Untitled -- Piet Hein

(Poem #1722) Untitled (for Expo 67) We travel where ever mankind reigns and find good men in all the worlds domains and recognize them as a kind of Danes. -- Piet Hein

Today's grook is not as polished or clever as most of Hein's work, but I
think it is all the funnier for that. This is the humour of the utterly
simple, a thoroughly timeworn idea whose sole claim to funniness is that it
rhymes and scans. On the surface, not the world's greatest grook, yet Hein
has nailed the sentiment and tone so precisely, and with such perfect timing,
that it made me laugh out loud where many of his cleverer poems merely raised
a smile of appreciation.

martin

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The Lost Mistress -- Robert Browning

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul :

(Poem #1721) The Lost Mistress All's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that today; One day more bursts them open fully -You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we,-well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign: For each glance of that eye so bright and black, Though I keep with heart's endeavour,- Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my soul for ever!- -Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer! -- Robert Browning

For sheer dramatic brilliance, there are few poets to match Browning. He has
an unparalleled ability to create an image, a scene, which is not simply
vivid and moving, but also somehow psychologically accurate. At their best,
his poems have this lived-in quality, so that they feel not like visions
from some higher plane but rather like things that could happen to you;
that, in fact, may already have happened.

Today's poem is an excellent example. There are no high thoughts here, no
particularly startling word play, no evocation of wondrous images. It's a
simple enough poem, the language plain, the tone conversational. And yet it
manages to capture and convey such a range of emotions.

To begin with, there's the sheer breadth of action and information that
these simple lines convey. Browning gives us only a few scattered musings,
yet (as in all his greatest poems, see My Last Duchess, Poem #104 or
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, Poem #635) these are enough to lay before
us the entire history of the romance and its possible future.

What makes this poem truly brilliant, though is the way in which Browning's
simple lines manage to convey a number of different emotional states. That
abrupt first line conveys the sense of shock, the feeling of having come
upon the end of the relationship so abruptly, and what follows is the numbed
aftermath of that explosion, in which the lover re-adjusts his shattered
senses to the smallness and the silence of the world around him and is
amazed to find that, despite everything, the world goes on. This knowledge
is what gives him the courage to broach (in the third stanza) the
possibility of continued interaction, yet no sooner has he brought this up
than the heart within him rebels at the notion of love being so easily
changed to friendship, so that the next stanza gives us an unforgettable
struggle between longing and restraint, between timidity and scorn, between
the desire to survive and the desire to be annhilated. Finally, in the last
stanza, the lover comes to terms with this contradiction between the
ephemeral and the eternal, arriving at an almost pitiful compromise,
ensuring that he will be forever both included and excluded.

Overall, then, this is a simple, beautiful poem about coming to terms with
the transitory nature of relationships on the one hand and the longevity of
the feelings that go with them on the other.

Aseem.

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The Song of Steel -- Charles Buxton Going

(Poem #1720) The Song of Steel Yea, art thou lord, O Man, since Tubal Cain Brought me into being, white and torn with pain-- Wrung me, in fierce, hot agony of birth, Writhing from out of the womb of mother earth. Art thou, then, king, and did I make thee lord, Clothe thee in mail and gird thee with the sword, Give thee the plough, the ax, the whirring wheel-- To every subtle craft its tools of steel? Look! We have slain the forests, thou and I-- Soiled the bright streams and murked the very sky; Crushed the glad hills and shocked the quiet stars With roaring factories and clanging cars! Thou builder of machines, who dost not see! That which thou mad'st to drive, is driving thee-- Ravening, tireless, pitiless its strain For thy last ounce of work from hand and brain. Are thy sons princes? Hard-wrung serfs! They give Toil's utmost dregs for the bare chance to live; They dig and delve and strive with sweat-cursed brow In forge and shop. Master? Nay! Thrall art thou! Fool! Serving, I have slaved thee. Master Fool! To forge the sword, nor know the sword should rule; To make the engine, blind that it must lead Fast and yet faster on the race of greed. I, Steel, am King--thy king in more than name! Lo, I am Moloch, crowned and throned in flame, Holding thee slave by lust of thy desire-- Calling thy first-born to me through the fire! -- Charles Buxton Going

Notes:
  Tubal-Cain, or Tubalcain, (Tuval Kayin in Hebrew), is a figure in the
  Book of Genesis, who functions as a culture hero who is credited with
  the invention of blacksmithing and ironworking. His name means "thou
  wilt be brought of Cain", suggesting he is a descendant of Cain.
    -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubal-Cain

I really enjoyed discovering today's poem, all the more so since it is a
style of poetry that has fallen out of fashion. The trouble with grand,
dramatic poems like this is that they are all too easy to get wrong, and one
slip can leave them ridiculous rather than stirring. Indeed, one of the
easiest targets to parody in deliberate bad poetry is the misuse of lines
like "Lo, I am Moloch, crowned and throned in flame" in a poem in which they
are clearly inappropriate.

