A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place your sight can knock on, echoing; but here within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else can ease him, charges into his dark night howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen into her, so that, like an audience, she can look them over, menacing and sullen, and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours; and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny, inside the golden amber of her eyeballs suspended, like a prehistoric fly.
Schwarze Katze By Rainer Maria Rilke
The original German
Ein Gespenst ist noch wie eine Stelle, dran dein Blick mit einem Klange stößt; aber da, an diesem schwarzen Felle wird dein stärkstes Schauen aufgelöst:
wie ein Tobender, wenn er in vollster Raserei ins Schwarze stampft, jählings am benehmenden Gepolster einer Zelle aufhört und verdampft.
Alle Blicke, die sie jemals trafen, scheint sie also an sich zu verhehlen, um darüber drohend und verdrossen zuzuschauern und damit zu schlafen. Doch auf einmal kehrt sie, wie geweckt, ihr Gesicht und mitten in das deine: und da triffst du deinen Blick im geelen Amber ihrer runden Augensteine unerwartet wieder: eingeschlossen wie ein ausgestorbenes Insekt.
“Black Cat” was originally published in Rilke’s 1923 collection Duino Elegies. Rilke began writing this collection in 1912, but it remained unfinished for a decade before being completed and published.
I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief at the center of your dream, from the grief at the center. I would like to follow you up the long stairway again & become the boat that would row you back carefully, a flame in two cupped hands to where your body lies beside me, and you enter it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.
The poem is for my usual Tuesday poetry post, but if you’d like to read why I chose it and a political commentary on the dangers of the new Supreme Court Justice, read on.
With the Senate confirmation of Judge Handmaid to the Supreme Court last night, I thought I’d post a poem by the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Canadian author Margaret Atwood. To be fair, the religious extremist group People of Praise to which Amy Coney Barrett belongs were the first to call its female advisers “hands” and “handmaids.” Their use of the term predated Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. They no longer use the term. It also appears that the group was not Atwood’s direct inspiration. Still, it looks like we are in for a dystopian future of our own with the court dominated by conservatives who want to take away all the freedoms gained by women and the LGBTQ+ community in the past 50 years.
Her silence on the most basic issues of republican self-rule tells us to be ready for the worst. In her confirmation hearings, she wouldn’t say if voter intimidation is illegal, even though it plainly is. She wouldn’t say if a president has the power to postpone an election, even though he doesn’t. She wouldn’t even say that a president should commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power, telling Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) that “to the extent that this is a political controversy right now, as a judge I want to stay out of it.” What exactly is controversial in a democratic republic about the peaceful transfer of power? It’s hard to escape the conclusion that she was nodding to the president who nominated her. He said he wanted a friendly judge on the court to deal with electoral matters, and he continues to signal that one of the most sacred concepts of a free republic is inoperative when it comes to himself. Rushing to confirm such a nominee just in time to rule on any election controversies (from which she refused to commit to recusing herself) should be troubling enough. But it is all the worse for being part of a tangle of excesses by the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Keep in mind that in Bush v. Gore, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Barrett were all Bush lawyers in that fight.
Margaret Atwood’s dystopian Gilead of The Handmaid’s Tale centers on a hierarchical system of red-clad handmaids and blue-draped wives. The handmaids are stripped of rights and forced to bear children for wealthy infertile couples. Though the wives also face patriarchal rules forbidding them from activities like reading, they enjoy significantly more autonomy than handmaids. The wives don’t merely uphold the brutal heterosexist regime; they were instrumental in its creation. Throughout Hulu’s adaptation, wife Serena, played by Yvonne Strahovski, is shown like a fictional Phyllis Schlafly, proselytizing regressive policies in flashbacks. And like The Handmaid’s Tale’s wives, Amy Coney Barrett is working to build a more unjust society for oppressed communities, despite being a woman herself.
