Day 30, National Poetry Month: Two Cities

On this day, April 30, in the year 1859, the first weekly installment of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities appeared in his (then) new literary periodical All the Year Round.

On this final day of National Poetry Month, here are two poems, "London"  by William Blake, published during the French Revolution, and "In Paris with You" by James Fenton.

And here are two YouTube videos of the poems.

"London"

"In Paris with You"


I hope you enjoyed National Poetry Month.  I wrote only one poem this month, which is about usual for me. And I'm still revising it!

Day 27, National Poetry Month: Tell a Story Day

Click HERE to read The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes, in honor of National Tell a Story Day, April 27, and click HERE to hear the musical version sung by Loreena McKennitt.

Day 26, National Poetry Month: "Write till your ink be dry"

William Shakespeare  was baptized this day (April 26) in 1564. The exact date of his birth is unknown. In his honor I wrote the following cento/sestina, or if you prefer, sestina/cento completely from his works.

It has been published in

available HERE .

So, Happy Sort-of Birthday, Will!

The Bard

by Catherine Chandler

Our hands are full of business: let’s away,

and on our actions set the name of right;

with full bags of spices, a passport, too,

for we must measure twenty miles to-day

when day’s oppression is not eased by night.

So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true.

If it appear not plain and prove untrue,

that so my sad decrees may fly away,

kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!

Thou livest; report me and my cause aright.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day?

If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it, too.

Let me have audience for a word or two:

this above all: to thine ownself be true.

Yet I confess that often ere this day,

in cases of defence, ’tis best to weigh,

to look into the blots and stains of right,

in high-born words the worth of many a knight.

The mountain or the sea, the day or night –

one side will mock another; the other, too.

O, let me, true in love, but truly write

without all ornament, itself and true,

for fear their colours should be washed away,

as are those dulcet sounds in break of day.

The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

and she died singing it: that song to-night,

which by and by black night doth take away;

if she pertain to life, let her speak, too!

They would not take her life – is this not true?

O, blame me not, if I no more can write!

Never durst poet touch a pen to write:

we are but warriors for the working-day.

If what I now pronounce you have found true:

when the sun sets, who doth not look for night?

Please you, deliberate a day or two,

let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion sway.

There is no other way: do me this right –

and it must follow, as the night the day,

write till your ink be dry. O, ’tis too true.

Day 26, National Poetry Month: National Hug an Australian Day

In the words of Janet Kenny, "The poet who is most closely associated in the popular imagination with present-day Australia is Les Murray."

For more on Les Murray, here are some links:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/les-a-murray

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Murray_%28poet%29

As Literary Editor of Quadrant, Les Murray recently published my poem, "Edward Hopper's Automat", his handwritten acceptance arriving on a beautiful postcard.

Below is one of my favorite poems by Les Murray, "Noonday Axeman".

Noonday Axeman

Axe-fall, echo and silence. Noonday silence.
Two miles from here, it is the twentieth century:
cars on the bitumen, powerlines vaulting the farms.
Here, with my axe, I am chopping into the stillness.

Axe-fall, echo and silence. I pause, roll tobacco,
twist a cigarette, lick it. All is still.
I lean on my axe. A cloud of fragrant leaves
hangs over me moveless, pierced everywhere by sky.

Here, I remember all of a hundred years:
candleflame, still night, frost and cattle bells,
the draywheels' silence final in our ears,
and the first red cattle spreading through the hills

and my great-great-grandfather here with his first sons,
who would grow old, still speaking with his Scots accent,
having never seen those highlands that they sang of.
A hundred years. I stand and smoke in the silence.

A hundred years of clearing, splitting, sawing,
a hundred years of timbermen, ringbarkers, fencers
and women in kitchens, stoking loud iron stoves
year in, year out, and singing old songs to their children

have made this silence human and familiar
no farther than where the farms rise into foothills,
and, in that time, how many have sought their graves
or fled to the cities, maddened by this stillness?

Things are so wordless. These two opposing scarves
I have cut in my red-gum squeeze out jewels of sap
and stare. And soon, with a few more axe-strokes,
the tree will grow troubled, tremble, shift its crown

and, leaning slowly, gather speed and colossally
crash down and lie between the standing trunks.
And then, I know, of the knowledge that led my forebears
to drink and black rage and wordlessness, there will be silence.

