James, I will come back, but I have just read this, in the middle of a convoluted phone call to someone I admire immensely but understand little....and the ending just made me go completely blank and forget entirely where we were in the conversation...and tears came into my eyes.

Never before have I been so moved by 'a piece of fish'. Can't see it happening again either.

As I said, this is a totally emotional, instantaneous recation. I'm sure I can say more after thought. But sometimes those moments when things appear 'new and everywhere', need to be acknowledged. This is one for me.

x
tc

I'm there! You've caught the zeitgeist for anyone who cares for and is aware of what's happening to this man-festered planet........nothing to say beyond, bravo. Except perhaps, read the entire text of Obama's 'race' speech - available in printable form on the Guardian website - and you may find a glimmer of hope.

Best,

Mike

Dear James

I read this twice yesterday and again several times today - its tone is interesting??? Calling to the reader to feel, feel, feel these injustices. I have been today given a new book of poetry by Mary Oliver - called Thirst - in which many of her poems are about her trying to love the world around her so quite a contrast here and similarity in the call to:

fill or colour what time is left

Like tc the 'fish' caught my attention and more particularly

the silence of starved children is a dark-age silence,

which I think is a stunning line. Also the ending - hope in the new birth of Spring - apt for this time of year or this day even! Your repetitious use of and is good - maybe you could use it at the same place in each verse - the beginning of the third line for example?

We are all for some - new and everywhere

Enjoyed as ever thanks
Tina

James, I love this; I feel a real affinity with the sentiments. I like the short opening statement and the repeated words, which serve to explain exactly what the writer is about here.

The penultimate stanza is wonderful. I am often amazed what can cause a lump in the throat or a tear in the eye as we go about our 'daily grind, the common task'.

an offer to fill or colour what time is left

is what I shall take with me from now on! Somehow, after the disturbing descriptions of 'such things (which) are in the nature of the world' this is very calming and empowering at the same time.

Excellent.

joanie

I have truely missed reading your work! The little miracles that surround us (nature's blessings) that can help us want to live one more day! Namaste! Divi

In the Obama speech Ti refers to the Senator quotes Faulkner:

The past isn't dead and buried. In fact it isn't even past.

I too feel such an affinity with your thoughts and feelings here. And yet, and yet: I guess this is at the heart of the dispute between and Obama and his pastor Jeremia Wright: Wright is saying America is irreducibly, unchangeably racist which is a pretty odd position for a Christian Minister to take up. Obama is perhaps the first politician since the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King to dare to hope, and in so doing perhaps arouse a little hope in others. To suggest we can act and change things for the better, however slowly. And capitalism loves passivity, even depression, for both feed the demand for its products and false remedies.

I love the poem. I share its feelings. But in the end, beyond the lovely images of the crocus, the Wagner and yes even the fish, I can't help but feel that the most powerfully affecting thing about the poem is the fact that you wrote it;in spite of the feelings within it - for the writing was an act, a choice, in a sense an act of defiance against the very awfulness it depicts.

As ever very satisfying and thought provoking.

Thanks

Zettel

Many thanks for your comments. Mike, and Zettel, I have to say - still in the mood of the poem I suppose - that I hope all this hope invested in Barack Obama won’t seem a mirage in a year or two; that he won’t be scuppered by dirty tricks campaigns, and that if he does get elected he won’t let himself be undermined by powerful ‘interests’. Well, let’s hope...maybe ‘not this time’.

Tina, I’ve usually liked any poems by Mary Oliver that I’ve read.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting...

When we consider the really bad stuff that goes on in the world, it’s easy to say this is naive. But it could also be said that Oliver’s world is how the world should be - that the whole world, including the places where there is hunger or violence, should possess that kind of simplicity and freedom she seems to have found around her New England home.

At the same time, ‘calling to the reader to feel, feel, feel these injustices’ may be a questionable thing to do. Some readers may say they are already painfully enough aware of these things, but find it hard to see the point of ‘socially aware’ poets constantly harping on about it. Poetry never made anything happen. The more movingly or angrily a poet writes about war or famine, the worse it seems in a sense. The writing sharpens the sense of injustice, but doesn’t bring the end of that injustice any nearer.

