Number 69: Robert Frost "Come In"

Come In

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.

--Robert Frost

Hap Notes: This is the second of the bird poems this week to highlight the Great Backyard Birdcount in which I encourage you to participate: www.birdsource.org/gbbc/. You can help for 15 minutes or 4 days- it's up to you.

I love Frost's twist on the term "sleight of hand" to "sleight of wing." It's true that at some point it is too dark in the deep woods for a bird to adjust itself on an unfamiliar branch. Birds generally sing at sunrise and sunset, although ornithologists make a distinction between "calls" and "songs." Song is generally for mating and calls are for communication. In the poem, the birds are calling out to each other just before bedtime, maybe telling each other where they are.

Frankly, to me, most of it sounds like singing. And while science says there are specific reasons for bird sounds, I think it's presumptuous to say that this is all there is to bird song. I think birds sing, at the very least, for all the all the various reasons people sing and talk and probably have reasons we don't understand, too. Frost's take on the thrush is that it has a mournful, melancholy sound. Want to hear for yourself? Visit here--
Sound of a Wood Thrush: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Thrush/sounds.
Sounds almost flute-like doesn't it? Not bad for a dinosaur, eh? Imagine what this would sound like with more than one thrush singing.

When I was in school our choir sang the Randall Thompson music for this poem. We didn't sound nearly this good, but here's how the song goes- it's quite beautiful: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysXiejsNbY&feature=related.Hard to forget a poem once you sing it. Note how the flute isn't nearly as beautiful as the thrush- it can't be- the thrush's equipment is a lot more complex. The symphony with song really adds to the drama of the Thompson song.

Of course there's a dark side to this poem but I'll let you figure it out this time. A few questions: Is the bird's song somewhat tempting? And it tempts him to go into the darkness? Is the poet fighting depression or some sadness? Just think on it and remember what it feels like in the woods at twilight- there's a loveliness but also maybe some sorrow- about what? The end of the day? The end of something? What does "out for stars" mean to you?

Here's our first Frost poem with more info: http://happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-7-robert-frost-design_14.html

Number 68: Sir Walter Scott "O, Say Not, My Love..."

Song

Oh, say not, my love, with that mortified air,
That your spring-time of pleasure is flown,
Nor bid me to maids that are younger repair,
For those raptures that still are thine own.

Though April his temples may wreathe with the vine,
Its tendrils in infancy curl'd,
'Tis the ardor of August matures us the wine,
Whose life-blood enlivens the world.

Though thy form, that was fashioned as light as a fay's,
Has assumed a proportion more round,
And thy glance, that was bright as a falcon's at gaze,
Looks soberly now on the ground,--

Enough, after absence to meet me again,
Thy steps still with ecstasy move;
Enough, that those dear sober glances retain
For me the kind language of love.

-- Sir Walter Scott

Hap Notes: You may think you know nothing of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) but you are probably wrong. Ever heard the expression "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" ? That's Scott (from "Marmion"). Do you think of Scotsman as wearing specialized tartan plaids and kilts? Scott popularized this idea as a Scottish identity. All the popularized myths of the wild Scottish highlands are mostly the work of Scott. Ever heard the verses "Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!"? That's also Scott from his poem 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel." You always knew him, you just didn't know it was him.

The top pictures with Scott are from the "Authors" card game- did you ever play that when you were a kid? It was my favorite game and I made a point, as I grew up, to read each work (I'm a dork- you don't have to tell me, I know.)

In our Valentine's Day poem, Scott is telling his beloved that age has not affected her charm with him and that she's more lovely now than ever. When he uses the word "repair" here, he doesn't mean "fix" he means "go to." A "fay" is a Middle English term for fairy or sprite. In the second stanza he's talking about a grape vine- you probably see this already- and saying that age makes a grape/wine more tasty and that this aging process "enlivens" the world with deep maturity.

