Month: April 2008

Cummings’ “73 Poems”

I’ve finished 73 Poems, apparently the last book of poems published during Cumming’s life. Though for me few of the poems rise to the level of his greatest poems, I marked 7 of the poems as worth re-reading, not an insubstantial number.

Perhaps not surprisingly, several of the poems deal with the subject of death, quite optimistically, I noted. I’m not sure if this poem makes the best argument for that optimism, but it’s one that I’ve considered as possible from time to time, and it does a good job of tying together major themes in his poetry from his earliest, most famous poems to these last, less famous ones:

44

Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and

what a gently welcoming darkestness–

now i lay me down(in a most steep
more than music)feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are)only loaned:whereas
night is given(night and death and the rain

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring

I can’t help but think that the opening line was meant to reflect the famous childhood prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

which would certainly reflect Cumming’s early upbringing, and, though his religious beliefs become less clear in his later poetry, his enthusiasm for life, especially for Spring, the symbol of rebirth and new beginnings, never waivers.

I’m not sure why but the whole poem reminds me of Walt Whitman’s line in Song of Myself: “All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,/ And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” Certainly the attitude toward death seems equally optimistic.

In the end dreaming of “Spring” brings to mind all of the delightful poems that Cumming’s has written about Spring, and reminds us just how remarkable it is for a modern poet to be so both optimistic and successful.

Spring Cleaning

I’ve finally updated my blog roll, something I’ve rather neglected recently, originally with the intent that since I was planning a rather extensive redesign of my site I would fix the blog roll while doing that.

Unfortunately, the snail’s pace that I’m proceeding through Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS3 suggests it’s going to be quite awhile before I’m ready for a major overhaul of my site. I’m finding the intricacies of CSS rather more difficult than I had imagined.

I’ll also have to admit that I no longer use my blog roll to visit sites since I’ve begun using Netnewswire as my RSS reader. As a result if someone comments on my site I’m likely to just add their site to Netnewswire. Before long, I forget that I haven’t also added them to my blog roll. I also discovered that I sometimes changed addresses in Netnewswire when a site changed to a new address, but failed to do so in my blog roll. I apologize for such oversights.

Generally, it’s my policy to link to sites that link to me, especially if the author actually visits my site occasionally. I don’t list sites I don’t visit, though I’m finding that if a site doesn’t provide an RSS feed I may begin to overlook that site as I rely more and more on my RSS reader. If you link to me and I didn’t add you to my blog roll, please leave a comment or email me and I’ll add your to the list.

Despite the fact that a blog roll is not as important as it used to be, I still think a blog roll is a good idea, as it continues to be a major source of new places to explore, even though personal comments seem to be the best way to attract readers.

Tribute to a Blue Jay

Though I’ve never encountered any of the poems found in 95 Poems, Cumming’s next to last book of poems published in his lifetime, it turns out that two of my favorites have been turned into rather “famous” songs. The first poem begins, “now(more near ourselves than we)/ is a bird singing in a tree” and was probably my favorite selection until I actually heard the song that had been composed upon it. A single hearing was enough to forever banish the poem from my thoughts, though I’m not sure the poor poem is at fault.

Later, after selecting another poem, I found that it, too, had been converted to a song. Playing it safe, I carefully avoided listening to it for fear of the result:

“crazy jay blue)
demon laughshriek
ing at me
your scorn of easily
hatred of timid
& loathing for (dull all
regular righteous
comfortable) unworlds
thief crook cynic
(swimfloatdrifting
fragment of heaven)
trickstervillain
raucous rogue &
vivid Voltaire
you beautiful anarchist
(i salute thee”

Many people I know hate jays almost as much as I love crows. After all, their song – if it could be described as such – is certainly not much to listen to. Worst of all, they prey on other birds, or at least on their chicks.

None of those traits are too admirable, i’ll admit, but there is something in their feisty attitude that appeals to me, the way they refuse to abide by man’s rules. It may have been a sin to kill a mockingbird, but my great uncle was willing to pay us ten cents for every blue jay we shot with our Red Ryder B.B gun in his hazelnut orchard, but I was a terrible shot, especially when my heart wasn’t in the hunt.

I figure that any bird that becomes raucously outraged whenever a human approaches has to be fairly intelligent.

Besides, few birds are more beautiful than a Stellar Jay, rogue or not.

A Short Winter Break

We’ve had some bizarre weather here in the Pacific Northwest, suddenly reverting to winter with snow showers and freezing temperatures. While it’s not unusual to get snow in the Cascades this late, I’ve encountered snow showers in July up there, this is the lasted recorded date for snow here on Puget Sound.

Needless, to say, I haven’t gotten out birding since April 12th, and, unless it warms up considerably, I won’t get out again to Saturday when I volunteered to help the Tacoma Audubon society.

What’s most frustrating, though, is the short sunny breaks between snow showers or rain showers. Heck, we were able to get considerable yard work done yesterday.

When I looked out the front this afternoon, I noticed that the tulips were as brilliant as I’ve ever seen them, sun breaking through the clouds as if to remind us that it is, after all, Spring. However, by the time I get gather my photo equipment together, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds. I figured that if I waited awhile I should still be able to get a good shot, and, sure enough, fifteen minutes later the sun broke through again:

Gold and Red Tulip

I even managed to get a shot of the neighbor’s bleeding heart, a personal favorite:

Bleeding Heart