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A Fairer House Than Prose
April 17, 2011
April is National Poetry Month and while poetry is among if not the least read of all types of writing it is important to dip a toe into its waters at least once in a while. I do.
With slightly less than two weeks left in the month, now would be a good time to go out and buy one poetry book. Just one. Regardless of whether that is Billy Collins or Thomas Hardy, Dylan Thomas or Emily Dickinson, Kay Ryan or Lord Byron matters not. But what should matter is that regardless of how you feel about poetry most of the time that you give yourself the opportunity to experience it occasionally.
In September 1999, Harper’s magazine published the transcript of one of its recent forums where they invite several people to participate in a discussion over lunch. The participating poets were Donald Hall, Cynthis Huntington, Heather McHugh, Paul Muldoon, and Charles Simic. In “How to Peel a Poem: Five poets dine out on verse,” each poet was asked to bring a poem she or he truly loved and say why. The five poems brought to the table were “During Wind and Rain” (1917) by Thomas Hardy, “The Taxis” (1963) by Louis MacNeice, “Music” (1954) by Frank O’Hara, “Traveling Through the Dark” (1962) by William Stafford, and “The Lake Isle” (1916) by Ezra Pound.
In reading that transcription—and I have read it perhaps three or four dozen times, lingering over each poem before reading the discussion around it—I find myself learning and appreciating more the working rewards of poetry.
Poetry was taught when I was in grammar school, but I lived in southern California when Pat Brown was governor and the schools were not just the envy of the nation but of the world. I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember having to memorize a few poems and being exposed to the rhythm and purpose of it. Alas, it is no longer that way. Poetry has disappeared; even literature is in danger of finding its throat slit because of money woes.
But I don’t want to bemoan the loss of poetry. It’s not all lost, though I think appreciation for and knowledge of classic poetry is in danger. Today, poetry slams are part of every book festival, blogs and websites like Poetry & Popular Culture are devoted to modern poetry, Billy Collins popularized the sonnet to many, and fine literary publications that take poetry (The Paris Review, The Bloomsbury Review, American Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Glimmer Train, and many, many more) are still around, if struggling.
I’m not saying that anyone should rush out and buy a book that is going to sit unopened on a shelf but I believe it would behoove every reader to become acquainted with some poetry. An easy way to do that is to subscribe to Poetry Daily, a site “designed to support the creation of exceptional poetry and prose written originally in the English language . . .” and that offers a new poem every day. From Poets.org you can receive daily poems by e-mail. I also recommend Poetry 180, which offers a poem a day for American high schools.
One of my favorite poems, as I have written before, is “Parisina” by Lord Byron. It speaks of love, lust, a sweet desperation in which the forbidden love is grabbed as it is found. It begins:
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale’s high note is heard ;
It is the hour when lovers’ vows
Seem sweet in every whisper’d word ;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
But it is not to list to the waterfall
That Parisina leaves her hall,
And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light
That the lady walks in the shadow of night ;
And if she sits in Este’s bower,
’Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower—
She listens—but not for the nightingale—
Though her ear expects as soft a tale.
There glides a step through the foliage thick,
And her cheek grows pale—and her heart beats quick.
There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves,
And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves :
A moment more—and they shall meet—
’Tis past—her lover’s at her feet.
And what unto them is the world beside
With all its change of time and tide ?
Its living things—its earth and sky—
Are nothing to their mind and eye.
And heedless as the dead are they
Of aught around, above, beneath ;
As if all else had passed away,
They only for each other breathe ;
Their very sighs are full of joy
So deep, that did it not decay,
That happy madness would destroy
The hearts which feel its fiery sway :
Of guilt, of peril, do they deem
In that tumultuous tender dream ?
Who that have felt that passion’s power,
Or paused, or feared in such an hour ?
Or thought how brief such moments last :
But yet—they are already past !
