Number 235: Amrita Pritam "I Will Meet You Yet Again"

Mein tainu pher milan gi (I will meet you yet again)

I will meet you yet again

How and where? I know not.

Perhaps I will become a

figment of your imagination

and maybe, spreading myself

in a mysterious line

on your canvas,

I will keep gazing at you.

Perhaps I will become a ray

of sunshine, to be

embraced by your colours.

I will paint myself on your canvas

I know not how and where –

but I will meet you for sure.

Maybe I will turn into a spring,

and rub the foaming

drops of water on your body,

and rest my coolness on
your burning chest.

I know nothing else
but that this life

will walk along with me.

When the body perishes,

all perishes;

but the threads of memory

are woven with enduring specks.

I will pick these particles,

weave the threads,

and I will meet you yet again.

—-Amrita Pritam
(Translated by Nirupama Dutt)

Hap Notes: Before we you read my comments about this poem, read it once again, aloud, to yourself. Isn't this an enchanting poem? Amrita is a Sanskrit word for immortality. Amrita is one of the names, in Vedic literature, that is used for "soma", the nectar that bestows immortality on the drinker (forbidden to men, used by the gods.) Pritam's father was a poet/writer/editor and when her parents gave her this name one wonders how prescient they might have been. Her work is extraordinary and her reputation has only expanded since her death in 2005. Her story is near legendary in Indian literary circles.

Amrita Pritam (1919-2005) was born Gujranwala, Punjab (now Pakistan). Her father was also a scholar and Sikh preacher. [Hap, what is a Sikh, you may ask? I don't know a prodigious amount about the religion but I know that they believe in the teachings of the "Ten Gurus" and that they believe in the equality of all humans, the idea of the universal brotherhood of man and in one supreme God (Ik Onkar). Punjab is basically the place of origin for the religion.] Pritam's mother died when she was eleven and her poetry often reflects the loneliness of a young woman who needs another woman with whom she could talk (Punjab, and indeed most other cultures, often exclude women as intellects etc. etc.)

Her first volume of poetry was published when she was 16. She started as a romantic poet but became more political and socially conscious as the years went by. When Pakistan was formed as a separate Muslim country, she moved to India (it's very glib of me to say this. The Pakistani-India partitioning was a bloody, scary, difficult thing and was exacerbated by famines and weather tragedies.)

Pritam married a hosiery merchant, Pritam Singh, in 1935. But she left him in 1960 for poet Sahir Ludhianvi and many poems and much of her autobiography speak of her love affair. When the Ludhianvi romance went a bit sour (there was another woman) she found companionship with an artist of some fame, Imroz. (I don't suppose I have to tell you how romantic and courageous a woman had to be in order to be freedom loving, socially responsible and dedicated to the romance of life in this era in India/Pakistan/Punjab do I?)

The last forty years of her life were spent with Imroz who designed the covers of her books, gave her solace. They lived together (never married) with Imroz completely in love with her. She, while still loving Ludhianvi, came to understand a lot through Imroz's devotion and care. Some say she never stopped loving Ludhianvi but I believe today's poem was written for the faithful and true Imroz.

Pritam won dozens of awards for her novels and poems both at home and abroad. She is probably the most famous Sikh/Punjab woman poet.

Here's a quote from Imroz, after her death: "She has not gone, only her body has perished. She will be there in her poems and my paintings."

Here's another quote from Imroz: “We were madly in love with each other. We lived together but had different rooms in the same house. Her kids were mine and we never felt that we should have our own kids."

You can find more Pritam here: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/amrita-pritam

(The pictures on this page feature one of Pritam and one of her with Imroz)

Nubmer 234: Kenneth Rexroth "The Bad Old Days"

