Tag lyric poems

* lining up with charlotte mew

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

So, at one point during CantoMundo, this happened:

* this guy might be too happy *

* this guy might be too happy *

This image pretty much sums up my feelings this week in regards to the release of my new chapbook, Corpus Christi Octaves, and all the support people have shown both here on the blog as well as on Facebook and Twitter. To all of you who have sent warm wishes in one form or another, thank you for making this week pretty big for me.

Like that SMILE pictured above big 🙂

Working on a project like the octaves, so focused on creating tension within specific formal parameters, makes me quick to spot other eight-liners out there. This week’s poem “Sea Love” by Charlotte Mew holds its own lessons on compactness, diction, and fluidity of line.

Thomas Hardy considered Mew an incredible artist and, along with Housman, placed her in high esteem for her way with diction and feel for people. The music here is exceptional. The third line drags out in a wonderful, rocky contrast to the other contained lines. The sea like the lover cannot be reined in. The heart breaks on the “wind” at the end.

* make it mew *

* make it mew *

Sea Love – Charlotte Mew

Tide be runnin’ the great world over:

‘Twas only last Junemonth I mind that we

Was thinkin’ the toss and the call in the breast of the lover

So everlastin’ as the sea.

Here’s the same little fishes that sputter and swim,

Wi’ the moon’s old glim on the grey, wet sand;

An’ him no more to me nor me to him

Than the wind goin’ over my hand.

***

Happy going!

Jose

p.s. I’ve revamped both the Chapbooks tab & Audio tab – the latter with a link of my reading from Corpus Christi Octaves at The Poetry Loft! Special thanks to Sam Roderick Roxas-Chua for the opportunity! Check out the reading here.

* finding work with Rhina P. Espaillat

José Angel Araguz 3 Comments

Last week I had the honor of participating in CantoMundo, a three-day retreat that develops, sustains, and supports a diverse community of Latina/o poets.

Being an introvert, I was a bit apprehensive of jumping into such a social gathering, my main concern being: What if they don’t like me? (I’m surprised by how much one remains in the sandbox no matter how old one gets).

* scared poet is scared *

* scared poet is scared *

Fortunately, the whole crew, including keynote speaker Sherwin Bitsui and Master Poets Lorna Dee Cervantes and Rafael Campo, were warm and welcoming. By the second night, this happened:

* scared poet is (a little less) scared *

* scared poet is (a little less) scared *

During Rafael Campo’s workshop, I was delighted to be introduced to the work of Rhina P. Espaillat.

The poem below belongs to the tradition of Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays,” a poem honoring the hard work of family. Espaillat’s masterful attention to the tension to be generated between narrative and measure really help drive home the heart of the poem.

The last two lines especially captivated me.

Both lines are five beats each, but note how much work the commas do: in the second to last line, three beats are held in place by a comma, then two more follow also held back, then the line break takes us into the next line where the first beat is reined in by another comma – all of this building tension (3-2/1-4 beat breakdown, respectively) allows the last phrase of the poem to really be sunk into while reading, the four beats driving home in rhythm what the words drive home in meaning.

**

“Find Work” – Rhina P. Espaillat

 

I tie my Hat — I crease my Shawl —
Life’s little duties do — precisely
As the very least
Were infinite — to me —

 

— Emily Dickinson, #443

 

My mother’s mother, widowed very young
of her first love, and of that love’s first fruit,
moved through her father’s farm , her country tongue
and country heart anaesthetized and mute
with labor. So her kind was taught to do —
“Find work,” she would reply to every grief —
and her one dictum, whether false or true,
tolled heavy with her passionate belief.
Widowed again, with children, in her prime,
she spoke so little it was hard to bear
so much composure, such a truce with time
spent in the lifelong practice of despair.
But I recall her floors, scrubbed white as bone,
her dishes, and how painfully they shone.

***

Happy finding!

Jose