Barrett’s confirmation will turn the clock back on human rights, but similarly to the wives in The Handmaid’s Tale, Barrett will not face the full consequences of her judicial decisions. Conservative white women have upheld and continue to support patriarchal white supremacy and punitive capitalism at the direct expense of others. Barrett’s false feminist promise of the possibility to have it all—a large family and successful career—is not a reality for many working-class women, but rather “an example to young women across America of what they can do if they have enough money.” The impact of America’s policies on Black women, women of color, low-income women, indigenous women, immigrant women, and queer and trans folks already reflect conditions similar to those in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Though Barrett skirted questions about how she would rule on abortion during Senate hearings, it is clear she seeks to erode abortion rights. Trump vowed to appoint so-called pro-life judges. Barrett’s past writings indicate she will be one. On the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett supported judicial opinions to require parental notification for abortions without exception and mandate the cremation of fetal remains.
Many pregnant women already face undue burdens when seeking abortion care. The Hyde Amendment prevents federal Medicaid funds from paying for abortions. This racist and classist policy disproportionately affects Black and Latinx patients, who are more likely to be enrolled in Medicaid. Rural patients also face barriers to care: 89 percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion clinic. Many pregnant women seeking abortions must travel across state lines to receive care, racking up travel bills, and risking jobs when they have to take multiple days off. As Barrett has said she would do, these communities would be disproportionally harmed by further restricting access to care, even if Roe v. Wade holds.
Barrett’s likely rulings on abortion aren’t the only decisions she would hand down without personal consequence. Barrett sparked controversy during the Senate hearings after using the term “sexual preference” in response to Senator Dianne Feinstein’s question about Obergefell v. Hodges. Her use of this outdated term that implies sexuality is a choice caused concern among LGBTQ+ rights organizations. This problem is even more acute in light of the statement Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito penned earlier this month, indicating their desire to overturn Obergefell. While Barrett later clarified that she hadn’t meant “any offense” by her use of the term, her apparent lack of knowledge of its implication does not bode well in a nation that already undervalues and harms LGBTQ+ people, especially Black trans women.
In 175 election-related cases this year, it found that Republican appointees interpreted the law in ways that impeded access to the ballot 80 percent of the time, compared with 37 percent for Democratic appointees. The best case for the enlargement of the Supreme Court is likely to be made by the court’s conservative judicial activists themselves. It would be good for democracy if they showed some restraint. But everything about this struggle so far tells us that restraint is no longer a word in their vocabulary and that prudence is not a virtue they honor anymore.
That’s the thing about her jurisprudence—it is not aimed at making life better for systemically marginalized people. And this is precisely the problem the handmaid comparison ignores. Barrett is the oppressor, not the oppressed. She would make handmaids out of others.
Autumn Song By Paul Verlaine – 1844-1896 Translated by Arthur Symons
When a sighing begins In the violins Of the autumn-song, My heart is drowned In the slow sound Languorous and long
Pale as with pain, Breath fails me when The hours toll deep. My thoughts recover The days that are over, And I weep.
And I go Where the winds know, Broken and brief, To and fro, As the winds blow A dead leaf.
Chanson d’automne By Paul Verlaine – 1844-1896
Les saglots longs Des violons De l’automne Blessent mon coeur D’une langueur Monotone.
Tout suffocant Et blême, quand Sonne l’heure, Je me souviens Des jours anciens Et je pleure;
Et je m’en vais Au vent mauvais Qui m’emporte Deçà, delà, Pareil à la Feuille morte.
About the Poem:
“Chanson d’automne” (“Autumn Song”) is a poem by Paul Verlaine (1844–1896), one of the best known in the French language. It is included in Verlaine’s first collection, Poèmes saturniens, published in 1866 (see 1866 in poetry). The poem forms part of the “Paysages tristes” (“Sad landscapes”) section of the collection.
