quote of the week

I've been thinking about Thomas M. Disch, the writer who passed away on July 4. Depressed over the death of his parter and what felt like insurmountable living expenses in New York, Disch took his life. It's always frustrating and sad when creatives--and the elderly--feel overwhelmed and undersupported. I wish there was some kind of national poets' fund, or people have poetry parties or something to help a soul out.

Disch's main writing niche in the New Wave branch of sci-fi, but he was also prolific in criticism, theater, and poetry. The Wiki article includes this great quote he made about poetry:

"I write poetry because I think it is the hardest thing I can do well. And so I simply enjoy the doing of it, as an equestrian enjoys spending time on a good horse. Poetry is my good horse."

What a great metaphor--poetry is a good horse. I'm glad that he loved the process and left the results of his journeys behind for us. R.I. P., Mr. Disch.

Movie Review: Byron

My soul is dark - Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, was the 19th century's bad boy, a rock star before there was rock, and the embodiment of the Romantic archetype of the dark genius. His poetry was passionate and kinetic, swaggering across the page with ease.

Byron lived as he wrote, passionately, boldly, and extravagantly, with an "in thy face" attitude to polite British society. His writing didn't so much evoke a muse as it evokes a daimon, a darker, more Dionysian energy. Poems like "Manfred," "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," and to a more satirical/sardonic extent, "Don Juan," celebrated his archetype, the Byronic hero, a daring, doomed, reckless, dark-souled artist, rebelling against society, written. Byron, hyper-aware of people's reactions to him and his image as a poet, felt compelled to live up to that ideal in his personal life, gaining admirers and detractors alike.

To do justice to his life would require a longer miniseries or an epic film, which would cost a few dear ha' pennies, so Byron, a made-for-television BBC production, focuses on one of the scandals that made him into a notorious figure—the alleged relationship he had with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. (The true extent of their relationship has never been confirmed; like many famous people, much of Byron's life has morphed into legend.)

The movie's trajectory follows the writer's rise as the hot new poet on the scene after the publication of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" in 1812 and his subsequent social fall. His has a fling with the equally eccentric Lady Caroline Lamb and when that collapses, pays a visit to Augusta, whose husband is more interested in horseracing that in her. Byron comforts her and they go beyond kissin' cousins. He's happy, feeling he's met his kindred spirit, able to confess his most vulnerable and twisted thoughts to her. But Augusta realizes what's at stake. She suggests a marriage with Anne Milbanke, a progressive young woman who solves calculus equations for fun and believes she can save Byron from his wicked ways. After their inevitable divorce, Byron moves to Italy and Switzerland where he spends his time romancing women and complaining to fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelly. Attempting to redeem his life with meaningful activity, he returns to Greece, only to die of a fever while organizing a unit for the Greek war for independence.

Overall, the performances are excellent. Johnny Lee Miller takes on the role with high energy, giving life to Byron's alternating moods of charisma, humor, insecurity, sincere passion for life, vanity, and self-pity. The poet's genius inspired and charmed people but also made him a tyrant. The movie doesn't flinch when it comes to the high-handed ways he treats the people in his life, namely his wife and his long-suffering manservant, Fletcher. Byron frequently lashed out—and either you feel for his struggle to overcome his darkness or you wish he'd get over it already. Convinced he's bad to the bone, Byron acts out, flouts convention, and says he doesn't care. Yet despite his mockery, he feels vulnerable and lost, longing to find a meaningful role in life, to be something more than a debauched exile.

One quibble I had with the film: I wish it had spent more time chronicling his relationships with other writers. During that gloomy "Year Without a Summer," Byron, his doctor John Polidori, and Percy and Mary Shelly stayed in their Swiss villa and competed to see who could write the spookiest tale. Polidori wrote The Vampyre, which started the vampire genre, and Mary came up with a little tale called Frankenstein. (The Vampyre was attributed to Byron, but his authorship or c-authorship with Polidori hasn't been confirmed.)

