The Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Poet

This essay was really enlightening for me.  We know Emerson more as a philosopher, than a poet or a critic, but he was the voice for poetry during his lifetime - the inspiration, mentor and friend of Walt Whitman and this long treatise on poetry delves deeply in to the perspective he has for this form of writing.  He writes, “With what joy I begin to read a poem, which I confide in as an inspiration.”

Then he goes on to look at poetry in his own analytic way and suggests that “Every word was once a poem.”  This is fascinating because he sees the power in each word and how that power can shape a picture or image for the reader, “The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is he who can articulate it."

I have been working to review poetry for Lake Superior magazine's next issue and this has caused me to not just read poetry, but to think about it.  I found myself thinking about the concept of "to turn a phrase" and thinking instead that poetry phrases the turns in our perception.

In the following paragraph Emerson goes further in this analysis and I am going to take the liberty to underline phrases that really spoke to me.  “The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses.  For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer.  The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.  Language is fossil poetry.”

In this reflection the poet is put in the unenviable position of needing to let their own lives move to the background and let life as it surrounds them take over the pen. “So the poet’s habit of living should be set on a key so low, that the common influences should delight him.  His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water.  That spirit which suffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from every dry knoll of sere grass, from every pine-stump, and half-embedded stone, on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and such as are of simple taste.”

Finally we begin to see that poetry in its purest form and within the essay Emerson bemoans how few poets are really writing the highest level of poem.  “Art is the path of the creator to his work.”  The creator is not a god, but the poet. “He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him.  The poet pours out verses in every solitude.  Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful.  That charms him.  He would say nothing else, but such things.  In our way of talking, we say, ‘That is yours, this is mine..."

and then we come to the crux of this dialogue.  The product of the poet, the essence of the poem is moving and inspiring, but in fact comes from beyond the writer - "but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is a strange and beautiful thing to him as to you…”

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

I have always been fascinated by Hemingway, as have many people.  He is an Icon of American literature and an enemy of adjectives every where.  His sparse writing form is as unique as Shakespeare's rhyme and meter.  He carved out a form that reflected the man and in many ways The Sun Also Rises is also a strong reflection of the man (as is the Old Man and the Sea and many others)

. The following was posted by Garrison Keillor today, so it seems appropriate to post my review of  The Sun Also Rises, which was one of my summer reads. Today, July 21,  is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway , born in Oak Park, Illinois (1899). He started his writing life as a journalist, but when he was in Paris after World War I, working as a foreign correspondent for theToronto Star, he was encouraged to take a more literary turn by other American writers like Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. His first collection of short stories, In Our Time, was published in 1925. Both U.S. presidential candidates of 2008 cited Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) as one of their favorite books. It's about an American teacher, Robert Jordan, who volunteers to go fight in the Spanish Civil War and, after being wounded in battle, contemplates shooting himself to end the pain. But when the enemy comes into sight, Jordan delays their approach so that his own comrades can escape to safety. And then he dies. Here's an excerpt from the first chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls: "The young man, whose name was Robert Jordan, was extremely hungry and he was worried. He was often hungry but he was not usually worried because he did not give any importance to what happened to himself and he knew from experience how simple it was to move behind the enemy lines in all this country. It was as simple to move behind them as it was to cross through them, if you had a good guide. It was only giving importance to what happened to you if you were caught that made it difficult; that and deciding whom to trust. You had to trust the people you worked with completely or not at all, and you had to make decisions about the trusting. He was not worried about any of that. But there were other things."

In this book we are brought to the same decadent Paris that we find in F Scott Fitzgerald's writing, but it is different for many reasons .  First Hemingway does not involve his wives in this writing.  His character - Jake - is a loner and lonely.  An amateur psychologist might read in to the life of this character the loneliness that ultimate brought Hemingway to commit suicide.

This is a group of people bonded by their lifestyles and location, but in fact as we go through the story we find that the friendships are not based on liking one another.  In fact, they can be quite cruel about the other associates and they seem to find more to like in the bottles of liquor, the quest for a meaningful relationship - which means going after each new possibility, and the blood and chaos of Pamplona and the bulls.

Spain and France are the locals and we are often treated to insights about their countryside, but the strength of the story is about the people.  Each expresses anger and want in different ways depending upon their inebriation.  And the glue to the group is actually a woman - Brett, who we are led to believe is extremely desirable.  Her problem is that men are easy [ain't that the truth] and so they mate, the part, they follow her and she finds new conquests like the Spanish bullfighter even while planning to marry or spend time with one of the others.  She is on a constant quest and her inability to define the goals of her quest mean that she will continue to be unfulfilled, even though she and Jake actually are the truest if unfulfilled love relationship.

