WHAT NEXT IN THE MUG'S GAME IN THE BUCKET

WHAT  DO I WANT TO DO AS A POET?

I have  quoted TS ELIOT and his labeling of the  poet's life as  A MUG' GAME. Let's look at his words again.

"[Poetry] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves." "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." "As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing. "

These words above were written not by someone who hated poetry  but by one of the greatest of modern poets--T.S.  Eliot

However I  am beginning to see things differently now.  I do see the Mug's Game aspect in the  competitive and collusive world of  Poets, who are  created in MFA programs and then  committed to producing a certain type of fashionable workshop poem. But that has never been my fate--much as I sometimes wished  it were.

I chose  the path of scholar and  poetry was always to me a sort of secret and familiar pleasure associated with my mother and the ways that she  loved to read and write poetry. There  has been an intimacy and consolation for me in poetry since childhood.

WE HAD OUR SACRED RITES OF POETRY 
On weekends after my father had left us and we were a  household of females, on Saturday nights after my sisters were bathed and asleep--finally--and when  Aunt Anna was off at a dance or movie, my mother took out her anthologies of poetry and sitting at the kitchen table we read the poems to each other. 

 My mother would make up poetry games--we would take turns picking a poem that we liked and reading it aloud and then explaining why we  picked the poem.  I often laugh  thinking of  how her little games  shaped me as a future  English professor--what better way?

 My mother loved Yeats and Houseman and  knew many of their poems by heart. And so do I.
Here is one of her favorites  by Yeats ,  
WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Here is one that she often recited aloud   from

THE SHROPSHIRE LAD  by A.E.Houseman

WITH RUE MY HEART IS LADEN

WITH rue my heart is laden

  For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

  And many a lightfoot lad.

 
By brooks too broad for leaping
        5
  The lightfoot boys are laid;

The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

  In fields where roses fade.

CHIME TIME, RHYME TIME IN THE BUCKET

THINKING ABOUT A CHILDREN'S POETRY FESTIVAL

One of the thoughts that have come to me since the Galway Kinnell Poetry Festival is that it would be  great to have more participation of younger people. I think really young--like grade school. One of the things that we do know is that children love chiming words, and they are charmed by nursery rhymes at a very early age. 
Think of calming a baby with a repeated  rhyme and a lullaby. The children of my era  knew many rhymes used in games. "London Bridge is Falling Down" and "Old MacDonald had a Farm" to name just two that we played circle  games to.
Also think of the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes-- they have 362 on the internet  Do you remember singing?

THE BUNCH OF BLUE RIBBONS
Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Johnny’s so long at the fair.

He promised he’d buy me a bunch of blue ribbons,
He promised he’d buy me a bunch of blue ribbons,
He promised he’d buy me a bunch of blue ribbons,
To tie up my bonny brown hair.
So many and kids could chime in and add what ones they know.

Some famous novelists have also written verse collections for  children . For example, from  the Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
One of my favorites is MY SHADOW:

MY SHADOW

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

And many children have been lulled into good moods and sleep with the tale of  "THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT" by Edward Lear.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat: They took some honey, and plenty of money Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, "O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!"	Contemporary Illustrator: Donna L. Derstine

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl, How charmingly sweet you sing! Oh! let us be married; too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?" They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the bong-tree grows; And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood, With a ring at the end of his nose, His nose, His nose, With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will." So they took it away, and were married next day By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand on the edge of the sand They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon.

More recently there was  the Broadway Musical Hit made from poet TS Eliot's Old Possums Book of Cats. Here is my favorite about the MYSTERY CAT

Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw

For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law. 

He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair: 

For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there! 


Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, 

He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. 

His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare, 

And when you reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there! 

You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air —

But I tell you once and once again, 

Macavity’s not there! 


Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin; 

You would know him if you saw him, for

his eyes are sunken in. 

His brow is deeply lined with thought, his

head is highly domed; 


His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed. 

He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake; 

And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake. 


Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, 

For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity. 

You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square —

But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there! 

we could be playing the  score from CATS  to inspire us.  Maybe we could use  face paint to make every child look like a cat and we could have tails they could pin on and encourage  loud and soft MEOWS and some PURRRRRRRRRRRRRing too.

We could include the more recent verses of Shel Silverstein.

