Returning to routine is pleasurable. I used to give myself eight minutes to write my blog, every day a little. Am back to that. Cheating a little, because I revised yesterday's entry first, and only now have set the timer.
I am re-reading Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. I first bought her book Collected Poems because of her poem One Art, and then found the rest of her writing harder to enjoy.
Something has changed: I am reading a few of her poems before going to sleep, and find it rewarding. Better still, when I switched off the light last night, the beginnings of a poem, or rather the subject for a poem came to mind, something worth while writing about. Light back on, scribble, scribble, and I hope I'll have time to work on it today - this will be a busy week with a newsletter to produce, a new chore I have taken on, not a mistake, I hope.
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Bishop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Bishop. Show all posts
Monday, 16 February 2009
Monday, 28 July 2008
After a long absence
Reading Elizabeth Bishop, I know that I am often missing the point.
Yesterday I read - among other poems of hers - a long ballad and derived little pleasure from it.
On the other hand, there is a poem called In the Waiting Room, where she describes a strange experience, a sense of merging with her aunt who had cried out in pain from the dentists' room next door, which was followed by the assertion of a sense of her own I:
...I said to myself: three days
and you'll be seven days old.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off
the round, turning world
into cold, blue-black space.
But I felt: you are an I
you are an Elizabeth
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was....
Later:
...Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone?
What similarities-
[ ... ] -
held us all together
or made us all just one?
...
(p. 160, Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems, 1927-1979, (1980) Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY)
I particularly liked the line ...Why should you be one, too?... the playfulness of it, and the shyness of ...I scarcely dared look...
Furthermore, this poem could be useful as an example of narrative poetry, no rhyming or form except for the rhythm of the words and the breaks from line to line. I am working on a poem entitled After a long absence which is narrative, and which would suit this style.
The main problem with After a long absence is that a second story is inserted into the story of the poem, with unfamiliar actors , which took place elsewhere, but which is connected by association of ideas to the events described. How to make the transition to and from the main story a smooth one for a reader, so that they may travel on this little journey without a sense of disruption?
Typographic indications might work - for instance at present the second story is framed by a line in italics After a long absence..., and the same sentence is repeated afterwards. But a past experience using italics taught me that they may appear cheap.
It might be better if a gap were left within the column of the main story, while the text of the second story was moved as in a side-step, into an adjacent column.
One might say that this is gimmickery.
It would be best if the connection was made clear or an enemy might say, two poems made out of the one. That would result in two poor little poems without much merit. They would simply wilt and die.
Too much time spent writing this today.
Yesterday I read - among other poems of hers - a long ballad and derived little pleasure from it.
On the other hand, there is a poem called In the Waiting Room, where she describes a strange experience, a sense of merging with her aunt who had cried out in pain from the dentists' room next door, which was followed by the assertion of a sense of her own I:
...I said to myself: three days
and you'll be seven days old.
I was saying it to stop
the sensation of falling off
the round, turning world
into cold, blue-black space.
But I felt: you are an I
you are an Elizabeth
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was....
Later:
...Why should I be my aunt,
or me, or anyone?
What similarities-
[ ... ] -
held us all together
or made us all just one?
...
(p. 160, Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems, 1927-1979, (1980) Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY)
I particularly liked the line ...Why should you be one, too?... the playfulness of it, and the shyness of ...I scarcely dared look...
Furthermore, this poem could be useful as an example of narrative poetry, no rhyming or form except for the rhythm of the words and the breaks from line to line. I am working on a poem entitled After a long absence which is narrative, and which would suit this style.
The main problem with After a long absence is that a second story is inserted into the story of the poem, with unfamiliar actors , which took place elsewhere, but which is connected by association of ideas to the events described. How to make the transition to and from the main story a smooth one for a reader, so that they may travel on this little journey without a sense of disruption?
Typographic indications might work - for instance at present the second story is framed by a line in italics After a long absence..., and the same sentence is repeated afterwards. But a past experience using italics taught me that they may appear cheap.
