Contemplative

Coming Back to Life

2010-11-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

After a long break, I am again adding material for contemplation. I will attempt to added worth material once a week.

"Letters From Iceland" by W.H. Auden & Cecil Day Lewis

2009-08-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

"Isn't it true however far we've wandered into our provinces of persecution, where our regrets accuse, we keep returning back to the common faith from which we've all dissented, back to the hands, the feet, the faces? Children are always there and take the hands, even when they are most terrified. Those in love cannot make up their minds to go or stay. Artist and doctor return most often. Only the mad will never, never come back. For doctors keep on worrying while away, in case their skill is suffering or deserted. Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they want belief again in their own size. And the artist prays ever so gently, let me find pure all that can happen. Only uniqueness is success. For instance let me perceive the images of history. All that I push away with doubt and travel, today's and yesterdays alike, like bodies."

"Letters From Iceland" by W.H. Auden and Cecil Day Lewis.

The Wisdom of George Herbert

2009-04-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Life is half spent before we know what it is. A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."
Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at
your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

Good words are worth much, and cost little.

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge
over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for
everyone has need to be forgiven.

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

Living well is the best revenge.

Love and a cough cannot be hid.

None knows the weight of another's burden.

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

Punishment is lame, but it comes.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

There is an hour wherein a man might be happy all his life, could he find it.

There is great force hidden in a gentle command.

Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them.

George Herbert - "Clasping Hands"

2009-04-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Clasping of hands.


LOrd, thou art mine, and I am thine,
If mine I am: and thine much more,
Then I or ought, or can be mine.
Yet to be thine, doth me restore;
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since this being mine, brings with it thine,
And thou with me dost thee restore.
      If I without thee would be mine,
      I neither should be mine nor thine.

Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine:
So mine thou art, that something more
I may presume thee mine, then thine.
For thou didst suffer to restore
Not thee, but me, and to be mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.
      O be mine still! still make me thine!
      Or rather make no Thine and Mine!

Geoffrey Hill, "Tristia" - "Tragedy has all under regard."

2009-04-02T12:39:00.001-07:00

Tristia: 1891-1938

A Valediction to Osip Mandelstam

Difficult friend, I would have preferred
You to them. The dead keep their sealed lives
And again I am too late. Too late
The salutes, dust-clouds and brazen cries.

Images rear from desolation
Look...ruins upon a plain...
A few men glare at their hands; others
Grovel for food in the roadside field.

Tragedy has us all under regard.
It will not touch us but it is there -
Flawless, insatiate - hard summer sky
Feasting on this, reaching its own end.

"Tristia: 1891-1938" (12 lines) from "Four Poems Regarding the Endurance of Poets" first published in King Log and reprinted in Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill (Penguin Books, 2006) - reprinted in Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill (Yale University Press, 2009: pg43).

To Create Something Beautiful: Hart Crane

2009-04-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

"... try to imagine working for the pure love of simply making something beautiful, - something that maybe can't be sold or used to help sell anything else, but that is simply a communication between man and man, a bond of understanding and human enlightenment - which is what real work is.... I only ask to leave behind me something that the future may find valuable... I shall make every sacrifice toward that end." Hart Crane in a letter to Clarence Arthur Crane (his father) January 12, 1924.
Hart Crane Complete Poems & Selected Letters. (Library of America Press, 2007)

"The Loon's Cry" Howard Nemerov

2009-01-04T12:47:00.000-08:00

For sometimes, when our world is not our home
Nor we any home elsewhere, but all
Things look to leave us naked, hungry, cold
We suddenly may seem in paradise
Again, in ignorance and emptiness
Blessed beyond what we thought to know:
Then on sweet waters echoes the loon's cry.

Howard Nemerov, "The Loon's Cry"

Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1981).

Emily Dickinson on Pain

2009-01-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

#1049

Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.

Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.

-------------------------------------------

#650

Pain - has an Elements of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
A time when it was not -

It has no Future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightenment to perceive
New Periods - of Pain.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson Edition

Joseph Brodsky, "Closed to the Clash of Day's Discord"

2008-12-08T16:06:00.001-08:00

Joseph Brodsky
"Lithuanian Divertissement: VII / The Dominicans"

Turn off the thoroughfare, then into
a half-blind street, and once inside
the church, which at this hour is empty;
sit on a bench, adjust your sight,
and, afterward, in God's whorled ear,
closed to the clash of day's discord,
whisper four syllable, soft and clear:
Forgive me, Lord.

Jane Kenyon - 'A Hundred White Daffodils'

2008-12-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

"I think for Christmas I'll ask Santa for some tree work; I'll point and he can cut. It's not just more flowers I want, it's more light, more air for flowers, more sun for cheerfulness. A person gets her fill of shade-loving plants. She wants swaying hollyhocks, clove-scented pinks, and lavender plants as big as bushes. She doesn't care so much about conquering Moscow as she does about having a comely pear tree and a hundred white daffodils that glow after dusk against the unpainted boards of an old barn."

Jane Kenyon
"The Phantom Pruner" in A Hundred White Daffodils: Essays, Interviews, The Akhmatova Translations, Newspaper Columns, and One Poem.

The Light is Everything -- Mary Oliver, "The Ponds"

2008-11-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled--
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing--
that the light is everything-- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

(From, "The Ponds" in House of Light , 1990)

Chekhov - The Student -- The "Unbroken Chain"

2008-10-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

The old woman had wept, not
because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was
near to her, because her whole being was interested in what was
passing in Peter's soul.

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a
minute to take breath. "The past," he thought, "is linked with
the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of
another." And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends
of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

Anton Chekhov: Uncle Vanya Act IV

2008-09-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

SONIA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause]
Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile--and--we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice]
We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar][Weeping]
You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. [She embraces him] We shall rest. [The WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden; TELEGIN plays softly; MME. VOITSKAYA writes something on the margin of her pamphlet; MARINA knits her stocking]
We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [She wipes away her tears]
My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying!

Henry Vaughan: The Water-Fall

2008-08-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

With what deep murmurs,through time's silent stealth,
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat'ry wealth,
Here flowing fall,
and chide and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay'd
Ling'ring, and were of this steep place afraid,
The common pass,
Where clear as glass,
All must descend ,
Not to an end,
But quick'ned by this deep and rocky grave,
Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.
Dear stream ! dear bank ! where often I
Have sat, and pleased my pensive eye,
Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither whence it flow'd before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came (sure) from a sea of light?
Or since those drops are all sent back
So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes, He'll not restore?
O useful element and clear!
My sacred wash and cleanser here,
My first consigner unto those
Fountains of life, where the Lamb goes?
What sublime truths and wholesome themes
Lodge in thy mystical, deep streams!
Such as dull man can never find,
Unless that Spirit lead his mind,
Which first upon thy face did move
And hatch'd all with His quick'ning love.
As this loud brook's incessant fall
In streaming rings restagnates all,
Which reach by course the bank, and then
Are no more seen, just so pass men.
O my invisible estate,
My glorious liberty, still late!
Thou art the channel my soul seeks,
Not this with cataracts and creeks.

Henry Vaughan, The Complete Poems. Ed. Alan Rudrum
pg. 306-307

Geoffrey Hill - "Tragedy has us all under regard"

2008-08-23T01:52:00.000-07:00

Tristia: 1891-1938

A Valediction to Osip Mandelstam

Difficult friend, I would have preferred
You to them. The dead keep their sealed lives
And again I am too late. Too late
The salutes, dust-clouds and brazen cries.

Images rear from desolation
Look...ruins upon a plain...
A few men glare at their hands; others
Grovel for food in the roadside field.

Tragedy has us all under regard.
It will not touch us but it is there -
Flawless, insatiate - hard summer sky
Feasting on this, reaching its own end.

"Tristia: 1891-1938" (12 lines) from "Four Poems Regarding the Endurance of Poets" first published in King Log and reprinted in Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill (Penguin Books, 2006)

The Wisdom of George Herbert

2008-08-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Real Things, Fogs, Towers, & Bridges: Nabokov's Ada

2008-08-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

An individual's life consisted of certain classified things: 'real things' which were unfrequent and priceless, simply 'things' which formed the routine stuff of life; and 'ghost things,' also called 'fogs,' such as fever, toothache, dreadful disappointments, and death. Three or more things occurring at the same time formed a 'tower,' or, if they came in immediate succession, they made a 'bridge.' 'Real towers' and 'real bridges' were the joys of life, and when the towers came in a series, one experienced supreme rapture; it almost never happened, though. In some circumstances, in a certain light, a neutral 'thing' might look or even actually become 'real' or else, conversely, it might coagulate into a fetid 'fog.' When the joy and the joyless happened to be intermixed, simultaneously or along the ramp of duration, one was confronted with 'ruined towers' and 'broken bridges.'

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, 74.23 - 75.03

Auden Quote from Movie "Away from Her" (2006)

2008-08-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Away from Her (2006) last night. A wonderful, yet tragic exploration of the drift into Alzheimer's and the December romances that can be developed between those who share this disease. Tormented by his own memories that he all too much would like to forget, Grant realizes the ironic truth that his beloved wife Fiona has (at times) nearly forgotten him, but not his act of betrayal.

