Resurrecting Plath

Sylvia Plath is probably one of the most tragic figures of recent years. Such people fascinate me. They seem to live with a greater intensity than the rest of the world. Of course it isn’t pretty. At least most of it, isn’t. But I imagine experiencing life through their senses, the colours -brighter, sounds -distinct and the voices in the head- articulate. May be it is this intensity that burns them out so soon, even as it emits a brightness that is felt for years after.

Jilted reminds me of teenage. Shallow sorrows. No less bitter (sour?) for the shallowness. It seems like the whole world at the time...but you know, even then, that looking back it will, probably, be nothing. You know it is silly to cry about a chance remark you overheard, made by people you don’t care about. And yet, you can’t stop feeling bad about it.

The next one I read was Love is a Parallax. I know,  it took some guts to embark on this one! The title is just awesome. I looked up the exact meaning of parallax:

1.        an apparent change in the position of an object when the person looking at the object changes position

2.       the angle between two imaginary lines from two different observation points meeting at an astronomical object, used to measure the object's distance from Earth

Both definitions are brilliant in this context! But I believe the poet was going with the first one.  Or could be the second?

I completely missed the beauty of this poem the first several times I read it. The language is tough. But there is an underlying beauty.  Sylvia starts with a bold claim that train tracks do meet!

'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:

train tracks always meet, not here, but only

in the impossible mind's eye;

There are some priceless moments in the poem...like:

'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd

that one man's devil is another's god

or that the solar spectrum is

a multitude of shaded grays; suspense

on the quicksands of ambivalence

is our life's whole nemesis.

If everything is a point of view...then why spend our lives doubting? Freeing, isn’t it?

 I came across recitation of this poem on youtube, read with a very solemn voice. But to me, there is a jaunty rhythm to this poem... moments of playfulness.

The most outstanding characteristic of this poem is the use of exaggerated imagery. You know, when you are in love (or high)...the whole world moves in a different manner... certain things are more pronounced and others fade away to the background? And nothing seems to matter anyway? Well...that is the feeling I get (yeah...I don’t pretend to understand the similes and metaphors here, but I get it, at a more emotional level) from reading the following:

So kiss: the drunks upon the curb and dames

in dubious doorways forget their monday names,

caper with candles in their heads;

the leaves applaud, and santa claus flies in

scattering candy from a zeppelin,

playing his prodigal charades.

The moon leans down to took; the tilting fish

in the rare river wink and laugh; we lavish

blessings right and left and cry

hello, and then hello again in deaf

churchyard ears until the starlit stiff

graves all carol in reply.

Now kiss again: till our strict father leans

to call for curtain on our thousand scenes;

brazen actors mock at him,

multiply pink harlequins and sing

in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing

while footlights flare and houselights dim.

Even as you are entertained by dubious dames, Santa clauses and strict fathers...the poet brings you down to reality...that one day lovers will part and life will come to an end. That even as we live and love, we are moving towards calamity, ultimately to be annihilated. The poem ends with these lines:

Then jet the blue tent topple, stars rain down,

and god or void appall us till we drown

in our own tears: today we start

to pay the piper with each breath, yet love

knows not of death nor calculus above

the simple sum of heart plus heart.

.

Haunting....today we start to pay the piper with each breath! The more I read it...the more I totally love it....and the less I understand it!

Oh yeah, Sylvia Plath was discussed in the 11^thFeb  meeting of the poetry club, her 48^th death anniversary. Coincidence? Hmm...

Stoned with Difranco

I'll admit.. I didn't do my homework. But then this particular session wasn't wholly 'ordinary' by any standard.

Still, I'd have gotten around to Ani Difranco soon enough.

Every rebel without a cause needs a powerful, angry voice to sing her anthem. I've found more such singers and anthems than causes, in my life. There was a time when Alanis' violent rants would sum up my entire existence. I'd like to think that I've grown since then. Of course, I haven't.
Ani Difranco is the Alanis for your late 20's.

