April Twilights by Willa Cather (The Willa Cather Project).

When I launched my Willa Cather project, I was actually surprised to see that Cather had a volume of poetry, and that it was the first thing she ever had published! I never thought of Cather as a poet, since I hadn't run across her poems before. Just shows you that good research on authors is invaluable. ;)

Anyway, I began my Cather reading by diving into her poetry and was surprised to see that I really enjoyed it. Granted, there were a few that didn't strike a chord with me, but Cather was a pretty good poet. As I read through April Twilights, I found myself drawn to the pastoral poems, since that is the writing I have read and associated with her.

One of my favorites was "The Hawthorn Tree:"

Across the shimmering meadows--

Ah, when he came to me!

In the spring-time,

In the night-time,

In the starlight,

Beneath the hawthorn tree.

 

Up from the misty marsh-land--

Ah, when he climbed to me!

To my white bower,

To my sweet rest,

To my warm breast,

Beneath the hawthorn tree.

 

Ask of me what the birds sang,

High in the hawthorn tree;

What the breeze tells,

What the rose smells,

What the stars shine--

Not what he said to me!

I just love the flow and feeling behind that poem-and it reminds me of O Pioneers!

Another favorite was "Eurydice:"
 
A bitter doom they did upon her place:
She might not touch his hand nor see his face
The while he led her up from death and dreams
Into his world of bright Arcadian streams.
For all of him she yearned to touch and see,
Only the sweet ghost of his melody;
For all of him she yearned to have and hold,
Only the wraith of song, sweet, sweet and cold.
With only song to stop her ears by day
And hold above her frozen heart alway,
And strain within her arms and glad her sight,
With only song to feed her lips by night,
To lay within her bosom only song—
Sweetheart! The way from Hell's so long, so long!

I suppose I felt drawn to that one because of my recent mythology class. But the feeling and emotion just grabbed me.

In all, I really enjoyed the collection of poems. You can tell that Cather was trying some things out as the poems progressed, and that she was still finding her voice as a writer. I'm looking forward to seeing how that transitions as she moves into short stories and novels!

*This title was read as a part of The Willa Cather Project-my focused attempt to read Cather's complete works in chronological order. Click on the link for more information about the project and my goals.*

"Poppies on Ludlow Castle" by Willa Cather.

I started reading April Twilights by Willa Cather as the first official title in my Willa Cather project. This poem stuck out to me (perhaps because we live very close to a street named Ludlow? Perhaps because I just love the mood of the poem?). I wanted to share, so you could have a little poetry to get through the day. Enjoy. :)

"Poppies on Ludlow Castle" by Willa Cather

Through halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
A came to Ludlow tower.

A-top of arch and stairway,

Of crypt and donjan cell,

Of council hall, and chamber,

Of wall, and ditch, and well,

 

High over grated turrets

Where clinging ivies run,

A thousand scarlet poppies

Enticed the rising sun,

 

Upon the topmost turret,

With death and damp below,--

Three hundred years of spoilage,--

The crimson poppies grow.

 

This hall it was that bred him,

These hills that knew him brave,

The gentlest English singer

That fills an English grave.

 

How have they heart to blossom

So cruel and gay and red,

When beauty so hath perished

And valour so hath sped?

 

When knights so fair are rotten,

And captains true asleep,

And singing lips are dust-stopped

Six English earth-feet deep?

 

When ages old remind me

How much hath gone for naught,

What wretched ghost remaineth

Of all that flesh hath wrought;

 

Of love and song and warring,

Of adventure and play,

Of art and comely building,

Of faith and form and fray--

 

I'll mind the flowers of pleasure,

Of short-lived youth and sleep,

That drunk the sunny weather

A-top of Ludlow keep.

Assurances.

I am in a funk tonight. I know why, but it is hard to express here. I don't want to always be in a mood, but I think with school coming up in a week and the hiring season coming to a close...well, it happens.

Anyway, I turn to poetry a lot when I am feeling moody, and tonight I had to reread one of my favorite poems of all time. I know I have posted this poem here before, but I just love it so much...it comforts me, even when I don't know why.

enjoy...


I need no assurances, I am a man who is preoccupied of his own soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the hands and
face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant
of, calm and actual faces,
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in
any iota of the world,
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless,
in vain I try to think how limitless,
I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their
swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day
be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they,
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years,
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have
their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and
the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are
provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the
deaths of little children are provided for,
(Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport
of all Life, is not well provided for?)
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of
them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has
gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points,
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any
time, is provided for in the inherences of things,
I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I
believe Heavenly Death provides for all.

Book 61: Book Stats, The Waste Land, and Finished.

Before you read any further, I should point out that this post was originally written when I finished the book during the read-a-thon (yes, a long long time ago). It has been sitting in draft form waiting to be posted. Here it finally is. :) And I should point out that because this "book" is actually a poem, everything about this is in one post. When does that ever happen? ;)

Title: "The Waste Land"

Author: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

First Published: 1922

My Edition: Harcourt (Seen at left)

Pages: The full book is 88 pages, however, the poem is about 25 pages in length.

Other Poems Include: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), "Gerontin" (1920), "The Hollow Men" (1922), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), "Four Quartets" (1945)

Plays Include: The Rock (1934), Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), and The Cocktail Party (1949)

I am a huge poetry fan. And while I don't read it as much as I probably should, I do read more than the average Joe. There is something very relaxing and comforting about a poem.

