Once every year, the Deer catch human beings

Gary Snyder's poem “Long Hair” departs from customary language and gets somewhere that thrills and engages! 
http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-longhair.html

Nature poems can be silly - Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud among a host of daffodils and then dancing with them. Wordsworth fails to convince. However, there are a few poems that are transformative, that bring new insights about my place in the universe. Moving my viewpoint from my little life to awareness of the Life around me is difficult. It doesn’t happen that often, yet, I remember the first time I read Gary Snyder’s “Long Hair” I couldn’t get out of my chair. I had to pause and read it again before I could go on with my day. Something had changed. 

The images and the language are a bit mad. It begins, “Once every year, the Deer catch human beings” and matter-of-factly describes a plot devised by the deer to take over the world. The plainly stated nature of the first section appears to be fantasy, not poetry. And then in a burst of short lines, we go racing with the deer and stop abruptly. 

This is where Snyder captures me:
“Deer spoor and crisscross dusty tracks
Are in the house: and coming out the walls:

And deer bound through my hair.”

And everything, as he predicted, changes and I am seeing where I am in the universe differently, more than for the moments that I am reading, but later also.

An algorithm that detects a vengeful or broken heart?

I'm grateful that evaluation wasn’t handed over to a computer program as it was in another of my Edx courses, Ideas of the 20th Century. I’m assuming that a human reader will at some point need to put up with my scribbling thoughts. Computer evaluation was a profoundly emotionally jarring experience! I wasn’t aware that my essay would never be seen by human eyes, and only learned that it had been evaluated by an algorithm when I was notified of the grade (B+). I had spent several hours composing my thoughts, and it mattered whether or not at least a couple of other humans who were dealing with the same ideas read them. Instead, an algorithm had analyzed their form, grammar and average number of syllables used and determined that my essay was an okay bunch of digits. I stared at the grade, and became very angry, the meaning of my thoughts - -was reduced to meaninglessness. I longed for someone to comment that my ideas were stupid and I must be a bleeding heart liberal!

And so dear Reader, I present to, the hopefully human you, three sonnets that we can spend some time thinking about together. First, one by Shakespeare Sonnet 141. It’s famous for its bite and complexity. The critic Don Patterson thinks that it somehow proves that Shakespeare was conflicted by lust, and the sonnet expressed disgust for women. Patterson belongs to the devision of English majors who adventure far from the text and are perhaps paid by the word. I find that there is delight and insight at hearing this sonnet read well. It is banter, “You’re not a beauty but I love you anyway.” mixed perhaps with a bit of revenge for some pain caused. The imagery is complex and  best of all  even after many readings there remains the mystery, the question of does the reader really know what is going on in this relationship - Love play, or love hurt?

SONNET 141

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note; 

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, 

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man, 

Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:

Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

The second sonnet by Edna St.Vincent Millay builds images for the reader’s eye slowly - rain, tide, snow, leaves - ending with a remarkably empty room. This sonnet is a simple, solitary meditation. The final couplet reveals an emotional moment shared by all of us at some point in life. This isn’t banter, revenge, or courtship; it’s love and loss well stated.

“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”

TIME does not bring relief; you all have lied

    Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

 I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

     I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

    And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year’s bitter loving must remain

     Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear

    To go,—so with his memory they brim!

And entering with relief some quiet place

    Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Millay was quite capable of complexity, as the following sonnet illustrates. The poet is riding on a subway train, facing someone reading a newspaper. Millay builds the scene slowly with just a few strokes but the result is vivid. After reading Sonnet 141 we can’t be sure of the poet’s feelings for the woman he’s addressing. Is she unattractive, or is he playing with her. Is he hurt, shamed or seeking revenge? Millay’s sonnet leaves the reader with the same problem. Does the sonnet say, “ I wouldn't care if you dropped dead” or is she saying that at news of his death she would be so overwhelmed that she would have to wait until she was alone to allow herself to feel it. The sonnet has the odor of revenge but the embedded mystery of its meaning suggests the possibility of profound love.