I’m ambivalent about the way this poem ends. In a way it looks in the same direction as Mary Oliver, towards small sources of joy in one’s surroundings, but in its context it seems inadequate. The man and dog, the crocus etc are very local, things seen from a window. What a terrible world we live in, but ah...there’s a crocus. That’s all right then. It seems a short-sighted vision. Some words I’m glad to have thought of are ‘I am a lucky winner’. Lucky not to look out of my window and see palls of smoke over the town. Lucky to have clean water and electricity 24 hours a day. I feel the poem needs to end in the same world where it began. The ‘Yet...’ should at least be followed by something more global, some affirmation drawn out of the same world that contains Iraq and Darfur. Something that shows the human potential of people who are not lucky.

But Joanie (and Divi) you are very affirmative about the ending as it is, and that’s why I’m still in two minds about drastic changes.

For now, though, I think I’ll get rid of that piece of (dead) fish, which has gone off already.

James.

Hi James,

This is such a difficult subject - and such a huge subject - to take on. I love the third stanza and would really like more of it; that twisting of the past and the future is such a great hook to hang the poem on. I also like the crocus - the new and the new mind. I find myself wishing for greater disorientation in this poem - the hopelessness and the hope. I think you could really let go of form and order to great effect.

Thanks James for taking this on!

<Added>

I like the repetitions and 'I'm tired' ... I think you could get away with more.

Hi Nina - Thank you for commenting - and it's good to hear from you again. Yes, this poem is one that might go through a few mutations before it's finished. I've noted your suggestions about form - using form, or letting form go. I know what you mean and will probably try something like that in due course.

James.

James I am responding to these comments below:

When we consider the really bad stuff that goes on in the world, it’s easy to say this is naive. But it could also be said that Oliver’s world is how the world should be - that the whole world, including the places where there is hunger or violence, should possess that kind of simplicity and freedom she seems to have found around her New England home.

James do you think naive is the word here? Or even that this is simply 'their' world? Do you not think Oliver is affirming her belief that the whole world DOES contain this simplicity but that is is just a trick of persective. About energy /the way we look at things/ acceptance v constant dissatisfaction? Certainly this is the view of a number of US poets - Ted Kooser; Emily Dickinson(who never left here home!); William Stafford (who was a conscientious objector, as I am sure you know, and many others who do what you suggest below: - call to their readers.


At the same time, ‘calling to the reader to feel, feel, feel these injustices’ may be a questionable thing to do. Some readers may say they are already painfully enough aware of these things, but find it hard to see the point of ‘socially aware’ poets constantly harping on about it. Poetry never made anything happen. The more movingly or angrily a poet writes about war or famine, the worse it seems in a sense. The writing sharpens the sense of injustice, but doesn’t bring the end of that injustice any nearer.

No it may not bring the injustice to any end but it is the EXPRESSION that makes the difference - like Otto Dix who painted what he saw as the monstrosity of oppression happening in 30's/40's Berlin. Thoughts expressed/ creativity that finds a voice - does exactly that - find a voice AND that voice is heard. Attachment to outcome so deliberate and extreme is not realistic (end to war)but change in though underpins change in deed - we have to see small changes (very small) as positive and perhaps that is what the MAry Olivers of this world and her Wild Geese have to say.

I’m ambivalent about the way this poem ends. In a way it looks in the same direction as Mary Oliver, towards small sources of joy in one’s surroundings, but in its context it seems inadequate. The man and dog, the crocus etc are very local, things seen from a window. What a terrible world we live in, but ah...there’s a crocus. That’s all right then. It seems a short-sighted vision. Some words I’m glad to have thought of are ‘I am a lucky winner’. Lucky not to look out of my window and see palls of smoke over the town. Lucky to have clean water and electricity 24 hours a day.

AND WE ARE LUCKY beyond words. Context as you say, is important - we can only write what we know - who we are has that at the core - so we should write about our small world - 'our sweaty little ego' as Huxley says because our small world is whato thers in our culture and maybe some outside that can relate to. Without this poetry has no voice - it needs audience and commonality.