As she drifts deeper into the forgetfulness of Alzheimer's, Grant reads to her from "Letters From Iceland" by W.H. Auden and Cecil Day Lewis.
"Isn't it true however far we've wandered into our provinces of persecution, where our regrets accuse, we keep returning back to the common faith from which we've all dissented, back to the hands, the feet, the faces? Children are always there and take the hands, even when they are most terrified. Those in love cannot make up their minds to go or stay. Artist and doctor return most often. Only the mad will never, never come back. For doctors keep on worrying while away, in case their skill is suffering or deserted. Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they want belief again in their own size. And the artist prays ever so gently, let me find pure all that can happen. Only uniqueness is success. For instance let me perceive the images of history. All that I push away with doubt and travel, today's and yesterdays alike, like bodies."

Clasping of Hands - Commentary on Song of Songs

2008-08-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

Clasping of hands.


LOrd, thou art mine, and I am thine,
If mine I am: and thine much more,
Then I or ought, or can be mine.
Yet to be thine, doth me restore;
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since this being mine, brings with it thine,
And thou with me dost thee restore.
       If I without thee would be mine,
       I neither should be mine nor thine.

Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine:
So mine thou art, that something more
I may presume thee mine, then thine.
For thou didst suffer to restore
Not thee, but me, and to be mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.
       O be mine still! still make me thine!
       Or rather make no Thine and Mine!

Wendell Berry - A Timbered Choir

2008-07-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
1979

Helen Wilcox, The English Poems of George Herbert

2008-07-08T02:56:00.000-07:00

While trying to waste some time in an effort to help me fall asleep, I was searching the Google.com online books for earlier biographical data of George Herbert & his close friend Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding. To me surprise and delight, a generous sampling of the new critical edition of The English Poems of George Herbert edited by Helen Wilcox and published by Cambridge University ($188.00) is available as an online Google.com book!!! They have withheld some pages from being viewable and viewing stops at page 149. Here is the web address:

http://books.google.com/books?lr=&id=dQCZvJj96SkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR10&dq=helen+wilcox&ots=y87fv51NLZ&sig=9MsOApPJNWvTyAgeTipMIcECbOY&hl=en#PPP1,M1

I'm not sure now long they will have this text sample available for free, but I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in George Herbert, the Episcopal Church (Anglican), 17th Century Poetry, Theology, Devotion/Contemplation, The Book of Common Prayer, and/or art taken to the highest levels of human achievement - to set aside a bit of time and enjoy this finely crafted and expertly presented edition of George Herbert the Divine.

W. H. Auden, "Unknown Citizen"

2008-07-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired.
He worked in a factory and never got fired, but satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
He wasn’t a scab or odd in his views, for his Union reports that he paid his dues,(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard, right?

"Calling all Angels"

2008-06-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

Affliction. (IV)

BRoken in pieces all asunder,
                      Lord, hunt me not,
                     A thing forgot,
Once a poore creature, now a wonder,
               A wonder tortur’d in the space
               Betwixt this world and that of grace.
My thoughts are all a case of knives,
                     Wounding my heart
                     With scatter’d smart,
As watring pots give flowers their lives.
               Nothing their furie can controll,
               While they do wound and prick my soul.
All my attendants are at strife,
                     Quitting their place
                     Unto my face:
Nothing performs the task of life:
               The elements are let loose to fight,
               And while I live, trie out their right.
Oh help, my God! let not their plot
                     Kill them and me,
                     And also thee,
Who art my life: dissolve the knot,
               As the sunne scatters by his light
               All the rebellions of the night.
Then shall those powers, which work for grief,
                     Enter thy pay,
                     And day by day
Labour thy praise, and my relief;
               With care and courage building me,
                Till I reach heav’n, and much more, thee.

Calling all angels, walk me through this one - don't leave me all alone.

George Herbert - via media - Clasping of Hands

2008-06-24T18:26:00.000-07:00

I'm still in awe of George Herbert, as a poet, theologian, priest, as one charting a via media course against the increasing pressures of radicalism. After the death of King Charles, Andrew Marvell lamented that we have become the barbarians we feared and heard not the cultured voice of George Herbert (who was then deceased).

There is much academic weight and attention focussed on John Milton, John Donne, Shakespeare, Andrew Marvell, Ben Jonson & the Tribe of Ben - yet with all of the attention directed at 16th & 17th Century British Poetry George Herbert has remained a Poet's Poet and seen as a lesser John Donne the Divine. Nigel Smith has recently written a book, Why John Milton is Greater than Shakespeare? While I am tempted to agree with him that we are more in need (whatever that means) of John Milton's love of liberty, learning and and deep knowledge of all things human, I am soundly of the conviction that what we need is George Herbert (oddly Elizabeth Bishop agreed) - we need the middle way; a course that becomes so fluid that the horizontal line and vertical lines are replaced by communicative intimacy (H.Vendler). Herbert places the priority of this 'place' before & next to God (this communicative openness to address & redress God --- a communicative discourse that is based in the Eucharist) with the mystery itself as 'answer' and as 'truth' because it is itself the real intimacy and the via media of life in God.

I was deeply disturbed by some of the statements by Primates and Bishops (as can be seen on YouTube.com) regarding the Lambeth 2008 conference and their non attendance - my thoughts immediately went to George Herbert & the Little Gilding of Farrar. The puritan's ransacked Little Gilding and destroyed a vast number of first draft George Herbert poems & translations to clean-up the faith. They destroyed as an expression of their faith - their anger and violence used to force others to conform to their ideas. The only defense against the new puritanism is a return to the mystery and the hidden intimacy of our co-mingled voices that cry out to God in honest unknowing.

A new puritanism, a neo-puritanism, or to be blunt a neo-fundamentalism is threatening yet another denomination, the Anglican Communion world wide. Again a faction of a community has ventured to believe that the finite can possess the infinite in its totality - that the Truth can be comprehended by those who have access only to the truth ("for now I see only through a glass darkly") - that their 'knowing' of these truths is to say that some people are not allowed into the intimacy of God. The line of the horizon, if followed in depth and not just breath, brings us all back around to yourselves again. The horizontal intimacy of God with humanity in the one who is the union of the infinite and the finite becomes open to all humanity in the embrace of the crucified one, the one who is with us - for us - and in us, defies the gating off of intimacy with God, rejects the barring of communion and service, and opens the call to a life of fellowship and communion to all - male, female, straight, gay, old, young - called in the richness of their differences - flowers of God.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, could do worse that appoint a select diverse group of knowledgeable people to develop a mediative or contemplative / prayful approach to George Herbert's Temple to be used as a personal & corporate meditation and worship tool - alongside a celebration of Little Gilding & its Ideal (which so moved T.S. Eliot). Mystery & Beauty might be a strong cure against the obscene litmus tests of the neo-fundamentalist and their dated interpretation of Scriptures (whose violence has not been changed in the process).

The most powerful critique of Rome's reactionary theology (typified in the Council of Trent and the repressive Inquisition of the Church of Rome came from the mystical beauty of the poetry of St John of the Cross (St John of the Cross entered the Carmelite novitiate in 1563, the same year the Council of Trent was concluded) and visions of intimacy of Teresa of Avila. They provided an immanent critique that was neither reactionary nor damning - they simply remembered the beauty of the mystery of God and in their contemplation and prayer sought God in the mystery. George Herbert's contemplation of God speaks to us in much the same manner. In our pain, anger, happiness, loneliness, joy, and devotion, George Herbert's The Temple joins us in our calling out to the God who is with us without distinction. Our calling out to God joins us together in a clasping of hands, holding in our hands the other, each other, God:

Clasping of hands
LOrd, thou art mine, and I am thine,
If mine I am: and thine much more,
Then I or ought, or can be mine.
Yet to be thine, doth me restore;
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since this being mine, brings with it thine,
And thou with me dost thee restore.
If I without thee would be mine,
I neither should be mine nor thine.

Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine:
So mine thou art, that something more
I may presume thee mine, then thine.
For thou didst suffer to restore
Not thee, but me, and to be mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.
O be mine still! still make me thine!
Or rather make no Thine and Mine!

My Son, at 2 1/2, says his ABCs Backwards!!!!!

2008-06-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

John Milton a Love Poet? Milton On Love and Loss

2008-05-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

From John Milton's Paradise Lost, in his account of Adam and Eve, we have some of the most stunning and tender expressions of love and caring, possessing remarkable beauty, that can be found in all of English Literature. We all know, or should know, the greatness of John Milton's poetry and that Paradise Lost is the finest epic in the language if not also the finest poetry ever written in English. But, I must confess that as I was re-reading this masterpiece I was moved by the power of sentiment and truth in his expressions of Love, Sacrifice for Love and Loss. Milton is a great poet of Love!

First ---- Adam's profession of love and commitment to Eve.
In Conversation with Raphael,

Neither her outside formed so fair, nor aught
In procreation, common to all kinds
(Though higher of genial bed by far,
And with mysterious reverence, I deem),
So much delights me as those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies, that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mixed with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned
Union of mind, or in us both one soul
Harmony to behold in wedded pair
More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear.
(Paradise Lost VIII.596-604)

It is in the 'thousand decencies' enacted by Eve that Adam finds the most stirring aspect of his love for her. Who could blame him? What a perfect phrase, "thousand decencies that flow from all her words and actions, mixed with love..." 'Decencies' is such the perfect word - conveying all the thoughtfulness, manners, good form, kindness, never extravagant or bombastic, just simple and true. 'Flow' makes the image of the decencies all the more tender as the decencies flow, as if completely effortless like water that flows from up stream to down stream, as if anything else would be completely foreign and backwards. From whence do the decencies flow? From ALL her words and actions - in all she does and says... words do not contradict her actions or her actions do not betray her words, but they are united in their flow of decencies which are 'mixed' in their union and coherence by 'love'. Not only is this amazing poetry - beautiful in the highest degree, but it makes one long for the very thing it portrays.