In World War II lines from the poem were used to send messages from Special Operations Executive (SOE) to the French Resistance about the timing of the forthcoming Invasion of Normandy. In preparation for Operation Overlord, the BBC’s Radio Londres had signaled to the French Resistance with the opening lines of “Chanson d’Automne” were to indicate the start of D-Day operations under the command of the Special Operations Executive. The first three lines of the poem, “Les sanglots longs / des violons / de l’automne” (“Long sobs of autumn violins”), would mean that Operation Overlord was to start within two weeks. These lines were broadcast on June 1, 1944. The next set of lines, “Blessent mon coeur / d’une langueur / monotone” (“wound my heart with a monotonous languor”), meant that it would start within 48 hours and that the resistance should begin sabotage operations, especially on the French railroad system; these lines were broadcast on June 5 at 23:15.
In 1940, Charles Trenet made changes to the words of the poem in order to change it into a song. There has been speculation that it was the popularity of his version that led to the use of the poem by SOE.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“The Second Coming” is a poem written by Irish poet W. B. Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920, and afterwards included in his 1921 collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer. The poem uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to allegorically describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe. It is considered a major work of modernist poetry and has been reprinted in several collections, including The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
The poem was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence that followed the Easter Rising, at a time before the British Government decided to send into Ireland the Black and Tans (constables recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary as reinforcements during the Irish War of Independence to Ireland). The poem is also connected to the 1918–1919 flu pandemic. In the weeks preceding Yeats’s writing of the poem, his pregnant wife Georgie Hyde-Lees caught the virus and was very close to death. The highest death rates of the pandemic were among pregnant women—in some areas, they had up to a 70 percent death rate. While his wife was convalescing, he wrote “The Second Coming.”
“The Second Coming” has become perhaps the most plundered poem in the English language. At 164 words, it is short and memorable enough to be famous as a whole, but it has also been disassembled into its various phrases by books, albums, movies, TV shows, comic books, computer games, political speeches, and newspaper editorials. If you don’t know the poem, you will certainly recognize some of the phrases contained within. While many of Yeats’s poems have contributed unforgettable lines to cultural imagination (“no country for old men”; “the foul rag and bone shop of the heart”), “The Second Coming” consists of almost nothing but such lines. Someone reading it for the first time in 2020 might resemble the apocryphal theatergoer who complained that Hamlet was nothing but a bunch of quotations strung together. Whether or not it is Yeats’s greatest poem, it is by far his most useful. As Auden wrote in “In Memory of WB Yeats” (1939), “The words of a dead man / Are modified in the guts of the living.”
A 2016 analysis by research company Factiva showed that lines from the poem were quoted more often in the first seven months of 2016 than in any of the preceding 30 years. In the context of increased terrorist violence (particularly in France), political turmoil in the Western world after the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, and the election of Donald Trump as the US President shortly thereafter, commentators repeatedly invoked its lines: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” The post-2016 turn to Yeats is no surprise, because the image of the centre not holding has long made the poem a touchstone for frightened moderates. Shortly before running for president in 1968, Robert F Kennedy warned: “Indeed, we seem to fulfil the vision of Yeats.”
As the world is wrenched out of joint by the coronavirus pandemic, many people are turning to poetry for wisdom and consolation, but “The Second Coming” fulfils a different role, as it has done in crisis after crisis, from the Vietnam war to 9/11 to the election of Donald Trump: an opportunity to confront chaos and dread, rather than to escape it. Fintan O’Toole has proposed the “Yeats Test”: “The more quotable Yeats seems to commentators and politicians, the worse things are.”
It would be unwise to claim that “The Second Coming” is more relevant than ever because that has been said so many times before. If it feels especially compelling now, perhaps it is because we have become painfully accustomed to the idea that progress is fragile, and it is all too easy to fall back. In an age of shocking reversals, Yeats’s theory of historical cycles – “day & night, night & day for ever,” as he once put it—rings true. The only consolation the poem offers is the knowledge that, for one reason or another, every generation has felt the same apocalyptic shudder that Yeats did 100 years ago. That’s why it is a poem for 1919 and 1939 and 1968 and 1979 and 2001 and 2016 and today and tomorrow. Things fall apart, over and over again, yet the beast never quite reaches Bethlehem.
