Poem in the Form of a Short Public Announcement Inscribed on the Side of a Cardboard Box

One of a writer's most self-ennobling conceits is that the right words in the right order possess transformative power, capable of turning the mundane into the sublime (and vice versa I suppose) simply through the storyteller's charm and/or the poet's enlivening touch.  Thus it is that novelists take pride in framing their stories from mere drollery and poets compose their most heartfelt odes in the form of a shopping list.  It is very much in that spirit that I offer up the following poem in the form of a short public announcement meant to be inscribed on the side of a plain cardboard box ...

I come to you tonight

Perched on no platform

Other than myself

(although please 

keep in mind some

further disassembly

may still be required)

Now please sit quietly

And contemplate what bearing

This might possibly have

On you and yourself

*  *  *  *  * 

I think it only fair to dedicate this poem to the editors of Shambala Press who several years ago declined to publish my Monkey King translation ostensibly on the grounds that I lacked a suitable platform - a word and concept now very much in vogue.  It's really only thanks to that stinging rejection that I have subsequently had occasion to learn so much about platforms for poetry and sutras, such as they are, which has better prepared me for the upcoming publication of the Monkey King book.  Much as it may hurt, sometimes rejection proves to be the best remedy for what really ails and afflicts us.   

A Brief Sociological Digression - Lamport's First Axiom of Email Addiction

I’ve noticed something odd lately about my addiction to email.  It seems that the frequency with which I check my inbox is inversely correlated to the amount of email I am receiving at any given time.  Thus, the less email I receive the more inclined I am to check my inbox and vice versa.  If so, then this suggests that email addiction (more generally) is a form of isolation anxiety – it is the lack of signal that heightens our concern about our social standing; and conversely it is the overabundance of signal that compels us to tune out.  

Wouldn't it really be ironic now if I end up being better-known for this email theorem than for one of my poems.     See, e.g., the Ode to Truth.

A Short Ode to Poetry

If a poem is like a wheelbarrow

That must overcome a mountain

Of indifference (first of the poet’s

very own making and then

of the rest of the world’s)

Then who among us is fit to say

When a metaphor is said and done

That indifference may not

Be completely warranted
Since a mountain may be moved
Or transplanted given repeated transit
Of that very same wheelbarrow
Filled with stones and dirt  

Today I felt the urge to write this brief ode to poetry.  I guess you could say it's a poem written in the form of a metaphor.  I'd like to dedicate it to my dad (and Grandpa Pete and Samuel Beckett to name but a few of my fathers, consanguineous or otherwise) on Father's Day 2016, in the spirit that has brought us to where we presently stand, wheelbarrow in hand.  Those of you who are interested in such things may want to read this earlier poem where I first tried to explain my love for the wheelbarrow -- as something more than just a handy metaphor - it's quite literally a most useful device.  And it keeps picking up new meaning - like so many stones in the bed of the barrow -- as I trundle on my way. 

Call and Response Among the Peonies (Tang Spirit Newsletter # 1001

Call and response is a fundamental form or archetype of music that is found all over the world. It is composed as a back and forth exchange between distinct phrases or voices, most often played or sung by different musicians sometimes on different instruments.  It's an integral part of various musical traditions, including classical ragas of the Indian subcontinent, as well as the musical and social rituals practiced throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.  From Africa, call and response found its way via the slave trade into the American musical repertoire where it came to play a prominent role in many genres; from the original field chants it spread into Gospel and then from there found more contemporary form in blues, folk, rap and afro-cuban jazz. 

Call and response is also a form of prosody found in different poetic traditions around the world.  The most prominent example I’m aware of is Renga, which is a Japanese poetic form of linked verse, which is composed as call and response between two or more different authors.  It's somewhat ironic that Renga eventually evolved into Haiku, familiar to us today as the most abbreviated form of verse.  But Haiku originally started out as the jumping off point for a much more extended poetic form, which sometimes ran on for scores of verses.  Each Haiku served as a call, and the response was a call back in turn, giving rise to another go round.

