Robert Lowell – Page 2

I’ll never memorize Robert Lowell’s “Eye and Tooth.” I’ve tried for several hours. I think it’s because the poem is held together by sound. My memory, however, wants a rhetorical progression. But I could play cards with the poem.

Closer to an empty nest, Victoria and I have taken again to rummy after fifteen years or so away from it. My strategy is this: when you have three cards that represent a potential set and a potential run, discard the card that shares an attribute of the other two. For example, if you have the seven of hearts, the seven of diamonds, and the six of diamonds, discard the seven of diamonds. Why? Because you’re making your deck an extension of your hand. Victoria won’t want the card — you have too many associated cards for her to care for it — and she also is discarding stuff she doesn’t want. All the upside (and expanded deck) with little downside (no points to get caught with if she goes out).

“Eye and Tooth” would be filled with these triplets if alliteration were runs and assonance were sets. The first line’s “sunset red” is the first triplet. “Sunset” itself starts a run, and “set red” starts a set. Too much sound to memorize. (But discard “set.”)

Plus, the poem promises formalism, but it’s only a tease. The poem flakes out in each of its nine quatrains, deliberately prosaic from a metrical standpoint after a couple of lines but thumping good from sound and image standpoints.

Despite all the sound devices, it doesn’t sound good, which in this case is good. It’s better read silently with the lips moving as they would on a dreaming man. Dream you’re reading it, and it’ll sound fine. Dream you’re memorizing it, too.

I’m getting a head start on SoloPoMo, using some material I posted on an obscure WordPress.com blog while I mulled over how to redo my blog. I’ve selected Robert Lowell’s “Eye and Tooth” for my own celebration of SoloPoMo.

Categories

Passages

Chapeau

16 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and with Colonell Middleton, in a new coach he hath made him, very handsome, to White Hall, where the Duke of York having removed his lodgings for this year to St. James’s, we walked thither; and there find the Duke of York coming to White Hall, and so back to the Council-chamber, where the Committee of the Navy sat; and here we discoursed several things; but, Lord! like fools; so as it was a shame to see things of this importance managed by a Council that understand nothing of them: and, among other things, one was about this building of a ship with Hemskirke’s secret, to sail a third faster than any other ship; but he hath got Prince Rupert on his side, and by that means, I believe, will get his conditions made better than he would otherwise, or ought indeed. Having done there, I met with Sir Richard Browne, and he took me to dinner with him to a new tavern, above Charing Cross, where some clients of his did give him… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (11)

15 June 2021 - Tom

In the Sandhillsthe flowershold onto hope.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

We slip back into the current

15 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

We slip back into the current of ourselves as if there hadn't been a break; as if the year didn't add long intervals of silence that branched across the four dimensions of space. We're eager to throw back the shutters and put away the books of the dead— Do they miss how near we came; how the wilderness between us at times seemed as close as a wick to flame? [Read more...]

Guest

15 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and called on Mr. Pierce, who tells me that after all this ado Ward is come to town, and hath appeared to the Commissioners of Accounts and given such answers as he thinks will do every body right, and let the world see that their great expectations and jealousies have been vain in this matter of the prizes. The Commissioners were mighty inquisitive whether he was not instructed by letters or otherwise from hence from my Lord Sandwich’s friends what to say and do, and particularly from me, which he did wholly deny, as it was true, I not knowing the man that I know of. He tells me also that, for certain, Mr. Vaughan is made Lord Chief justice, which I am glad of. He tells me, too; that since my Lord of Ormond’s coming over, the King begins to be mightily reclaimed, and sups every night with great pleasure with the Queene: and yet, it seems, he is mighty hot upon the Duchess of Richmond; insomuch that, upon Sunday was se’nnight, at… [Read more...]

Evelyn Underhill, Theologian and Mystic (1875-1941)

14 June 2021 - steve on the slow train

"'The Spiritual Life’ is a dangerously ambiguous term; indeed, it would be interesting to know what meaning any one reader at the present moment is giving to those three words. Many, I am afraid, would really be found to mean ‘the life of my own inside’: and a further section, to mean very holy, difficult, and peculiar—a sort of honors course in personal religion—to which they did not intend to aspire.” -Evelyn Underhill, “The Spiritual Life, 1936 “Spiritual but not religious.” It’s a common descriptor, especially on Internet dating sites. People can claim they have a foot in the spiritual world without being a member of “organized religion,” a phrase almost guaranteed to scare away potential mates. But before blithely accepting the “SBNR” label, those with a spiritual bent would do well to consult the works of Evelyn Underhill, the English writer who almost single-handedly put “spirituality” into the common parlance. Underhill, whose feast day is June 15, understood that the spiritual life, without the discipline of religion, too often becomes centered on the self. “Any… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (10)

14 June 2021 - Tom

These are not yourSandhills to writeabout, the windtells the poet.The poet doesn'tlisten to the wind,but to the stars.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Not quite quiet

14 June 2021 - Peter

Taking the glue stick for ChapStick wasn’t all bad. [Read more...]

