I too am untranslatable.

This is just a bit of Whitman's famous transcendental poem of epic proportions. From "Song of Myself", in Leaves of Grass. For full effect, I recommend reading it on the top of a mountain or the edge of the ocean.

51
The past and present wilt - I have fill'd them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to talk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Oscar Wilde

Throughout this quarter, Oscar Wilde has become a very close friend. As most of you know, I'm taking a class on Oscar Wilde this quarter. I've read his plays, fairy tales, essays, poems, stories, etc. and this week, we reached the tragic part of his life. Wilde was in his forties when he was put on trial for "Acts of Gross Indecency". (Yes, you could go to prison for that in Victorian England) His biggest offense was his relationship with Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. Bosie's father started the downward spiral when he famously left a card for Wilde, saying, "To Oscar Wilde, posing as a Somdomite" (Yes, he spelled it wrong). Oscar's entire life was scrutinized in his trials (there were three), as well as some of his writing. The trials were, of course, highly publicized, and quite dehumanizing. He ended up in prison for two years. After a year of hard labor and solitary confinement, Wilde was allowed pen and paper. He wrote a 90 page letter to Bosie, called De Profundis ("Out of the depths"), and it's heartbreaking and magnificent. This is just a small part of it that I loved:

"Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole."

Yes. Oscar Wilde.

PS I've decided to challenge myself during Lent to post a new poem every day. I couldn't think of anything to give up, so instead, I'm adding a few things. Poetry brings such a richness to life, so I'm committing to a new poem everyday. I hope you take time to read them - don't worry, I don't usually ramble on this much...

Holocene

I believe something needs to be said about the poetics of Bon Iver. His lyrics always seem so bizarre, and it may be quite pointless to try to decode them. And I don’t think that’s the point. The sonic resonance of these lyrics is utterly beautiful regardless of meaning. Then every once in a while, a line will stand out and attach itself to your soul. I’m referring in this case to “Holocene”, which is perhaps the most beautiful song I’ve heard in a long time:

“Someway, baby, it's part of me, apart from me.”

You're laying waste to Halloween

You fucked it friend, it's on it's head, it struck the street

You're in Milwaukee, off your feet

And at once I knew I was not magnificent

Strayed above the highway aisle

Jagged vacance, thick with ice

I could see for miles, miles, miles

3rd and Lake it burnt away, the hallway

Was where we learned to celebrate

Automatic bought the years you'd talk for me

That night you played me “Lip Parade”

Not the needle, nor the thread, the lost decree

Saying nothing, that's enough for me

And at once I knew I was not magnificent

Hulled far from the highway aisle

Jagged, vacance, thick with ice

I could see for miles, miles, miles

Christmas night, it clutched the light, the hallow bright

Above my brother, I and tangled spines

We smoked the screen to make it what it was to be

Now to know it in my memory:

And at once I knew I was not magnificent

High above the highway aisle

Jagged vacance, thick with ice

I could see for miles, miles, miles

Please just sit and let that resonate for a while. I doesn’t matter what it means, and in fact, it could simultaneously mean several different things. But sometimes all we need is a little bit of beauty in our lives. “And at once I knew I was not magnificent…”

Oscar Wilde

I have the glorious privilege of taking a class entirely focused on Oscar Wilde this quarter. Wilde is one of the most skillful wordsmiths who has ever lived (and not just in my opinion). He could write about folding laundry, and it would be exquisite. I'm not sure why I'm posting this passage, but I just found it marvelously beautiful. The context is mostly irrelevant, although I HIGHLY recommend reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, because I'm only on the second chapter, and I'm completely enthralled. So here's a fairly random sampling of this beautiful book:

Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the fretted purple of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion, for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time it flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to and fro.

Morning Mist

Levertov is still blowing my mind daily:

The mountain absent,
a remote folk-memory.

The peninsula
vanished, hill, trees -
gone, shoreline
a rumour.

And we equate
God with these absences -
Deus absconditus.
But God

is imaged
as well or better
in the white stillness

resting everywhere,

giving to all things
an hour of Sabbath,

no leaf stirring,
the hidden places

tranquil in solitude.

Once Only, Again

I know I already posted this one, but I read it last night while watching the sunset over the Olympic Mountains, and I think it's worth talking about. 
For some reason, I tend to be rather inept at living in the present. I have been extraordinarily blessed with some spectacular experiences, and I tend to be disappointed when things aren't spectacular all the time. I get bored because nothing too exciting is happening around me, so I disconnect until something interesting happens. I don't know how to handle the "dreary intercourse of daily life". But, as usual, Levertov has managed to eloquently slap me in the face. 


Once Only - Denise Levertov
All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every initiation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
             did happen in our lives, our stories
             are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect now to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.


Denise Levertov herself said that poetry is "intrinsically revolutionary"; that it is "an ecstasy and a giving of life" (From the essay, "Great Possessions", in The Poet in the World). And that, my friends, is why I read poetry. 
I'm constantly looking back and trying to bring bits of my past into the present, and it just doesn't work. I try to "do, be, revisit" all of those beautiful pieces of my life, while denying the truth that whatever I'm clinging to existed just "once, only". And I can't "expect now to return for more". I realize how disappointing that may sound, but I think it's rather freeing. It doesn't mean that I have to let go completely, just that I can't expect to go back. I can gather up my memories, and move forward to "the next song" which is "utterly present"; which is "now or never". Because this moment exists just "once, only".

Shake the Dust

I apologize for being a terrible blogger!
Anyway, here's a spoken word poem from slam poet Anis Mojgani. His stuff is POWERFUL, and I strongly suggest spending some time watching several of his performances!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDtHdloK44

SHAKE THE DUST.