This new post from The New Stylus is an absolute feast of poetry. It has 15 poems and closes with a 3 line epigraph, and even that is magnificent and memorable. So, to do justice to such a lavish banquet, I'm going to comment separately and briefly on many of the poems here over the coming days, starting with "Neuro-Biofeedback with Mizpah".
What strikes me most about this poem is, that it has some outstanding lines, especially this one, 'Time and death coil in the moist skin of birth.'
I also like this one, 'Unlock the boney casque of my word-hoard.' Indeed, the whole poem is quite a 'word-hoard'!
It is indeed an absolute feast! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such phenomenal comments on all of these. They are all absolutely terrific, and I can hardly wait to read what you will write about the rest of the poems. As I told John, I will be doing so over a lazy cup of tea.
"In the Gap" begins with a title that sounds like a Robert Frost poem. Indeed the whole poem reminds me of him in the way it vividly creates an image of a picket fence with a knot hole in it, and continues from there to build an unforgettable picture of a man viewing his garden and pondering his body's slow decay, while his wife, in the kitchen, makes a pot of Temple of Heaven tea. So perfectly is this scene evoked that I can almost breathe the tea's heavenly aroma from here!
When the man sits down to drink his tea, he feels his wife's soft warmth against him, and he closes his eyes 'in visions of some future time' when neither of them will be no more 'just sparks of stubble on a razor's edge'. What a remarkable meditation on love, life, and mortality this poem turns out to be!
"Twilight Music Without a Moral" is a beautiful serene poem about a man with a belled dog, who inevitably makes music with his movements in the twilight, as they await Orion's light. I don't know much about greyhounds or the bells they wear. Are these bells simply to let the man know where he is if he wanders off into the woods?
I like the fact that this poem has no moral, that it's just a peaceful, vivid evocation of a scene from the natural world. Of course I could be wrong about this because Orion is a set of stars called 'The Hunter'. But maybe this man is no longer interested in hunting - just enjoying the music of the bells, and the night creatures around him, in possibly the twilight of his life?
"After Winter" is a wonderful meditation on old age, decay, and the inevitability of a new birth when the seasons change and 'crisp new leaves will quake with songs of love.'
The idea of rebirth is skilfully counterpointed by the reality of life's winter for both man and nature - and here, we have a truly dazzling image, 'I've felt December's icy mortuary freeze hard in the white winds of January.' That is truly sublime!
Greyhounds are sight hounds and very fast. It is as you said: the bells make him easier to follow, but also soften his predatory drive.i think the bells rendemore the greyhound more Orphic. I think I had in mind True Thomas and the Elf Queen's Horse's harness:
Too much of a feast to even begin commenting. This is quite unfair of you! When each separate item is a feast in itself. And needs to be savoured slowly and thought about.
'My cup runneth over' can be a legitimate complaint, as well as a compliment. Otherwise, being naturally a lazy man, I concur with Martin. And leave him to do the work for me. (Which he can probably do better than I can anyway.)
I agree. I too will leave the task of commenting on individual poems to Martin for the same reasons. I will be enjoying his analyses over a lazy cup of tea.
In that | uni | verse round | eared deer | mice sleep...
-------
The line is decasyllabic, with a falling rhythm in counterpoint to the abstract rising rhythm. The orthography is deceptive in that the original formatting did not remain undisturbed during transmission. Shannon deserves being made A Hero of the Soviet Union for being able to cope with my chicken scratchings.
When composed it was one decasyllabic line. O think there's a software conflict on my phone. When I transmitted, the one pentameter emerged as 3 shorter lines. Typography glitches are a reason why I put line begi nnings in caps. Anyway, I admire your editorial eagle eye.
I'll read these again when what I'm always short of is available: time.
For now, I'll just applaud "Words In Search of A Tune," which struck me as a gem. I have only one effusion featuring circkets, so I offer it in return:
Thank you, Bob! It really wasn’t that bad though. I’m just thankful to have you work up on the site. I ended up fixing the mistake Mike pointed out earlier.
His intricate and intimate knowledge of the technical aspects of the craft impresses me. As does his extensive and intensive knowledge of the tradition.
In "February Snow" we have a man clearing a snow path with a shovel from his house to the gate. Then Bob does that amazing thing he so often does - he totally transcends the moment: 'My thoughts turned for a brief moment to Socrates barefooted in the Grecian snow.'
