Poetry

[Secular Sanity]

Where the hell is Davidson?

 

Davidson?

[C C]

Where the hell is Davidson?

 

Davidson?

<wink> Inverted. Like the rest, has to be a little cryptic, figurative, and thereby even open to alt significances.

[Secular Sanity]

Where the hell is Davidson?

 

Davidson?

<wink> Inverted. Like the rest, has to be a little cryptic, figurative, and thereby even open to alt significances.

Ah, that's what I was thinking. I love it!

You're good, C C!

Here's one that I wrote a long time ago that's along the same vein. It's called Distant Dancer.

concealed in his image
masked by his love
draped in sacred softness
and fine linen
the curtains open
his light engulfs my shadow
it is I, and I he, his
possessed by possessions
a glorified desire
a thirst for realty
holy waters and renewal
but the deep is frozen
broken shards of glass
distort my reflection
i dance in his delusion
shuffle in the shallows
he loves, but knows me not

[C C]

Here's one that I wrote a long time ago that's along the same vein. It's called Distant Dancer.

concealed in his image
masked by his love
draped in sacred softness
and fine linen
the curtains open
his light engulfs my shadow
it is I, and I he, his
possessed by possessions
a glorified desire
a thirst for realty
holy waters and renewal
but the deep is frozen
broken shards of glass
distort my reflection
i dance in his delusion
shuffle in the shallows
he loves, but knows me not

Nice. Illustrating it in a word sculpture of painted hues and color chords.

[Leigha]

In honor of Sylvia Plath's birthday...

[Image: viYxGsz.jpg]

[C C]

In honor of Sylvia Plath's birthday...

[Image: viYxGsz.jpg]

"Jilted" was either first published in or well-placed before the public's attention in "The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath" (1981). It was in the "Juvenilia" section, a term referring to well over 200 known poems and as yet undiscovered ones that were written during her apprentice period that goes up to circa 1955 (many were literally classroom assignments at school and Smith College). Occasionally it's negatively construed that Hughes hung that label upon them after her death, as he organized her work. But Kathleen Spivack indicated without any need of second-hand sources that it was Plath herself who held that phase of her writing in very low regard: "But Sylvia was not interested in her 'juvenilia'." [see footnote]

Anyway, so much for the typical classification of her poems written during the "juvenilia period" as being uninteresting and of no importance except to historical scholars. "Many of these poems address the challenge of being a woman in a patriarchal society, especially in regard to creative pursuits. However, many others concern themselves with politics and more personal, psychological concerns. Some of the juvenilia poems were published in magazines, while others survive in typed copies, and yet Plath's husband Ted Hughes believed there could be many more yet to be uncovered."

- - - footnote - - -

Kathleen Spivack: . . . The woman next to me was astonishing in her stillness. She appeared perfectly composed, quiet, almost fixed in her concentration. She was softly pretty, her camel’s hair coat slung over the back of her chair and a pile of books in front of her. Her notebook was open, her pencil poised. Everything seemed neat. This was Sylvia Plath.

[...] After we had introduced ourselves, I somehow put the poem and the person together. Faltering beneath her intent stare, I said something about how much that poem ["Doomsday"] had meant to me. But Sylvia was not interested in her “juvenilia.” Nor in the juvenilia in Lowell’s class. Focused on her own goals, she was pleasant but noncommittal.

[...] She carefully positioned herself at the long table in Lowell’s classes, often at the foot of the table directly opposite Robert Lowell. Her voice had a kind of rasped, held-in drawl to it, with the syllables clipped at the same time. Although she spoke softly, she seemed definite in her opinions. She had read almost everything, it seemed. Lowell’s obscure references were not obscure to Sylvia; she was the best educated of the group.

She had absolutely no sense of humor. Ever! Lowell’s offhand jokey manner did not evoke a smile from Sylvia, as it did often from others. She was serious, focused on the matter at hand, almost pained. Lowell was intense about poetry, totally one-track, but after a long exploration of a poem, or of the work of a “famous” poet, he might turn with a deferential smile and make a little funny, light comment. To Sylvia, these were annoying distractions. She could not deflect her attention.

The person in class and the person revealed in Sylvia Plath’s letters, journals, and eventual poems were entirely different. Longing, anger, ambition, and despair appear to have been motivating factors for that gifted poet. These Furies expressed themselves outward frequently, as they did even more totally inward, toward herself and her achievements. As in a Greek tragedy, in which the elements of destruction reside within the character of the protagonist, the elements that led to her suicide had been apparent even in the early stages of her adolescence. Her desperation, so tightly reined in, increased throughout her life.

Sylvia visited Robert Lowell’s class and recorded her first impression on February 25, 1959: "Lowell’s class yesterday a great disappointment: I said a few mealy-mouthed things, a few B.U. students yattered nothings I wouldn’t let my Smith freshmen say without challenge. Lowell good in his mildly feminine ineffectual fashion. Felt a regression. The main thing is hearing the other students’ poems & his reaction to mine. I feel an outsider: feel like the recluse who comes out into the world with a life-saving gospel to find everybody has learned a new language in the meantime and can’t understand a word he’s saying."

She had told the class, the first meeting, when we went round and introduced ourselves, that Wallace Stevens was her favorite poet. She sat very straight as she said this, seeming quite sure of herself. Lowell seemed to approve. Sylvia was erudite and classical, unlike the flamboyance of Anne Sexton. The achievement of her poetry at that time seemed to lag behind the scholarly achievements of her mind and her critical ability.