I feel the poem needs to end in the same world where it began. The ‘Yet...’ should at least be followed by something more global, some affirmation drawn out of the same world that contains Iraq and Darfur. Something that shows the human potential of people who are not lucky.

I agree that it need to end in the same world and now a small observation - you have written this in teracets but the last verse is a couplet - is it missing a line? About the human spirit? Also I observe how the poem 'fills out' towards the end - V6/7 are 'broader' in appearance and impact - the 'weight' of this poem falls at the end - like a shout - do you want that or more of a whisper??

Hope this helps your thinking
Tina
xx

Tina, thank you for this thoughtful response. No, Mary Oliver (I’m speaking only about those of her poems that I know) is certainly not naive, though I imagine there are some who would say so. Any poet who seeks out what is good - what most of us can agree is good - in the world, isn’t naive but wise. Any writer whose work is devoted to celebrating - helping to define, articulate and share - what is good, is doing something of tremendous value.

But there are those who, through their activities and institutions, prey on what is good in nature and humanity. The whole world does contain this simplicity but there are places where the simple things that feed our human wellbeing are withered - like your plant, ‘inaudibly whimpering’. These spoilers, these doers of harm - and the harm that they do - must be subject matter for writers too. Well, of course they should, and I’m sure you don’t disagree with that.

It’s interesting that you mention Otto Dix, who since I saw an exhibition of his work (along with Grosz and Beckmann) at the Altes Museum in Berlin some years ago, has been one of my favourite painters. I was knocked sideways by his war paintings, which seemed when I first looked at them to make Goya seem tame. I love his portraits too, not least those of children. In the images of trench warfare he calls on viewers of his work to confront this wickedness, look it straight in the eye, let it turn our stomachs. I’m drawn to writers, as well as painters, who do that. Auden comes to mind - ‘All I have is a voice/ To undo the folded lie...the lie of Authority/ Whose buildings grope the sky’.

I think we have to hold the two perspectives in balance, and value both. Not because any of this brings an end to war or injustice, but simply because the poetry enters the bloodstream of humanity.

It’s true that ‘we can only write about what we know’, but in our world more than ever before I think ‘what we know’ is becoming global. The sense in which we know how it is for people in Darfur, or Zimbabwe, or Tibet, is complex, but we do ‘know’ in a way that people in the past didn’t know. You say ‘we should write about our small world’, but maybe the cliche has come into its own - the whole world is a small world.

As for the last five lines, especially the last two, I’ll keep your comment along with the poem. The missing line will arrive sooner or later; I have a feeling it’s one of those lines that have to ‘write themselves’. I think I’m content with the longer lines here, though - I don’t really see them as a ‘shout’, rather as slower-paced reflection in contrast to some earlier lines which are more abrupt.

Again, thank you for all the attention you have paid to this poem. This is what a poetry forum is all about.

James.

Hello James! I've just read through this and must admit to being very taken with it. I haven't read through all the remarks yet, so I presume I've got a lot more to think about, but one thing that struck me on first reading... Wagner? He seems to me to be a fairly loaded fellah to reference. It's likely to be my ignorance that causes me to react so, but he doesn't strike me as a composer very in keeping with the tone of this... didn't he write essays about why he thought the Jews are rubbish and things? I don't mean to be stupid, but I guess I'm curious to know why you name-dropped him in particular. Or I may have missed a nuance in that stanza, and maybe he's entirely appropriate for the point you're making. In which case, I'm an idiot; sorry!

I reckon this is well marvellous tho'.

James

Thanks, James. I'm not at all sure about referring to Wagner (or the piece of fish). Wagner did have anti-Semitic opinions, though I have to say I've never found that in his work. Hitler pretended to love Wagner, but if he had understood the 'Ring' I reckon he would have had the manuscripts burned. The 'Ring' is a pretty relentless illustration of the saying that 'power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Still, out of a whole lot of possible references at this point in the poem, it's probably not the best.

James.