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Poetry for Pleasure

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CLL Winter 2021 [8 sessions starting January 5, 2021] Poetry for Pleasure Let everything happen to you Beauty and Terror Just keep going No feeling is final – Rainer Maria Rilke “Time (as is well known) sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a worm; but man feels especially happy when he does not even notice whether it is passing rapidly or quietly” Turgenev, Fathers and Sons “If a thief kisses you, count your teeth.” Anon I had a chorus of ‘Body and Soul’ that I carried in my head, and as long as I had that I thought I was rich. – Anita O’Day …writing well was almost the same as thinking well, and thinking well was he next thing to acting well. All moral discipline, all moral perfection derived from the soul of literature, from the soul of human dignity, which was the moving spirit of both humanity and politics. – The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann Poetry is an art of imitation... that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth--to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture... –Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesie And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass. – Ezra Pound 1 Undying Memories by Arthur Santos Causa by Ezra Pound from “A Stormy Night” by Rilke ……………………………………………….4 A Song of a Navajo Weaver by Bertrand N. O. Walker ………………………..5 Two by William Blake ………………………………………………………..6-7 Three by Walt Whitman …………………………………………………...……8 America, I Sing Back by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke ………………………….10 On The Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan………...………………………….12 As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes ………………………………………… 13 Does It Matter? by Siegfried Sassoon ………………………………………….14 Three by Louise Glück ………………………………………………………….15 Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey by Hayden Carruth ……………………………..18 American Primitive by William Jay Smith ……………………………………..19 The Groundhog by Richard Eberhart …………………………………………...20 The Ballad of the Skeletons by Allen Ginsberg ………………………………..22 Two by Randal Jarrell …………………………………………………………..26 Three by W.C. Williams ………………………………………………………..29 Rape by Adrienne Rich …………………………………………………………32 Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden ………………………………………...33 Hap by Thomas Hardy ………………………………………………………….34 Psalm by Paul Celan ……………………………………………………………35 The Man with the Hoe by Edwin Markham ……………………………………36 Harry Wilmans by Edgar Lee Masters …………………………………………38 St. Roach by Muriel Rukeyser ………………………………………………….39 The Eagle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson …………………………………………..41 Counting the Mad by Donald Justice …………………………………………..42 How Will it Feel… by Mary Jo Bang ………………………………………….43 Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene Field ………………………………….44 Hearing by John Hodgen ……………………………………………………….46 Lost by David Wagoner ……………………………………………………......47 The Mountain by Elizabeth Bishop ……………………………………………48 Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson ………………………………….50 Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash ………………………………………….51 Two by D. H. Lawrence ……………………………………………………….53 Snake by Langston Hughes ……………………………………………………56 The Unknowable by Philip Levine ……………………………………………57 Won’t You Celebrate with Me by Lucille Clifton …………………………….58 A Dog was Crying Tonight in Wicklow by Seamus Heaney …………………59 After the Winter by Claude McKay …………………………………………..60 2 In My Craft or Sullen Art by Dylan Thomas ……………….………61 Elegy for Fats Waller by Michael Longley ………………………...62 Love After Love by Derek Walcott ………………………………...63 Oysters by Seamus Heaney ………………………………….……...64 Three by James A. Emanuel ……………………………….………..65 Touch Me by Stanley Kunitz ……………………………………….67 Veteran's Day by Marie Howe ……………………………….……..68 In the Context by George Held …………………………….………..71 Malcom X Park by Yvonne ……………………………….………...72 Two by Wislawa Szymborska ………………………………………74 Three by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright ………………………….………..78 Two by Erich Fried ……………………………………….…………80 Two by Philip Fried …………………………………………………82 Two by Neil Shepard ………………………………………………..84 Love Song by Dorothy Parker ………………………………………86 Two by Bob Burr ……………………………………………………87 Table by Richard Tillinghast ………………………………………..88 Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo ………………………...89 Mingus at the Showplace by William Matthews ……………………90 The Wind That Blows Through Me by Alicia Ostriker …………….91 3 Undying Memories by Arthur Santos (age 5) Thank God for sheep. Thank sheep for wool. Thank wool for blankets. Thank blankets for warmth. Thank warmth for us. # from “A Stormy Night” section viii by Rilke: On nights like this my little sister grows, who was born and died before me, very small. There have been many such nights, gone long ago: she must be lovely now. Soon the suitors will call. # Causa by Ezra Pound (1885 – 1972) I join these words for four people, Some others may overhear them, O world, I am sorry for you, You do not know these four people. 4 A Song of a Navajo Weaver by Bertrand N. O. Walker - 1869-1926 For ages long, my people have been Dwellers in this land; For ages viewed these mountains, Loved these mesas and these sands, That stretch afar and glisten, Glimmering in the sun As it lights the mighty canons Ere the weary day is done. Shall I, a patient dweller in this Land of fair blue skies, Tell something of their story while My shuttle swiftly flies? As I weave I’ll trace their journey, Devious, rough and wandering, Ere they reached the silent region Where the night stars seem to sing. When the myriads of them glitter Over peak and desert waste, Crossing which the silent runner and The gaunt of co-yo-tees haste. Shall I weave the zig-zag pathway Whence the sacred fire was born; And interweave the symbol of the God Who brought the corn— Of the Rain-god whose fierce anger Was appeased by sacred meal, And the trust that my brave people In him evermore shall feel? All this perhaps I might weave As the woof goes to and fro, Wafting as my shuttle passes, Humble hopes, and joys and care, Weaving closely, weaving slowly, While I watch the pattern grow; Showing something of my life: To the Spirit God a prayer. Grateful that he brought my people To the land of silence vast 5 Taught them arts of peace and ended All their wanderings of the past. Deftly now I trace the figures, This of joy and that of woe; And I leave an open gate-way For the Dau to come and go. # Ah! Sun-flower by William Blake Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun: Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the travellers journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. 6 The Chimney Sweeper: by William Blake When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said, "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." And so he was quiet, & that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight! That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black; And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he opened the coffins & set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, And wash in a river and shine in the Sun. Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind. And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his father & never want joy. And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. 7 I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing by Walt Whitman I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not, And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,) Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love; For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not. # A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. 8 I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
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