Poetry Month Day 16, George Croynyn, translator, "Chippewa Nonsense Song of the Game of Silence"

NONSENSE SONG OF THE GAME OF SILENCE

(If you speak or laugh you are defeated)It is hanging
    in the edge of the sunshine
It is a pig I see
    with its double (cloven) hoofs
It is a very fat pig.
The people who live in a hollow tree
    are fighting

They are fighting bloodily
He is rich
He will carry a pack toward the great water.
(The rabbit speaks)
At the end of the point of land
I eat the bark off the tree
I see the track of a lynx
I don't care, I can get away from him
It is a jumping trail
sep!

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I'm utterly exhausted, so I don't feel like tracking down any provenance on this. It's from my lovely wife's trip to the library sale (many many books of poetry!), a collection of American Indian Poetry edited by George Cronyn. I can only imagine that it's a lot funnier in the original, because I find I can read it with a straight face. But, also, perhaps there's something lost when it's on the page.

Ok, I lied. A little research. Frances Dunsmore recorded the poem/song in 1913 for the Bureau of American Ethnography, as told to him by a John Carl, whose mother was Chippewa, and who lived with the Chippewa until he was 10. The poem/song was performed for children, to keep them busy while grownups were doing something else. Prizes were awarded to the children who stayed quiet the best. The joke comes from the 4 distinct images: a fat pig hanging from a tree, a fight between people who live in a hollow tree (probably French people, in their log cabins), a rich man carries a sack, and then the rabbit at the end. There are actions to go with these, which might be grotesque or over stated to get a reaction. The song ends abruptly - sep! - again to provoke a reaction. Who laughed? Who gasped?

Poetry Month, Day 15, Robert Kroetsch, "Meditation on Tom Thomson"

Something Canadian today, I think. I opened my book of Canadian poets at random to Robert Kroetsch - and then flipped around a bit, because Kroetsch specialized in massively long poems that wander all over the place, very psychedelic and thinky. Too much to type out, for damn sure. So, here's a shorter piece. Note the line breaks, reminiscent of old English poetry.

Meditation on Tom Thomson

Tom Thomson I love you    therefore I apologize
for what I must say    but I must say
damn your jack pines    they are beautiful

I love your bent trees   and I love your ice
in spring    candled into its green rot
and I love the way you drowned    all alone

with your canoe   and our not even knowing
the time of day   and the grave mystery
of your genius   interrupted   is our story

and art, man, art   is the essential
luxury   the imperative QUESTION(?)
the re-sounding say    of the night's loon

and holy shit mother   the muskeg snatch
of the old north   the bait that caught
the fishing father   into his own feast

the swimming art-man   who did not drown
in the lake   in his pictures
who drowned   for murder of grief or

the weave of the water   would not hold
the shoulders of the sky   were deep
the maelstrom would not spin   to spit him

free, daddy, FREE FREE FREE   (but I must say
DAMN your jack pines)   for the whorl
of the whirlpool breaks us   one by one

we stretch and tear   the joints
opening like curtains   on a cool
Algonquin morning   onto a red sun

or down onto the black bottom   or far
(the grammar of our days   is ill defined)
or rapt in the root and fire   of that wind

bent forest   (about your pine trees
this evening   one of them moved
across my wall)   daring the light

daring the bright and lover's leap   across
the impassible gap   the uncertain
principle of time and space   straight down

he dove    and he would seize unearthly
shades   and he would seize the drowned land
the pictures from the pool   the pool's picture

and the gods cried   Tom, Tom, you asshole
let go   and you had found their secret
and would not ever   let go   they cry

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Kroetsch actively pursued an effort to unpack poetry, to dismantle it and re-invent both myths and the way that we record them. He was opposed to the simple completeness of lyric poetry, and so his work rambles all over, and refuses to come to a point or a conclusion. It's anti-lyric poetry, but still really strongly structured. It's actually pretty cool, from a poetic point of view.

