Sunday, February 11, 2007

Poems and Places

Have a speach again this week - I have to read a poem to the group. It's been a lot of fun browsing through anthologies, trying to find a theme or something to connect with. I was surprised (it's been a while since I've really dug into poetry) to remember how heavy most of it is! (Maybe it's just the anthologies on my shelves.) But, with this Valentine's week et al, I was expecting to find a few happy, beautiful bits that would be easy to read and make us all feel warm.

Going through the Romantics, found all this extremely heavy work like "Ozymandius" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" - references to Greek gods and this insanely complex sentence structure. I thought Shakespeare's sonnets would be sweet, but, (and maybe I'm not as smart as I used to be, or maybe I'm just more honest), I just wasn't sure what he was saying! If the woman was wooed by the first lines, I think she would be confused by the end, which probably was Shakespeare's intention.

And then, the modern poetry, so much is either 1) morbid eg about death and suicide and black things, or 2) ironic and cynical and hopeless, or 3) nonsense and meaningless, or 4) just kind of dry, or 4) bizarrely exagerated. What happened to all the pretty poetry?

I think I really was looking for something as beautiful as Song of Songs. I've been reading Psalms for a while, but that's heavy too. Song of Songs is just glorious and lovely. It was edifying to have that experience too, to know that besides being Truth, the Bible includes the most beautiful text I could find on my shelf.

But, without further ado - here's my first draft of the 8 minute speech for Wednesday:



What a privilege to get to read poetry to this group! I’ll be reading four short poems about places. I enjoy thinking about spaces and really experiencing where I am. These are poems about experiencing where you are.

The first is the most abstract. This is by EE Cummings, written from the perspective of a man sitting in a booth in a busy bar in New York. You can hear the sounds of the bar around him, the bits of conversations, and you get to feel some of his experience as he sits in that room.

The second is by Carl Sandberg about being on Clark Street Bridge in Chicago at night.

The third is by my friend Steve West, written during a business trip to Milwaukee. It’s directed to Solomon Juneau, the founder of the city. You can see him walk down the street, encountering people as he passes the street signs.

Finally, a short piece by me. For a while on Sundays, my wife had to get to church earlier than I did, so I would sit in front of this baseball field in Cary in my car and think and write. This is one episode from that series.

Here goes . . .


[i was sitting in mcsorley’s]
E. E. Cummings
1925



i was sitting in mcsorley's. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing.

Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push witless creases of screaming warmth chuck pillows are noise funnily swallows swallowing revolvingly pompous a the swallowed mottle with smooth or a but of rapidly goes gobs the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings intersect with which distinct disks of graceful oath, upsoarings the break on ceiling-flatness

the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warm-lyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush of foam knocked off and a faint piddle-of-drops she says I ploc spittle what the lands thaz me kid in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo

he's a palping wreaths of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple together eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squinting who's a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths take big wobbly foot

steps every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft right old feller belch the chap hic summore eh chuckles skulch. . . .

and I was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale, which never lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my being pleasantly was punctuated by the always retchings of a worthless lamp.

when With a minute terrif iceffort one dirty squeal of soiling light yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish foetal head established It suddenly upon the huge neck around whose unwashed sonorous muscle the filth of a collar hung gently.

(spattered)by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast wordless nondescript genie of trunk trickled firmly in to one exactly-mutilated ghost of a chair,

a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity,shoulders, sprouted the extraordinary arms through an angle of ridiculous velocity commenting upon an unclean table.and, whose distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug

gone Darkness it was so near to me,i ask of shadow won't you have a drink?

(the eternal perpetual question)

Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley's It,did not answer.

outside.(it was New York and beautifully, snowing. . . .


CLARK STREET BRIDGE
Carl Sandberg
1916

DUST of the feet
And dust of the wheels,
Wagons and people going,
All day feet and wheels.