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-
Born during the early 19th century, Edgar Allen Poe’s characteristic mood swings were probably symptoms of Poe suffering from bipolar depression which may have led to his alcoholism and other self-destructive behaviors. Poe exhibited many of the symptoms of a man who suffered from mental illness. Trauma can cause mood disorders, and Poe was orphaned at a young age. He was also believed to be an alcoholic, likely the cause of his untimely death at the age of 40. When his beloved foster mother died in 1829, he wrote perhaps one of his most famous poems about depression, “Alone.” The poem illustrates loneliness associated with depression that leaves many feeling disconnected from others.
Each year, millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental health condition. However, mental illness affects everyone directly or indirectly through family, friends or coworkers. Despite mental illnesses’ reach and prevalence, stigma and misunderstanding are also, unfortunately, widespread. That is why each year, the first week of October (October 4-10 in 2020) has been set aside for raising awareness of mental illness. Each year, mental health professionals focus on educating the public, fighting stigma, and providing support. While mental health conditions are important to discuss year-round, highlighting them during Mental Illness Awareness Week provides a dedicated time for mental health advocates across the country to come together as one unified voice. Since 1990, when Congress officially established the first full week of October as Mental Illness Awareness Week, advocates have worked together to sponsor activities, large or small, to educate the public about mental illness.
Below are only a few of the reasons why it’s important to take part in promoting awareness for Mental Illness Awareness Week. Please use these facts and others to encourage discussions about mental health.
1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year
1 in 25 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year
1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year
Mental illness affects:
37% of LGBTQ+ adults
27% Mixed/Multiracial adults
22% of American Indian or Alaska Native
20% of White adults
17% of Latinx adults
16% of Black adults
15% of Asian adults
Annual prevalence among U.S. adults, by condition:
Anxiety Disorders: 19.1% (estimated 48 million people)
Major Depressive Episode: 7.2% (17.7 million people)
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: 3.6% (estimated 9 million people)
Bipolar Disorder: 2.8% (estimated 7 million people)
Borderline Personality Disorder: 1.4% (estimated 3.5 million people)
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: 1.2% (estimated 3 million people)
Schizophrenia: <1% (estimated 1.5 million people)
Remember, people with mental illness need your support, not your pity. Talking to friends and family about mental health problems can be an opportunity to provide information, support, and guidance. People with mental health problems deserve respect, compassion, and empathy.
For most of my life I’ve walked around blind Never watching the news Kept an open mind
One day I was informed “You sound like a liberal” I felt rather scorned The subject was literal
I took a step back And replied, “okay” I love the blacks And respect the gays
Perhaps the left wing Has a vacant seat But what shall I bring I refuse kissing feet
So very unworthy To judge another When my hands are dirty Dear sister, brother
But I’ve come to see Accusations weren’t true You don’t know me As I don’t know you
Not defined by race Class or career We all deserve grace Redneck or queer
I’m tired of the hate And our pride being burned The art of debate Is yet to be learned
There will be a lot of debate over the next several weeks. Tonight begins the first in a series of presidential debates. They’re always unpredictable. There will also be debates over the Supreme Court nomination hearings. The politics in America will get nastier and nastier as we draw closer to the election, and I don’t expect it will end with election night. We have a hard fight ahead of us on all fronts. In the debate tonight and the ones in the future, I hope Biden crushes Trump, but I’d be stupid not to worry a little about the debates. If you think you know what will happen in the coming presidential debates, think again. Even the best debaters have stumbled during debates in the national spotlight.