Scott is famous for writing novels like Ivanhoe (its popularity made a sympathetic case for the emancipation of English Jews -- one of the heroines of the book is Jewish), Waverley and The Bride of Lammermoor (on which Donizetti's opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" is based.) The word "Waverly" has taken on the idea of quality, hence the popular cracker: Waverley Wafers. Many suburbs, housing additions and train stations are also named "Waverly" in the hopes of retaining some dignified "English" class.

Scott , chronologically speaking, was first a translator, then a poet, then a novelist. As a translator he worked on Goethe and Burger. His poems include the famous "Lady of the Lake" and "Rokeby" and "The Lord of the Isles" and dozens and dozens more.

Born in Scotland, when Scott was two years old he contracted polio which left him quite lame. He was sent to the country to live with an aunt, was sent to the "baths" for water cures and, by gosh, by the time he was 7 he was able to walk. He was in "college" (the Brits have an education system I don't quite understand) by the time he was 12 (which was a year or two early) and he apprenticed with his father (a lawyer), studied law and became a lawyer in Edinburgh.

There's a great story about him; Robert Burns was a very famous poet and was invited to many homes and distinguished gatherings. At one such gathering, Burns was a bit ill at ease and walked around the room, looking at the pictures on the host's walls. One picture had a caption of verse that brought Burns to tears and he asked the august gathering if they knew who had written it. None of the authors and scientists knew. The host's son had some younger friends over and one of them (a "pale boy with a limp") piped up and told Burns the author and the title of the poem. Burns, impressed, beamed at the boy "You'll be a man, yet, sir." The boy was Scott.

Here's another good story about Scott: The poet had a severe stroke in 1830 and he was deeply in debt (he was working day and night to pay it off when he had the stroke). He was taken to Naples, Italy to revive his health. Scott went with his doctor and a couple of friends to the great museum there. Scott was weak as a baby, could barely walk and could not retain information- he sort of wandered around the relics aimlessly. Now, there just happened to be a large bunch of students and Italian writers at the museum that day examining an old manuscript and they found out that the "Wizard of the North," as Scott was often called, was there. They sent word they'd like to meet him but Scott declined- he knew no Italian and wasn't feeling very well. Then, about a half an hour later, his memory unclear, he asked who wanted to see him and when he was told he said, sure- he'd go see them. He mounted a staircase and entered the room and when he got to the door, cheers welcomed him, the students rushed up to the door, forming two lines, many of them on their knees to touch the genius that had given them such delight in reading. They touched his hands and kissed him and hugged him and kept thanking him in Italian. Of course, soon he was weary of the talk (most of which he could not understand) and made to leave, and the students again crowded around him, thanking him, holding him up, helping him to walk in his slow tottering steps, kissing his hands with tears and thanked him again and again. Scott's friends said it was the most moving thing they'd ever seen. (His debts by the way, were finally paid, through his work and, after his death, through the sale of his books.)

Now I'll admit right now that Sir Walter Scott's somewhat lacy poetry isn't for everybody (Mark Twain despised it.) It's sometimes clumsily rhymed and he's often been criticized for being slap-dash with both his poetry and his novels. He was a very busy guy, though, and he had a burn in him to tell stories. His poetry, if read by some great dramatic voice; Richard Burton or Lawrence Olivier or Alan Rickman or Amitabh Bachchan (my favorite, as everyone knows); would amaze you with it's charming powers of storytelling. His poetry needs a good voice reciting it sometimes to carry it.

He's another poet to curl up with on a cold winter's night with a cup of cocoa and read aloud. I love all that romantic Lochinvar stuff in "Marmion."

Here's a good Scott quote (there are skillions of them): "A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity."

Here's another: "Death - the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening"

And another: "Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary."

You can find more Scott here: famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sir_walter_scott/poems

Number 67: Gerard Manley Hopkins "The Windhover"

The Windhover

To Christ Our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hap Notes: If you are unfamiliar with this extraordinary poem (written in 1877!) don't panic at the rush of words- let's just take it one phrase at a time, slowly- it's so worth it.

