Author: ksedinger

One of my favorite collections is An Anthology of World Poetry, edited by Mark Van Doren, a poet and scholar who lived in the 20th century. Van Doren’s collection is an extensive gathering of poems in translation from all over the world, and spanning many hundreds of years. It is a fantastic book to simply dip into, and it’s a reminder that humans have been at the business of poetry for as long as there have been humans at all.

(Trivia note: Van Doren’s son, Charles, would achieve notoriety of his own by being at the center of a big scandal in the 50s involving teevee quiz shows.)

Here we have a poem by Japanese poet Saigyo Hoshi, who lived 1118-1190…meaning he lived nine hundred years ago. That’s a lot of water under the poetic bridge, isn’t it? Saigyo apparently spent a great deal of his life journeying alone throughout Japan, and a love of nature pervades his work.

“Seven Poems”, by Saigyo Hoshi

1.

In my boat that goes
Over manifold salt-ways
Towards the open see
Faintly I hear
The cry of the first wild-goose.

2.

Mingling my prayer
With the clang of the bell
Which woke me from my dreams,
Lo, ten times I have recited the
Honorable Name.

3.

Since I am convinced
That Reality is in no way
Real,
How am I to admit
That dreams are dreams?

4.

Startled
By a single scream
Of the crane which is reposing
On the surface of the swamp,
All the other birds are crying.

5.

Those ships which left
Side by side
The same harbor
Towards an unknown destination
Have rowed away from one another!

6.

Like those boats which are returning
Across the open sea of Ashiya
Where the waves run high,
I think that I too shall pass
Scatheless through the storms of life.

7.

Although I do not know
At all whether anything
Honorable deigns to be there,
Yet in extreme awe
My tears well forth.

—

The third poem here is the one that stands out for me, not just for the simple style of its wisdom, but for the fact that it makes such a stark contrast with the other six. No sharp images or sounds or tactile senses conveyed there–just a single philosophic thought, dropped in the middle of the larger work.

Saigyo repeats that maneuver in the seventh poem, in which he suggests that tears may be the only good response to “extreme awe”. This whole poem feels like meditations interrupted by nature–or are the meditations interrupted at all? Perhaps Saigyo is simply showing that a meditative life will not necessarily be strongly shaped by the non-poetic world, except by way of inspiration.

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Poetry, like all art, must reflect and address all matters within the mess we call The Human Condition, which means that poetry can’t only be focused on positive matters or on beauty. Poetry must also look unflinchingly at the awfullest aspects of our character. I own a collection of poems written in response to the Holocaust. Here is one of those poems.

By Peter Porter.

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The North Sea is a place I’ve never seen, but the connotations I have of it are a deep sea of cold, gray waters. The North Sea is the body across which the Vikings came on their voyages of plunder, and now the North Sea is dotted with oil derricks that drill for precious fuel. It is, by every account I know, not an easy sea to live around or to love. This may be unfair, but it’s the North Sea I “know”.

All our impressions of larger places, or entire regions, or seas, are grounded in how we experience them, if at all, from specific spots. Someone who lives in Chicago will probably have a much different sense of Lake Michigan than someone who lives on Beaver Island, at that lake’s far end.

Poet Anne Stevenson (1933-2020) writes here about the North Sea as experienced from Carnoustie, a town on Scotland’s eastern coast, northeast of Edinburgh. The photo above I found by searching Flickr’s map; that is the North Sea from Carnoustie. I wonder if that’s the kind of thing Stevenson had in mind in writing this poem.

“North Sea off Carnoustie”, by Anne Stevenson

for Jean Rubens

You know it by the northern look of the shore,
by the salt-worried faces,
by an absence of trees, and an abundance of lighthouses.
It’s a serious ocean.

Along marram-scarred, sandbitten margins
wired roofs straggle out to where
a cold little holiday fair
has floated in and pitched itself
safely near the prairie of the golf course.
Coloured lights are sunk deep into the solid wind,
but all they’ve caught is a pair of lovers
and three silly boys.
Everyone else has a dog.
Or a room to get to.

The smells are of fish and of sewage and cut grass.
Oystercatchers, doubtful of habitation,
clamour ‘weep, weep, weep’ as they fuss over
scummy black rocks the tide leaves for them.

The sea is as near as we come to another world.

But there in your stony and windswept garden
a blackbird is confirming the grip of the land.
‘You, you,’ he murmurs, dark purple in his voice.