Tom Thompson was a Canadian painter who influenced the Group of Seven (Canadian painters who painted nature scenes in a distinctive style), but he died before the group was founded. As Kroetsch mentions, Thompson was famous for his paintings of jack pines. He died on a canoe trip in 1917 in Algonquin park, and there is considerable speculation about how he died - murder? accident? suicide? - with no conclusive answers forthcoming or even really possible.

Here is a pair of Thomson jack pine pictures:

Poetry Month, Day 14 (belated), Ogden Nash, "Goody for Our Side and Your Side Too"

Dad-blast-it, I missed a day. Two poems today, I guess. Here's a poem for yesterday, from Ogden Nash. I am a great fan of Ogden Nash; he was witty, but also wise. His most often cited couplets tend to downplay the wise aspects - "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, and sex won't go to your head," for instance - so here's a witty poem that is both wise and apropos:

Goody For Our Side And Your Side Too

Foreigners are people somewhere else,

Natives are people at home;
If the place you’re at
Is your habitat,
You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And tit leads into tat,
So the man who’s at home
When he stays in Rome
Is abroad when he’s where you’re at.

When we leave the limits of the land in which
Our birth certificates sat us,
It does not mean
Just a change of scene,
But also a change of status.
The Frenchman with his fetching beard,
The Scot with his kilt and sporran,
One moment he
May a native be,
And the next may find him foreign.

There’s many a difference quickly found
Between the different races,
But the only essential
Differential
Is living different places.
Yet such is the pride of prideful man,
From Austrians to Australians,
That wherever he is,
He regards as his,
And the natives there, as aliens.

Oh, I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,
The foreigner tells the native,
And we’ll work together for our common ends
Like a preposition and a dative.
If our common ends seem mostly mine,
Why not, you ignorant foreigner?
And the native replies
Contrariwise;
And hence, my dears, the coroner.

So mind your manners when a native, please,
And doubly when you visit
And between us all
A rapport may fall
Ecstatically exquisite.
One simple thought, if you have it pat,
Will eliminate the coroner:
You may be a native in your habitat,
But to foreigners you’re just a foreigner. 

Ogden Nash

Poetry Month, Day 13, Lin-Manuel Miranda, "Sonnet"

My wife's the reason anything gets done
She nudges me towards promise by degrees
She is a perfect symphony of one
Our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us
Until they're finished songs and start to play
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers
We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;
We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa's symphony, Eliza tells her story
Now fill the world with music, love and pride.

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Presented without comment. Well, except for this - the first stanza could just as easily be about my wife (replace "son" with "daughters," naturally).

Poetry Month, Day 12, Richard Henguist Horne, "Pelters of Pyramids"

From Book 5 of the The World's 1000 Best Poems, I have selected this short piece (and it was a rough selection, I can tell you. Book 5 covers the poets from Guest to King, and there are some rather long pieces in there - Homer falls between Guest and King, for instance, as does A.E. Houseman. I was tempted to give you all some Houseman, actually.)

Horne's poem talks about, perhaps, the futility of resisting the passing of time. Or maybe the smallness of small minds. At any rate, sometimes it feels as though we are cursing the ancients and throwing rocks at pyramids, expecting some reaction. Horne says people have felt like that for ages. What art thou more than we, indeed.

Pelters of Pyramids

Richard Henry Horne (1802–84)

A SHOAL of idlers, from a merchant craft Anchor’d off Alexandria, went ashore, And mounting asses in their headlong glee, Round Pompey’s Pillar rode with hoots and taunts, As men oft say, “What art thou more than we?”         5 Next in a boat they floated up the Nile Singing and drinking, swearing senseless oaths, Shouting, and laughing most derisively At all majestic scenes. A bank they reach’d, And clambering up, play’d gambols among tombs;         10 And in portentous ruins (through whose depths, The mighty twilight of departed Gods, Both sun and moon glanced furtive, as in awe) They hid, and whoop’d, and spat on sacred things.     At length, beneath the blazing sun they lounged         15 Near a great Pyramid. Awhile they stood With stupid stare, until resentment grew; In the recoil of meanness from the vast; And gathering stones, they with coarse oaths and jibes (As they would say, “What art thou more than we?”)         20 Pelted the Pyramid! But soon these men, Hot and exhausted, sat them down to drink— Wrangled, smok’d, spat, and laugh’d, and drowsily Curs’d the bald Pyramid, and fell asleep.     Night came:—a little sand went drifting by—         25 And morn again was in the soft blue heavens. The broad slopes of the shining Pyramid Look’d down in their austere simplicity Upon the glistening silence of the sands Whereon no trace of mortal dust was seen.         30

