Summat Ironical

Did you know that "ironical" is accepted usage? That hurts me a little.

Rutter's Creative Writing class recently discovered irony. Every day since has been a delightful forum for the airing of ironic stories, such as the creator of the Segway dying in a Segway accident. As is natural, there have been many discussions about what is and is not ironic. I got onto a rant at one point about Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic" and how nothing actually labelled as ironic in the song could truly be construed as irony. An upstart student, however, pointed out that if this were true, then the title "Ironic" was indeed irony. Clever little thing . . .

Anyway, this week has been dominated with my internal criticism and identification of irony. I was sorting computer files and stumbled across this poem (one of my favorites) that I use to introduce the concept of poetry and figurative language to my reading kids. It struck me that using a poem to introduce poetry was indeed ironic.

Ah, life: it's so ironic.

I'm going to post the poem because it's just a damn good poem.

Introduction to Poetry
By: Billy Collins



I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch


I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

True Love

I got a book of poetry by Philip Larkin from the library. He is an Irish poet who hasn't achieved much international fame and has only received critical acclaim since his death. The bulk of his work tends to dwell on rural Irish life and the discouraging futility of it all, but he does have a secret love of love. I found one such indulgence that may be my new favorite love poem of all time (suck it, Barrett-Browning).

Love

The difficult part of love
Is being selfish enough,
Is having the blind persistence
To upset an existence
Just for your own sake.
What cheek it must take.

And then the unselfish side--
How can you be satisfied,
Putting someone else first
So that you come off worst?
My life is for me.
As well ignore gravity.

Still, vicious or virtuous,
Love suits most of us.
Only the bleeder found
Selfish this wrong way round
Is ever wholly rebuffed,
And he can get stuffed.

-Philip Larkin

Isn't that sweet?

Meditation

I wrote this when my head was about to explode, and I couldn't find a way of sorting through the roiling thoughts and worries crammed in there. I seem to be facing a similar situation, so I'm going to share it.


Meditation

Behold this glass orb I hold,
With all of the swirls and twirls
Within the artist's vision
Akin to dollish blonde curls,

And look at the light reflecting,
Trapped inside the glass.
So little can escape,
Jumbling the rest en masse.

And could the orb but think
Perhaps the tumult would sleep,
Or if the orb could dream
It would perhaps not weep.

For in sleep could it sanctuary find
And let the roiling, poisonous bile
In its pit perhaps some peace find
And file into quiet lines, waiting trial.

It could be that judgment is mete
With nominal sighs and tears
And mercy jumps to obey
Instead of instilling me with fears.

-Rosemary Larkin

Sharing Time

I've been having two of my students work on poetry for the last few days. They both complained bitterly about it. I've tried everything from luring them into it with song lyrics to threatening them with a lifetime of darkness and self hatred if they do not embrace poetry.

Nothing is really working. One of my snot-nosed freshmen thought he was awfully clever when he chirped up, "What, Teach? What poetry have you written?"

Rather than trying to defend myself and validate my authority (and with maybe just a little B.S. to cover up for being put on the spot), I coolly stared at him and replied, "I doubt you'd understand it. Now get to work."

He deserves so much worse.

Still, I rant and rave about poetry on this blog even though I never start out with the intention of ranting and raving, but I have yet to post anything original. Until today. Yes, today is the Big Day. I will . . . . . . share a poem that I first wrote as a senior in high school and have since edited to my liking.

The background:

'Tis a temperamental, autumnal day. Musty sweaters are making their first appearances of the season, and the smell of mothballs permeates the room. Seniors are chatting superficially, awaiting the presence of their teacher - nay, their mentor. Their leader. Their prophet.

He appears at the back of the room, emerging suddenly from the shadows of his office to the pounding bass line of Pink Floyd. We turn in anticipation. He waits until all eyes are fixed on him, all mouths are hanging open, and all minds are craving his words of wisdom before stepping forward.

He strides to the front of the room, the power of his footfalls sending pencils clattering and blinds swaying. Inches from the blackboard, he pivots and swirls around, a beauty queen pandering to her judging panel.

"Hello, children," he booms, snatching his sidekick from his worn podium. He raps it smartly on the dented wood. "Attention," he demands from the silent room.

With a satisfied twinkle in this be-windowed eyes, he faces is blank slate once more and writes in sloppy, large, eye-sore letters "WAR."

He proceeds to scar our young minds with poetry from Wilfred Owen about men choking on gas and falling to their deaths on the battlefield for love of country, Sigfried Sassoon's legless war heroes hating life and wanting death, and Michael Rutter's own creations of exploding landmines sending hunks of flesh into spinning helicopter blades.

Our turn. "Write me a war poem that makes me want to melt down my guns!"

We collectively gasp--no force on earth has ever been able to part Michael Rutter from his weapons.