Studying Byron's life and poetry raises interesting questions about creativity and how to go about expressing it. Did his contrarian, devil-may-care attitude enhance his creativity or eventually hold him back from further growth? Would he have felt happier had he found a more secure position in life—or would he then have felt less inspired to write? The Romantic conception of the artist—boundary-breaking, ruled by passion, often tragic—remains with us to this day but is it the only viable model from which to create? And how does the artist cope when he stumbles into that vulnerable gap between self-image and reality?

No easy answers there. Some follow their heads, others follow their hearts, still others their impulses. Byron followed his to a dark star that burned out in Greece. He probably would have done the same again if given a second chance.

Poetry in Translation: Auf diesem Hügel

Writer Bettina von Arnim was both a muse and a creator of the Romantic movement. Filled with boundless energy, in love with Love, she was the era's fairy queen, a unique spirit who lived her life as a great Romantic and creative adventure.

As a writer, poet, musician, and illustrator, she dedicated her talents to her work and to promoting the work of contemporaries Beethoven, Brahms, and Goethe. She crushed on Goethe, exchanged letters with him, and worked to arrange a meeting between Goethe and Beethoven, believing with all her Romantic heart it would result in an art that would take the world by storm. (Actually, the poet and composer didn't get a long too well and never met again.)

She also contributed her expertise in folk music and composition to the collection of the folk tales and poetry in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, one of early collection of stories that sparked an in folklore in the 19th century, which in turn led to the Grimm Brothers' collection.

Later, she married poet Achim von Arnim (whose poem "Ritt im Mondschein" I translated earlier). They had seven children and Bettina continued to write and correspond with other famous creatives, such as Liszt, Schuman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In fact, Bettina was so active in the arts scene and so eager to be noticed that it's even been speculated that she was Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," although it was more likely she introduced Beethoven to the possible Beloved, Antonie Brentano, her sister-in-law.

I chose the following poem/lyric "Auf diesem Hügel überseh ich meine Welt" for its Romantic spirit and gentle rhythms as an example of her excellent ear and ability to give the written word a music feel.

Auf diesem Hügel überseh ich meine Welt!
Hinab ins Tal, mit Rasen sanft begleitet,
Vom Weg durchzogen, der hinüber leitet,
Das weiße Haus inmitten aufgestellt,
Was ist's, worin sich hier der Sinn gefällt?

Auf diesem Hügel überseh ich meine Welt!
Erstieg ich auch der Länder steilste Höhen,
Von wo ich könnt die Schiffe fahren sehen
Und Städte fern und nah von Bergen stolz umstellt,
Nichts ist's, was mir den Blick gefesselt hält.

Auf diesem Hügel überseh ich meine Welt!
Und könnt ich Paradiese überschauen,
Ich sehnte mich zurück nach jenen Auen,
Wo Deines Daches Zinne meinem Blick sich stellt,
Denn der allein umgrenzet meine Welt.

On this hill, I look over my world!
Down into valley, accompanied by a meadow
Gently divided by a path down to
The white house placed in the middle
What is it that holds my attention?

On this hill, I look over my world!
I climbed up the area's steepest peaks
From which I could see the ships set sail
And towns far and near, proudly surrounded by mountains
But there's nothing that holds my gaze.

On this hill, I look over my world!
And if I could see paradise
I would yearn for those meadows
Where my gaze lands on your rooftop
For that alone borders my world.

After her husband's death, Bettina continued to write and publish, becoming a muse again for a younger generation who campaigned for reform and unification in the German confederation. She dared to suggest to the King of Prussia that some reforms were necessary and the king listened—he too, fell under the enchantment of enthusiasm she could create, energy necessary for creative vision.

Creative Innovators: William Blake

William Blake is another of my favorite poets.