Though we can regret the phrase 'sweet compliance' which is revealing of a hierarchy of the social order in which 'good wives' were expected to be compliant with their husbands wishes, if we can set this aside and make allowances for the historic time and setting, we find a very tender and delicate statement by Adam in rapture with the gentle thoughtfulness of Eve in the 'thousand decencies' which 'daily flow' from both her words and actions.
His rapture meets its height in his declaration of their harmonious state of union - dedication to one another strengthened by a shared sense of the world and by shared 'decencies' to one another. It is a beautiful expression of love and the contentment / fullness of being in love.
The next expression or declaration of love by Adam that bares quotation is his response to her after she has told him that she has eaten of the forbidden tree and bids him to do the same.

How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote?
Rather, how hast thou yielded to trangress
The strict forbiddance, how to violate
The sacred fruit forbidden? Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguilded thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruined; for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die;
How can I live without thee, how forgo
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
(Paradise Lost IX.900-916)
Take particular note of the lines beginning, "How can I live without thee?" Adam declares how can I not be with you, have conversations with you, be alone? Even if God were to create another 'Eve' from yet another rib of mine, the loss of you will never leave me - would break my heart. And so, Adam chooses the death threat of eating of the forbidden tree rather than the loss of Eve. Having heard the story of the fallen angels and the battle in heaven that lead to their eternal damnation and separation from God, Adam is aware that he is at great risk in joining Eve. Love of Eve conquers his fear of death (a great unknown for Adam particularly) and loss of God (incomprehensible for Adam who daily conversed with Angels and had heard the voice of God). He will be damned to death, labor and separation from God - i.e. loneliness at its deepest level. Adam and Eve must now depend on their love to compensate for their loneliness - the absence of the divine. One is left to wonder whether outside the Paradise of Eden the 'thousand decencies' continue from either party?

Contemplating Finitude: Paul Bowles

2008-05-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

He awoke, opened his eyes. The room meant very little to him; he was too deeply immersed in the non-being from which he had just come. If he had not the energy to ascertain his position in time and space, he also lacked the desire. He was somewhere, he had come back through vast regions from nowhere; there was the certitude of an infinite sadness at the core of his consciousness, but the sadness was reassuring, because it alone was familiar.

Because we don't know when we will die we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood? Some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the moon rise, perhaps twenty and yet it will all seem limitless.

Anniversary of the 1st American Great Artist - Hawthorne

2008-05-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the Anniversary of the first truly great American Artist - Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Many consider The Scarlet Letter to stand with Madame Bovary as two of the most perfect novels written. Other critics have hailed the influence of Hawthorne on the great Master of the novel, Henry James, whose work continually returns to Hawthorne and his themes as a touchstone. To be sure, there is little doubt that The Scarlet Letter was the first great American novel. Contemporaries of Hawthorne believed it the first work by an American to rival novels by British authors. Henry James believed it the first work of art produced by an American. It has been a mainstay of education in the US for more than a century. This work teaches us so much about human psychology, American history, cultural history, use of metaphor and allegory; it teaches us about the weight of the past upon the present and the burden that we as individuals and as a collective bare for what has gone before us. It is a warning and it is permission. It is the conflict of all things American.

So, why is there a sudden increase of silly, foolish, ill-formed or just daft opinions/expressions about Hawthorne appearing on blogs? Several of bloggers/readers (or so they say) need to learn a valuable lesson about great literature; namely, that great works of literature define the reading experience and the reader. You say it is old, out dated, slow, boring, has a bad first chapter, and many other statements? Sadly, these impression define your lack of artistic & cultural maturity and appreciation for one of the most perfect novels in any language.
If one listens to Beethoven and then states that it is 'bad' music and boring, it says more about the person than it does about Beethoven. Beethoven is clearly anything but boring to those who appreciate pure genius and beautiful music. In truth, both Beethoven and Hawthorne are geniuses of the highest level. One who says that either Beethoven or Hawthorne are boring or old-fashioned needs to develop their sophistication and understanding of great works of art.
Aside from his short stories & novels, I strongly recommend reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's American Notebooks. They are a very different experience than reading those of Henry James, Steinbeck, Thomas Mann (Diaries), Robert Musil or even those published by Reynolds Price. The self-mannered awareness that the future will prize their "private" thoughts and ideas is absent. These were truly private workbooks. Hawthorne writes in full voice as someone for whom communication is vital and difficult. Open this work anywhere and read what sounds like the inner voice of someone practiced at concealing his thoughts publicly. Expansive, suggestive, and illuminating for all those who would like to know more of the deep thought and artfullness that went into his major works.

Some of his working ideas for stories sound absolutely modern. One story idea develops the possibility of having two men talking and discussing their difficulties while waiting and waiting for someone who never comes. They don't know what to do, so they continue to wait and discussing the one who never comes. Sound familar? A little like "Waiting for Godot"? If you love great literature, read Hawthorne again - slowly.... remember, there are no readers, just re-readers.

Hawthorne is a master of the novel and today we remember him as such.

Reflection on Theodicy - Tolstoy

2008-05-10T01:29:00.000-07:00

Having spent the last week recovery from Thoracic Spinal Surgery, my mood is dark and strained by pain. Pain piles onto new Pain and just when I think the worst pain is gone it comes back with a fury that leaves me shaken to my core. As I complete one back surgery and another one is being scheduled, my surgery informs me that I'll need at least a third surgery. It seems that pain is my new mode of existence. As Shelley wrote:

Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!*

I read these words for the first time, a first year college student, when I had no idea what pain was. It also makes me rethink the Biblical declaration & the Church declarations that Christ is eternally crucified. This idea of a promethean or christological pain at least carries with it a note of a redemptive purpose... my pain is neither redemptive or benevolent - it just is, without reason, purpose or meaning. It is the cruelty of an indifferent universe. (besides the point that any theory that glories anyone's suffering, let alone their endless suffering is just a cruel theory of religion..... Don't they ever get the willies singing "on a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame..." that's just really sick.

In Shelley, it is different... he thinks that suffering gives rise to and urgency for humans to aspire to the highest values of human existence - freedom, truth, justice, love, etc... He believed that suffering was a human phenomenon & that the only response to suffering was endurance (though not submission), rebellion, speaking the truth to power & overcoming yourself through love.

Nietzsche said that art is the only justifiable theodicy (explanation or rationalization of the co-existence of God & evil or suffering). I read poetry - some about suffering - some about life - some just embodying the beauty / the virtue of the language... does it provide a justifiable theodicy - does experiencing the beauty of human creation (born from suffering) prove to be so meaningful and significant that it excuses suffering - does it justify meaningless pain?

Now I have aged and experienced more of the world - I think that the popularized Christianity is fundamental mistaken, Shelley is naive, Nietzsche is close, but doesn't grasp the limits of art. I don't think that there can be a 'justifiable' theodicy - it could never cover the whole of suffering with redemptive significant... it is a nihilistic theodicy - it is the only thing that provides a plausible glimpse at meaning, however indeterminate & fluid. Believe me, the old platitudes about suffering are all wrong... it doesn't build character.. make you a better person... teach you empathy... connect you to all who suffer (Tolstoy's opening to Anna Karenina is on point here - All unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique way... so all who suffer do so in their own troubled way.)... it does nothing but rob one of the power to live..... it doesn't teach new wisdom... it just hollows you out like a tree infested with termites... thus the nihilism of it.

The logical outcoming of this theory would have us like Alice (as in Alice in Wonderland) falling through the rabbit hole that seems to never end and finding some jam on shelves constructed on the walls of the hole along the way down ---- she enjoys the jam and forgets that she is falling endlessly.... that is my Lewis Carroll philosophy of life - we are falling endlessly & hopelessly and we have not idea where we will land or what we become of us when we land - will we still exist? will we be severely harmed? what if we never land? But along the way, amidst our grave concerns we stop some jam and bread & we help ourselves to enjoy the bounty of the fall (since we must fall after all, why not for something to enjoy). And so we do, we find much to enjoy and take pleasure in... for me poetry, art, conversation (ugh - I mean GOOD conversation), fine food and wine, a beer or two, etc... All of our pleasures are merely JAM that we enjoy as we FALL.

