My polestar . . .

On this final evening of November, I am reminded of a beautiful poem by Emily Brontë written one hundred seventy-four years ago. 

XIII 

Now trust a heart that trusts in you, 
And firmly say the word adieu ; 
Be sure, wherever I may roam, 
My heart is with your heart at home ; 

Unless there be no truth on earth, 
And vows most true are nothing worth, 
And mortal man have no control 
Over his own unhappy soul ; 

Unless I change in every thought, 
And memory will restore me nought, 
And all I have of virtue die 
Beneath far Gondal's foreign sky. 

The mountain peasant loves the heath 
Better than richest plains beneath ; 
He would not give one moorland wild 
For all the fields that ever smiled. 

And whiter brows than yours may be, 
And rosier cheeks my eyes may see, 
And lightning looks from orbs divine 
About my pathway burn and shine. 

But that pure light, changeless and strong, 
Cherished and watched and nursed so long ; 
That love that first its glory gave, 
Shall be my pole-star to the grave. 

— Emily Brontë, November 1837

Another Pushcart Prize nomination !

My poem, "Críonnacht", a glosa of W.B. Yeats's "The Coming of Wisdom with Time", has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Paul Christian Stevens, Editor, The Chimaera. The poem may be viewed -- and heard -- here.

My fifth Pushcart Prize nomination and second this year!

The word "críonnacht" is Gaelic for "wisdom".

Wish me luck!

2011 Anthology of Montreal Writers

Some of my work will be featured in the 2011 Anthology of Montreal Writers, published by the Canadian Authors Association, Montreal Branch.

 

The anthology will be launched December 19 at the Thomas More Institute in Montreal.

 

Cost of the anthology is $14, plus postage if mailed.

 

 

Gracias a la vida . . .

Happy Thanksgiving to family and friends. I hope you enjoy this song, Gracias a la vida, sung by the late Mercedes Sosa.

Miss you, Mommy.

" . . . the weight of the year"

The Death of Autumn

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like agèd warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe; and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek, —
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again, — but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn! — What is the Spring to me?


 

"He's making a list, checking it twice . . ."

 

Dear Friends,

Do you have formal poetry lovers on your holiday gift list? If so, why not get them a copy of Lines of Flight, available from Able Muse Press, Barnes & Noble, Amazon (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan), and The Book Depository (Australia, New Zealand).

At a recent luncheon with some of my favorite Powwow River poets, one poet purchased a copy of Lines of Flight to bring as a gift to poetry-loving friends, instead of a bottle of wine. 

The book contains a beautiful Foreword by Rhina P. Espaillat and sixty formal poems including : sonnet, Sapphic stanza, ballad, ovilejo, leona rima, cinquains, quatrains, triolet, cento, ekphrastic, rondeau, villanelle, haibun, and others, not to mention enthusiastic endorsements of the work by Richard Wilbur, Eric Ormsby and X.J. Kennedy.

Hope you'll consider it!

 Thank you!

Catherine Chandler

 

"Something between breaths"

 

And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name

By John Ashbery

You can’t say it that way any more.   

Bothered about beauty you have to   

Come out into the open, into a clearing,

And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you

Is OK. To demand more than this would be strange

Of you, you who have so many lovers,   

People who look up to you and are willing   

To do things for you, but you think

It’s not right, that if they really knew you . . .

So much for self-analysis. Now,

About what to put in your poem-painting:   

Flowers are always nice, particularly delphinium.   

Names of boys you once knew and their sleds,   

Skyrockets are good—do they still exist?

There are a lot of other things of the same quality   

As those I’ve mentioned. Now one must

Find a few important words, and a lot of low-keyed,

Dull-sounding ones. She approached me

About buying her desk. Suddenly the street was   

Bananas and the clangor of Japanese instruments.   

Humdrum testaments were scattered around. His head

Locked into mine. We were a seesaw. Something   

Ought to be written about how this affects   

You when you write poetry:

The extreme austerity of an almost empty mind

Colliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate   

Something between breaths, if only for the sake   

Of others and their desire to understand you and desert you

For other centers of communication, so that understanding

May begin, and in doing so be undone.

National Take a Hike Day

It seems every day is a "National Something-or-other" day. I thought the one for today, November 17, National Take a Hike Day, was funny, so below is my "take" on Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art". Of course, it's not autobiographical, just in case you wondered ;-)  :

A Different Art

(after Elizabeth Bishop)

The art of keeping isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be kept that their keeping’s no disaster.

Keep something every day. Accept the fluster

of keeping up with the Joneses. The torment

of keeping secrets isn’t hard to master.

Then practice keeping track of time. And Sister,

keep cool no matter what. To the extent

you keep good company, there’s no disaster.