Poetry Month, Day 11, Robert Service, "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

Today, it is quite warm here - although my house is reasonably cool. Still, what better on a hot day than a poem about bone chilling cold? 

Robert Service is the poet of the Yukon Gold Rush, and this is one of his two most famous works - "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" is the other one.

There is a decent chance that you've read this poem in school. It has a complex rhyme scheme which makes it relatively easy to memorize, and a compelling narrative format that makes it easy to analyze. Also, it is amusing, which is key. 

The Cremation of Sam McGee

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

      By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

      That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

      I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. 

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows. 

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; 

Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell." 

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. 

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail. 

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see; 

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. 

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, 

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe, 

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; 

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request." 

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan: 

"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone. 

Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; 

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains." 

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; 

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. 

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; 

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. 

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, 

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given; 

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, 

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains." 

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. 

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. 

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, 

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing. 

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; 

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; 

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; 

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin. 

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; 

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May." 

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; 

Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum." 

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; 

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; 

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see; 

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. 

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so; 

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. 

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why; 

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. 

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; 

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; 

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside. 

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide. 

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; 

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door. 

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm— 

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm." 

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

      By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

      That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

      I cremated Sam McGee.

Poetry Month, Day 10, Psalm 23 (English and Hebrew)

I learned this morning that my grandfather has died. It's sad, because he was my grandfather, and I liked him. At the same time, he was old, and suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's - I'm not really sure, but he was losing his memory, and wasn't able to do the things he loved, like gardening. Also, I haven't seen him in a long time - he lived in England, and so I haven't seen him in almost 20 years. Also too, as a Universalist Christian, I believe he is in Heaven, and I'll see him again at some point in the future. Or I'm wrong about an afterlife, and I won't. Anyway, here's a poem for loss - one of my favorite psalms, in Hebrew and English. I don't read Hebrew, but I find the script delightful. Also, I'm not usually a King James Version person, but this feels right in that translation:

Psalms Chapter 23 תְּהִלִּים

א  מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד:    יְהוָה רֹעִי, לֹא אֶחְסָר.	1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
ב  בִּנְאוֹת דֶּשֶׁא, יַרְבִּיצֵנִי;    עַל-מֵי מְנֻחוֹת יְנַהֲלֵנִי.	2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.
ג  נַפְשִׁי יְשׁוֹבֵב;    יַנְחֵנִי בְמַעְגְּלֵי-צֶדֶק, לְמַעַן שְׁמוֹ.	3 He restoreth my soul; He guideth me in straight paths for His name's sake.
ד  גַּם כִּי-אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת, לֹא-אִירָא רָע--    כִּי-אַתָּה עִמָּדִי; שִׁבְטְךָ וּמִשְׁעַנְתֶּךָ,    הֵמָּה יְנַחֲמֻנִי.	4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; {N} Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
ה  תַּעֲרֹךְ לְפָנַי, שֻׁלְחָן--    נֶגֶד צֹרְרָי; דִּשַּׁנְתָּ בַשֶּׁמֶן רֹאשִׁי,    כּוֹסִי רְוָיָה.	5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; {N} Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
ו  אַךְ, טוֹב וָחֶסֶד יִרְדְּפוּנִי--    כָּל-יְמֵי חַיָּי; וְשַׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית-יְהוָה,    לְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים.	6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; {N} and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. {P}