Poetry Day Pick - Louise Glück

October 15th is Poetry Day. In honor of the day and the slow slide into winter, I choose to feature poet Louise Glück. She served as US Poet Laureate from 2003-2004, won a Pulitzer Prize, and has a boatload of other awards, but that’s not why I like her. Glück often bases her poetry on mythic figures and ideas, addressing topics like betrayal, mortality, love and loss, body and spirit. The language of her poems appears simple, almost basic, but it is an illusion. Her poetry contains complex emotions that make for repeated readings. Of all her collections, The Triumph of Achilles is one of my favorites for its exploration of myth and biblical ideas, although her recent collection, Averno runs a close second for the same reasons. In both I find myself attracted to the austere phrasing that lets the power of the poem sneak up on you.


The Triumph Of Achilles
Louise Glück

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.


From Triumph of Achilles by Louise Glück
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date: September 1985
ISBN-13: 9780880010818


Glück is at her finest when tossing out a line that appears a monumental understatement, but upon reflection, hits you like a punch in the stomach.
"though the legends cannot be trusted-- their source is the survivor, the one who has been abandoned."

In Averno, Glück returns to mythological underpinnings to examine a woman’s descent into hell, her fears of death and concerns about the unshakeable bonds between mother and daughter. It is a lament for things not yet lost and dead, but headed that way. It is not a pleasant collection, stark and straightforward about the mortality of not only our bodies, but our relationships. Despite this, Glück manages to evoke a rather Zen-like enlightenment in her poem “Telescope”.


Telescope
by Louise Glück

There is a moment after you move your eye away
when you forget where you are
because you've been living, it seems,
somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.

You've been stopped being here in the world
You're in a different place
a place where human life has no meaning.

You're not a creature in a body.
You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity.

Then you're in the world again.
An night, on a cold hill,
taking the telescope apart.

You realize afterward
not that the image is false
but the relation is false.

You see again how far away
each thing is from every other thing.


from Averno by Louise Glück
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date: February 2006
ISBN-13: 9780374107420


Readers seem to have a love-hate relationship with Glück. Some can’t stand to read her; she can be unrelenting and unapologetic, unusual in a modern Poet Laureate. But Glück also has the ability to point out the exact thing you’d been thinking- but never had the courage to voice out loud.


You die when your spirit dies.
Otherwise you live.
You may not do a good job of it, but you go on-
something you have no choice about.


from Averno by Louise Glück
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date: February 2006
ISBN-13: 9780374107420

A Poem For Midge

When East Moves West, The Sun Stands Still
by Constance Brewer

When you married a rancher and moved to Wyoming,
your mother clutched her chest, contemplated a heart
attack and proclaimed to all who would listen, "My
daughter, she could have been the next Marge Piercy
or Maya Angelou but, no. She moved to Wyoming."

The neighbors tried to comfort your mother. They offered
condolences, as if you died, or married outside the faith.
In the kitchen, under the cover of clinking wine glasses,
and the running dishwasher they whispered to each other;
"Is Wyoming a state or a territory? Is it Canadian?"

"She lives on a ranch? I bet they don't have indoor plumbing."
"Do they have to ride horses to town to use the phone?"
"Her daughter might as well live in Africa. Or Afghanistan."
"If she visits us, will she have to get shots? I hear Wyoming
has hantavirus and West Nile and even the plague..."

For a nation comfortable with John Wayne movies, the concept
of actually living in a western is stranger than a moon walk.
For years, you wrote, and tried to convince your mother that:
- Wyoming is not the edge of the world.
- Not everyone owns a gun. Or a horse.
- You don't have to chop wood unless you want to.
- That good writing is a state of mind not a state in the Union.

But each time you board a plane and fly home to visit, your mother
beats her chest, smoothes her clothes, and styles her hair, all while
wailing loud enough for the neighbors to hear. "My poor baby.
She could have been a contender! Instead, she lives in godforsaken
Wyoming."

