Birthday Poems

Yesterday was my partner's birthday and so I thought I'd have a look around at some birthday themed poems. We all know the song but I wonder if there are any non-generic, great pieces of art out there. Something touching...

Here is my favoured selection after a bit of internet rummaging:

Crossroads (Joyce Sutphen)

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.

Quick comment: I liked how this poem was not addressed to someone and thus was rather more reflective. And it wasn't all doom and gloom either; 'dreams' are still alive even in the 'second half' of life, and the narrator ends the poem positively, looking 'always up'. Johnathon Swift's birthday poem, by contrast, talks of a woman's 'decay' through her years. Thanks Swifty. I know this poem begins solemnly on 'black' notes but I feel the narrator has come to a greater realisation of that 'carpe diem' attitude. by the poem's conclusion.

Nineteenth Birthday (R.S. Thomas)

You go up the long track
That will take a car, but is best walked
On slow foot, noting the lichen
That writes history on the page
Of the grey rock. Trees are about you
At first, but yield to the green bracken,
The nightjars house: you can hear it spin
On warm evenings; it is still now
In the noonday heat, only the lesser
Voices sound, blue-fly and gnat
And the stream's whisper. As the road climbs,
You will pause for breath and the far sea's
Signal will flash, till you turn again
To the steep track, buttressed with cloud.

And there at the top that old woman,
Born almost a century back
In that stone farm, awaits your coming;
Waits for the news of the lost village
She thinks she knows, a place that exists
In her memory only.
You bring her greeting
And praise for having lasted so long
With time's knife shaving the bone.
Yet no bridge joins her own
World with yours, all you can do
Is lean kindly across the abyss
To hear words that were once wise.

Quick comment: this poem is more advisory, but not in the patronising style that I have often read. The journey motif is utilised to convey the idea that the young and the old coexist and will both experience the same things in life, and yet the young will never fully understand the old in the moment they are informed about something the old have experienced, and the old might not remember the way that it once felt to be young correctly, and so cannot be fully empathetic either.

A Happy Birthday (Ted Kooser)

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.                         

Quick comment: I really liked this poem with regards to our theme for the ironic reason that it does not entirely fit it. If the title were not 'A Happy Birthday', one would never guess that this poem were about such a matter. But that is the most interesting thing about this poem; to the narrator, the best way to celebrate the passing of time in your own life is to read a book about the lives of others, whilst letting the darkness come, as it will metaphorically as you age.

Finally, I'd like to wish anyone who reads this a very Happy Birthday this year, whenever it is. I hope you celebrate it in the way that best pleases you.

The poetry of the Pound

I was hoping to make the pun in my title complete by studying a poem about greed by Ezra Pound, but the ones I can find that are about this theme are rather long! For example, Canto II deals well in greed, as does 'The Seafarer'. I think I shall set myself a challenge and cover the latter nevertheless!

As it is so long, I shall refrain from copying it here, but you can find the text at this very helpful, poetical site:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174183

In the poem, Pound narrates first-person as a sailor, one who has lost many companions and now suffers the harsh sea life. By the end of his speech, the idea that companionship is worth more than any monetary fortune is revealed.

After doing some research, I have found that this is a free translation (i.e. a loose one) of an Anglo-Saxon poem. For this reason, it might be nice to listen to the poem; it might help you understand the feel of the poem more. Here is another link for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7AjmDBdqfk

It also has video to aid your processing! It is only an excerpt but you can hear the original language spoken after Pound's translation, and I find it beautiful.

Because of its origins, Pound tried to keep the strong vowel stresses in the lines, to convey the harsh sense of the waves battering against his ship, and the wind battering against his body. He sought to bring the past to the present, showing that themes like greed traverse the ages and even languages.

In some ways, the poem is a mini-epic. The narration recalls the epic tradition of oral narration (as there was no writing to relate stories) about the adverntures and journey of heros, like Odysseus in particular, as he saled for almost ten years in order to get home. Another overlap here is the mention of the 'wife', as Penelope awaited her husband's return for twenty years, yet both the narrator here and Odysseus kept finding places to be and things to do and people to visit, prolonging their reunification. Even other women got in the way!

By using only one narrator and one voice, the loneliness and isolation of a life out at sea is conveyed. By the conclusion of the poem, 'gold' appears cold and just as isolating in the grave, especially when contrasted to the bodies of brothers, who might metaphorically keep you warm in the after-life.

For now, I shall leave you with these contrasting, attractive images, which might help you contemplate the beauty of the sea but also the disconnection felt by a sailor, helping you mull over the poem's words. Enjoy!

