Poem of the Week: The Rhodora

The poem this week comes via babyfriday who introduced it to me. I had taught Emerson for years but, somehow, was not familiar with this, perhaps his most famous, poem. Despite being oft-quoted, reading Emerson can be a fairly intense, sometimes off-putting experience. He is very overt in his transcendentalism, particularly in his approach to self-reliance and living in the present. His thoughts on the beauty and power of nature however, are difficult for me personally not to find toothsome. Like his acolyte Thoreau, Emerson saw as an imperative the communion of the individual with nature. Even more than the Romantics, Transcendentalists believed in the supernatural strength that one could gain through his/her (re)connection with nature. Should one be so fortunate to divorce him or herself from society to retreat into nature, s/he could encounter beauty of the kind one only dreamed in the newly-established industrial cities. This beauty, however, was not for man's consumption alone. This natural beauty, unlike the beauty humanity tried to create, was never spectacle, but self-sufficient and self-sufficing. As Emerson wrote n "Self Reliance," "These roses below my window make no reference to former roses or better ones." In so existing, without concern for validation from an external consciousness, Emerson et al celebrated the Transcendental beauty of the natural world. Such seems to be driving idea behind the poem's most famous lines, 11-12.

It is also worth noting that the rhodora, like its cousin the rhododendron (and unlike the subject of so many poems, roses) grow largely in the wild and are rarely cultivated in private gardens. Enjoy the poem:

Poem of the Week: Auld Lang Syne

Just a brief commentary on this week's poem. Given that today is New Year's Day, it seems appropriate to post these song lyrics which were originally transcribed by Robert Burns. In lieu of my own remarks, I will provide a link to a great article published in the Wall Street Journal today. Enjoy! http://on.wsj.com/gjnrxl

Auld Lang Syne
Robert Burns
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Poem of the Week: Osso Bucco

As it is the week of Christmas, I wanted to post a poem that had to do with kith and kin and hearthfire and all that stuff. My mind immediately went to Billy Collins as he is king of quaint -- but what poem? He actually has a poem that deals with Christmas ("Christmas Sparrow" which you can find here: http://bit.ly/fdgcZ6) but it is not all that good. So I decided on "Osso Bucco," one of his more famous works and one that I absolutely adore. Those who know Billy Collins know that he is extremely accessible and wonderfully nostalgic, though I personally do not feel like he gets enough credit for his complexity of composition. In "Osso Bucco," for example, Collins does a marvelous job vacillating between the cultured ("the candles give off their warm glow, / the same light that Shakespeare and Izzac Walton wrote by") and the feral ("a creature with full stomach"). Add the this that the poem contains one of my favorite images when Collins describes the satisfaction of a full stomach as "the lion of contentment / [having] placed a warm heavy paw on my stomach," and this poem is a winner. If you don't want Osso Bucco after reading this poem, you are either a vegetarian or you're not reading it right. Bon appetit!

Poem of the Week

So, I thought I might start a feature in which I post poem and a few thoughts about it and then whoever would like to add their interpretations could do so in the comments section. The poem below is called "I Love You, Sweatheart" by Thomas Lux. Baby Friday introduced it to me, and I really love it. Lux takes the misspelled "sweatheart" (I like to think that he actually saw this spraypainted on an overpass somewhere) and runs with it. For Lux, this spelling error actually becomes a more accurate portrayal of the lover's amour, "all sore and dumb / and dangerous." I think he is right when he says, "Love is like this at the bone, we hope." I also really like how he utitlizes enjambment (or the breaking of a phrase, clause or setence by the end of a line) to increase the anxiety of the poem and offer double-meanings to some lines. Just a great poem. Enjoy!

I Love You, Sweatheart
Thomas Lux

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway.  And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work...?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the world.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.