Where the Sidewalk Ends There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

Written by Shel Silverstein |

Whatif Last night, while I lay thinking here, some Whatifs crawled inside my ear and pranced and partied all night long and sang their same old Whatif song: Whatif I'm dumb in school? Whatif they've closed the swimming pool? Whatif I get beat up? Whatif there's poison in my cup? Whatif I start to cry? Whatif I get sick and die? Whatif I flunk that test? Whatif green hair grows on my chest? Whatif nobody likes me? Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me? Whatif I don't grow taller? Whatif my head starts getting smaller? Whatif the fish won't bite? Whatif the wind tears up my kite? Whatif they start a war? Whatif my parents get divorced? Whatif the bus is late? Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight? Whatif I tear my pants? Whatif I never learn to dance? Everything seems well, and then the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

THIS IS MY VISION FOR POETRY'S  FUTURE IN THE BUCKET
WHAT IF THE POETRY KINNELL FESTIVAL SPONSORED  A workshop for  kids at the Pawtucket Public Library 
WHAT IF we  found the time to share these poems 
WHATIF we learned what poems they already know by heart and WHATIF We share the fact that they can use these poems and chime rhymes  to comfort themselves, or to remember something,
WHATIF we explained that remembered poems and  rhymes are a kind of mantra against sadness, loneliness and  harm. 
WHATIF WE considered that remembered  verses are a kind of spiritual bank account and can be drawn upon as an inner resource for the inner child and will help us through life.

WHAT IF  we admitted that some poems are spooky and scary and shared those too

THIS IS THE POEM THAT HAS DISTURBED ME THE MOST WHEN  I FIRST READ IT AS A CHILD:

THE LISTENERS

BY WALTER DE LA MARE

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door; 

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor: 

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head: 

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. 

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill 

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still. 

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then 

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men: 

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   

   That goes down to the empty hall, 

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   

   By the lonely Traveller’s call. 

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   

   Their stillness answering his cry, 

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   

   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; 

For he suddenly smote on the door, even   

   Louder, and lifted his head:— 

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   

   That I kept my word,’ he said. 

Never the least stir made the listeners,   

   Though every word he spake 

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   

   From the one man left awake: 

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   

   And the sound of iron on stone, 

And how the silence surged softly backward,   

   When the plunging hoofs were gone.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS POEM MEANS? DOES IT SCARE YOU, TOO?

UNIVERSAL CREATIVITY IN THE BUCKET

"genius is a bird that can alight on any branch" Maxim Gorki

Once again Sonya  from UNCLE VANYA
laments a life of work and weariness and sad routines.  She can only offer to her  disappointed Uncle and her weary self  the consolation of  a life after death that is happy.

SONYA: What can we do? We must live out our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live all through the endless procession of days ahead of us, and through the long evenings. We shall bear patiently the burdens that fate imposes on us. We shall work without rest for others, both now and when we are old. And when our final hour comes, we shall meet it humbly, and there beyond the grave, we shall say that we have known suffering and tears, that our life was bitter. And God will pity us. Ah, then, dear, dear Uncle, we shall enter on a bright and beautiful life. We shall rejoice and look back upon our grief here. A tender smile -- and -- we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see evil and all our pain disappear in the great pity that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and gentle and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [Wiping away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! [Weeping] You have never known what it is to be happy, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall rest.
Read more at http://www.monologuearchive.com/c/chekhov_010.html#MFJTACdy4zR6RKT1.99

This  Chekhov monologue is  for me  one of the most touching moments on stage. Surely there is more to life than this! What about the talents that our DNA or Nature or God (pick one or all) give to each of us. Our talents that are the unique abilities or interests that each of us brings to the Table of Life?

Just as a great Russian dramatic poet sums  up the endless sacrifice of a life devoted to others in drudgery another Russian formulated a theory of Childhood education to  help make the most of the human assets that  each human being has as a birthright and that are given into the care of schools and school teachers to grow and cultivate.
   I  did not discover for years that Russian Psychology --especially  the ideas of Vygotsky about children and education provided insights and  advice  that seemed to me so right and so obvious and yet so ignored in our school system. And I think of the loss to our culture of the creative genius that might come forth if all children were only given a  little encouragement and stimulation and acceptance. 

Read this brief excerpt from Vygotsky and see if you do not agree.