There was never anyone else like him, before his life or since. His words, thoughts, syntax, style—all his, all won to him through a tireless passion and unwavering commitment to his talent. He followed his vision to a place of the sublime thought and profound truth and even better, preserved what he saw and heard in engravings, drawn in a style as unique as his writing.

Blake's poetic voice sounds like he's proclaiming like an ancient bard. He issues a challenge to all who call themselves visionaries, asking, "Do you have the courage, the commitment? Are you ready to look for the extraordinary?" By pairing voice with image, he created the forerunner of the graphic novel, showing how illustration and text can turn a story or poem into something kinetic, dynamic.

He delighted in a paradoxical mindset, the subtlety of which is hard to grasp if you're unpracticed in the art of holding the contraries until they mellow into paradoxes. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" is a perennial favorite from the "Proverbs of Hell" as listed in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, quoted by rock stars and poets alike. Hell, in Blake's work, is a swirling Dionysian energy, and if our creative work is to break free from cliché and repitition, we need to experience this energy.

"If the Fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise," is another, a call to one's individuality, to follow one's inner voice. To some extent, we're all fools pursuing a folly—perhaps if we recognized this, we could lighten a little and enjoy the journey to wisdom.

Religious as his language and visions were, Blake was at heart a humanist who believed in the innate nobility of the human spirit in all people. Many of his poems decried the abuse of children, slavery, and repression in all its forms, seeking and calling out for instead the never-ending energy of the self-realized, free, creative human being.

Hope is a Thing With Feathers

I got to thinking about how hope fuels creativity.

We write, paint, sing, from a hope to hear and be heard, to understand and be understood, to see and be seen. We hope to make sense of what is and to make sense of what could be.

Our relationship with hope can be a delicate balance. Get it up too high and we feel dashed. But let it fall too low and we lose motivation.

Hope has to be held with care within ourselves, as Emily Dickison suggests, and may be stronger than we give it credit for.

Image: PD photo

Poetry in Performance: Langston Hughes

Through poetry, poets can make declarations. They can sing songs. Or they can describe places unknown, or places familiar in a new way.

But when a poet can declare, sing, and describe, that's a rare talent indeed. Langston Hughes had such a talent, and his poetry satisfier the reader, listener, and dreamer alike.

Hughes was one of several African-American poets to come out the Harlem Renaissance, an era in which Black arts become rejuvenated with a new sense of pride. He was prolific, authoring poetry collectinos, plays, novels, and children's literature. Starting out with writing traditional verse in the 1920s, he developed a unique voice, culminating in his distinctive jazz poems of the 1950s.

Jazz poetry is a genre I love because music and poetry go together like peanut butter and jelly; by themselves, delicious, but together—transcendent. Even in print, Hughes' poetry is kinetic and musical, as this example from "Dreams" on his profile on Poets.org, demonstrates:

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

And as such, his writing asks to be read out loud. Fortunately, people are still reading his poetry, like the Musica Viva group in Washington, DC. Here' s their performance of the Hughes poem "The Weary Blues" backed by a Charles Mingus composition.

Poetry in Animation: Billy Collins

YouTube user JWTNY has put together a series of short animated films set to the poems of former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins which are fun to watch. Since I was talking about Hanshan yesterday, this piece entitled "Now and Then" about a Song Dynasty poet illustrated with drawings by Eun-ha Paek caught my attention.

What I like best about Collins' work is his humor. His subject matter may be mundane and his style simple, but there's always a sly twist, unexpected play on words, or wry observation to delight the reader/listener.

Cold Comfort: the Poetry of Hanshan

A poet I enjoy reading is Hanshan ("Cold Mountain"), a 9th century Tang Dynasty poet. His poems are small jewels of simplicity and humor.

Whether Hanshan was a real person or a mythic figure is up for debate. Those with a Romantic bent speculate he might have been a beaurocrat who fled Beijing after the An Shi Rebellion to live as a hermit on a mountain where he found his true calling as a poet in communion with nature, writing some 600 poems.