The Bad Old Days

The summer of nineteen eighteen
I read The Jungle and The
Research Magnificent. That fall
My father died and my aunt
Took me to Chicago to live.
The first thing I did was to take
A streetcar to the stockyards.
In the winter afternoon,
Gritty and fetid, I walked
Through the filthy snow, through the
Squalid streets, looking shyly
Into the people’s faces,
Those who were home in the daytime.
Debauched and exhausted faces,
Starved and looted brains, faces
Like the faces in the senile
And insane wards of charity
Hospitals. Predatory
Faces of little children.
Then as the soiled twilight darkened,
Under the green gas lamps, and the
Sputtering purple arc lamps,
The faces of the men coming
Home from work, some still alive with
The last pulse of hope or courage,
Some sly and bitter, some smart and
Silly, most of them already
Broken and empty, no life,
Only blinding tiredness, worse
Than any tired animal.
The sour smells of a thousand
Suppers of fried potatoes and
Fried cabbage bled into the street.
I was giddy and sick, and out
Of my misery I felt rising
A terrible anger and out
Of the anger, an absolute vow.
Today the evil is clean
And prosperous, but it is
Everywhere, you don’t have to
Take a streetcar to find it,
And it is the same evil.
And the misery, and the
Anger, and the vow are the same.

-- Kenneth Rexroth

Hap Notes: The evil that Rexroth is talking about in this autobiographical poem is still (as he points out) alive and well and thriving all over the world, however it is particularly disheartening and discouraging that it lives so comfortably in America.

In 1918 Rexroth was a mere 13 years old but do not dismiss his observations completely as that of a disgruntled teenager. For one thing, Rexroth was extraordinarily well read by that time as he had started reading classic literature at a very early age, home-schooled by his mother – he started reading it when he was around the age most of us are going to kindergarten and just beginning to learn our ABCs. Rexroth was the ultimate autodidact and said that he read the encyclopedia from cover to cover each year ( for you youngsters this would be like reading every entry in Wikipedia every year) as if it were a novel (and in so many ways, it IS a novel if you read it correctly with each thing connected to another thing creating a pattern, like stitches in a tapestry, of the world- or at least a certain view of it.) [Side Note: My brother recently tried to sell his leather bound, gold-edged paged Encyclopedia Britannica (1990 edition) and found that the entire set was worth--- ready for this? 35¢ (thirty-five cents. No kidding!]

Chicago was going through a lot in 1918. It was the joyful year of armistice (WWI) as well as the year of several race and employment riots as the misery of workers often reached the breaking point. As Rexroth, placed in a new city after the death of his parents (he had lived in Indiana), observes the working class, he acutely observes the pain of everyday subservient work and subsistence living. (Baseball fan note– it was a year before the "Black Sox Scandal.")

The books he refers to– Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and H.G. Wells' The Research Magnificent– are two amazing pieces of literature which would surely make one see the world differently with Sinclair's scathing indictment of the meat-packing industry (hence Rexroth's seeking out the stockyards in Chicago) and Wells' amusing yet heartrending view of life in The Research Magnificent). If you have not read these classic works they are available free online here:
The Research Magnificent by H.G. Wells : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1138
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/jungle/

One wishes that this poem of despair for the working class, the "common man," the "working poor," was not so piercingly close to the way things are now. One hopes that the same anger and the same vow to end it is still as vivid as Rexroth's. It is only this kind of reaction and empathy that can change things. As Rexroth points out in this poem, even though the evil is "clean and prosperous," it is every bit as insidious and, by the by, becoming less prosperous every day.

Surely, as a nation, we have as much compassion and intelligence as a 13 year-old boy had in 1918? And what does that say if we don't?

Here is where we have talked about Rexroth before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-126-kenneth-rexroth-gic-to-har.html

Number 233 : Kenn Nesbitt "I Bought A Pet Banana"

I Bought a Pet Banana

I bought a pet banana
and I tried to teach him tricks,
but he wasn't any good at
catching balls or fetching sticks.

He could never catch a Frisbee,
and he wouldn't sit or speak,
though we practiced every afternoon
and evening for a week.

He refused to shake or wave or crawl
or beg or take a bow,
and I tried, but couldn't make him bark
or get him to meow.

He was terrible at playing dead.
He couldn't jump a rope.
When he wouldn't do a single trick
I simply gave up hope.

Though I liked my pet banana,
I returned him with regret.
Boy, I sure do hope this watermelon
makes a better pet.

--Kenn Nesbitt

Hap Notes: It's another silly Saturday poem! Although I have to admit that if I was reading it as a kid I would take umbrage with the idea that a pet banana could not play dead (I was one of those kinds of kids- you know, irritatingly curious.)

Ken Nesbitt (born 1962) has written several books of poetry for kids, although, as we always say, children's poetry is not just for children. He has a delightfully witty sense of play and it comes though in his books and website. Some of his books include the hilarious Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney (2006), When the Teacher Isn’t Looking: And Other Funny School Poems (2005), and The Aliens Have Landed at Our School! (2001).

