Tag Capricorn

* the unignorable with Aimee Nezhukumatathil

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment
* unignoring one another *

* unignoring one another *

Some things are unignorable.

For example, moths seem to be unignorable in my writing.  They’ve crept in and out of my poems for years now.  Experiencing moth season in Albuquerque, New Mexico only increased the fascination.

The bumbling after direction and light – yeah, I get that.

They are a symbol of fragility and persistence for me.  In this way, they are all that more human to me.

Human fragility and persistence are also unignorable.  Reading the poem below by Aimee Nezhukumatathil brought this lesson home.  While the world of the poem is a dark one, the lyric never loses sight of the human factor.  Through the final image, the fragility and persistence of the moth is made kindred to human predicament and struggle.  This poem itself was unignorable.

***

Two Moths – Aimee Nezhukumatathil* 

Some girls        on the other side of this planet

will never know        the loveliness

of   walking      in a crepe silk sari.      Instead,

they will spend        their days                          on their backs

for a parade               of   men           who could be       their uncles

in another life.         These girls memorize

each slight wobble                  of   fan blade as it cuts

through the stale       tea air and auto-rickshaw

exhaust,        thick as egg curry.

Men         shove greasy rupees        at the door

for one hour         in a room

with a twelve-year-old.                One hour —               One hour —

One hour.            And if   she cries afterward,

her older sister       will cover it up.         Will rim

the waterline             of   her eyes                 with kohl pencil

until it looks like                        two silk moths

have stopped      to rest       on her exquisite     face.

***

Happy mothing!

Jose

* published in Poetry November 2013

* the influence wrecking ball via Robinson Jeffers

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

To the Stone-cutters – Robinson Jeffers

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain.  The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years,
and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.

* a rocky poet *

* rockin’ poet *

If that don’t wake you up on a Friday morning I don’t know what will!

I’ve been wanting to do a post on Jeffers for a while.  He’s definitely been an influence.  I first got into his work back during my MFA – which resulted in my poor workshopmates being inundated with a Jose poem that was needlessly dark and unnecessarily long.

To keep it short, the influence wrecked me for a bit.

Which is the way it works sometimes.  So much of writing is born out of reading, and sometimes we walk away from things we read with only a glimpse of how the writer got there but fully convinced we can get there too.  I want to believe it’s a youthful hubris but I would be kidding myself.

To get back to Jeffers: he is famous for his longer works, but there is a lot of heart and insight in his shorter poems.  After getting over my initial impulse to take after his way with the line (and getting away from myself in the process), I spent some time with the shorter lyrics learning a thing or two about compression and conciseness.

The poem below is a rare note not only in its brevity but also in his use of another’s voice.

Cremation – Robinson Jeffers

It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said,
When I think of cremation.  To rot in the earth
Is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame – besides, I am used to it,
I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life,
No wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying.
We had great joy of my body.  Scatter the ashes.

***

Happy scattering!

Jose