Milosz in the Times Literary Supplement
November 24th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
There’s an article in the Times Literary Supplement this week that focuses on Czeslaw Milosz and his legacy as one of the twentieth centuries great poetic voices. Well worth a read if you’re interested. It’s unusual to have a poet hold such a position of importance in the cultural world as Milosz has, with his work becoming more and more widely read around the world; to quote the article, “Few poets have been feted with such rock-star exuberance as Milosz.”
I was first introduced to his poetry by my wife, who had been an admirer of his work for quite some time. She bought me an edition of his poems, selected by Robert Hass, and once I picked it up I could not put it down. Just this evening I had to pick it up once more to read “A Song On The End Of The World” and “Café”, two poems I particularly love that happen to be on facing pages in the volume. I’m still haunted by the beauty in the image of a bumblebee visiting flower after flower juxtaposed against a backdrop of ending and loss Milosz employs in the former of these two poems. There’s an honesty and precision in his words, something that tells you what you need to know, that you must read.
A SONG ON THE END OF THE WORLD
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.
The Latest News About Fox News
November 21st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Just read an article that was tweeted by poet Adam Sol regarding a poll run by Fairleigh Dickinson University. Apparently, it has shown that those who watch Fox News in an attempt to better understand the world are, in fact, sabotaging their efforts. It seems that the more one watches of Fox News, the less one is aware of what’s happening in the world. I can’t say whether this is a result of watching the programming or whether there just happens to be more ill-informed people who gravitate towards Fox News. Either way, it’s an interesting and oddly entertaining piece.
Those who watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart performed well on the questions. Sixty percent of Daily Show viewers correctly answered that opposition forces in Syria have not yet toppled the government, second only to NPR. Forty-five percent of Fox News viewers answered “no.”
Habituation
November 20th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Originally appeared in the Triggerfish Critical Review.
HABITUATION
Years in and the unspeakable happens:
sitting in your chair the neighbourhood rises
like exhaust around you, the hardly noticed
products of time’s manufacture: slow rattle of cars,
muffled screams of jet liners taking off, open
and close of the gate, sound of water as it
free falls from the eaves each time
with precision and consistency
to knock on deck boards like a door, the window
blurred with light’s bending. Might as well
greet mornings this way, gradual habituation sets in
like an uncle you hardly know put up
in the spare room, eventually forming a fixture.
What is it you’re missing? Home? No,
too easy after all this time. It’s the
unexpected that haunts you, the absence of it:
how the street could easily be
your street, the town easily be your town.
You know the people strolling by, who
they are or used to be. The struggle
to belong was over before you knew it and,
shifting uncomfortably in the seat, you
reel at the thought. Home. Pan the yard
through wide French doors, survey the earth,
adjacent houses, the towering tree you
no longer notice that loomed once, a warning.
Vision settles near the patio’s edge;
like last year the bleeding heart’s in bloom,
that warm pink brighter now than ever.
Stephen Rowe, 2009
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