They lying long

Well, of course you can’t have a National Poetry Month without something from Dylan Thomas. I expect Thomas is the best-known poet to come out of Wales, and he’s been part of my life since my friend Gretchen Pullen introduced me to him in high school. Gretchen was crazy mad for Thomas in the way I was besotted with Yeats.

To tell you the truth, I might just have been too young in high school to appreciate Thomas, but he grew on me. So much so that in my freshman year in college I chose to do a paper comparing his life and poetry with those of Brendan Behan. On the surface they had similarities—larger-than-life personas, hard-drinking, womanizing and poem-making Celts; pretty much everything that sends Sassenachs purse-lipped and pucker-arsed into tut-tutting tizzies.

There were major differences, of course; one being that Behan had politics in his blood, while I have this memory of finding a quote from Thomas that “politics is bloody awful”, although I’ve not been able to track it down recently. (That is a maxim that I have adopted to technology, by the way: technology is bloody awful. If you're not careful.) Another is that the general public (certainly in America) is much more familiar with the Welshman’s work than the Irishman’s.

(When I lived in Britain, I was driving somewhere with one of my English colleagues, a technocrat at the data networking company that employed me, and he mentioned "that Welsh poet" and vaguely referred to "…some really famous poem" by him. I chirped, “Do not go gentle into that good night?” He was quite pleased that I knew about it.)

If you’re a fan of Paul Simon, you might recall the line from “A Simple Desultory Philippic”:

“He doesn't dig poetry. He's so unhip that when you say Dylan, he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture.”

Well, I got culture.

We live in weird, weird times, with more than a whiff pf apocalyptic sulfur swirling around. I admit that every single day I feel more despondent about the way things are going. So we’re having Thomas’ “And Death Shall Have no Dominion”, which is my way of sending two poetic straight-up fingers to all the assholes and Christo-fascists out there.

“And Death Shall Have No Dominion”

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

 

 

2 pair of glasses

Given the outrageous state of our judicial system—from the top to the bottom (Clarence Thomas cocking a snook at any whisper of ethics; Greg Abbott whipping out a pardon for a convicted murderer before the ink is dry on the jury’s decision; Gym Jordan taking his “Judicial Oversight” clown car to yammer about criminal prosecutions at a local DA; a grand jury in Akron, Ohio, no-billing eight cops who drilled 46 rounds into a Black man over a traffic stop; RWNJ federal judge and Fifth Circuit Appeals bench in Texas wiping out negating FDA approval of mifepristone, in safe use across the country for more than two decades; and bladdy-blah-blah)—today’s entry for National Poetry Month is Tupac Shakur’s “Lady Liberty Needs Glasses”.

Because both ladies—Liberty and Justice—appear to be losing to the plutocrats, racists, misogynists, xenophobes and evangelicals. No doubt about it.

 

Loaded like spoons

When I went in search of poems from Lucille Clifton for today’s National Poetry Month post, I had the worst time trying to pick just one. Clifton, born in DePew, NY, in 1936, was prolific, both as a poet and an author of children’s literature. Her focus was on the African American experience, but so many of her poems resonate with me because they’re about women’s experience. Viz:

“poem in praise of menstruation"

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon          if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta          if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain          if there is

a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel          if there is in

the universe such a river          if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

Clifton was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985. She died in Baltimore in 2010. Her poem “slaveships” makes me think of Phillis Wheatley, as well as the way Christianity was used as a mechanism to keep slaves and their descendants in their (inferior) place.

‘Scuse me—still used to do that. And also to keep women in their place.

“slaveships”

loaded like spoons
into the belly of Jesus
where we lay for weeks for months
in the sweat and stink
of our own breathing
Jesus
why do you not protect us
chained to the heart of the Angel
where the prayers we never tell
and hot and red
as our bloody ankles
Jesus
Angel
can these be men
who vomit us out from ships
called Jesus    Angel    Grace of God
onto a heathen country
Jesus
Angel
ever again
can this tongue speak
can these bones walk
Grace Of God
can this sin live

 

 

 

Despite expert advice

 I could not make it through National Poetry Month without Dorothy Parker. She’s not someone you want to binge-read, because poem after poem of biting wit begins to feel like the death of a thousand cuts. She's like the very best Courvoisier: sip a little and savor it.

Parker’s life wasn’t happy; she repeatedly loved not wisely but too well, and her longest relationship was with booze. So it’s not surprising that her short stories are deeply depressing and that her poetry is bitter. Still—like Courvoisier—in moderation, there’s nothing like a bit of her verse to say what you’d like to; if you only had both the skill and the nerve.

“Neither Bloody nor Bowed”

They say of me, and so they should,
It’s doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends,
And making enviable names
In science, art, and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come—
Inseparable my nose and thumb!

A terrible spat

I don’t know whether you have to be an American Lit major, or from the South, to recognize today’s National Poetry Month poem. And I can’t recall now which of my grandmothers was the one to recite it to me—the one from San Francisco or the one from Georgia. But Eugene Field’s “The Duel” has been part of my life for a long time.

