So Michael Hanscom pointed out that May 30 was Poem in Your Pocket Day, but I resisted putting one here until someone on MeFi posted that it commemorates the end of National Poetry Month. That’s reason enough for me. I think Michael’s post is the first time I’ve read anything by E.E. Cummings. I’m not sure what artistic silliness he was engaged in, skewering language syntax in weird ways, but at least ’she being Brand’ lives up to his surname. (I’m characteristically a day late, but we don’t let such trivialities interrupt us from trumpeting our tastes. It’s the only sensible use of the internet, after all.)
I don’t have a particular favourite. The ones that I currently like most are ‘On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey‘ by Francis Beaumont, ‘Sea Fever‘ by John Masefield (although it’s rapidly falling from favour) and ‘The Listeners‘ by Walter De la Mare. Someone called Kirsten who sent a trackback to Michael’s entry posted a short but effective poem: ‘ “Star-Spangled” Nails’ by Richard Brautigan:
You’ve got
some “Star-Spangled”
nails
in your coffin, kid.
That’s what
they’ve done for you,
son.
A second-tier favourite of mine with the same sentiment is Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est. I first read it in 11th grade, then tried to forget it since it doesn’t have the persistent rhythm of the other, older poems that I like, but the last verse is haunting.
Anyway, here’s my contribution; saw it a few weeks ago when flipping through the Premier Book of Major Poets: Edna St. Vincent Millay’s, ‘Apostrophe to Man’. It was published in 1934, but seems to anticipate World War II. (Here’s some interesting background about her.)
Apostrophe to Man
(on reflecting that the world is ready to go to war again)Detestable race, continue to expunge yourself, die out.
Breed faster, crowd, encroach, sing hymns, build bombing planes;
Make speeches, unveil statues, issue bonds, parade;
Convert again into explosives the bewildered ammonia and distracted cellulose;
Convert again into putrescent matter drawing flies
The hopeful bodies of the young, exhort,
Pray, pull long faces, be earnest, be all but overcome, be photographed;
Confer, perfect your formulae, commercialize
Bacateria harmful to human tissue,
Put death on the market;
Breed, crowd, encroach, expand, expunge yourself, die out,
Homo called sapiens.
Homo is the genus for all species of humans, and we’re ostensibly the sapiens–the wise ones. (I like the “bewildered ammonia and distracted cellulose” part.)
In 10th grade history we saw ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (not sure whether it was the 1930 or 1970 version). When someone mentioned that we never seem to learn from past conflict, I said that the human condition compells us to not be affected by past deaths too much. I now wish that weren’t the case.
Check out ‘Eric Bogle, Meet Gary Trudeau and Darby Conley‘. Via this MeFi thread with photographs from the Iraq War.
Again and again, again and again.
thank you for putting up her poem, i had never read it before. i actually read it yesterday, but it was so difficult to absorb - and upsetting - i had to leave it and come back and try again. it reminds me of things i used to think about in high school, like human nature and whether we’re inherently a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ race - i think i came to understand that humans were a race of mostly good intentions challenged by vices and desire.
this goes beyond human nature, outside it, even. across generations can one really learn from history? how far does progress go? the underlying threads of each story are the same, with different characters and plots and details. do poets write this way anymore? you have to chew on this poem for so long, picking it apart. you have to look. brautigan on the other hand is almost obvious, the lazy man’s poet - he does all the work for you.
thanks for the pondering space.
kirsten: wow, you’re the first commenter on this weblog who’s neither someone I know in ‘real life’ nor a spammer. Thanks!
Personally, I like Millay’s poem more as one-time reading than something that would stick with me: it’s too ‘busy’. But yes, it’s striking in its truth. You know, this is going to sound like wishy-washy intellectualism, but I think that every person in the world really needs to develop an appreciation for literature and history.
Literature to know that there are no such things as good and evil (I still can’t believe that a mature adult made the “axis of evil” statement), or a good person or a bad person. What’s important is to figure out how to reduce the influence of people who impact others negatively (and if they’re self-destructive, to deal with that separately). Of course, then there’s a huge class of people who’re neither ‘bad’ themselves, nor have ‘bad’ people to deal with in their own lives, yet have this urge to control what other people are doing. Don’t what to do about them
And history to realize that what people are rushing to pull off half-cocked, tripping over themselves in ambition, has already been tried. Sure, change the world, but at least learn from past mistakes. We never damn learn.
James Baldwin: “… a moral change is the only real one. ‘Plus ca change,’ groan the exasperated French (who should certainly know), ‘plus c’est le meme chose.’ (The more it changes, the more it remains the same.) At least they have the style to be truthful about it.”
It’s just a saying that I keep thinking of whenever considering the rise of the right-wingers across the globe, all wanting to remake the world in their image (the arch-conservatives in America who keep warning about socialists, the Hindu nationalists back home in India who whine about secularists and Marxists, the Israeli right who see an anti-Semitic killer hidden in every corner, and the Muslim extremists who’re enraged about–well, everyone who isn’t exactly like them). I’m sure this has probably happened before, and their mutually destructive nature will again drag us down into their personal hell.
Or maybe they’ll subside as conditions change? Who knows. I’m not relentlessly pessimistic, I just think that people should realize that focusing on getting things right rather than getting things done is a good thing. I mean, Homo sapiens have been around for 1.6 million years and people are still starving to death? And we Homo sapiens sapiens have had 30,000 years to fix the problem but still haven’t. What a shame.
Ok, I’m just procrastinating. Should get back to my essay.
(Did you look at Dulce et Decorum Est? Nothing takes the romanticism out of armed conflict like dead acquaintances.)
what does the listeners mean? Poem by Walter De La Mare.
ter, in a literal sense it’s just about a guy visiting a place with some sort of errand and not being able to even get in touch with the persons he’s tasked with meeting (”‘Tell them I came, and no one answered, / That I kept my word,’ he said.”) On a more metaphorical level I think it’s quite open to interpretation.
STUPID