The Windhover (another word for kestrel/falcon-pictured above)

I caught this morning

morning's minion (morning's highly favored servant)

king/dom of daylight's dauphin (the son/prince of the kingdom of daylight)

dapple-dawn-drawn falcon (dapple is spotted- so the dawn and the falcon have mottled color)

in his riding/ of the rolling level underneath him steady air (the bird is riding the thermal currents in the air)

and striding /high there, how he rung upon the reign of a wimpling wing (he flew in circles with a side slip, using his wings to curve and glide from one level to another)

in his ecstasy! then off, off forth on a swing/As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow bend: (He's talking about a skate- the large ray under the sea, and the bow bend- is the shape of a bow (as in bow and arrow) the curve of it)

the hurl and gliding/Rebuffed the big wind. ( the bird's flying ability is such that it can reject the force of the wind-- it refuses the influence of the wind)

My heart in hiding ( Well, there's a lot going on here- first off, the heart is always in hiding inside the body, secondly Hopkins is perhaps talking about his heart hiding from a full commitment to God (he's writing this poem just before he's ordained as a priest) and also his decision to be a priest will hide him, his talents (he was a talented artist and writer.) And really, everyone's heart is in hiding, isn't it?)

Stirred for a bird- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing. (Always good to remember that the Holy Spirit is often depicted as a bird, in addition to the actual bird's breath-taking flying abilities.)

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh air, pride, plume here/Buckle! (Another phrase with a lot going on. The bird tucks his wings and seems to be falling or changing direction. Remember that this poem is dedicated to Jesus so parallels to the life of Christ abound in this poem. The poet's pride must also buckle, give out, be humbled as Christ was.)

And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion/ Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my Chevalier. ( I believe now the poet is addressing Jesus and saying that his sacrifice, his daily life, was more lovely and dangerous than this incredible falcon's daily performance. A chevalier is a knight- so it's one that must go into battle. Nature's awesome beauty is a daily thing and Christ's daily life was a billion times lovelier. Why? That's coming up...)

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plow down sillion/ shine (sillion is a strip of land usually worked by a tenant farmer. The plow, by going through the earth on it's daily plodding job, shines from the friction of the dirt. I have to admit, I always thought he meant the earth itself had a shine from the plow's daily upturning of minerals. I think both are correct interpretations. So the poet is saying common daily hard work makes the plow/earth shine.)

and blue bleak embers, ah my dear,/ Fall gall themselves and gash gold vermillion. ( A dark ember, when it falls, often reveals a core of heat and fire still within it. Bleak, apparently dead coals, may still be alive with fire. See the Christ reference in this?)

There. That wasn't so hard, huh? What Hopkins is saying, then, in a nutshell, is that the flight of this bird reminded him of the glory of God's earth, the life of Christ, the Holy Spirit and his own thoughts of ordination. That dedicating yourself to the daily work of God may be plodding, humbling work but is no more so than Jesus' own example. And that there is a glorious aspect to it.

There's more in the poem, but you can read it and get your own interpretation. I've always felt there was a joyous ecstasy of the discovery of the beauty of everyday life in the poem. That the regular plodding world is actually full of the beautiful mysteries of nature and God.

It's the startling way Hopkins uses words and sounds that make this poem so effective. He packs so much into this sonnet. And dig the way he uses the rhyme in such a way that you barely notice it except it scans so gorgeously with the sounds. There is nobody like Hopkins when it comes to the sheer force and color of words. Each verse is packed with phonemic surprises, stops and starts.

This is the start of a week of birds in poetry (except for tomorrow when I have an interesting Valentine's Day poem for us) because Feb. 18 is the start of the four-day Great Backyard Bird Count (sponsored by Audubon and the Columbia Lab of Ornithology) and I hope you will participate. You don't have to do it for all four days, you can do it for one day or one time on one day. You only need to watch birds for 15 minutes and write your count. This citizen-scientist count is so important- it gives so much information on the environment and how healthy it is or isn't. It tracks birds to see where they are as opposed to where they were years ago. It helps protect the species of many endangered birds.

