odds against being born are astronomical."

 

He has a great many things to say on the nature of poetry and quite eloquently. In a brilliant interview with the Paris Review (which you can read in its entirety: here), Strand makes many insightful points about poetry, here of which are a few of my personal highlights:

~ "When I read poetry, I want to feel myself suddenly larger . . . in touch with—or at least close to—what I deem magical, astonishing. I want to experience a kind of wonderment. And when you report back to your own daily world after experiencing the strangeness of a world sort of recombined and reordered in the depths of a poet’s soul, the world looks fresher somehow. Your daily world has been taken out of context. It has the voice of the poet written all over it, for one thing, but it also seems suddenly more alive—not as routinely there." 

~ "Poetry is always building these connections. It’s not showing off. It’s the verbalization of the internal life of man. And each poet forges a link in the chain, so that it can go on."

~ "Poetry is a high. It is a thrill. If people were taught to read poetry in the right way, they would find it extremely pleasurable." 

~ "I know nothing of the value of my work—all I know is that it’s what I do, and what I love to do."

~ "Well, my identity is hopelessly wrapped up in what I write, and my being a writer. If I stopped writing, I would simply feel the loss of myself. When I don’t write, I don’t feel properly alive. There was a period in my life, for five years, when I didn’t write any poems. They were among the saddest years of my life, perhaps the saddest years."

~ "I think poetry is a fundamental human activity, and must continue. I think the minute we stop writing poetry, or reading it, we cease being human. Now, I can’t be held to that, because there are very wonderful human beings who never read poetry, but I think it’s one of the ways we understand ourselves, and know what it feels like to be alive, so that we don’t turn into machines. It’s complicated, but I think it’s this language, the language of poetry, through which we’re recognizably human."  

The impression is of a man very much in touch with his craft and his life, life with a capital L. I must admit I'm very impressed by the honesty of his answers, especially the absence of any airs or graces or worse, erudite vaguenesss. No, he is straight to the point and shows both endearing modesty and noble respect in his position as a poet and his understanding of the craft.

In his poems (*some of which I've posted below), Strand doesn't mince the truth. Sometimes it is stark, and at others, well, it is stunning. Although he talks about death and nothingness, night and dark, he also talks in equal sense, about light and love, being and enjoying.  The poems shimmer with this juxtaposition, just like winter, harsh but beautiful. Something I've often quoted before from Strand relates to this idea exactly: 'pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.'

And what a pleasure it is to read his poetry which is  contemplative, exact, illuminating and, hopeful. How can a poet who writes lines like: 'The blaze of promise was everywhere',  'Each moment is a place you've never been' and 'that the luckiest thing is having been born' be classified as gloomy? Of course not. More like realistic, unflinching in the face of our greatest fear, reflective and redemptive.

Well, he certainly was paying attention.  And it's in this process of paying attention that
poetry creates something which defies death: a testament of living which lives on. When asked in The Paris Review interview whether he'd like to be read after he is dead, Strand replied that being dead, he wouldn't really care, but 'I mean, I’d really like to be alive after I’m dead. '  

He is of course.  As Borges simply put it: 'when writers die, they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.'  

Rest in peace. 


~ Siobhán


***

The Coming of Light 

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath. 

***

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
 
***

***

Love Liberates: Maya Angelou RIP

'No sun outlasts its sunset but will rise again and bring the dawn.' ~ Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou died last month. Poet, writer, human rights campaigner, compassionate crusader. The epitaphs attributed to her have taken measure of all of these. And such an outpouring there has been. 

I first heard of Maya Angelou when I came across her famous poem 'Still I Rise' in a library book once. The words pounded off the page, each a feisty declaration, a defiance of negativity through positivity, a reckoning, a literal rising. It was akin to a sword being pulled from a stone, something to put 'starch' in your backbone alright and make you stand up straight:

Her poems are simple, straight-forward, brave, and honest, confessions, declarations and intimations. Exactly as she advised she had accomplished, to write so that it 'slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.' 

Maya Angelou is best known perhaps for her autobiography 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', a narrative of Black History in the 1930s, the first volume out of five that have all been bestsellers: 'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again'. She overcomes all hardships to become a writer, a bestselling author, a campaigner for the Civil Rights movement on close terms with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and most importantly, an ambassador for compassion.  In 1993, she was the first female poet to read at a presidential inauguration for Bill Clinton.

I've been meaning to get around to posting this dedication to her. Her words have wisdom that will live on forever. Of all the articles posted since her death, this wealth of wisdom shines forth whether in short quotes or interviews. Posted below are some of her thoughts on writing; invaluable of course to any budding writers. And also an interview that has been trending ever since news of her death broke, that I feel expresses exactly the warmth of her personality, the innate love and compassion she was so well known and liked for. Watch it and smile in response. You can also read some of her poems here: A Poem A Day/Maya Angelou. 

Another great voice of our time gone, but never to be forgotten. Like the sun that has set, but 'will rise again to bring the dawn.'  RIP Maya Angelou. Our hearts salute you for a service well done. 


~ Siobhán  



                                                    


~  'The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.'

~ 'You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.'

~ 'When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.'

~ 'The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.'

~ 'Words are things… Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.'

~ 'Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.'

~ 'When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I’m trying for that. But I’m also trying for the language. I’m trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.'


 Love Liberates: