Here's a plonk of more obscure Lanthanum. Harks back to some ancien matiere de Stubborn Grew.
3
Another solo Sunday, sweltering.
I mold my provisional home here, out of faulty
memories of weddings - each waltzing peripety
& its aftermath. From 157 Doyle (sheltering
tenement apartment) extending consequences
to infinity. Beside the Y there, just below
the Doyle Observatory (tracking a showy
morning star, her amiable glimmer). Providence,
my Providence, he whispers, like St. Louis
outside Tunis. Wrecks & errors
& the homely sorrows... nowhere's
where am is, he sez. His fraying quipu's
knotted to 1256 - but he can't explain
what he would like to sing! The choir's
aloft, but the soloist's a-hoarse - cribbed
with that defunct crabshell up in Maine -
helmet of some lost poilu (ultimate unknown
soldier). We found a single fingerprint, though :
a twirling labyrinth, back to the protozoa;
wound like snailshell, or cat-o-nine-
lives' smile... what does it mean? I think
it means the old man's comin' back. The Sojer-
Boy, back from the sands - the Ghost, the Over-
Ghost... back to embrace his mourning Morning
Star, once more. That Old Man of the Mountain,
that clay-foot weeping statue, that... silhouette
of a leaping Lafayette? In a state of minuet?
Through the needle's eye... whirl, premonition.
7.25.10
7.25.2010
7.23.2010
"As muted organ pipes / Accompany a woman's voice."
When Ezra Pound was locked up in a prison cage, he was given a Bible & an old poetry anthology by a kindly G.I., his guard. Osip Mandelstam's forced exile & final deportation to Siberia, by Stalin, was a hundred times more severe, and infinitely more unjust. He too was short of books (& most other things) in the provincial town of Voronezh. One of the few books he took into exile, & steadfastly carried around with him, was a copy of the Divine Comedy.
On Feb 12, 1937, he wrote the following untitled poem, translated here by James Greene :
I'm plunged into a lions' den, a fort,
And sinking lower, lower, lower,
Under the yeast shower of these sounds:
Stronger than lions, more potent than the Pentateuch.
How near your summons:
Keener than commandments of childbirth, firstlings -,
Like strings of pearls at the bottom of the sea
Or baskets meekly borne by Tahitian women.
Motherland of chastening songs, come close,
The declivities deepening in your voice! - O primal mother,
The shy-sweet faces of our daughters
Aren't worth your little finger.
My time is still unbounded.
And I have accompanied the rapture of the universe
As muted organ pipes
Accompany a woman's voice.
Nadezhda Mandelstam (in Hope Against Hope, ch. 39) writes that M. had been listening to Marian Anderson, then visiting Moscow, on the radio - singing African-American spirituals, and that this was part of the poem's scenario; but they had recently returned from a visit to another exile, also a professional singer, who was distraught over her husband's sudden arrest and deportation, yet still hoping - desperately - to use her musical talents to earn a living & win her husband's release... & this too was part of the subtext.
Maybe there is yet another dimension in the background. M's devotion to the woman's deep-singing voice echoes Dante's relation to Beatrice. And there is a parallel between M's role as Daniel in the lion's den, sinking lower & lower, led by "chastening" (purgatorial) song, and Dante's redemptive journey through Hell. There is a pivotal, dramatic moment in the Purgatorio, at the conclusion of canto 9. Dante & Virgil have arrived at the very gates of Purgatory. They encounter an angel, who scratches 7 P's (for peccati, sins) across Dante's brow with the tip of his sword; then, using 2 keys given him by St. Peter, the angel opens the great doors so Dante can enter, & leave the Inferno behind. Just then, he hears voices singing on the other side :
Io mi rivolsi attento al primo tuono,
e "Te Deum laudamus" me parea
udire in voce mista al dolce suono.
Tale imagine a punto mi rendea
cio ch'io udiva, qual prender si suole
quando a cantar con organi si stea;
ch'or si or no s'intendon le parole.
[ Hearing that gate resound, I turned, attentive;
I seemed to hear, inside, in words that mingled
with gentle music, "Te Deum laudamus."
And what I heard gave me the very same
impression one is used to getting when
one hears a song accompanied by organ;
and now the words are clear and now are lost.] (trans. Allen Mandelbaum)
Mandelstam's "summons", the commandment of the "chastening song", the Muse & music for whom & by means of which he mingles both the power of Marian Anderson and the suffering of his victimized friend, here aligns Dante's Inferno with the lion's den of Stalin's prison-empire, & points with strange hope toward the way up & out (toward the "rapture of the universe") - as "one hears a song accompanied by organ."
Here, too, was a "true Dantescan voice."
On Feb 12, 1937, he wrote the following untitled poem, translated here by James Greene :
I'm plunged into a lions' den, a fort,
And sinking lower, lower, lower,
Under the yeast shower of these sounds:
Stronger than lions, more potent than the Pentateuch.
How near your summons:
Keener than commandments of childbirth, firstlings -,
Like strings of pearls at the bottom of the sea
Or baskets meekly borne by Tahitian women.
Motherland of chastening songs, come close,
The declivities deepening in your voice! - O primal mother,
The shy-sweet faces of our daughters
Aren't worth your little finger.
My time is still unbounded.
And I have accompanied the rapture of the universe
As muted organ pipes
Accompany a woman's voice.
Nadezhda Mandelstam (in Hope Against Hope, ch. 39) writes that M. had been listening to Marian Anderson, then visiting Moscow, on the radio - singing African-American spirituals, and that this was part of the poem's scenario; but they had recently returned from a visit to another exile, also a professional singer, who was distraught over her husband's sudden arrest and deportation, yet still hoping - desperately - to use her musical talents to earn a living & win her husband's release... & this too was part of the subtext.
Maybe there is yet another dimension in the background. M's devotion to the woman's deep-singing voice echoes Dante's relation to Beatrice. And there is a parallel between M's role as Daniel in the lion's den, sinking lower & lower, led by "chastening" (purgatorial) song, and Dante's redemptive journey through Hell. There is a pivotal, dramatic moment in the Purgatorio, at the conclusion of canto 9. Dante & Virgil have arrived at the very gates of Purgatory. They encounter an angel, who scratches 7 P's (for peccati, sins) across Dante's brow with the tip of his sword; then, using 2 keys given him by St. Peter, the angel opens the great doors so Dante can enter, & leave the Inferno behind. Just then, he hears voices singing on the other side :
Io mi rivolsi attento al primo tuono,
e "Te Deum laudamus" me parea
udire in voce mista al dolce suono.
Tale imagine a punto mi rendea
cio ch'io udiva, qual prender si suole
quando a cantar con organi si stea;
ch'or si or no s'intendon le parole.
[ Hearing that gate resound, I turned, attentive;
I seemed to hear, inside, in words that mingled
with gentle music, "Te Deum laudamus."
And what I heard gave me the very same
impression one is used to getting when
one hears a song accompanied by organ;
and now the words are clear and now are lost.] (trans. Allen Mandelbaum)
Mandelstam's "summons", the commandment of the "chastening song", the Muse & music for whom & by means of which he mingles both the power of Marian Anderson and the suffering of his victimized friend, here aligns Dante's Inferno with the lion's den of Stalin's prison-empire, & points with strange hope toward the way up & out (toward the "rapture of the universe") - as "one hears a song accompanied by organ."
Here, too, was a "true Dantescan voice."
7.16.2010
The Well is Always There and Forth of July have been added to my profile page over at Google. You can preview or search quite a bit of each book there.
7.15.2010
Zaccheus the peasant
re previous post : it occurs to me that this "conservative" stance, so described, is not so different from the attitude of the medieval (or older) peasant, who hides his grain under the cellar floor whenever the Royal Tax-Collector, or the Army, or the local mercenary band comes around, to grab what they need. Not the most civic-minded attitude, I suppose... but maybe it's very local.
As it happens my great-etc-grandfather Zaccheus Gould, of Topsfield, Massachusetts, penned what must be one of the earliest public petitions to government authority in America. I found it long ago in the old Essex County record books. It dates back to the 1630s. Zaccheus & his fellow farmers petitioned the Massachusetts colonial government to allow the young men of the township to skip militia training practice during the summer months, because said military duty greatly increaseth the hardship on farmers, as it interferes with the haying.
Zaccheus' petition appears in the long village-history poem, In RI (ably translated into Italian by Anny Ballardini).
(- as I say, this attitude may strike you as not very civic-minded - as rather small-minded & tight-fisted, conservative... but I would not be surprised if you also find traces of it in your own family history.)
As it happens my great-etc-grandfather Zaccheus Gould, of Topsfield, Massachusetts, penned what must be one of the earliest public petitions to government authority in America. I found it long ago in the old Essex County record books. It dates back to the 1630s. Zaccheus & his fellow farmers petitioned the Massachusetts colonial government to allow the young men of the township to skip militia training practice during the summer months, because said military duty greatly increaseth the hardship on farmers, as it interferes with the haying.
Zaccheus' petition appears in the long village-history poem, In RI (ably translated into Italian by Anny Ballardini).
(- as I say, this attitude may strike you as not very civic-minded - as rather small-minded & tight-fisted, conservative... but I would not be surprised if you also find traces of it in your own family history.)
Back to the Bull Moose
Sent this comment to the blog digital emunction just now :
"People generally on the left (as in this post) wonder at the seeming disjunct between American quietism & the impoverishment of the middle class of recent decades. But there is a basic conservativism in American experience which has to do with the desire of individuals & families to manage & distribute their own wealth, the prosperity & well-being they have labored at themselves. This is at the root of the idea that “the best government is that which governs least.” Now those on the left may mock this position, as deluded-sucker false consciousness; but there it is – the basis of the disjunct.
Somebody will figure out a convincing centrist vision – something like Populism or TR Progressivism. Because the solution is not in some economist’s mathematical projections or statistics; the solution is in American society as a whole, making a commitment, with confidence, to a new sense of a shared common good. It’s not down with capitalism; it’s up with fairness & good governance (TR’s trust-busting as one example).
Part of the problem is that Tocqueville’s republic began with township democracy. Village self-governance is hard to translate to the scale of contemporary nation-states. But this is the experiment we must take ahold of, with… gusto… !"
(p.s. in this regard, see my "Teddy in the Amazon jungle" poems in Rest Note.)
"People generally on the left (as in this post) wonder at the seeming disjunct between American quietism & the impoverishment of the middle class of recent decades. But there is a basic conservativism in American experience which has to do with the desire of individuals & families to manage & distribute their own wealth, the prosperity & well-being they have labored at themselves. This is at the root of the idea that “the best government is that which governs least.” Now those on the left may mock this position, as deluded-sucker false consciousness; but there it is – the basis of the disjunct.
Somebody will figure out a convincing centrist vision – something like Populism or TR Progressivism. Because the solution is not in some economist’s mathematical projections or statistics; the solution is in American society as a whole, making a commitment, with confidence, to a new sense of a shared common good. It’s not down with capitalism; it’s up with fairness & good governance (TR’s trust-busting as one example).
Part of the problem is that Tocqueville’s republic began with township democracy. Village self-governance is hard to translate to the scale of contemporary nation-states. But this is the experiment we must take ahold of, with… gusto… !"
(p.s. in this regard, see my "Teddy in the Amazon jungle" poems in Rest Note.)
Franciscan on St. Henry's Day
Today, July 15th, used to be a Catholic saint's day - St. Henry's Day (the celebration was moved to July 13th in the 1960s). On this date in 1999 I started the final volume of the long poem Forth of July (titled July). On this date in 1099, Geoffrey Bouillon & the Crusaders entered the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (after conquering the city with a bloody massacre).
I've been reading an interesting book by Mary Alexandra West, titled The cross that Dante bears : pilgrimage, crusade, and the cruciform church in the Divine Comedy (Univ. Press of Florida, 2005). All about how Dante "maps" his poem onto the medieval cartographical orientation of the world with Jerusalem in the center (with the East at the top of the map). She also focuses on the militant, "crusading" dimensions of Dante's poem.
These themes are not lacking in Forth of July. It was done consciously, in an indirect, imagistic fashion. "Henry", in that final book, goes on a pilgrimage of his own - but into the interior of America, & into the "spiritual interior" of the poetic word. He goes on a crusade of his own - but it's a march of puns - centered on July, Julius, Yule, Julie, Juliet, Jubilee, JL, and "jewel-eye"... which delivers a sort of Franciscan overturning of political force & violence ("Julius Caesar") by the spiritual power of the Word, or the Holy Spirit of wisdom ("jewel-eye"). The poem (July) progresses thus from St. Henry's Day, with all its crusader/Jerusalem connotations, to the Ides of March (8 months later - Caesar's downfall) and the Ides of April (Good Friday, Easter, death of Abraham Lincoln).*
I think the U.S. poetry world has been slow to pick up on the "major music" available to them in this & other poems of mine. But I'm pretty confident that day will come. I was looking over Forth of July again last night, under the instigation of some political commentary over at the Digital Emunction blog. My poetry may be complicated & evasive in some ways, but it's not autotelic, not hermetically-sealed-off from the world, & not meant to be. But it's meant to be poetry, not prose or commentary - & I serve a jealous Muse, who previously cohabited with Hart Crane & Osip Mandelstam, among others.
*for more on the Franciscan connection of all this with Joachim of Fiore, see here (especially the post on 4.3.07).
I've been reading an interesting book by Mary Alexandra West, titled The cross that Dante bears : pilgrimage, crusade, and the cruciform church in the Divine Comedy (Univ. Press of Florida, 2005). All about how Dante "maps" his poem onto the medieval cartographical orientation of the world with Jerusalem in the center (with the East at the top of the map). She also focuses on the militant, "crusading" dimensions of Dante's poem.
These themes are not lacking in Forth of July. It was done consciously, in an indirect, imagistic fashion. "Henry", in that final book, goes on a pilgrimage of his own - but into the interior of America, & into the "spiritual interior" of the poetic word. He goes on a crusade of his own - but it's a march of puns - centered on July, Julius, Yule, Julie, Juliet, Jubilee, JL, and "jewel-eye"... which delivers a sort of Franciscan overturning of political force & violence ("Julius Caesar") by the spiritual power of the Word, or the Holy Spirit of wisdom ("jewel-eye"). The poem (July) progresses thus from St. Henry's Day, with all its crusader/Jerusalem connotations, to the Ides of March (8 months later - Caesar's downfall) and the Ides of April (Good Friday, Easter, death of Abraham Lincoln).*
I think the U.S. poetry world has been slow to pick up on the "major music" available to them in this & other poems of mine. But I'm pretty confident that day will come. I was looking over Forth of July again last night, under the instigation of some political commentary over at the Digital Emunction blog. My poetry may be complicated & evasive in some ways, but it's not autotelic, not hermetically-sealed-off from the world, & not meant to be. But it's meant to be poetry, not prose or commentary - & I serve a jealous Muse, who previously cohabited with Hart Crane & Osip Mandelstam, among others.
*for more on the Franciscan connection of all this with Joachim of Fiore, see here (especially the post on 4.3.07).
7.13.2010
Poetry : it's a numbers game
For a few years now, my poetry has been caught up with numbers & counting. When I start fiddling around with meaningful numbers, stanza designs, line-counts, etc., I know there's a poem on its way. It's usually connected with other things I've been obsessing about.
The work-in-progress Lanthanum... how did it originate? It's been over a year now, I'd have to look through the old scribbles. I remember I simply liked the sound of it - that Greek word for an atomic element (# 57). & what it came from etymologically, as named by its discoverer (Grk for "secret, hidden, unnoticed").
I got into this number thing back in the late 80s, reading books by Alastair Fowler and others on numerology as a design factor in ancient & Renaissance poetry. & in connection with wild speculative books by John Michell et al., on Pythagorean geometry & ancient measuring systems, gematria (the practice of assigning meaningful numerical values to letters & words), etc.