After the tree falls, there will reign the same silence
as stuns and spurns us, enraptures and defeats us,
as seems to some a challenge, and seems to others
to be waiting here for something beyond imagining.

Axe-fall, echo and silence. Unhuman silence.
A stone cracks in the heat. Through the still twigs, radiance
stings at my eyes. I rub a damp brow with a handkerchief
and chop on into the stillness. Axe-fall and echo.

The great mast murmurs now. The scarves in its trunk
crackle and squeak now, crack and increase as the hushing
weight of the high branches heels outward, and commences
tearing and falling, and the collapse is tremendous.

Twigs fly, leaves puff and subside. The severed trunk
slips off its stump and drops along its shadow.
And then there is no more. The stillness is there
as ever. And I fall to lopping branches.

Axe-fall, echo and silence. It will be centuries
before many men are truly at home in this country,
and yet, there have always been some, in each generation,
there have always been some who could live in the presence of silence.

And some, I have known them, men with gentle broad hands,
who would die if removed from these unpeopled places,
some again I have seen, bemused and shy in the cities,
you have built against silence, dumbly trudging through noise

past the railway stations, looking up through the traffic
at the smoky halls, dreaming of journeys, of stepping
down from the train at some upland stop to recover
the crush of dry grass underfoot, the silence of trees.

Axe-fall, echo and silence. Dreaming silence.
Though I myself run to the cities, I will forever
be coming back here to walk, knee-deep in ferns,
up and away from this metropolitan century,

to remember my ancestors, axemen, dairymen, horse-breakers,
now coffined in silence, down with their beards and dreams,
who, unwilling or rapt, despairing or very patient,
made what amounts to a human breach in the silence,

made of their lives the rough foundation of legends-
men must have legends, else they will die of strangeness-
then died in their turn, each, after his own fashion,
resigned or agonized, from silence into great silence.

Axe-fall, echo and axe-fall. Noonday silence.
Though I go to the cities, turning my back on these hills,
for the talk and dazzle of cities, for the sake of belonging
for months and years at a time to the twentieth century,

the city will never quite hold me. I will be always
coming back here on the up-train, peering, leaning
out of the window to see, on far-off ridges,
the sky between the trees, and over the racket
of the rails to hear the echo and the silence.

I shoulder my axe and set off home through the stillness.

 -- Les Murray

Day 25, National Poetry Month: "Nothing I do will last"

Sound of the Shofar by Peter John Voormeij

April 25 is National Zucchini Bread Day (I kid you not!). I remember making this (once, years ago) when my Christmas gift to my parents was a basket full of treats, each one beginning with a different letter of the alphabet.

I never thought I would find a poem about zucchini, but I did, and it's wonderful!

Zucchini Shofar

By Sarah Lindsay

  

No animals were harmed in the making of this joyful noise:

A thick, twisted stem from the garden

is the wedding couple's ceremonial ram's horn.

Its substance will not survive one thousand years,

nor will the garden, which is today their temple,

nor will their names, nor their union now announced

with ritual blasts upon the zucchini shofar.

Shall we measure blessings by their duration?

Through the narrow organic channel fuzzily come

the prescribed sustained notes, short notes, rests.

All that rhythm requires. Among their talents,

the newlyweds excel at making

and serving mustard-green soup and molasses cookies,

and taking nieces and nephews for walks in the woods.

The gardener dyes eggs with onion skins,

wraps presents, tells stories, finds the best seashells;

his friends adore his paper-cuttings—

"Nothing I do will last," he says.

What is this future approval we think we need;

who made passing time our judge?

Do we want butter that endures for ages,

or butter that melts into homemade cornbread now?

—the note that rings in my deaf ear without ceasing,

or two voices abashed by the vows they undertake?

This moment's chord of earthly commotion

will never be struck exactly so again—

though love does love to repeat its favorite lines.

So let the shofar splutter its slow notes and quick notes,

let the nieces and nephews practice their flutes and trombones,

let living room pianos invite unwashed hands,

let glasses of different fullness be tapped for their different notes,

let everyone learn how to whistle,

let the girl dawdling home from her trumpet lesson

pause at the half-built house on the corner,

where the newly installed maze of plumbing comes down

to one little pipe whose open end she can reach,

so she takes a deep breath

and makes the whole house sound.