Our everyday understanding of creativity does not fully conform to the scientific understanding of this word. In our everyday understanding, creativity is the realm of a few select individuals, geniuses, talented people. This view is incorrect. Creativity is present whenever a person imagines and creates something new, no matter how small a drop in the bucket this new thing appears. Collective creativity combines all these drops of individual creativity that are insignificant in themselves. This is why an enormous percentage of what has been created by humanity is a product of the anonymous collective creative work of unknown inventors. (pp. 10-11)

Everything the imagination creates is always based on elements taken from reality, from a person’s previous experience. The most fantastic creations are nothing other than a new combination of elements that have ultimately been extracted from reality. (p. 13)

The first law of creativity: The act of imagination depends directly on the richness and variety of a person’s previous experience because this experience provides the material from which the products of creativity are constructed. The richer a person’s experience, the richer is the material his imagination has access to. Great works and discoveries are always the result of an enormous amount of previously accumulated experience. 
The implication of this for education is that, if we want to build a relatively strong foundation for a child’s creativity, what we must do is broaden the experiences we provide him with. (pp. 14-15)

Every inventor, even a genius, is a product of his time and his environment. His creations arise from needs that were created before him. No invention can occur before the material and psychological conditions necessary for it to occur have appeared. Creation is a historical, cumulative process where every succeeding manifestation was determined by the preceding one. (p. 30)

The right kind of education involves awakening in the child what already exists within him, helping him to develop it and directing this development in a particular direction. (p. 51)

In conclusion, I emphasize the importance of cultivating creativity in school. The entire future of humanity will be attained through creativity. Because the main objective of school is to prepare them for the future, the development and practice of creativity should be one of the main goals of education.

Vygotsky
His counsels are so clear and so direct and yet they  have not been implemented in our society.  Educational experts write about them and urge  more creativity but instead we have more tests, more workbooks and more rote learning.
The  product of such education is bored students, and the dulling of intellectual  curiosity, and the discouragement of all and any original  ideas or  methods.
Again recalling the parable  of the Talents in which we  learn that the only bad thing that we can do with our talents is to bury them,

THIS  CRIME IS AT THE HEART NOW OF AMERICAN EDUCATION . WE ARE BURYING  OUR YOUNG ALIVE . THEY WHO CARRY ALL  THE POSSIBILITY OF THE NEW  TALENTS THAT HAVE COME INTO OUR WORLD.

STILL IN THE GAME IN THE BUCKET?

THIS WEEKEND  I PUSHED THE ENVELOPE A BIT

This was the  weekend  of the Galway Kinnell Poetry Festival.  If you read this blog, you have seen my preparation as I looked up poets  and wrote about  those who  displayed my theme: 
POETS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD.

As is often true of me I over-prepared.  But the events  were this Saturday from 2-4 PM  where a small but distinguished group of friends gathered for my Workshop at  the Hampton Inn, and today a poetry reading at Stillwater Bookstore  in downtown Pawtucket from 2-4pm.  I think Yash summed it up well--as we drove away  he said "An unusual  event in Pawtucket and very important to bring people together  to read poetry."  So I  am glad that he  is aware still of such things. 

I am exhausted and a little unsure of how I would describe the experiences. Richard Howard, a great poet and old friend, would say about  times of exhaustion and emptiness that "It is time for the cistern to fill." Nothing to be anxious about.
 He was talking about the deep underground and largely unconscious streams and well springs of  creativity.  And for me that means reading and following  my peculiar interests for a day or so and let the wells of inspiration  get refreshed,
So if I don't post for a day or two,  you will know that I am reading and not writing.  Until the prompts arise again.
I declare a time-out,
I must wait.to get back in the game. 

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!!

'TIL I GAIN CONTROL AGAIN

I must admit that all my life I have felt a strange affinity with Russian writers. I discovered Tolstoy somehow in my 13th summer.
Someone  dared me to read  the entire WAR AND PEACE.  I  guess I was such a braggart about my reading that I brought that kind of challenge out of them.

