Reading poems

I'm not sure how this got started, but I notice that a lot of poets when they read deliver their lines with an upward lift at the end of the line.

deliver their LINES
with an upward LIFT
at the END
of the LINE.

It's a fairly unnatural method of reading or speaking and can often distract from the substance of a very good poem. I remember attending poetry readings when I was an undergrad, and no one ever read that way. It seems to have arisen with the ascent of the workshop culture wherein most of the students (now the instructors) are mostly familiar with the works of their contemporaries or the contemporaries of their teachers. I'm not saying I want to hear someone declaiming like Wallace Stevens or chanting like Pound or Yeats, but a good delivery that doesn't lose the prose sense of what's being said would be nice.

No-bama (4)

Ok, he gives another one of his "inspiring" speeches, this time on racial issues. To which I say, finally. Why didn't he give this speech as soon race became an issue? Say, during the South Carolina primary. Begin to deal with it when it first appears. That way it doesn't give off the stink of a political cover-up. During the speech he dismissed the idea that he chose this time to give the speech because of the problems with Rev. Wright. Sorry, guy--that's a no-sell. It would've just faded into the woodwork, he said. Nope. Wrong again. This one's got legs. He had to have known what this guy was saying from the pulpit. He married Obama and Michelle; he christened his children. "How could I have know?" doesn't cut it. This was a classic cya speech, cut and dried.

The real question is why this man, who has had political goals almost from the moment he dropped out of the womb, was stupid enough to stay in this particular church. Did he think no one would ever bother checking up? That he's still in the race is testament to how easily the press covers this guy. Imagine if it turned out that John McCain's pastor delivered Aryan Nation rant as part and parcel of his sermons. McCain could write-off the nomination no matter how many delegates he's banked.

Politics. That's the bottom line. This guy is looking to maintain his political positioning. Hope? At this point I think we all need to hope that there isn't another one this bad waiting in the wings.

Sing

Minister. O Lord, open thou our lips.
Answer. And our mouth shall show forth thy praise.
—The Book of Common Prayer


Sing, sings the titmouse.
Sing, sings the bullfrog.
Sing, sings the cricket.
Sing, sings the robin, its twilight note
piercing the air, the heart, moving
me to open my lips, not to the Lord above
but to the fallen shards of heaven
sprung to life, giving voice through all these
pied and dappled creatures for joy and praise
that life flows, that the trees flower, that all
life blossoms and burgeons, that we rise
each morning to watch the sun’s aureole
brighten the tips of the farthest trees, or rain
drip from the eaves, snow drop in its delicate,
intricate glory. Light, dark—the interplay
life’s Gloria that we, by speaking, by
singing, bring to our own, wholly undivided note.

Hand

O gracious Father, who openest thine
hand and fillest all things living with
plenteousness…
—The Book of Common Prayer


Extend your hand beyond the door, beyond
the warmth of furnace and glow of fireplace, out
where the night winds chap the flesh and make
cold spread your body’s length. Extend your hand
and let the snowflakes settle in the dark, in the slight
breeze that spirals the flakes in the shards of moonlight
flickering between clouds that gather and scatter,
gather again. Extend your hand and let the darkness
rest in your palm, the plentitude, let the slight
spray of starlight exaggerate the hills and furrows
lining your hand, the world in miniature, hills that
rise beyond the pond invisible in the night, beyond
those hills the river, then the hills beyond that, the trees
and all the fruit waiting in their limbs to urge
outward, to press themselves furiously into light.

Snow

It's about damn time. Five days ago the temperate was 60, maybe a couple of degrees warmer. Now snow. When I woke this morning, it was still untouched--the expanse of white blanketing the field behind the house down to the pond.

Of course, by the afternoon it had turned to rain, which turned the snow to slush pretty quickly, and they're predicting that, as the temperature drops later this afternoon, it will turn to sleet.

Still, for that brief time...

No-bama (3)

I suppose what amazes me most is the momentum that such a mediocre public figure has established. I watched all of the "victory" speeches following Super Tuesday, and I've got to say that, of the five candidates, Obama seemed the least animated, the least connected with his audience, the most vague. Obama made Romney seem a paragon of audience engagement. Most of the time Obama spoke in vague oratical terms with not terribly inspiring oratory while he assumed GQ poses and spoke over the heads of his supporters, as though addressing the great visionary vistas. Too bad he doesn't have a vision. (Note to Barack: "Change" is not a vision; it's what of us do with our clothes.)

Obama's running the greatest con job since W's first run at the presidency. His policy proposals are vague compared with Hillary's (and Edwards' makes them look like kindergarten efforts), and he makes little indication either of how he'll enact them or how he'll pay for them. He has very little traction in Congress, mostly because he's served less than two years in the Senate and has done little of any note. Perhaps his most notable act was failing to show up for the vote on the Iran resolution for which he criticizes Hillary's vote. Puh-lease.

More than a third of his votes in the Illinois Senate were "present." Gee. That's what many of my students can claim while I'm desperately trying to get them to participate in the most elementary fashion in my English composition classes. Present. That's just what we need for a president. On the other hand, I guess that puts him a half step ahead of the current occupant of the Oval Office.

I think we should aim a little higher.

The stuff left out

Whenever you compile a list of "top tens" (December 29, 2007), you realize that you left some very important things out. Sometimes the things you left out are so clearly important it's like being hit in the face with the flat side of a shovel.

I don't know what I'd leave off the lists I already posted, but James Crumley's The Last Good Kiss is certainly one of my favorite books--way up there. It's the best mystery I think anybody's ever written. If anyone's the true heir of Raymond Chandler, it's Crumley.

In terms of poetry, David Lee is one of the contemporary gems. Since I've limited myself to individual collections, I guess I'd have to list The Porcine Legacy, the first of his "pig" books, but Driving and Drinking is a close second. Driving and Drinking is a kind of rural take on Dante's Commedia, except it's also funny as hell. But The Porcine Legacy contains two absolute jewels, "Racehogs" and "For Jan, with Love."