You can find more Nesbitt poems and a whole lot more kid fun here: www.poetry4kids.com/

And our Saturday Cartoons:

First off Parry Gripp's song on being a banana: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPCHS7hxn4Y&feature=related

Remember the incredibly odd and charming Bananas In Pajamas?: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQvFnSIIuHE&feature=related

Sidney the Elephant has a "banana habit": www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxGy_72tDBU

Here's the infamous "Banana Man": www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzR5-_Tg48Y&feature=related

Finally here are the incomparable Dickies doing the Banana Splits theme song. You should really hear their covers of "Knights in White Satin", "The Sounds of Silence" and "Silent Night" too. You'll never be the same: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs1NoBwsurI

Here are the Dickies doing one of their own hit songs, "Rosemary". I've always adored their sense of punk and playfulness (and I avoided some of my favorites like "Stuck In A Condo With Marlon Brando," "Killer Clowns From Outer Space" and the alarmingly funny song about Sammy Davis Junior "Where Did His Eye Go"): www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZhqtINrtWg&feature=related

Finally here's the Banana Rap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDlQm5jFL50

Number 232: John Updike "Bindweed"

Bindweed


Intelligence does help, sometimes;

the bindweed doesn't know

when it begins to climb a wand of grass

that this is no tree and will shortly bend

its flourishing dependent back to earth.

But bindweed has a trick: self-

stiffening, entwining two- or three-ply,

to boost itself up, into the lilac.

Without much forethought it manages

to imitate the lilac leaves and lose

itself to all but the avidest clippers.

To spy it out, to clip near the root

and unwind the climbing tight spiral

with a motion the reverse of its own

feels like treachery--death to a plotter

whose intelligence mirrors ours, twist for twist.

--John Updike

Hap Notes: The bindweed that Updike is talking about is a sister to the Morning Glory (in fact they are one in the same, really) which has a delightful flower and a powerful will to get to the most sunlight it can. The delicate tendrils that wind around and around the fence, a clump of grass, another flower (the Morning Glories used the Zinnias and an old rake I'd left on the side of the house in the last place I lived) or whatever is around it are lovely but determined. It is almost impossible to extricate the various flowering bind weeds without a huge amount of patience and, even then, one risks the killing of the host plant that the bindweed has attached itself to so tightly.

Updike is saying something very interesting about this ability to twine around an object – that it is is a human trait. There is an odd feeling, as one clips the weed, unraveling it from a lilac or a zinnia or a rake, that one is undoing a great deal of patient conscious work on the part of the bindweed. The patience and forbearance it takes to do this mimics the work of the plant and the delicate green vine-y tendrils are so fragile yet so willfully attached.

How can a plant with such delicacy be so determined and difficult and tightly binding? The poet tells us that the "plotter" who can succeed at being this involved and twined and twisted, especially if it is unwanted, seems to have done this with intelligent forethought. How much does that "mirror" our own machinations, do you think?

At this point you know what I think of Updike – a poet disguised as a novelist.

Here's where we have talked about him before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-170-john-updike-perfection.html (which will lead you, winding and twining, to the next one which will lead to the following Updike entries and so on...)

Number 231: Joseph Stanton "Banana Trees"

Banana Trees

They are tall herbs, really, not trees,
though they can shoot up thirty feet
if all goes well for them. Cut in cross

section they look like gigantic onions,
multi-layered mysteries with ghostly hearts.
Their leaves are made to be broken by the wind,

if wind there be, but the crosswise tears
they are built to expect do them no harm.
Around the steady staff of the leafstalk

the broken fronds flap in the breeze
like brief forgotten flags, but these
tattered, green, photosynthetic machines

know how to grasp with their broken fingers
the gold coins of light that give open air
its shine. In hot, dry weather the fingers

fold down to touch on each side--
a kind of prayer to clasp what damp they can
against the too much light.

-- Joseph Stanton

Hap Notes: Joseph Stanton (born 1949) is a poet, writer, historian and baseball fan who reverberates to art and uses words much like explanatory paint (i.e. the strokes explain, not obfuscate, the feelings and the subject – far more difficult than it sounds.)

