NormanG's love of language was
legendary in the classroom, but one of his private as well as public pleasures was to express his thoughts in poetry.
APPRECIATING POETRY
To fully appreciate poetry, we need to put ourselves in the
mind of the poet and try to share his reaction to what impresses him as a captivating or significant experience. Nothing else
will do. This is why enjoying, understanding, and interpreting poetry requires reading skills that can only come with practice. Whatever
subject the poet shares with us, his textual communication depends on our receptivity to what the poet sees, thinks, feels,
and imagines in the experience.
Let's take a descriptive stroll through William Wordsworth's
sonnet (a poem of fourteen lines with a particular rhyme scheme), Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, 3 September,
1803:
Earth has not anything to show more fair.
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare.
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
The first three lines introduce the poet's emotional and
aesthetic reaction to the beautiful view from Westminster Bridge at sunrise, before the pollution from the chimney pots and
other human activities hide the city. His imagination takes over, and he describes the city as being "like a garment" that
wears "The beauty of the morning; silent, bare./Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie /Open unto the fields,and
to the sky." After describing the cityscape, he responds to the surrounding natural, pristine panoramic view of
"valley, rock, or hill." He then notes the silently flowing Thames River that "glideth at his own sweet will," free of
the usual daily river traffic.
All of these urban and natural sights from Westminster Bridge
evoke an emotional climax, a kind of epiphany, so that the poet exclaims: "Dear God! The very houses seem asleep; /And all
that mighty heart is lying still." London now appears like sleeping humanity, with a heart whose vibrant daily activity has
been suspended.
I was attracted to this sonnet because it combined the poetic
elements of graphic imagery, thought, feeling, and imagination that represent the essential features of poetry. More personaly,
I enjoyed the poet's deep reverence and awe at the early morning beauty of London before it comes to turbulent life.
**********
While not intending to compete with the masters,
Norman naturally turned to writing poetry himself.
REFLECTIONS ON RETIRING
On this, my valedictory year
of waging war on ignorance,
a quarter-of-a-century's hoard
of academic souvenirs
adorns my shelf of memory
Had I remained a businessman
steeped in profit and loss, I might
have reaped a rich portfolio
and sported round the Riviera--
or skidded toward a coronary.
Instead I chose the teacher's role,
content to gain a bookish wealth
and thrive upon the give-and-take
with colleagues and the cavalcade
of students stumbling toward the light.
SUICIDE FROM GOLDEN GATE
She paid her toll upon the bridge
like someone going for a stroll.
At the mid-point of her promenade
she paused suspended in the night
between her dark design and the bay.
Owlish headlights from passing cars
spied her, astraddle on the rail,
while underneath the tugboats croaked.
She wondered whether God was near
to fish her melancholy soul
from the watery bier and then forgive.
She leaped at last from Golden Gate,
which proudly bridges man and man,
and made a terrifying splash
to us to fathom as we can.
THE SEASONS IN HAIKU
Spring
In the womb of earth
the fetal spring composes
a dirge for winter.
SUMMER
Lush green and flora
flaunt their amorous affair
with the potent sun.
AUTUMN
Flamboyant brushstrokes
in red and yellow pigment
inflame the landscape.
WINTER
Elegy of wind
through the skeletons of trees
tell of fallen leaves.
THE SQUIRREL
Like the squirrel on my terrace
who eats my charity of bread,
But hoards a treat of precious nuts
for future need, we also feed
our daily appetite to live,
but wisely store especial joys
to nourish us in leaner times.
So we squirrel dear mementos--
old photographs and baby clothes--
to keep alive what we have loved
because today is rushing by,
and tomorrow is a qustion mark.
TO MY SONS
Your mother and I, with forgotten joy
begot your odyssey on earth
and shared with you our secret map
of chartered seas and treasured isles.
We launched you with our prayer, but left
the navigation in your care.
We did not promise you calm seas
nor safe passage through jagged reefs.
All we gave you was a compass
and a star to guide you in the night.
NormanG
**********
POETRY--A FINE WINE
During
past centuries, poetry was a popular form of literature, but in the world today, its readership has slipped. Many years ago,
American newspapers published poetry as an established feature because there was an interested reading public. What keeps
poetry alive today is that it is still published in literary magazines, included in literary courses, and is honored
by the tradition of appointing a national Poet Laureate. Yet most readers prefer their literature in prose. As a result, they
miss a rich source of aesthetic pleasure and a new perspective on ordinary experiences.
We know little about the birth of poetry except that it
originated far back in human history, and that it served to celebrate and preserve an important event such as a victorious
battle, a fertile season of crops, or a successful hunting expedition. Presumably, a talented tribesman possessed the verbal
skill, the imagination, and the creative urge to express his personal experience or a significant tribal event. In time, his
composition was accompanied by dance and song, and passed on to later generations.
Readers often find it difficult to appreciate poetry because
they have the mistaken idea that the meaning or theme can be condensed into a single sentence or in a very short paragraph.
However, to appreciate poetry fully and grasp its meaning requires the reader's sustained concentration and free imagination,
for poetry is composed of many elements. Let's step into the poet's shoes and track his creative process.
In general, poets are acutely aware of and captivated by
the sights, sounds, and events happening around them, or that they have read about. That experience may affect them so deeply
that they feel impelled to record and share it in poetic form. Assuming that they are familiar with prosody, (the theory of
versification and the conventions of poetic structure), they will poetize their personal experience, using a variety of artistic
elements to express their perception, their feeling, their thought, and their imagination.
