branch-draped moss high in the treetops: wind wiggled
Still River [Haiku]
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Monthly Archives: March 2022
DAILY PHOTO: Clouds Over Mountains, McLeodganj
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BOOK REVIEW: The Heart of American Poetry by Edward Hirsch
The Heart of American Poetry by Edward HirschMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Out: April 19, 2022
This book presents forty poems from prominent American poets, interspersed with essays by Hirsch offering background on the poet, the poem, and how the poem reflects upon America. It’s a fine collection of poems, and a thoughtful discussion of them. There will be something new to most readers. While most of the poets are well-known and while there are a few highly anthologized poems: e.g. Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” Dickinson’s #479 [Because I Could Not Stop for Death,] and Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” there are many more off the beaten path selections to be discovered.
As for whether the selection captures the heart of American poetry, on that wouldn’t necessarily agree. That said, it’s presented as Hirsch’s personal selection; the pieces in it are great poems, and he has as much right to his views as anyone. The anthology does capture many elements of the American poetic voice. It does a fine job of capturing the many strains of dissent, critique, and resistance from the Harlem Renaissance (e.g. Langston Hughes) to that of the indigenous peoples (e.g. Joy Harjo) to the Beats (e.g. Allen Ginsberg.) What Hirsch seems less comfortable with is the Whitmanian voice of affection and admiration for the country. In writing about Whitman and Frost, Hirsch makes comments about their lack of appeal to him, apparently their respective unbridled positivity and folksiness were found unbecoming of a poet. I felt the fact that Hirsch had to search out one of Whitman’s more angsty and dark compositions in order to be happy with Whitman’s inclusion was telling (Hirsch could hardly leave Whitman out and present the book as capturing the essence of American poetry.)
The anthology reflects much of the cultural and artistic diversity seen in America, but it eschews the middle America voice (i.e. 70% of the poems are from New Jersey and northward up the Atlantic coast, and while New York may be the country’s cultural and publishing capital, skilled poets from South of the Mason-Dixon and more than 150 miles from the Atlantic coast aren’t as much rare flukes as this anthology would suggest.)
I enjoyed reading this anthology, and I learned a great deal from the essays that went along with each poem. The book is definitely worth reading. Mopey Plath-loving New Yorkers are more likely to find it representative of the voice of American poetry than sanguine Whitman-loving Hoosiers, but it’s an enlightening read, either way.
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Fleeting Blue [Haiku]
a splotch of blue catches my eye, i look and it flits away
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DAILY PHOTO: Desert Sunset
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Poetry on the Cob [Free Verse]
People sometimes tell me they have trouble understanding poetry. That's because they consume it as they would a banana, starting at one end and chomping down to the other. Poetry has to be consumed like corn on the cob. One should start at one end and work down to the other, but then one has to go back to the beginning -- change one's angle of perspective -- and - again - go from one end to the other. I can't emphasize this point about changing one's angle of perspective enough. There is a difference: with corn on the cob, one rotates the corn, but, with poetry, one has to rotate something within the reader. Otherwise, one is just chomping into an empty rut - a track devoid of sustenance. Then, one has to repeat the process until every last morsel has been consumed. That's how one ingests poetry.
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The World Below [Haiku]
the pond reflects tiny things, yet makes the world feel infinite
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DAILY PHOTO: Agora Sculptures & Skyline, Chicago
BOOK REVIEW: The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
The Stranger in the Woods: The extraordinary story of the last true hermit by Michael FinkelMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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This book delves into the fascinating case of Christopher Knight, a man who lived twenty-seven years in central Maine without human contact. Knight survived by stealing food and other supplies from cabins and other unoccupied buildings in the area. By his own admission, Knight conducted about forty burglaries per year for the more than a quarter of a century he lived in solitude. In addition to providing a biography of Knight, his hermit years as well as his capture, his trial, and his challenging reentry into society, the book discusses the psychology and philosophy of reclusive living in some detail.
This book was riveting to me, in part because I’m pretty deep into introverted territory and I recognize some of Knight’s personality traits in myself, and even I can’t fathom how he managed that degree of solitary living over so many years. What seems to be most difficult for people to comprehend was how he lived with only a tent-like shelter through the Maine winters, sometimes below zero Fahrenheit, while never building a campfire. (He did have a propane stove, but wouldn’t build a fire for fear that it would bring the authorities right to him.) That is astounding, but what I find even more amazing is the psychology, how Knight maintained sanity with that degree of self-imposed isolation, prisoners in solitary confinement have gone stark-raving mad with shorter and less intensely solitary stints.
Another issue that makes Knight’s story so compelling is that in so many ways he wasn’t your typical hermit. While he seems to have been uniquely wired to thrive on solitude and had the intelligence necessary to problem solve his survival, he wasn’t a spiritual seeker; he wasn’t particularly a minimalist (he accumulated lots of stuff;) and he did listen to the radio, as well as listening to television shows over his radio. While he went to great lengths to ensure he didn’t come into contact with people and that his camp wasn’t found, it’s interesting that he did stay fairly close to people [granted that might have been entirely owing to the need to steal from them, but one has to wonder if proximity didn’t have other causes as well.] Knight is an engaging character, it’s hard not to have some respect – begrudging or otherwise — for his ingenuity and unique capacity for extreme solitude, but he’s also a felon whose burglaries disturbed a lot of people’s lives.
This is one of the most captivating books I’ve read in some time, and I’d highly recommend it.
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Light on Moss [Haiku]
morning light catches the moss, and i see it for the first time
Tiger Riding for Beginners 