Challenge accepted.

The following is the fruits of my war-torn labors, recently edited and rewritten. I based it off of the Vietnam War, when so many men were dying, the government sometimes hijacked taxis to deliver death telegrams, notices of sons and husbands killed in action.

Enjoy.



Taxis

Out of place
Idles the burning chariot,
Blackening fumes spewing
From an ailing exhaust,
Engine resounding through cramped houses,
Painted grey
In the whited dawn.

Cracked pavement
Leads a passing angel
From one barred door to another,
His message left propped
Against the threshold,
No red paint
To block his path.

Stark cards,
Etched with dooming messages,
Wait with godly patience
While women push open mesh screens,
Excited hope of word
From a silent battlefield
Glowing in weary eyes.

-Rosemary Larkin

Poetic Justice

This week, I rediscovered my adoration for John Keats.

After posting the poem “Oh Blush Not So!” on here, I began to remember how ingenious he was. So, I hie-d me up to Borders with the companionship of darling Nichole, and I found the Penguin Classics complete poetry of John Keats. I may have hyperventilated and grasped the window for support just a little. Maybe a little more than a little, but it was far shy of a lot.

The poetry section at Borders is sporadically restocked. Rarely do you find exactly what you are looking for. Since I happened across the complete works of John Keats, I took it as a sign and purchased it immediately. (Don’t judge; I had a coupon to reduce it from $16 to $11.75. How could I refuse?)

Here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn that caused Nichole to shoot me wary and worried glances all day.

Rather than leaving the book in the safety of the car while we finished our errands, I brought it with me. I couldn’t keep my hands off of it. I kept it in my arms all day. I opened it at random and read some of my old favorites as well as some I had never read before. I toyed with Keats for hours, letting him elate and depress me, confide in and rebuff me, fascinate and bore me. I’ve creased Keats’ spine already, and those of you who have seen my library know I take special care to preserve the original condition of my books.

This frenzied obsession with the sexy, black-covered volume made me reminisce as t how my deep passion for poetry developed.

I was never a literary child. While I enjoyed books, I didn’t feel driven to read them. That’s what the movie was for, right? (Oh, irony.) In fact, I hated reading. When we first moved to the U.S., I tested several grades above level, so I got lazy. I’ve always been easily seduced by the easy life. I only began to read voraciously in 7th grade, and I it wasn’t until 9th grade that I began an acquaintance with poetry.

I mean, I used to see poetry everyday in Mr. Williams’ class, say hi, listen to it for a minute or two, then forget about it. Occasionally, my eyes drifted across the room to it, waiting in the corner, but I looked away before anyone could notice. We weren’t close. We didn’t move in the same circles. Sure, I was vaguely interested (as I believe it was in me), but we never forged a major connection. Until Coleridge.

Ah, Samuel! I discovered Coleridge in 10th grade. “Kubla Khan” changed my life. It pulled me out of class and sent me through a whirling spiral of space/time, and I found that, once there, I never wanted to come home. No thanks, Dorothy; keep your ruby red slippers. Xanadu kicks Oz’s ass anyway.

Why my abrupt fixation with poetry?

I have always fought an internal battle between logic and emotion. My emotions are hasty and so eager; they jump to react to everything around me, reigning craziness down of the innocents nearby. My logic, however, is learned, carefully crafted, and precise. It lets my emotion leap . . . and then smacks it with a board on the head. Within this discord lies my answer: Poetry allows my extremes to work in cooperation rather than competition.

My emotions are fed by the passion and the beauty of the poet’s apparition while my logic is undulated with form, allusions, pieces of a puzzle that must be assembled quickly before the magic is gone. Poetry can be intellectual, zealous, structured, wild, beautiful, dour, uplifting, disheartening, and everything buried in between.

Why settle for something simple when I can feast on something so sustaining?

Here endeth the rant.

Cotton Candy

As I stumbled blearily into work this morning before the sun peeked over the shadowed mountains, I was greeted with the sight of Rutter (my mentor and now boss) furiously decorating his whiteboard with his unseemly scrawl. (Unseemly considering I could hardly see my hand properly, let alone attempt to decipher his handwriting.) I managed to make out the word "love," and coupling it with my own memories of taking his class in high school, I yawned, "Creative Writing?"

"Of course!" he chimed.

How could he be so cheery at 7 a.m.?!

He didn't stop there, though. "Fairytale love is a pipe dream, Rosemary! Here," he added, thrusting a xeroxed paper at me, "read this aloud to me. I need to ruminate."

I glanced down, and my resentment at having to help without a drop of caffeine in my body melted away. John Donne's glorious words shone up at me, reassuring me that there was indeed something worth living for today. I proceeded to read "The Flea" out loud to Rutter, as he wrote his notes on Disney Princess movies on the board.