Source: Poetry (October 2008).

Day 23, National Poetry Month: Fergus rules the brazen cars

Fender bender today.  :-(




Who Goes With Fergus?
(by William Butler Yeats)

Who goes with Fergus?

  by W. B. Yeats

Who will go drive with Fergus now, 
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, 
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow, 
And lift your tender eyelids, maid, 
And brood on hopes and fear no more. 

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars, 
And rules the shadows of the wood, 
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21816#sthash.JLQyqCMj.dpuf

by W. B. Yeats

Who will go drive with Fergus now, 
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, 
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow, 
And lift your tender eyelids, maid, 
And brood on hopes and fear no more. 

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars, 
And rules the shadows of the wood, 
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21816#sthash.qyaCkeht.dpuf

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.
And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.




Who will go drive with Cathy now?

Who goes with Fergus?

  by W. B. Yeats

Who will go drive with Fergus now, 
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, 
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow, 
And lift your tender eyelids, maid, 
And brood on hopes and fear no more. 

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars, 
And rules the shadows of the wood, 
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21816#sthash.JLQyqCMj.dpuf

Day 20, National Poetry Month: My Father

Today my father, who passed away last August, would have turned 84.  Missing you, Dad . . .

Below is a beautiful and powerful poem by e e cummings.

my father moved through dooms of love
e.e. cummings 

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead he called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely)stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why man breathe—
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

my father moved through dooms of love

  by E. E. Cummings

              34

my father moved through dooms of love 
through sames of am through haves of give, 
singing each morning out of each night 
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where 
turned at his glance to shining here; 
that if(so timid air is firm) 
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which 
floats the first who,his april touch 
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates 
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry 
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea 
my father moved through griefs of joy; 
praising a forehead called the moon 
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure 
a heart of star by him could steer 
and pure so now and now so yes 
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend 
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend 
than he to foolish and to wise  
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame 
beckoned)as earth will downward climb, 
so naked for immortal work 
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head; 
if every friend became his foe 
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we, 
singing each new leaf out of each tree 
(and every child was sure that spring 
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share, 
let blood and flesh be mud and mire, 
scheming imagine,passion willed, 
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind, 
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind, 
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright, 
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death 
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul 
love is the whole and more than all

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15405#sthash.k8v17ewq.dpuf

my father moved through dooms of love

  by E. E. Cummings

              34

my father moved through dooms of love 
through sames of am through haves of give, 
singing each morning out of each night 
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where 
turned at his glance to shining here; 
that if(so timid air is firm) 
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which 
floats the first who,his april touch 
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates 
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry 
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea 
my father moved through griefs of joy; 
praising a forehead called the moon 
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure 
a heart of star by him could steer 
and pure so now and now so yes 
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend 
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend 
than he to foolish and to wise  
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame 
beckoned)as earth will downward climb, 
so naked for immortal work 
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head; 
if every friend became his foe 
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we, 
singing each new leaf out of each tree 
(and every child was sure that spring 
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share, 
let blood and flesh be mud and mire, 
scheming imagine,passion willed, 
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind, 
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind, 
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright, 
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death 
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul 
love is the whole and more than all

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15405#sthash.AMYVRNTg.dpuf

my father moved through dooms of love

  by E. E. Cummings

              34

my father moved through dooms of love 
through sames of am through haves of give, 
singing each morning out of each night 
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where 
turned at his glance to shining here; 
that if(so timid air is firm) 
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which 
floats the first who,his april touch 
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates 
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry 
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea 
my father moved through griefs of joy; 
praising a forehead called the moon 
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure 
a heart of star by him could steer 
and pure so now and now so yes 
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend 
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend 
than he to foolish and to wise  
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame 
beckoned)as earth will downward climb, 
so naked for immortal work 
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head; 
if every friend became his foe 
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we, 
singing each new leaf out of each tree 
(and every child was sure that spring 
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share, 
let blood and flesh be mud and mire, 
scheming imagine,passion willed, 
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind, 
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind, 
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright, 
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death 
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul 
love is the whole and more than all