Lanthanum is based on the # 57, as well as the quatrain, & the associated numbers 7, 4, 28. 7 & 28, obviously, have connections with the lunar cycle & the seven-day week. When you think that the 7-day week & other calendrical systems help to "synchronize" human activity with astronomical phenomena (the 365 rotations of the earth in one yearly revolution of the sun), you can start to see how these systems work on a symbolic level. Thus, for example, Genesis describes the creation of the universe in 6 days, with the Creator resting on the 7th; which obviously fits rather neatly into the numerical division of the 365-day year into (52) weeks; so that the tradition of working 6 days & resting on the 7th (sabbath) day means that, in doing so, Man imitates & remembers the Creator, resting "with him" at the end of the work week.
A poem based on these numbers might be saying something similar, in a figurative sense. Lanthanum is (projectively) made up of 3 volumes; each volume has 4 chapters; each chapter has 3 sequences; & each sequence has 8 poems : consisting of 7 poems of 7 stanzas, or 28 (4x7) lines each, and an 8th poem containing 8 stanzas (32 lines). Therefore each sequence contains a set of 7x7 or 49 stanzas (in 7 poems), plus an 8th poem (of 8 stanzas). The total number of stanzas then, in each sequence, is 57 (the number of lanthanum). (There are more complex patterns hidden in the whole design, but they shall remain "hidden"!)
Another figurative dimension implied here in this pattern 49 + 1, 49 + 8, has to do with the "sabbath of sabbaths", or Jubilee year (every 50 yrs in ancient Israel). In Lanthanum I apply lots of indirect & figurative symbolism to synthesize this number (50) with the number of states in the U.S., with the "sabbath number" (7), with their fusion or sum (57), etc. I like to spin out & play with the religious, historical, & poetic implications of these combinations (since I think of poetry itself as a kind of semi-divine sabbatical "play", which intrinsically praises & celebrates life & nature in its aspects of wholeness & creative fulfillment or completion).
The work-in-progress Lanthanum... how did it originate? It's been over a year now, I'd have to look through the old scribbles. I remember I simply liked the sound of it - that Greek word for an atomic element (# 57). & what it came from etymologically, as named by its discoverer (Grk for "secret, hidden, unnoticed").
I got into this number thing back in the late 80s, reading books by Alastair Fowler and others on numerology as a design factor in ancient & Renaissance poetry. & in connection with wild speculative books by John Michell et al., on Pythagorean geometry & ancient measuring systems, gematria (the practice of assigning meaningful numerical values to letters & words), etc.
Lanthanum is based on the # 57, as well as the quatrain, & the associated numbers 7, 4, 28. 7 & 28, obviously, have connections with the lunar cycle & the seven-day week. When you think that the 7-day week & other calendrical systems help to "synchronize" human activity with astronomical phenomena (the 365 rotations of the earth in one yearly revolution of the sun), you can start to see how these systems work on a symbolic level. Thus, for example, Genesis describes the creation of the universe in 6 days, with the Creator resting on the 7th; which obviously fits rather neatly into the numerical division of the 365-day year into (52) weeks; so that the tradition of working 6 days & resting on the 7th (sabbath) day means that, in doing so, Man imitates & remembers the Creator, resting "with him" at the end of the work week.
A poem based on these numbers might be saying something similar, in a figurative sense. Lanthanum is (projectively) made up of 3 volumes; each volume has 4 chapters; each chapter has 3 sequences; & each sequence has 8 poems : consisting of 7 poems of 7 stanzas, or 28 (4x7) lines each, and an 8th poem containing 8 stanzas (32 lines). Therefore each sequence contains a set of 7x7 or 49 stanzas (in 7 poems), plus an 8th poem (of 8 stanzas). The total number of stanzas then, in each sequence, is 57 (the number of lanthanum). (There are more complex patterns hidden in the whole design, but they shall remain "hidden"!)
Another figurative dimension implied here in this pattern 49 + 1, 49 + 8, has to do with the "sabbath of sabbaths", or Jubilee year (every 50 yrs in ancient Israel). In Lanthanum I apply lots of indirect & figurative symbolism to synthesize this number (50) with the number of states in the U.S., with the "sabbath number" (7), with their fusion or sum (57), etc. I like to spin out & play with the religious, historical, & poetic implications of these combinations (since I think of poetry itself as a kind of semi-divine sabbatical "play", which intrinsically praises & celebrates life & nature in its aspects of wholeness & creative fulfillment or completion).