“If I should learn, in some quite casual way”

IF I should learn, in some quite casual way,

    That you were gone, not to return again—

Read from the back-page of a paper, say,

    Held by a neighbor in a subway train,

How at the corner of this avenue

    And such a street (so are the papers filled)

A hurrying man—who happened to be you—

    At noon to-day had happened to be killed,

I should not cry aloud—I could not cry

    Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—

I should but watch the station lights rush by

    With a more careful interest on my face,

Or raise my eyes and read with greater care

Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

Perhaps some day a computer algorithm will be written that can discern the subtle mysteries of the subtext of these sonnets and give them a B+. Perhaps unknown to me my MacBook is deeply in love with my cheating ChromeBook that has secretly been exchanging files with my iPad late at night. Can there be an algorithm that detects a vengeful or broken heart? 

Manners

How you deliver the message is a matter of manners. If the message is particularly strong, something the listener doesn’t want to hear, then manners must dictate the form. The poem is addressed to anyone who has picked up a weapon and decided to go into the wild with the purpose of killing an animal for game. David Wagoner chose to address a hunter, politely but with the firm cautionary voice of a stern Shaman. 

He speaks nine charms to delay the hunter from killing an animal for game and make him aware of the consequences of the hunt. The severity of each charm builds as the poem progresses. Numbering, verse separations and comments on the poem below are mine, not Wagoner’s.

Nine Charms against the Hunter - David Wagoner

1. (Wagoner forces a long breath punctuated with the quick breath after the dash.)

In the last bar on the way to your wild game,

May the last beer tilt you over among friends

And keep your there till sundown—failing that,

2. (Soft consonants)

A breakdown on the road, ditching you gently 

Where you may hunt for lights and a telephone.

3. (Soft consonants)

Or may your smell go everywhere through the brush, 

Upwind or crosswind.

4. (The fourth charm follows the short quieter lines with a loud crunch!)

May your feet come down 

Invariably crunching loudly on dry sticks.

5. (After four short sentences a long series breaks the mood with soft vowels ending with exploding “B” of buck fever.)

Or may whatever crosses your hairlines—

The flank of elk or moose, the scut of a deer,

The blurring haunch of a bear, or another hunter

Gaping along his sights at the likes of you—

May they catch you napping or freeze you with buck fever. 

6. (Soft rhythm in the first line to prepare the reader for the “knock” in the second line.)

Or if you fire, may the stock butting your shoulder

Knock you awake around your bones as you miss,

7. (Lots of  hard consonants - d,r,s,k,t’s to punch out the rhythm.)

 Or then and there, may the noise pour through your mind 

Imaginary deaths to redden your daydreams:

Dazed animals sprawling forward on dead leaves, 

Thrashing and kicking, spilling themselves as long

As you could wish, as hard, as game,

8. (The P,L,L,U,G punctuate the like stabbing the animal.)

And then, if you need it, imaginary skinning,

Plucking of liver and lights, unraveling guts,

Beheading trophies to your heart’s content.

9. (The slow rhythm of the first three lines prepare the listener for the final image.)

Or if these charms have failed and the death is real,

May it fatten you, hour by hour, for the trapped hunter 

Whose dull knife beats the inside of your chest.

The first five charms have mild consequences - drinking with friends, fumbling in the dark looking for help,  the hunter’s smell warning off the animals, or falling asleep. But the sixth charm knocks the hunters bones awake, and the message becomes deeper, drilling down toward the final truth - the trapped hunter, Death, beating out his time inside the chest.

This week Professor Pinsky provided examples of poems whose messages were shaped into their forms, Ben Jonson, or whose shape was determined by the message, Walt Whitman.  David Wagoner’s “Nine Charms against the Hunter” is a case of message and form welted together. What seems at first to be quiet and conversational, becomes a profound challenge to the listener worldview.   Wagoner’s intent is a Shaman’s intent-  to cause a magical change in the listener’s understanding of the world. 

Wagoner is a writer sincerely influenced by Christian thought and belief. He is a Christian Naturalist. Reading his poems, I am reminded of Saint Francis’s Canticle of the Sun. Wagoner intends the hunter/reader to be brought to conviction, to change his path, to be transformed by the magic of the words, to form a new relationship with nature.  

The poem is a quiet, one-sided conversation. A difficult warning spoken politely. What is not heard has gone before. I imagine two men sitting in a bar or dinner; one announces that he will be going hunting tonight. The second man is older, during his life was has hunted. I knows the details. Moments before the animals’ death, force that must be used to finish the kill, remove the head; for him the game is no longer game; he at some point connected his little life to a larger awareness of what is alive. 

Is it strange to say, that I experience the poem as an expression of deepest friendship for the hunter? A poem is a song sung in the music of voice and words. On first reading, I experienced the poem as magical song. I was changed. I saw things differently. I had found a friend who would speak the truth to me.

