Pilgrimage of poems: A blanket made of heaven

A couple of years ago I came across a series of mystery novels by Chinese writer Qiu Xiaolong. They’re set in Shanghai of the 90s and the hero is Chief Inspector Chen Cao, who apparently never met an 8^th Century Tang poem he didn’t find necessary to quote. 

In fact, my comment in my reading log is “All that fricking Tang poetry”. After that, I stopped reading the books.

However, it turns out that one of the most acclaimed Tang poets was Li Bai (also known as Li Po), who wrote a whole lot of poems about drinking. Now, this I can get into.

So here are three examples.

“Wine Song”

If High Heaven had no love for wine,

There would not be a Wine Star in the sky.

If Earth herself had no love for wine,

There would not be a city called Wine Springs.

Since Heaven and Earth both love wine,

I can love wine, without shame before God.

Clear wine was once called “a Saint;”

Thick wine was once called “a Sage.”

Of Saint and Sage I have long quaffed deep,

What need for me to study spirits and the Immortals?

At the third cup I penetrate the Great Way;

A full gallon—Nature and I are one....

But the things I feel when wine possesses my soul

I will never tell to those who are not drunk.

“Drinking Alone”

I take my wine jug out among the flowers

To drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.

That, and my shadow, makes us three.

But the moon doesn't drink,

And my shadow silently follows.

I will travel with moon and shadow,

happy to the end of spring.

When I sing, the moon dances.

When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

We share life's joys when sober.

Drunk, each goes a separate way.

Constant friends, although we wander,

we'll meet again in the Milky Way.

“Mountain Drinking Song”

To drown the ancient sorrows,

We drank a hundred jugs of wine

There in the beautiful night.

We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.

The finally the wine overcame us

And we lay down on the empty mountain—

The earth for a pillow,

And a blanket made of heaven.

Pilgrimage of poems: One of the dumbs

Yeah, okay—last year I gave you one of Edward Lear’s poems (“The Pobble Who Had No Toes”), but if you need a drop of silliness (as on a Friday), you really can’t go wrong with him, so he’s back.

I’ll confess I’m not a fan of his limericks, but I do get a kick out of his longer efforts. He just doesn’t take much of anything seriously, which you just need once in a while.

Like:

“How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear”

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,

Who has written such volumes of stuff.

Some think him ill-tempered and queer,

But a few find him pleasant enough.

His mind is concrete and fastidious,

His nose is remarkably big;

His visage is more or less hideous,

His beard it resembles a wig.

He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,

(Leastways if you reckon two thumbs);

He used to be one of the singers,

But now he is one of the dumbs.

He sits in a beautiful parlour,

With hundreds of books on the wall;

He drinks a great deal of marsala,

But never gets tipsy at all.

He has many friends, laymen and clerical,

Old Foss is the name of his cat;

His body is perfectly spherical,

He weareth a runcible hat.

When he walks in waterproof white,

The children run after him so!

Calling out, "He's gone out in his night-

Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!"

He weeps by the side of the ocean,

He weeps on the top of the hill;

He purchases pancakes and lotion,

And chocolate shrimps from the mill.

He reads, but he does not speak, Spanish,

He cannot abide ginger beer;

Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

One of my favorite Lear-isms appears in this poem. I have got to figure out a way to get “runcible” into a conversation. Especially a job interview. “Well, there may be a really runcible play to be made in this sector…”

And here is another form of self-portrait, because Lear was also quite the visual artist:

I love the age-tagging of the two figures. Also the round resemblance.

Pilgrimage of poems: We lurk late

If you’ve not yet met Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, I’m honored to make the introduction. Brooks reminds me a little of Dorothy Parker inasmuch as she packs tremendous wallop in such a few words. It’s like she distills her experience down to the barest essence, and then sets you alight with it.

Of course, you can also liken her to Maya Angelou. Look at Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” (including her reading it), and then get to know Brooks’ “Weaponed Woman”. They’re kin, don’t you think?

“Weaponed Woman”

Well, life has been a baffled vehicle

And baffling. But she fights, and

Has fought, according to her lights and

The lenience of her whirling-place.

She fights with semi-folded arms,

Her strong bag, and the stiff

Frost of her face (that challenges “When” and “If.”)

And altogether she does Rather Well.

I believe that all girls should aspire to do Rather Well.

