Pale Ravener of Horrible Meat

Pale Ravener of Horrible Meat

The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean connected by dozens of atolls, which are little ring-shaped islands. It is an area known for its sharks (over 25 types), and sharks are awesome, though I'm not sure exactly which one Herman Melville describes in this short poem, "The Maldive Shark," so maybe someone can help me:

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

A few things about this poem draw me in. First, the word "phlegmatical" in the first line that, if not looked up, can be guessed at accurately using clues about the shark in the poem. A problem, sometimes, with words that come into poems and are not in the common vernacular is that they can seem a little pretentious, like the poet is talking down to you. In Melville's poem, published in the late 1800s, "phlegmatical" doesn't come off as pretentious but as a perfect fit: it makes the reader pay attention immediately, looks interesting, sounds interesting, and its definition fits (having an unemotional...disposition).

The most interesting aspect of this poem, though, has to be its perspective. Pilot fish congregate around sharks (and other species) in order to eat ectoparasites and loose scraps, and in Melville's poem we are with them, next to the shark, so the tension of the poem raises significantly. We are even inside the jaws, "an asylum." The metaphoric value held in "asylum" is that it is both a safe place and somewhere you do not want to be, or how Melville views the pilot fish's life, and this is another accurate and powerful word choice in "The Maldive Shark."

The last line strongly closes the poem while allowing the creation of the shark, one that is nasty, vicious, and dumb, to continue infinitely into some unknown. I'm not going to write much more about this now, but I'm definitely going to watch this a few times.

p.s. To see a "text-flow" of this poem on the Academy of American Poets website click here.

image source

Visual Poetics

Visual Poetics

Today I found this poem, which you must click in order to understand the very little I'm going to say about it because I can't post it here without Blogger exploding.

A major goal of poems, of course not all, is to arrange words onto lines that create an image in the reader's consciousness. A way to take this one step further is to create the image out of words you want your reader to imagine. For example, writing a poem about a swan while literally creating an image of a swan with the words in the poem. This is called concrete poetry, and this is often called cheesy poetry, at least by me.

A different twist is to still use words to create an image, except the only requirement is to make it interesting (assuming the poet wants you to be interested). This is what Mary Szybist does in her poem "All Times and All Tenses in this Moment."

This poem rotates around a point and its lines occasionally connect to others in terms of subject. At first glance, it's difficult not to say, "Cooool." But beyond this immediate reaction, I'm left feeling a bit let down by what the poem has to offer me. If a poem is to be judged by the originality of its language, its ability to create an emotional response in the reader, and its development from point A to B, Szybist does not win any medals from me with this poem.

However, this poem isn't playing by conventional rules, but rather against them, so the original criteria for a poem's success don't really matter. Maybe this poem only wants a, "Coooool," and nothing more. If so, then two "cool's" up; if this poem still wants to play in the conventional realm (but it doesn't), I give it only a half "cool." What'dya think? What are your thoughts on Szybist poem?

image source

Editor Tic-Talk

Editor Tic-Talk

The Kenyon Review's online feature that allows an editor to vouch for a particular poem or story is, if a little too "this is why I am smart and can spot good art," a really good thing.

Why We Chose It is KR's way of opening the sacrosanct box of editorial decision making. When we pick up a journal at the bookstore, or flip through one that has been shoved in our face by a man with a beard (call out, Patrick Harned), we read knowing little to nothing about the editorial process that went into shaping the work now held. The chances are high that at least one piece of work will beg the question, "Why was this in here? I hate it." KR's Why We Chose It will tell you, kind of.

The current featured poem is called "Why We Must Have Canonical Hours and Islands" by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. The poem in full:

Iona

To resist the hollowing, difficult to bear,
that draws us across an expanse of sea or year
to meet, in winter, on a narrow stair,

a desolation folded in a cowl of wool
or winged lions at the edges of the air.
To allow some story from a hill or well,

or this sere call, through mottled glass, of gull,
the rise and fall of prayer, this full
and relentless curl and then recoil of swell.