A more prosaic view identifies him with various anonymous monks who wrote poems about nature and Tang society. Which is often the case in these large collections, but I can't help but like the Romantic view. There's soemthing Walden-ish about a civil servant running off to the wilderness and writing love notes to the clouds and mountains.

Hanshan's poems has been translated into English by beat poet Gary Snyder and the contemporary poet and translator Red Pine. The verses paint pictures of nature, refer to Buddhist and Taoist themes, and indicate a cool-headed yet humorous acceptance of life. Cold Mountain becomes a symbol of both his physical home and his state of mind, an emotional journey from loss to acceptance.

In Poem 4 (Snyder translation), he leaves the mountain to visit a town, only to find it devasted by war:

I spur my horse through the wrecked town,
The wrecked town sinks my spirit.
High, low, old parapet walls
Big, small, the aging tombs.
I waggle my shadow, all alone;
Not even the crack of a shrinking coffin is heard.
I pity all those ordinary bones,
In the books of the Immortals they are nameless.

And in Poem 10 (Snyder translation), he thinks about the ones he left behind:

I have lived at Cold Mountain
These thirty long years.
Yesterday I called on friends and family:
More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs.
Slowly consumed, like fire down a candle;
Forever flowing, like a passing river.
Now, morning, I face my lone shadow:
Suddenly my eyes are bleared with tears.

By Poem 26 (Red Pine translation), he has come to accept himself and his exile:

Since I came to Cold Mountain
how many thousand years have passed?
Accepting my fate I fled to the woods,
to dwell and gaze in freedom.
No one visits the cliffs
forever hidden by clouds.
Soft grass serves as a mattress,
my quilt is the dark blue sky.
A boulder makes a fine pillow;
Heaven and Earth can crumble and change

There is a refreshing, immediate feel to Hanshan's poems, as if they were composed today by a contemporary traveler and meditator. Jack Kerouac dedicated his novel Dharma Bums to Hanshan, thus invoking him as a patron guide for seekers and wanderers.

Ma Yuan, Mountain Path in Spring

Poetry in Translation: "Ritt im Mondschein"

Achim von Arnim, one of the compilers of the folk poetry in the Des Knaben Wunderhorn, was a writer in the Romantic tradition. He fell in love with his co-author Clemens Bretano's sister Bettina and dedicated this poem to her entitled "Ritt im Mondschein/Ride in the Moonlight":

Herz zum Herzen ist nicht weit
Unter lichten Sternen,
Und das Aug´,von Tau geweiht,
Blickt zu lieben Fernen;
Unterm Hufschlag klingt die Welt,
Und die Himmel schweigen,
Zwischen beiden mir gesellt
Will der Mond sich zeigen.

Zeigt sich heut in roter Glut
An dem Erdenrande,
Gleich als ob mit heißem Blut
Er auf Erden lande,
Doch nun flieht er scheu empor,
Glänzt in reinem Lichte,
Und ich scheue mich auch vor
Seinem Angesichte.

From heart to heart is not far
Under the shining stars,
And the dew-touched eye
Gazes at beloved far places;
The world rings with hoof beats
While the heavens remain silent,
And as it appears, the moon will
Join me between heaven and earth.

The moon now rises, red with passion,
At the edge of the earth
Just as if it were about to land
On the ground with hot blood,
Yet now it flees upward, shy,
Shining in pure light,
And I also shy away
From the sight of it.

I love 19th century mash notes! He can't wait to see her but his passion makes him shy.

The German poetic idiom is a beautiful and distinct one, adept at word painting with emotion. The reader can hear the hoof beats and feel the moon rising as he presses on, looking at those beloved far places.

I wanted to work this into contemporary English so I made some adjustments to give the text some flow while still retaining some of that Romantic flavor. The lines Zwischen beiden mir gesellt/Will der Mond sich zeigen was a particular challenge, given the compactness of the phrasing.

