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Morning Open Thread: When the World Turns Completely Upside Down [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-09-04
“Said the Sun to the Moon–
'When you are but a lonely white crone,
And I, a dead King in my golden armour
somewhere in a dark wood,
Remember only this of our hopeless love
That never till Time is done
Will the fire of the heart and
the fire of the mind be one”
— Edith Sitwell
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__________________________
13 poets born this week,
as summer first steps
into the dimming light
of a northern autumn,
now blown off course
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September 3
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522 BC – Pindar born in Thebes; one of the greatest Ancient Greek lyric poets. He frequently wrote odes for victory celebrations.
The Hyperboreans from Pythian X
by Pindar
Among them too are the Muses
For everywhere
To flute and string the young girls
Are dancing,
In their hair the gold leaves of the bay:
The dance whirls them away:
Age or disease, no toil,
Battle or ill-day's luck
Can touch them, they
Are holy, they
Will outlast time, exempted
From the anger of the Goddess
And all decay.
Here the hero came
With the head
That shocked a royal house, turning
King and all into stone:
It was long long ago, if
Time means anything;
Long, long ago.
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1907 – Loren Eiseley born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to a father struggling to support his family, and a deaf mother. Eiseley’s college years were interrupted by tuberculosis. He became an American anthropologist, academic, prolific natural science writer, essayist, and poet; noted for his science and philosophy books, including The Immense Journey; Darwin’s Century; The Mind as Nature; The Star Thrower; and The Unexpected Universe; for his memoir All the Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life; and for his poetry collections Notes of an Alchemist; The Innocent Assassins; Another Kind of Autumn; and All the Night Wings. He died at age 69 of cardiac arrest after surgery in 1977.
Never Like Deer
by Loren Eiseley
Apples will fall again upon this place,
In the deep smother of the windy grass
Loose the wild scent that none can ever trace
Save the few deer to westward in the pass.
They will come down, come stepping softly down
From the steep hollows where acorns lie;
No single twig will squeak, a shadow down
The last cold star of morning in the sky.
Yet suddenly they will be there. They feed
In the first light before the light of day
And go as quick. Love’s windfall does not need
More time to father nor to go away.
But clumsy in departures men are gone
Never like deer across the edge of dawn.
“Never Like Deer” appeared in the Prairie Schooner Winter 1941 edition – © 1941 by Loren
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September 4
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1908 – Richard Wright born in Roxie, in rural Mississippi; African American novelist and poet known for Native Son, The Outsider, and his memoir Black Boy. His writings exposed American racism and its harsh effects. At age 19, he moved to Chicago, and worked as a postal clerk, but lost his job after the stock market crash, and had to go on relief. In 1932, he started going to meetings of the John Reed Club, a Marxist literary group, and wrote revolutionary poetry, which appeared in leftist periodicals like New Masses. He was part of the Federal Writers’ Project. In 1933, Wright founded the South Side Writers Group, whose members included Arna Bontemps and Margaret Walker, and became editor of Left Front, a literary magazine. He was writing short stories and finished a novel, but it was rejected by publishers. His novel Native Son was published in 1940, and was an immediate best-seller. It made Wright the wealthiest Black writer of his time, and the "father of Black American literature." It is still one of the most frequently challenged books on public school reading lists, but is also on many lists of the most influential novels of the 20th century. In 1946, he moved to Paris, and became a French citizen in 1947. He died of a heart attack in November 1960 at age 52.
I Am Nobody
by Richard Wright
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away
____________
All Right You Sparrows
by Richard Wright
All right, You Sparrows;
The sun has set and you can now
Stop your chattering!
— from Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon, © 2012 by Ellen Wright – Arcade Publishing
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1980 – Elyse Fenton won the 2010 University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize and the 2008 Pablo Neruda Award from Nimrod International Literary Journal. She has published poetry and nonfiction in The New York Times, Best New Poets, and The Massachusetts Review. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Oregon and has worked in the woods, on farms, and in the schools in New Hampshire, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. Her first poetry collection, Clamor, written in part while her husband was deployed as a medic in Bagdad, won the 2009 Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize Selected by D. A. Powell.