Moribund

14 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

You can dream of a knife, its laddered spine beside a plate of bread or fruit, and not think twice about it. You might dream of the same knife sailing through the air, landing in the soft center of a target that explodes as a blast mine. It releases cloudy hexagons in the air, summoning the bees. In the dream you give them all your teeth, which you've plucked like pearls from a modest clothes- line. You've been told that to dream of losing teeth is a portent of coming death. But the bees know this already: when they fly too far or are separated from their tribe, they die alone in that wide wilderness just a few yards from the hive. [Read more...]

Poetry Blog Digest 2021, Week 23

14 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. This week: the pleasures of summer, memories of childhood, remaining a kid at heart, and more. “Wintering” is a season turned verb that served us during lockdown. During the 14-month hibernation, people proposed ways of thinking about dark days by developing a cool state of mind, lowering one’s emotional temperature so one could be nurtured by the reality of whatever comes, not what we create. Now comes “summering.” Only wealthy people “summer,” people have long cried! But the way we collectively re-verbed “winter” is being done with summer too. We’re seeking a summer of the mind, because we’re still at home and time is moving on. Call it a return to lightness. The painters had their favorite spots for light — Provincetown, the south of France — yet on these cool, not-quite summer mornings light pours around a doorway in the house, streams through branches in the… [Read more...]

Drawing 101: Where to Start your Drawing

14 June 2021 - Beth

Several people have asked, "Could you talk about how you begin a drawing? How do we know where to start?" It's a very good question. So often sketchers gets frustrated because suddenly here they are on the left side of the page and there's no more room, or the drawing looks misshapen, and they can't figure out why. We all have those problems from time to time. But what I want to say up front is that "Most errors that we think are in drawing actually begin with errors in SEEING." So, before we ever set our pencil to paper, we need to stop and look at our subject with an analytical mind. Can we imagine some simple geometrical shapes into which it fits? And then can we subdivide those shapes to get a better idea of the placement of different elements that make up the subject? Here's a pot with two different kind of plants in it that I decided to draw from life last night: and here's the drawing I made from it,… [Read more...]

TEN OLD MONK POEMS (19)

13 June 2021 - Tom

IT'S NOT WHAT'SIt's not what'sin the basketthat's important,the old monk says.What's importantis that youbring it.~SEE HOW I DO THATSee how I do that,the old monk said,directing the sunset.It's all in the wrist.~IT DOESN'T MATTERIt doesn't matterhow you die,the old monk says.When you're dead,you're dead.~YOU THINK ABOUTYou think about funerals,of course you see darkness,and the darkness sees you,the old monk said.~PUT IT THEREPut it there, the old monk said,if that's where you want to put it.I understand he bites.~YOU WANT MORE?You want more? More?the old monk said.Then you carry itup the mountain.~THERE IS SOMEWHEREThere is somewherean angel, whether you thinkyou need one or not,the old monk says.~ALL THE THINGSAll the things you want to sayyou don't say outloud,the old monk says, is whatmarks you as a wise man.~THAT'S THE WAYThat's the way it isin the monastery,the old monk says,biscuits and gravyevery dayfor breakfast.~IF I COULDIf I could I wouldsell you a dozen moreat half the price,the old monk said,but I have tomake a living.~The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Objective correlatives

13 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and to my office, where most of the morning doing business and seeing my window-frames new painted, and then I out by coach to my Lord Bellasses, at his new house by my late Lord Treasurer’s, and there met him and Mr. Sherwin, Auditor Beale, and Creed, about my Lord’s accounts, and here my Lord shewed me his new house, which, indeed, is mighty noble, and good pictures — indeed, not one bad one in it. Thence to my tailor’s, and there did find Mercer come with Mrs. Horsfield and Gayet according to my desire, and there I took them up, it being almost twelve o’clock, or a little more, and carried them to the King’s playhouse, where the doors were not then open; but presently they did open; and we in, and find many people already come in, by private ways, into the pit, it being the first day of Sir Charles Sidly’s new play, so long expected, “The Mullberry Guarden,” of whom, being so reputed a wit, all the world do expect… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (9)

13 June 2021 - Tom

Every day is anotheryear for cottonwoodsin the Sandhills.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Nocturne: Near & Far

13 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

"We try to see in the dark; we toss up our questions and they catch in the trees." ~ Annie Dillard After rain, the cotton-heavy breasts of clouds; the redbud, the hawthorn, the fringe tree. I still hear the one that tapped all morning, insistent in front of a gate that wouldn't move. Only the moon pauses, stretches wide as a palmful of dough. Unmuffled, the owls begin their two-note chant: who-when? who-when? I've long understood how distance is what makes the faraway conspicuous, the near at hand swizzle into a kind of silence. [Read more...]

