Number 110: Sylvia Plath "Mad Girl's Love Song"

Mad Girl's Love Song
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

--Sylvia Plath

Hap Notes: It's very hard to talk about Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) without getting a little angry for a variety of reasons. Her suicide has been the cause of much speculation and has been used by some writers in the women's movement as a banner for the frustrations of creative women. Her husband, the poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998), was very publicly accused of abuse and neglect, her doctor has been accused of neglect for prescribing anti-depressants (which often do just the reverse in depressed patients), and you can still find people who, upon reading The Bell Jar (Plath's semi-autobiographical novel), suddenly feel that they, too, are exactly like Plath. All of this is balderdash and snail spittle. There may be elements of truth in all these statements but depression is like diabetes-the person who has it has to control it by themselves.

There is a certain glamor attached to attractive, sensitive, depressed, suicidal young women in our culture and, quite frankly, it's repulsive. Speaking as a woman who has had brushes with far far too deep bouts of depression and a couple of breakdowns I can categorically state that depression will soak up all the love you can give to a depressed person and it will never be enough because the person whose love they desperately need is their own.

Plath suffered her first breakdown when she was 22. Remember that in the days that Plath was treated there was a thought that after a depressed patient got "better," they were cured. The variety of depression Plath had (most likely genetic and recurring) is the kind that takes the patient's constant care-taking vigilance to head off and avoid. I do not believe she was given the skills or the therapy to do this. She was given electro-convulsive therapy (shock treatment in the popular vernacular) and released as "recovered."

Of course, poets are supposed to be depressed aren't they? So it's part and parcel with the "job" right? Well, no, although there are studies that show (Goodwin, Jamison) that depressives and manic-depressives have a brain chemistry that gives them a different and often, creative, perspective on the world. You can't blame Hughes for Plath's depression or suicide any more than you can blame (tempting though it may be) Courtney Love for Kurt Cobain's. Depression is a poorly understood chemical imbalance in the brain. Suicide often seems to be the answer to be let out of the suffering of depression. When the world seems to be drained of any possibility of happiness (or even just everyday "normalcy") suicide appears to be the way to make this horrible helpless, hopelessness go away.

This is diagonally off topic but if you are intensely depressed by the world in general you have good reasons for this. There's a lot wrong with the world. However, there are things that make life precious and juicy and delicious and if you cannot see this, you need to get help and I'll warn you that not everybody who helps you will be right for you and you cannot give up because there are things that require your attention in the world. Your sensitivity is important to balance out the hatred and prejudice in the world- you have to battle on to counteract this. Each person on the earth is needed for something- if you haven't found what it is yet, keep on trying. You come equipped with powerful stuff to maintain happiness- you just haven't figured out how to use it. Don't give up. Just sayin'. Get some help but don't expect that a pill will solve your depression- you need to actively monitor your own treatment. Yeah, it's a pain in the patoot but the results are true happiness. No kidding. True happiness is in you, waiting for you to find it. Of course it's hard work. Most things are but it gets easier and easier every day. I kid you not. Do not give up.

Okay, back to Plath. She was a gifted student in high school and college. She was friends in college with Anne Sexton (who had her own depressions) and she studied under Robert Lowell (this is beginning to sound like a blue print for depression, huh?) Her fame rests on two fairly decent books of poetry and a book of fiction. She speaks to a lot of people who are dealing with the early growing pains that one feels in their 20s; her voice resonates with them because of her fierce brilliance with the words that describe her feelings. She can be comforting to those who feel alone with these thoughts.

I think in our poem today (yes, it's a villanelle) Plath is talking about life, in general, as a lover. The thunderbird is a Native American legend of a huge bird who creates the thunder and moves the clouds with its giant wings. There are legends that talk of thunderbirds mating with humans (they are shape shifters). I have heard it said that this poem is about Ted Hughes but since Plath wrote this poem in 1951 and met Hughes in 1954 this is impossible. She may be speaking to another man but I think it's more likely that she is speaking to life, here. Everything in the poem is either dark or leaving her- even God and Satan. There is no hope in the poem that when spring returns she'll feel the thunder of life. With her eyes closed, the world is black, when she opens them, things are worse. There are strong hints of suicide in the poem, yes?

