Category: Literature

What was she thinking?

Posted on by Meryl in Prose

is the title of a novel by Zoë Heller that I just finished. The fictionalized story of a 40-year old female teacher at a London high school who has a sexual relationship with a 15-year old boy, it’s told from the point of view of an acerbic, older woman teacher, in the school. Barbara’s observations are unsparing. For example, her description of the school:

“St. George’s is the holding pen for Archway’s pubescent proles–the children of the council estates who must fidget and scrap here for a minimum of five years until they can embrace their fates as plumbers and shop assistants….  Many of the younger reachers harbour secret hopes of ‘making a difference.’ They have all seen their American films in which lovely young women tame innercity thugs with recitations of Dylan Thomas. They, too, want to conquer their little charges’ hearts with poetry and compassion.”

Continue reading “What was she thinking?” →

We’re back

Posted on by Meryl in Garden, Poetry

After a long plane ride (this one was 11+ hours!), it often feels to me like I am still trailing molecules of myself along the flight path, and it takes awhile to feel reassembled in one place. Today, three days at home, I finally feel here. I celebrated by working on a poem and making a real breakfast from the garden enhanced with salt from the Camargue.

Both the literary and the culinary work were satisfying, with the hens still contributing a few eggs. Continue reading “We’re back” →

Sliver of moon

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

I’ve been thinking about this poem by Martha Ronk. It seems to me to be about a full moon.

The Moon over L.A.

The moon moreover spills onto
the paving stone once under foot.
Plants it there one in front.
She is no more than any other except her shoulders forever.
Keep riding she says vacant as the face of.
Pull over and give us a kiss.
When it hangs over the interchange
she and she and she. A monument to going nowhere,
a piece of work unmade by man. O moon
rise up and give us ourselves awash and weary—
we’ve seen it all and don’t mind.

Martha Ronk

Although the syntax is fractured, it makes perfect sense.  It might be radically accessible or might not. What do you think? Oh and I called this post sliver of moon because what made me think of this poem was the sliver of moon at the horizon tonight, as black clouds scudded against a pale gold sky.

The fascination of translation

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

I don’t know exactly why translating poetry is so fascinating. For me, it’s a way to work on a poem when I have no ideas of my own. The demands of translation–the fact that a literal translation just won’t do, and that you have to try to somehow capture the spirit of the poem without straying too far from the literal–is the challenge and the art. In some ways, I feel that all poetry is translation–sometimes I’m trying to translate my own glimmers of an idea, sometimes those of someone else.

A decade ago, when Bob Hass had his weekly poetry column in a number of daily papers, he printed a translation of a poem by the Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo. I’ve mentioned these columns before–they’ve been collected into two books, Poet’s Choice and Now and Then–great morning readings, both of them. You can find Bob’s original column on Vallejo in the Washington Post archives.

At the time I didn’t know about the column, and happened to read the one on Vallejo riding home on BART, chancing on it in an abandoned copy of the San Francisco Examiner.  Bob printed the Stanley Burnshaw translation and one of his own. Ed Hirsch, when he did his own version of Poet’s Choice, printed Robert Bly’s translation. Here is the Spanish: Continue reading “The fascination of translation” →

Some thoughts on the common toad

Posted on by Meryl in Prose

Most of us read 1984 or Animal Farm in high school. But I think it’s in his essays that Orwell is without peer. They’ve just published his diaries, seventy-odd years after his death. Based on the reviews they seem mostly to track his domestic, gardening and husbandry concerns. I was excited to read that he had 10 Moroccan hens, and carefully tracked their egg production.

Years ago I bought the four volume set of Orwell’s essays. Volume four is my favorite. It contains essays like “Revenge is Sour,” “Such, Such Were the Joys,” and “How the Poor Die,” along with his “As I Please” columns which ran regularly. My favorite of his essays, though, is “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad.” You can read it and his other essays online. In this one, he talks about toads mating in spring, and about spring in general and its democratic pleasures: “Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London.” Continue reading “Some thoughts on the common toad” →

A day late

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

Once in awhile a strong aversion to poetry comes over me, a sort of distaste for its pretentiousness. Like Marianne Moore, I, too, don’t like it. Yesterday was one of those days, and despite reading through a number of things, I couldn’t select one to send out, although it was Poetry Monday.  But this morning I remembered this, by Marie Howe. Her book by the same title is definitely worth owning:

What the Living Do Continue reading “A day late” →

Quelle surprise!