Frost on a frosty day

Where I live, this morning the world was blanketed in fine white. The landscape jogged a memory of Robert Frost and so today we will look at one of his poems.




Let's have a little background today. An American, living from the 1870s to the 1960s, Frost liked to write about rural life and had an interest in American dialects too. His parents were British in blood and so his works were first published over here. He wrote with philosophical curiosity, perhaps influenced by the troubling times he had experienced in his family life; his father died when Frost was but 11 and his mother later of cancer. Depression and mental illness was also prevalent in all of the members and his wife as well. If you'd like to explore the link between mental health and literature, I am studying a course of the site Futurelearn which deals with the very topic, and I have found it enlightening. Here is the link if you are interested:


https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/literature/1/todo/2641


Onto some poetry. I find most of his poems are punchy, very few lines long, so I should be able to really unpack his work and get the most out of it.


The Road Not Taken


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


As I began reading this poem, I immediately wondered whether the 'road' was the common metaphor for any choice in life, like a 'life path'. By the conclusion, I have understood this to be an accurate reading. The narrator has chosen to do something that either none or not many ('less traveled' implies it nevertheless has been travelled) others have done before, whether that is Frost choosing to leave manual work in the factory and become a writer, or whether he is merely observing that those who do more unique things will become more successful.


Is his meaning about success, though? Just because taking the path he did has 'made all the difference', does that mean the difference has been good? It entirely depends upon your reading (and probably your mood at the time of reading!) as to whether you view this positively or negatively. In support of the negative reading, we could take the 'sigh' to be one of regret, or even a positive sigh of fond recollection, after 'ages' have passed and the memory hardly seems real.


Looking back through the poem now, I have only just noticed the marking of the 'wood' as 'yellow'. To me it appears rather odd and could signify a range of things. As 'ages' have passed, I think it might resemble that he was going through the metaphorical 'wood', i.e. the time of the decision, in spring time, i.e. his youth. Others have suggested that it could also signify autumn, another time of change but this time one of decline, perhaps indicating that the decision he took had a diminishing impact upon his life. I am sure there are many other readings of this adjective, and I would love to hear your thoughts.


The hindsight in this poem is what strikes me. Frost knows that once a significant life path has been taken, like choosing to become a poet, the tread cannot be erased and finding your way back to the circumstances for which the other decision could have been taken is nigh on impossible. I think his message is to take the 'less traveled' path, because any 'difference' is surely better than none. In my opinion, he leaves out whether it has been a positive experience for him because he wants to encourage others to take the risk. He is not claiming that it will work well for everyone but he is claiming that the adventure will change you and become a permanent part of you. Take the leap...

POEtry

Purely because I like the name, today I am looking at the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. He was writing in the mid 19th century, often using the theme of nature and dreams, probably due to the influences of the Tracendentalist movement, which encouraged scepticism of religion and focus on philosophical thought instead, with focusing on nature acting as a grounding technique. Here, we see Poe has reflected upon a child's version of soul-searching and seeing the greater picture of the world.




Alone



From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were -- I have not seen
As others saw -- I could not bring
My passions from a common spring --
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow -- I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone --
And all I lov'd -- I lov'd alone --
Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn
Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still --
From the torrent, or the fountain --
From the red cliff of the mountain --
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold --
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by --
From the thunder, and the storm --
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view --



Perhaps in this poem we are witnessing the moment that the child moves from the Ego phase of life (Freud's work will explain this, I know little about it), when they view themselves as the centre of life and do not yet have Theory of Mind, at which point they can see the world from others' perspectives and feel a keen sense of sympathy and empathy when necessary. Evidence for this reading is found in the ego-like line 'From the sun that 'round me roll'd' moving to a more removed and unimportant standing in the lightning passing him 'flying by', as if there were more pressing matters to attend to than the boy.





However, the child is still very much just that: a child. He sees a cloud and his active imagination claims it looks like a 'demon'. This childhood memory has stayed with the narrator and so is used metaphorically to convey how his mind does not work in the same way as others, because he always feels the presence of his own inner demons. The pathetic fallacy of the 'thunder' and 'storm' gives the effect of causing the reader to feel less safe, most likely imagining their own similar childhood fear.




Moreover, by calling the moment he sees the cloud the 'dawn' of his 'most stormy life', a sorrowful, depressing tone is given to the poem, because even if an adult's life is unhappy, one would wish that the childhood had been worthwhile. But it appears that the narrator was doomed to a depressive state from the start of his 'id' phase. Perhaps Poe is showing some of the flaws of thinking too philosophically, as the Tracendentalist movement would prefer, as it can have too great an impact on one's psychological state.