One poem forward, two poems back

So, I heard today that maybe my thesis prospectus is not good enough yet -- I think they are probably right, I am all over the place, not focused enough, and I didn't really try hard enough in those areas before I submitted it. Can't always fly by the seat of your pants, no matter how smart your pants are.

It's been suggested that I focus on Eavan Boland's poetry, still taking a look at domestic imagery. Does she qualify as an American Poet? She didn't even raise her kids here -- will I let that stop me? What can I find in Boland that will start me up? Here is Poets.org's bio of Boland. It's not a great photo, but it's a start. This is a link to a lovely poem "Pomegranate" about how Boland can find herself in both halves of the Persephone/Ceres myth -- any daughter who is now a mother of a daughter can imagine herself here -- Boland has done it with a Coke can. This is Norton's site, her publisher, and links to her books and other goodies. They also have this photo, which is much better.

Here's a poem, "It's A Woman's World" and criticism of the poem. Maybe I'll be okay in her company. (And because blogspot will not let me put in the line breaks, I do not know why, you have to go to another site to see them -- or better yet, buy the book --)

It's a Woman's World

Our way of life

has hardly changed

since a wheel first

whetted a knife.

Maybe flame

burns more greedily

and wheels are steadier,

but we're the same:

we milestone

our lives

with oversights,

living by the lights

of the loaf left

by the cash register,

the washing powder

paid for and wrapped,

the wash left wet:

like most historic peoples

we are defined

by what we forget

and what we never will be:

star-gazers,

fire-eaters.

It's our alibi

for all time:

as far as history goes

we were never

on the scene of the crime.

When the king's head

gored its basket,

grim harvest,

we were gristing bread

or getting the recipe

for a good soup.

It's still the same:

our windows

moth our children

to the flame

of hearth not history.

And still no page

scores the low music

of our outrage.

Appearances reassure:

that woman there,

craned to

the starry mystery,

is merely getting a breath

of evening air.

While this one here,

her mouth a burning plume -

she's no fire-eater,

just my frosty neighbour

coming home.

Lady Madonna

Hi again -- it's been a long time and I have a lot of ideas. Trying to clean up my desk so I can write -- and I came across a note that I wanted to post the lyrics to "Lady Madonna" on this site. We drove home from Alpine Meadows Sunday afternoon, July 6, listening to Beatles "Love" album. For some reason that music doesn't give me a headache loud -- Love to Paul and John who thought it all up --

Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet
Who find the money when you pay the rent
Did you think that money was heaven sent

Friday night arrives without a suitcase
Sunday morning creeping like a nun
Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlegs
See how they run

Lady Madonna, baby at your breast
Wonders how you manage to feed the rest
Pa pa pa pa...
See how they run

Lady Madonna lying on the bed
Listen to the music playing in your head
Tuesday afternoon is never ending
Wednesday morning papers didn't come
Thursday night you stocking needed mending
See how they run

Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet

Milk Bottle and Poem

Okay: So here's a link to a blog by Justin Clayton, a painter who does a painting a day for his blog, "Daily Paintings." Very cool. Reminds me of my poem a day resolutions. I hope he's more successful than I am. The painting I'm including here is his Milk Bottle painting, which I needed to go with my funny story about moms and milk (last post). You can go to his blog if you want to buy his paintings. He seems to have the most paintings about chocolate and food and candy. Which makes sense. I think I might ask him to paint something with laundry in it. Wouldn't that be great?

Okay: So here's a poem about milk. By Anonymous (I think you can tell why)

Carnation milk is the best in the land;

Here I sit with a can in my hand.

No tits to pull, no hay to pitch,

You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch

And for people who come to my blog (where ARE you?) expecting serious domestic scholarship: Here's a link to Tory Dent's poem "Black Milk" as read by Adrienne Rich on ATC, January 3, 2006. And, here's a link to AAP's web page about Paul Celan, whose lovely poem "Fugue of Death" opens with the words "Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening / we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night." The poem goes on to offer a stark evocation of life in the Nazi death camps.

I'm still looking for happy, not silly, milk poems. Maybe I'll have to write one.

And for those of you who have read this far, a special treat. A video of Jimmy Stewart reading a "No Milk Poem" on the Johnny Carson show. Now this is the true miracle of the internet. That I could find such a thing.