But the poem of hers I love most is “We Real Cool”. This is what I mean when I say she delivers nothing but the purest distillation of the lives, aspirations and predictable future for the pool players. And then she sets a match to it.

“We Real Cool”

The Pool Players.

Seven at the golden shovel.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

And now listen to her (and then Morgan Freeman) read it.

Pilgrimage of Poems: These who die like cattle

Wilfred Owen is probably the poet most widely associated with World War I. Unlike Mithridates—but very like millions of men between 1914 and 1918—he died young. He was 25 when he was killed in action by machine gun fire crossing the Sambre-Oise Canal on 4 November, 1918.

That was seven days before the cease-fire.

Owen had volunteered in 1915, and was sent to the Western Front as a second lieutenant with the Manchester Regiment. Between January and May 1917, he fell into a shell hole and suffered concussion and was hit by a mortar explosion (which killed his best friend). Following that incident, and after spending several days lying in a railway embankment, he was diagnosed with shellshock and sent to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh.

Craiglockhart was the place you went if your wounds weren’t of the flesh.

That was where he met Siegfried Sassoon (I’ll get to him later this month) and began to distill his perspective on the war, eventually becoming a powerful voice decrying its criminal waste and futility.

Last year I gave you “Dulce et Decorum Est”, probably his most famous expression of that. This year, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Pilgrimage of poems: Like a penknife in my heart

Is today’s National Poetry Month entry a poem? Well, yes. I mean, it rhymes, like that Mother Goose stuff.

And, like the Korean Sijo that I shared with you on Saturday, the images just flow from line to line. If you wanted to, you could probably keep going on and on.

Until the last line, of course. That one’s kind of final.

“Man of Double Deed”

There was a man of double deed,

Who sowed his garden full of seed.

When the seed began to grow,

Twas like a garden full of snow,

When the snow began to fall,

Like birds it was upon the wall.

When the birds began to fly,

Twas like a shipwreck in the sky.

And when the sky began to crack,

Twas like a stick upon my back.

And when my back began to smart,

Twas like a penknife in my heart,

And when my heart began to bleed,

Then I was dead and dead indeed.

But I asked the question because I first knew this as a song, a children’s nonsense song. And of course I heard it from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. There’s no way I can ever come across this in a collection of poems, or on a website, and not hear them starting out with the single voice, and layering on harmony after harmony, giving depth and substance to it.

Well, in fact, I don’t really know whether I noticed the transitions in the middle, because I got so wrapped up in the beauty of the song. I was a kid, after all.

(I could never figure out why you’d want to sing a song to your child about sticking penknives in your heart. But then, there’s that whole bough-breaking and baby-falling schtick in lullabies, so whatever.)

If you'd like the Clancy experience, here they are singing it at the Newport Folk Festival—so long ago it was shot on film; black-and-white film.

Gratitude Monday: Unexpected help

I’m grateful today that someone I met once a year ago at a product management meet-up responded to one of my “blonde” tweets on my professional account and offered to help me with the job search.

He spent more than an hour with me yesterday giving me ideas, encouragement and concrete leads to people who may be able (and willing) to help me find my next gig. There’s really nothing in it for him to do this, and I can’t tell you how much this means to me in a business where everyone is always calculating your potential ROI in every conversation they have.

Really grateful.

Pilgrimage of poems: Mithridates, he died old

I first encountered today’s entry for National Poetry Month in high school. I revisit it periodically because I’ve always loved it.

A. E. Housman’s “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff” is from his A Shropshire Lad collection. I suppose the more famous one from that book is “When I Was One-and-Twenty”, in which he expresses an older man’s understanding of how love works that he did not have when he was a youth. I actually find that a bit facile.

But “Terence”? This one’s got meat on its bones. The Terence referred to is the Roman playwright. The first section of the poem is one of his friends moaning about how Terence is always producing such grim fare, and asking for something with a bit more sparkle.

The poet replies by pointing out that life is not all skittles and beer, and then gives the example of an ancient king who outlived all his would-be assassins by embracing the ills they have to offer.

The last line always gets me. Always.

'Terence, this is stupid stuff:

You eat your victuals fast enough;

There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,

To see the rate you drink your beer.

But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,

It gives a chap the belly-ache.

The cow, the old cow, she is dead;

It sleeps well, the horned head:

We poor lads, 'tis our turn now

To hear such tunes as killed the cow.

Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme

Your friends to death before their time

Moping melancholy mad:

Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.'

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,

There's brisker pipes than poetry.