To pull us past the brittle mainland’s edge
where the great beasts stand in gold and there
break open for us abbeys in the air.

The editor assigned to tackle the rationale for inclusion of this poem is Tyler Meier. In his reasoning, he mentions the pull of the title, the rhythm of the poem, its vowels playing tricks in your mouth. And he ends with a nod to John Keats's idea of Negative Capability, capable of dwelling in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.

Basically, the the poem boggled him, leaving Meier "asking questions," so he was constantly drawn back to the poem partly because of its musical qualities and partly because he wanted to figure it out. The poem certainly leaves one asking questions, but so does the Why We Chose It feature. After reading the entire thing, I'm not sure if I'm any more knowledgeable about the reasoning for this particular poem's selection. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the poem and agree with what Meier is saying about its positive aspects, but perhaps a side-by-side with a "lesser" poem by this editor's standards might take the online feature a step further? Anyone, at KR, the lid has at least cracked some.

image source

Tongue in Cheek

Tongue in Cheek

Today I read a poem titled "Vision" which employs a classical turn with its last two lines, exposing itself to the reader and creating an ironic moment. The poet's tongue is in her cheek, the poet being Erica Funkhouser, someone I'm not familiar with beyond this particular poem. Her it is in full:

With age
mirage
assuages
what the youthful eye
would have studied
until identified—
chicory? bluebird? debris?
Today no nomenclature
ruptures
the composure
of a chalk-blue haze
pausing, even dawdling,
now and then trembling
over what I'm going to call
fresh water.

The final "what I'm going to call" makes the poem. More specifically, it makes the poem ironic and comedic, which are the poem's goals. Beginning at first with minor word play, all of those "ages" make more sense once we come to the penultimate line; the poet wants to pun in this poem, like I wanted to use a lot of "p's."

"Vision" is a poem that deals with a serious subject–becoming old and losing certain abilities–while reducing the threat of that subject through irony. Though I can't take a whole lot of poems like this without getting bored, they are fun, especially at the moment when they "turn," as with "what I'm going to call."

image source

Poets of the Night

Poets of the Night

Everyone knows that you can't make any money in art, especially poetry. The poet-only role vanished with John Keats's death by tuberculosis, and even during the Romantic age was rare and never really existed. Reintroducing 1920's nightlife flair in poetry brothels, though, might just help underpaid poets make next month's rent.

The concept works like this (a full and extremely interesting article describing Chicago's Poetry Brothel can be found by clicking): full bar, entertainment beyond poetry reading, and an intimate mood. Upon entering the Chicago Poetry Brothel scheduled every month, after a modest 5-10$ cover charge, one will find people dressed in 20's fashion and with names like "Good Doctor" and "Durham Pure," and interesting, invented personal histories as well. Once the lights go down, poets (a.k.a. the whores) take the stage one by one and give a quick tease–instead of 10 minutes, you are more likely to hear 20-30 seconds. A poet will peak your interest or they won't. But it they do, the fun begins.

As the poets leave the stage and you are treated to live music, including a live pianist playing period music, you might want to get to know the poet a little more. It will cost you, but only five bucks. Or, if you want, 20 dollars for five rounds at special times. You are buying a private, one-on-one poetry reading, where the poet leads you to a room with a name like "Divinity" and reads you a full poem....hard.

A way to change the poetry reading experience, this idea sounds so fun I want to hop along to Barcelona (one of the few large cities with a similar concept) and get my money's worth. The idea is intriguing: a mix of vaudeville, poetry, and mock sexual provocation.

Some poets have to work the "johns" to get them to pony-up the dough (actually a poker chip representing 5$ bought from a pimp helping to work the crowd), but I can imagine it wouldn't take long. I mean, what's sexier than poetry these days?

image source

Elizabeth Bishop and Geography III

Elizabeth Bishop and Geography III

There is an American library in Nancy with a sizable poetry collection I've just discovered. Yesterday, I grabbed Elizabeth Bishop's collected poems which contains arguably her best-known work in the book Geography III.