It might be better if a gap were left within the column of the main story, while the text of the second story was moved as in a side-step, into an adjacent column.
One might say that this is gimmickery.
It would be best if the connection was made clear or an enemy might say, two poems made out of the one. That would result in two poor little poems without much merit. They would simply wilt and die.
Too much time spent writing this today.
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Elizabeth Bishop's letters
I spent yesterday reading Elizabeth Bishop's letters, got about a fifth of the way through the book (too big, heavy to hold, what was the publisher thinking of.)
On p. 54, in a letter to Marianne Moore, about the sestina: ...It seems to me that there are two ways possible for a sestina. One is to use unusual words as terminations, in which case they would have to be used differently as often as possible - as you say, "change of scale". That would make a very highly seasoned kind of poem. And the other way is to use as colorless words as possible - like Sidney, so that it becomes less of a trick and more of a natural theme and variations. I guess I have tried to do both at once [in her poem A Miracle for Breakfast].
I think Sidney is a town in Florida, where she was at the time. I have made notes of other things she says, but those are more in the nature of going off on tangents so shall not mention them here.
I was pleased to discover the source of the word 'mackerel' used to describe a sky in the poem Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore, the one with the Please come flying leitmotif mentioned in yesterday's post: she had a kitten named Minnow, but its colour was really mackerel, she writes, a certain kind of grey...
I shall be reading Marianne Moore next, once I have thoroughly examined EB.
On p. 54, in a letter to Marianne Moore, about the sestina: ...It seems to me that there are two ways possible for a sestina. One is to use unusual words as terminations, in which case they would have to be used differently as often as possible - as you say, "change of scale". That would make a very highly seasoned kind of poem. And the other way is to use as colorless words as possible - like Sidney, so that it becomes less of a trick and more of a natural theme and variations. I guess I have tried to do both at once [in her poem A Miracle for Breakfast].
I think Sidney is a town in Florida, where she was at the time. I have made notes of other things she says, but those are more in the nature of going off on tangents so shall not mention them here.
I was pleased to discover the source of the word 'mackerel' used to describe a sky in the poem Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore, the one with the Please come flying leitmotif mentioned in yesterday's post: she had a kitten named Minnow, but its colour was really mackerel, she writes, a certain kind of grey...
I shall be reading Marianne Moore next, once I have thoroughly examined EB.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Lost day
Yesterday a total loss due to the urgent stuff, both time and energy consumed, little to show for it but a migraine at the end of the day.
This morning up early to write monthly report, peaceful. Read a lot of Elizabeth Bishop last night, going to sleep. Enjoyed how she wrote to her much-loved mentor in October 1917, ELIZABETH KNOWS BEST, refusing to accept any of the changes the mentor had wrought: the rhymes, the rhythm and the name of her poem The Roosters (to The Cock!). It is now one of her most famous poems, anti-war.
With regard to the vilanelle: a helpful suggestion received about the 'good name', a better line repeated, something like "My good name is all I've got to leave you", tying in with the first one, "Everything you own..., "
This morning up early to write monthly report, peaceful. Read a lot of Elizabeth Bishop last night, going to sleep. Enjoyed how she wrote to her much-loved mentor in October 1917, ELIZABETH KNOWS BEST, refusing to accept any of the changes the mentor had wrought: the rhymes, the rhythm and the name of her poem The Roosters (to The Cock!). It is now one of her most famous poems, anti-war.
With regard to the vilanelle: a helpful suggestion received about the 'good name', a better line repeated, something like "My good name is all I've got to leave you", tying in with the first one, "Everything you own..., "
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Muddling along
Half-way through the day and nothing much achieved.
At the library yesterday took out Elizabeth Bishop and May Sarton instead of Robert Hass. I had forgotten about him. Memory failure, regrettably. Maybe I wanted to be among women again.
Read some May S before going to sleep. That was good. One of the books by EB is called One Art: Letters (R. Giroux ed., 1994, Farrar Straus Giroux, NY). A heavy book I am looking forward to. A writers' life, something to think about, maybe some further ideas about how to go about things. Sometimes an old idea can be expressed differently and it appears to stand up and command attention in a new way.