The first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, when the two candidates squared off in the first televised presidential debate, is a good example. Most commentators expected Richard Nixon to win the debate handily. Not only did he have eight years of experience as vice president, but he also had a reputation as a skilled debater. But when the camera came on and began to broadcast, Nixon came across as pale and weak. John F. Kennedy appeared cool, tanned, and in command. Nixon, unlike Kennedy, seemed nervous and declined to wear makeup. While Nixon fared better in the second and third debates, and on October 21, when the candidates met to discuss foreign affairs in their fourth and final debate, Nixon’s one-point polling edge before the first debate turned into a three-point lead for Kennedy after the debate. JFK went on to win the election by a hair.
In 2000, observers expected Vice President Al Gore, a capable debater, to wipe the floor with Texas Governor George W. Bush, who was not then and is still not known for his eloquence. But that’s not what happened. In their first debate, Gore sighed, huffed and puffed, and left a poor impression. It was an impression that was lampooned on Saturday Night Live, and it stuck with him throughout the race. His pre-debate lead was wiped out. After all three debates, it was Bush who emerged the winner of the election, but not without controversy (see Gore v. Bush).
Debates, however, are lost, not won. That was apparent in 1976 when President Ford intimated that Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination. It was a big blunder that played into the negative stereotype of Ford as dimwitted. Jimmy Carter didn’t win that debate, Gerald Ford lost it — and with it the election. Self-inflicted injuries are the worst kind. Americans like debates. They offer voters a chance to see candidates side-by-side. They motivate supporters and serve as tiebreakers for undecided voters. Debates can make voters more comfortable with candidates and lessen doubts. The smartest debaters use them to identify with the nation’s political temperament.
Debates have big audiences with enormous media buildups. They work best for candidates who use them to clarify the choice that voters are about to make. They offer valuable opportunities to sharpen messages and sort out issues that have become jumbled in the fog of campaign warfare. That’s why the question Reagan posed at the end of his debate with Carter—“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”—was so effective. It’s a question everyone needs to consider in this election. There are many unknowns when going into a debate, and one thing is for certain, Trump is full of surprises. He will lie about anything and say anything to get a positive reaction from his base, which they will believe because he has them believing anything they disagree with is fake news. However, in debates, surprise can kill––putting the target, and sometimes the aggressor, at risk.
As the underdog in the polls, Trump has less to lose. He needs to change the dynamics of the race. He will likely position himself as the only defense against a takeover by the radical left and portray Biden as a left-wing zealot, which Biden is decidedly not. Viewers will be watching this debate to see what happens. For supporters of Trump, it will be an opportunity to reinforce cult-like devotion; for his opponents, it will be an opportunity to reinforce deepening revulsion. For the percentage of the electorate that is undecided or not happy with either candidate, it could be an opportunity for them to actually make a choice.
There is little doubt that Trump will be nasty in his remarks and try to bully Biden. Biden needs to stand firm. Trump’s usual dirty political tactics could open himself up for tough counterattacks, especially if Biden goes after Trump on the coronavirus and healthcare and emphasizes the Trump administration’s uncaring and reckless policies. Biden will need to hammer Trump on his and the Republican strategy of ramming a conservative judge through the Supreme Court confirmation process before they lose the election. Biden needs to focus on the hypocrisy of the Republicans. The revelations about Trump not paying taxes for a decade will surely be a topic that is discussed, and Biden has a chance to show the American people that Trump is a liar, a cheater, and a fraud.
Anything goes in this election. And in the debate tonight, anything can happen. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Trump has a lot to answer for, and if Biden stays calm, hits back hard and effectively, and doesn’t falter or stumble, Biden will most likely come out on top in this debate. There is a lot of opportunities to make Trump look small, weak, and petulant. There is little that Trump can claim the higher ground on, and therefore, he will hit below the belt and show his lousy temperament, which will not sway his cult followers who love that about him, but it could sway the undecided against him if Biden plays his cards right. Biden needs to remember what Michelle Obama always says, “When they go low, we go high.” There is no doubt that Trump will go low, but Biden needs to stay above that and come across as a strong defender of democracy.
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82) is best known for “The Song of Hiawatha.” He also wrote many other celebrated poems. And then there’s ‘The Rainy Day’, which isn’t numbered among his most famous. But it is one of the finest poems written about rain, so deserves a few words of analysis for that reason alone.
