Amy Lowell doesn’t quite get the press like Emily Dickinson does, although Amy did receive a Pultizer for her work. Very much influenced by the Imagist Movement, Lowell, like Ezra Pound, captures the essence of a scene in only a few words. So much is left unsaid, which is what makes this poem so complete.
image: morguefile/rezdora70
Over the shop where silk is sold Still the dragon kites are flying.
Most of Poe is a favorite. I don’t care for the macabre aspect, the chop-him-up-cause-I-loved-him-so stuff. Makes me nervous walking across floorboards when he does that kind of writing. My students like Poe because they like the scary aspect of his writing, although they don’t always understand his diction, they get his intent of setting people offside with mixing real with horror. So, it is with surprise that I’ve come across a Poe poem that is actually upbeat. Which Poe are you most familiar with–the scary guy or the dreamer?
Eddie, do you need a hug?
image: Academy of American Poets
Although it’s been out for a bit now, the fairy tale musical extravanga Into the Woods takes on new meaning in James Weldon Johnson’s poem. Meryl Streep beckoning folks to find answers in the woods is a bit creepy for my tastes, especially since I favor the serenity felt in the woods. This is one reason I am so drawn to this particular rendering of the peace, the reverance found within the forest. Are the woodlands scary or a refuge for you?
Are you bowed down in heart?
Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?
Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,
Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,
From out the palpitating solitude
Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?
They are above, around, within you, everywhere.
Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.
They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.
Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale
Until, responsive to the tonic chord,
It touches the diapason of God’s grand cathedral organ,
Filling earth for you with heavenly peace
And holy harmonies.
image: morguefile/modnar
There is that time of year when the snows have lingered much too long and spring is ready to arrive, yet winter stubbornly refuses its hold. Then comes that zephyr breeze, the Chinook, that warming wind that hints the good times of summer are ever nearer. The warm wind teases the remaining snowdrifts to melt and feed the hiding narcissus. Robert Frost knew exactly that moment when the warm winds bring the change oh so needed.
Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.
I Woke: —
Night, lingering, poured upon the world
Of drowsy hill and wood and lake
Her moon-song,
And the breeze accompanied with hushed fingers
On the birches.
Gently the dawn held out to me
A golden handful of bird’s-notes.
There are so many lovely images resounding throughout. I envision summer–standing on a hill overlooking a grassy meadow, the sun slowly cresting the horizon and in that crystalline moment a trill of robin song adds to the joy of another morning, another day of promise.
It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.
I grew up with a willow tree in our backyard. I always seemed a sad tree to me, weeping its leaves into our fish pond. I hadn’t thought about that tree until coming across Williams’ poem. Odd. Those willow leaves, as I recall, didn’t succumb to the “kiss of the sun” and fade away into autumn and winter as our maple did so stoically.
a sad dipping into the water–is this what inspired Williams? image: MorgueFile/LoneAngel
“The Children’s Hour” was first published in the September 1860 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was probably one of the first poets encountered as a child. Who hasn’t encountered his “Song of Hiawatha?” He is well known for many poems, and one of my favorites is his tribute to his children. I can imagine his little “banditti” sneaking up on him and him gathering them up all shrieks and giggles.
Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, That is known as the Children’s Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. A whisper, and then a silence: Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall! By three doors left unguarded They enter my castle wall! They climb up into my turret O’er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me; They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, Because you have scaled the wall, Such an old mustache as I am Is not a match for you all! I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon In the round-tower of my heart. And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away!
Love is twain, it is not single,
Gold and silver mixed to one,
Passion ‘tis and pain which mingle
Glist’ring then for aye undone.
Pain it is not; wondering pity
Dies or e’er the pang is fled;
Passion ‘tis not, foul and gritty,
Born one instant, instant dead.
Love is twain, it is not single,
Gold and silver mixed to one,
Passion ‘tis and pain which mingle
Glist’ring then for aye undone.
I first met William Carlos Williams whilst learning how ill-equipped I was to be in the Masters in the Teaching of writing program at Humboldt. I was quite illiterate when it came to poetry and the classics. My writing wasn’t up to snuff either. I even had a professor tersely whisper in my ear how I got in the program. The moment of crisis eventually passed once I gained understanding that poems weren’t really some mysterious language dropped out of the sky for mortals to puzzle over. Dr. Williams lent his red wheelbarrow to me one day, and I began to relax and realize that poetry was simply another way of listening to the heart.
National Poetry Month wouldn’t be the same without a guest appearance from Emily. Image: Academy of American Poets
I’ll tell you how the sun rose, —
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”
But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while
Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.
It will no doubt take a lifetime to read and appreciate Emily D’s some 1000+ poems. I do so delight in finding one I haven’t seen before. How does she devise these slips of images that dazzle to the point of pause? What’s interesting to me is that she didn’t capitalize “sun” although she personified it, which did have a penchant for doing.
Have you a favorite Emily? Please share. Maybe I am not aware of it yet and I would like to make its acquaintance.
When haughty expectations prostrate lie,
And grandeur crouches like a guilty thing,
Oft shall the lowly weak, till nature bring
Mature release, in fair society
Survive, and Fortune’s utmost anger try;
Like these frail snow-drops that together cling,
And nod their helmets smitten by the wing
Of many a furious whirlblast sweeping by.
Observe the faithful flowers! if small to great
May lead the thoughts, thus struggling used to stand
The Emathian phalanx, nobly obstinate;
And so the bright immortal Theban band,
Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove’s command,
Might overwhelm, but could not separate!
We all know Wordsworth penchant for daffodils. They are the poster child for spring in my book. Then again, this poem of his extolling the strength of snow-drops has me thinking of how fragile something can appear, yet have a rooted strength unseen. I will have to pay more attention to my snow-drops. I also need to scamper to my allusions dictionary and look up Emathian and Jove. That Wordsworth–he tends to keep me on my toes.
image: OldGreySeaWolf/MorgueFile
A writer's journey as a reader
Pam Webb 