This week marks the end of the term. In Latin American literature we're reading two short stories for our last session: Jaime Manrique's "The Documentary Artist" (influenced by Bartleby) and Jorge Volpi's "Ars Poetica." So before tomorrow, we reread Pablo Neruda's "Ars Poetica" and just perhaps write an "Ars Poetica" of our own. Here's mine.

Impressions: Ars Poetica

A long afternoon,
A singer without a song,
Leaves trembling on the trees,
A winged mermaid floats near the ceiling,
White daisies bloom and fade,
Voices murmur in the hall,
Circling boxes and hidden rooms,
Measured time turns backward while
Letters unwritten and unread
Begin to dance.


More information:
On Jorge Volpi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Volpi
Wikipedia's definition of ars poetica: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_poetica

Yesterday I went to a Black Poets Society reading, my first poetry slam. Wow! What energy and rhythm, all hip-hop, performance, even a nice poem called I hate Justin Timberlake, and the style keeps echoing. So this morning's commuting poem came out a little differently. Read this one out loud with a rapper's beat.

Commute #33

I was driving to work this morning feeling pretty safe
when I passed a logging truck doing 60 in his place,
hauling old growth redwoods chopped out of what premordial forest hung with silence . . to be bark dust? a disgrace.

Yesterday's image floated before my face,
grass heavy fields as far as the eye can see.
Both sides of the road,
fence lines punctuated by bird song until I got to this place:
White hooded plastic covered his face, a human spraying
machine methodically back and forth, making the world safe
from all kinds of creepy crawly things,
road straight and narrow out of that place, and
I ramped it, not spending one second in that space.

Back to my papers, second-hand books, borrowed books, library books
and pocket garden, safe,
no gun carrying, sand-blasted patrol in my neighborhood,
no night terrors, no police banging, banging at the door,
no soldiers marching out on election day,
no one tied up and left to the dogs,
no people in the streets,
no people in the streets,
no people IN YOUR FACE.

Commuter poem #32

Melon moon rising out of morning,
half a moon glowing, dark mountain shadows below,
not a bird flies across the sky,
the sky gray to blue to pink, then full sun,
while the moon,irridescent fingernail,
still floats at the horizon.
Overhead, fragile lines of Canada geese punctuate the sky,
and the first spring green leaves unfurl.

100 Words --- I finished the leftover buttermilk chicken from yesterday, ate the little salad, splashed ranch dressing on my glasses, and am half-way through the remainder of lunch, room temperature strawberry-flavored yogurt (with an emphasis on flavored), and I was amused at yesterday's random blog, 100 words on whatever. So caught between too many papers, too little time, patches of blue sky mixed with cloud outside my window, and the need for a mental lunch break, I poise over my 100 words. Could this be a long sentence linking impressions of students, hopes and anxieties, but steady progress? A preparation for getting all those critical projects done, including an annual self-appraisal I have little desire to write? A meditation on the meaning of Job (yes, the Biblical Job, which according to Wikipedia means "hostility"; there's a new take on the relationship between Job and God), or an understanding of Lord Byron (finally, a rationale to understand this man who offends me so deeply (a womanizer and brilliant poet who created his identity as the outsider, an ostracized and lonely creative genius), truly unloved yet perpetually seeking love, an entirely new category of Romantic, the Byronic hero, a very dark hero, mysterious, unknowable, and essentially dead at 37 of his own excessive lust. Or do I write the opening vignette for my next novel? Ah, I hit over 100 words. Time to go back to work. --Beth

A La Malinche/
To Dona Marina

Tu eras morena, you were brown,
like the earth, humble,
center of the universe in a quiet, isolated mountain,
or passing, wrapped in rebozo, Madonna on any modern street,
walking slowly under the sun on any dusty country road.

Maligned, La Malinche, you were sold, used
like a dictionary, stretched between Spanish and Nahuatl,
the voice a bridge between cultures,
like any worthy woman, bearer of sons,
mistress to conquistadors,
married off as the highlight to some drunken orgy
on some midnight ship, a last joke of Cortez.

Tu eras la luz, you were the light in any window,
the voice that wakens children from sleep,
safe from night terrors. Tu eras la violencia,
you were the violence, the betrayer
of secrets, the sister of the brother strangled
in a room of gold, fleeing from palace to palace,
from hacienda to hacienda, la cantinera,
camp follower of any revolutionary
in an age of horses, guns and trains.

Tu eras placida, you were the center of all the paintings,
rounded arms like leaves growing from the heart of the people,
a flower and a poem floating legends, Xochimilco,
strands of flowers woven together, boats rocking,
I name you the flower, the flowers name you,
I name you the woman, your womanliness names you,
You are the flower, and you are the poem:
We are your children.

NOTE: I wrote this poem in response to readings for Eng209 Latin American literature. The events described in this poem actually happened to a woman named Malintzin, first given to Cortez, who became his mistress, bore him a son and acted as a translator. She is credited with saving the Spaniards' lives by warning them of Aztec attacks on the "night of tears," yet the chronicles of that time show she was married to one of Cortez' lieutenants as part of a shipboard party. She was named Dona Marina by the Spaniards but called La Malinche by the Aztecs. Each generation has recreated her image as betrayer and betrayed. Since she remains such a powerful influence over the ages, the poem reflects the passage of time, and the little Spanish in the poem is translated immediately after the phrase. I also tried to echo the images and structure of Mesoamerican poetry here. Beth

Source of image: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/globaltribe/countries/mex_aztec.html

Additional sources on La Malinche: Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche and http://www.tihof.org/honors/malinche.htm

Road Signs

Yesterday a blue heron flew low
over the road, calm,
leisurely sweeping across the four-lane highway,
as if it were a forest, the cars a river, and the day not ending.

This morning, fog gathered on the road,
tiny pale yellow lights flashed,
cars passed,
pinpoints of light on a journey,
trees shrouded, not even a tree line
points at order.

Fog as far as the eye can see begins to lift.
Tree shadows line the fields.
Birds sleep while I wait
for the sun to burn the fog away with fiery pink and gold.
Only a line of poplars flames yellow
and promises sun.

Image: Tim Barton, Webshots.

Oregon gray sky:
three Canada geese head north,
while winter's dark trees
burst with pink cherry blooms.
Spring!

Image: Stephen Matera, Webshots