Go here for more information: www.birdsource.org/gbbc/

Number 66: Jorge Carrera Andrade: "Life Of The Cupboard"

Life of the Cupboard

The cupboard grows old, gnawed by moths,
In the lukewarm sisterhood of friendly furniture.
She is dulled by time and now and then creaks
As if about to die. If the children are noisy
At their round games, the poor thing suffers like a grandmother
Who wants to doze alone in her tepid silence.
She has forgotten the odor of ripe fruit
And of that grapejuice every Sunday
And, little old thing that she is, remembers something
Only when the house canary grows lyrical.
Little thieves in search of apples
On summer nights have damaged her doors
And now the poor cupboard is empty...
But when the lamp opens its yellow eye
She stops being motionless and mute as if perhaps
She remembers in ecstasy the image of two children,
My cousin and I absorbed in a picture book,
Seated at the tall old pine table,
Or that sunrise in which her soul
Took flight to the star upon which lost lovers gaze.

--Jorge Carrera Andrade (trans. by H.R. Hays)

Hap Notes: In the current pantheon of Latin American poets (Borges, Neruda, Paz, Vallejo) Jorge Carrera Andrade ( 1902-1978) is often ignored and that's a shame because he writes with a descriptive vision unlike anyone else. Who else would describe grasshoppers as "on crutches" or chimneys as commas or say "the velvet theatre of night"? Almost every poem he writes holds a verbal treat, a strange summing up, a singular vision.

The poem is taken from his book Wreath of Silence (La Guirnalda del Silencio). First off, younger readers may not know what a cupboard is, or rather, think of cupboards as a built in feature of a kitchen so I've added a picture to illustrate. I don't know that this is what the cupboard was like, it could have been shorter or more decorated, but cupboards were not included as "built-ins" in many homes before the 1930s. My grandparent's kitchen had two cupboards, one short for pans with a shelves over it for storage and one much like the picture. So many extraordinary visions in the poem; now what do you think a wooden cupboard would remember when she hears a bird sing?

The children in the poem are probably the second or third generation of kids who have played around her. She has seen this family grow up and looks more enlivened by the "yellow eye" of the lamp remembering her younger more functional days, seeing the poet and his cousin reading a picture book when they were children. Of course the cupboard would be a woman- nuturing, and part of a "sisterhood" but her life has become tepid/luke warm- not full of the fire of sunrise anymore when she was useful each day.

Carrera's poetry was more famous in the U.S. in the 40s when the first book of his poetry was published in English. He was lauded by Archibald MacLeish, Carl Sandburg and William Carlos Williams. He had a lot of diplomatic posts in Ecuador (France, Nicaragua, Belgium, the U.K.) and was once Secretary of State. After he retired from politics in Ecuador he taught at the State College of New York (SUNY) at Stonybrook for two years before retiring in Quito (he was born there) where he was director of the National Library.

Some things that a foreign poet writes will have depths we cannot see, even if we know the language. (How many times I have struggled over those "eye apples" in Rilke's "Archaic Torso" I cannot even say- it just confounds me.) Some of the delight of Carrera's work I'm positive I'm missing because I'm so truly enchanted by the translations already- if that makes any sense at all.

The amazing part of Carrera is that each poem holds some wonderful nugget, even in translation, that transcends the natural barriers of two languages meeting. To many, Ecuador is considered the "center" of the vibrations of the "earth mother." Maybe that has something to do with it. His poetry talks of fire, ice, sugar, fruits, stars, insects, birds, horses and trees. His love of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador is epic. His talents are, at any rate, revelatory.

His book Reflections on Spanish-American Poetry is an enormously helpful read for understanding Latin poetry.

Here's a good Andrade quote: "I am not exactly sure what success means. If it has to do with the sale in bookstores of a large quantity of copies, I must confess that none of my works are in that category."

And another: "Regarding the global meaning of my poetic work, it gives me pleasure to quote Goethe's phrase: " all my works are fragments of a long confession." My poetry as a whole is also a confession, though on a lesser scale. It is a confession of love for the marvel of the world and-- supreme, incorrigible candor-- a confession of a feeling of universal brotherhood."

