Thursday Night Poetry... Revelations and Aging

Thursday Poetry Practice

Revelations! It seems like a HUGE subject, but it depends entirely on how it’s handled. I am grouping revelations with aging – but I don’t want either to have a negative connotation. Poetry about aging is far from depressing; in fact it’s often humorous and thoughtful.

For example, look at this short piece by Irving Townsend:

Another cat? 

Perhaps.

For every lover there is a  season;

Its seeds must be resown.

A family cat is not replaceable

Like a worn out coat or a set of tires.

Each new kitten becomes its own cat,

And none is repeated.

I am four cats old,

Measuring out my life in friends,

That have succeeded

But not replaced

One another.

What a unique way of measuring time—by the number of fur people who have shared your home and your life. Townsend belongs to his cats just as surely as they have belonged to him… the same can be said of furniture, homes… anything inside your orbit that intersects your life.

This next example is a moment in time (our Wednesday theme), but also a revelation. The speaker takes stock of his current circumstances and, after a pause, decides to take action. This is Lemn Sissay’s’ Going Places:

Another
cigarette ash
television serial filled
advert analysing
cupboard starving
front starving
front room filling
tea slurping
mind chewing
brain burping
carpet picking
pots watching
room gleaming
toilet flushing
night,
with nothing to do

I think I'll paint roads
on my front room walls
to convince myself
that I'm going places.

Maybe you’re thinking this poem reads like a list. List poems ARE effective, and accessible to the reader. We can all identify with those moments in which our eyes wander around while are brains are busy thinking, plotting, deciding, remembering.  I posted an exercise yesterday that you might want to look at if the idea of writing a list poem appeals to you.

Let’s go to Robert Frost for a great ‘revelation’ or rather reflection poem. This is one everybody knows, and many people can recite” ‘The Road Not Taken’:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

One of the prettiest and most misunderstood poems of all time, I think. Frost is so pleasant and easy to read; sometimes we give read greedily for the language and miss the nuances. If you notice, there’s a problem here: there IS not road less taken. Frost himself is saying they were both equally travelled ‘had worn them really about the same’. This poem is not about doing the oddball thing – the out-on—limb thing. It’s not about studying footprints in the dirt and choosing the most obscure. What he’s saying is there is no road more or less traveled. But using the metaphor of the woods, he relates a human lifetimes to the many twists and turns you find running through a forest. Every now and then the road forks and we are obliged to make a choice. A long series of choices. Along these paths are sadnesses and losses, triumphs, windfalls, breaks, unions… but it’s all a part of the landscape of the woods, and no one way is more celebrated than any other, despite the name he chose for the poem.

Muriel Rukeyser wrote this AMAZING positive an upbeat ‘personal philosophy’ style poem. The words are positively screaming her joy—her decision to live within the realm of ‘Yes!’ (contains strong language, be warned):

It's like a tap-dance
or a new pink dress,
a shit- naive feeling
Saying Yes.

Some say Good morning
Some say God bless--
Some say Possibly
Some say Yes.

Some say Never
Some say Unless
It's stupid and lovely
To rush into Yes.

What can it mean?
It's just like life,
One thing to you
One to your wife.

Some go local
Some go express
Some can't wait
To answer Yes.

Some complain
Of strain and stress
The answer may be
No for Yes.

Some like failure
Some like Success
Some like Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes.

Open your eyes,
Dream but dont guess.
Your biggest surprise
Comes after Yes.

When I first read this poem, something turned over in my mind and I instantly felt like I could so/ be anything and anyone. I find myself almost singing it in my mind quite often. Maybe you will too—there are worse mantras, that’s for sure.

Something else by way of wisdom and philosophy; this is a very narrative piece that comes from a place a experience, thoughtfulness, healing… it doesn’t have the bouncy, electric joy of ‘Yes!’, but in its own heavy and truthful way it perfectly describes a  revelation that comes after a loss:

After a while you learn
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman
Not the grief of a child

And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way
Of falling down in mid flight

After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers

And you learn
That you really can endure
That you are really strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
With every good bye you learn

Horribly sad, I know. Poignant maybe, rather than sad. But it comes from the heart and it hits its mark. Still, I think we’d better move on to another voice. This is the voice of a woman who has REALLY decided what she wants. It’s unapologetic, irreverent, and really, really perfect. This is ‘For Desire’ by Kim Adonizio (a GREAT favorite) (very strong language here, so be much warned): 