Here's a good Plath quote:

"I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited."

and another: "I have never found anybody who could stand to accept the daily demonstrative love I feel in me, and give back as good as I give."

and another: "God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering."

You can find more Plath here: famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sylvia_plath

Number 109: Edwin Arlington Robinson "The House on the Hill"

The House on the Hill

They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill.
They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray
Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,

And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

---Edwin Arlington Robinson

Hap Notes: As you can see, I am determined to show you the power and variety of the villanelle. The Robinson poem illustrates its deceptively simple form- it's almost nursery-rhyme like and yet, the form, if you've tried it, has constraints. Robinson is one step away from writing a simple little poem, here. But it's loaded with extras.

"Our poor fancy play" could easily be construed as children playing around the house. But look at that wording- remind you of anything? How about a Shakespeare passage we've spoken of earlier? i.e. "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/And then is heard no more." This oft-quoted passage from Macbeth was well known to Robinson who studied Shakespeare assiduously at Harvard during his short time there.

The poem asks us why we search for things or people that we know to be gone. What are we looking for? Have you ever gone to an abandoned house and peered in the windows, wanting to see the inside? Unless we are in the market for real estate, why do we do that? What are we looking for? It's a good question when you think on it- tells us much about ourselves and others.

In addition to what we've already said about Robinson here: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/01/number-47-edwin-arlington-robinson.html let me add a couple of things.

First off, his name was acquired in an unusual manner. His mom wanted a girl and Baby Robinson was un-named for six months. Robinson's parents were at a holiday resort and the other vacationers urged them to name the child. They put a bunch of names on slips of paper in a hat and a man from Arlington, MA was selected to draw out the paper. Hence, Edwin Arlington.

Robinson spent 24 summers of his life from 1911-1935 at the MacDowell artist colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Robinson went reluctantly the first time to the artist sanctuary made by composer Edward McDowell and his wife Marian at their farm as a place for artists to work and socialize with other creative folks. Robinson was so skeptical of the arrangement that he arrived at the colony with a fake telegram in his pocket so if he didn't like it he could scram out in a hurry. In addition to Robinson, the colony has been a refuge for many others including Willa Cather, painter Milton Avery, Leonard Bernstein (he wrote "Mass" there), Aaron Copeland (He wrote "Billy the Kid" there) and Thornton Wilder (Peterborough served as the model for Grover's Corners in Wilder's Our Town.) The colony still continues today.

Number 108: Dylan Thomas "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-- Dylan Thomas

Hap Notes: This is probably the most famous villanelle of all time. Dylan Thomas ( 1914-1953) is said to have written the poem to his dying father but don't get too hung up on that since it's said in most of his biographies that his father never saw the poem. Thomas is writing it for everyone, not just his dad.

Every time I read the remarkable lyricism of Thomas I'm reminded of what Bernard Shaw's Henry Higgins says about Alfred Dolittle (Eliza's father) after hearing him speak: " ...this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild...That's the Welsh strain in him." There's something about growing up in Wales that makes the voice and words love each other (Just a cursory glance at a list of Welsh actors yields up Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, John Rhys Davies, Emlyn Williams, and Monty Python's Terry Jones- all remarkable voices). Hence, nobody reads Thomas as well as Thomas. Here he is reading this poem:www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i12PSzFu5E&feature=related

Thomas' father taught English literature in at a grammar school in Swansea. Mr. Thomas brought Dylan up to speak English even though both he and his wife spoke Welsh and he often gave lessons in it. Thomas had troubles as a boy with asthma and bronchitis and he read a lot on his own when he was sick at home. He often claimed that nursery rhymes were one of his greatest influences. There's no doubt he was a prodigy with verse and wise beyond his years. He published his first book of verse when he was 20. He couldn't have been more than 21 or so when he wrote "And Death Shall Have No Dominion," which would be an extraordinary poem coming out of a 50 year old.

Thomas was a sensation in America when he came across the pond to read his work. He has a reputation for being a heavy drinker and I've no doubts he was but he died of pneumonia and bronchitis and his liver, in spite of his drinking was still healthy. His lungs had been easily infected since he was a child. When he died was he was only 39, a year after he'd written the poem.