"Life's truest truth, it's that truth itself / unravels in ways that reveal less not more sense or comfort." Tory Dent

Milk

I just love this story. The creeps at Wal Mart are trying to do something right and the Moms don't like the mess. Well -- all I can say is they're trying and all we really expect of our small children is that they try their best. Now I have to find a milk poem and a photo of a beautiful old fashioned bottle --

Thesis Prospectus Approved!

With reservations - of course - but still!!

I've heard from my Dean today and as soon as my potential advisor gets back to town, I could be in business. I guess I better get down to business. This blog could get very interesting very soon (she says hopefully and with much trepidation!) Here's the working title: The Sock of God: Evolution of Domestic Imagery in American Poetry in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century. But, which poets???? Here's the Stanford bio for Al Gelpi - who, from the look of this bio, might be just the guy for me!

And here's a photo, just for inspiration - one of my heroes -- Anne Sexton. It's her poem, "Snow", from which I derive my title, "the sock of God."

Oh, and what the heck, here's the poem.

Snow

Snow

Snow, blessed snow,

comes out of the sky

like bleached flies.

The ground is no longer naked.

The ground has on its clothes.

The trees poke out of sheets

and each branch wears the sock of God.

There is hope.

There is hope everywhere.

I bite it.Someone once said:

Don't bite till you know

if it's bread or stone.

What I bite is all bread,

rising, yeasty as a cloud.

There is hope.

There is hope everywhere.

Today God gives milk

and I have the pail.

The Best Shorts Ever

For Jackson. Who wants his picture on my blog too, and who chose this photo, because those were the best shorts ever. Lucky guy.

Made in China and Phebus Etienne

I'm running into these domestic literary songs a lot these days -- once you start looking it never ends. Here's a great article I read in the UCSD alumni mag about Sara Bongiorni and her family who tried to live for a year without buying anything "Made in China" -- I'm sure that was very laundry challenging.

"I worry about human rights and the hardships of Chinese factory life, but it was too late to think we could solve those problems by pushing China away."

She wrote a whole book and told her story on TV. I could try that with my laundry problems.

Here's a poem I read this morning in a Autumn 2006 volume of "The Poet: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets." I am way behind with my journals. The poem is by Phebus Etienne, an emerging (emerged) Haitian-American poet who published her first (only) book Chainstitching in 2006 -- the title poem of that collection, "Chainstitching" belongs at the top of my laundry songs list -- and as I've been looking around the internet today to find a copy of it (retyping lazy about I am) I learn that she is dead.

Only 41 years old, only one book of poems. (Strange that even though AAP published her poems in their journal in 2006, one can no longer find her mentioned on the AAP website -- I had to go to poetryfoundation.org to locate her obituary.) The most information about this poet can be found at Cave Canem's website, and all over the blogosphere (is that spelled right?).

CHAINSTITCHING

After I buried my mother, I would see her often,
standing at the foot of my bed
in a handmade nightgown she trimmed with lace
whenever I was restless with fever or menstrual cramps.
I was not afraid, and if her appearance was a delusion,
it only confirmed my heritage.
Haitians always have relationships with the dead.
Each Sabbath, I lit a candle that burned for seven days.
I created an altar on the top shelf of an old television cart.
It was decorated with her Bible, a copy of The Three Musketeers,
freesia, delphinium or lilies if they were in season.
My offering of her favorite things didn’t conjure
conversations with her spirit as I had hoped.
But there was a dream or two where she was happy,
garnets dangling from her ears,
and one night she shuffled some papers,
which could have been history of my difficult luck
because she said, “We have to do something about this.”

She hasn’t visited me for months.
I worry that my life is an insult to her memory,
that she looks in and turns away
because I didn’t remain a virgin until I married,
because my debts will remain unforgiven.

Lightning tattoos the elms as florists make
corsages to honor living mothers.
I think of going to mass at St. Anne, where she was startled
by the fire of wine when she received her first communion.
But I remember that first Mother’s Day without her,
how it pissed me off to watch a seventy year-old daughter
escort her mom to sip from the chalice.

Yesterday, as the rain fell warm on the azaleas,
I planted creeping phlox on my mother’s grace,
urging the miniature flowers to bloom larger next year
like the velvet petals of bougainvillea that covered our neighbor’s gate.
I crave a yard to plant lemon and mango trees as she did.
Tonight I mold dumplings for pumpkin stew,
add a dash of vinegar for spice as she taught me,
sprinkle my palms with flour before rolling the dough between them.
I will thread my needle and embroider a coconut tree on a place mat,
keep stitching her presence in my life.