The only adult I’ve met who not only recognized it, but could (and did) quote from it was a colleague of mine at the data networking company. She came from South Carolina, and had degrees in English from the USC that isn’t the one in LA. (Bruins rule, Trojans drool. Just sayin’…)

I’ve never been able to hear the words “gingham” or “calico” without picturing coming into the room and finding a blizzard of shreds and scraps. Gotta love pomes, folks.

“The Duel”

The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t' other had slept a wink!
      The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
      Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
            (I wasn't there; I simply state
            What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)

The gingham dog went "Bow-wow-wow!"
And the calico cat replied "Mee-ow!"
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
      While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
      Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
            (Now mind: I 'm only telling you
            What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)

The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
      Employing every tooth and claw
      In the awfullest way you ever saw---
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
            (Don't fancy I exaggerate---
            I got my news from the Chinese plate!)

Next morning, where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
      But the truth about the cat and pup
      Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
            (The old Dutch clock it told me so,
            And that is how I came to know.)

 

 

Gratitude Monday: spinning gyre

Today at sundown, Yom Hashoah begins. This is the day commemorating the Holocaust. And in a time where RWNJs around the world are attempting to enucleate anything and everything from the past that does not comport with what passes for their worldview, it’s more important than ever to remember history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.

It's also Gratitude Monday, and my selection for National Poetry Month is therefore Avrom Sutzkever’s “1980”. Sutzkever was born in what is now Belarus; raised first in Siberia, then in in Vilna, Lithuania, and began his literary career at the age of 17, in 1930. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he and his family were moved to the Vilnius Ghetto; he and other writers hid works by Herzl, Chagall and others behind walls, saving them for the future. Following the Germans murdering his mother and his newborn son, Sultzkever and his wife escaped from the ghetto, and he fought as a partisan against the Nazis. After the war, he testified in Nuremberg at the trial of the man who murdered his mother and son; he and his wife lived for a while in Poland and then Paris, before moving to Palestine (as it was then).

Sultzkever wrote first in Hebrew but shifted to Yiddish.

During an Aktion in 1941, Sutzkever escaped to the countryside and was hidden by a peasant woman named Yanova Bertushevitz; she and her husband kept the poet in their cellar and managed to smuggle food into the ghetto to his family. Eventually his worry about the danger to his protectors and his family led him to return to Vilna, but he did not forget her gift to him.

“1980” expresses Sutzkever’s gratitude for her courage, kindness and humanity. It’s therefore the right poem for today—eve of Yom Hashoah and Gratitude Monday—and also for the times: we all need to be reminded that, even in a hateful and violent environment, we can choose to be human, kind and courageous.

Because whoever saves one life saves the world entire.

“1980” 

And when I go up as a pilgrim in winter, to recover
the place I was born, and the twin to self I am in my mind,
then I'll go in black snow as a pilgrim to find
the grave of my savior, Yanova.
She'll hear what I whisper, under my breath:
Thank you. You saved my tears from the flame.
Thank you. Children and grandchildren you rescued from death.
I planted a sapling (it doesn't suffice) in your name.
Time in its gyre spins back down the flue
faster than nightmares of nooses can ride,
quicker than nails. And you, my savior, in your cellar you'll hide
me, ascending in dreams as a pilgrim to you.
You'll come from the yard in your slippers, crunching the snow
so I'll know. Again I'm there in the cellar, degraded and low,
you're bringing me milk and bread sliced thick at the edge.
You're making the sign of the cross, I'm making my pencil its pledge.

                                                    Translated by Cynthia Ozick

 

Sail the dreams

Faced with a shooting war in Europe, inflation, rising rates of child poverty and mass shootings every week, Republicans at all levels are concentrating on the real problems: interfering with women getting healthcare, keeping non-cis White people from voting, investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop and banning any book containing so much as a whiff of any kind of sexuality you couldn’t discuss at the evangelical potluck picnic.

Yes, it’s not enough that they’re removing any book a single parent complains about in a school library (and sacking teachers who photograph the empty shelves) or defund public libraries that dare to defy their crackpot edicts; now they’re threatening to flat out close these dens of iniquity when banned books are ordered back to the shelves by a judge. (The county backed down. For now.)

These instances, BTW, are all south of the Mason-Dixon Line, unsurprisingly, but there are RWNJs all over and they all got a beef with the 21^st Century. They’re after any institution that could possibly encourage people to think for themselves and explore a world not circumscribed by racism, misogyny and religious bigotry. And—perhaps even more than public schools, public libraries are bulwarks of exploration and critical thinking. Generations of Americans have relied upon public libraries to expand their knowledge and their world—books, periodicals, music, videos, tools, training and more; it's all available at the library.

And that absolutely enrages Republicans. Talk about getting ideas above your station—libraries are the OG.

So today’s National Poetry Month selection is one of Nikki Giovanni’s several poems about these national treasures.

“A Library”
 (for Kelli Martin)

a Library Is:

a place to be free
to be in space
to be in cave times
to be a cook
to be a crook
to be in love
to be unhappy
to be quick and smart
to be contained and cautious
to surf the rainbow
to sail the dreams
to be blue
to be jazz
to be wonderful
to be you
a place to be
yeah… to be