I’ve often heard it said that math and art are a lot alike. Never being one who really got into math I have failed to see the similarities, but I ran across this quote from a mathematician. I’m open to the possibilities.
“When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.” ~Carl Friedrich Gauss
I’m thinking he may have been a closet poet.
Courageous public stand by this woman to incredible Sudanese government position concerning women’s dress. Evidently the government realized the public view internationally for flogging this woman would be a harshly judged. Hopefully they will come to realize soon that the international view of the law itself is equally as negative.
I was thinking tonight the way I’ve been zipping through poetry books these past few weeks, (Just finished WILD IRIS by Louise Gluck) one a week for the past four months that I’m going to have to be thinking about what next soon. I’ve actually got the next two weeks covered.
Two books on my list to acquire and read are The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin. and The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton. I’ve already developed a taste for Merwin’s work. Migration is a wonderful collection of work that I often get lost in.
Sexton’s Complete Poems: I’ve often started to purchase but ultimately arrived at the checkout with something else. I’ve decided recently with the help of another poet to make Sexton my dead poet mentor. You ask, “How’s a dead poet going to mentor me?” That’s what her book is for. A source of inspiration. A place to go for ideas. A place to search for answers when I am stumped… WWAD? (What would Annie Do)
I admit the idea seemed a little far fetched to me at first. I mean there were several things that seemed odd. She’s dead for one. She’s female. There are however advantages to selecting her for this role. The difference in gender actually could work as a plus, providing a clue to the female persona for poems. She has a significant collection so there is plenty to learn from. Anne was not timid about subject matter. She wrote quite freely about topics. Something I could learn to do better.
I had actually thought of Sexton as sort of the Patron Saint of those who came to poetry through a less traditional (non-academic) route. Sexton was not a product of academia though she achieved sufficient recognition for her work that she went on to teach at Boston University as well several other Colleges. At any rate, I’ll soon be putting her to work mentoring me from the grave.
“Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.” ~Pablo Neruda
Throughout my adult life if held to the premise that baseball mimics life. Quite frankly I believe baseball is the ultimate metaphor for life, where fairness has little to do with how life is lived.
An example of what I mean is often played out each game on the field. A real dynamo hitter comes to the plate, chooses his pitches carefully, maybe fouls off a pitch or two and the drills one back-back-back to the wall where a fielder leaps, his arm extended high above the wall and robs the hitter of a home run. The next batter, a .223 hitter, struggles to stay ahead in the count until he finally gets a little bit of wood on the bat and it creeps through the infield and finds a hole. We call this a seeing single. It hardly seems fair, but that’s how baseball sometimes is; a mirror of life itself.
Poetry is very much the same. It brings the common to life and makes it interesting. It reminds us of things we almost forgot by triggering a taste, a sound, some feel… texture of something. Poetry can transport us, much the same way a night at the ballpark takes us away from our work, our troubles. Even now as I sit at my laptop, I can smell the fresh cut grass of the field of sunny afternoon game or the smell of hot dogs and cotton candy in the evening breeze at a night game. The sound of the crack of the bat… Sorry, my mind was drifting away.
Above is Fernando Perez, who plays outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays. He has his own perspective on the parallels of baseball and poetry. Perez is one of six Ivy Leaguers in the major league at the start of this season. He also is a serious student of poetry and completed the creative writing program at Columbia University in New York City, where he lives in the offseason. . You can find an essay by Perez that appears in the September issue of Poetry Magazine.
I read an article about a project to translate a number of poems into Arabic as part of a project to widen the Arabic world's access to foreign literature. Over a thousand titles are being translated for the anthology project including many by American poets. I was intrigued by the selection the and thought others might be as well. Check out these selections:
If anything, I am amazed that this project based in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates has a very close parity between men and women selected. Seven women out of fifteen total!
Just a quick note to extend my thanks for those who from time to time stop by here, read and even offer some interaction. Interaction is good. I like to think of blogs at their best when they become interactive.
On the left is the cover of my read for last week. Carolyn Forche’s The Country Between Us. This entire book of poetry is laden with political undertones that are woven through narratives that would not disappoint even the apolitical type. I’m a firm believer that writing good political poetry is at least as difficult are writing love poems that work. Carolyn Forche gets this and rises to the occasion. One of the poems from this collection, Selective Service can be read can be read here.
I love the way Forche uses the image of children on their backs in snow making snow angels and powerfully closes with “We lie down in the fields and leave behind / the corpses of angels.” Go take a look at the whole poem and how it unfolds. Better still, get a copy of this book and read them all!
