Week 6: SHARE (FORGIVE)

Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522), detail

The Wall
Donald Justice

The wall surrounding them they never saw;
The angels, often. Angels were as common
As birds or butterflies, but looked more human.
As long as the wings were furled, they felt no awe.
Beasts, too, were friendly. They could find no flaw
In all of Eden: this was the first omen.
The second was the dream which woke the woman.
She dreamed she saw the lion sharpen his claw.
As for the fruit, it had no taste at all.
They had been warned of what was bound to happen.
They had been told of something called the world.
They had been told and told about the wall.
They saw it now; the gate was standing open.
As they advanced, the giant wings unfurled.

__________


Note: I came across this poem in a book by Philip Levine ( The Bread of Time). Levine describes a poetry class he took with John Berryman (his most important teacher) in the mid-1950s. Donald Justice, also in the group, wrote the poem as an assignment for the class (!)--he was then in his mid-twenties...

Week 5: ENTER (PRAISE)

Horace Pippin, Holy Mountain, oil on canvas, 1946

New words: ENTER (PRAISE)


Walking on Solano Avenue Saturday evening. The day had been warm--mid-seventies, and people were in a very good mood. Cafes and eateries crowded, lots of people on the street, general good atmosphere. Then, through the front window of The Bone Room (a strange emporium featuring all kinds of physical / biological relics, skulls, teeth, skeletons and the like) I saw an audience gathered on folding chairs. In the back, a youngish man in country clothes bending over and gesturing carefully at a small furry creature on the floor just in front of him. At first I thought it was a rabbit--but the shape, and the attitude (how do we know these things so quickly?) told me no--something more exotic. And when I looked over at a signboard for the event ("sold out," and the door was closed) the animals were said to be from far-off places...

A second man, somewhat older, wearing an Aussie Bush hat (or maybe South African?) with a band of shells and feathers) helped shepherd each new creature around the room--they seemed to be presenting lots of them, one after the next. And at one point, a full-sized African porcupine with flaired tail was scooting about the room, ducking behind folding chairs, sniffing hands...

Week 4: WIDE (REDEEM)

Paulus Potter, Dutch, ca. 1650

This World Awakwens to Silence

                                from the Hebrew


This world awakens to silence
under night's blanket.

From far away I return to myself,
In the dark I look deeply within:
like the night, I, too, am wide,
and like it flow slowly
to infinity.

The pure silence
that likes beneath all life
seeps into me.

I'll rest in this silence,
apart from the labor of my days,
and a blue child will sleep in me,
and a goat with a necklace of stars.

                                                 DAVID VOGEL


Comment: There are so many good starting points in this poem, I'm not at all sure you need my words--WIDE (FIND) but they did follow from each other, so I will keep them fro you. The painting has a very different tone--which is fine, too. 

Students' Online Notebooks

Lauren McQuiston             http://iamherenowiii.blogspot.com/?view=magazine
Kasey Elliott                      VSxK.tumblr.com\
Mike Mendoza                   http://mikomendoza.blogspot.com/?view=classic
Zara Drapkin                      http://zaradrapkinvisualstudies.blogspot.com/
Alisa Boyko                        http://vs280alisaboyko.blogspot.com
Isabella Warren-Mohr          http://warrenmohr280.tumblr.com/
Patrick Webb                       agentlerarefactionii.blogspot.com
 

Week 3: SEE (REVEAL)

Drawing by J.M.W. Turner

The poem is from Su Tung Po,  almost 1000 years ago, in Sung Dynasty China,. The drawing--by Turner--from maybe 1820. Departures, settings out--and all that's seen en route, or better said, just prior to. Where seeing becomes an act towards new beginnings...


'On a Boat, Awake at Night’

Faint wind rustles reeds and cattails;
I open the hatch, expecting rain – moon floods the lake.
Boatmen and water-birds dream the same dream;
A big fish splashes off like a frightened fox.
It’s late – men and creatures forget each other
While my shadow and I amuse ourselves alone.
Dark tides creep over the flats – I pity the cold mud-worms;
The setting moon, caught in a willow, lights a dangling spider.
Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;
How long before you’ve lost it – a scene like this?
Cocks crow, bells ring, a hundred birds scatter;
Drums pound from the bow, shout answers shout.


Line 12. "Drums." Drums were sounded in the bow when the boat was underway.
Selected Poems of Su Tung-p’o, translated by Burton Watson. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 199.