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

Or why was Burton built on Trent?

Oh many a peer of England brews

Livelier liquor than the Muse,

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God's ways to man.

Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink

For fellows whom it hurts to think:

Look into the pewter pot

To see the world as the world's not.

And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:

The mischief is that 'twill not last.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

And left my necktie God knows where,

And carried half way home, or near,

Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

Then the world seemed none so bad,

And I myself a sterling lad;

And down in lovely muck I've lain,

Happy till I woke again.

Then I saw the morning sky:

Heigho, the tale was all a lie;

The world, it was the old world yet,

I was I, my things were wet,

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still

Much good, but much less good than ill,

And while the sun and moon endure

Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,

I'd face it as a wise man would,

And train for ill and not for good.

'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale

Is not so brisk a brew as ale:

Out of a stem that scored the hand

I wrung it in a weary land.

But take it: if the smack is sour,

The better for the embittered hour;

It should do good to heart and head

When your soul is in my soul's stead;

And I will friend you, if I may,

In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:

There, when kings will sit to feast,

They get their fill before they think

With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

He gathered all the springs to birth

From the many-venomed earth;

First a little, thence to more,

He sampled all her killing store;

And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

Sate the king when healths went round.

They put arsenic in his meat

And stared aghast to watch him eat;

They poured strychnine in his cup

And shook to see him drink it up:

They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:

Them it was their poison hurt.

I tell the tale that I heard told.

Mithridates, he died old.

Pilgrimage of poems: One long soundless scream

I first read about Babi Yar in high school, about the same time I first heard some of Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poems. It was a novel notion to me that some guy, in the Soviet Union, long before Glasnost, could be a poet. You know, like Ferlinghetti or Ginsburg or Plath.

I had pretty limited notions of both poets and current events back then. I lived in the suburbs.

When I finally got interested in poetry, one of the first books I bought was one of his collections. I don’t now recall which one, or any of the poems in it; so it didn’t have a lasting effect on me. It was probably a “Hey-I’m-sophisticated-I’m-reading-a-Soviet-poet” kind of statement.

Much later, I picked up a copy of Anatoly Kuznetsov’s Babi Yar at a used book shop. And at that time I had no bleeding idea of what I was getting myself into—the book cover was extremely sparse in the summarizing blurb department. I just knew it was a novel about a massacre of Jews by the Nazis that took place in Kiev in 1941.

Much later still, when I finally got around to cracking it open to read, a steady tide of horror and disbelief rose over me until I nearly drowned. It turns out that Kutznetsov’s book is a “documentary novel” of his experience witnessing the two-day bloodbath in which nearly 34,000 men, women and children were murdered and shoved layer upon layer into the ravine called Babi Yar.

Kuznetsov says, “"Let me emphasize again that I have not told about anything exceptional, but only about ordinary things that were part of a system; things that happened just yesterday, historically speaking, when people were exactly as they are today."

Yevtushenko also wrote about the atrocity; it’s one of his most famous works. Like Kuznetsov’s, his account is searing. But he uses the poem to point out that the Soviet state is not much of an improvement on the Nazis, and to denounce anti-Semitism in any garb. It was a pretty ballsy move back in 1961, when it was first published.

And I don’t need to make any connection for you between his “Union of the Russian People” and current events. History, baby—if you miss it once, it comes around again.

Babi Yar

No monument stands over Babi Yar.

A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.

I am afraid.

Today, I am as old

As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.

I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt

And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured

And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself.

The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.

I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,

I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and

The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills

Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok

Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,

The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded

And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,

In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,

To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"

My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you

Are international, by inner nature.

But often those whose hands are steeped in filth

Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.

How vile, that without the slightest quiver

The anti-Semites have proclaimed themselves

The "Union of the Russian People!"

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,

Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,

And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,

But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.

How little one can see, or even sense!

Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,

But much is still allowed - very gently

In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-"They come!"

-"No, fear not - those are sounds

Of spring itself. She's coming soon.

Quickly, your lips!"

-"They break the door!"

-"No, river ice is breaking..."

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,

The trees look sternly, as if passing judgment.

Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,

I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream

Above the thousands of thousands interred,

I'm every old man executed here,

As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.

May "Internationale" thunder and ring

When, for all time, is buried and forgotten

The last of anti-Semites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,

But, hated with a passion that's corrosive

Am I by anti-Semites like a Jew.

And that is why I call myself a Russian!