 But once I got started I could not stop. I had never known the way that  a writer like Tolstoy makes you feel when he brings you into another time and place. I can still recall feeling jolted when I would close the book and was startled to find I was  still in Pawtucket. It would take me a minute or more to adjust to the change of time and place and character.
 I loved Tolstoy so much and went onto Anna Karenina, a novel that  rocked my soul and which  I craved so much that for many years afterwards I read it again every summer. Each time I hoped that the ending would be different. I hated the fact that Anna  jumped in front of that train.
 I went from Tolstoy to Dostoyevsky and  I was amazed by the way he presented debate and argument in a novel. I was completely surprised by the character of Prince Myshkin in THE IDIOT.
Here is a character that is so good and the world does not know what to do with him.  He echoes to me Patrick Pearse's Irish understanding of  both the wickedness of the world and the perfection of Jesus.They become types of Holy Fools like Don Quixote --those who take Christ at his Word.
MOST TAKE HIM WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. Like that rich young man who went away sad when Jesus advised him to see all he had and give to the poor and follow HIM.
Such  spiritual aspirations linked to such a profoundly  negative sense of the wickedness of the world  display the deep current that flows between the Russian and Irish cultures and links their souls.
Even Yeats had to  admit it in his poem  about the Easter Rising:

And what if excess of love   

Bewildered them till they died?   

I write it out in a verse—

MacDonagh and MacBride   

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:   

A terrible beauty is born.

My love for the Russian soul and their shared sense of the terrible beauty that  human sacrifice brings to the world  was sealed when 
I finally met Chekhov--that was in college. 

I still cannot  read or hear the final speech by Sonya without  feeling the devastation. When I saw Uncle Vanya on Broadway with Julie Christie and George C. Scott I could not leave the theater for  a half hour after the final curtain :

SONYA: What can we do? We must live out our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live all through the endless procession of days ahead of us, and through the long evenings. We shall bear patiently the burdens that fate imposes on us. We shall work without rest for others, both now and when we are old. And when our final hour comes, we shall meet it humbly, and there beyond the grave, we shall say that we have known suffering and tears, that our life was bitter. And God will pity us. Ah, then, dear, dear Uncle, we shall enter on a bright and beautiful life. We shall rejoice and look back upon our grief here. A tender smile -- and -- we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see evil and all our pain disappear in the great pity that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and gentle and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [Wiping away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! [Weeping] You have never known what it is to be happy, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall rest.
Read more at http://www.monologuearchive.com/c/chekhov_010.html#MFJTACdy4zR6RKT1.99
  
There is something so contrary about the Russsian soul. Like those that Synge celebrates in his tragedy RIDERS TO THE SEA  It does not deny the reality and it does not hate life--it endures all,

The poet Lermontov captures the impulse in both the Russian and Irish heroes to seek the tempest and to run towards the fight--not away,

A single sail is bleaching brightly
Upon the waves caressing hand,
What seeks it in a stranger country?
Why did it leave its native strand?
When winds pipe high, loud roar the billows
And with a crashing bends the mast,
It does not shun its luckless fortune,
Nor haste to port before the blast.
To-day the sea is clear as azure,
The sun shines gaily, faint the wind--
But it revolting, looks for tempest,
And dreams in storms its peace to find!
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

 I did not forget the great Russian poets like Mayakovsky and  Yevtuschenko. or the brilliant work of Anna Akhmatova. She asks  a question that many of us are asking these days and maybe all older people ask who have felt out of touch with the  new times and generation--

Why Is This Age Worse...?

Why is this age worse than earlier ages?

In a stupor of grief and dread

have we not fingered the foulest wounds

and left them unhealed by our hands?

In the west the falling light still glows,

and the clustered housetops glitter in the sun,

but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses,

and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in.

Translated by Stanley Kunitz (with Max Hayward)

In a  detailed interview  in The Paris Review, Yevtuschenko strikes a similar note and theme:

Alas, I myself belong to a less exalted poetic tradition. My verse is usually dictated by contemporary events, by sudden emotions—but such is the nature of my talent … when I am deeply moved, I am prompted to pour my feelings out at once in verse.” As he spoke, Yevtushenko got up, moved around the room, sat in turn in every one of various overstuffed armchairs, settling eventually on the dark-blue velvet settee, his long legs, crossed, stretched far into the room. But soon he stood up again to recite a poem of his own, one of several dedicated to Mayakovsky:  

What is it destroyed Mayakovsky,

Put a revolver in his hand?

To him with his great voice, his nobility,

If only there had been offered some tenderness.

—Living people are such a nuisance

Tenderness is for those safely dead.

The idea of the "safely dead: certainly haunts the Irish soul as well. I see a strange  and deep connection . So many  people in Irish and Russian history that are vilified when they are  alive and causing controversy are deeply revered and celebrated when they are "safely dead."

CASE IN POINT-------BOBBY SANDS, MP.