And now in far quarters of the horizon
lighthouses are awake, sending messages–
invitations to the landlocked,
warnings to the experienced,
but to anyone returning home from the planet ocean,
candles in the windows of a safe earth.

1977

From The Oxford Book of The Sea.

(image credit)

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The other day, I posted two poems about cats. In comments, a fine reader asks: Are you familiar with the Hamlet Soliloquy done from the point of view of a cat?

I had to admit that I was not, so off to Google I went, and I found it! Apparently this comes from a book called Poetry For Cats, The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse, by Henry Beard. I will have to add that to my Books To Seek Out list! For now, here are the existential thoughts of Hamlet’s cat.

To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether ’tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock’s bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal’s opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there’s the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household’s petty plagues,
The cook’s well-practiced kicks, the butler’s broom,
The infant’s careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor’s yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans’ faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.

If you’re familiar with the state of affairs at the end of Hamlet (spoiler: a good bit of the cast is dead on the stage floor when the curtain comes down), you may wonder just how Hamlet’s cat would respond. Well, it’s a cat. A recent comic by Sarah Andersen probably illustrates perfectly what Hamlet’s cat would do:

(Full comic, contrasting “cat people” with “dog people”, here.)

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If you’ve seen the movie Dead Poets Society, you remember that the movie quotes a bunch of poems throughout its running time. It quotes few in their entirety, and most are either quoted for dramatic effect or to basically provide poetic slogans for Mr. Keating’s agenda of raising young freethinkers or whatever. (I’m not a fan of the movie, to be honest.)

Of the poems quoted for dramatic effect, one always stuck with me because it contrasts wildly with most of the film’s remaining poetry. It’s about a man who hates his wife, and in the stanza read aloud by one of the characters, the final rhyme is “He cut her bloody throat.”

Well, I got to curious about that, so I did a little Googling, and I found it: a ballad called “The Ballad of William Bloat”, and it’s a pretty grim little ditty, as you’ll find out below. It also features an odd bit of Irish patriotism, which is strange in a poem that’s essentially a bit of light verse about domestic violence….

“The Ballad of William Bloat”, by Raymond Calvert.

In a mean abode on the Shankill Road
Lived a man named William Bloat;
He had a wife, the curse of his life,
Who continually got on his goat.
So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on
He cut her bloody throat.

With a razor gash he settled her hash
Oh never was crime so quick
But the drip drip drip on the pillowslip
Of her lifeblood made him sick.
And the pool of gore on the bedroom floor
Grew clotted and cold and thick.

And yet he was glad he had done what he had
When she lay there stiff and still
But a sudden awe of the angry law
Struck his heart with an icy chill.
So to finish the fun so well begun
He resolved himself to kill.

He took the sheet from the wife’s coul’ feet
And twisted it into a rope
And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf,
‘Twas an easy end, let’s hope.
In the face of death with his latest breath
He solemnly cursed the Pope.

But the strangest turn to the whole concern
Is only just beginning.
He went to Hell but his wife got well
And is still alive and sinning.
For the razor blade was German made
But the sheet was Belfast linen.

So the German knife was up to the task of slicing her throat open, but the Belfast linen? Why, that stuff is strong enough to…well.  You know.

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Except for the time between Julio’s passing and our adoption of the two felines pictured above, I have never in my life not lived in the presence of at least one cat. (Unless we count my months in college.) Cats are an eternal presence in my life, and I don’t expect that to change, even as I have spent the last seven-and-a-half years discovering the unique magic that is dogs.

Many poets have written about cats, and here I offer two. First is a poem written (I think, since he’s credited with the teleplay for the episode) by Star Trek writer Brannon Braga, for a Next Generation episode entitled “Schisms”. At one point in the episode, Data presents a poem that he has written about his cat, Spot.

“An Ode to Spot”, by Lieutenant Commander Data of the starship Enterprise

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array,
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

I would not dream of analyzing this as a poem in itself, but I do think it an excellent bit of character writing. By this point in the series (the sixth season), the characters are so well-known that crafting a poem that (a) is not bad and (b) actually sounds like it was written by a specific fictional character is no small task.

Here, by contrast, is probably the greatest of all cat poems. I won’t go into depth here, because Sheila O’Malley just did the other day, and she did so much more skillfully than I could. But here’s the poem, and what a work it is!

“For I Will Consider My Cat Jeofrey”, by Christopher Smart

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually–Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

I love that last: “For he can creep.”

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