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;
and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal
surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,
or cherries, the rich spurt in the back
of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.
Give me the lover who yanks open the door
of his house and presses me to the wall
in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched
and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload
and begin their delicious diaspora
through the cities and small towns of my body.
To hell with the saints, with martyrs
of my childhood meant to instruct me
in the power of endurance and faith,
to hell with the next world and its pallid angels
swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.
I want this world. I want to walk into
the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along
like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,
and I want to resist it. I want to go
staggering and flailing my way
through the bars and back rooms,
through the gleaming hotels and weedy
lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks
where dogs are let off their leashes
in spite of the signs, where they sniff each
other and roll together in the grass, I want to
lie down somewhere and suffer for love until
it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again
and put on that little black dress and wait
for you, yes you, to come over here
and get down on your knees and tell me
just how fucking good I look

And to balance that out, here is a poem about a man coming to a decision. Kenneth Fearing, in fact. This poem has a similar conversational, contemporary feel, and also reads like a wonderful story poem. (Just mildly bad language in this one). It’s called ‘Love 20¢ the First Quarter Mile’:

All right. I may have lied to you and about you, and made a few pronouncements a bit too sweeping, perhaps, and possibly forgotten to tag the bases here or there,
And damned your extravagence, and maligned your tastes, and libeled your relatives, and slandered a few of your friends,
O.K.,
Nevertheless, come back.

Come home. I will agree to forget the statements that you issued so copiously to the neighbors and the press,
And you will forget that figment of your imagination, the blonde from Detroit;
I will agree that your lady friend who lives above us is not crazy, bats, nutty as they come, but on the contrary rather bright,
And you will concede that poor old Steinberg is neither a drunk, nor a swindler, but simply a guy, on the eccentric side, trying to get along.
(Are you listening, you bitch, and have you got this straight?)

Because I forgive you, yes, for everything.
I forgive you for being beautiful and generous and wise,
I forgive you, to put it simply, for being alive, and pardon you, in short, for being you.

Because tonight you are in my hair and eyes,
And every street light that our taxi passes shows me you again, still you,
And because tonight all other nights are black, all other hours are cold and far away, and now, this minute, the stars are very near and bright

Come back. We will have a celebration to end all celebrations.
We will invite the undertaker who lives beneath us, and a couple of boys from the office, and some other friends.
And Steinberg, who is off the wagon, and that insane woman who lives upstairs, and a few reporters, if anything should break.

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The 'What If?' Poem

Let’s look at an exercise that might help you find your revelation poem before we finish off with some poetry on aging. In order bring yourself (mentally) to a place where you need to make a decision, a choice, or find a philosophy, try practicing a ‘What If’ poem as seen below, and see where the circumstances land you...

Line 1: What if ?
Line 2: I might
Line 3: What if ?
Line 4: I could
Line 5: What if ?
Line 6: I would
Line 7: Ask a question ?Bottom of Form

Sample:

What if summer lasted half a year?
I might finally learn to swim
What if chocolate were good for your health?
I could earn a medal for wellness
What if worrying made you smarter?
I would be a brain surgeon, that's for sure
What if poems were wishes that could actually come true?

I found this exercise on this website:

http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm

Very VERY good for beginning to write poetry!

Poems about aging are just that. They don’t need to have a resolution or a particular voice. The words can come from the page, rather than the narrator’s mouth. If you think of life as a series of landmarks, then you should have no trouble choosing a junction. Maybe not… maybe ten year’s form now… maybe fifty years ago…

The first one is a natural stared point. It’s quick, it’s clever, and it rings charm. By the beloved author of the ‘Winnie the Poo’ series, here is A.A. Milne’s ‘The End’:

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever

And moving down the time line a hair, here is Alison Fell’s ‘Pushing Forty’:

Just before winter

we see the trees show

their true colours:

the mad yellow of chestnuts

two maples like blood sisters

the orange beech

braver than lipstick

Pushing forty, we vow

that when the time comes

rather than wither

ladylike and white

we will henna our hair

like Colette, we too

will be gold and red

and go out

in a last wild blaze

This poem really crosses over between the two areas we’re looking at today: again and revelations. The next poem is similar in theme, but I don’t think it’s redundant. It is a legend, however, and you will know it. ‘Warning’ by Jenny Joseph has been enjoying cultish fame since the 1980s when it began appearing on greeting cards:

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Tomorrow is the final installment of poetry week. And tomorrow the theme is ‘I’. Ourselves. I’ll have two more exercises tomorrow and a nice assortment of poetry.

Just as a reminder, I began this whole exercise with the intention of using poetry as a theme this Friday night (tomorrow). If you have written original poetry, please do send it along, and we’ll try to magically transform it into a cocktail. Words into slurps.