Poetics & Politics - Marge Piercy

Another favorite poet and all around interesting person. Poet, novelist, feminist, cat lover. She has a quote in her FAQ on her website that pretty much sums up the way I feel about being a dual (poetry/fiction) writer.

What's the difference between writing fiction and writing poetry?
"Poetry comes far more directly from my life. Basically I get to exorcise my autobiographical impulses in poetry. I explore other people’s lives in my fiction. Often for me fiction embodies the choices I did not make, the paths I did not follow. Poems are built out of sounds and silence. Rhythm and sound values are far more important in poetry than in fiction. Images are central. Poetry to me is more organic, more passionate, more spiritual, more intense. Fiction is about time – what happens if you make one or another choice. What happens next. And then and then and then, as a result of every choice made, what happens? Fiction to me is an art of empathy and imagination. Each novel is like a small world I inhabit for a period of two or three years, and then move on to another small world. The way I work, I learn each time about different things – areas I would never have studied for my own life."

Marge has a wonderful audiobook of political poems called "Louder We Can't Hear You (Yet)". When she reads, her voice is impassioned by her work. She sometimes prefaces the poem with a story or antidote, or closes with the same, and the little asides add richness to the reading. Included is the poem from her collection "Colors Passing Through Us" titled 'No One Came Home', about 9/11. The stark simplicity of a lost cat starts the poem, it goes on to imagine a slice of time in the life of ordinary people on that day. The minimalism of the poem, the matter-of-factness is what makes it so powerful.

Marge Piercy's poems never flinch. She tackles abortion, war, the intricacies of being female, and the Patriot Act with sharp insight that never loses its compassion, even as she slices her topic to the bone.

Sneak and Peak
by Marge Piercy

Under the Patriot Act, any strong arm
of law enforcement
has the right to enter your home
while you sleep
while you are out
to enter covertly and search
under suspicion you might
be hiding something
under the bed
among your boxers or thongs
on your computer among the porn.

Are you patriotic?
Do you submit lists of what you read
to the F.B.I. without waiting to be asked?
Do you spy on your neighbors checking
if they play Middle Eastern music
if they smoke other than tobacco
if they read the wrong books –all u.s
right thinking people know what
they are. If they have too much sex
or sex of the wrong kind – all u.s.
right thinking people know exactly
what we mean. Do you believe
in the separation of Church and Hate?
Evil our President says is everywhere
and obvious and must be invaded
mostly by Black adolescents
whose morality is dubious anyway
unless they die as heroes. They’ll
come home to unemployment
if they do come home.

We, your born-again FBI
have collected receipts from your
restaurant meals for the past five years.
You have ordered hummus six times,
falafel twice and lamb four times
which is suspect because your
President eats only beef and ham.
What are you planning to do with that
sesame tahini you purchased at Stop
& Slop? Can you justify this act?

Your credit card records indicate
you purchased 8 bags of fertilizer
on April 11 at 17 hundred oh 8.
Fertilizer can make bombs.
You also purchased nails --
material for anti-personnel devices.
Who but a terrorist would need
these dangerous supplies?

You have turned off the television
48 times while Our President spoke
words of wisdom and Christian endeavor.
During the State of the Union address
you were observed on your couch
making derogatory faces and obscene
remarks. You have emailed quotes
from our sacred leader miscalling
him Shrub. This is now punishable
by death. You may not criticize
the President nor his lady Laura
nor his omniscient veep
the great grey Cheney of oil
nor the secretary of defense
Our Donald whose brain shines
bright as titanium solid
between his perked up ears
into which every men’s and women’s
room in the country is directly
bugged. You may be detained
on suspicion of being suspicious
You want to protest?
That’s grounds enough.
You are under arrest.
You have no right to remain
silent, to seek counsel
or to defend yourself. Welcome
to the New Inquisition.


