National (Cowboy) Poetry Month

Since this is National Poetry Month and I'm not at USF to clutter people's inboxes with emails for the annual poetry blitz, I thought I would go ahead and include a poem here. One of the first things that Dana did after we brought the kids down was to get a library card and the Independence Public Library. On their first visit, Dana saw a book titled Prairie Poetry: Cowboy Verse of Kansas and checked it out for me to take browse. While some of the poems are stereotypically "cowboy poetry" (i.e., narrative ballads featuring more novelty and/or charm than craft), there were some poems that struck a chord. The poem below, by Tom McBeth, may actually end up working its way into one of the essays I'm working on. It's not a great poem. Many of you may find it a bit pedantic and/or sentimental, but, as one of those "kids" trying to figure out "what to protect," I found the poem resonating with a number of the tensions driving this whole sabbatical thing.


All That's Left

All that’s left is the skeleton windmill;
Its vane is whirling with the changing wind,
Though the waterpump is rusting, silent, still.
All that’s left of self-reliance’s place
Is Grandma’s perennial bed of yellow iris
And the cottonwood shading discarded grace.
All that’s left of the house, barn and shed
Are a few of the hand hewn stones where they sat,
The foundation was strewn as neglect has spread.

All that’s left of then are memories, where
Grandad hung his stained, sweaty working hat
And down to dusk he worked for his welfare.
There was a porcelain pan for the men to wash
Before they ate what Grandma could prepare.
They fed on the worth of giving a good day’s
Work that all their neighbors came to share.
They were the Melting Pot, their families brought
From the Old Country for something that was theirs.

On that first quarter where Grandad was born,
They staked themselves against the prairie’s storms
With anything that sprouted or grew horns.
Now all that’s left of their generation’s need
Is the land where they fulfilled their driven dream,
Where their sweat irrigated freedom’s seed.
So many have forgotten how we came
And the land that gave direction to our way.
So few see that land and freedom are the same.

The homeplace has fallen into neglect,
That taught our folks to do the chores on time
And shut the gates and sweat a wreck’s effect.
Hard times made their families understand
How fiddlers play until the times collect
And there’s a price of freedom on the land.
All that’s left are folks that don’t suspect
How Grandpa’s was the way to harness land
and how our kids must see what to protect.

Pre-Semester Funk

The fall semester gets underway here at USF on Wednesday, and I've suddenly been struck with the pre-semester funk. I've been excitedly working on syllabi and planning out courses. I've been looking ahead at all of the projects and opportunities that the semester holds. And I was (and am, mostly) looking forward to everything. But then....

1) I received an email from John Poch, a treasured friend who was writing to encourage me--to goad me, actually--into applying for a Bush Foundation artist fellowship. I placed an advance order for John's new book and then left the Bush Foundation stuff to check for another day.


2) My wife and I screened Akeelah and the Bee to see if the kids were ready for it. (Not yet.) At the heart of the movie is this quotation by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

3) One of my closest friends emailed an update on his writing project, stating that it wasn't going to be done for this fall (as originally intended), but that he was writing regularly and felt good about the sudden burst of discipline in his life.

4) Following my friend's email, I looked up the guidelines for applying for the Bush Foundation artist fellowships, only to find that I haven't published enough in the last six years to qualify.

Suddenly the semester ahead seems too full. Too encumbered by the duties and obligations (and yes, the joys) of teaching, and serving, and administrating, and ...committee-ing. I'm suddenly in a funk, and these two poems come surging back into my mind. The first by Rilke. The second by James Wright.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We never knew his fantastic head,
where eyes like apples ripened. Yet
his torso, like a lamp, still glows
with his gaze which, although turned down low,

lingers and shines. Else the prow of his breast
couldn't dazzle you, nor in the slight twist
of his loins could a smile run free
through that center which held fertility.

Else this stone would stand defaced and squat
under the shoulders' diaphanous dive
and not glisten like a predator's coat;

and not from every edge explode
like starlight: for there's not one spot
that doesn't see you. You must change your life.

Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

ENG 200: Wilfred Owen

As I was re-reading the poems for class, I found myself thinking about Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" ("It is sweet and fitting"). At the most superficial level, I suppose one could catalog my response to the poem under the category of "the more things change...." One can't help but be struck by the relevance of this poem (written in 1920) within the context of our current role in Iraq and around the world. Given our culture's general lack of an historical mindset, the poem's emphasis one chemical warfare--as opposed to tanks or mortar rounds, or some other more conventional weapon) seems hauntingly prescient. Except, of course, it wasn't. Chemical warfare was a part of WWI just as it is a part of contemporary war.

More specifically, I found myself really admiring the opening spondees in the first two lines. I can't help but read those lines with something of a sneer, in part because of that insistent rhythm at the beginning of those lines.

Also, the following lines were compelling:

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. (13-14)

As I reread the poem, I the words "panes" and "thick green light" for some reason linked in my brain with the media-saturated nature of our current war. In a way, we're all watching kids die through the "misty panes" and "thick green light" of our television sets. Except, of course, that we're not. We're not watching kids die. We see explosions and bombing raids, but we're isolated from the not only the dangers, but also the meaningful perception of those dangers. We don't have to walk along "behind the wagon," and thus we remain--over 80 years later--still willing to tell our kids that "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." For sure, we say so with less enthusiasm than we might in another time, but the message is largely the same.

gad