Apocryphal

13 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

(Lord’s day). Up, and put on my new stuff-suit, with a shoulder-belt, according to the new fashion, and the bands of my vest and tunique laced with silk lace, of the colour of my suit: and so, very handsome, to Church, where a dull sermon and of a stranger, and so home; and there I find W. Howe, and a younger brother of his, come to dine with me; and there comes Mercer, and brings with her Mrs. Gayet, which pleased me mightily; and here was also W. Hewer, and mighty merry; and after dinner to sing psalms. But, Lord! to hear what an excellent base this younger brother of W. Howe’s sings, even to my astonishment, and mighty pleasant. By and by Gayet goes away, being a Catholick, to her devotions, and Mercer to church; but we continuing an hour or two singing, and so parted; and I to Sir W. Pen’s, and there sent for a hackney-coach; and he and she and I out, to take the ayre. We went to Stepney, and… [Read more...]

SHANI RHYS JAMES EXHIBITION

12 June 2021 - Unknown

Shani Rhys James' latest exhibition Hunan-Ynysu: Self-Island opened on Wednesday this week at the Connaught Brown Gallery at 2 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4HD. I was there. If you could enter - literally, physically enter - a space made of thick, gleaming oil colours passionately coaxed with brush and palette knife into recognisable forms and feelings, then you would experience something of the effect Shani’s paintings have on a viewer, at least this viewer. I deeply identify with her work precisely because of its bold, unapologetic self-exposure: all cards on the table, yes, but hidden within a veil, a mask of paint. That we were wearing Covid-necessary masks, limiting verbal communication, made the experience all the more metaphoric and relevant. Shani’s explosive flowers are darkness-dispelling incantations but it is the unsentimental, fully admitted darkness and sadness of the human figures which attracts and envelops me. As a lifelong and long-lived artist I can’t claim objectivity about other artists’ work, past or present. Some intangible personal rhythm or note in the work of an individual artist… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (8)

12 June 2021 - Tom

It comes hardor it doesn'tcome at allin the Sandhills.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

The laying out and the sorting: the more than enough

12 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

You are of the tenor again, while the vehicles of this life wave their assorted banners and say what were you thinking? You can't take anything with you, but neither do you want to take anything for granted, you know? To not allow for any more pleasure, to speak a constant apologia: it takes away such depth of sky. Even a tiny wound reeks of salt-lick and pine kindling. Even the ancestors come back for a taste. [Read more...]

The mower against gardens

11 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up; and to the Office, where we sat all the morning; and at noon, home with my people to dinner; and thence to the Office all the afternoon, till, my eyes weary, I did go forth by coach to the King’s playhouse, and there saw the best part of “The Sea Voyage,” where Knepp I see do her part of sorrow very well. I afterwards to her house; but she did not come presently home; and there je did kiss her ancilla, which is so mighty belle; and I to my tailor’s, and to buy me a belt for my new suit against to-morrow; and so home, and there to my Office, and afterwards late walking in the garden; and so home to supper, and to bed, after Nell’s cutting of my hair close, the weather being very hot. I saw the art of sorrow in her garden cutting my hair close the weather being hot Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 16 May 1668 [Read more...]

Undergrounded

11 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and betimes to White Hall, and there met with Sir H. Cholmly at Sir Stephen Fox’s, and there was also the Cofferer, and we did there consider about our money and the condition of the Excise, and after much dispute agreed upon a state thereof and the manner of our future course of payments. Thence to the Duke of York, and there did a little navy business as we used to do, and so to a Committee for Tangier, where God knows how my Lord Bellasses’s accounts passed; understood by nobody but my Lord Ashly, who, I believe, was mad to let them go as he pleased. But here Sir H. Cholmly had his propositions read, about a greater price for his work of the Mole, or to do it upon account, which, being read, he was bid to withdraw. But, Lord! to see how unlucky a man may be, by chance; for, making an unfortunate minute when they were almost tired with the other business, the Duke of York did find fault with… [Read more...]

Category: Robert Lowell

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I’ll never memorize