Alas! we must awake before
We know such vision comes no more
For me, this is beauty. The fact that the lovers come to an ugly end does not change that for I revel in the passion Byron so perfectly expressed. Every word makes my heart beat faster and my breath move quicker. This is sensuality at its finest. I agree with Gaston Bachelard when he wrote, “To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.” But he’s far from the only one to express an affection for poetry:
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
Leonardo de Vinci
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire
All the books on death and dying are yours, all the poetry books are mine.
Annie Hall
I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book.
Kenneth Rexroth
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry.
Emily Dickinson
And to finish up, here is something a bit different: Poetry Ringtones. Also, courtesy of Diesel Bookstore, a video poem for each day of Poetry Month. There's no excuse now; go forth and read a poem!
Upcoming Book Festivals:
Two upcoming festivals—one focusing on antiquarian books, the other celebrating the fight against censorship. The latter is an exceptionally important festival so if you are in New York, do try and attend some of their events.
Location: Akron, Ohio
Festival: NOBS Akron Book Fair
Date: April 22-23
Antiquarian books and literary ephemera will be shown at this 29th annual show, which will take place at the John S. Knight Center. Friday hours are 3:00 to 8:30 pm and Saturday’s hours are 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. General admission is $5; students pay $3, and NOBS members are admitted free.
Location: New York, New York
Festival: PEN World Voices Festival
Date: April 25 - May 1
This is an extraordinary festival whose key mission is “encourage people to speak out against censorship and condemn the suppression of freedom of expression everywhere.” It is run by PEN American Center, the largest branch of the world’s oldest literary and human rights organization. Events centering on this theme include free-spirited literary conversations (including Russia in Two Acts, American Exile; The Prison Industry, Written on Water, Revolutionaries in the Arab World, etc.) with 100 writers from forty nations, that go on morning, noon, and night, and a new event called Poetry: The Second Skin, which is a literary extravaganza with national and international poets that explores the music of poetry and the poetry of music. There’s also a film series. Some events are free, others require tickets.
The Pub House:
White Pine Press is a non-profit literary publisher, which publishes poetry, fiction, essays, and literature in translation. Their mission statement—to “enrich our literary heritage; to promote the cultural awareness, understanding, and respect so vital in our rapidly changing world; and to address complex social and human rights issues through literature”—is as beautiful as their books. Their authors include notable names including William Golding, Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Robert Bly, Maurice Kenny, William Matthews, and James Wright as well as acclaimed international writers. Among their 2010 releases is Letters from Emily Dickinson, a collection of poetry by Kelli Russell Agodon that focuses on “loss, love, and the power of words,” and Garden Chrysanthemums and First Mountain Snow, a collection of essays translated from the Korean that looks at “the ‘Zen Mind’ of Korea’s contemporary Zen Masters, articulated through koans and excerpts of conversations in the form of brief questions and answers with students and other teachers. But most of their books are poetry, and given that we are in poetry month this is a house whose catalog you may want to peruse for your own new favorite.
Imaging Books & Reading:
What is sometimes claimed to be the world’s smallest book in a published edition of 300 was this leather-bound book, a tiny ABC-picture book, offered for sale in 2008. It measures 2.4 x 2.9 mm (0.0945 x 0.1142 inches) and rests in a wooden box including a magnifying glass. But small as it is, it is not the smallest. The Miniature Book Museum in Azerbaijan, the world’s only private museum featuring miniature books, showed three smaller volumes from Japan that each measure 2 x 2mm (0.0787 x 0.0787 inches). Yet as microscopic as they are, they are still not the tiniest. That honor goes to a book that held the Anton Chekhov story, “Chameleon,” printed in Russia in 1996. It’s size: 0.9 x 0.9 mm (0.0354x 0.0354 inches)! It is twenty-nine pages long, and contains three color illustrations and a portrait of the author.
Of Interest:
Writers No One Reads is an unusual blog in that its “posts” are little more than an image and a brief comment. But it is worth reading because you are going to be introduced to authors and books you likely have never heard of—Alasdair Gray, Anna Maria Ortese, Marcel Schwob, Violette Leduc. And more. This is a blog worthy of my attention, and yours.
Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
Lauren
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