He is attracted also to mythic and fairytale stories and art. In addition to at least three volumes of poetry, he has also written a scholarly text on the artwork of children's storybooks (and covers artists like Sendak and Van Allsburg among others) and how it appeals to both children and adults. He has also written a book on the career of power slugger and all-around mythic baseball hero Stan Musial. His blend of poetry and artwork has bred several poems inspired by the work of Edward Hopper.

In today's poem Stanton gives us a view of the banana we don't much consider – the plant itself. Since Stanton teaches art history and American studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, he probably sees a few banana trees (which are not really trees, you know. As Stanton points out, bananas are herbaceous). Hawai'i contains a large number of banana varieties. Bananas are extremely complicated plants which flower and develop the fruits.

Stanton describes the plant taking note of the extraordinary leaves which are not injured by the tears of the wind but just give the plant more area for photosynthesis. A bunch of bananas at the grocery store are often called a "hand" and Stanton alludes to the "fingers" of the leaves grabbing the sunlight and folding for water.

Banana leaves, in some cultures, provide shelter or cooking equipment (food is wrapped in the leaves before cooking) or even just serve as an umbrella against the rain. It's a remarkable plant, even inspiring a few poems, as we have seen.

The banana flower (pictured in the masthead) is awe-inspiring, isn't it? The huge flowers and leaves seem to be mythic in their beauty and size. It's amazing how much around us can take on the properties of epic myths with just a closer look, eh?

You can find more Stanton here: www.cortlandreview.com/issue/six/stanton6.htm

and here endicottstudio.typepad.com/jomapoetry/joseph-stanton.html

Number 230: Dorianne Laux "A Short History of the Apple"

A Short History of the Apple

The crunch is the thing, a certain joy in crashing through living tissue, a memory of Neanderthal days. —Edward Bunyard, The Anatomy of Dessert, 1929

Teeth at the skin. Anticipation.
Then flesh. Grain on the tongue.
Eve's knees ground in the dirt
of paradise. Newton watching
gravity happen. The history
of apples in each starry core,
every papery chamber's bright
bitter seed. Woody stem
an infant tree. William Tell
and his lucky arrow. Orchards
of the Fertile Crescent. Bushels.
Fire blight. Scab and powdery mildew.
Cedar apple rust. The apple endures.
Born of the wild rose, of crab ancestors.
The first pip raised in Kazakhstan.
Snow White with poison on her lips.
The buried blades of Halloween.
Budding and grafting. John Chapman
in his tin pot hat. Oh Westward
Expansion. Apple pie. American
as. Hard cider. Winter banana.
Melt-in-the-mouth made sweet
by hives of Britain's honeybees:
white man's flies. O eat. O eat.

-- Dorianne Laux

Hap Notes: Dorianne Laux (born 1952) is giving you an opportunity to expand your imagination as you eat or gaze at an apple in this poem. She gives us a plethora of images associated with the apple starting with Eve, even including Snow White.

It's always mind bending to think of the genealogy of the foods we eat, most particularly common foods like apples, onions (remember the Naomi Shalub Nye poem?: //happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/01/number-36-naomi-shihab-nye-traveling.html), beans, garlic, plums and the like. All of these foods connect us with the past– exotically, practically and imaginatively. Laux gives us a glimpse of this (you can probably think of some connections yourself) with John Chapman ("Johnny Appleseed") and Issac Newton and that semi-fictional tale of William Tell. Her poem is a meditation on the fruit (Winter Banana being a rare and interesting breed of apple) and the parade of mankind that marches within the apple's history.

Laux was born in Augusta, Maine. She worked her way towards college as she did stints as a cook, a gas station manager and a maid among other things, writing on her breaks at work. She took classes at junior college while being a single mother and after moving to Berkeley, CA she started classes with scholarships and grants after her daughter was age 9. Laux graduated from Mills College in 1988 (she was 36 and a single mom- just noting the difficulty and the inspiration here.)

Laux is the author of a half-dozen books, mostly poetry but also wrote and edited The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry with Kim Addonizio (whom we have talked about before here: //happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-112-kim-addonizio-eating.html) Laux's work has won a Pushcart Prize, an Editor's Choice III Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She currently teaches at North Carolina State's MFA program. She is married to poet Joseph Millar.