The Beginning
by Elyse Fenton
January, Boston. She held his first letter back
from the new front in her hands. Outside, light
and snow clung to the train windows like the paper
edges of a hive crushed in. Later she would remember
otherwise; not the long rows of parking spots
tunneled from snowbanks and marked
with plastic lawn chairs like tombstones
for the unprepared or the pigeons on Comm Ave
mistaking salt for crumbs. Not the neon swarm
of flakes or the first few notes of grief
waiting to unfold. Only that she looked up
from the page—Only now am I afraid to die—
to feel the desperate clamor of a train
jerking roughshod through its gears,
the car’s slow rocking-in-its-tracks
like the heart’s smallest engine
just beginning to seize—
“The Beginning” from Clamor, © 2010 by Elyse Fenton – Cleveland State University Poetry Center
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September 5
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1914 – Nicanor Parra born as Nicanor Segundo Parra Sandoval; Chilean poet, mathematician, and physicist. He studied physics at Brown University in the U.S. and cosmology at Oxford. Parra taught theoretical physics at the University of Chile (1952-1991) in Santiago. He styled himself as an “anti-poet” and often said at the end of public readings “I take back everything I’ve said.” Parra published Poemas y Antipoemas in 1954, which became one of the most influential Spanish-language poetry collections in the 20th century.
Acacias
by Nicanor Parra
Strolling many years ago
Down a street taken over by acacias in bloom
I found out from a friend who knows everything
That you had just gotten married.
I told him that I really
Had nothing to do with it.
I never loved you
— You know that better than I do —
Yet each time the acacias bloom
— Can you believe it? —
I get the very same feeling I had
When they hit me point-blank
With the heartbreaking news
That you had married someone else.
— translated by David Unger
”Acacias” from Poemas y Antipoemas — Ediciones Catedra, S.A., 1980 edition
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September 6
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197? – Christine Rhein was born in Detroit, Michigan; American poet, writer, teacher, and speaker; a former mechanical engineer in the automotive industry. She is fluent in German. Her poems have appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Southern Review. She was in her mid-30s when her first collection, Wild Flight, won the Walt McDonald First Book Prize in Poetry, and was published in 2008. Asked what she believed in, Rhein replied, “the pulse/ of algebra, all those x’s busy intersecting / all those y’s, points aligned” then added, “the tangle of science and poetry.”
Story Problems
by Christine Rhein
A welder in Moldova hasn't been paid in 3 years.
He has 1 wife, 1 child, and 2 kidneys.
Calculate the cost for his travel to Turkey,
the sale of 1 kidney for 30 years' wages.
The Japanese use 12 distinct sets
of words for numbers, based on the shape
of what's being counted. Determine if sacrifice
is a cylinder, a surface, or a bowl.
Compute the likelihood the British soccer player
who bought the kidney fears death
more than the Moldovan does.
Stalin said, A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths
a statistic. Prove his theory using AIDS victims.
Solve for grief in Africa.
Edvard Munch painted different versions of The Scream.
Plot the size of the howls against
the intensity of the blood-red sky.
In 1202, Fibonacci discovered a mathematical sequence,
the pattern obeyed by sunflower petals, pinecone whorls.
Analyze technology, minimalist zeroes and ones,
for the same kind of beauty.
Your dishwasher breaks on Monday.
At Appliance World, the salesman tells you 3 times
he'll give you free 2 boxes of detergent if you buy today.
If you don't, what is the probability
his family will eat macaroni & cheese all week?
What is the extravagance-to-guilt ratio when a) a multimillionaire
buys a baby-sized Gucci leather biker’s jacket for $1500?
b) you buy a double caffe latte for $3?
Assume Hawking is right—humans, Earth’s kudzu vine,
won’t survive the next millennium unless they colonize space.
Write an equation to show who goes, who stays.