A slim volume by itself at 50 pages, in the collected poems it takes up even less space and can be read through easily in one sitting. Bishop's style in Geography III is plain, precise, and at times whimsical. Recalling the past in poems like "The Waiting Room," she is not overly personal but instead "focuse[s] her precise and carefully crafted lines on subtle impressions of the physical world" (poets.org). The focus on that world through the pages of National Geographic at age seven seems to have had a profound effect on Bishop (of course using the assumption of speaker-as-poet in this case), and taking a moment to click here and read this narrative poem is well worth your time.


image source

Internet

Internet

The past few days have been difficult. What is sad is that the difficulty has only been dealing with not having the internet. After going two years without it in my apartment, I became spoiled (especially using Megan's fancy-schmancy MacBook Pro).

I decided to search the word "internet" on poets.org's website and it gave me this:

April 27, 1937 by Timothy Steele ... satellites that serve the Internet. But still, despite our ...

Credible Information, 1999 - 2003 by Mark Pawlak ... foreign news media and the Internet to tell the American side of ...

Marble Hill by Kazim Ali ... of the actual hanging on the internet. I watched it myself. ...

String Theory Sutra by Brenda Hillman ... I mean the internet. Turns out ...

This is Lagos by John Koethe ... around the world from Internet cafés; violence and ...

Zozo-ji by Dana Levin ... dead. I found it via the Internet. Where they offered ...

So if you are up with a few poems with the word "internet" in them, you are in luck. Maybe you will even discover a new poet. My new find was Mark Pawlak. Enjoy your internet.

image source

Essential American Poets

Essential American Poets

There is a podcast and online collection of recordings on the Poetry Foundation's website called Essential American Poets. Created by Donald Hall in 2006 while he was poet laureate, each podcast condenses a poet's life and work into a few minutes of biographical high points and ends with a reading of several poems, which are often older recordings by the poet him/herself. The most recent addition to the podcast is Robert Hayden, known best for the poem "Those Winter Sundays:"

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices? 

This poem seems especially fitting now as we settle into winter's cold. It is subtle, sincere, and ends with a line on love that doesn't make me want to throw-up: it isn't overly sentimental. Rather, it is full of the question the adult speaker is not asking in the poem but implies, which is, "Why?" Why did you love me, why did you do this, why did you not want something in return, etc.? This poem is an example of how to investigate childhood, familial love, and adult uncertainty with tact and sincerity.

I encourage you to sift through the many audio clips available and discover a new voice. Stay warm, everybody.

image source

Heart Heart Heart

Heart Heart Heart

As the new year begins, emotions of all kinds are being stirred with resolutions, break-ups, breakdowns and, judged using the U.S. citizen's alert-o-meter, are at level red. Kim Addonizio has a poem that attempts to categorize this feeling of high intensity in the poem "My Heart."

That Mississippi chicken shack.
That initial-scarred tabletop,
that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.
That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch.
That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker
handing you your change.
That phone booth with the receiver ripped out.
That dressing room in the fetish boutique,
those curtains and mirrors.
That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams.
That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling.
That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup.
That biome. That wilderness preserve.
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.

So what can we learn about extreme feeling in this poem? First, that it is multifaceted; second, that it is imagined, and through these imaginings we rev ourselves into a furry of feeling. What better outlet than poetry, where everything is permissible and imagination is rewarded with oohs and ahhs? In this poem, I find myself doing that a lot.

To read more of Addonizio's work, click on her name to discover more poetry.

image source

Books on Writing

Books on Writing

Today I was included in a note that asked what books on writing seemed worth having, were effective, and if they had been used in classes. I wrote two paragraphs on style guides and creative writing prompt/advice texts, but I wanted to continue the discussion on writing guides here, with one poetry writing book in particular: Mary Kinzie's A Poet's Guide To Poetry.