Later, he reflects on what will happen to all of his hard work, when he and his wife will lie together in the dark night - how a new storm will simply 'bury' it. Perhaps the whole story of a man's brief life is minutely encapsulated in this very striking Image!
The first two lines of "On the Untimely and Violent Death of Acheta Domesticus" (a house cricket) are vivid and striking in that they immediately introduce us to the theme of the poem - death - and in this particular case the death of a cricket. After that, the poem relates the tale of the dead cricket's journey to the afterlife - his journey from 'spent mortality' to the world beyond - and it does so in grandiose terms of Greek mythology. Who else but Bob would commemorate the passing of a cricket in this humorous but knowledgeable manner? Outstanding!
In "Suzanna in the Garden of Flesh and Spirit: Time's Labyrinth" (What an evocative title!) we encounter love as continual source of inspiration, and also as a possible source of total transcendence, now that memory is beginning to fog up and the sun is steadily going down on a life. The final five lines are almost bewitching in their beauty:
"Twilight Song of the Heart's Hunger" is yet another evocative title and could almost be a poem in itself. I mean just look at the story that tells! It just speaks volumes!
As for the poem, it's so beautiful and sweet and full of rich sounds and rhythms that I just had to read it aloud. Then, after I had done so, I did so again - and, at this stage, I think it has woven a spell over me with all the vowel sounds and the frequent repetition of 'the cricket's singing stone.'
Oh, I must add, Bob, that I think I can detect more than a touch of Yeats in this one - I mean the early Yeats from the Celtic Twilight period.
I found I had to read all the poems aloud. And that's the real test, isn't it? You know a poem is a good poem if you simply have to read it aloud. 'The beauty of incantation', as Eliot called it.
The poem "Indian Market: On Hearing a Rock -Musician's Song for His Julia" is so immediately musical, you could sing it; and yet, it's another serious meditation on the passage of time, and how the wilting petals in the curls of young girls already signify the inevitable fate that awaits all beauty.
I can't help wondering, though: what was that rock-musician's name, or the name of the song? I know The Beatles had a song called 'Julia', but it definitely wasn't them because that song was about John Lennon's mother.
The third stanza of "Late Fall: Planh Late in Life" is flawless, and when I read it aloud it sounds like one of the saddest and most beautiful pieces of poetry I've ever heard, because it depicts a loving couple who have no wish ever to be parted from this earth, or from each other.
Yet, as the two earlier stanzas remind us, it's late fall now and everything on earth has its its season. So the distressed lovers must face the stark reality of this and prepare for it:
'It's time to slip ourselves into time's mold
To stitch our mothcloths for that time when time stops.'
What I admire most about those two lines is the skilful manner in which the word 'time' is repeated four times - emphasising the theme of the poem and the problem of mortality, without being jarring in any way.
What particularly strikes me about Bob's work - and renders him unique among all contemporary American poets - is the minute attention he always pays to Nature. From this side of the pond one often gets the feeling, to judge by its current literature at least, that the American continent is almost totally devoid of that sort of nature which our own poets have always celebrated. Thank God for one American poet who at long last dispels that delusion! Apparently the American continent is as rich in natural interest as our own. And believe you me it's a considerable relief to know that, and to realise that there is at least one American who can appreciate that, and even communicate it, and celebrate it.
"Words in Search of a Tune" is an interesting concept, Bob, because this actually happened with 'Danny Boy'. I think the words were written by Frederic Weatherly in England, and were lying in a drawer in his house. Then his sister-in-law in Ireland sent him the sheet music for 'The Londonderry Air'. Thus two very separate pieces of art (the words and the tune) came together and blended seamlessly into one, proving perhaps that there can be strange forces at work sometimes when it comes to creating some timeless song that might outlast us.
Now, in regard to your song, (and I think it is indeed a song) there's one small question I'm curious about, and I know you'll have a fascinating answer for it: 'How did the seashells get to the mountaintop?' I mean was there a reason for it, other than some trekkers bringing a few up there from the sands below?
"Childhood Scar at Twilight" is a simple, meditative poem showing the poet sitting outside in twilight, among the bats, touching a scar on his head, and remembering some details from the time long ago when that wound was treated - how the surgeon cut his hair and stopped the blood, and how he didn't cry. It's probably an experience a young boy would never forget. And so vividly recreated!
To my mind "Peach Nectar Near Eden's Gate" suggests that this poem is not only about death, but a possible return to Eden. Interestingly, though, 'nectar' is the drink of the gods, and the speaker, sitting outside among the finches and the chickadees, seems to already possess this:
'And scented nectar drips down from the peach,
Glistening in the long, soft rays of gentle light.'