Rain and misery are two certainties in life, at least in the New England that Longfellow knew so well. Longfellow’s poem uses the rain/misery connection to offer a misconception about life. In the first stanza, Longfellow talks of the rain and wind outside. He uses the second stanza to discuss the internal, miserable weather raging within his heart. For the final stanza, he shifts from simply describing his mood to the authoritative, as he commands his heart to be of good cheer and remember that, although it may be raining now, the sun is still shining behind the clouds, though he can’t currently see it. When we’re miserable or sad, it can be very difficult to recall happiness, to remember what’s now out of sight. In his penultimate line, we find the most famous line in this poem: ‘Into each life some rain must fall.’ Misery is part of a common lot of humanity. Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “When it rains look for rainbows when it’s dark look for stars.” Longfellow might have been well-advised to listen to Wilde’s advice.
There Will Come Soft Rains By Sara Teasdale
(War Time)
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Unlike the majority of Teasdale’s war poems, “There Will Come Soft Rains” has not been entirely forgotten. Three decades after its initial publication, in the wake of World War II, Ray Bradbury featured the poem as the foundation of a similarly post-apocalyptic short story, also titled “There Will Come Soft Rains,” in his 1950 novel The Martian Chronicles. In his re-appropriation, Bradbury portrays a future world that has been destroyed by mankind’s heedless progress, in a gruesome fashion that I don’t want to discuss. Bradbury’s story shares with Teasdale’s poem the terrifying insight that mankind is no longer connected, organically, to the natural world. The only species capable of mass, mechanized, self-destruction, humans are utterly alone, detached from a natural world that no longer even notices we are there. Imported into the futuristic world of 2057, Teasdale’s words become bitterly ironic. As early as World War I, Bradbury implies, mankind had been warned.
The poem awakens that old sentimental longing to return to a state of deep connectedness with nature. It even deploys a set of familiar stylistic markers that seem to have been borrowed directly from a nineteenth-century aesthetic economy. The poem’s alliteration, for instance — “whistling their whims,” “feathery fire”— and the sing-song rhymes— “ground/sound,” “night/white,” “fire/wire,” all evoke a sense of comforting gentility. But this veneer of conventional sentimentality merely heightens the profound impact of nature’s heartlessness. The poem’s sweet, sentimental quality and its tranquil, idyllic descriptors are deceiving. Ultimately, all of our sentimental feelings about “frogs” and “wild-plum trees,” as well as the language through which we have constructed those myths of a connection to nature, are tossed, mockingly, back at us. The reader is led to believe that the “soft rains” will signal our own renewal and that the birds will sing to celebrate our salvation.
The poem challenges those idyllic fantasies with the reality of a natural world dominated by indifference, motivated only by its own survival, and oblivious to the existence or extinction of man. However, Teasdale locates a kernel of hope in this harsh vision. Devoted exclusively to its own survival, nature, in Teasdale’s conception, proffers no comfort to mankind, but can, nonetheless, provide the key to our own preservation. Rather than a retreat into an irrecoverable, idealized past. Teasdale was influenced to write this poem by reading Charles Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species. In such, she was urging her audience to adopt the ways of nature—to focus more whole-heartedly on their own survival.
“There Will Come Soft Rains” first appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in July 1918—less than two months after the passage of the Sedition Act. Meant to strengthen the provisions of the already-repressive Espionage Act, the Sedition Act of May 16, 1918, was designed to quash American opposition to the war, outlawing “virtually all criticism of the war or the government.” Following its passage, anthologies and magazines continued to publish a small number of anti-war poems, but only if the poems were strategically nonspecific in their critique and refrained from offering a political alternative to the war. This climate of censorship casts a different light on the apparent obliqueness of Teasdale’s anti-war poems. Rather than a limitation, their historical imprecision might be what enabled their circulation at the height of World War I. It is possible, in fact, that Teasdale’s cultivation of a demure, “poetess” persona might have, contradictorily, enabled her to publish anti-war poetry more freely.
