Friday, January 20, 2017
GUNTER GRASS ~ XENOPHOBIA ~
As millions of displaced persons
with little lullage,
burdened by memory,
were forcibly resettled
in what remained of the fatherland,
many of the locals, feeling cramped
by their arrival, shouted:
Go back where you came from!
But they stayed, as did
the well-worn cry: Go, get out!
Soon it was aimed at foreigners
who came later, and later still
from far away,
speaking in strange tongues;
they too remained,
settled down, and multiplied.
Only when the natives
began to feel foreign too
did they also begin to see,
in all those foreigners
who'd slowly learned
to bear their foreignness,
their own selves,
and start to live with them.
______________________
GUNTER GRASS
Of All That Ends
translated by Breon Mitchell
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2016
MARIE PONSOT ~
Here is Marie Ponsot, half circled by five of her seven children once upon a time — author of a first book, True Minds, published in 1956 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti for his City Lights Pocket Poets series, and a second book published twenty-five years later — Admit Impediment in 1981. During those in-between years, she divorced her husband, the French artist Claude Ponsot, and raised the children as a single parent. To help raise that family, Ponsot taught basic composition at Queens College. She also translated more than 30 books from French into English. One of those celebrated translations include versions of La Fontaine’s fables and Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales.
Her Collected Poems was one of remarkable books in 2016.
Her Collected Poems was one of remarkable books in 2016.
_____________
Among Women
What women wander?
Among Women
What women wander?
Not many. All. A few.
Most would, now & then,
& no wonder.
Some, and I’m one,
Wander sitting still.
My small grandmother
Bought from every peddler
Less for the ribbons and lace
Than for their scent
Of sleep where you will,
Walk out when you want, choose
Your bread and your company.
She warned me, “Have nothing to lose.”
She looked fragile but had
High blood, runner’s ankles,
Could endure, endure.
She loved her rooted garden, her
Grand children, her once
Wild once young man.
Women wander
As best they can.
_________________________
Marie Ponsot
COLLECTED POEMS
Knopf 2016
TO THE WORDS ~
To the Words
When it happens you are not there
O you beyond numbers
beyond recollection
passed on from breath to breath
given again
from day to day from age
to age
charged with knowledge
knowing nothing
indifferent elders
indispensable and sleepless
keepers of our names
before ever we came
to be called by them
you that were
formed to begin with
you that were cried out
you that were spoken
to begin with
to say what could not be said
ancient precious
and helpless ones
say it
________________
W. S. Merwin
Migrations
Copper Canyon Press
2005
TO MY COTTAGE ~
To My Cottage
Thou lowly cot where first my breath I drew,
Past joys endear thee, childhood's past delight
Where each you summer's pictured on my view,
And, dearer still, the happy winter-night
When the storm pelted down with all his might
And roared and bellowed in the chimney-top
And pattered vehement 'against the window-light
And on the threshold fell the quick eaves-drop.
How blest I've listened on my corner stool,
Heard the storm rage, and hugged my happy spot,
While the fond parent wound her whirring spool
And spared a sigh for the poor wanderer's lot.
In thee, sweet hut, this happiness was proved,
And these endear and make thee doubly loved.
__________________
John Clare (1793~1864)
poems selected by Paul Farley
Faber 2007
ROMARE BEARDEN ~
Pittsburgh Memory, 1964, collage on board
Departure From the Planet Earth, 1975, mixed media collage on board
Mr. Blues Leaves A Calling Card, 1981, mixed media collage on Masonite
Childhood Memories, 1965, mixed media collage on board
Watching the Good Trains Go By, 1964, collage on board
Thursday, January 19, 2017
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