You can find more Andrade here: www.thedrunkenboat.com/andrade.htm

Number 65: Simon Armitage "I Say I Say I Say"

I Say I Say I Say

Anyone here had a go at themselves
for a laugh? Anyone opened their wrists
with a blade in the bath? Those in the dark
at the back, listen hard. Those at the front
in the know, those of us who have, hands up,
let's show that inch of lacerated skin
between the forearm and the fist. Let's tell it
like it is: strong drink, a crimson tidemark
round the tub, a yard of lint, white towels
washed a dozen times, still pink. Tough luck.
A passion then for watches, bangles, cuffs.
A likely story: you were lashed by brambles
picking berries from the woods. Come clean, come good,
repeat with me the punch line 'Just like blood'
when those at the back rush forward to say
how a little love goes a long long long way.

--Simon Armitage

Hap Notes: First off, before you read another word, go back up and read this as if it were a British music hall comedian telling you a joke- with a laugh track at the end of the first half dozen lines. "I say, I say, I say" is a joke opening, much like "A man walked into a bar" or "Have you heard the one about?" Armitage (born 1963) is setting the poem up, in the first few lines, as a grim joke told on stage. The poem wouldn't have half its poignant impact without its "comic" exterior of the stand-up gig.

Armitage is a relatively young guy to have his poems be part of the GCSE curriculum in English Literature (the British equivalent of a high school diploma.) Of course, there's the endless favorable comparisons to Philip Larkin- the poet England drags out for every contemporary comparison. I like Larkin very much, I just don't like how critics make every contemporary British poet measure up to his standard- I frankly think, when it comes to English poets, that is setting the bar a bit low. The Armitage GCSE poems are from Book of Matches in which there are 30 sonnets which one can read in the time it takes to burn a match. Poets have to be clever these days.

Armitage is clever and funny and heart-rending. He's won scads of prizes including the Whitbread Poetry Award (three times!), National Book Critics' Circle Award and the T.S. Eliot prize, among many others. He is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and is well loved at poetry festivals and the like. He's also worked in film, radio and television and he has written essays, fiction and screenplays.

Armitage's vernacular is generally young, hip and streetwise with a bit of a gritty streak. He likes to spin you a tale, often a grim one, with a smiling death-mask layered on the trembling facade. Some of Armitage's slang is lost on Americans who don't know the words or attitudes of Northern England, but the vernacular is so well-placed, one can often imagine what's being said. A close reading of Armitage does well with Google by your side to flip in a few phrases, though. His autobiographical poems are like little slices of a soundbite of his life. In one poem about his youth, you can hear the voice of his father berating him for an earring he clumsily punches in his ear. His bits of dialog in poems are brilliant.

As Armitage sees age, his poems get deeper and darker. His first book of poetry was published when he was 23, his last book, published in 2010, counts him as 47, so it's not a wonder his style changes a bit, although always with that laughing death's head somewhere in the work. Near to my heart is his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, always a favorite of mine and it needed a good brushing up from all the Middle-English translations which made it sound so clunky and the story is so vivid and exciting. Armitage gives the poem its color back.

I don't suppose the poem needs much explication. The "people in the dark," is both literal and figurative in regards to suicide. The idea of taking "strong drink" before the attempt, sitting in a bathtub of warm water (so the blood will run out faster), the failed attempt leaving permanently stained towels, tub line and scars. The mark between the forearm and the "fist"- not hand, "fist." Would a little love go "a long long way" or is that something people in the "dark" think?

We'll see him again this year.

Here's a good Armitage quote: "But it’s kind of unkillable, poetry. It’s our most ancient artform and I think it’s more relevant today than ever, because it’s one person saying what they really believe."

