Monthly Archives: December 2012

I carry your heart with me – E.E.Cummings

30 Sunday Dec 2012

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I carry your heart with me

I carry your heart with me

Edward Estlin Cummings , born in October 14, 1894 and died September 3, 1962, was popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. Many of his poems are sonnets, albeit ones with a more modern twist, and they often deal with the themes of love and nature, as Denny Bradbury does in her poem “My Gift To You” from her new collection “De-versify”:

“ The discontent of winter
Lies heavy on your brow
The eyes once full of summer sun
Shine solemn, wistful now….
Oh! Love is summer, it is spring
But love is winter too
Be happy in the tide of life
My love, my gift to you.”

Whilst E.E.Cummings’ poems lean towards the romantic tradition, he has a particular style of arranging individual words into larger phrases and sentences, and rule-breaking with his punctuation as is evident in his poem “I carry your heart with me”:

“I carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”

The poem is a favourite for being recited at weddings, due to its description of a deep and profound love. Despite the fact it is one line longer than the standard sonnet – in keeping with Cummings’ style of breaking with tradition –it is a poem that is easily read, easily spoken and easily understood by people of all ages.  Denny Bradbury, in her poem “Hold Me Gently” – also one line shorter than a usual sonnet – talks of the strength and power of someone’s love :

“Hold me gently
rock me deep
into the fathomless pool of a deep, deep sleep
there let me be till the sun reappears
and the heat of your love in the day
dries my tears..”

Read more of Denny Bradbury’s work in her new collection “De-versify” due to be published in 2013.

Christmas wishes

25 Tuesday Dec 2012

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All the great religions have similar messages at their core. Messages of hope, peace, love and understanding with a huge dose of tolerance. Let us not spoil the original simple exhortation with a human desire to conquer and control.

I wish you all a hopeful and peace filled Christmas and New Year.

Denny Bradbury

If You Forget Me – Pablo Neruda

24 Monday Dec 2012

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Chile

Chile

Translated from Neruda’s native Spanish, and originally entitled “Si Tu Me Olvidas”, the poem is from Neruda’s “The Captain’s Verses” collection.  Although often thought to be dedicated to his wife, Matilde Urrutia, it is in actual fact about Neruda’s exile from his homeland, Chile.  The poem consists of seven stanzas, all of unequal length, just as Denny Bradbury’s poem “So Grey the Sea” from her new collection “De-Versify”in which she talks of journeying back home, consists of thirteen stanzas of very differing length:

“…They’re dead and gone
But me, I’m here
No one will take
What’s mine
D’you hear?

I won’t go back to
Where I’m from
It’s in the city
I belong…”

In the first stanza of Neruda’s poem, he states “I want you to know one thing”, indicating that whatever he has to relay in the rest of the poem is something of importance and encourages the reader to continue reading.

The second stanza explains how he feels about his native Chile and in the first line “You know how this is” he is stating that he knows the situation will be understood.

He writes:

“..if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you”…

Neruda is explaining to the reader how, whether he lives in danger or in peace, whenever he is abroad he is always thinking of his homeland.  Neruda lived in Spain during the Spanish civil war and adopted an active role that meant he suffered as a result. From 1927-1935 he conducted many important government tasks that required him to travel around the world but, whenever he was recalled to Chile he went back to where he belonged with no hesitation. Just as Denny Bradbury in her poem “Belonging” talks of how “Belonging is cocooning, it makes us feel alive “Neruda felt he belonged in Chile.

Unfortunately, the situation turned sour and when Neruda actively opposed President Gonzalez Videla in his capacity as a member of the Chilean Communist party, he was forced into hiding, which, as he tells his reader in the third stanza, meant his affection for his country waned, the greater the hostility he endured:

“Well now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.”

A warrant was put out for his arrest and in the fifth stanza he describes his period of exile, when he escaped from Chile in 1949:

“..and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.”

Neruda felt his country was too dangerous, that his roots were planted in old Chile, not in the new regime, that he was no longer appreciated and the hostility was too great for him to do anything but begin again elsewhere.