Yet, the things around him, the things of this earth, are temporary, and he is totally aware of this also:
'I know that darkness will snuff out this light.'
Nevertheless, there is nectar to be had on earth, and he resolves to drink more of it while he is sitting there among the earthly creatures that he loves - to drink more, and 'not forsake these chickadees, nor perish in the venom of death's dart.'
So there is a sense here that the speaker's spirit is already transcending his body, and that sometime soon he will die and live on somehow in this place - an immortal inhabitant of the same Eden.
For Bob, this is almost a joyful poem, and I think it may well be my favourite of all the excellent poems included here by Shannon. Let the Doves descend now!
The hero is he who is immovably centred. The main difference between people seems to be, that one man can come under obligations on which you can rely, — is obligable; and another is not. As he has not a law within him, there's nothing to tie him to.
This new post from The New Stylus is an absolute feast of poetry. It has 15 poems and closes with a 3 line epigraph, and even that is magnificent and memorable. So, to do justice to such a lavish banquet, I'm going to comment separately and briefly on many of the poems here over the coming days, starting with "Neuro-Biofeedback with Mizpah".
What strikes me most about this poem is, that it has some outstanding lines, especially this one, 'Time and death coil in the moist skin of birth.'
I also like this one, 'Unlock the boney casque of my word-hoard.' Indeed, the whole poem is quite a 'word-hoard'!
It is indeed an absolute feast! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such phenomenal comments on all of these. They are all absolutely terrific, and I can hardly wait to read what you will write about the rest of the poems. As I told John, I will be doing so over a lazy cup of tea.
"In the Gap" begins with a title that sounds like a Robert Frost poem. Indeed the whole poem reminds me of him in the way it vividly creates an image of a picket fence with a knot hole in it, and continues from there to build an unforgettable picture of a man viewing his garden and pondering his body's slow decay, while his wife, in the kitchen, makes a pot of Temple of Heaven tea. So perfectly is this scene evoked that I can almost breathe the tea's heavenly aroma from here!
When the man sits down to drink his tea, he feels his wife's soft warmth against him, and he closes his eyes 'in visions of some future time' when neither of them will be no more 'just sparks of stubble on a razor's edge'. What a remarkable meditation on love, life, and mortality this poem turns out to be!
Martin, I agree.
When I first read “In the Gap”, I was instantly reminded of Frost as well. The title alone is reminiscent of him, as well as the poem in its entirety.
"Twilight Music Without a Moral" is a beautiful serene poem about a man with a belled dog, who inevitably makes music with his movements in the twilight, as they await Orion's light. I don't know much about greyhounds or the bells they wear. Are these bells simply to let the man know where he is if he wanders off into the woods?
I like the fact that this poem has no moral, that it's just a peaceful, vivid evocation of a scene from the natural world. Of course I could be wrong about this because Orion is a set of stars called 'The Hunter'. But maybe this man is no longer interested in hunting - just enjoying the music of the bells, and the night creatures around him, in possibly the twilight of his life?
"After Winter" is a wonderful meditation on old age, decay, and the inevitability of a new birth when the seasons change and 'crisp new leaves will quake with songs of love.'
The idea of rebirth is skilfully counterpointed by the reality of life's winter for both man and nature - and here, we have a truly dazzling image, 'I've felt December's icy mortuary freeze hard in the white winds of January.' That is truly sublime!
Greyhounds are sight hounds and very fast. It is as you said: the bells make him easier to follow, but also soften his predatory drive.i think the bells rendemore the greyhound more Orphic. I think I had in mind True Thomas and the Elf Queen's Horse's harness:
Her shirt was o the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o the velvet fyne
At ilka tett of her horse's mane
Hang fifty siller bells and nine.
Too much of a feast to even begin commenting. This is quite unfair of you! When each separate item is a feast in itself. And needs to be savoured slowly and thought about.
'My cup runneth over' can be a legitimate complaint, as well as a compliment. Otherwise, being naturally a lazy man, I concur with Martin. And leave him to do the work for me. (Which he can probably do better than I can anyway.)
Yes, indeed our cup runneth over, even though it's nearly impossible to put it down without wanting to come back for more.
I agree. I too will leave the task of commenting on individual poems to Martin for the same reasons. I will be enjoying his analyses over a lazy cup of tea.
I hope it's Assam tea or Temple of Heaven.