I am not here to be your label; To fit inside your box
I am not here to change my colors; To a hue you understand
I am not here to accept the comfort; You offer from behind your protective glass
I am not here to be pinned against your wall; My body on display
I am not here to be wrapped up in your blankets of security; Which reek with your fear of the different and unknown
I will shed your perfectly maintained preconceptions; Breaking away from your claustrophobic cage
I will burst forth as a mosaic of colors; Every unique piece creating the beautiful whole of my wingspan
I will stand shivering and bare; For the world to see
And I know that I am free; Moving from the water to the sky To fly. To grow. To be.
Vermont Pride was virtual this year, as were most pride celebrations. That meant even the Pride Magazine that Vermont Pride publishes and hands out each year was also virtual. The above poem came from their Prize Zine 2020. I really liked the poem and wanted to share it with you, but I know nothing about the poet C. Thomen-Brown. When I tried to search for more of their poetry, the only person I came across was an independently licensed clinical social worker named Camille Thomen-Brown at the Vermont Center for Anxiety Care located in Burlington, Vermont. I am guessing that this is the same person who wrote the poem. It was just such a lovely poem about being yourself and embracing your diversity.
O how far away everything is And long since gone. I think that the star From which I receive radiance Has been dead for thousands of years. I think, from the boat Drifting past, I heard some frightening words. Inside the house a clock Has struck … In which house? … I would like to step out of my heart To walk under the immense sky. I would like to pray. And one of all these stars Must surely still exist. I think I might know Which alone of them, Endures – Like a white city, Standing in the heavens at the end of the ray …
Klage By Rainer Maria Rilke
(In original German)
O wie ist alles fern und lange vergangen. Ich glaube, der Stern, von welchem ich Glanz empfange, ist seit Jahrtausenden tot. Ich glaube, im Boot, das vorüberfuhr, hörte ich etwas Banges sagen. Im Hause hat eine Uhr geschlagen … In welchem Haus? … Ich möchte aus meinem Herzen hinaus unter den großen Himmel treten. Ich möchte beten. Und einer von allen Sternen müßte wirklich noch sein. Ich glaube, ich wüßte, welcher allein gedauert hat, – welcher wie eine weiße Stadt am Ende des Strahls in den Himmeln steht …
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. He is “widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets.” He wrote both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke’s work as inherently “mystical”. His writings include one novel, several collections of poetry, and several volumes of correspondence in which he invokes haunting images that focus on the difficulty of communion with the indefinable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety. These deeply existential themes tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist writers.
The earliest poems by Rilke mainly featured two topics: religion and nationalism. While the very first poems show strong adherence to the canon of Christian stories, later poems take Christianity on a whole different journey. Later in his career, Rilke moved ever further away from his Christian roots, starting to bring Greek mythological characters into his stories. Transformed into Christian symbology, these Greek characters offered a whole new world for Rilke, in which he dove willingly. However, true to the romantic spirit of his time, religion and mythology did not stay the only topics on which he focused. From the middle of his career until his death, his poetry was mainly focused on the emotional description of true events. Two main areas of interest are evident during this period. The first is nature and the will of nature to survive. The second is the human struggle. Rilke put his focus mainly on individuals, expressing his points of view through the eyes of fictitious individuals. In general, most of Rilke’s poetry should be understood through the lens of his time and physical location. The struggles of the multicultural state of Austria-Hungary, which would be dissolved in his lifetime, play a pivotal role within his poetry and often individual poems make more sense seen this way.