Tiptoe is the kind of slap across the face you need in the middle of a good day. Because however stubbornly pro-choice you are or you aren't, does anything mean anything when you're standing at the edge, whatever the view might be? Grant yourself a single moment of honesty, will you at least then accept that you don't know?

Asking too much.. is just that. This is the answer to the world's most abused question - "What do women want?" She splits the list quite neatly into the 'impossible, he'll never get around to it' and 'just very simply fucking listen!' - and it's the latter that is so often so forgotten..

if you hear me talking
listen to what i'm not saying
if you hear me playing guitar
listen to what i'm not playing
and don't ask me to put words
to all the silences i wrote
don't ask me to put words
to all the spaces between notes

And then the big one tumbles out..

in other words i want someone
who's not afraid of themself

Yeah, I'm probably asking too much.

Not a pretty girl is your typical mad feminist rant. Break through the stereotypes, destroy the preconceived image of the 'fair maiden', and question the disgusting idea of a 'damsel in distress'. But it's beyond just that. People (and not just men, mind you) who can't figure you out feel the need to first fix you and then place you in a box. A box that they know and understand, and are perhaps, not threatened by.

don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
whether or not you ever show up

How bloody true.

Keeping It Simple, Stupid!

I was looking for something I didn't have to excavate through words I wouldn't understand, to get to the final meaning/purpose, that I wouldn't understand. Beauty in simplicity, where the profound is trapped in the thought, and not the language.

I'd never heard of David Berman, or his band, much less his poetry, before. It's just one of the first 'contemporary' poets that poemhunter threw up, and here we are.

It was Imagining Defeat that caught my attention first. A simple and ordinary series of semi-events. Girl wakes boy up, with a clear intention of leaving him. Boy is too lost in the mundaneness of the morning. Grabs a smoke. Girl makes one last attempt (knowing all too well, it's in vain) at driving sense into him, asking him if he thought of cancer...

Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead
in the distance where it doesn't matter

And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree,
so far behind his wagon where it also doesn't matter.

except as a memory of rest or water.

And then kaboom! While you are basking in the afterglow of this sad and beautiful idea, he throws a bomb in there..

Though to believe any of that, I thought,
you have to accept the premise

that she woke me up at all.

The twist presents itself in the tale. The irony and the pointlessness.

But why imagining defeat? Was it because if the conversation had actually happened, there might have been at least a chance? Though more likely to have ended in defeat, than anything else. But because none of it really happened, everything, including the break-up has to be imagined..

I don't entirely get it. But there's something delightfully miserable about it.

And the others is the very definition of a simple poem, with no subtext and no overtones. But I read a very personal message into this. This light that we keep chasing, is our own. My light isn't your light, so don't try to analyze it, belittle it, or make me switch lights. And why should this principle not hold for those who haven't found their light? For crap's sake, don't sit in judgement over people who are making do with the dark! I doubt if the poet was leading up to this at all, but I do strongly feel that there will always be some who will not find that light, and to get by, they will convince themselves that they don't need it. Let them be!

The Charm of 5:30. I almost wish it were a Simon & Garfunkel song. It's as if he stashed everything nice, wonderfully warm and feel-good into a beer can, and as beer cans nearly always do, it exploded the fizz of loveliness into the air around me. And not in a saccharin-drippy way. In a genuine 'What a wonderful world!' way, the feeling that lasts all of 45 seconds on a good day. And he artfully prepares you for nostalgia as he ends..

In fact I'll bet you something.

Somewhere in the future I am remembering today. I'll bet you
I'm remembering how I walked into the park at five thirty,
my favorite time of day, and how I found two cold pitchers
of just poured beer, sitting there on the bench.

I am remembering how my friend Chip showed up
with a catcher's mask hanging from his belt and how I said

great to see you, sit down, have a beer, how are you,
and how he turned to me with the sunset reflecting off his contacts
and said, wonderful, how are you.