You can find more Laux here: doriannelaux.com/

You can hear her reading some of her poems here: /writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Laux.php

Number 229: Samuel Taylor Coleridge "This Lime Tree Bower My Prison"

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

Addressed to Charles Lamb, Of the India House, London

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; -- that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven -- and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight; and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Hap Notes: Okay, moving and getting settled (and internet) took longer than I thought. Sorry for the big gap. It just means the blog will have to go until Dec. 18 in order to make it a full year. So I picked a whopper to make up for the missing days.

First of all, don't get daunted by the length of this poem. Read it casually, as if Coleridge is speaking to you. That's pretty much how he intended it to be read, with the natural cadences (iambic pentameter more or less) of speech in blank verse.

The title of the poem suggests Coleridge's theme right away. A lime tree (or Linden) is not really much of a prison, is it? While Coleridge laments his "solitary confinement" he also recognizes that this tree is a mighty pretty prison.

The poem starts off with Coleridge feeling a bit sad and abandoned because he cannot join his friends, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Charles Lamb and Coleridge's wife Sarah Fricker who are taking a walk in the countryside. The walk, Coleridge knew, would be full of splendors and he describes the vistas and haunts beautifully as he is well acquainted with the route. Coleridge sits under a linden tree, writing this poem, thinking about his friends' enjoyment.

The reason Coleridge cannot go is because his wife accidentally spilled boiling hot milk on his foot. Seeing as how earlier in this particular summer she had suffered a miscarriage, the incident seems fraught with metaphor and perhaps maybe even an "accidentally on purpose" kind of thing (they did not get along well at all.) But, at any rate, Coleridge is hobbled and cannot go along.

He is most anxious for his old school-chum, essayist Charles Lamb, to have a lovely time since Lamb's life was more than a bit hobbled in a different way. A gifted student, Lamb had a speech impediment and boys of his social station could only continue in college if they wanted to pursue the ministry (which would have been impossible for him with the stutter he had.) Lamb and Coleridge, by the way, both went to (and met at) Christ's Hospital, the infamously brutal charity boarding school. Lamb had to leave school and he worked as a clerk for the East India Company. (He did this for 25 years while he wrote essays and poetry.)

But wait, there's more! Not only was Lamb hobbled by his not being able to go on in school and having to get a job but, he had family troubles as well. "Troubles" being a pale word for a sister with mental illness (with whom he was quite close) who one day flew off the handle and stabbed and killed their mother with a table knife. (Charles had a bit of trouble, too, with debilitating depressions). So Charles took care of his sister, sending her to mental hospitals when she was too difficult to deal with and taking care and responsibility for her when she was feeling better. It's said she was literate and charming company when she was not completely psycho-goofy. In fact, she and Charles wrote one of my favorite childhood books "Tales From Shakespeare" (Mary wrote summaries of the comedies, Charles did the tragedies.) Charles often wrote under the name "Elia."

So you can see why Coleridge wished for his pal Charles to have a peaceful, beautiful and charming walk to possibly give the fella a bit of comfort.

Now to the poem itself. The first section is Coleridge talking about his sorrow at not being able to go with his pals. He gets a bit dramatic "Friends, whom I nevermore may meet again"– sort of like a puppy who thinks when his owner leaves for work, he will never return. All of them are probably having dinner together that very night so it's just Coleridge's way of saying he feels really abandoned.

In the second section he describes the visual treats that Lamb and his friends will see. Lamb, shut up in a trading house dealing with business is in need of such a treat, Coleridge says, and he deserves a bit of a holiday from heartbreak and city bustling.

In the third section, Coleridge rejoices in his friend's pleasure, partakes in it vicariously and thinks that where ever one is sitting in the grandeur and beauty of nature, it is good. His "prison" is no such thing, but a temple to God and nature. The solitary bumblebee, like the poet, does his work and enjoys the splendors of nature –pleasures which never desert those who are blessed to see them.

The poet sees a black bird (a rook) winging its way home at twilight and blesses it for his friend who may also see it in his walk- a connection of nature between the friends.

You can cull a lot more from this poem about Coleridge's view of God and nature but I'll let you enjoy the walk for yourself.

Here is where we have talked about Coleridge before:

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-123-samuel-taylor-coleridge.html

The masthead is Linden. The picture on this page is Coleridge's friend Charles Lamb.