Finally, maybe it is like Anna Karenina by great Tolstoy.... in the amazing final section... beautiful in its details and not attempting a mass theory or definition of what all humans experience. One person, Anna, this makes sense. Life has robbed Anna of love, family, her children, her husband, her new lover, her name & position, her self-respect, and worse of all her fondest hopes had been cruelly played with and destroyed with guile. She stands on the dock of the train station, she steps closer to the edge of the platform as she hears the train approach.
As people all around converse about their travel plans and financial matters, they too in mass move closer as the train approaches. Then, in what she felt to be a moment of clarity, Anna let her torso weigh her down - leaning forward more and more with the ease of fainting into bed and fell onto the tracks as the train approached. However, as soon as she hit the tracks on the ground she awoke from this fantasy of oblivion and with every thought and action began to move toward the platform top again. But as her hands reached out to those who had rushed to the edge to see what had happened, the train still decelerating put an end to her last hope and crushed more than her last desire for life. Life is like that. (See clip below)

* Prometheus Unbound, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Prometheus' opening monologue.

Nabokov in his own words

2008-05-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

William Butler Yeats reading his verse.

2008-04-26T01:54:00.001-07:00

Yeats made these recordings for the wireless in 1932, 1934 and the last on 28 October 1937 when he was 72. He died on January 28 1939. The photograph shows him sitting before the microphone in 1937.

Nabokov's "The Original of Laura" to be published

2008-04-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

The final work of Nabokov (The Original of Laura) that was left unfinished at his death will be published by his son Dmitri, who also has served as the translator of his father's English work into Russian. Nabokov is perhaps the most misunderstood writer/philosopher of the modern work. More and more scholars and good readers are discovering that Nabokov is a supreme moralist & his works should be read as masterpieces of high humanism that indicts us and our culture of the very things that we project onto him and charge him with... our indictment merely demonstrates that we have failed to grasp and seize the humanism or humanity of the unvoiced in his works - one thinks of Pale Fire, Lolita & Ada in this regard.

April - National Poetry Month

2008-04-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

Poetry is the virtue of the language, calling the ancient discourse of human with human to a higher account while calling all humans to a higher angel of discourse itself - joining the subtle with the metaphysical; the modest with the exalted - rejecting the marketplace of indeterminate and expansive meaning and embracing the narrow, clear and precise meaning of that which is itself indeterminate and yet completely vital and determining. Poetry calls us to the artfulness of being. Poetry rejects the pace of modernity and post-modernity and post-post-modernity (the words themselves refer to the absurdity with which we have disturbed language) and the habituated frontal-lobe thinking without reflective morality or humanity.

E.A. Robinson d. April 5, 1935

2008-04-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

"How Annandale Went Out"

“They called it Annandale—and I was there
To flourish, to find words, and to attend:
Liar, physician, hypocrite, and friend,
I watched him; and the sight was not so fair
As one or two that I have seen elsewhere:
An apparatus not for me to mend—
A wreck, with hell between him and the end,
Remained of Annandale; and I was there.

“I knew the ruin as I knew the man;
So put the two together, if you can,
Remembering the worse you know of me.
Now view yourself as I was, on the spot—
With a slight kind of engine. Do you see?
Like this … You wouldn’t hang me? I thought not.”

_____________________________
The voice is that of a doctor about Annandale who has commited suicide - Annandale is clearly EA's older brother Dean (seen in photo below), the doctor is also Dean - a rich and profound reading of the human struggle and the failure to exist.

Horace Dean Robinson, M.D.

Robinson Family Home

See:
http://www.earobinson.com/pages/sites/site02.html - a virtual tour of Robinson's Gardiner, Maine.

They All Forget - Robert Frost

2008-04-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

Robert Frost
from, "Out, Out"

The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

The Emptiness Within - Robert Frost

2008-04-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

Robert Frost
from, "Desert Places"

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
_____________________________________

Looking out into the night sky and observing the utter blankness between the stars - the emptiness of space the poet responds in a comparative analogy - the complete desolate nothingness of the heavens fail in comparison with the 'desert places' within. I invite you to read the entire poem. It is a terrifyingly honest struggle with the vast neutrality of existence and one's existential sense of utter emptiness; the void within, the desert.

John Donne, "RESURRECTION, IMPERFECT"

2008-03-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

SLEEP, sleep, old sun, thou canst not have repass'd,
As yet, the wound thou took'st on Friday last ;
Sleep then, and rest ; the world may bear thy stay ;
A better sun rose before thee to-day ;
Who—not content to enlighten all that dwell
On the earth's face, as thou—enlighten'd hell,
And made the dark fires languish in that vale,
As at thy presence here our fires grow pale ;
Whose body, having walk'd on earth, and now
Hasting to heaven, would—that He might allow
Himself unto all stations, and fill all—
For these three days become a mineral.
He was all gold when He lay down, but rose
All tincture, and doth not alone dispose
Leaden and iron wills to good, but is
Of power to make e'en sinful flesh like his.
Had one of those, whose credulous piety
Thought that a soul one might discern and see
Go from a body, at this sepulchre been,
And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen,
He would have justly thought this body a soul,
If not of any man, yet of the whole.

W.H. Auden, "Tell Me the True About Love"

2008-03-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

Natalie Merchant - Thick as Thieves

2008-03-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle - 1972

2008-03-18T13:34:00.001-07:00

Conversation in the Face of Silence: Joseph Brodsky

2008-03-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

Silence is the future of the days
that roll toward speech, with all we emphasize
in it, as, in our greetings, silence pays
respect to unavoidable goodbyes.
Silence is the future of the words
whose vowels have gobbled up internally
the stuff of things, things with terror towards
their corners; a wave that cloaks eternity.
Silence is the future of our love;
a space, not an impediment, a space
depriving love's blood-throbbed falsetto of
its echo, of its natural response.
Silence is the present for men
who lived before us. And, procuress-like,
silence gathers all together in
itself, admitted by the speech-filled present. Life
is but a conversation in the face
of silence.

Joseph Brodsky, "Gorbunov and Gorchakov" - trans. Harry Thomas and Joseph Brodsky, revised and edited by Ann Kjellberg in Collected Poems in English

Hart Crane - Realities plunge in silence by...

2008-03-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

Legend

As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunge in silence by . . .

I am not ready for repentance;
Nor to match regrets. For the moth
Bends no more than the still
Imploring flame. And tremorous
In the white falling flakes
Kisses are,--
The only worth all granting.

It is to be learned--
This cleaving and this burning,
But only by the one who
Spends out himself again.

Twice and twice
(Again the smoking souvenir,
Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again.
Until the bright logic is won
Unwhispering as a mirror
Is believed.

Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry
Shall string some constant harmony,--
Relentless caper for all those who step
The legend of their youth into the noon.

Hart Crane, Complete Poems & Selected Letters (Library of American)

Dark, Salt, Clear, Utterly Free: Elizabeth Bishop

2008-03-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Bishop

From "At the Fishhouses"

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals...
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water...
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing and flown.

In this section of the poem, Bishop is speaking of the sea and of the sea as a metaphor for knowledge.

Women in Henry James & Edith Wharton

2008-02-28T14:41:00.001-08:00

Portraits of Henry James - d. 2/28/1916

2008-02-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

Henry James - Anniversary of death Feb. 28, 1916

2008-02-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

On Reading Henry James: Collected Travel Writings:

The Continent: A Little Tour in Frace / Italian Hours / Other Travels. Ed. Richard Howard. (Library of America)

Henry James' travel writings on France and Italy are a case study in fine arts perception, understanding and interpretation. He treats each new locale as a new horizon to be engaged, absorbed, and internalized through a hermeneutic of analogical interiority. Roaming within the halls and chambers of French and Italian architecture opens, through the text, new conduits for an understanding of the vast interiority that exists within the self-examining-self. James is a master at relating the space of each location with the thoughts, instincts, relational perceptions and education of the observer.

Reading these texts is like engaging each site oneself and discussing with a learned and trusted friend about what one is experiencing, not just what one is seeing. The art work of Joseph Pennell is an amazing addition to these works and masterpieces on their own. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will be a cherished addition to your collection and a book you will pick-up time and again to walk with the "Master" through France and Italy as you discuss, reflect and remember literary events that where home to these marvels. If you happen to be planning a trip to either France or Italy, take this along to add a level of historical and cultural depth to your experience. Some of what you will read has disappeared into history, but what remains is a beautiful historical and cultural continuity with Henry James as your guide.

Some Exteriors Noted by Henry James in France:

Promethean Pain

2008-02-24T02:15:00.000-08:00

Prometheus Unbound, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Prometheus' opening monologue.

Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

Prometheus' liver about to be eaten by a vulture brought by Hermes (Mercury) by Zeus (Jupiter) - a cruel cycle that, according to Hesiod, is repeated daily after his liver has regenerated. Art by Gustave Moreau.

Comforter, where, where is your comforting?

2008-02-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing --
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durances deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

Li Qingzhao (Yi’an Jushi)

2008-02-23T03:19:00.000-08:00

Sheng Sheng Man

To search, searching.
To seek, seeking.
Cold, clear, sorrow, pain.
Cold, clear sorrow, pain.
Hot flashes – sudden chills.
Stabbing pain – slow agonies.
No serenity can I find. I drink
Two cups, then three bowls, of tasteless wine,
Until I can’t stand against fierce wind.
Wild geese fly overhead. They break my heart,
These friends of mine from olden days.

Gold chrysanthemums spread
Across the ground, piled, faded, dead.
I could not bear to pick them this season.
In stillness, alone at my window,
I watch the gathering shadows.
Gentle rain sprinkles through the wu-t’ung trees
And drips, drop by drop through the dusk.
What can I ever do now?
How can I drive away this word
– Hopelessness?