“Story Problems” from Wild Flight, © 2008 Christine Rhein – Texas Tech University Press
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1953 – Belinda Subraman was born in Wilkesboro, NC; American poet, writer, publisher, political activist, and registered nurse. She worked as a hospice nurse (2001-2007) in El Paso, Texas, which inspired her collection Blue Rooms, Black Holes, White Lights. While living in Germany in the 1980s, she started Gypsy Literary Magazine and the Sanctuary Tapes series of the writings and vocal performances of an international array of poets. She traveled extensively, and by marriage, became part of an East Indian family for 22 years. She was on the Texas Green Party State Executive Committee from 2001-2003 and served as the El Paso County Green Party Co-chair (2000-2004). Currently she is politically independent and only works with peace groups. Her solo poetry collections include Blue Rooms, Black Holes, White Lights and Left Hand Dharma. She also published The Innocents, in collaboration with Lyn Lifshin and David Transue.
Wayward Wind
by Belinda Subraman
My patient, Paul, wrote in a poem
that he belongs to the wayward wind,
a restless breed,
a strange and hardy class.
I’ve been with him for two years
and now he is dying.
“Are you in pain, Paul?” I ask.
“I AM pain,” he said.
But he is refusing medication
although his cancer has spread
from his kidneys to his lungs, brain and bones.
Somehow bearing this pain to the grave
is his last act of defiance/bravery/repentance.
My hands are tied.
My job now is to protect his choice
and later as promised
to collect his ashes,
read his poems in my garden
then set him free in the wind
where he belongs.
“Wayward Wind” from Blue Rooms, Black Holes, White Lights, © 2012
by Belinda Subraman – Unlikely Books
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September 7
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1885 – Elinor Wylie born, American novelist and poet; her first poem to appear in print was “Velvet Shoes,” in Poetry magazine in 1920, followed in 1921 by publication of her collection Nets to Catch the Wind, and Black Armor in 1923, the same year her first novel, Jennifer Lorn, appeared. She was poetry editor of Vanity Fair magazine (1923-1925), and a contributing editor of The New Republic (1926-1928). Other works include the novel The Orphan Angel, and Angels and Earthly Creatures, a book of verse. She suffered from high blood pressure in adulthood, and severe migraines. She died of a stroke in 1928 at age 43.
from Wild Peaches
by Elinor Wylie
1
When the world turns completely upside down
You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,
You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold colour.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
2
The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold;
The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
The sun, which burns from copper into brass,
Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold
Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold
Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass …
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1887 – Dame Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough on England’s North Sea Coast, into a wealthy, upper-crust family; English poet, critic and editor. Her health problems included a spinal deformity, and she was put into an iron frame. Her parents, particularly her mother, a noted beauty of the day, abandoned her almost entirely. Sitwell became an eccentric, often cruelly mocked for her tall thin appearance, a large and distinctive nose, and her outrageous, flamboyant style of dress. She is best remembered for Façade, an “entertainment” – a recitation of poems with an instrumental accompaniment composed by William Walton, first performed in 1923. She championed Wilfred Owen, whose poetry she edited, and helped to publish after his death. In the 1950s, Marfan syndrome, which inhibits the body’s ability to produce the protein that makes up connective tissue, led to her becoming wheelchair bound. In 1962, she published her final poetry book, The Outcasts, and gave her last poetry reading. She died of cerebral haemorrhage on December 9, 1964, at age 77. She was cruelly labeled by critic Julian Symons, while she lay dying, as “wearing other people’s bleeding hearts on her own safe sleeve.” That her personal suffering was cloaked and masked, all while she wore her off-putting nose like a badge of honor, seems never to have occurred to him.
Answers
by Edith Sitwell
I kept my answers small and kept them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bullwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I kept from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, still I hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow.
And all the great conclusions coming near.