Although it's been many years since I've dabbled in literary theory, I think it's possible to read Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence as a theory of poetry essentially based on a prosody of call and response.  Of course, Bloom's theory works in an inter-temporal fashion, from one generation to the next, down through the canon of great English and American poets.  A strong poet responds to the call of a prior poet by trying to supervene or obliterate it, which poses a stark contrast to the cooperative spirit found in Renga and other traditions. 

I like to think of translation as a form of call and response.  No translation can provide a replica or perfect copy of the original poem.  This is particularly true when it comes to translating a Tang poem into modern English, leaping across a huge cultural, temporal and linguistic divide.  Not that a translator sets out intending to deviate from the sense and feeling of the original poem, but inevitably we must and, in that sense, every translation ends up serving as a response and not just a completely accurate rendering of the original.

Sometimes call and response figures even more directly in my prosody.  Every once in a while I come across a Tang poem that speaks to me so strongly it calls out not just for translation but for a more fully measured response.  In this issue of the Tang Spirit newsletter I want to provide you with a recent example of how this works.  It features a call and response in the peony garden, consisting of a poetic exchange between me and one of my favorite Tang poets, Bai Juyi.   Please note that I’ve presented the call and response in reverse order (with my response appearing first below) because – well just because the sequence of poems makes more sense that way.   
  
In a way, Nature has provided the first and most powerful call with the appearance of these incredible peony blossoms in the garden; and both Bai Juyi and I are merely responding in turn.  And as the peonies have been unfolding in our backyard over the last two weeks, I am also pleased to include as part of this newsletter a further response from my wife, Marissa Bridge, who joins in the exchange with a sequence of photographs from our garden.

  

*  *  *  *  *

Waiting for the Peonies

by Joe Lamport

Now it’s almost June
And the peonies can't open
A moment too soon
Those mighty vessels of spring
With their all but bursting buds
Long compacted by the
Parade of ant across the globe
  Ready to explode in color

As the Golden Wheel
Finishes one turn and
Prepares for another
We stand on the threshold
Of this lush green carpet
Sign of our unflagging disposition
Thrilled at summer's imminence
Even as it's already rolled out
Beneath our feet

*  *  *  *  *

惜牡丹花


白居易


惆怅阶前红牡丹
晚来唯有两枝残

明朝风起应吹尽
夜惜衰红把火看

*  *  *  *  *

*  *  *  *  *

Fading Treasure of the Peonies

by Bai Juyi

 With long pensive steps
I pace before the red peonies
They sag as evening comes
Only two branches left

The morning wind rising
Will deplete whatever remains
So tonight we should
Savor the slow decline
Of this vivid red flame

*  *  *  *  *

*  *  *  *  *

There is nothing more fleeting than the peony blossoms of early summer; their dramatic opening comes with a presentiment of fulfillment and demise – This is a call to which every one of us is able to respond.  

And speaking of call and response, here is another example of how it is deeply embedded in our modern poetics.  In this case the call comes not from a Tang poet of the distant past but from an Anglo-American poet of the mid 20th century - T.S. Eliot and his poem The Hollow Men.  My guess is that Eliot himself based his original poem on a call and response pattern that was familiar to him from Anglican or Catholic liturgy.  In any case, here is my response to Eliot's call.  Where hollowness to Eliot was akin to spiritual death, I have a very different view of the matter.  As the Dao De Jing teaches us, it is precisely from hollowness that the most remarkable things come to life - as a personal gloss on the Dao, this an observation that holds just as true among the souls of men as it does among plants and their stems!

*  *  *  *  *

For the Peony Blossom

Between the intention and the act

Comes this outburst of color

Right here at the plinth of summer

Between the idea

And the bud’s first forming

Between the ants’ travail

And the petals unfolding

Falls the blossom’s brief life span

    

     In the kingdom of the garden

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

The peony unravels

     Life is very short

Between desire

And satisfaction

Between abundance

And decline

Each peony manages to

Approach the sublime

     Here in the kingdom of the garden

As well (I might add)

This is the way

The world extends itself

From day to day

In brief dramatic display

And with a sufficiency

Of blessings for all

Many thanks to Marissa for sharing her wonderful photographs.  Those of you who are interested can see more of Marissa's paintings and prints on her website here.    And many thanks to Susan Berkowitz, for explaining to me how prosody is not just about meter and rhyme but much more about the musicality of language, including its form and dynamic flow, back and forth and up and down.