Email

I wonder what it would be like to be forced to read all the emails I have composed during the last twelve years?

Never mind, I wouldn’t do it. 

Okay, I would if the safety of one of my children or my grandchild was at risk, but only if.  

That’s my job - I email.

I’m a problem solver. I email to solve problems. Generally problems that I created by writing a grant that purchased complicated, difficult to use, equipment and software for my school system. 

There are twenty-six steps to assigning a twelve minute math module to a fifth grade student, and fourteen more steps before a teacher can view the results of that assignment. A lot can go wrong. 

I email initial instructions to everyone.

I email clarifications of the the initial instructions.

Things go wrong.

I email personal explanations of why things are going wrong.

I email Ms. Y to please help Mr. X because it doesn’t matter how many emails I send, he just can’t follow the sequence and click on the yellow “Submit” button.

I email the software developer that we have discovered that the yellow “Submit” button disappears from the screen exactly 20% of the time. Yes, we did a study. Exactly one out of five times it isn’t there.

The Yellow Button eventually generates hundreds of emails discussing its capricious behavior.   ????

What if you were forced to read all the emails I have composed during the last twelve years?

Only if.  

The mystical reveries of saints

"There were no more wise men; there were no more heroes… Amory had grown up to a thousand books, a thousand lies; he had listened eagerly to people who pretended to know, who knew nothing. The mystical reveries of saints that had once filled him with awe in the still hours of night, now vaguely repelled him."        from Fitzgerald’s “This Side of Paradise”

I must begin by arguing with the question. The writing prompt asks us to respond by citing an author who agrees and an author who disagrees with Amory. The Fitzgerald quote describes a singular point in the development of any thinking person - the point, usually in adolescence, at which certainty is lost. No writer worth reading has not had this experience. Doubt is an integral component of reasoned thought. Whether an author rejects traditional values and faith or not can only be determined by what follows after the point of doubt.

"The Waste Land” is often cited as Eliot’s crisis of Faith, “Ash Wednesday” as his statement of Faith.  Eliott admitted that he wrote “The Waste Land” while in “a very bad mood,” not so much as result of the War or the condition of civilization, but because in 1914 he had married a woman that he discovered he disliked.  A woman who eighteen years later he would abandon to a mental hospital until she died in 1948. He never visited her there.

He did like cats, apparently more than Jews, several of his poems contain anti-semitic remarks or references without apology. Not a call for genocide, just the sort of thing that an upper class Londoner would say with a “those people” attitude.  I can forgive Shakespeare for Shylock, a fully drawn human being, and the play was written several centuries ago. Eliot, however, lived at a time when genocide was happening just across the channel. Casual bigotry says a lot about the essence of a man.

The direction of his latter work is a return to traditional English Faith and values. He became a deacon of the High Church. I read Ash Wednesday as a nightmare of Faith. The staircase section invites reference to Freud, and Hitchcock - big staircases make Eliot scared and dizzy; but are they signifiers of Faith? The last section refers to The Cult of Mary, which has brought much to Western Civilization. Yet, Eliot can’t quite find a solid Hope or Certainty within the symbol of Mary. Something dark and Freudian is going on in Ash Wednesday. I honestly try not to, but when I finish the poem I parse the last lines as, “Mommy, please protect me!” 

Some of my brother English majors connect the poem to Milton, or Dante, but I think both would find Eliot’s version of Faith of little worth as a support for living a meaningful life.  If Ash Wednesday is Eliot’s response to Amory’s point of doubt, his expression of Faith, then we seem to be stuck in the Waste Land with a Faith that doesn’t help much. Faith that leaves you just a little too cruel and just a little too bigoted.

James Joyce was a contemporary of Fitzgerald and Eliot. While they struggled with Faith, Joyce moved on, rejecting Faith in the Church and its values for a more complete affirmation of life.  His work is a joyous, wild affirmation of civilization, of the city, of being human. Joyce came from a traditional Irish Catholic family and received a strict Jesuit education, his moment of rejection of Faith has a powerful finality.  In his autobiographical “Portrait of an Artist…” Stephen Dedalus (Joyce) has lost his faith and cannot comfort his mother on her deathbed when she requests that he pray for her. The refusal haunts him throughout “Ulysses.” It is the point at which like Amory, he recognizes the reality of doubt and must move on.