Now. . .
. . Only stars and mist
A lonely policeman,
Two cabaret dancers,
Stars and mist again,
No more feet or wheels,
No more dust and wagons.
Voices of dollars
And drops of blood
. . . . .
Voices of broken hearts,
. . Voices singing, singing,
. . Silver voices, singing,
Softer than the stars,
Softer than the mist.


Poem-Walk
Steve West
c. 2000


Listen to me, Solomon Juneau.

I am on a mission from God.
I am an extra-terrestial,
a wide-eyed wanderer
on this
terrestrial ball.

See me there? Here comes
santa claus looking worn &
frail, an overdressed rabble of a
man, bearded, half-blind, under-
nourished, with a sack of treasure
on his back.

Yes, I just touched down, Soloman Juneau,
on this blue end of Milwaukee, only
visiting this planet. Call it

Terra firma. Earth.
I’m walking on the solid
flesh and dirt of life.

Lapham. Becher. Waukesha.
I dodge the word puddles, the
splash of image, tripping over
profundities and wonders.

Can you hear it Soloman Juneau?
Can you hear the hip hop bop, the
music of the poet thinking?

Van Buren. Marquette. Grand Avenue.

A black man peers from
behind a dirty screen.
(Hear the silence speaking?)

A woman sunbaths, workers
lounge, winos loll.
(Can you feel the wonder?)
In the Cafe Leon a
woman sips, motions, shrugs,
dismisses, her upturned laugh
rippling through the air.

The air is pompous-smelling,
magenta in all its hipness, the
people poised and sheek.

I am the meek and minding.
I eat.
I listen.
I spy.
In the cafe, on the street,
I gather the pearls of conversation,
laughing at my wealth.

I am king for the moment,
resplendent in my humaness,
carrying my sackful of words,
my rattles and my rhymnes.

I am accused of metaphoric dementia ---
diagnosis: too human, naked, unashamed
prognosis: animal skins and fig leaves

Are you watching, Soloman Juneau?
See me spill my words?
Watch me unwrap these packages.
I’ll fashion up some truth.

I am an extra-terrestrial ---
word-full
wacked-out &
wondered. A
meteoric, metaphoric, poet.
Don’t you know it?

Really, only human, Soloman Juneau.


An Empty Ballfied on a Sunday Morning
Andy Osterlund
2005

An empty ballfield on a Sunday morning
A rabbit and a squirrel and a scoreboard unlit
A fly comes through my open windows screaming a buzz

Boundaries and fences; markers and out of bounds
Jet overhead; brush underneath; and me in between
Electrical boxes waiting for a night game.

Coming to the limits of inspiration and provocation
Coming to the limits of what can be derived from a scene
But the creatures keep stirring and the sun is interrupted by the trees.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Reading Man

It's been a record month or so for me, book-wise:
  • Finished Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler".
  • Started and finished Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close".
I attribute this new reading success to three things:
  1. Saturdays at the gym on the recumbant stationary bike.
  2. Joining a newly formed book club with a deadline (Foer's book, March 30.)
  3. Reading a best-selling novel by a still-living author in its original language (again, Foer's book.)

But now what?

  • Shall I return to Doestoyevsky? Has my new success renewed enough reading confidence, or should I pin a couple more titles to my chest first? But, is it really fair to start another book with this one still half-read? Cons: possibly too heavy for the recumbant stationary bike, 19th century russian author.
  • Shall I return to my college pattern of faith, architecture, fiction, culture, repeat? Is "culture" next or should I start back over with "faith" because I've been out of the cycle so long? Cons: what if my reading streak doesn't last?
  • And what about the novel I just bought because the movie it spawned looks so interesting? Is that too much fiction for two months time? What about my existentialist ideals? What if I just went to the movie instead?
  • Or the coffee table book I got for Christmas? Cons: definitely too heavy for the gym.
  • Or the "faith" book that everyone I know has read and likes. Cons: when was the last time I liked something that everyone else liked?

It's either the "movie" book or the popular "faith" book, or the coffee table "architecture" book with another book on the side.