The total meaning of a poem, therefore, consists of all
the elements that a poet uses to express his personal reaction to an experience that he finds significant or inspiring. In
the act of composing, he will convey his attitude toward his subject (tone), his perceptions (images), his imaginative responses
(comparisons through figures of speech), and his thoughts about the experience (theme). Consequently, the reader must acquire
the habit of experiencing a poem as if sipping a fine wine.
NormanG
**********
INDIAN SUMMER
In autumn's frost, summer's encore
surprised us with a warming gift,
unscheduled on our calendar.
In this mixing of the seasons
when trees, except for evergreens,
were thinning into skeletons,
like haunting shapes of Halloween,
we enjoyed the freak of nature.
But squirrels, weather-wise, refused
to fall for summer's trickery.
They gathered for my scattered bread
as if they sensed their straitened state
when winter comes with empty hands.
THE DERELICT
As if a bee had stung my eye,
I pained to see a derelict
asleep in rags, in public view
on the sidewalk of the bus depot.
Commuters hustling to and fro
who passed this eyesore of a man
might hastily have labeled him
an alcoholic bum, junkie,
or drifter from the city's slum.
Yet I couldn't help but wonder
if, in his ragheap of a sleep,
he dreamed of riding an outbound bus
with his wallet full of wanderlust
and basking rich in Shangri-la.
FANTASIES
In my romantic fantasy,
a geisha, looking like my wife,
strums "Stardust" on a samisen,
while I sip Sake in ecstasy.
And in my harem, whirling girls,
all reproductions of my wife,
belly-dance to Ravel's "Bolero,"
while I regard their navel pearls.
Since age has cooled my lust, I stir
these embers of the man I was
with visions spun of wishful dreams,
till age and youth become a blur.
NormanG
**********
BenG is a meteorologist who has published three books on weather, the last by a prestigious university press.
It comes as a great surprise, therefore, to discover him turning away from science every now and then to listen to
his inner voices and express what he hears in poetry. The following poems are two of his latest efforts.
DREAMS
The darkness of night is illumined by vivid dreams
That nurture with every passing sleep,
Replete with characters we know but have never seen
Residing in a dimension far removed from our thoughts.
In the dark stillness of this suspended animation
We move swiftly through a cast of enchanted spirits,
Believing some may be soul mates who reveal
A side of ourselves that lies beneath still waters.
All
too soon the momentarily distinct images fade
into
mist
As daylight streams through a window from afar.
Closing off the portal to where we traveled
in this
nocturnal
journey
And wondering how we had arrived there so effortlessly.
SEAS THE DAY
Rollicking waves rouse powdery grains of sand from their moorings
Lapping upon distant shores that reach the edges of our view.
Swells build into mountains before cascading thunderously ashore,
Breaking into pieces to draw back into the formless expanse of horizon
It is probable that the ghosts of ancient mariners and fabled seafarers
Materialize at nightfall to haunt the dark, fathomless waters,
Calling out to warn of uncompromising winds violently whipping waves
Into a churning pool, leaving tattered wreckage in a cold mausoleum
below.
Tranquility of daylight brings sailing ships circled by flocks of gulls
Migrating across the milky haze, silhouetted by a cloudless sky.
The relentless pounding of the surf mingles with the laughter of
chilcren
Frolicking in the sun-splashed morning air drenched in sea spray.
Life slows in the timeless spell as we watch the workings of the world
Bathed in sultry air redolent of saltwater and sand.
Tumbling waves cover up our footprints, erasing where we journeyed
So we cannot return precisely to the same place in time even if we
choose.
Basking on a soft bed of sand surrounded by wisful thoughts of lost
days,
The repetitive tides remind us of relationships receding into faraway
waters.
We observe tiny conch shells and drying sand castles glistening in the
streaming sunlight,
Corridors to the past astride foundations of the present that can
sparkle anew.
BenG
**********
TRADE-OFF
While friends have flocked to Florida
like migratory birds to sun,
I nest up North in my domain
of homey warmth, or venture forth
with shopping list and wanderlust
to brave sub-zero punishment.
In winter at this latitude
where sleet and snow and ice conspire
a dicey game for travelers,
and winds intone an elegy
through trembling skeletons of trees,
at least the seasons change in hue,
refreshing my jaded view with scenes
that praise the artistry of God.
INDIAN SUMMER
In autumn's frost, summer's encore
surprised us with a warming gift,
unscheduled on our calendar.
In this mixing of the seasons
when trees, except for evergreens,
were thinning into skeletons,
like haunting shapes of Halloween,
we enjoyed the freak of nature.
But squirrels, weather-wise, refused
to fall for summer's trickery.
They gathered for my scattered bread,
as if they sensed their straitened state
when winter comes with empty hands.
*******
THE WRITER
He challenges the snow-white page
the way a mountain climber pits
his skill and stamina against
a precipice that's lost in clouds.
The higher he ascends, the more
he puts his prose or verse at risk,
because a critical mistake
might send him tumbling to despair.
At every step he drives in words
that grip the granite of his thoughts
and firms his footing to advance.
Climbing gamely toward the summit
with wishful thinking of success,
he never knows, unless he's famous,
what praise or spurn awaits him there,
or whether anyone will care.
NormanG
**********