7.07.2010
The Well Is Always There
I published a massive tome today...
The Well Is Always There : HG Poetics, 2003-2010. 736 large pp. And I had to cut a lot! It's pricey, unfortunately - though the ebook format is cheaper.
Why would anyone want to buy this, when the blog itself is FREE, & full of links? Well, it's a selection. & a kind of summation & record of all my babble.
Maybe your library - if it still exists! - would be so kind as to add it to their collection...
The Well Is Always There : HG Poetics, 2003-2010. 736 large pp. And I had to cut a lot! It's pricey, unfortunately - though the ebook format is cheaper.
Why would anyone want to buy this, when the blog itself is FREE, & full of links? Well, it's a selection. & a kind of summation & record of all my babble.
Maybe your library - if it still exists! - would be so kind as to add it to their collection...
7.04.2010
Lanthanum, 7/4
Here's something from the 2nd volume of Lanthanum (drawing toward the center of the poem, now...). I'm only posting this because I can't imagine any magazine wanting to publish this very obscure passage... (p.s. "soul liberty" was a phrase Roger Williams used to characterize his notion of freedom of conscience. & the bit about "Cyrus" draws on Sir Thomas Browne's wonderful & justly famous numerological-botanical essay titled "The Garden of Cyrus". & "perfect rune"? Well, in a sense this refers to the number 28, the number of lines in this poem, which is a "perfect number", & has long been associated with the lunar calendar).
6.2
Quiet, all quiet... the
boom of last night's fireworks giving way
to sunny Sunday, 7/4. Soul liberty,
he said - only a single secret path through the
labyrinth. Its perfect rune, rhyming
with lofty, solitary moon (not white
not black, but dappled by limestone light
that shines before stars start wandering)...
one seven added to those fifty stars
that shimmer in the haze of history -
for sabbath-day, for Jubilee - really
one red & cardinal number (yours)
for wedding memory & justice (everywhere).
Cyrus planted a garden once, to celebrate
Earth's intricate flourishing (a quince quintet);
the center of the world, enclosèd there,
was calm (slight violet eye, beholding
hurricane). It was his grandmother, calling;
it was his grandfather, responsive, echoing;
before Cyrus was born, before Time began -
a wedding-song, a dream, a constancy.
An octave note, for makings of one family
from reconciling tribes, & tyrants finally
dethroned - bell-booming independency
on earth, as it is... in Cyrus's garden;
when the milky light at last reigns equally,
& fifty stars are seven sisters (really
one star, one limestone pentagon...). & then...
7.4.10
6.2
Quiet, all quiet... the
boom of last night's fireworks giving way
to sunny Sunday, 7/4. Soul liberty,
he said - only a single secret path through the
labyrinth. Its perfect rune, rhyming
with lofty, solitary moon (not white
not black, but dappled by limestone light
that shines before stars start wandering)...
one seven added to those fifty stars
that shimmer in the haze of history -
for sabbath-day, for Jubilee - really
one red & cardinal number (yours)
for wedding memory & justice (everywhere).
Cyrus planted a garden once, to celebrate
Earth's intricate flourishing (a quince quintet);
the center of the world, enclosèd there,
was calm (slight violet eye, beholding
hurricane). It was his grandmother, calling;
it was his grandfather, responsive, echoing;
before Cyrus was born, before Time began -
a wedding-song, a dream, a constancy.
An octave note, for makings of one family
from reconciling tribes, & tyrants finally
dethroned - bell-booming independency
on earth, as it is... in Cyrus's garden;
when the milky light at last reigns equally,
& fifty stars are seven sisters (really
one star, one limestone pentagon...). & then...
7.4.10
7.02.2010
The wise architect of the Great Temple designed it as a perfect microcosm of the Universe, an elegant replica in gold & precious stones & lapis lazuli. After much labor, he completed his blueprint, & lay down to rest. But as he slept, God appeared to him in a dream, & said, "You've left something out." The wise architect immediately rose from his bed, and took up his work again. Finally, after staring at the blueprint all morning, he made a slight change in the lower left corner : he added a tiny image of himself, working quietly on his blueprint for the Great Temple.
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