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

In my desultory explorations for new poetry, I opened an anthology over breakfast and found this:

I Pick Up a Hitchhiker

After a few miles he tells me
that my car has no engine.
I pull over, and we both get out
and look under the hood.
He’s right.
We don’t say anything more about it
all the way to California.

Jay Leeming

Continue reading “Quelle surprise!” →

Simplicity

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

There are few poets who can write something as apparently simple as this and make it work, but Bill Merwin is one. As Larry said, when I read it to him–a poem like this really depends on the ending. This one carries the weight effortlessly.

I’ve posted a poem of Merwin’s before, and just found this one to add to the Radically Accessible Poetry collection:

A Contemporary

What if I came down now out of these
solid dark clouds that build up against the mountain
day after day with no rain in them
and lived as one blade of grass
in a garden in the south when the clouds part in winter
from the beginning I would be older than all the animals
and to the last I would be simpler
frost would design me and dew would disappear on me
sun would shine through me
I would be green with white roots
feel worms touch my feet as a bounty
have no name and no fear
turn naturally to the light
know how to spend the day and night
climbing out of myself
all my life

W.S. Merwin

As for the salon yesterday, I think it was an exceptionally fine afternoon that included memoir, a trumpet and piano duet, a sampling of Fleur de Caramel perfume, photos, art, and many poems, not to mention good food and great company.

Four Poets

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

“Luxury is who you’re with,” my friend Maureen said years ago, and one of the true luxuries in my life is to be part of a group of poets I respect who meet regularly to discuss our work. Two of the poets I met at the Squaw Valley Poetry Workshop in 2001, and we have been in various permutations of this group since then. About five years ago, we morphed into this current group of four. We manage to meet once a month despite the myriad events that conspire against it. By now we know each others’ work and are comfortable enough and know enough about our strengths and weaknesses that our criticism is both honest and valuable.

The four of us started hosting a Sunday Salon, dubbed Salon 77, on an irregular basis. Lisa, the letterpress printer among us, prints the invitation, and we each get ten. Poets, writers, musicians, artists, sculptors and appreciators all show up, eat, talk, and have a few minutes each to show their work. Here is a blurry shot of us from the first Salon in 2009.

The next Salon is this Sunday, and as most of you won’t be there, here’s a sample of our work from yesterday’s poetry group:

Continue reading “Four Poets” →

More on Jack Gilbert

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

Littoral Press is printing a new book of poems by Steven Rood, I Say Their Names. Among the poems is this one referencing Jack Gilbert, which he kindly allowed me to post here:

Last Things

The old man still wants to write poems.
But can’t see or make a pen work.
He also repeats things. He asks me
what the tone of my life is. Tone, Jack?
Desperate, fearful, deep, courageous, happy?
Yes, Jack, all of them. That’s good, he says.
And wants to know what the shape
of my life is. Shape, Jack? Drifting,
floating, purposeful, incidental, flowing?
Yes, Jack, all of them. That’s good, he says.
Then asks me what the tone of my life is.
And its shape. I answer more carefully,
so that I really do think I have power, deep, and fear
as my tones, and uncertainty as my shape.
I was frightened, he says, that you would just float.
What do you want to do with the rest of your life? he asks.
Which he asks of everyone in the assisted living facility.
As a result, he thinks, all the residents hate him.
I tell him I love him and the way he asks his questions,
over and over, until an answer begins to clarify
as I stutter and sound stupid trying to make sense
out of myself inside his bewildering
assignments. That’s the way he’s always taught.
The strange mind and immense feeling
twisting himself and me into odd angles.
His tone is truth and will. His shape is helpless.
The rest of his life is grief.

Steven Rood
[for Jack Gilbert]

Interesting how one thing leads to another.