The poem is Thomas expressing that one should live life to the fullest and fight to the last. "Forked no lightning" is usually understood to mean that the wise men made no earth changing comments, forked lightning is when one lightning bolt hits another and it "forks" its path. In other words, it strikes in two places at once in a blaze of light.

When he says "who see with blinding sight/ Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay," he's more or less saying that blind men can see (have insight) and be bright and enlightening.

Notice his contrasts between darkness and light. Some have expressed the idea that Thomas is saying there is no afterlife, others the opposite. What do you think?

Here's a good Thomas quote: "These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."

and: "Somebody's boring me. I think it's me."

and:

"A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him."

You can find more Thomas here: www.poemhunter.com/dylan-thomas/

Number 107: Theodore Roethke "The Waking"

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

-- Theodore Roethke

Hap Notes: This villanelle by Roethke is at the core of what good poetry is all about. He takes a concept personal to himself and gives it to you to make your own. The specific phrases with "I" and "me" as you read them, are about YOU in addition to Roethke. The moment you read the poem aloud, you own it- it's about you. What a magical gift from him for contemplation on a Sunday, eh? We've already mentioned Roethke, if you'd like to refresh your memory go here: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/01/number-44-theodore-roethke-bat.html

First of all let's talk a little about the form of the poem because I most decidedly think you should write one yourself. It's a fascinating exercise that will show you how each sentence in a poem can have a different impact depending on its place in the poem. The villanelle counts on this. I'll try to sum up the form easily.

The villanelle has six stanzas- the first five have three lines, the last one has four. The first line and the last line of the first stanza (in "The Waking it's "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow." and "I learn by going where I have to go.") are repeated throughout the poem. The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas. The last line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas. They meet as the last two lines of the sixth stanza. I have color-coded Roethke's poem for your ease in writing your own. I highly recommend it. I'd love to see how yours turns out- post it if you dare or just send it to me at Hapmansfield@hotmail if you're wary. I'll post mine when I finish it. I have no fear of looking stupid since I believe that's already been established.

Copy the rhyming pattern of Roethke's poem, which, for those of you who'd rather see it traditionally written is A(1) b A (2)/ abA(1)/abA(2)/ abA(1)/abA(2)/ abA(1)A(2).

Now to Roethke's magic. He could not have picked a better form for the myriad interpretations that grow out of this poem. The cadences of the villanelle are hypnotic, almost like sleep-walking or like a mantra of some kind aren't they? And he's saying something about life and death here- about consciousness and unconsciousness. The poem is all about the mysteries of being alive.

Roethke is saying something about becoming one with the natural universe, as if we are plants or trees with ambulatory motion. I think the worm climbing the winding stair is taken directly from a poem by Emerson (I'm wingin' it here so if you are writing a term paper take caution). Here's the Emerson poem I'm referring to:

Nature

A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose;
And, striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you see the connection? I've never heard it said that Roethke is using this image from Emerson and he may have gotten the image from Blake, whom he greatly admired. Here's the Blake passage he may have been thinking of:

" ...Every thing that lives

Lives not alone nor for itself. Fear not, and I will call

The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice,

Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen."

The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lily's leaf,

And the bright Cloud sail'd on, to find his partner in the vale.

Then Thel astonish'd view'd the Worm upon its dewy bed.

"Art thou a Worm? Image of weakness, art thou but a Worm?

I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lily's leaf

Ah! weep not, little voice, thou canst not speak, but thou canst weep.

Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless and naked, weeping,

And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother's smiles."

The Clod of Clay heard the Worm's voice and rais'd her pitying head:

She bow'd over the weeping infant, and her life exhal'd

In milky fondness: then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes.

'O beauty of the vales of Har! we live not for ourselves."

-- William Blake ( from Thel)

I think the phrase "we live not for ourselves" has a certain context in Roethke's poem; we are going toward something bigger, more mysterious, more extraordinary. We are going to dissolve in "Great Nature", there's a transcendence happening there of some kind.