Celan is peering at me from the book cover as I write - I renewed him but they only give an extra week. At a dollar a time. I wish money did not matter so much for everything.
Was up early enough, walk and breakfast and then other 'urgent' matters took over.
Wrote two poems for my collection yesterday afternoon, in a window of time between one thing and another. The ballad is leaving me cold so far. I wrote something, but it was not ballad-like. I am going to attack it again now. At least I learnt more about Kate Bush, some respect.
Have just realised that I need to write a book review for Thursday and that I had wanted to write about Elizabeth Bishop. I'd better get on to that first. I won't have time to digest her writing well enough as it is. Also a blog review due, which is easier.
I had other plans for this evening. My afternoon is already earmarked for something else ('urgent') , and tomorrow afternoon too - seeing friends.
At the library yesterday took out Elizabeth Bishop and May Sarton instead of Robert Hass. I had forgotten about him. Memory failure, regrettably. Maybe I wanted to be among women again.
Read some May S before going to sleep. That was good. One of the books by EB is called One Art: Letters (R. Giroux ed., 1994, Farrar Straus Giroux, NY). A heavy book I am looking forward to. A writers' life, something to think about, maybe some further ideas about how to go about things. Sometimes an old idea can be expressed differently and it appears to stand up and command attention in a new way.
Celan is peering at me from the book cover as I write - I renewed him but they only give an extra week. At a dollar a time. I wish money did not matter so much for everything.
Was up early enough, walk and breakfast and then other 'urgent' matters took over.
Wrote two poems for my collection yesterday afternoon, in a window of time between one thing and another. The ballad is leaving me cold so far. I wrote something, but it was not ballad-like. I am going to attack it again now. At least I learnt more about Kate Bush, some respect.
Have just realised that I need to write a book review for Thursday and that I had wanted to write about Elizabeth Bishop. I'd better get on to that first. I won't have time to digest her writing well enough as it is. Also a blog review due, which is easier.
I had other plans for this evening. My afternoon is already earmarked for something else ('urgent') , and tomorrow afternoon too - seeing friends.
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
In praise of Imagists
This may be the longest interval between postings so far, except when I was away. The e-course porfolio was posted yesterday, and am reasonably happy with it. It's tidy, an occasion to review/rediscover poems.
Rilke is giving me indigestion, like a rich meal, his elegies too romantic. Tried reading some of his letters. I think that what gets in the way is that nothing is ordinary for him. Here's an example from a letter (p. 9 of Letters on Cezanne, 1985, Fromm International Publishing Company, NY): it starts with :
Never have I been so touched and almost gripped by the sight of heather...
I want to cut out the Never, (just as I tend to recoil from the word always). His only excuse is that he is writing to his wife (about sprigs of heather she sent him). A few lines later: But how glorious it is, this fragrance. The tone remains at full pitch, blaring.
However: in the introduction (by H.W. Petzet), there is a story about Cezanne (p. xxiii)
"...the ancient enmity between life and the great work (as Rilke put it in his Requiem) endured by the artist with such exemplary devotion: [...] during the last thirty years of his life, he removed himself from everything that could 'hook him' (the expression is Cezanne's) and when, for all his tradition-bound and believing Catholicism, he stayed away from his mother's funeral in order not to lose a day's work. '
Rilke adds: "That pierced me like an arrow... (and he can't leave it at that) ...like a flaming arrow".
[...] Cezanne's example revealed to Rilke his own existential conflict. He began to realise that his life must utterly belong to his work, and that he must never again be "delighted and awed" - as it says in his 'Testament' - except by his work."
Scary focus.
I should not be so denigrating of Rilke. I still have to find out what he actually wants to say. It is my loss, for the mean time. Maybe I'll find some way of reading him; shall see if I can find a commentary that speaks to me. The introduction by Robert Hass (in the book of poems) made my eyes glaze over.
