Category Archives: Misc

Life Is Fine – Langston Hughes

04 Friday Jan 2013

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As we move from one year to the next – 2012 into 2013 – we can all learn from an American ‘jazz’ poet, Langston Hughes, particularly noted for his work during the

Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

He wrote poems, stories, plays, fiction and non-fiction books.

Life is Fine is a poem which crosses all racial barriers and can speak to everyone.

It takes the reader of a journey of lost love and attempts at suicide until, finally, the realisation hits that life is worth living after all.

Life Is Fine

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love–
But for livin’ I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry–
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

We see the character go to the river to think; try to come to terms with a lost
love. When he cannot think, like so many people who find no other solution, he
jumps in the river – an attempt to commit suicide.

The cold suddenly brings him to his senses – as Langston writes
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.

He then repeats ‘cold’, almost as if saying the name of his saviour.

We then follow our character up 16 floors of a building. Once again, he thinks about
his love and considers jumping.

This time it is the height which puts him off (repeating ‘high’ in a similar fashion to
that of ‘cold’).

It’s after this attempt that he realises that life is worth living. There are some things worse than his current predicament (getting over his fear of height and fear of the cold) – suddenly realising that his lost love is not worth going through further trauma in order to solve it. Life is, in fact, fine. Some people have analysed the poem, suggesting the referral to the ‘cold river’ was

the character jumping into a cold relationship. He could have drowned in that
relationship if he had not realised its suffocating effect.

Similarly with the elevator to the 16th floor –
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down

A suggestion here is that he pictures his love and would jump into their open arms – again, the warning of ‘height’ stops him entering a doomed relationship.

Yet we then read:
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Suggesting the poem is more about suicide than a potentially doomed
relationship. He chooses not to die but to live on – the pain of his lover seeing him
commit suicide is too much.

He chooses life over death.

 

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.

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.

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.

Now is the winter of our discontent…..

02 Sunday Dec 2012

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https://i0.wp.com/cdn.morguefile.com/imageData/public/files/j/johninportland/preview/fldr_2011_01_07/file3031294416087.jpgAs I write this, looking outside my window on a cold, crisp morning, my mind wanders to a Shakespeare Sonnet:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

There is a golden sun illuminating the clear, blue sky.  Clouds are forming, just a few in number at present.

The trees have lost their leaves, but the sunshine glimmers off the dew on the grass.  Quite beautiful.

The cold in itself offers its own beauty – a freshness, an alertness.  Seasons change; our interpretations of life around us changes.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
(John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America)

For many, winter is a lonely time.  Percy Shelley in Ode to the West Wind reflects the hope of many:

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

When you read through ‘De-versify’, the latest collection of poems from Denny Bradbury, you discover a variety of works.  One such piece highlights the link many people feel between the chill, the bleakness and their own internal sadness.

Reading the opening lines to Winter Soul you come across visual descriptions, setting the scene of the day:

Crisp clear air of deepest winter

Sky streaked so with pastel hue

Yet when you move on another two lines, the truth of the poem is brough to the fore:

Dig into my soul with icy finger

Make my heart with leaden blue

If we look back to 1781 we come across poet Robert Burns.  Here we see his interpretation of winter and it’s meaning, taken from his poem Winter: A Dirge:

“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Loneliness and sadness are emotions frequently associated with the cold, bleak winter months – cold and bleak are words used to describe weather as well as characters.

Often, as we saw with Percy Shelley, hope is an emotion which guides people through the wintry days and nights.  A.A. Milne describes quite beautifully the moment when Spring has arrived in When We Were Very Young:

“She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.”