Amory’s character rejects a thousand books. Eliot’s work reflects a writer who was well read, but rejected much, and valued only what affirmed his beliefs. Joyce seems to have read absolutely everything and affirms it all - for Joyce what is human, what humans do, is what is good. The answer to all the questions is “Yes.”

Amory rejects the mystical reveries of saints. Joyce sings to us the song of sons throughout all time who carry the guilt of betraying their mother’s pure love. Sons who bare with shame of the terrible sin of lust all around a Dublin that will be full of lust every June 16th for the rest of eternity, as we all lie inverted in our beds.

Eliot’s Church and faith didn’t protect him from bigotry. Joyce became a Jew wandering Dublin and a wandering Greek warrior whose son searched the city for his father.

Joyce’s world had been devastated by war and another war was rising, but he moved on from Amory’s point of doubt to a Dublin where every man and woman carried with them all the joys and all the sorrows that ever were and are, and all the words that had ever been spoken and all the books that had ever been written.

T. S. Eliot

Ash Wednesday is the most difficult poem I've ever read. It's technically brilliant. Beginning humbly, but quickly spiraling into darkness, it is often cited as support that T. S. Eliot was a man of Faith. It is logical to assume that he wrote "The Waste Land" because he had a kind of crisis of Faith, which is somehow resolved in Ash Wednesday, but later in life he admitted that at the time of its composition he was in a very bad mood, not as result of the War or the condition of civilization, but more because in 1914 he had married a woman that he didn't like; a woman who eighteen years later he would finally separate from completely, abandoning her to a mental hospital until she died in 1948. He never visited her.

I've had to deal with Eliot's work for fifty years. You can't be a committed English major and avoid him. Most of his work certainly seems to be written by someone in a permanent bad mood, even with those cheery last lines of the Waste Land: "Datta... Shantith."  Several of his poems contain anti-semitic remarks or images without apology. Not a call for genocide, just the sort of stuff that an upperclass Londoner would say with a "those people" attitude.  I can forgive Shakespeare for Shylock, the character is a fully drawn human being and the play was written several centuries ago. Eliot, however, lived at a time when genocide was just around the corner across the channel. Casual bigotry says a lot about the essence of a man.

That brings me back to Eliot's Faith and Ash Wednesday. Eliot has some serious problems with staircases. I would reference Freud here, but Hitchcock got it right - big staircases make you dizzy. Is dizziness a signifier of Faith? The Cult of Mary brought much to Western Civilization. Yet, after more than a thousand years T.S.Eliot just can't quite find Hope. I honestly  try not to, but when I finish the poem I parse the last lines as, "Mommy please don't leave me!"  There something definitely Freud-like going on in Ash Wednesday, but again I'm not going to explore it.

I've read many studies of the poem. Some English majors find it fun to compare the poem to Milton, and many more find connections to Dante. I think both Milton and Dante would find Eliot's version of Faith of little worth as a support for living a meaningful life.

After listening to Eliot read it over an over, he seems to me to be stuck, suffering forever in Dante's Inferno.  I'm convinced that maybe this is an expression of some kind of Faith, but it's the kind of Faith that doesn't help much. Faith that  leaves you just a little too cruel and just a little too bigoted. So much talent, so much reading, such a command of language - yet so much a waste.

Thoreau states that he sang as he built his cabin.

In the Economy chapter of Walden, Thoreau states that he sang as he built his cabin.
----------

So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or scholar-like thoughts, singing to myself,— 

Men say they know many things; 

But lo! they have taken wings—

The arts and sciences, 

And a thousand appliances; 

The wind that blows Is all that any body knows.

--Thoreau, Henry David (2012-05-16). Walden (p. 29).  Kindle Edition

When I despair of my fellow Americans, I remember that Henry David Thoreau is also my countryman.

I could argue for hours that almost every sentence that Thoreau wrote is poetry and that includes the two million or so words in his journals. 

We mere mortals search for the exact word, the sentence that will speak to the heart, the image that will teach the eye of the reader. All those things simply flow from Thoreau's pen. Magic ink. Magic pencil (high quality that he made himself).

I dare you to read Thoreau aloud for two hours, and then take a familiar walk. 
Likely, you will hear and see what you didn't see before. 
You may even stop and argue sweetly with a neighbor,"Don't waste your time here, live simply, seek justice, and pay attention!

Sing while you work!

John Dewey