Trans. by M. Dale

Li Quingzhao (1084-1151?), called herself Yian Jushi, from Jiana, Shandong. She is considered China’s greatest woman poet. Her father Li Gefei was a high official as well as a man of letters. Her husband, Zhao Mingcheng, was a governor of Huzhou, Zheijang , author of Jinshi Lu (Epigraphic Records) in 30 volumes. With their aristocratic background, her family nevertheless prided themselves on a life of simplicity, with a focus on things literary and contemplative. This life, however, was interrupted by the invasion of the Jin (Golden Tartars) in 1127. Her family was forced to abandon their home and valuable collection of books, seals, bronzes, manuscripts, calligraphy and paintings. In 1129, when Li was forty-six, her husband in rout to his new official post became ill and died before Li could come to him. The remainder of her life was spent in flight (saving as much of her family collections as possible) from the Jin as they forced the Song out of North China.
“Slow Measured Sound” – In this poem, Li gives voice to her passionate grief over the loss of her husband. One of the best loved Ci-poems of the Song Dynasty. The recurrence of certain sounds/words in the beginning lines was considered the poet’s unique creation. It was thought that wild geese can carry messages.

"A Serious Way of Wondering" by Reynolds Price

2008-02-23T00:41:00.000-08:00

For years Reynolds Price has been developing a large collection of significant works addressing areas of faith, understanding, interpretation of the Bible, morality in the modern world, and struggles with being a person of faith who has less faith in the traditional institutions that support Christian faith. It would stand to reason that one of the reasons that Price and others have been struggling with faith and understanding outside the traditional church is that there is a forgetfulness of the person of Jesus and his actions beneath platitudes and cliques. The "What Would Jesus Do?" fad, or WWJD fad, ends up to be a shallow exercise if there has not been clearheaded thought and reflection on what he did do in his times and finding modern analogies to those actions. (It also losses focus because the real question is what will we do.) To think that Jesus would never have placed himself in a position to be "tempted" by drugs or the advances of a homosexual displays a forgetfulness that Jesus was open to all who came to him without a morality filter to cut off people that were taboo. It is also naive to think that Israel in the time of Jesus was homosexual free or drug free. Alcohol is a drug and if I'm not mistaken, Jesus made more wine when the guests at a wedding drank their hosts wine too fast. Instead of a sobriety speech, he made MORE wine. Homosexuals are a percentage of every society no matter how backward their morality. So I think it is safe to assume that Jesus did come into contact with homosexuals and that they may possibly have made an advance. Remember Jesus was all about intimacy (what Ivan Klima call the Ultimate Intimacy) and this could have been mistaken for something else. We don't know, but we can find certain analogies in his dealing with others in society who were looked down upon or cast out. As Price tells us, he broke down the barriers (which were built of falsity) and touched people were they stood - open, embracing, defenseless.
A Serious Way of Wondering shows us why we need writers like Price to bring us back to the reality of Jesus in History with real people doing real things. The beauty of his reflections on the suicide is ample proof that Price is neither writing for the pouch line, nor writing to take people to task for their pain and hurt (ala most evangelicals and even Dante). We on the outside are there because we want to fully engage the texts and the truth of biblical Christianity without buying into a set of presumptions that have nothing to do with the text of Bible or with Jesus' life. Price opens the door to serious wondering / reflection because we really can't be too sure what Jesus would do in all circumstances. In his day, many people thought they knew exactly what the Messiah was going to do and as we now see clearly, they were a bit presumptive. With Price, I hope for a little more wonder and little less rigidity. If this way of wondering seriously means that one is an outlaw Christian, then sign me up.

I highly recommend Reynolds Price's A Serious Way of Wondering to all readers. If possible see also Palpable God, Three Gospels, and his Collected Poems. Anyone interested in writing should have his Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebook, 1955-1997 - it is a rare glimpse of the artist at work in his studio - words.

George Herbert's "Lent" and Bruegel's "Fight between Carnival and Lent"

2008-02-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

"Lent"

WElcome deare feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authoritie,
                       But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow 
                       To ev'ry Corporation.
The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and layes the burden there,
                       When doctrines disagree.
He sayes, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandall to the Church, and not 
                       The Church is so to me.
  
True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
                       When good is seasonable;
Unlesse Authoritie, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it lesse,
                       And Power it self disable.
Besides the cleannesse of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
                       A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulnesse there are sluttish fumes,
Sowre exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
                       Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
                       And goodnesse of the deed.
Neither ought other mens abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
                       We forfeit all our Creed.
It 's true, we cannot reach Christ's fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
                       Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior's purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev'n as he.
                       In both let 's do our best.
Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
                       That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
                       May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
                       As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
                       And among those his soul.

George Herbert, The Temple

"Fight Between Carnival and Lent"

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559.

"tortur'd betwixt this world and grace" - George Herbert

2008-02-16T00:39:00.000-08:00

"Affliction IV"

BRoken in pieces all asunder,
                      Lord, hunt me not,
                     A thing forgot,
Once a poore creature, now a wonder,
               A wonder tortur’d in the space
               Betwixt this world and that of grace.
My thoughts are all a case of knives,
                     Wounding my heart
                     With scatter’d smart,
As watring pots give flowers their lives.
               Nothing their furie can controll,
               While they do wound and prick my soul.
All my attendants are at strife,
                     Quitting their place
                     Unto my face:
Nothing performs the task of life:
               The elements are let loose to fight,
               And while I live, trie out their right.
Oh help, my God! let not their plot
                     Kill them and me,
                     And also thee,
Who art my life: dissolve the knot,
               As the sunne scatters by his light
               All the rebellions of the night.
Then shall those powers, which work for grief,
                     Enter thy pay,
                     And day by day
Labour thy praise, and my relief;
               With care and courage building me,
                Till I reach heav’n, and much more, thee.

George Herbert, The Temple

Prayer & Lamentation: Jane Kenyon

2008-02-10T17:15:00.000-08:00

"Now Where?"

It wakes when I wake, walks
when I walk, turns back when I
turn back, beating me to the door.

It spoils my food and steals
my sleep, and mocks me, saying,
"Where is your God now?"

And so, like a widow, I lie down
after supper. If I lie down
or sit up it's all the same:

the days and nights bear me along.
To strangers I must seem
alive. Spring comes, summer;

cool, clear weather; heat, rain...

Jane Kenyon, Collected Poems

Milton - 400th Anniversary II

2008-02-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

We left off with John Milton's early masterpiece, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" which demonstrates both his vast command of literary history and early engagement with the Puritan cause. In this entry, the Contemplative will meditate on Milton's sonnet praise of his sole peer in the English language, William Shakespeare; and on the masterful, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" which inspired Handel to is highest level of artistic perfection. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZCTBvS47tI or play Handel on this blog on through the video bar.)

The years 1631 through 1633 show Milton to be much concerned with Shakespeare; first with his Shakespeare sonnet and again in "L'Allegro" were he refers to him, "Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. 1632 saw Milton's Shakespeare sonnet published in the Second Folio of Shakespeare's plays and Milton takes a MA degree from Christ's College on July 3.

I can not help but think that Milton's personal esteem of Shakespeare had eroded over the 3 years between each poem's composition. In the sonnet, Shakespeare is "memory's child" - in "L'Allegro" he is "Fancy's child" with 'native' notes that are wild.

1633 saw two great losses for the Anglican Church; the death of George Herbert and William Laud became the Archbishop of Canterbury, fervent supporter of King Charles I and the absolute divine right of the king.

Paradise Lost Book II

The Consultation begun, Satan debates whether another Battel be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven: some advise it, others dissuade: A third proposal is prefer'd, mention'd before by Satan, to search the truth of that Prophesie or Tradition in Heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature equal or not much inferiour to themselves, about this time to be created: Thir doubt who shall be sent on this difficult search: Satan thir chief undertakes alone the voyage, is honourdand applauded. The Councel thus ended, the rest betake them several wayes and to several imployments, as thir inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to Hell Gates, finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them, by whom at length they are, and discover to him the great Gulf between Hell and Heaven; with what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new World which he sought.

Auden, Suffering, & the Apathy of Flawed Souls

2008-02-05T00:50:00.000-08:00

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or walking duly along...

In Brueghel's Icarus*, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expressive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W. H. Auden, Musee des Beaux

* Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Landscape with Fall of Icarus

There is an old Flemish proverb that reads, " Es bleibt kein Pflug stehen um eines menschen willen , der stirbt." Which reads in translation, "No plough comes to a standstill because a man dies."

In this poem, as is so often the case, Auden's observation about the human denial of the relevance of another person's suffering or an apathetic response to suffering founding in either the leisurely disdain of an egoist or the marginalizing impact of the ultra impersonal force work of commerce and business - jointly reveal something fundamental and fallen about the human situation. The general indifference of all the observers to the suffering/death of Icarus is comparable to that of the inanimate sun which shines through no choice of its own. The caustic inference that Auden is making is that our denial, apathy, indifference is a forced yet intentional removal of our care from the other - it is our animated choice that reveals our flawed nature.

Life Never Finishes: Robert Lowell

2008-01-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

History

History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had--
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends--
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull's no-nose--
O there's a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.