The particular blend I am drinking (Orange Pekoe) does indeed include Assam. 😉
I'd better not stop here for tea, or I'll never leave. Orange Pekoe sounds good. I'm learning more and more about tea everyday, thank God!
Bob Zisk is one of our best living poets and a personal favorite of mine.
One question: is there an inadvertent line break here?
In that universe round-eared deer
mice sleep
In that | uni | verse round | eared deer | mice sleep...
-------
The line is decasyllabic, with a falling rhythm in counterpoint to the abstract rising rhythm. The orthography is deceptive in that the original formatting did not remain undisturbed during transmission. Shannon deserves being made A Hero of the Soviet Union for being able to cope with my chicken scratchings.
If you're happy, I'm happy. The shorter lines looked a bit odd and normally "deer mice" would go together.
When composed it was one decasyllabic line. O think there's a software conflict on my phone. When I transmitted, the one pentameter emerged as 3 shorter lines. Typography glitches are a reason why I put line begi nnings in caps. Anyway, I admire your editorial eagle eye.
We have made a good team in the past, resolving such little glitches, I believe.
Tom Merrill
2 hrs ago
I'll read these again when what I'm always short of is available: time.
For now, I'll just applaud "Words In Search of A Tune," which struck me as a gem. I have only one effusion featuring circkets, so I offer it in return:
Such Things Must Draw
Cathedral hush at twilight hour
In Junes spent long ago,
Stray crickets blurting out their song,
The grass scent, and the glow
Of fireflies sparking dusk-filled air
Whose dense and deepening hue
Nightfall would overtake too fast―
Such things must draw now, too,
And still those potent stars must rise,
The prayer that skies be fair,
As when, on evenings thought of now,
I thrilled to breathe June air.
I fixed it earlier this afternoon, Mike. Thank you for mentioning it here. I totally missed that one.
Glad to help!
Thank you, Bob! It really wasn’t that bad though. I’m just thankful to have you work up on the site. I ended up fixing the mistake Mike pointed out earlier.
I agree that he is one of the absolute best living poets. He is a personal favorite of mine as well.
Bob is a wonderful craftsman with a great heart, and it's an honour for me to comment on his poems.
His intricate and intimate knowledge of the technical aspects of the craft impresses me. As does his extensive and intensive knowledge of the tradition.
I couldn’t agree more. He’s extremely knowledgeable on so many subjects. He’s really a marvel.
In "February Snow" we have a man clearing a snow path with a shovel from his house to the gate. Then Bob does that amazing thing he so often does - he totally transcends the moment: 'My thoughts turned for a brief moment to Socrates barefooted in the Grecian snow.'
Later, he reflects on what will happen to all of his hard work, when he and his wife will lie together in the dark night - how a new storm will simply 'bury' it. Perhaps the whole story of a man's brief life is minutely encapsulated in this very striking Image!
The first two lines of "On the Untimely and Violent Death of Acheta Domesticus" (a house cricket) are vivid and striking in that they immediately introduce us to the theme of the poem - death - and in this particular case the death of a cricket. After that, the poem relates the tale of the dead cricket's journey to the afterlife - his journey from 'spent mortality' to the world beyond - and it does so in grandiose terms of Greek mythology. Who else but Bob would commemorate the passing of a cricket in this humorous but knowledgeable manner? Outstanding!
In "Suzanna in the Garden of Flesh and Spirit: Time's Labyrinth" (What an evocative title!) we encounter love as continual source of inspiration, and also as a possible source of total transcendence, now that memory is beginning to fog up and the sun is steadily going down on a life. The final five lines are almost bewitching in their beauty:
The salt of your warm eyes invites my rhyme
to rise upon the moist fog of memory,
To sail the curling waves of love's dark sea,
Beyond the cradle of the setting sun
Far from the roses of the heart's pink dawn.
I couldn’t agree more, Martin. I love all of the poems here, but this one is my absolute favorite.
"Twilight Song of the Heart's Hunger" is yet another evocative title and could almost be a poem in itself. I mean just look at the story that tells! It just speaks volumes!
As for the poem, it's so beautiful and sweet and full of rich sounds and rhythms that I just had to read it aloud. Then, after I had done so, I did so again - and, at this stage, I think it has woven a spell over me with all the vowel sounds and the frequent repetition of 'the cricket's singing stone.'
Oh, I must add, Bob, that I think I can detect more than a touch of Yeats in this one - I mean the early Yeats from the Celtic Twilight period.