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15405#sthash.AMYVRNTg.dpuf

my father moved through dooms of love

  by E. E. Cummings

              34

my father moved through dooms of love 
through sames of am through haves of give, 
singing each morning out of each night 
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where 
turned at his glance to shining here; 
that if(so timid air is firm) 
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which 
floats the first who,his april touch 
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates 
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry 
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea 
my father moved through griefs of joy; 
praising a forehead called the moon 
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure 
a heart of star by him could steer 
and pure so now and now so yes 
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend 
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend 
than he to foolish and to wise  
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame 
beckoned)as earth will downward climb, 
so naked for immortal work 
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head; 
if every friend became his foe 
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we, 
singing each new leaf out of each tree 
(and every child was sure that spring 
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share, 
let blood and flesh be mud and mire, 
scheming imagine,passion willed, 
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind, 
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind, 
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright, 
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death 
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul 
love is the whole and more than all

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15405#sthash.6UEgtD07.dpuf

my father moved through dooms of love

  by E. E. Cummings

              34

my father moved through dooms of love 
through sames of am through haves of give, 
singing each morning out of each night 
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where 
turned at his glance to shining here; 
that if(so timid air is firm) 
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which 
floats the first who,his april touch 
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates 
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep 
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry 
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea 
my father moved through griefs of joy; 
praising a forehead called the moon 
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure 
a heart of star by him could steer 
and pure so now and now so yes 
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend 
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend 
than he to foolish and to wise  
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame 
beckoned)as earth will downward climb, 
so naked for immortal work 
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head; 
if every friend became his foe 
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we, 
singing each new leaf out of each tree 
(and every child was sure that spring 
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share, 
let blood and flesh be mud and mire, 
scheming imagine,passion willed, 
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind, 
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind, 
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright, 
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death 
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
--i say though hate were why men breathe--
because my Father lived his soul 
love is the whole and more than all

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15405#sthash.6UEgtD07.dpuf

A Conversation with Margaret Atwood

Just finished a Skype conversation with Margaret Atwood. 

We not only talked about poetry, but also about our families. 

The poems of mine she particularly like are "Coming to Terms" (a sonnet), "Gia Dinh" (a rondeau), "Shadow Fish" (Sapphics) and "Intervals" (heterometrical). You can read all of them (and others) HERE.

 Ms. Atwood will be sending out a "Tweet" to her followers when my new book, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis Press - Windsor, Ontario) is released this fall.

 

Day 15, National Poetry Month

As today is National Rubber Eraser Day, I will take some time to revise a few poems ! 

Day 14, National Poetry Month: National Pecan Day

Today (believe it or not) is National Pecan Day.  Though not specifically about pecans ;-), here is a little ditty by Roald Dahl, actually a parody of the nursery rhyme, "I Had a Little Nut Tree".


A Little Nut-Tree

I had a little nut-tree,
Nothing would it bear.
I searched in all its branches,
But not a nut was there.

"Oh, little tree," I begged,
"Give me just a few."
The little tree looked down at me
And whispered, "Nuts to you."


A rather interesting and extensive close reading and interpretation of the nursery rhyme, The Little Nut Tree, can be found  HERE .

This post will be followed up by a poem on June 3, National Egg Day.  Just yolking, of course.

Day 13, National Poetry Month: Rain

" . . . like rubies in a burnished crown . . ."

Below is my translation of Québécois poet, Albert Lozeau's poem "Il pleut", written over one hundred years ago.  Albeit, Lozeau's poem is about autumn rain and not the proverbial April showers.

A sort of "Singin' in the Rain" for poets, n'est-ce pas?

It’s Raining

This dismal autumn day the rain

is strophes. Poets, hold your hearts

like baskets out, despite your pain —

those scarlet wounds the world imparts!

Hold out your hearts to catch each drop;

collect the verses as they ring

with golden rhyme, before they stop.

Oh, let it rain on everything!

It rains in rhythm down the skies

in tender cadences of words

that chant the lilting lullabies,

like rushing wings of flitting birds.

For fellow poets, though we be

a woeful lot, the heavens bless

us with this proof of amity,

and pity our unhappiness.