The is about Gertrude Stein's "lost generation".  A group too affluent for their own good and without a purpose.  In one telling paragraph Jake, the narrator, tells us about the Jewish Cohn.  "He had been reading W. H. Hudson.  That sounds like an innocent occupation, but Cohn had read and reread "The Purple Land."  "The Purple Land" is a very sinister book if read too late in life.  It recounts splendid imaginary amorous adventures of a perfectly English gentleman in an intensely romantic land, the scenery of which is very well described.  For a man to take it at thirty-four as a guide-book to what life holds is about as safe as it would be for a man of the same age to enter Wall Street direct from a French convent, equipped with a complete set of the more practical Alger books."

Brett was Jake's "The Purple Land".
"Probably I never would have had any trouble if I hadn't run into Brett when they shipped me to England.  I suppose she only wanted what she could not have.  Well, people were that way. To hell with people.  The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that.  Good advice anyway.  Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice.  Try and take it sometime.  Try and take it."

We are given the hint that something happened to Jake in the war that made it so he could not have sex and this meant he could not or would not take in Brett.  Yet they constantly found that they needed the touch-stone of the other's presence.

Each flawed character was searching and forgetting:
"It was amazing champagne.
"'I say that is wine,' Brett held up her glass.  'We ought to toast something. - Here's to royalty."
"'This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear.  You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that.  You lose the taste.'
"Brett's glass was empty."

In another passage the following lament seems to be an honest assessment of the people who fill the narrative:  "You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil.  You get precious.  Fake European standards have ruined you.  You drink yourself to death.  You become obsessed by sex.  You spend all your time talking, not working.  You are an expatriate, see?  You hang around cafes."

And they do.  It is a story in which the bars and cafes are equally anonymous, but are the true points of connection - the dots that outline the picture.  It is a story that does not satisfy.  It is not leading to some moral understanding or grand climax, but it is a slice of a life we can be fascinated by, but probably never be able to replicate.

enotes - introduces the book:
Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, remains, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “a romance and a guidebook.” It also became, in the words of critic Sibbie O’Sullivan, “a modern-day courtesy book on how to behave in the waste land Europe had become after the Great War.” The Sun Also Rises successfully portrays its characters as survivors of a “lost generation.” In addition, the novel was the most modern an American author had yet produced, and the ease with which it could be read endeared it to many. But for all its apparent simplicity, the novel’s innovation lay in its ironic style that interjected complex themes without being didactic. Generally, the novel is considered to be Hemingway’s most satisfying work.

Three Summer books

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a second reading occasioned by our grandsons who road out west with us.  We did it on cd and that is my favorite version - the reader is superb and creates the voices and personalities that I want to hear when I read.  We then came home and watched the movie with the Twins - their first Harry Potter experience and that was wonderful fun.

The reread was a real treat for many reasons.  Now that I know the story it was not the constant page turner, instead I could enjoy Rowling's skill.  I think the plot might overshadow the fact that she is really excellent at developing the story through characters that become very real - not just good fictional people, but people in an outrageously creative alternate world that become real.

The descriptions and details of the setting for all the books are laid out in this opening novel. The plot is fun, but thinner than the progression of dark secrets and magical battles that will follow.  This is a book that is more setting and tease.

Of course Valdemort is evil, but he will become more frightening as the series develops.  Here he is merely scary.  Snape is given his shadowy personality and Dumbledor becomes the lovable wizard.  But it is the kids who carry the story and their exploits are something all kids can relate too.

Marshes (2007) by William Burt is a gorgeous book that rides on its photographs.  There are many books that gather photos of coastal seascapes, lakes and waves, and even the dark and seemingly forbidding swamp - but marshes have not gathered the aesthetic appeal.  They are wetlands of grasses, sedge's, rushes - plants with rather dull looking flowers and the water is shaded by the denseness of the vegetation.

But Burt talks about the importance of marshes and the terrible abuse that has been visited upon them.  It is almost impossible to find a pristine marsh - they have either been ruined by construction and draining or invaded by voracious plant species that have been allowed to cross over the seas.  He describes the monster phragmites: "which grow up to 250 lateral feet per year, sending up shoots every four or five inches."

However, if you cannot be persuaded of the beauty of the marsh by words, it is his photo essays that close the deal.  The alluring and seldom seen birds of this community are shown off with clarity and focus - something that had to take tremendous patience.  The least bitterns and the rails are seldom on a birder's list, but they are on these pages.

 This is an intense book about a camp for delinquent boys that is run by a tyrannical female warden who has the boys digging holes in a dry lake bed.  Supposedly this is causing them to reform and think about their crimes.  In reality, she is using them to seek a treasure.  In this situation, our hero - Stanley Yelnats - is a victim of a wrongful conviction and a sentence to Camp Green Lake.Now Green Lake may have been the largest lake in Texas at one time, but now it is home to poisonous yellow spotted lizards and rattlesnakes and these are nicer than the guards.  It is an intense story of escape, the threads of a personal curse that cannot be shaken, and some really good story telling.  Ultimately it is about justice and redemption and the kids will be pleased with the ultimate reward that goes to the two troubled youth who come out on top.  However, I am not sure the right age for this intense book, perhaps 10?