Robert Lowell, Collected Poems

John Milton's 400th Anniversary b. 1608

2008-01-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

The year 2008 marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton in 1608 in Cheapside, London. He was the second child of John Milton Sr. and his wife Sarah. His childhood home was the Spread Eagle on Bread Street, where his father conducted his business as a scrivener (notary, moneyleader, and investment banker). John Milton Sr. was disinherited by his family for converting from Roman Catholicism and though Puritan in sympathy he was a great lover of literature and music (he was an amateur composer).

At the age of sixteen he composed translations of Psalms cxiv and cxxxvi. By the age of 21, as he was graduating from Christ's College Cambridge, he already possessed the genius and craft realized in "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity".
We will leave off here for now - basking in Milton's early major achievement (I read it every Christmas Season). The Contemplative will post at least 2 blogs a month dedicated to John Milton: one on his life and development and the other on Paradise Lost - 1 Book per month for all 12 books. For a taste of the coming post on Paradise Lost, below are three images from the 1674 edition.

THE ARGUMENT

This first Book proposes, first in brief, the whole Subject, Mans disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was plac't: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many Legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his Crew into the great Deep. Which action past over, the Poem hasts into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, describ'd here, not in the Center (for Heaven and Earth may be suppos'd as yet not made, certainly not yet accurst) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest call'd Chaos: Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning Lake, thunder-struck and astonisht, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in Order and Dignity lay by him; they confer of thir miserable fall. Satan awakens all his Legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; They rise, thir Numbers, array of Battel, thir chief Leaders nam'd, according to the Idols known afterwards in Canaan and the Countries adjoyning. To these Satan directs his Speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new World and new kind of Creature to be created, according to an ancient Prophesie or report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this visible Creation, was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this Prophesie, and what to determin thereon he refers to a full Councel. What his Associates thence attempt. Pandemonium the Palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: The infernal Peers there sit in Councel.

OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of CHAOS: Or if SION Hill
Delight thee more, and SILOA'S Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' AONIAN Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view
Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause
Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State,
Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his Will
For one restraint, Lords of the World besides?
Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd
The Mother of Mankinde, what time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,
If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud
With vain attempt.

[A useful chronology of Milton's life can be found: http://www.richmond.edu/~creamer/milton/chron.html ]

The Loon's Cry Across the Water

2008-01-24T01:19:00.001-08:00

For sometimes, when our world is not our home
Nor we any home elsewhere, but all
Things look to leave us naked, hungry, cold
We suddenly may seem in paradise
Again, in ignorance and emptiness
Blessed beyond what we thought to know:
Then on sweet waters echoes the loon's cry.

Howare Nemerov, "The Loon's Cry"

Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1981).

Theological Reflection on the Beautiful

2008-01-24T00:55:00.001-08:00

"In a world without beauty - even if people cannot dispense with the word and constantly have it on the tip of their tongues in order to abuse it - in a world which is perhaps not wholly without beauty, but which can no longer see it or reckon with it: in such a world the good also loses its attractiveness, the self-evident of why it must be carried out. Man stands before the good and asks himself why it must be done and not rather its alternative evil... In a world that no longer has enough confidence in itself to affirm the beautiful, the proofs of the truth have lost their cogency."

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: I Seeing the Form (Ignatius Press, p. 19)

Remembering Larry Brown's Lyrical Realism

2008-01-24T00:05:00.000-08:00

Meeting Joe, Meeting Larry Brown

In 1991, after his masterful collection of stark, humorous, and fierce stories, Big Bad Love, Larry Brown released his second novel, Joe: A Novel. More so than his first novel (Dirty Work), Joe brought together the great themes and the rich environment that would typify this work: The struggle with poverty or barely making your way from job to job; the struggle between decency and outright evil; and, the inner struggle to resist the forces to implode in furies of self-destruction.

In Joe, Brown has fully formed his unique lyrical and spare voice and has breathed life into characters that are so real the reader leaves the novel with the impression that they have met Joe Ransom, Gary Jones and know low-down dogs like Wade Jones, Gary’s father. We recognize in Wade, like Faulkner’s Anse Bundren, the father-figure whose whole being is bent on an entirely selfish objective that is typically achieved through the exploitation and destruction of their children. Whether after teeth, a wife, alcohol, or money, the unsuppressed desire of the father sets both Faulkner’s and Brown’s novel into action.

We are first introduced to the chronically homeless and fleeing Jones family, Wade, Mama, Fay, Gary, and Dorothy wondering from Oklahoma to Florida back to Mississippi through highways and country by-roads in sojourn to an old familiar place that Wade remembers from his younger years. As his family suffers from excruciating depravation, Wade’s unchallenged desire for alcohol is pathetically apparent. As they walk the highway, Wade finds a couple unopened can of Budweiser and joyfully/miserly hogs them to himself. The chapter ends with the industrious Gary finding an abandoned house/cabin that quickly becomes the residence of the Wade Jones Family.

In the next chapter, we are introduced to the Joe Ransom, a forty something ex-convict whose job entails poisoning trees (clearing the land) for a lumber company. Joe’s wife left him after years of living with his gambling, drinking, and carousing. He has got a couple of children whom he rarely sees; drives a broken down truck; keeps a pit bull to guard his house; has a girlfriend, Connie, roughly the age of his own daughter; and has an ongoing feud with several of the degenerate locals (chiefly Willie Russell). His independent mentality of self-reliance and suspicions of the local authorities comes through as an ‘authority complex’ that repeatedly threatens to have him return to prison. But, his outlook also promises the hope of redemption because of his awareness of his limitation, faults and sense of right or order.

The intersection of Joe and Gary forms the stories central understanding of the relentlessness of evil and the hope of redemption in sacrificial caring for another person. In between Wade steals, connives, and even kills as he embarks on a perpetual quest for another jug of liquor and a pack of smokes. He dominates by terror the entire Jones family with such violence that the eighteen-year-old daughter, Fay, flees the house and family to seek a life (Fay: A Novel). Gary stays with his Mama and Dorothy out of a sense of misguided loyalty. Though he cannot read or write, Gary becomes the primary wage earner in the family and begins working for Joe poisoning trees in the woods. A bond in formed between Gary and Joe, between a form of innocence and a dreaming or longing for innocence in the form of making things right by doing something really right for someone unable to save themselves; redemption.

As the novel draws to the showdown between Wade and his radical exploitation of everyone, particularly his family, to satisfy his basest desires and Joe’s vicarious salvation through his ennobled protection of Gary, the world of moral ambiguity is quickened and solidified against the violence against innocence. Joe’s sense of what is right and what must happen propels him to be found with the power and justification of a ‘fated’ act. He acts not from a place of puritanical moral purity, but from the grayness of his own moral compass that allows for complete clarity as he sees the lives of Gary and Dorothy threatened with a violence of grotesques magnitude.

Joe ends as it began. Nothing is resolved. No one has escaped the pain of life or even the pain inflicted by individuals bent on their own desires without consideration or care for those around. Wade, a master of the art of using people as a means toward his own end, poisons people at their roots or base so that he can control them in their weakness. Like the poisoned trees, everyone has been damaged and will not stand long. Fay has fled, Gary returns to his Mama with a traumatized Dorothy, and Gary is left to settle matters in violence. All that is innocent is damaged. All that is free is bound. All that is withheld is taken by force, violated and destroyed.

Larry Brown’s Joe stands at the beginning of his amazing and too brief career as a gateway to the moral complexity and flawed realism of the world we inhabit. No one’s motives are pure. No act is without self-service or self-gain. Even Joe’s sacrifice is framed within the larger context of a countdown to his return to prison due to his anti-authoritarian mentality. One knows, doesn’t one, that Joe was going, eventually, back to prison. Yet, his decision ennobles and redeems him nevertheless. Brown reaches for no easy solutions or convenient resolutions. Joe’s painful realism, which depicts characters as flawed, struggling agents of their own lives, disallows anything but authenticity and integrity in understanding actions and consequences. We are the wiser who benefit from Brown’s deeply philosophical novel whose moral complexity reads like a Camus of the American South.

______________________________________
This review of Joe: A Novel and the "Biographical Profile of Larry Brown" below were originally published in the Southern Literary Review: March/April Edition, 2007.
______________________________________

A Biographical Profile of Larry Brown

His work evokes the sounds, smells and sensations of the land, people and world of the rough south. No parlors or doilies, no society dances or church picnics, Larry Brown wrote of the events, troubles and hopes of everyday people whose world is fatally realistic. It was his world he evoked and reflected through a mirror of discernment, care and empathy. Larry Brown wrote fiction with flesh and muscle - that breathes deep and sweats. Life lived in his fiction, and that life began in 1951 in Oxford, Mississippi as one of six children. His father relocated the family when Larry was only three to Memphis, Tennessee to work in at the Fruehauf Trailer Company. They returned to Oxford in 1964 where they were to remain. At the pivotal age of sixteen, his father died. Larry did not fare well in school and joked ironically in later years that he flunked senior English.

During the Vietnam war era, October 1970, Brown joined the U.S. Marine Corps, but was stationed at Camp LeJune and never saw action. This experience and the people he meet while in the Marines became the rare material of his first novel, Dirty Work. After his term in the Marines was over, Brown returned to Oxford and married Mary Annie Coleman and became a Firefighter (experiences that were memorialized in On Fire).

