Rights decay

We’ve got another all-round player for today’s National Poetry Month entry. Gilbert Keith Chesterton trained at the Slade School to be an illustrator, but found his real gift in words—as a journalist, novelist, playwright, essayist and poet. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1923, age 48, and was renowned for his theological writings. (C.S. Lewis attributed his own conversion to Christianity to Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.)

Most people know him best for his Father Brown series of detective stories (published between 1910 and 1935)—which bear no resemblance whatsoever to the appallingly bad BBC television series currently blotting the PBS landscape. (Seriously—plots, dialogue, acting—every aspect of this thing is utterly cringeworthy. It’s a testament to the sad fact that people will do anything for a regular paycheck.)

I first ran into Chesterton, though, in high school, when I was doing a paper on the Anglo-Irish hostility. Unusually, for an Englishman, he had great sympathy for the Irish, and he deplored British policy towards them. Somewhere I found this excerpt from his “The White Horse”:

The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,    

For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.

He lived long enough—to 1936—to see and deplore the rise of fascism, as well.

In 1922 he published a collection of poetry that included “For a War Memorial”. The 20s was perhaps the a acme of post-WWI activities with respect to honoring the war dead. (It was also the time when the British government did its best to cram the survivors back into the poverty and servitude they’d emerged from in 1914 to defend imperial policies. But that’s another discussion.) Memorials listing the names of the fallen were built in just about every school and every town and village in Britain, which are still there today. Of course, they didn’t realize they’d have to add more names from the 1939-1945 war to the plaques.

Chesterton suggests here a more truthful, if less palatable, inscription for such constructions.

“For a War Memorial”

(SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION PROBABLY NOT SUGGESTED BY THE COMMITTEE)

The hucksters haggle in the mart
The cars and carts go by;
Senates and schools go droning on;
For dead things cannot die.

A storm stooped on the place of tombs
With bolts to blast and rive;
But these be names of many men
The lightning found alive.

If usurers rule and rights decay
And visions view once more
Great Carthage like a golden shell
Gape hollow on the shore,

Still to the last of crumbling time
Upon this stone be read
How many men of England died
To prove they were not dead.

There's so much in this poem that applies to both Britain and America today. Sadly.

Say a prayer

Given recent (and you can define the time period however you like) events, Nina’ Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” pretty much sums up my mood, National Poetry Month or not. So, here you go.

We sing sin

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.

 

Perpetually awaiting

You know who speaks to me during this particular time? The Beat poets. And particularly Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who, at his death two years ago at 101 was still a fixture of the San Francisco cultural scene.

Okay, Ferlinghetti didn't think of himself as a Beat; he preferred philosophical anarchist. And at his core he was anti-totalitarian, which is a recommendation at any time, but particularly now.

For National Poetry Month, we’re having “I Am Waiting”. It’s long, but it goes so fast.

“I Am Waiting”

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

How I wonder

Well, opening arguments today in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against Captain CAPSLOCK in federal court. In honor of that, let’s have something from another Carroll—Lewis—for National Poetry Month.

Specifically, one from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I don’t think it needs much of an introduction from me; I’ll just point out that Lewis Carroll’s silliness makes more sense than any batshit lunacy from RWNJs these days.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat”

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Turning Darkness into Light

Within the space of a day a few weeks ago, two couples of my acquaintance lost four-pawed family members; one a floofy cat and one an old, old dog. Neither death was unexpected, but the great gaping hole in the family fabric is still palpable. And even though I’ve never actually met the particular animal in each case, I feel the sense of grief, even at a distance.

Today I’m grateful for the pets that enrich lives around them, amusing us with their shenanigans, comforting us in our sorrow, waking us at 0430 to insist it’s breakfast time somewhere…And I’m grateful for the people who make space in their homes and hearts for the critters, tripping over pet toys, putting veterinary clinics on direct deposit and willingly taking on the shattering grief when it’s time to let them go.

Today’s National Poetry Month post was going to be poems about cats and dogs, but I’ve been searching without success for a dog poem that isn’t treacly. So, here’s a photo of my sister’s dog Bindi, who is her companion and comfort.

For the felines, we’re going to a Ninth Century Irish monk, who jotted Pangur Bán in the margins (or on the back of a page) of a manuscript, with locations ranging from a copy of Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Book of Kells.

Clearly, Pangur Bán brought companionship and comfort to the monk.

“Pangur Bán”

I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;|
Pangur bears me no ill will;
He, too, plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our task how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find|
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
Into the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den.
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine, and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade ;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning Darkness into light.'

 

 

I never writ

We don’t know exactly when William Shakespeare was born, in 1564, but he was baptized on 26 April, and baptisms were typically done back then within a couple of days of birth, in case the infant didn’t survive. So it’s possible that today is the 454^th anniversary of his birth. It is the 402^nd anniversary of his death. And since it’s not possible to get through National Poetry Month without something from the heavy artillery of English letters, today’s a good day for Will.

As is my custom, I’m giving you something from one of his plays, as well as a sonnet.

I realized that in the 11 years I’ve been marking NPM, I’ve never given you Antony’s eulogy for Caesar, so I’m fixing that here.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

As a treat, I’m also giving you Alun Armstrong as Brian Lane reciting that speech in his New Tricks working-class Northern accent:

And now for the sonnet—Number 118, which Alan Rickman read as one of the highlights of Sense and Sensibility, although I sadly do not have a suitable video of that. You’ll have to use your imagination.

Sonnet 118

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.