Bettina married von Arnim in 1811. She was a woman of many talents, and my next translation post will focus on her.

Painting by John Bauer, 1914

Book Review: Spoon River Anthology

In Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, the voices of ordinary people reach out to us in poetry.

In over 200 poems, the deceased residents of the fictional town of Spoon River speak to the readers about the truth behind the facades of their lives, resulting in a series of interconnected stories with a kind of multiple-perspective Rashamon feel. The poems are their epitaphs, the summation statements broadcast to the rest of the world. Secret affairs, business and personal failures, frustrations, political in-fighting, and confessions, all is revealed.

Relating to the anonymous reader what they couldn't or wouldn't while alive, the characters' narratives become confessions of lives less than perfect, as if by doing so they can absolve themselves--or maybe, simply, accept themselves. And as readers, we become involved in their stories, drawn in by these cries to be heard.

Masters' verse is free, loose, his ear close to the ground to catch the rhythms of natural, realistic speech, yet shading each poem with the character's unique outlook. The tragic poetess Minerva Jones' simple yet elegant voice contrasts with the bluster of her father; the acerbic wit of Editor Whedon contrasts with the Romantic, garrulous tone of Webster Ford.

What is it about confessional stories and memoirs that we like so much? Is it to confirm our secret sense of superiority? Is it to feel relieved that we not the only ones? Or is a curious mix of both? While we may feel compassion for one or more of the characters, we may also breath a quiet sigh of relief that our lives aren't so messy. And which characters we sympathize with the most may also be revealing of our own inner life.

In as large a collection as this, the quality of the invidividual poems varies. Monotony crops up as well as the poet's tendency to insert his views into the characters' confessions, (although the intruding narrator was still a common literary convention at the time). However, these tense energies of confession and gossip contained in free verse and short stanzas make Spoon River Anthology a quick, absorbing, enjoyable, and just a wee bit uncomfortable read.

Above all, the poems will make the reader wonder...what will be my epitaph? What will I say about my life?

Poetry in Translation: "Urlicht"

Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) is a collection of German-language folk poetry compiled by authors Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano and published in the early 19th century. The term "Wunderhorn" evokes the image of a cornucopia and the collection is indeed abundant with a wealth of imagery and lyricism. The poems feature folkloric and religious themes and balance a lyrical simplicity with depth of feeling.

One of my favorite poems is "Urlicht," the original light. "Ur-" is a Germanic prefix suggesting "original" or "primal" or something so ancient it predates recorded history and even human history. In this poem, the "ur" relates to the question of our origins, as mortal beings that came from a divine place to earth and still retain some divine essence.

The speaker of the poem relates his vision of heaven to us with that Sehnsucht (longing) particular to German poetry:

O Röschen rot,
Der Mensch liegt in größter Not,
Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein,
Je lieber möcht' ich im Himmel sein.
Da kam ich auf einem breiten Weg,
Da kam ein Engelein und wollt' mich abweisen.
Ach nein, ich ließ mich nicht abweisen!
Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott,
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben,
Wird leuchten mir bis [in] das ewig selig' Leben!

O Little Rose red,
We live in the greatest need,
We live in the greatest pain,
How I wish to be in Heaven.
For there, I came upon a wide path,
There, arrived a small angel who bade me to leave.
But no, I would not let myself be turned away!
I come from God and I will return to God,
Merciful God will give me a little light,
A light that will guide me into the eternal life!

The rose's symbolism of love and the brief bloom of life dates back to Classical mythology and then incorporated in medieval Christian iconography to symbolize heaven, the eternity behind mortality, and a greater love beyond earthly desires. Thus the poet's faith is strong; he is convinced of his experience, of our spiritual origin, and that no matter what, there will always be something to light our way through the darkness of confusion.

At the 19th century's end, composer Gustav Mahler incorporated several poems from the Wunderhorn into his music. "Urlicht" is featured in the fourth movement of his Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection," a theme which fits the poem well.