Reflections on Peter Fallon's visit to Intro to Lit class

Peter Fallon's visit to English 210 was both a calming and stirring experience for me. He spoke of the inspiration for a poem in one of his recent books, coming from a struggle to grasp the nature and question of why we forget many things, but some things -  very few, he said, remain with us - even haunt us.
He gave the example of some of the images in one of his poems, one of which was a tree that grew from a tiny rock at the edge of a lake. He talked about the concept of 'will' as the theme in the poem, with the word implying a notion of the desire to cling to life as incarnated by the tree, and the concept of a legal document one leaves to someone after they die. This could be a metaphor in itself, and one might wonder if his mention of this concept would imply a desire for the poem or book of poems to be left for an individual to experience and glean after the poet has passed on.

Following Fallon's talk, he answered several questions and spoke on his experience as a young man starting a printing press. Fallon also answered the question of which of his poems was hardest to write, responding with his realization after writing poems for many years that he has had to constantly reinvent both his poems and the concept of what it means to be a poet.  
He said in response to a question on the nature of lyric poetry, that not everything has to be autobiographical - and that while life experiences are at the root of his poetry, and all poetry for that matter, the shaping of language and composing a poem out of a specific experience takes patience, diligence, and commitment.
He reiterated several times that while beginning something is easy, starting over is the difficult part.
Fallon also spoke about the nature of poetry as containing a certain mystery - the mystery of meaning. He implied that the most important element of writing poems for him has been the question of whether or not he 'trusts' the poem. "If I trust the poem, that is all that matters to me" he said.
Fallon talked about the combination of the mystery element with a very ordinary routine and comfort in the writing of poems.
These components of poetry make a great deal of sense to me.
Poetry is where the poet can truly be his or her self, to filter and absorb an experience through the shaping of language, to find a certain balance. It is also where the reader or listeners are able to connect with the poem to find a sense of engagement, in the arena of the benign.

"Death Fugue" translation analysis

"Death Fugue," by Paul Celan, gives insight into the choice of words made by the translator. In the comparison of the translations by John Felstiner, and Christopher Middleton, the differences are even found in the titles.

The lines that stuck with me from both translations has some striking differences, but through the inconsistencies I was able to get a feel for what Celan was likely trying to communicate in the original German.
Middleton's first lines are written thus:

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall


we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night


we drink it and drink it 

we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there

..............................

And Felstiner's version as:

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening


we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night 

we drink and we drink


we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped

..............................

Both translations use the same phrase "black milk," which I thought was very shocking. Something black which is supposed to be white. This may be literal, or an ironic metaphor speaking of impending death or the poisonous hate and mistreatment the Jewish prisoners receive at all hours of the day.
The translations differ in the last line the examples above, with Middleton's providing some rhyme to ground the reader, with the word "ample" as a possible implication for the abundance of heaven, but the absurd action of digging a grave in the sky shatters any form of comfort.
Felstiner's translation, though similar, has even more black irony, due to sounding less like a metaphor and more like the sick commands or orders the prisoners would hear screamed at them constantly.

The second part of the poem which stood out for me was an echo of the first.

Middleton:

He shouts play sweeter death's music death comes as a 

            master from Germany 

he shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you 

           shall climb to the sky

then you'll have a grave in the clouds it is ample to lie 


            there


 Here Middleton uses a syntax that is not common in English, so one can assume he was attempting to provide a more literal translation of the command. The reader by this point in the reading of his translation could still see the image of a "grave in the clouds" as a notion of heaven, especially with the return of the word "ample," although I don't think I have heard a more haunting or horrifying depiction of hell on earth from a poem.


Felstiner translates the same passage:

He shouts play death more sweetly Death is a master from Deutschland 

he shouts scrape your strings darker you'll rise then in smoke to the sky

you'll have a grave then in the clouds there you won't lie too cramped 


Felstiner chooses words to show horrors and atrocities in an equally effective way, although the effect is somewhat different from Middleton's. With the word "scrape," he gives the reader the ugliness of a vivid sound. One can hear the word scrape. It is not a pretty word, especially if it is referring to strings on a violin, in the midst of prisoners digging their own graves. This specificity of horror is expanded with the notion of a choice by the master from Deutschland to burn the prisoners to save room that burying them in cramped graves would take.

Stanza analysis from Auden's "September 1, 1939"

"September 1, 1939"
 third stanza:

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To and apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
the enlightenment driven away, 
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.