Which makes it all the more a pleasure to see a poem that gets it right,
one in which the overly intense tone and imagery are precisely right for
what the poet wishes to convey. This is not a subtle poem, but it doesn't
need to be - Going clearly wants to deliver a Message, and he does so
unapologetically. And the interesting thing is, despite the poem's slightly
dated feel, the subject matter is as relevant as ever.

martin

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Antenna-forest -- Rolf Jacobsen

Guest poem submitted by Lars Marius Garshol:

(Poem #1719) Antenna-forest Up on the city's roofs there are large fields. That's where silence crept up to when there was no room for it on the streets. Now the forest comes in its turn. It needs to be where silence lives. Tree upon tree in strange groves. They don't do very well, because the floor is too hard. So they make a sparse forest, one branch toward the east, and one toward the west. Until it looks like crosses. A forest of crosses. And the wind asks - Who's resting here in these deep graves? -- Rolf Jacobsen

        translated from the Norwegian by Roger Greenwald.

I've thought about submitting a guest poem for a long time, but never really
felt that there was much need, since other people cover so much interesting
stuff. Today, however, it struck me that there is at least one interesting
poem I know of that is probably much too obscure for anyone else to submit.

It's by Rolf Jacobsen, perhaps *the* major Norwegian poet of the latter half
of the 20th century. This translation is from "North in the World", a
selection translated to English by Roger Greenwald.  Unfortunately, it's not
nearly as good in English, although I could do nothing to improve the
translation myself.

It sounds like there's a narrator speaking the poem; some wry, melancholy
character, grieving for all the things we city dwellers have lost, and
perhaps also those of us who are ourselves lost in the city. The use of
man-made structures as metaphors for natural things like trees and forests
just reinforces the point.

I also like the simple, colloquial style, where the lines almost shine with
poetic beauty in a way that makes you wonder where the beauty in phrases you
could have said yourself comes from. (This is the part that doesn't come
across as well in English, sadly.) The style reminds me of Robert Frost, but
not so dressed-up, perhaps.

--
Lars Marius Garshol

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Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" -- Vachel Lindsay

(Poem #1718) Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" Even the shrewd and bitter, Gnarled by the old world's greed, Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need. Shelter and patient hearing, These were their gifts to him, To the minstrel chanting, begging, As the sunset-fire grew dim. The rich said "you are welcome." Yea, even the rich were good. How strange that in their feasting His songs were understood! The doors of the poor were open, The poor who had wandered too, Who slept with never a roof-tree Under the wind and dew. The minds of the poor were open, There dark mistrust was dead: They loved his wizard stories, They bought his rhymes with bread. Those were his days of glory, Of faith in his fellow-men. Therefore to-day the singer Turns beggar once again. -- Vachel Lindsay

Commenting on Stevenson's "The Vagabond" [Poem #780], a less-than-charmed
reader said

  I think the poem stinks! It is the tale of a totally selfish bum!  It
  speaks of an existence that leads no where, with no purpose........not
  even a desire for love!  Pure trash IMO. Perhaps value can be salvaged by
  making it the example of 'what not to be...do...think..believe..etc

Well, I don't agree with him, but nor can I deny that it is a perfectly
valid reading of the poem. However, I was also reminded of today's poem,
which sings of a much more "human" aspect of the joys of the road, of the
kindness extended to a stranger and the appreciation of the wandering
minstrel's art.

Lindsay's poetry is very reminiscent of Kipling's, both for his appreciation
of the rhythmic aspects of poetry and for the nature and diversity of the
subjects he tackled. (And, in passing, for the accusations of racism
levelled against him by a more enlightened generation; accusations that are
often founded in little more than his being a product of his times, and for
having had the temerity to outlast them.) Unlike with Kipling, I can't read
too much of Lindsay in one sitting, but in short doses I find him both
pleasurable and thought provoking. Today's quietly restrained poem is an
excellent example of both aspects.

martin

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The Joys of the Road -- Bliss Carman

(Poem #1717) The Joys of the Road Now the joys of the road are chiefly these: A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees; A vagrant's morning wide and blue, In early fall, when the wind walks too; A shadowy highway cool and brown, Alluring up and enticing down From rippled water to dappled swamp, From purple glory to scarlet pomp; The outward eye, the quiet will, And the striding heart from hill to hill; The tempter apple over the fence; The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince; The palish asters along the wood,-- A lyric touch of solitude; An open hand, an easy shoe, And a hope to make the day go through,-- Another to sleep with, and a third To wake me up at the voice of a bird; A scrap of gossip at the ferry; A comrade neither glum nor merry, Who never defers and never demands, But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,-- Seeing it good as when God first saw And gave it the weight of his will for law. And oh, the joy that is never won, But follows and follows the journeying sun, By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream, A will-o'-the-wind, a light-o'-dream, The racy smell of the forest loam, When the stealthy sad-heart leaves go home; The broad gold wake of the afternoon; The silent fleck of the cold new moon; The sound of the hollow sea's release From stormy tumult to starry peace; With only another league to wend; And two brown arms at the journey's end! These are the joys of the open road-- For him who travels without a load. -- Bliss Carman

I was rather surprised not to find any of Carman's poems in the archive - I
distinctly remembered earmarking him, along with Lampman and Pratt, for the
long-ago Canadian theme, though now that I go back and check, I see that I
omitted him for lack of familiarity. Today's long-overdue poem should
finally address this omission.

Moving on to the poem itself, I enjoyed it for its easy, meandering flow
through the quiet pleasures of the open road. I couldn't help contrasting it
with Stevenson's "From a Railway Carriage" [Poem #84], which uses a similar
pattern of cascading couplets - read the two poems side by side for a
fascinating look at how the latter evokes a sense of tumbling haste and the
former unhurried leisure with what is superficially a very similar form. A
better companion piece to today's poem is perhaps Robert Francis's "Silent
Poem" [Poem #323], a poem with a different focus but a very similar sense of
quiet backroad beauty.

And finally, a nice piece of trivia for all you Wodehouse fans - the poet
Ralston McTodd (of "pale parabola of joy" fame) was, apparently, a
caricature of Carman:
        It seems more than likely that P.G. Wodehouse had Carman in mind (and
  perhaps Robert Service and Wilson MacDonald as well) when he created the
  Ralston McTodd of Leave It to Psmith (1924); the author of "Songs Squalor"
  and other volumes, McTodd is a "powerful young singer of Saskatoon," a
  "gloomy looking young man with long and disordered hair," whose "wonderful
  poems . . . are, of course, known the whole world over" (so at least says
  one of his admirers).
     -- http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/cpjrn/vol14/bentley.htm

martin

[Links]

Biography:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_Carman
  http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/garvin/poets/carman.html

Some brief but enthusiastic assessments:

  'In his time, he was arguably Canada's best known poet, and was dubbed by
  some the "unofficial poet laureate of Canada."'
    -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_Carman

  A recent reading of the published verse of Bliss Carman, has convinced
  me that he must soon be more widely recognized as a poet of preëminent
  genius. He is greater than some of more extended fame for the reason
  that his poetry expresses a nobler and more comprehensive philosophy of
  life and being. Bliss Carman has achieved more greatly than many others
  of this generation, because he has realized more fully than they that
  the Infinite Poet is constantly and eternally seeking media for
  expression, and that the function of a finite poet is to steadily
  improve the instrument, to keep it expectantly in tune, and to record
  the masterpieces.
    -- http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/garvin/poets/canadian-poets.html

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Untitled -- Dag Hammarskjöld

Guest poem submitted by Dave Fortin:

(Poem #1716) Untitled The mine-detector Weaves its old patter Without end. Words without import Are lobbed to and fro Between us. Forgotten intrigues With their spider's web Snare our hands. Choked by its clown's mask And quite dry, my mind Is crumbling. -- Dag Hammarskjöld

        (translated by Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden)

I saw this referenced by Arthur Schlessinger in his Kennedy biography, A
Thousand Days.  Hammarskjöld was the UN Secretary General at the height of
the Cold War, seeing first hand the back and forth of a period where Time
itself almost came to an end.  After his tragic death trying to negotiate a
peace in The Congo, his journal of poetry and thoughts, entitled Markings,
was discovered in his home.  It was translated into English by Leif Sjöberg
and W. H. Auden.  THis poem struck me as an insight into the mind of the
negotiator, who has to put up with old intrigues and has to act as a mine
sweeper when attempting to work his way through argument and counter
argument, all the while putting on a "clown's face".

For more on this remarkable and largely forgotten man, see his biography on
the Nobel Prize website at
http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1961/hammarskjold-bio.html

Best,
Dave Fortin.

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