Maybe it's tiredness, because turning to the second book of Coetzee's essays, (Stranger Shores, Literary essays, 1986-1999, published by Viking in 2001) and reading one on Amos Oz and one on Harry Mulisch, both authors whom I know, it was also an effort. After midnight, maybe not a good time. He also wrote an essay on Borges, we were discussing him in class the other day.
Read more of Yehuda Amichai's 1967 poems. Since writing a review of his work for the course, I read them with ease and a new feeling, of being spoken to directly. Always this requirement to go deeper.
I should probably write a review of Rilke.
Started on Viv's Imagist portfolio: I had never heard of the Imagists before, it is a similar turning away from florid-ness that happened in the other arts and in other languages. Could it be thought of as 'modern'? Bauhaus versus Baroque, for instance. I remember my father: "If a feature has no function, it has no place in the building".
In poetry, if the word does no work, take it out.
Thanks Viv.
A villanelle is due for Thursday. A villainous villanelle. Already, a favourite among those Hine gave us to read is The Art of Losing, by Elizabeth Bishop . The language is simple - here is an excerpt:
The art of losing isn't hard to master
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
The end of the poem is poignant.
Maybe I'll find her in the library.
Rilke is giving me indigestion, like a rich meal, his elegies too romantic. Tried reading some of his letters. I think that what gets in the way is that nothing is ordinary for him. Here's an example from a letter (p. 9 of Letters on Cezanne, 1985, Fromm International Publishing Company, NY): it starts with :
Never have I been so touched and almost gripped by the sight of heather...
I want to cut out the Never, (just as I tend to recoil from the word always). His only excuse is that he is writing to his wife (about sprigs of heather she sent him). A few lines later: But how glorious it is, this fragrance. The tone remains at full pitch, blaring.
However: in the introduction (by H.W. Petzet), there is a story about Cezanne (p. xxiii)
"...the ancient enmity between life and the great work (as Rilke put it in his Requiem) endured by the artist with such exemplary devotion: [...] during the last thirty years of his life, he removed himself from everything that could 'hook him' (the expression is Cezanne's) and when, for all his tradition-bound and believing Catholicism, he stayed away from his mother's funeral in order not to lose a day's work. '
Rilke adds: "That pierced me like an arrow... (and he can't leave it at that) ...like a flaming arrow".
[...] Cezanne's example revealed to Rilke his own existential conflict. He began to realise that his life must utterly belong to his work, and that he must never again be "delighted and awed" - as it says in his 'Testament' - except by his work."
Scary focus.
I should not be so denigrating of Rilke. I still have to find out what he actually wants to say. It is my loss, for the mean time. Maybe I'll find some way of reading him; shall see if I can find a commentary that speaks to me. The introduction by Robert Hass (in the book of poems) made my eyes glaze over.
Maybe it's tiredness, because turning to the second book of Coetzee's essays, (Stranger Shores, Literary essays, 1986-1999, published by Viking in 2001) and reading one on Amos Oz and one on Harry Mulisch, both authors whom I know, it was also an effort. After midnight, maybe not a good time. He also wrote an essay on Borges, we were discussing him in class the other day.
Read more of Yehuda Amichai's 1967 poems. Since writing a review of his work for the course, I read them with ease and a new feeling, of being spoken to directly. Always this requirement to go deeper.
I should probably write a review of Rilke.
Started on Viv's Imagist portfolio: I had never heard of the Imagists before, it is a similar turning away from florid-ness that happened in the other arts and in other languages. Could it be thought of as 'modern'? Bauhaus versus Baroque, for instance. I remember my father: "If a feature has no function, it has no place in the building".
In poetry, if the word does no work, take it out.
Thanks Viv.
A villanelle is due for Thursday. A villainous villanelle. Already, a favourite among those Hine gave us to read is The Art of Losing, by Elizabeth Bishop . The language is simple - here is an excerpt:
The art of losing isn't hard to master
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
The end of the poem is poignant.
Maybe I'll find her in the library.
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