This stanza from Auden's widely popular poem provides droves of historical information even in the first line, 
with the connotations of the name "Thucydides." After working as a general for an Athenian military commander, Thucydides was blamed for the fall of a strategic city to the Spartans. He was then banished for this, and seeing it as fate, chose to look at war and other events from an unbiased perspective. Hugely influential in western history and society, Thucydides is known as the father of scientific history. His expansive tome of the Pelopnnesian war recounts not only historical facts, but provides detailed conclusions based on evidence and analysis of cause and effect. Scholars have traditionally viewed the core of Thucydides' work as teaching the necessity of leaders for the function of democratic government, but that democratic government can also be endangered by leaders.
This idea comes out further in the lines of this stanza, with the implication of "what dictators do," and "the elderly rubbish they talk."

The line in the stanza speaking of "the enlightenment driven away," could be related to Thucydides having been grouped in along with Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli, as a father of political realism, or realpolitik, which emphasizes the priority of the nation's well being in military and economy over the ideals of society and human morals and dignity. This ironic twist in the history of the historian, as the twisting of words into something else, much like dictators twisting democracy into something ugly is what Auden speaks of causing grief and suffering.

poem from prewrites of my childhood

I know I hid from growing up, but another
Life far away, is still hidden -
Away from the summer morning station wagon, tan,
Baked inside and vinyl seats too hot to sit in
Sunday, riding to church with my family -

The four of us, in the burning car.
Mom's perfume and flowing dress and earrings dangling,
Papa's buttoned shirt, short sleeved arm holding my clinging brother

We step out, here -
The castle-house church, with crow's nest and spire,
Mom talking, preaching, I sit, look at my books, tuning out - 
Hearing bible stories, or sermons I couldn't understand
The flowers, or dried plants, or water -
Israel and the desert, wandering, like my boredom.

I explored the big house-castle building when the sermon was done,
Looking for new places, sometimes alone.
The church had an old tire swing, I would twist around
and wind it up, and spin really fast,
until the world spun too-

Like I did at my house,
but my swing was more fun - Papa made it for me.
The screen door opening out after sitting in church
would give me energy
To launch myself off the concrete porch, onto the front lawn
Running to the corner of  the yard, where the tall thin trees
And tangled bushes and grass hid the ditch that would be my fortress. 

Myself, and sometimes my brother, where we could be us -
And I could show him this secret place
Where no one else was allowed. 
And we didn't have to sit and wait to imagine
Great worlds and battles and adventures or heroes
Or find rocks, or bugs, or toads, 
No one else would know about.







 

Dickinson imitation no. 1

I heard the raindrops falling
The tears of eulogy
Your bitter sorrow rolling down
Veiled cheeks you hid from me

Of sea's hushed voice in evening
Hearts knowing, intertwine
As footprints in the sand once there
Swept forth to faith's decline

Though love as such is bitter-sweet
And beauty clouds in strife
In moments here of fleeting bliss
The purest form of life.

Words inspired by Whitman's "Poets to Come"

Poets to Come

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before
      known,
Arouse! for you must justify me.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual
       look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you. 





Inspired by Poets to Come:

Who are the poets to come? The orators, singers musicians to come? 
This wild noble crowd of your new brood, native, athletic, continental,
If such a power greater than before known would be
   mine,
I shall arouse, and justify you.

If not to-day is to justify me,
Myself, as you say - 
I will answer for you.

I the justifier spell (spill) a few
imploring words onto my page,
and return as you once did back to the hiding place of the unknown.

I heard the indicative words you wrote for the future
  and for me.
I almost saw your face when you sauntered past, like the 
aged god of renaissance, common man, grandfather,

Because your new brood of familiar kin,
Once lived to justify you.

An Imitation of Walt Whitman's "An Army Corps on the March"

An Army Corps on the March

With its cloud of shirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an
       irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on,
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun -- the dust-cover'd men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers'd -- the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As an army corps advances.

-Walt Whitman




A Traffic Jam on the Freeway 

Through the smog of motors rumble,
Through instants dragging on blasting horns like shouts,
this fleet of steel in frozen heat,
The parallel hulls lurch on and off,
The smooth bodies now stopped,
Shimmering like a mirage, captured under the sun -- the shining metal machines,
In single-file lines rolling rubber on the road,
With exhaust pipes pointing back -- windows roll'd down, the people sit,
As these transport units halt.