I finished with the glorious and somewhat tawdry line, "Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,/Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee."

He squinted at my slouching form. "Too risque for high school?"

Probably. "Not at all."

"It's a metaphorical union. An intellectual consummation. They're in love, Rosemary."

"I know, Rutter. I think it's perfectly acceptable. Besides, even if there is a sexual undertone--not that I'm implying there is!--these are your advanced students. They should be able to discuss complex issues maturely and intellectually." Besides, I really want to see their faces flush at the line, "This flea is you and I, and this/Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is."

Now, that's a love poem. All of the real men died 100 years ago, and with them went the civilized passion that made romances great, poetry lasting, declarations forceful, men manly, and women womanly. Real men, that made women want to be women instead of asserting themselves to the point of arrogance and contempt simply to prove that someone could still be strong.

This Disney trash that relies on physical attraction and sex to build a lifetime romance is only encouraging people to seek a sweeping and picture perfect romance. But it's not real. There's no emotion, no passion, no meat. Why be content with words when you can have feeling?

Compare.

My Angel

My sweet beautiful angel.
Sent to me from above.
I am so grateful to have found you,
and I give you all my love.

You must have come from heaven,
because you have pretty little angel eyes.
When you gaze at me with them,
my heart begins to fly.

Your sweet angelic voice,
continuously rings in my ears.
With you by my side,
there is nothing I fear.

Whenever we are together,
You shine with a heavenly glow.
Your beautiful angel face,
raises me up from feeling low.

Yes, heaven is missing an angel,
because you are here with me.
You're my sweet, beautiful angel,
and I'll love you for eternity!

- David Mendez-Yapkowitz (2003)

Sweet, in the way that your fifth helping of cotton candy is sweet.


Oh Blush Not So!

O blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile the blushing while,
Then maidenheads are going.

There's a blush for want, and a blush for shan't,
And a blush for having done it;
There's a blush for thought, and a blush for nought,
And a blush for just begun it.

O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
For it sounds of Eve's sweet pippin;
By these loosen'd lips you have tasted the pips
And fought in an amorous nipping.

Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
For it only will last our youth out,
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
We have not one sweet tooth out.

There's a sigh for aye, and a sigh for nay,
And a sigh for "I can't bear it!"
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!

-John Keats

Now, that's a poem that delves into the complicated emotion that is love. That's a five-course meal.

No contest.

So, Disney movies be damned! Rather than pandering to the base instincts and the ideals of happily ever after, show us something real. Or if not real, something not so twisted.

Imagine Your Imagination . . .

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last you create what you will." -George Bernard Shaw

Since I was a little girl, I have loved stories. I think my fascination derives from my mother's bedtime readings of such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Winnie the Witch. Our family bonded over the impossible worlds of star destroyers, warp power, and fantastical magic. Rather than telling us to grow up, my mom encouraged us to believe in things outside of ourselves.

And none of us have turned into violent serial killers or whatever.

The cynicism that arrives with each birthday has forced me to consider this world more. It's easy to start from scratch and make everything the way you want it to be in a magical land with clouds for pillows and skittles raining from the sky, but to find the good in what surrounds you and use that to imagine this world as something else . . . that takes some real imagination.

While in high school, I fell in love with literature. Not just with reading, but with the tortured artist and the wide-eyed idealist and the incurable cynic. Stories are found everywhere. Stories are found with no real effort. Pick up a newspaper or magaxine, turn on the tv, look out your window, walk past a conversation, enjoy a piece of art: these stories are found anywhere you look.

To take a story and develop it . . . to have an entire generation identify with your telling . . . to unveil meanings beyond the mere facts . . .. These skills are how literature sweeps me away by.

Before I was told that I probably wouldn't cut it, I wanted to be a writer. In fact, just the other day I found a letter I had written when iw as 14 to my 19-year-old self. I had sloppily inquired if I had yet published a series of fairy tale parodies I had been working on. While it is still a buried desire of mine to be a published author, I am not tempted by the prospect of publishing a much loved and much read popular book that holds no value beyond a mildly diverting story. (You know I'm talking about Twilight.) I don't want to be well-known or highly paid. I have my editing career ahead of me for that. As a writer, I want to change someone's life.

I want to help someone like me. I found my answers through literature. It helped me ground my beliefs to the reality around me, and it helped me to sympathize with others and consider individuality. My heroes are long dead writers, most of which as still not acknowledged as giants in their own time. However, their impact was on the small scale that keeps the world from imploding in on itself. I mean, if individuals aren't strong, what holds up those lofty ideals? Nothing.

And we individuals do what we can to keep the world on our shoulders.


The Poet: A Fragment

WHERE'S the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him!
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan,
Or any other wondrous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to
All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Comes articulate and presseth
On his ear like mother-tongue.
-John Keats


Maybe I'll post something original next time.