He kept a mistress, overtaxed his rooster,

and so I told him, Keep in touch, and sent

him packing. Piece of cake to master.

I kept two children (lovely ones), the toaster,

the house, the SUV; and when he went

I kept the faith. It wasn’t a disaster.

I gather every word that I can muster —

a squad, a company, a regiment —

an art of which I’m lady, lord and master:

my castle keep. Keep out! Or face disaster.

-- Catherine Chandler

Liberating the poem . . .

"The poem freed from its precarious utility as ego's appendage may possibly fly into the sky and become a star permanent in the night air." — Donald Hall, Poetry and Ambition

Soñando con el campo . . .

Los Pueblitos

Para Nelly y Vicente

En 25 de Mayo, lejos, en las afueras,

entre eucalíptos, plátanos y palmeras,

una casa centenaria, sólida y sencilla

me recibe con su fuente que suena a campanilla.

Rodeada de bosque, de campo y de prado,

de maíz, de soja, de frutales y ganado;

de aves cantoras, de flores silvestres,

su tierra encarna los valores campestres.

Un sendero de pinos me lleva a la capilla,

y a la puesta del sol, al cielo que brilla

de malva, susurro un rezo vespertino —

«¡ Dios bendiga Los Pueblitos, sosiego argentino!»

— Catherine Chandler, 2006

Spenserian Spring

The Ovenbird

In Uruguay, in spring, I’ve often heard

light-hearted trills along the dusty road:

a lively, undiminished ovenbird

sings as she builds her intricate abode.

The wily swallow, with no stringent code

of constancy, surveys the chambered nest;

and knows that, following this episode

of eggs with which the other bird is blessed,

he’ll snatch the abdicated space. Hard-pressed

though he may be for time, for love, for will,

too wise to prove an uninvited guest,

he waits it out upon a window-sill.

The ovenbird, deemed artless by the swallow,

to practiced eyes is one tough act to follow.

— Catherine Chandler

Eleven

Everyone's commenting on the 11-11-11 phenomenon. I didn't think of this when I wrote my poem, "Eleven", but since it's also Remembrance Day in Canada, I'll share the poem with you:

Eleven

players on a soccer team

stars in Joseph's second dream

odd reversible and prime

dimensions (counting space and time)

pipers piping, salt (Na)

month day hour Veterans Day

goats hair curtains ripped apart

ounce-weight of the human heart

twelve less Judas, David's men

pearls and tears from Swinburne's pen

heartbreak (on a scale of ten)


— Catherine Chandler

"Actuated by love"

From Thoreau's Walden; or Life in the Woods (which I'm re-reading for the umpteenth time):

"The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by love. Who can predict his comings and goings?"

My New Book

White Violet Press will be publishing This Sweet Order, a chapbook of twenty-seven sonnets. Available soon. I'll keep everyone posted on progress.

 

. . . and of course . . .

My November Guest

By Robert Frost

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted gray

Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so surely sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell he so,

And they are better for her praise.

. . . and another . . .

Design for November

By William Carlos Williams

Let confusion be the design
and all my thoughts go,
swallowed by desire: recess
from promises in
the November of your arms.
Release from the rose: broken
reeds, strawpale,
through which, from easy
branches that mock the blood
a few leaves fall. There
the mind is cradled,
stripped also and returned
to the ground, a trivial
and momentary clatter. Sleep
and be brought down, and so
condone the world, eased of
the jagged sky and all
its petty imageries, flying
birds, its fogs and windy
phalanxes . . .

Another November Poem . . .

November
By Walter de la Mare


There is wind where the rose was,
Cold rain where sweet grass was,
And clouds like sheep
Stream o’er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought warm where your hand was,
Nought gold where your hair was,
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.

Cold wind where your voice was,
Tears, tears where my heart was,
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

Pushcart Prize Nomination

My poem, "The Deep Season", originally published in The Raintown Review, January 2011, and reprinted in the Winter Issue of Victorian Violet Press, has been nominated by the latter for a Pushcart Prize. The poem is available online here:

http://victorianvioletpress.com/issue_9/catherine_chandler

and here:


http://www.theraintownreview.com/archived-issues/volume-9-issue-2/the-deep-season

This is my fourth Pushcart Prize nomination, the other poems being: "66", "Writ" and "Body of Evidence". Keeping my fingers crossed!

November

Caesura

 

Between the last triumphant note of fall,

when maples, marigolds and pumpkins vie

for orange jurisdiction, and the rime-

embellished month of Christmas, there he is,

November, stark, severe, demanding all

imagination can afford: a lie

might do the trick; an epic, if there’s time.

Anything to fill that void of his.



by Catherine Chandler (first published in Candelabrum (Scotland), CPM Vol 12, #6, October 2007), reproduced in Lines of Flight.