Memories like this, they appreciate in value over time, probably layered with our own wistfulness. It probably lasts just a minute, but the charm is everlasting. And if you are really, really talented, you can trap some of that charm in words, like Berman has..

Poe in Poetry

It was a pleasant surprise to discover Edgar Allen Poe in the world of poetry. I have always been deeply affected by his writing...if prose can do so much damage…imagine poetry! Well..I started out with Alone.

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.

For someone belonging to too many different worlds, and feeling like an outsider in all of them, these words gave a strange sense of belonging. The first half of the poem certainly resonates with me. In the latter half, Poe refers to the “Dawn of a most stormy life” and says that the “demons” of his adult life can be connected back to his experiences during his childhood.

Having read the first half and connecting so well with it, I suddenly feel abandoned in the second half. Like for every verse that Poe wrote, he had one in his mind which he did not share with me…leaving me with words that promise meaning without delivering. This isn’t to question the merit or value of the poem to the poet, but I think the audience (by audience I refer to general public trying to read the poem rather than literature students, scholars and award winning writers) is justified if they feel slightly lost.

In my mind, the truly characteristic poem of Poe’s is The Raven. Poe’s capability of taking everyday things and making them spooky, whether in poetry or in prose, comes to the fore in this one. The incantation of “Nevermore!”, “Nevermore!” rings in your ears long after the words themselves have died down.

The poem has a rhythm about it…and somehow the rhythm builds up, along with quickening heartbeats, as the poem progresses. He has an uncanny way of building a sensation in the reader and slowly making it grow till it becomes unbearable. Not just while reading it…but long after. Reading this poem, as with much of Poe’s writing, I lost the boundary between me and the protagonist. And slowly it is I who is afraid…confused…in denial and finally frustrated and despairing. Of course, listening to the Christopher Walken recite the poem was absolutely gripping.

Over all, fantastic reading Poe in poetry form…just wish there were more along the lines of The Raven.

Longfellow

I chose my poet by leaving it to randomness. I simply went to a bookstore, grabbed several books of verses, randomly opened a page and read what was in it. The idea was to pick up the one I feel the most connection to, but what happened was, I simply picked the first one I could understand something of. Happened to be Selected Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Of the entire selection, (I read only around 15 of them) but "A Psalm of Life" is the one that touches me the most. This poem is a passionate call to awaken the soul to purpose and action. Even though my life’s purpose eludes me, and all my goals lie beyond a hazy glow, reading the poem is still inspiring. In an oddly bhagavadgita-like manner, the poem calls for action in the present, without looking at the past or the future. Elsewhere, there is also reference to doing without worrying about the result. While all these elements are inspiring, to me the following verses are the most “Goose-bumpy” ones:

Lives of great men all remind us
        We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
        Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
        Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
        Seeing, shall take heart again.

Although I have no intention (or even ability) to leave behind “Footprints in the sands of time”, I am always on the lookout for “Footprints” left behind by lofty souls. Footsteps, which awaken me from the stupor of the everyday life. Left behind by people, whose words, thoughts and work find a kinship in me, like they were all here, witnessing me and empathizing, in my moment of question and doubt.

The poem peaks in its call to purpose and a forward momentum in these two stanzas. In fact, till I actually read it out, I did not realize that there was more. These verses follow:

Let us, then, be up and doing,
        With a heart for any fate ;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
        Learn to labor and to wait.

Unfortunately there is nowhere to go from the peak but down. While the idea of doing without expecting result still finds a resonance, laboring and waiting is a decidedly “old-world” virtue that fails to find any sympathy. If you are brave enough for any fate, then why wait? Why not take up the next meandering path that echoes with your passion and continue down that road?