Copyright, 2004, Middlemarsh, Inc.
Louder: We Can't Hear You (Yet!)
Publisher: Leapfrog Press
Total playing time 63:24
ISBN 0-9728984-2-5


I first heard "The Day My Mother Died" on Writer's Almanac, read by Garrison Keillor in that wonderful, rich voice of his. The poem struck right at the heart of what happens when we struggle with an unexpected loss. No angels, no glimpse of Death, just an ordinary day gone differently than planned. That is what I like about Marge Piercy, the ability to take events the reader might ignore, and show them to us in a new light.


The day my mother died
by Marge Piercy

I seldom have premonitions of death.
That day opened like any
ordinary can of tomatoes.

The alarm drilled into my ear.
The cats stirred and one leapt off.
The scent of coffee slipped into my head

like a lover into my arms and I sighed,
drew the curtains and examined
the face of the day.

I remember no dreams of loss.
No dark angel rustled ominous wings
or whispered gravely.

I was caught by surprise
like the trout that takes the fly
and I gasped in the fatal air.

You were gone suddenly as a sound
fading in the coil of the ear
no trace, no print, no ash

just the emptiness of stilled air.
My hunger feeds on itself.
My hands are stretched out

to grasp and find only their
own weight bearing them down
toward the dark cold earth.


From Colors Passing Through Us, Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, NY, 2003.
Copyright, Marge Piercy, Middlemarsh, Incorporated, 2003.

Reading World Poets

Lately I've been reading Women Poets: From Antiquity to Now by Aliki Barnstone. It's an interesting collection ranging from a lone Sumerian poet through Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Persian, Indian, African, Chinese, Japanese, European, Native American and even one translated Egyptian Hieroglyph poem.

The time span ranges from about 2300 BC to poets born in the 1950's. The range of voices is fascinating. Although the poets are separated from us by hundreds and sometimes thousands of years, the poems themselves transcend time. They speak of love, hate, relationships with husbands and lovers, children, the pain of growing old, regret and betrayal.

In the introduction the Barnstones speak of the sense of loss in Latin poetry. We know women wrote and painted, but little has come down to us because of the culture of the time. Women's arts were not worth preserving. Contrast this with the reverence Eastern peoples held for their poets, male and female, and a subtle difference is seen in the writing. There is boldness, a straightforwardness to the writings of the Chinese and Japanese women. Their poems are as powerful as those of Basho, Issa, or Buson.

From the Diary of Izumi Shikibu
by Izumi Shikibu


On nights when hail
falls noisily
on bamboo leaves
I completely hate
to sleep alone.


From 18 Verses Sung To A Tatar Reed Whistle
by Ts'ai Yen

II
A Tatar chief forced me to become his wife,
And took me far away to Heaven's edge.
Ten thousand clouds and mountains
Bar my road home,
And whirlwinds of dust and sand
Blow for a thousand miles.
Men here are as savage as giant vipers,
And strut about in armor, snapping their bows.
As I sing the second stanza I almost break the lutestrings.
Will broken, heart broken, I sing to myself.


One of my favorites comes from India, a classical Sanskrit poem that is dated from somewhere between 700 and 1050 AD. It lists no title; the author is identified as Mahodahi.


On the holy day of your going out to war,
the sky is black with dust
which the chisel of your horses' feet
ground from the earth.
The sun's charioteer is lost,
his steeds rock from horizon to horizon,
stumbling off track
and the sun on its longer voyage
is melancholy.


The poet paints a vivid picture of a loved one gone to war, and how the day stretches endlessly as she waits for his return. The sense of pending loss hangs over the poem like a knife. She has little hope that he will return, 'black with dust', 'the sun's charioteer is lost', and 'stumbling off track' all lead us to the inevitable conclusion.

I find inspiration in reading these missives from the past. It translates over into other forms of writing. How does my female character feel as her lover gallops off to save their kingdom from invading forces? I imagine she reels from unsaid emotions much as the woman in Mahodahi's poem does.

I am only halfway through the book, approaching the European, Native American, and African poet sections. It will be interesting to compare and see the experiences of women brought out on the page, past and present. We are not as far removed from our ancestors as we like to think.