About the Poem:
Berlin in the early 1900s was a hotbed for ‘art for art’s sake.’ Put simply, this expresses the belief that writers and artists needed no justification for their art. Their work did not need to serve political, moral, or any other end. Artists, especially those of Aestheticist and Romanticist conviction, had begun to discover progressive modernism, with its penchant for avant-garde art, fueled by inner creativity alone. Rilke found himself caught in this rise of modernism, with its conflict between the burden of tradition and a desire to break free of it. Rilke’s poetic development is a key example of this tension at work. For example, his poem ‘Klage’ likens the failure of creative power to the destruction of a tree by a storm.
The poem opens by expressing a longing for something passed. It captures the sense of distance and time which separates each of us from those we have lost. The line “under the immense sky” depicts the poet’s wishes to be outside himself, a part of the greater cosmos where perhaps he may be able to lose himself. As with the notion of loss, one must contemplate the loss of self as well, thinking of stepping out from our own hearts into a time and place in which the physical appearance is not an adequate definition of things. The last section of the poem conjures something which is “like a white city” only found at the end of the radiant universe. It is a call to a longing from the heart. Life beyond mere life, an experience that cannot be held as an ordinary experience. Rilke wishes and believes “something” still exists, after all is said and done.
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism’s face And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; “I will be true to the wife, I’ll concentrate more on my work,” And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
“September 1, 1939,” as its title signals, was written by W.H. Auden in the days immediately following Germany’s invasion of Poland, which marked the start of World War II. Auden had left his native England and moved to New York City some nine months earlier, and the famous opening lines of the poem are rooted in the dingy geography of his new home.
This poem achieved great resonance after the events of September 11, 2001—it was widely reproduced, recited on NPR, and interpreted with a link to the tragic events of that day. But it captured Auden’s reaction to the outbreak of World War II. The poem expresses anger and sadness towards those events, and it questions the historical and mass psychological process that led to the war. It focuses on the political psychosis of the German people, echoing a few lines of Nietzsche (“Accurate scholarship can / Unearth the whole offence / From Luther until now / That has driven a culture mad”). It then turns to the effect that this war will have on the world and its people, again with psychological overtones.
The poem was first published on 18 October 1939 in the American magazine, the New Republic. Auden had arrived in New York with his friend and fellow writer Christopher Isherwood. The two men quickly established themselves on the US literary scene: schmoozing, partying, making contact with editors, and undertaking speaking and lecturing engagements. In April 1939, Auden had met an 18-year-old, Chester Kallman, 14 years his junior, who was to become his life partner: in the new world, Auden was making a new life for himself. Back in Europe, meanwhile, the storm clouds were gathering.
W. H. Auden wrote the poem while visiting the father of his lover Kallman in New Jersey. Dorothy Farnan, Kallman’s father’s second wife, in her biography Auden in Love (1984), wrote that it was written in the Dizzy Club, an alleged gay bar in New York City, as if the statement in the first two lines, “I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-second Street,” were literal fact and not conventional poetic fiction (she had not met Kallman or Auden at the time). Auden later clarified that the poem’s beginning in Manhattan, “in one of the dives on Fifty-second Street,” was, in fact, the Dizzy Club at 62 West 52nd Street.
Auden hated the poem and believed it to be of poor quality. Despite this, the poem became famous and widely popular. E. M. Forster wrote, “Because he once wrote ‘We must love one another or die’ he can command me to follow him” (Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951). Soon after writing the poem, Auden began to turn away from it, apparently because he found it flattering to himself and his readers. In 1957, he wrote to the critic Laurence Lerner, “Between you and me, I loathe that poem” (quoted in Edward Mendelson, Later Auden). He resolved to omit it from his further collections, and it did not appear in his 1966 Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957.
In the mid-1950s, Auden began to refuse permission to editors who asked to reprint the poem in anthologies. In 1955, he allowed Oscar Williams to include it complete in The New Pocket Anthology of American Verse but altered the most famous line to read, “We must love one another and die.” Later, he allowed the poem to be reprinted only once, in a Penguin Books anthology Poetry of the Thirties (1964), with a note saying about this and four other early poems, “Mr. W. H. Auden considers these five poems to be trash which he is ashamed to have written.”
Joe
The Closet Professor 