And now I leave you with Roethke's poem because it's yours. It will mean something to you, now beyond all this and I want you to have it and cherish it, ponder it or if you like, dismiss it. (Maybe it means nothing to you now- maybe it will hit you when you see the morning sunlight hit the leaves of a tree. Maybe the poem won't mean anything to you until you take your last breath. Maybe not ever. But I think you'll figure out something. I believe in you.)

Number 106: Wendy Cope "Proverbial Ballade"

Proverbial Ballade

Fine words won't turn the icing pink;
A wild rose has no employees;
Who boils his socks will make them shrink;
Who catches cold is sure to sneeze.
Who has two legs must wash his knees;
Who breaks the egg will find the yolk;
Who locks his door will need his keys—
So say I and so say the folk.

You can't shave with a tiddlywinks,
Nor make red wine from garden peas,
Nor show a blindworm how to blink,
Nor teach an old raccoon Chinese.
The juiciest orange feels the squeeze;
Who spends his portion will be broke;
Who has no milk can make no cheese—
So say I and so say the folk.

He makes no blot who has no ink,
Nor gathers honey who keeps no bees.
The ship that does not float will sink;
Who'd travel far must cross the seas.
Lone wolves are seldom seen in threes;
A conker ne'er becomes an oak;
Rome wasn't built by chimpanzees—
So say I and so say the folk.

Envoi

Dear friends! If adages like these
Should seem banal, or just a joke,
Remember fish don't grow on trees—
So say I and so say the folk.

-- Wendy Cope

Hap Notes: Thought we'd wrap up this week of ballads/ballades with this pithy selection. In 1986 Wendy Cope (born 1945) wrote a book of poems called Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis and I just fell in love with her poetry and her wry humor. She's amusing but she's so much more than that. The gravest things are said in jest and all that but even more to the point she knows the forms of poetry and how to use them. If you laugh at some of her lines just remember to keep reading closely- she gets into your head by amusing you.

Cope was born in Erith, Kent, went to St. Hilda's College, Oxford and taught elementary school before becoming a full-time free lance writer. She's witty and fun to read. She's not Elizabeth Bishop (who is, though? Bishop is remarkable) but she's very good. Guess who she get compared to often in the U.K. (Ten points if you said Philip Larkin. Sheesh! When will they stop with the Larkin stuff?)

Sometimes she's like a cheery Dorothy Parker:

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.

-- Wendy Cope

Sometimes she's hinting at something sad and desperate in this Villanelle-like poem:

Lonely Hearts

Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Male biker seeks female for touring fun.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Gay vegetarian whose friends are few,
I'm into music, Shakespeare and the sun,
Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Executive in search of something new -
Perhaps bisexual woman, arty, young.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Successful, straight and solvent? I am too -
Attractive Jewish lady with a son.
Can someone make my simple wish come true?

I'm Libran, inexperienced and blue -
Need slim non-smoker, under twenty-one.
Do you live in North London? Is it you?

Please write (with photo) to Box 152.
Who knows where it may lead once we've begun?
Can someone make my simple wish come true?
Do you live in North London? Is it you?

-- Wendy Cope

She hates that her work is online but frankly, I'm not crazy about the fact that Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" gets used, along with Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and Aaron Copeland to sell cars and beef. If you want to make a steady living from poetry you're going to have to work in a book bindery. I do urge you, when you like a poet, to buy their books, though.


You can hear her read her work here: www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=5677

Here is a selection of her bitingly funny "love" poems: www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1022230/Love--Poems-straight-heart-Wendy-Cope.html


Here's a good Cope quote: "I don't set out to write humorous poems it's just sometimes my sense of humour gets into them - well quite often. As a reader I suppose I laugh when I recognise something - I think laughter often is when you recognise something is true but you'd never actually allowed yourself to think that or you'd never heard it put quite so well. I think it's possible for a poem to be funny and serious at the same time and I get very annoyed with the assumption that if a poem is funny then it can't be saying anything important and deeply felt."

Number 105: Dorothy Parker "Ballade Of A Great Weariness"

Ballade Of A Great Weariness

There's little to have but the things I had,
There's little to bear but the things I bore.
There's nothing to carry and naught to add,
And glory to Heaven, I paid the score.