[Leigha]

It's always been a fascination of mine, that some of the best song writers, poets, artists...were/are brooding types, filled with longing, anger, and despair. What is it about those feelings that cause us to create beautiful works of art? Maybe because they are relateable?

[Secular Sanity]

She had told the class, the first meeting, when we went round and introduced ourselves, that Wallace Stevens was her favorite poet. She sat very straight as she said this, seeming quite sure of herself. Lowell seemed to approve. Sylvia was erudite and classical, unlike the flamboyance of Anne Sexton. The achievement of her poetry at that time seemed to lag behind the scholarly achievements of her mind and her critical ability.

What do you think the jar is? Maybe it's him. He was gray, fat and round.

[C C]

It's always been a fascination of mine, that some of the best song writers, poets, artists...were/are brooding types, filled with longing, anger, and despair. What is it about those feelings that cause us to create beautiful works of art? Maybe because they are relateable?

The submission evaluators at magazines and publishing houses back then tended to think so, anyway. In her early attempts at getting in print, Plath noticed that editors were accepting her melancholic leaning poems more often the upbeat ones. Accordingly, that conditioned her to write in that direction. The coincidence, of course, is that thanks to her moody bouts with depression she had just the necessary mindset and temperament for that kind of creative orientation.

---

She had told the class, the first meeting, when we went round and introduced ourselves, that Wallace Stevens was her favorite poet. She sat very straight as she said this, seeming quite sure of herself. Lowell seemed to approve. Sylvia was erudite and classical, unlike the flamboyance of Anne Sexton. The achievement of her poetry at that time seemed to lag behind the scholarly achievements of her mind and her critical ability.

What do you think the jar is? Maybe it's him. He was gray, fat and round.

Nobody really knows, but my utterly daft, facetious, cherry-picking contribution to the speculation would be that the short piece was partly inspired by this state centennial celebration poem(?) below that wanders all over the place. Written by someone named Joe M'Spadden and published in the The University of Tennessee Magazine, Volume 11, somewhere among issues 1 to 4 (1886 to 1887). Stevens could have even stumbled across it in the years prior to 1918.

Wilderness is mentioned in it, along with a "towering peak" (-->hill?), the "jar" of war, "will ROUND the measure", and all kinds of references to taming Nature and forcing humankind's order and patterns upon it. The "march of time and man's destructive power" is brought up at the end, just as Stevens' final stanza in his work speaks of the jar being gray, bare and providing neither bird or bush. Also, feeble attempts at paved roads in Tennessee (gray and bare?) were made during the decade the poem was written, via "The Good Roads Movement".

The foreign, artificial object and action of "Placing a jar in Tennessee" might be symbolic of lines in the M'Spadden piece where "The fort, the school-house and the church appeared, and in the forest ... the rifle and ax brought the light of day". (Vegetation or the wilderness rising up to the light, conforming to human planning and interference.)


ONE HUNDRED YEARS - Joe M'Spadden

https://books.google.com/books?id=_Er4lg...=text#PA15

One hundred years!

In dreams I seem to see
The opening days of this great century:
I see our land a wilderness—a tangled mass
Of undergrowth, through which might only pass
The deer or fiercer creatures of the wood,
Which with a cat-like tread sought out their food.
The red man, too, was here: the towering peak,
The winding stream, the teeming plain—all speak
Of that day when the Indian loved to roam
Along the stream's curved banks, and call it home.
His earthly happy hunting grounds were these—
Here every thought of nature was to please.

Then comes the paleface—hardy pioneer.
The streams are dyed with red for many a year.
The savage is o'ercome; he must give place—
His cherished lands are given a stronger race.
The fort, the school-house and the church appeared;
And in the forest, whose dark depths were feared,
The rifle and the ax brought light of day—
Henceforward barbarism must yield sway.
A few more years, and Statehood is conferred
Upon our land; and every pulse is stirred
By tidings glad—“Our Tennessee is free!
Free to work out her own great destiny!”

We cannot say that this great work is done
Within one hundred years, but well begun.
The shock and jar of war is o'er:
The sun of peace shines forth, and nevermore
Will it be dimmed. But history will tell
Of all our Volunteers who served so well.
In three great wars her sons were known and feared;
For her devotion was her name revered—
She has been great—our Tennessee!

- The book
Of fivescore years is closed. Ahead we look,
And dream upon the future and its store
Of wealth and fame. The days of yore
Were filled with fatness; but the days to come
Will round the measure—eke a goodly sum.
Her sons will always shine; her mighty name
Will ever be within the niche of fame.

One hundred years!
The first great mile-post of thy history
Is turned, brave Commonwealth of Tennessee!
Small wonder then that we should celebrate
The first Centennial of our cherished State;
That we should tell the world of thy great past—
That we should show our riches, which outlast
The march of time and man's destructive power—
It is not wealth which passes with the hour.

[Secular Sanity]

Nobody really knows, but my utterly daft, facetious, cherry-picking contribution to the speculation would be that the short piece was partly inspired by this state centennial celebration poem(?) below that wanders all over the place. Written by someone named Joe M'Spadden and published in the The University of Tennessee Magazine, Volume 11, somewhere among issues 1 to 4 (1886 to 1887). Stevens could have even stumbled across it in the years prior to 1918.

Not bad, C C. It's anyone's guess, I suppose. Good thing I asked you about Davidson.

What about Heidegger's jug? The jar could be something like that.