He finally returned three years later in 1952, the year the poem was written and by his words in the final stanza, he shows true forgiveness:

“..in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine”

Neruda remained in Chile for the rest of his life until he died of heart failure in 1973, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature two years prior.

Emily Dickinson

17 Monday Dec 2012

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Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was a 19th century American poet.

She once defined poetry “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” (Letter342a, 1870)
The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson and Theodora Ward (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958).

Emily was born on December 10th 1830 to a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts with a brother Austin and sister Lavinia.  Their lineage can be traced back to the Puritan Great Migration two hundred years earlier who travelled to the New World from Europe.

Emily was considered to be a very able student studying the classics.  However the subject of death seemed to haunt her throughout the years:  the death of her second cousin Sophia Holland early in her life appeared to have had a deep impact on Emily.

Leonard Humphrey was a principal at her college who assisted in her thirst for literary knowledge and was thought to be more than a mere acquaintance who passed away at the age of 25.

Emily cared for her mother who, after suffering from a slowly deteriorating illness, died shortly after the passing of her father.

The death of her dog after so many years of companionship, and her favourite niece just three years before her own passing showed a constant stream of sadness.

There is also a thought she struggled with religion – brought up under the acceptance of God but to later turn away from the routine communal worship to that of her own private contemplation; preferring also to dress in white rather than the traditional dark colours.

By 1860 Emily was effectively a recluse.  Yet it was this seclusion that allowed Emily the opportunity to enjoy her reading and refine her own literary works.

She wrote thousands of poems yet fewer than a dozen were published during her lifetime.  Those pieces which were printed were often ‘edited’ to suit the tone and traditions of the age.

It was not until after her death in 1886 when Emily’s younger sister, Lavinia, came across all her works.

“There Is Another Sky”
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

There are many interpretations to this poem – some say it highlights her sexual desire for her brother, Austin – he had married Susan Gilbert, also perceived to be an unrequited love of Emily’s.

Others suggest the poem is her hope that Austin will see her through to a better place in heaven.  Or simply with all the death and sadness she faced, her brother was always there for her.  It is perhaps a message of hope.

Emily Dickinson died on May 15th 1886.

Phenomenal Woman – Maya Angelou

07 Friday Dec 2012

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Phenomenal Woman Born in April 1928, at the age of eighty four Maya Angelou is an American poet, author, actress, director, screenwriter, dancer and activist who, over the course of her life so far, has published six autobiographies, five books of essays, several books of poetry and is credited with writing numerous plays, movies and television shows that span more than fifty years.  She has also worked for Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in her capacity as a civil rights activist.

Her poetry book, entitled Phenomenal Woman, published in 1995, is a collection of four poems which takes its title from a poem she wrote which originally appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1978, in which Angelou describes the physical and spiritual characteristics and qualities that make her attractive:

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,

They say they still can’t see.

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

“..Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me….”

Much of Angelou’s poetry can be traced to African-American oral traditions, especially in her use of the personal narrative, just as the poet Denny Bradbury does in her poem “So Grey the Sea” from her new collection “De-versify” in which she talks of fighting for what is rightfully hers in terms of a place in society:

“..They’re dead and gone
But me, I’m here
No-one will take
What’s mine
D’you hear?

I won’t go back to
Where I’m from
Its in the city
I belong…”

“Phenomenal Woman” is a poem that encapsulates the power that Angelou felt women have, even if they are not a classical beauty, simply through a woman’s attributes such as “the fire in her eyes …and the joy in (her) feet”. Her exultation of the phenomena that is woman herself shows a strength borne from the harrowing experiences Angelou suffered as a child, when she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend and as a result of her uncles murdering the man responsible, became mute for five years, believing his murder to be her fault.   As Denny Bradbury writes in her poem “Purposely Drifting”:

“..Inner calm will be your amazing strength..”  For Maya Angelou this was certainly true and she has gone on to lead an inspirational life.