what he thought- heather mchugh

[ayeartoolate.livejournal.com]

We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, me
the mayor, mulled
a couple matters over (what's
cheap date, they asked us; what's
flat drink). Among Italian literati

we could recognize our counterparts:
the academic, the aplogist,
the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib- and there was one

administrator (the conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone narrated
sights and histories the hired van hauled past.
Of all, he was the most politic and least poetic,
so it seemed. Our last few days in Rome
(when all but three of the New World Bards had flown)
I found a book of poems this
unpreposessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?)
to whom he had inscribed and dated it a month before.
I couldn't read Italian, either, so I put the book
back into the wardrobe's dark. We last Americans

were due to leave tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our hose chose something in a family restaurant, and there
till, sensible it was our last
big chance to be poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked
"What's poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables and
marketplace of Campo Dei Fiori, or
the statue there?" Because I was

the glib one, I identified the aanswer
instantly, I didn't have to think- "The truth
is both, it's both," I blurted out. But that
was easy. That was easiest to say. What followed
taught me something about difficulty,
for our underestimated host spoke out,
all of the sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:

The statue represents Giordano Bruno,
brought to be burned in the public square
because of his offense against
authority, which is to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government, but rather is
poured in waves through all things. All things
move. "If God is not the soul itself, He is
the soul of the soul of the world." Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him
forth to die, they feared he might
incite the crowd (the man was famous
for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask, in which

he could not speak. That's
how they burned him. That is how
he died: without a word, in front
of everyone.
And poetry-
(we'd all
put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on
softly)-

poetry is what

he thought, but did not say.

Comments

[maya3814.livejournal.com]

i can't say i like this poem at all. it doesn't even read like a poem too me. its very narrative, and the language is flat. the whole talking about poetry inside a poem thing is very hard to pull off, that whole concept seems like a sure way to a jumbled sappy mess. when did this poet write? are all her poems so narrative?

[dferahgo.livejournal.com]

While I agree, to an extent, I think why this poem is so narrative is a large part of what the poet is trying to convey. Remember that the speaker says that she was "the glib one," the one with easy, poetic answers, but the quiet, conservative host -

administrator (the conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone narrated
sights and histories the hired van hauled past.

- is the one who taught the speaker, "something about difficulty," which is what this poem is about. The difficulty of identifying poetry - how easy it might be to just accept everything, rather to analyze it. And this poet is saying that what poetry really is, is those truths of revolutionaries, that even a poem as seemingly conservative, dry, narrative, as this one, can make a poignant point.

I think, in that at least, the poet accomplishes her goal.

Other than that, I usually hate narrative poetry, too. *snickers*

The nature of the beast.

[onyxblue1.livejournal.com]

I have The Little Zen Companion, by David Schiller, on my desk here at work, and there is a quote which seems to fit this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it does.

"You say my poems are not poetry?
They are not.
Yet if you understand they are not —
Then you see the poetry of them."

—Ryokan

I don't know if that is the full poem. I haven't looked for it yet. But I like the sentiment of that part, at least.

The description of the execution brought tears to my eyes. I thought the ending scene was very evocative. I can see the underestimated suit holding forth quietly with everyone else agape, forks caught in mid-air.

Re: The nature of the beast.

[onyxblue1.livejournal.com]

Okay, I re-read the last few lines. Their forks weren't in mid-air. I can still see it, though.:-)

Re: The nature of the beast.

[dferahgo.livejournal.com]

"You say my poems are not poetry?
They are not.
Yet if you understand they are not —
Then you see the poetry of them."

—Ryokan

I do dig that. And anything can be poetic, not just poems. Including narratives. And though this one lacks as much poetic-ness to it, there is a certain element of poetry that still touches. The poetry isn't in the language so much as the message.