There's little to do but I did before,
There's little to learn but the things I know;
And this is the sum of a lasting lore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

And couldn't it be I was young and mad
If ever my heart on my sleeve I wore?
There's many to claw at a heart unclad,
And little the wonder it ripped and tore.
There's one that'll join in their push and roar,
With stories to jabber, and stones to throw;
He'll fetch you a lesson that costs you sore:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

So little I'll offer to you, my lad;
It's little in loving I set my store.
There's many a maid would be flushed and glad,
And better you'll knock at a kindlier door.
I'll dig at my lettuce, and sweep my floor,
Forever, forever I'm done with woe.
And happen I'll whistle about my chore,
"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."


L'ENVOI

Oh, beggar or prince, no more, no more!
Be off and away with your strut and show.
The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe!

-- Dorothy Parker

Hap Notes: Oh, Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) is so well known for cracking wise or being sophisticatedly sad and alcoholic that we forget what she really needed was a mom. Her own mother died when she was five, she had a step-mother (she didn't care for much) and she died when Parker was nine.

Her dad had some money and Dorothy's schooling came from private catholic schools (even though her mom was protestant and her dad was Jewish) and her formal education stopped when she was in junior high. She had some private tutors and was very well-read. While she is often spoken of as being Jewish this is not technically true, your mother must be Jewish, the honor is passed on maternally. I do not believe she practiced any particular religion- she, however, was involved in various and sundry liberal causes. She had heart.

Parker is part and parcel with the famous Algonquin Round Table, that lunching set of clever writers which included Robert Benchley, F.P. Adams, Alexander Wolcott and Robert E. Sherwood. Big names all but as you may note, known more for their cleverness than their mighty prowess with a pen. They all had cunning and delightful pens, but they were more about charm than craft.

Parker (and I'm pretty sure all of them, really) knew this. They were the bench team who wrote for newspapers and magazines with their witty bon mots and acid inks. For example, in 1925, while they were writing reviews and columns for the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, books published included Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos, Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson, The Trial by Franz Kafka, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis and In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway. (See what I mean- the "round table" was the "B" team. Just two years later Hesse had Steppenwolf , Proust was finishing up Remembrance of Things Past and Heidegger published Being and Time.)

I point this out because Parker had the chops, really, to be serious. Note how she understands the Ballade form and fills it with so much depth in spite of its light tone. Parker and Villon are cautionary tales of hanging out with your fun (and troubling) pals too much- you'll either end up in jail or as a fashionable cocktail garnish.

Parker wrote for the movies in Hollywood, too, and is credited on A Star Is Born, Hitchcock's Saboteur, The Little Foxes, and a good dozen other films.

I believe she was so busy trying to replace her mom and dad (whom she said was abusive) with a partner and friendships, that her art was used to beguile. She spent her writing time mostly expressing her identity for some love. We all give it to her now, of course, but she's dead so it cannot propel her to much greatness. She was in need of a huge amount of love. That's the only thing that can help cast off a bristling defensive persona.

If all this makes it sound like I do not like Parker you are so wrong. I love her work and wish she had been free of her hangups (which she writes about cleverly) to write things that are not such crumbling odes to her era. She had a natural gift which she used to get by. I want to push her to do more. I think she's got it in her.

She started the Screen Writer's Guild with Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. She left her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. These are not the actions of a cocktail garnish, a writer of clever repartee.

Here's a cheery story to relieve the tedium of my heartbreak at her stalled career. Once she was in need of money and the film star John Gilbert sent her $2,000. Later, when Gilbert's career was failing and he was in trouble he needed the money and asked her if she could possibly pay some of it back. She sent him a check for the full amount. He sent her a dozen roses with a note: "Thank you, Miss Finland" (the only country that paid its war debt to the US.)

Parker is the very very best at interpreting her own work. Go here: dorothyparker.com/dotaudio.htm listen to the aged Parker read her own work aloud and you'll see what I mean. Her short pithy poems take on new dignity with her phrasing.

Parker, of course, is full of clever quotes: "I'd like to have money. And I'd like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that's too adorable, I'd rather have money."

And:
"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

And: “A ‘smartcracker’ they called me, and that makes me sick and unhappy. There’s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. I didn’t mind so much when they were good, but for a long time anything that was called a crack was attributed to me.”