“Answers” from The Collected Poems of Edith Sitwell – Vanguard Press 1968 edition
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September 8
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1940 – Jack Prelutsky born in Brooklyn, New York; prolific American poet and singer-songwriter, most often writing for children; he has published over 50 poetry collections. Before becoming a writer, he sang in coffee house, and worked odd jobs including driving a cab, moving furniture, busboy, potter, woodworker, and door-to-door salesman. He was appointed as the first U.S. Children’s Laureate by the Poetry Foundation (2006-2008). His many poetry collections include Me I Am; My Dog May Be a Genius; I’ve Lost My Hippopotamus; and Sardines Swim High Across the Sky.
A Dragon’s Lament
by Jack Prelutsky
I’m tired of being a dragon,
Ferocious and brimming with flame,
The cause of unspeakable terror
When anyone mentions my name.
I’m bored with my bad reputation
For being a miserable brute,
And being routinely expected
To brazenly pillage and loot.
I wish that I weren’t repulsive,
Despicable, ruthless, and fierce,
With talons designed to dismember
And fangs finely fashioned to pierce.
I’ve lost my desire for doing
The deeds any dragon should do,
But since I can’t alter my nature,
I guess I’ll just terrify you.
“A Dragon’s Lament” from The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, © 1997 by Jack Prelutsky – Greenwillow Books
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1983 – Sarah Stup born, American author, poet and essayist, who writes about autism; she has limited motor skills and does not speak. She uses a variety of typing devices to converse and work. Stup has self-published her poetry collection Are Your Eyes Listening?, and two children’s books, Paul and His Beast, and Do-si-Do with Autism. “Writing is my way out of a lonely place where only God knows,” she says. “I feel alive to type. The lid opens and out comes pieces of Sarah, a girl with wings who soars above the place with no hope called autism. I am real when I write. Autism is my prison, but typing is the air of freedom and peace.”
Mother’s Day
by Sarah Stup
Worthy of a plain and simple bouquet of dandelions
squeezed by a little fist
Worthy of listening to the sounds of a hesitant
and untrained music maker
Worth of admiring a painting rating display
at Frigidaire Gallery
Worthy of God’s blessings and children’s love
“Mother’s Day” from Are your eyes listening?, © 2007 by Sarah Stup – self-published
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September 9
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1868 – Mary Hunter Austin born Carlinville, Illinois; prolific American novelist, essayist, poet, short story writer, playwright, and a pioneering writer about nature in the U.S. Southwest; her classic book, The Land of Little Rain (1903), describes the fauna, flora, people and their mysticism and spirituality, in the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert of Southern California. Her book The American Rhythm, which she called a “re-expression” of Native American poems and songs, was part of her efforts to preserve American Indian culture. She died at age 65 in August 1934.
The Sand-Hill Crane
by Mary Hunter Austin
Whenever the days are cool and clear,
The sand-hill crane goes walking
Across the field by the flashing weir,
Slowly, solemnly stalking.
The little frogs in the tules hear,
And jump for their lives if he comes near;
The fishes scuttle away in fear
When the sand-hill crane goes walking.
The field folk know if he comes that way,
Slowly, solemnly stalking,
There is danger and death in the least delay,
When the sand-hill crane goes walking.
The chipmunks stop in the midst of play;
The gophers hide in their holes away;
And "Hush, oh, hush!" the field-mice say,
When the sand-hill crane goes walking.
“The Sand Hill Crane” was published in the Pacific Rural Press in 1916.
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1926 – Louise Abeita Chewiwi (E-Yeh-Shure’ – ‘Blue Corn’) born, Isleta Pueblo writer, poet, and educator; her book of poems, I am a Pueblo Indian Girl, was published when she was 13 years old.
Beauty
by Louise Abeita Chewiwi
Beauty is seen
in the sunlight.
The trees, the birds.
Corn growing and people working
Or dancing for their harvest.
Beauty is heard
In the night.
Wind sighing, rain falling,
Or a singer chanting
Anything in earnest.
Beauty is in yourself.
Good deeds, happy thoughts
That repeat themselves
In your dreams.
“Beauty” from I am a Pueblo Indian Girl © 1939 by E-Yeh-Shure’ (aka Louise Abeita Chewiwi) – William Morrow & Company
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G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies!
[END]
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