I found I had to read all the poems aloud. And that's the real test, isn't it? You know a poem is a good poem if you simply have to read it aloud. 'The beauty of incantation', as Eliot called it.
Gratitude and praise for Shannon who has made my work look so good' truly in the tradition of the Manutii and the Aldine Press.
Thank you so much, Bob! I truly appreciate it, and I’m glad you think so. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to publish your sublime work.
The poem "Indian Market: On Hearing a Rock -Musician's Song for His Julia" is so immediately musical, you could sing it; and yet, it's another serious meditation on the passage of time, and how the wilting petals in the curls of young girls already signify the inevitable fate that awaits all beauty.
I can't help wondering, though: what was that rock-musician's name, or the name of the song? I know The Beatles had a song called 'Julia', but it definitely wasn't them because that song was about John Lennon's mother.
Isn’t it marvelous? I love villanelles, so I was delighted to read one by Bob. It is so well-executed, and as you said, very musical indeed.
The third stanza of "Late Fall: Planh Late in Life" is flawless, and when I read it aloud it sounds like one of the saddest and most beautiful pieces of poetry I've ever heard, because it depicts a loving couple who have no wish ever to be parted from this earth, or from each other.
Yet, as the two earlier stanzas remind us, it's late fall now and everything on earth has its its season. So the distressed lovers must face the stark reality of this and prepare for it:
'It's time to slip ourselves into time's mold
To stitch our mothcloths for that time when time stops.'
What I admire most about those two lines is the skilful manner in which the word 'time' is repeated four times - emphasising the theme of the poem and the problem of mortality, without being jarring in any way.
What particularly strikes me about Bob's work - and renders him unique among all contemporary American poets - is the minute attention he always pays to Nature. From this side of the pond one often gets the feeling, to judge by its current literature at least, that the American continent is almost totally devoid of that sort of nature which our own poets have always celebrated. Thank God for one American poet who at long last dispels that delusion! Apparently the American continent is as rich in natural interest as our own. And believe you me it's a considerable relief to know that, and to realise that there is at least one American who can appreciate that, and even communicate it, and celebrate it.
"Words in Search of a Tune" is an interesting concept, Bob, because this actually happened with 'Danny Boy'. I think the words were written by Frederic Weatherly in England, and were lying in a drawer in his house. Then his sister-in-law in Ireland sent him the sheet music for 'The Londonderry Air'. Thus two very separate pieces of art (the words and the tune) came together and blended seamlessly into one, proving perhaps that there can be strange forces at work sometimes when it comes to creating some timeless song that might outlast us.
Now, in regard to your song, (and I think it is indeed a song) there's one small question I'm curious about, and I know you'll have a fascinating answer for it: 'How did the seashells get to the mountaintop?' I mean was there a reason for it, other than some trekkers bringing a few up there from the sands below?
"Childhood Scar at Twilight" is a simple, meditative poem showing the poet sitting outside in twilight, among the bats, touching a scar on his head, and remembering some details from the time long ago when that wound was treated - how the surgeon cut his hair and stopped the blood, and how he didn't cry. It's probably an experience a young boy would never forget. And so vividly recreated!
To my mind "Peach Nectar Near Eden's Gate" suggests that this poem is not only about death, but a possible return to Eden. Interestingly, though, 'nectar' is the drink of the gods, and the speaker, sitting outside among the finches and the chickadees, seems to already possess this:
'And scented nectar drips down from the peach,
Glistening in the long, soft rays of gentle light.'
Yet, the things around him, the things of this earth, are temporary, and he is totally aware of this also:
'I know that darkness will snuff out this light.'
Nevertheless, there is nectar to be had on earth, and he resolves to drink more of it while he is sitting there among the earthly creatures that he loves - to drink more, and 'not forsake these chickadees, nor perish in the venom of death's dart.'
So there is a sense here that the speaker's spirit is already transcending his body, and that sometime soon he will die and live on somehow in this place - an immortal inhabitant of the same Eden.
For Bob, this is almost a joyful poem, and I think it may well be my favourite of all the excellent poems included here by Shannon. Let the Doves descend now!
The hero is he who is immovably centred. The main difference between people seems to be, that one man can come under obligations on which you can rely, — is obligable; and another is not. As he has not a law within him, there's nothing to tie him to.
You may not believe in the soul Tom, but I do. If a person's soul is speaking to you (that which is eternal in man) you can rely on that.
Oh, sorry, that slatement I neglected to properly ascribe. It was authored by Emerson, not me.