I received Kinzie's guide around three or four years ago as a gift from my aunt. It is divided into several chapters discussing many aspects of poetry, like meter and rhyme, while giving numerous sample poems. Also, there is a chapter on poetry writing prompts in the back. The book attempts to cover all-things-poetry and really dig into what is happening not only within individual lines of a poem, but words.

What is interesting to me about this book though is that I've never been able to sustain momentum in reading it. At more than 500 pages, it doubles as a solid reference source and poetic dictionary, but as a book designed as what feels like a textbook, it does not do itself any favors by appealing to Sunday afternoon poetry investigation. So, with books like these, books that aren't meant to be light but are more seriously focused on writing, how should they be used? The answer lies in active reading.

Active reading is first evaluating a text (what is it?), discovering how the text is organized (chapters, sections, etc.), and deciding what your motives and goals for reading the book are and what areas of the book to read. This is something that I haven't been doing the past 3 years. Before, I would pick up the book, read the introduction, and start at page one: I wanted to learn everything the book had to offer. Reading this way, based on pencil scratches in the margins, has only taken me to page 140. It was like opening a high school textbook and reading front to back: it was boring, I wasn't engaged, and ultimately it was a waste of time.

Books on writing are designed to motivate you to write and, by writing, write better. If you have a thick, academic book on writing like A Poet's Guide To Poetry, the best way to approach books like this are to only read chapters that are relevant to you (if you are like me and must read cover to cover, this is hard, but will save you a lot of time and you will remember more of what you read) and don't bother with the rest. Seemingly obvious, abandoning the standard front to back method saves time. Who knew?

If anyone cares to recommend a book on writing, poetry or otherwise, that has been helpful, please do. Kinzie's book is a nice book to own but not the most fascinating–solid discussion, references and comment.

image source

Goethe's House

Goethe's House

For three days my wife and I shuffled around Frankfurt's cold streets, visiting museums, enjoying cheaper and better beer than can be easily found in Nancy, France, and practicing German phrases that translate to "Excuse me" and "Sorry (accompanied by a truly sincere face), I don't speak German."

The city of Frankfurt had much to offer but was blasted by most people in our hostel. Apparently, there wasn't as much to do here. For three days, though, we were able to keep busy and I wouldn't mind going back: the city was clean, the public transport was great, and costs were very reasonable. But enough about the city–let's talk about a house and someone who grew up in it: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Goethe wrote mainly between 1773 until his death in 1832. He wrote drama, fiction, poetry and scientific works, his most famous titles including the plays Faust Part 1 and Faust Part 2 (published posthumously), the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, the poems "Mignon's Song" and "Marienbad Elegy" and the scientific study Theory of Colours. Below is the poem "Mignon's Song," which comes from within The Sorrows of Young Werther and contains one of German poetry's most recognized opening lines. (the opening line supposedly refers to Italy, a country Goethe became infatuated with as a boy and where he lived for some time, inspiring many German youth to follow in his footsteps.)

MIGNON.
[This universally known poem is also to be found in Wilhelm Meister.]

KNOW'ST thou the land where the fair citron blows,
Where the bright orange midst the foliage glows,
Where soft winds greet us from the azure skies,
Where silent myrtles, stately laurels rise,
Know'st thou it well?

'Tis there, 'tis there,
That I with thee, beloved one, would repair.

Know'st thou the house? On columns rests its pile,
Its halls are gleaming, and its chambers smile,
And marble statues stand and gaze on me:
"Poor child! what sorrow hath befallen thee?"
Know'st thou it well?

'Tis there, 'tis there,
That I with thee, protector, would repair!

Know'st thou the mountain, and its cloudy bridge?
The mule can scarcely find the misty ridge;
In caverns dwells the dragon's olden brood,
The frowning crag obstructs the raging flood.
Know'st thou it well?

'Tis there, 'tis there,
Our path lies--Father--thither, oh repair!

1795.*

The "Marianbad Elegy" is too long to post here, but is worth reading if you have the time.

So then, the refresher course on Goethe is over, along with vacation. Now, time to find some new poetry to start the new year! New post in two days.

image source