While working as a Firefighter in 1980, Brown began teaching himself how to write fiction. He had worked for the Fire Department for seven years and knew that he did not want to do this for the rest of his life. He intuitively knew that learning to write was work and that if he worked hard enough at it he could learn to write well. And so he wrote five novels and between eighty and ninety stories (eight years of writing) before he published his first book. During this literary apprenticeship, of an auto-didactic nature, Brown read writers William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Harry Crews, Cormac McCarthy, and Raymond Carver.
What happened next is the stuff of legend around the Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Shannon Ravel read of story of Brown's while looking for new material for her New Stories from the South. She loved what she saw ("Facing the Music" the second story Brown had published) and wrote Brown to see if he had any more stories, he replied about a hundred. His first collection of stories was published, Facing the Music, was published in 1988

Brown’s first novel, Dirty Work (1989) about the struggles of two injured veterans won the Mississippi Library Association's Award for Fiction. It was followed by a collection of short stories Big Bad Love (1990) depicting the struggles and tensions between holding onto relationships (husband, wife, and friendships) and being true to yourself (particularly while dedicating the time, energy and focus necessary to be writer.) In 2001, Arliss Howard directed a screenplay adaptation of Big Bad Love written by Jim Howard where he played the role of Leon Barlow with Debra Winger co-starring as his ex-wife, Marilyn. Brown appears in the film in the role of Mr. Barlow, father of Leon, uttering his words of wisdom to his son, “Take the high road son.”

His next novel, Joe: A Novel (1991), a story of redemption and ruin as two unlikely characters discovery and fulfill a shared need in each other, won the Southern Book Critic's Circle Award for Fiction, was named a Notable Book of 1991 by the American Library Association, and was a Best Book by Publisher's Weekly. Joe (named for Joe Ransom) introduces readers to the Jones family, Ward (the father), Gary, Fay, Calvin and Dorothy and is the first in a proposed trilogy that was to include novels on Fay and Gary and resolve the questions about the fates of Fay, Gary and Calvin.

Brown’s third novel, Father and Son: A Novel (1996), won the 1997 Southern Book Award. Here Brown addresses the core questions in the struggle between good and evil without either falling into cliques or simplifying the complex motives and drives of each character. As in his other fiction, characters are portrayed at their most vulnerable or base, in full light of their weaknesses and make their way, for better or worse, toward their fate.

In 2000, Brown released Fay: A Novel, the second installment of his proposed trilogy. It takes up the questions left open in Joe regarding the fate of Fay Jones. Writing in the first person in the voice of Fay, this novel records her life from immediately after she had fled from the sexual advances of her father, Wade, a man who had traded his son Calvin for a car and pimped his youngest mute daughter for a few $20s. Not since Faulkner’s Light in August has a narrative struggle of a young woman reached this epic proportion. In recognition of his accomplishments he received the Artist's Achievement Award given by the Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts.

Brown changed publishers for his novel Rabbit Factory: A Novel in 2003 from Algonquin to Free Press. In many ways Rabbit Factory reminds one of the stories in Big Bad Love with the significant difference that Brown has successfully woven these stories of broken, self-destructive, long-time losers in and around Memphis, Tennessee. It is the most sophisticated formal experimentation with fiction that Brown had yet achieved. Experience and proximity are the glue that holds these stories together. Each character is absorbed in their lives were violence is as familiar as their own face. In these stories, the main character is the absurdity of each thought and action as played out in a world in which it appears normal; in which the absurdity of a reformed, thoughtful pit bull setting out to become helpful to other animals makes equal sense.

On Fire (1993) and Billy Ray's Farm: Essays from a place called Tula (2001), together gather Brown’s published non-fiction prose. Each draws from his life and interaction with the people, places and animals he cared about most. They provide the most vivid written portrait of Brown available. This portrait was enhanced in 2002, when director Gary Hawkings made a documentary, "The Rough South of Larry Brown" that dramatized some of Brown's stories, including "Boy & Dog" and featured an interview with both Brown and his wife, Mary Annie.

Larry Brown died tragically on November 24, 2004 at his own near Oxford, from a heart attack. Those surviving him include his wife, Mary Annie Coleman Brown, three children (Billy Ray, Shane Michael, and LeAnn), and two granddaughters. His lose is deeply felt by the literary community and by readers who eagerly awaited each new volume. His example of a self-made literary giant stands tall for all who would learn from him the lesson of hard work and perseverance on the path to becoming a writer.

His last novel, A Miracle of Catfish, was published by Algonquin on March 20, 2007. It contains all chapters that Brown finished plus the notes for its conclusion. The novel recounts the story of Cortez Sharp, a widower, who decides to build a catfish pond on his land in Mississippi and that of a young nine-year-old boy, Jimmy, who lives down the road. You will have to read his book or upcoming reviews to find out more.

Another significant addition to the Brown corpus is the collection of interviews edited by Jay Watson, Conversations with Larry Brown published by the University of Mississippi Press in March of 2007

Loved & Beloved: Merrill, St. John of the Cross & Marc Chagall

2008-01-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

...Now come days
When lover and beloved know
That love is what they are and where they go.
Each learns to read at length the other's gaze.
James Merrill, "A Poem of Summer's End"

I abandoned and forgot myself;
Laying my face on my beloved;
All things ceased; I went out from myself
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
St. John of the Cross, "The Dark Night"

James Merrill, Collected Poems (Knopf, 2001)
St. John of the Cross, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. (ICS Publication, 1991)

Milosz: An Honest Struggle

2008-01-17T11:26:00.001-08:00

"IF THERE IS NO GOD"

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother's keeper
And he is not premitted to saddened his brother,
By saying there is no God.

Czeslaw Milosz
Second Space: New Poems (Ecco, 2004).

E.A. Robinson, "CREDO"

2008-01-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

Edwin Arlington Robinson has long been acknowledged by the likes of James Wright, Donald Hall, Donald Justice, John Hollander, Robert Faggen and others to be a sadly under-valued poet. His poetry is remarkable for its integrity to life experience. While the majority of his verse is about the lives of 'ordinary' people, his poem "CREDO" is a spare-expression of his engagement with a life of tragic potential that nonetheless refuses to shut its eyes to the night/darkness in knowledge that the light is coming/come.

"CREDO"
I cannot find my way: there is no star
In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;
And there is not a whisper in the air
Of any living voice but one so far
That I can hear it only as a bar
Of lost, imperial music, played when fair
And angel fingers wove, and unawares,
Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are.

No, there is not a glimmer , nor a call,
For one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears,
The black and awful chaos of the night;
For through it all - above, beyond it all -
I know the far-sent message of the years,
I feel the coming glory of the Light.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

In this poem (and in his work) he pre-figures both T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost. He is arguably our first Modernist Poet. Of notable interest in "CREDO" is the capitalized 'L' of Light, while the night & black remain in lower case letters - joined with the Biblical & Theological phraseology of "Glory of the Light" & "Glory of the Lord" and the imminent, incarnational and eschatological "coming... of the Light" creates a poem that is grounded in the secularized version of the hiddenness of God as in the eschatological / incarnation or presence of that coming in the here and now - i.e. in the dark, in the night the Light is already present in its coming. Robinson does not blink at the night, though he fears it, he welcomes in fear the night and its chaotic demeanor - though its chaos is already defeated by the law/order of the presence of the "coming" of the Light in its glory. It is the modern person who has no sense of the wondrous miracles of a star that might guide him to the Manager or an answer - the night is "shrouded" - veiled the opposite of unveiled - or revelation. He depends on a tradition-ed sense of knowing that has the character of a message sent from far away through history and through the course of humanity's story. This revelation is time-bound and tied up with human history and the human story and its struggle with the night/dark. The message comes like music, a "bar" of music, faintly heard - joining those past ("dead leaves") to those present ("garlands") who struggle for hope ("where no roses are".) By any standard, this is simply amazing poetry. Read him.

E.A. Robinson, The Poetry of E.A. Robinson. Ed. with Annotation by Robert Mezey (Modern Library, 1999)
E.A. Robinson, Robinson: Poems (Everyman's Pocket Poets). Ed. Scott Donaldson. (Everyman Library, 2007).
Scott Donaldson, Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet's Life. (Columbia University Press, 2006)

Gerard Manley Hopkins - Against the Inner Darkness

2008-01-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night ! what sights you, heart, saw ; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas ! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

"No Worst"

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
.... Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

"Carrion Comfort"

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist slack they may be these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can.
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock ? lay a lionlimb against
me scan?
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there ; me frantic to
avoid thee and flee ?

Why? That my chaff might fly ; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems)! kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy,
would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling
flung me, foot trod
Me? or me that fought him ? which one ? is it each one?
That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my
God) my God.

Hart Crane: Simply Making Something Beautiful

2008-01-10T00:26:00.000-08:00

Emily Dickinson - Profound Interiority

2008-01-09T11:40:00.001-08:00

For many, all too many, there lingers a false perception of Emily Dickinson as a wall-flower poet - of quaintness and prettiness - of flowers and dainty things. Harold Bloom is far more accurate when he wrote in the introduction to the American Religious Poems (Library of America), "Her conceptual originality surpassed even theirs [John Milton and William Blake], and is dwarfed only by Shakespeare's, of all poets in the language." Despite the breadth for her work, she remains best known for poems like:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell one's name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!

