Eratosphere - Frost and Stallworthy

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Frost and Stallworthy

To complement some of the war poems on the boards --

November

We saw leaves go to glory,
Then almost migratory
Go part way down the lane,
And then to end the story
Get beaten down and pasted
In one wild day of rain.
We heard “’Tis over” roaring.
A year of leaves was wasted.
Oh, we make a boast of storing,
Of saving and of keeping,
But only by ignoring
The waste of moments sleeping,
The waste of pleasure weeping,
By denying and ignoring
The waste of nations warring.

[Robert Frost]

I love this poem. A couple of weeks ago I was out with friends after 2 of them had done a reading. Frost’s “October” was praised. I then recited “November.” It was so sweet of the waitress to stand, listening, until the bitter end before asking us what we wanted.

You’ll find your own way through this, but I want to say that among the poem’s virtues is what it knows. It doesn’t pretend to experience. It leaves soldiering to other poems, by other writers, and yet speaks profoundly about warring.

I’d also like to mention Jon Stallworthy’s War Poet, a 12-page poem, published by Greville Press Pamphlets, Warwick UK, 2009. The poem is drenched in truths about war and soldiers. It is formally quite interesting, as the sections take a variety of shapes. It is well-worth reading: sober and moving.

Armistice Forever,
Marcia

Nations warring -- indeed, Marcia.

On election eve, on a cold Fall day here in upstate, as I have just finished raking leaves, here's two more pieces that seem apposite, at least to me:

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?''

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

-- e. e. cummings

and this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/op...ml?ref=opinion

Michael,

Cummings is so good in this vein. Do you know "my sweet old etcetera"?

Today, 11/11, is part of the power of Frost's poem, I think, though it doesn't suffer without the allusion. I thought, too, of Armistice Day in relation to Jayne's November war poem.

Marcia

Marcia,

I do indeed know “my sweet old etcetera” – also from is 5. IMO, cummings’s war poems remain remarkably relevant to our day – some, seemingly even more relevant today than when he wrote them. But I didn’t mean to hijack your thread and turn it into a cummings thread or my political screed...

Back to the Frost – his poem is restrained, wistful, chiding, and seemingly effortless, in that seemingly effortless manner in which few but Frost could write. And the metaphor is quiet, unobtrusive, but right in varied ways -- it's a wonderful poem for today. Thanks for posting it.

Mike

You haven't hijacked the thread at all. I'm interested in what you say.

Marcia

Marcia, thank you for your kind words.

In case you happen to look in here again, I offer this from Szymborska. I find it very moving, and I think Cummings and Frost would approve.

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.

Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.

No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.

Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.

But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.

From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.

Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

-- Wislawa Szymborska