Other poems like the “Burial of the Minnisink”, “Hymn to the Night” and several others have beautiful imagery and message. “Mezzo Cammin” is about disappointment and disillusionment. Halfway through life, the protagonist realizes that the goals and aspirations that he had set out to achieve in his youth are incomplete and what is left is but the autumn of life. A wonderfully written poem, that is sure to touch a chord in the reader. If one is honest enough to acknowledge the lofty and idealistic goals one sets for oneself in the bright-eyed innocence of youth. And how little of it is achieved or even seems possible to achieve as one grows older.

Dibs on Neruda

I have a mental block against South American literature. It's my failed attempts at understanding and/or appreciating Paulo Coelho and GG Marquez. So Neruda might well have floated into my line of sight, at some point, but I'd most certainly have swatted him like an annoying housefly. It's my general discomfort when it comes to translations - how can they be even half as good?!

But a fortunate turn of events has led me to change my mind. And it helped that I chanced upon 'A dog has died', right at the beginning of this little affair..

and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom..

These lines took me back to an old James Herriot story, about dogs having souls and going to heaven. It's just one of those naive thoughts that make you feel less guilty, I suppose.. On the other hand, how can they(dogs, ie) not?!

His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations.

Thank god for none of that "Mary's little lamb" type bullshit! Dogs have pride too, you know!

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit..

The closest that one can get to feeling such joy, is perhaps to witness it. And that is perhaps the most enduring feeling, one that outlasts the moment by a lifetime.

The next one I settled on was 'Tonight I can write the saddest lines'. I remember reading the first line on someone's facebook homepage, and found it interesting, I think. Of course, now, I took my time. And boy, was I let down! What a load of drivel! The whinings of an adolescent boy, stood up, on his second date. Yeeesh. "I loved her.. she loved me... I don't have her.. I have lost her.. " - boo-fucking-hoo!!
And somewhere, lost in this pile of steaming horseshit, killer lines like these..

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Still, sorry Pablo.. I'm hoping Mr. Nobel signed over the prize to you inspite of, and not because of a cliche of a poem like this! (On a side note, is it his fault that such sentiments are now cliches, when he probably wrote this some 50 years ago!?)

Thought I should give the old pendejo one more chance.. And God bless my stars, that I did. 'We are many' brought Neruda back up to the shrine atop my pedestal, and frankly, my own soul back to life.
It's such a waste to try and pin some lines down here. Spinning an ode to 'self doubt', making an art out of self-deprecation..

When everything seems to be set
to show me off as a man of intelligence,
the fool I keep concealed on my person
takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

And then there is the envy. The pointless envy of unrealistic figures. And the god-awful irony that poetry (yes, including Neruda's) too idolizes the impossibly brave..

All the books I read
lionize dazzling hero figures,
brimming with self-assurance.
I die with envy of them;
and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,
I am left in envy of the cowboys,
left admiring even the horses.

He concludes by offering up his own self-analysis, hoping that others are as messed up in the head as he is, and in a bit of an anti-climax..

When this problem has been thoroughly explored,
I am going to school myself so well in things
that, when I try to explain my problems,
I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

So the verdict on Neruda? Having spent less than a week on just 3 poems...
"Please sir, can I have some more?!"

And so it began..

The credit really goes to Liza, and that little crumb of Pablo Neruda that found its way to us.

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or
arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom
and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives
the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

The best thing about words like this, is the silence that follows after the words have stopped. You could turn into a puddle at words like this, you could 'meh' at the unabashed romance, or you could honestly admit to the frustrating envy of it all - ".. oh! to be loved like that!". Whatever it is, if you've read these lines, even if only off-handedly, and if you have the slightest trace of blood in your veins, it's got to 'affect' you. I dare you to remain indifferent!

And that's all we're looking for, aren't we? Just a chance to shake off the indifference. That's what our little 'Poetry Club' is trying to do. And even if we don't manage to succeed, it's ok. After all, no one's complained after a little bit of conversation, a drink and a bite. Right?