This is an amazing poem, unfortunately we read it so often in our basic education and it is so often represented as the exemplar Dickinson poem we forget its profundity. If we delve deeper into her amazing body of work we find poems of the soul and intellect that express the full range of human experience. I have regularly referred her poems to a niece of mine who fancies herself to be 'edgy'. She has dismissively brushed off this suggestion with a condescending 'her, I don't think so." Poets as different as Hart Crane, Paul Celan and Eugenio Montale have looked to her as a great, profound poet (both Celan and Montale translated her work). How anyone could not perceive her stature as a major poet is a failure of the American Educational / Cultural system, but also of the American religious / contemplative arena which responds with ambivalence to her religious and intellectual independence.
Emily Dickinson is the American contemplative par excellence. I offer as proof of her depth the follow poem of darkness and understanding:

There is a pain - so utter -
It swallows substance up -
Then covers the Abyss with Trance -
So Memory can step
Around - across - upon it -
As one within a Swoon -
Goes safely - where an open eye -
Would drop Him - Bone by Bone.

If anyone can read this and think that she is anything other than the American poet of Contemplation, then they should stop reading poetry altogether. She should be read as many read St Teresa of Avila or St John of the Cross & as many read Auden, Eliot, Milton & Blake. Pick-up her work, stay with each poem, linger over it. I wish that each poem was printed only one per page to aid the lazy reader who might be tempted to fly through her work as if it were prose. She requires time, meditation and contemplation, and rewards the disciplined who find in her a poet of profound interiority.

Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Ed. R.W. Franklin (Belkap Press, 1999)
American Religious Poems: An Anthology. Ed. Harold Bloom (Library of American, 2006)
Alfred Habegger, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson. (Random House, 2001). [Habegger has an excellent discussion of the discovered albumen photograph of the more mature Emily Dickinson.]

The Notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne

2008-01-06T18:24:00.000-08:00

Reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's Notebooks is a very different experience than reading those of Henry James, Steinbeck, Thomas Mann (Diaries), Robert Musil or even those published by Reynolds Price. Their self-mannered awareness that the future will prize their "private" thoughts and ideas is completely absent from Hawthorne. These were truly private workbooks. Hawthorne writes in full voice as someone for whom communication is vital and difficult. Open this work anywhere and read what sounds like the inner voice of someone practiced at concealing his thoughts publicly. Expansive, suggestive, and illuminating for all those who would like to know more of the deep thought and artfulness that went into his major works.

Some of his working ideas for stories sound absolutely modern. One story idea develops the possibility of having two men talking and discussing their difficulties while waiting and waiting for someone who never comes. They don't know what to do, so they continue to wait and discussing the one who never comes. Sound familar? A little like "Waiting for Godot"? If you love great literature and if you love Hawthorne, then run to a library / order it from Amazon.com / but get a copy of this magnificent book and stay with it. It will stay with you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Centenary Ed. Works Nathaniel Hawthorne: Vol. VIII, The American Notebooks.

Hawthorne, Hester and the Blessed Virgin Mary

2008-01-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

While re-reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, a novel I first read as a 14 year old, I was struck by the many references to Hester as a 'saint', 'sister of mercy' type along the lines of the Virgin Mary. Hawthorne writes,

"Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich: a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy; or, we may rather say, the world's heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the symbol of her calling." (Scarlet Letter, p. 257)

and again, Rev. Dimmsdale call out to Hester,

"O Hester, thou art my better angel!" (Scarlet Letter, p. 292)

"... the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness." (Scarlet Letter, p. 258)

These among the many other references (particularly in the concluding paragraphs were Hester's thoughts of a Prophetess, an angel and apostle, of a "new relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness" shows her self-consciousness sacred aspect) recount the saintly or divine aspect of Hester and invites the reader to speculate on how Salem would have received Mary whose pregnancy was conceived outside of wedlock and how Joseph would have responded had he been placed on the judgment block of Puritanical Society.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, might have been forced to wear a 'F' (fornicator) had she been transplanted to 17th Century Salem as has Hester/ Jesus' earliest memories could have been of the Salem's women urging for a more severe punishment (death) on both Mary and Joseph (an odd negative of the plan of Herod). Instead another time called her Theotokos, mother of God. Perhaps as Hawthorne is without challenge as the first American artist - novelist, Hester is our mother of virtue, our mother of charity - embodying a new virtue that we have yet to follow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. From Nathaniel Hawthorne: Collected Novels (Library of America)

"Mercy clothed in light" - Poetry of Jane Kenyon

2008-01-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

"Notes from the Other Side"

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.

Jane Kenyon
Collected Poems (Graywolf Press: St Paul Minnesota, 2005)

Henry James in Italy & France: "Analogical Interiority"

2007-12-31T18:20:00.000-08:00

On Reading Henry James: Collected Travel Writings: The Continent: A Little Tour in Frace / Italian Hours / Other Travels. Ed. Richard Howard. (Library of America)

Henry James' travel writings on France and Italy are a case study in fine arts perception, understanding and interpretation. He treats each new locale as a new horizon to be engaged, absorbed, and internalized through a hermeneutic of analogical interiority. Roaming within the halls and chambers of French and Italian architecture opens, through the text, new conduits for an understanding of the vast interiority that exists within the self-examining-self. James is a master at relating the space of each location with the thoughts, instincts, relational perceptions and education of the observer. Reading these texts is like engaging each site oneself and discussing with a learned and trusted friend about what one is experiencing, not just what one is seeing. The art work of Joseph Pennell is an amazing addition to these works and masterpieces on their own. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It will be a cherished addition to your collection and a book you will pick-up time and again to walk with the "Master" through France and Italy as you discuss, reflect and remember literary events that where home to these marvels. If you happen to be planning a trip to either France or Italy, take this along to add a level of historical and cultural depth to your experience. Some of what you will read has disappeared into history, but what remains is a beautiful historical and cultural continuity with Henry James as your guide.

"to recall, to praise" - The Art of James Merrill

2007-12-31T18:01:00.000-08:00

America has produced few artists of the formal virtuosity of
James Merrill, who has been justly called the American Mozart.
The Contemplative considers his work to be of dazzling beauty,
wit and divine play.  See for example, "A Dedication":
-----
Hans, there are moments when the whole mind
Resolves into a pair of brimming eyes, or lips
Parting to drink from the deep spring of a death
That freshness they do not yet need to understand.
These are the moments, if ever, an angel steps
Into the mind, as kings into the dress
Of a poor goatherd, for their acts of charity.
There are moments when speech is but a month pressed
Lightly and humbly against the angel's hand.
-----

The merging of the divine eros between two vulnerable people
is among the most perfect expressions of this human longing/
need that has ever been written.  Among the last poems that
James Merrill wrote is, "Christmas Tree" which gives full voice
to his illness and art.

"Christmas Tree"

by James Merrill

To be
Brought down at last
From the cold sighing mountain
Where I and the others
Had been fed, looked after, kept still,
Meant, I knew --- of course I knew ----
That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do.
Warmly they took me in, and made much of me.
I could assent to that.  For honestly,
It did help to be wound in jewels, to send
Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot,
Over me then they wove a spell of shining ----
Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel,
Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T,
Two staring eyes.  The angels, trumpets, BUD and BREA
(The children's names) in clownlike capitals,
Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long
By loving.  And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going.  Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come ----
No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn't bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon.  To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone.  The little boy's hands meeting
About my spine.  The mother�s voice:  Holding up wonderfully!
No dread.  No bitterness.  The end beginning.  Today's
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love lit,
Gifts underfoot,
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive.  Still to recall, to praise.

1995

James Merrill, Collected Poems.  (Alfred A. Knopf: New York,
2001).  Written during the early part of the New
Year as James was dying of AIDS: d. 2/6/1995.

Commemoration of St. John of the Cross

2007-12-31T17:54:00.000-08:00

To Commemorate the Anniversary
of St. John of the Cross -
Doctor of the universal Church.

On December 13, 1588, knowing
that his time was short, the friars
gather around St. John of the
Cross and began to recite the
prayers for the dying. He begged
them to stop, "No, read some
verses from the Song of Songs.
"As they began to read, he
exclaimed, "Oh, what precious
pearls!"

Shortly after midnight he died repeating the psalmist and the
words of our Lord, "Into your hands, O Lord, Icommend my spirit."


Timeline:
On January 22, 1675 Pope Clement X beatifies John of the Cross.
On December 27,1726 Pope Benedict XII canonizes him.
On August 24,1926 Pope Pius XI declares St. John of the
Cross a Doctor of the universal Church.
In 1952 the Spanish Ministry on National Education names
John of the Cross the patron of Spanish poets.

His masterpiece, "The Dark Night of the Soul" has been read
and appreciated by both those in and outside the Christian
community as a beautiful and penetrating exposition of the
trials, struggles and mystical triumphs of the human soul.
Simply put, he wrote some of the greatest poetry the world
has seen.

__________________________________________
T. S. Eliot & St. John of the Cross

T. S. Eliot in  Section III of T.S. Eliot's  "The Four Quartets",
'East Coker', Section III near the final lines he writes:

In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.

This is a seldom recognized quote of St. John of the Cross
in "Ascent of Mount Carmel"  Chapter 13: Section 11:

To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.