You can find more Armitage here: www.poemhunter.com/simon-armitage/

Number 64: Thomas Lux "The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball"

The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball

each day mowed
and mowed his lawn, his dry quarter acre,
the machine slicing a wisp
from each blade's tip. Dust storms rose
around the roar: 6:00 P.M., every day,
spring, summer, fall. If he could mow
the snow he would.
On one side, his neighbors the cows
turned their backs to him
and did what they do to the grass.
Where he worked, I don't know
but it sets his jaw to: tight.
His wife a cipher, shoebox tissue,
a shattered apron. As if
into her head he drove a wedge of shale.
Years later his daughter goes to jail.

Mow, mow, mow his lawn
gently down a decade's summers.
On his other side lived mine and me,
across a narrow pasture, often fallow;
a field of fly balls, the best part of childhood
and baseball, but one could not cross his line
and if it did,
as one did in 1956
and another in 1958,
it came back coleslaw -- his lawn mower
ate it up, happy
to cut something, no matter
what the manual said
about foreign objects,
stones, or sticks.

--Thomas Lux

Hap Notes: Thomas Lux (born 1946) is a "superstar" of the poetry reading, garnering audiences that reach beyond the college set. His poetry appeals to a variety of ages which, I think, is due to his natural style of writing, although "natural style" is kind of a misnomer because it is a difficult thing to accomplish and still make poetry. Lux works hard to make each word count and seem neither too casual nor too contrived.

If I have a soft spot, it is for poets who like and understand baseball, a game I've always thought had a lot of poetry in it (yeah, I know- it's one of those things that has to remain unspoken to most baseball fans because talking about the poetry of the game causes it to evaporate) Lux once said that if he was offered the chance to be a successful poet for 50 years or play center field for the Boston Red Sox for a year, he'd have to think about it. (Center field is a good position for a poet actually- you can see the whole game from a different perspective than the guys around the diamond and you can go in all directions- towards it or back or a little to the left or the right- a game balancer, really)

Lux grew up in a rural environment on a dairy farm in Massachusetts. Neither of his parents graduated from high school and the only poetry they ever knew, like so many people, was their everyday lives. And, also like most people, they aren't really aware that it IS poetry. This kind of upbringing assures a solitary life if one loves to read. Stuff brews in you as you grow up. Virgil grew up on sheep farm, you know.

Lux interprets the poetry of everyday life, turning it back into a poem with words. He's very good at this when he succeeds, which is quite often. We know the people in this poem, or think we do, anyway. A man driven to even make the grass conform to his standards will surely have a child who will land in jail someday. A woman whose life is a wisp of paper, a head full of fine-grained, easily broken flakes of mud and minerals. (Of course I'm always thinking what did the shoes look like? What was the apron like? Who is she? She probably doesn't even know anymore.) A job that sets his jaw to- tight. Nice prosody.

So many pictures do the telling in the poem: the baseball returned as "coleslaw", the dust that the mower is kicking up because there's no blade of grass worth the cutting, the "mow mow mow his lawn gently down a decades summers" replicating the old "Row row row your boat" song of childhood. That song is a round, remember- you just keep repeating it over and over. The cows just do what cows do naturally to the grass- they turn their backs on the mowers frenzy.

Does the man purposely, angrily run over the baseball? Does he just run over it because he's thinking of other pressures? How does the ball get returned? Is it characteristic of a man so rigid to run over a baseball, something that is decidedly not something a mower should go over? Is there a tight violence in the poem so that the idea of children playing baseball is a relief and a worry? This poem is finely woven work- as well wound as a baseball.

Lux graduated from Emerson College and he's taught writing at several colleges while maintaining "poet in residence" positions at Sarah Lawrence and others. He's the Bourne professor of poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology, so he's a Ramblin' Wreck now. Coming from an engineer father as I do, I cannot imagine any place that is more thirsty for someone like Thomas Lux than Georgia Tech. We need more poet-engineers and engineer-poets, I think.

Lux is the author of at least 11 books of poetry, one is slated to come out this year along with a non-fiction book. He received the Kingsley Tufts prize and numerous Guggenheim, NEA and Mellon Foundation grants.