Joe Lamport (poet and translator)
June 14, 2016
Lampoetry.com 
Subscribe to our email newsletter

A Foretaste of Honey

In the gentle June light

Of late afternoon 

Like a dog I stretched out

Amidst the clover’s first bloom

On a carpet thicker and richer in hope

Than any summer afternoon still to come

And there adrift on that sea of clover
I savored a foretaste of honey

Sweeter than honey itself
Sharing the bumblebee's virgin berth

On a voyage just begun

Adrift on the sea of clover

For the Peony Blossom (with a tip o' the hat to T.S. Eliot)

I am just putting the finishing touches on a new issue of the Tang Spirit Newsletter.   This issue features a poetic exchange between me and Bai Juyi about the peony blossom.  You can read the full issue here.    

Please click here to subscribe to the newsletter.

In the meantime, here's a little taste.

For the Peony Blossom

Between the intention and the act

Comes this outburst of color

Right here at the plinth of summer

Between the idea

And the bud’s first forming

Between the ants’ travail

And the petals unfolding

Falls the blossom’s brief life span

    

     In the kingdom of the garden

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

The peony unravels

     Life is very short

Between desire

And satisfaction

Between abundance

And decline

Each peony manages to

Approach the sublime

     Here in the kingdom of the garden

As well (I might add)

This is the way

The world extends itself

From day to day

In brief dramatic display

And with a sufficiency

Of blessings for all

*  *  *  *  *

Photos courtesy of M. Bridge

A Brief Exchange with my Lesser Self

While exercising today

I wondered to my lesser self

Who is it that keeps

On lifting these hand weights?

And who then replied like

A latter-day Madame Blavatsky

Having detached almost completely

Rolling on in auto-mnemonic fashion

As if speaking not just lifting by rote

One of the great discoveries and pleasures in meditation is the experience of detaching and looking at oneself, as if from a great height or remove.   No doubt this experience falls short of the Zen ideal of realizing no-self, since it still entails a new, albeit smaller "I" that looks down on at the old larger self, feeling completely detached.  However short of the Zen ideal it may be, it nonetheless represents an important landmark on the road to meditative discovery - a process which involves a gradual self-diminishment.  From a Buddhist perspective (if not quite in the same way in the Christian world view) life may be summarized thus: as self's journey towards the vanishing point.  It is a distinctly spiritual quest.

Backyard Prosody

Amazing voice 

How sweet the sound  

That's made by a finch near me

With a song of praise for  

Sundrenched days amidst

June's lush greenery

* * * * *

Extended Warranty and All

Yesterday my brother Hank and I spent a few hours going through a friend's storage locker on the far west side.  It's a task neither of us relished, as our friend John was something of a packrat and had stuffed away rusty old tools and household goods, along with stacks of bills and mailing circulars (from decades past), together with books, records, clothing and other personal effects.   John was also into technology and at one point in his life he had spent considerable time buying old computer equipment on E-Bay, much of which we found stashed away boxes - in some cases still encased in the bubble wrap from his seller.

There's really no better memento mori than old technology - nothing more demonstrative of the wonder and sadness of our own obsolescence.  It reminded me of this poem I had written several years ago, which I have decided to dust off, slightly revise and read at the memorial service we're holding later this afternoon.  For those of you unfamiliar with sanskrit, the word Parasamgaté (which is from the Heart Sutra) may be literally translated as going far beyond.

Extended Warranty and All

for M. John Matlaw

Suddenly it hit me

As they were fixing my Mac

Trying to keep the hard drive 

From spinning 

Out of control

Like it says in 

The Heart Sutra

No matter how well 

Life suits you

Each product feature

Also contains

This indelible flaw

Parasamgaté

It’s emptiness

And nothing more 

The raison d'être

Of every body

Even with the

Extended 

Warranty

And all