So, you who hunt the volatile

idea, you who set it down

in perfect phrase, exquisite style,

like rubies in a burnished crown,

hold out your hearts: for poetry

is raining down in golden rhyme,

in incandescent prosody.

And may it rain! Rain all the time!

translated by Catherine Chandler from the French “Il pleut” by Albert Lozeau  (L’âme solitaire, 1907)

 

Albert Lozeau

Day 12, National Poetry Month: Storm Watch

We're expecting six inches of snow today, April 12, 2013. Here are three takes on this rather unwelcome weather.

First, Richard Wilbur reading his poem, "A Storm in April" HERE.

A Storm in April   (by Richard Wilbur)

Some winters, taking leave,
Deal us a last, hard blow,
Salting the ground like Carthage
Before they will go.

But the bright, milling snow
Which throngs the air today—
It is a way of leaving
So as to stay.

The light flakes do not weigh
The willows down, but sift
Through the white catkins, loose
As petal-drift

Or in an up-draft lift
And glitter at a height,
Dazzling as summer’s leaf-stir
Chinked with light.

This storm, if I am right,
Will not be wholly over
Till green fields, here and there,
Turn white with clover,
And through chill air the puffs of milkweed hover.

Setback       (by Catherine Chandler)

I’d seen a goldfinch, days were getting mild,

the crocuses were up, and I could hear

the wild geese honking on the pond. Beguiled,

I’d set the garden chairs in place in sheer

delight. The northern winter-spring transition

is never easy, but I’d hoped this year –

Alicia’s cancer gone into remission –

that April would be kind. Then we had snow

this afternoon, a boreal admonition:

Not so fast. Not so

fast.

                 Oh, to be the quiet sort

who bow their heads, accept the status quo,

conceding there’s a God and we’re his sport,

that winter is so long, and life so short!




Another poem on the same theme, April Snow, by Matthew Zapruder, can be read HERE.

Day 11, National Poetry Month: Todavía

Cathy & Hugo, January 1972

¡Feliz Cumpleaños, mi amor!

Today, the poem I include here is "Todavía", by Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti. I dedicate it to my husband, Hugo.

♥♥♥

Todavía

No lo creo todavía
estás llegando a mi lado
y la noche es un puñado
de estrellas y de alegría

palpo gusto escucho y veo
tu rostro tu paso largo
tus manos y sin embargo
todavía no lo creo

tu regreso tiene tanto
que ver contigo y conmigo
que por cábala lo digo
y por las dudas lo canto

nadie nunca te reemplaza
y las cosas más triviales
se vuelven fundamentales
porque estás llegando a casa

sin embargo todavía
dudo de esta buena suerte
porque el cielo de tenerte
me parece fantasía

pero venís y es seguro
y venís con tu mirada
y por eso tu llegada
hace mágico el futuro

y aunque no siempre he entendido
mis culpas y mis fracasos
en cambio sé que en tus brazos
el mundo tiene sentido

y si beso la osadía
y el misterio de tus labios
no habrá dudas ni resabios
te querré más
todavía.

Day 10, National Poetry Month: Black and Green

Source: www. screenpaper.ru

Sonnet LXIII
by William Shakespeare

Against my love shall be as I am now,
With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn;
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age's steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age's cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:
   His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
   And they shall live, and he in them still green.




Indeed, a climacteric sonnet.

Day 9, National Poetry Month: " . . .a flight of uncarpeted stairs"

The fatal staircase at Steepletop where Edna St. Vincent Millay
was found dead on October 19, 1950.
 Photo by M. J. Cooney (Source: upstateearth.blogspot.ca)

Spring

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Day 8, National Poetry Month: Avocation and Vocation

Felling axes, Source: Wikipedia

TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIME
by Robert Frost

 
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay. 

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood. 

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March. 

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom. 

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth. 

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat. 

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool. 

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed. 

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

Day 7, National Poetry Month: "Memory and desire"

"Two crocuses in snow", photograph by Thomas Wolf

Poem in April

Still, sober heart that kept me whole in youth,
be sober now, and guarded, and beware
those whispers in the wind that hush the truth.