Here's a good Lux quote: "Writing is 80% reading so I read a great deal. I tend to work on poems in batches (that way if I get stuck on one I move on to the next). I do most of my writing over the summers and during breaks from teaching. I write doggedly, 15-20 drafts. I’m not prolific but I’m pretty steady: each slim volume takes about four years to write."

and another: "Every poet you love, and even some you hate, influence your work."

one more: "There’s plenty of room for strangeness, mystery, originality, wildness, etc. in poems that also invite the reader into the human and alive center about which the poem circles."

You can find more Lux here: www.poemhunter.com/thomas-lux/

Number 63: James Henry Leigh Hunt "Abou Ben Adhem"

Abou Ben Adhem

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

--James Henry Leigh Hunt

Hap Notes: Here's our poet Leigh Hunt's (1784-1859) most anthologized poem. There really was an Abou Ben Adhem, a Sufi mystic and Muslim saint who was a king who gave up his throne (such as it was- more of a title than anything else or as we say in Texas, it was "all hat and no cattle") to lead the life of an ascetic. His full name was Sultan Abrahim Bin Adham, Bin Mansur al-Balkhi al-Ijli, Abu Ishaq (Saint Abraham, son of Adham- yes- I had to look that up.) The Sufi poet Rumi wrote about him, also.

Hunt was writing about "The Night of Records," an Islamic belief that on the 15th night, in the month of Sha'ban, Allah takes his golden book and crosses off the names of those he will call to him in the coming year and those whom he loves. Islam uses a lunar calendar so the time year of Sha'ban shifts constantly-if you are wondering when the book will be opened this year it will be July 17. Sha'ban is July 2-July 31 this year. (2011 is 1432 A.H.- the Muslim calendar starts from the year Mohammad moved from Mecca to Medina.)

Hunt was practically always in dire financial straits. The largesse of Shelley saved him from ruin several times and after Shelley died (1822) he was somewhat dependent on Lord Byron (who was known to be a bit stingy with his pals) since Hunt, Shelley and Byron were in the process of starting a magazine before Shelley died. Hunt wrote some pretty sharp criticism on Byron later on which many feel was because of Byron's penny pinching. (It is pretty well known that Dickens based the character Horace Skimpole in Bleak House on Hunt. It's a good book and apparently a very good picture of Hunt although he wasn't nearly as much of a weasel as Skimpole is. Skimpole is characterized as a leech on his friend's finances.)

Hunt labored on in poverty, writing and editing, and Shelley saved him again (even though he was dead!) when Mary Shelley inherited the Shelley estates. She gave Hunt an annuity which certainly helped him. Hunt had introduced Shelley to Keats and while the two are always thought of together, they were more professional acquaintances than deep friends. Shelley admired Keats and was a little envious- and protective!-of his natural genius.

Hunt's poetry is very charming to read. It won't burn in your memory for a deft turn of phrase and it's just a bit deeper than a pond. You probably won't get that "ocean" experience from his work but, then, he had to write for a living and that slows a writer down. It may sound odd to say this but when one works as a writer, one does not work solely on projects that are near to the heart- sometimes it's about what will sell. An excellent professional writer said to me that you write "one for yourself and one for the paycheck" when you work as a writer. Hunt's financial difficulties were such that he had to write more than one for the paycheck before he could write for himself. He loved poetry and wrote it from an early age. You mightn't get the resounding soul vibrations of a good poem from his work but neither will you sneer at its dull wittedness.

I'm very fond of Hunt. He's a good read with a cup of cocoa on a winter's night. His story poems are a joy to read. What he lacks in depth, he makes up for with charm. Which, now that I think on it, may have been his trouble. He is too easily charming, he needed more rigor in his writing habits. He could have been, with a little help, a great poet. I think Shelley was hoping to do this. Who knows what could have happened had Shelley lived longer?

Here's a good Hunt quote: “If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating.”

and another: “It is books that teach us to refine our pleasures when young, and to recall them with satisfaction when we are old.”


You can find more Hunt here: poemhunter.com/james-henry-leigh-hunt/poems/