You can find more Parker here: www.poemhunter.com/dorothy-parker/poems/

Number 104: Francois Villon "Ballade"

Ballade

I know flies in milk
I know the man by his clothes
I know fair weather from foul
I know the apple by the tree
I know the tree when I see the sap
I know when all is one
I know who labors and who loafs
I know everything but myself.

I know the coat by the collar
I know the monk by the cowl
I know the master by the servant
I know the nun by the veil
I know when a hustler rattles on
I know fools raised on whipped cream
I know the wine by the barrel
I know everything but myself.

I know the horse and the mule
I know their loads and their limits
I know Beatrice and Belle
I know the beads that count and add
I know nightmare and sleep
I know the Bohemians' error
I know the power of Rome
I know everything but myself.

Prince I know all things
I know the rosy-cheeked and the pale
I know death who devours all
I know everything but myself.

--François Villon

Translated by Galway Kinnell


Hap Notes: I once knew a guy whose band (of sorts) was called Illya Kuryakin. This is back in the 90s and has nothing to do with the rap group in Argentina and yeah, the band name was in tribute to the David McCallum character in the television series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Anyway, he was a scholar of Medieval French and he once read me some Francois Villon (1432-1463?) over the phone, with his translation. I knew who Villon was but frankly, I didn't understand the draw. That is, until he read the poem to me. He had a depth of understanding of the work that came through in his reading and I understood the fevered, slangy, sensitive, somewhat misunderstood, wild creature that Villon was. (Some people remember guy's names- I just remember the poetry they introduced to me- I apologize for this but one has to have some priorities.) The band, by the way, was good- pity I don't know where he headed with his music- he was gifted.

Anyhow, this Ballade (which is the French form of the ballad- something the French practically invented as a form) is an easy read and Villon's repetition makes his final statement in each stanza more and more heartbreaking and brilliant, I think. It's no wonder Villon knew everything but himself- he had a crazy patchwork of a life and then, poof! (or in French pouf!) he disappears. Born into poverty, he was guided by an uncle and attended the University of Paris where he received both a bachelors and masters degree (what the French in the 1400s called them- don't know how equivalent they are to ours.) He ran around with a wild crowd and at one time was attacked by a priest (!), knives were drawn, and he inadvertently killed the priest when defending himself. So he flees the city (he had to do this a lot.) He's exonerated for the murder as defensible homicide.

Back he comes to Paris and he gets into another brawl in which he is beaten so severely, he flees in shame. It is during this time he writes his "little testament" in verses.

Back he comes to Paris and he and his merry band of bad companions steal some money from a college- the Collège de Navarre. One of his companions is arrested a year later and he rats on Villon. Again he flees. He's sentenced to banishment from Paris.

He gets into some trouble again and ends up in jail, gets released, gets into trouble again and this time is sentenced to be hanged. He writes his most famous work his big "testament" in which he allots his belongings (mostly imagined and often sarcastic in nature) to various people in verse form. He seems doomed and somehow makes bail and gets out.

Lessons learned? Uh. No. He gets into a street fight, gets arrested and again he lands in jail where is sentenced to be hanged (he writes the amazing Ballade of the Hanged Man) and the sentence gets commuted to banishment. It is said that he then moves to Italy where he settles down with a wife and kids... I don't think this seems very much in character but I'm not a 14th century scholar so I'm forced to take their word for it. He was 34. His poetry had a certain popularity at the time.

Villon's work is raw, riveting, occasionally wise, very earthy, amusing and above all, compelling. There is the shadow of the noose, doom, lost love and hunger around this fella all the time. It makes for extraordinary reading- this voice echoing down through the centuries explaining his life, his loves, his troubles. His work was not particularly popular in his lifetime but it had a resurgence in popularity 200 years later in the 1600s. (That's a lot of time to get a grasp on, isn't it?)

Translation is everything and I favor the Galway Kinnell translations. Ezra Pound also translated his work. The poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti also translated his work and coined in translation the famous "where are the snows of yesteryear" - a phrase you may see used or hear even today.

The black and white drawing at the top is the picture always used for Villon but I've always seen him as the "Hanged Man" in the tarot deck.

You can find more Villon here: famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/francois_villon