Blossoms in their green mail, flags in the air,
crocuses in bright helmets through the snow,
all say believe, believe — but let them go:
this war is not for winning, not for you.
Better be still and guarded and not care
more for this budding branch than for the bare.
The hand that drew it bare composed this too,
and signed his work — this cheek, this frosty head.

Heart, you are not renewable; be wise.
Memory and desire, the poet said:
be sober, heart, the wind is full of lies.


by Rhina P. Espaillat (from Her Place in These Designs, Truman State University Press, 2008), reprinted by express permission of Ms. Espaillat

20,000 !

Canada Day celebration, Ottawa, Ontario (Source: Wikipedia)

My poetry blog audience continues to grow steadily. Today, April 4, 2013, the "hit counter" reached the 20,000 mark! Not bad for a poetry blog.

If you haven't already, please consider purchasing my books, Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011) and This Sweet Order (White Violet Press, 2012).

My next full-length collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis Press, 2013), will be out this fall. Forty-two poems and ten translations from French and Spanish.Will update when publication date is finalized.

Thank you, everyone!

♥ ♥ ♥

Cathy

Day 5, National Poetry Month: April 5, 1974

Photo by Dani Donders, April 12, 2011 on Flickr

Since today is April 5, I thought Richard Wilbur's "April 5, 1974" would be appropriate.

Richard Wilbur, "April 5, 1974"

The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In the dull pasture where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream.
There was a subtle flood of steam
Moving upon the face of things.
It came from standing pools and springs
And what of snow was still around;
It came of winter's giving ground
So that the freeze was coming out,
As when a set mind, blessed by doubt,
Relaxes into mother-wit.
Flowers, I said, will come of it.


Rebecca B. Faery, in The Hollins Critic (copyright 1977 by Hollins College), April, 1977, states that WIlbur's "April 5, 1974" reminds us "that poetry is a powerful weapon in the struggle of order against chaos; also that language will bow to its master, and that the making of poetry is, or always should be, an act which transforms." (p. 15)

This poem must be read and re-read in order to fully unearth the roots of its meaning.

Day 4, National Poetry Month: Red

In honor of my favorite color, here are two poems for Day 4, National Poetry Month:.

What Do Women Want? by Kim Addonizio  (includes audio recording)

and

The Red Beads by Catherine Chandler (first published in FIrst Things, February 2013)


The Red Beads: 
At the Maldonado Flea Market, Uruguay

Among the pipes and pulleys, sacks and seeds,
there is a necklace made of crimson beads.
Great care was taken that it catch the eye
of plain-clad fernandinas passing by
the Sunday market stalls and sundry shops
where needs and wants diverge. A woman stops.

She holds the necklace to her collar, asks
the price, then gently puts it down and masks
her disappointment with a repartee —
Demasiado lindo para mí.
Too nice. Yet, homeward-bound, she’ll look again
and hope no one has bought it.

Now and then,

a thing of beauty must be bargained for,
though all it graces is a dresser drawer.

 

Day 3, National Poetry Month: Love or Grief?

"Italian hanging laundry" by Joshua Sherurcij

Is it love or grief or both that "calls us to the things of this world"?

Here are two takes on that question. Both brilliant and beautiful.

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World, by Richard Wilbur

Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World, by Sherman Alexie


You can watch Richard Wilbur reading "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"  HERE .

Day 2, National Poetry Month: Recuerdo

Recuerdo

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—

But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;

And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;

And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;

And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,

And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,

And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;

And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,

And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

HERE is an image of how this poem first appeared in Poetry in May, 1919.

And HERE is a YouTube entry -- an audio recording of Edna St. Vincent Millay reading "Recuerdo".

Day 1, National Poetry Month: "Man on the Moon"

NASA's Apollo 11 (public domain photo)

Australian poet, Stephen Edgar, merits a much wider readership and recognition.

HERE is a link to his brilliant poem, "Man on the Moon", which includes an audio recording. The famous "step for man" is only a stepping-off point for the poem's beautiful meditation on destiny and love.

For a close reading of "Man on the Moon", and of Stephen Edgar's work, HERE is a link to a wonderful essay by Clive James in The Chimaera. Other essays and several of Edgar's poems also appear in that same issue.

His most recent collection, The Red Sea, is available HERE.