This is the one solitary poem that made my list. I took off quite a few others, including Eliot's other masterpiece "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in an attempt to rein in my list, but this one had to stay, only because I had never read it. Seems silly, doesn't it? All the other poems were removed, but this little title stayed through a bunch of cuts and edits to be in the final 250.

And while I know it is not a "book" it stills counts as one title off my list.

At only 25 pages, and a poem, this was a quick and easy read for the purposes of the read-a-thon. I will have to remember to read some poetry in the next read-a-thons if I ever get the chance.

The poem is structured into five sections: The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, and What the Thunder Said. Each section has its tone, voice, and mood. The narrator switches and gives the poem a very melancholy feel.

To be honest, this is a hard poem to describe, especially that I read it in one sitting and haven't had a great deal of time to digest all of the little nuances that come into play with poetry. But, speaking as someone who has read it for the first time I will say this: it captures a lot of the desolation and pain that was felt after The Great War (WWI). Some of the scenes Eliot described seemed to be of empty battlefields and rebuilding.

As I have not lived through a great war, or had personal destruction come down around me, I cannot really relate to the struggle of that kind of pain-of seeing the world crumbling and life disappear. But Eliot captured it for me in his words, so I could feel a glimpse.

I loved his language. Everything was vivid and alive in the way that only poetry can be. Here is the beginning to show what I mean:

"APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter," (29).

It is simply beautiful. My favorite of the five sections was the last, the one called What the Thunder Said.

"AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience," (42).

I really believe this captures the mood of the entire poem. Those last three lines I choose were just so powerful as I read them.

I wish I knew more about Eliot so I could understand the deeper meanings of this poem. But he is not a poet I am familiar with. I think to truly understand poetry, you just read and reread it, immerse yourself in the knowledge of the poet, and just let it sink in. I haven't the opportunity to do that now, but I know I will be returning to Eliot eventually, to read more and learn more about the man who wrote such a chilling poem.

A Whitman Favorite.

I have a great fondness for Walt Whitman. As a high schooler, I didn't understand him. It took a college professor to help me understand him. What resulted was a paper on his epic "Song of Myself" that garnered me the highest grade in the class by .5. That 4.0 paper was one of the highlights of my English career and I owe a great part of it to Whitman.

I love the way he uses language and transforms it. He takes seemingly everyday emotions and scenes and transforms them into something far more meaningful. I love that, and I love everything by him.

I recently pulled out my copy of Leaves of Grass to leave by my bed. It has been a comfort to me in the past and I have needed that same level of comfort and familiarity lately.

The poem I am posting here is called "Assurances." I first read it back in college, and it is a poem I return to often. It reminds me that things will ultimately be okay in the end, and that while I may not be happy in this moment, things will return to normal eventually. This poem comforted me when my grandmother was in the hospital back in 2007 shortly before she passed away. It eased some of the pain I felt then, just as it eases me now.

For those of you who aren't poetry lovers, I hope this appeals to you.

I need no assurances, I am a man who is preoccupied of his own soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the hands and
face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant
of, calm and actual faces,
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in
any iota of the world,
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless,
in vain I try to think how limitless,
I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their
swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day
be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they,
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years,
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have
their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and
the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are
provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the
deaths of little children are provided for,
(Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport
of all Life, is not well provided for?)
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of
them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has
gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points,
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any
time, is provided for in the inherences of things,
I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I
believe Heavenly Death provides for all.

Poetry Month: Whitman (again).

Since April is National Poetry Month, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite poems and share them with you all.

Like I said in my original poetry post, I have a great fondness for Walt Whitman. While I love many of his longer poems, his short poems also strike deep. Here is another of my favorites "Facing West from California's Shores":

Facing west from California's shores,

Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,

I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,

Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;

For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,

From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,

From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,

Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wander'd,

Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous,

(But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?)

Book List Meme: February 2, 2010.

Okay, it is time for a weekly book Meme hosted by Rebecca at Lost in Books. Each week a topic is posted that must be answered by the titles and pictures of 3 books.

This week's topic?

3 Books I Read When I Need a Good Cry

I found this to be a real difficult topic because I am not a big crier! But, I looked and decided on these three! Enjoy!

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: I have a lot of love for this book. I purchased it on a whim and ended up reading it during one shift at the park (I was sitting in the permit booth all day). By the end of the day and the end of my shift, I was teary eyed and stuck in Zusak's world. It is about a girl living in Germany in World War II and the lives of the people around her. What makes this book so outstanding is that it is narrated by Death.




2. The Giver by Lois Lowry: I read this in school in the fifth grade and I fell in love. For me, this is the ultimate dystopian novel and no other can stand up to this. Jonas lives in a world with no color, no music, and no memories beyond his own life. At his 12 year ceremony, Jonas is told he will be the next Receiver of Memories. He then learns about the past through the reception of memories and is forever changed.




3. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman: This had to be included on my list. I love Whitman and his use of language. It is always inspiring and sad. This volume of poems got me through both of my grandparents' deaths and it is something I always turn to in times of need. I am not always such a huge fan of poetry, but Whitman's words really touch my heart.