Ep. 5: “Banjo Dog Variations” by Donald Justice Transcript Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. Today I’ll be talking about one of my favorite poets, Donald Justice, and his amazing poem, “Banjo Dog Variations.” Donald Justice was born on August 12, 1925, in Miami, Florida. He studied music at the University of Miami, but he ended up graduating with an English literature degree. He taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Syracuse University, the University of California at Irvine, Princeton University, and several other colleges. One of my other favorite poets, Mark Strand, was a student of Donald Justice. Justice is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and his first poetry collection, titled “The Summer Anniversaries,” was the winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize, which is given by the Academy of American Poets. Justice died on August 6, 2004, in Iowa City, Iowa. I’ve been reading a lot of Donald Justice lately, and I think his poems are really beautiful. His use of rhyme is amazing and everything he writes is very interesting! I especially love his poems, “The Poet at Seven,” which has beautiful imagery, and “Ladies by Their Windows,” which has very strong lines (for example, “so ladies by their windows live and die.”) Every line in his poetry is tight (everything is smooth and important — nothing is extra) and contributes to the deeper meaning — he takes ordinary things, people and places he sees, memories, paintings, and turns them into something bigger, using another perspective to look at them. He also does this in “Banjo Dog Variations,” talking about one large topic using many small pictures and stories. Now I’m going to read “Banjo Dog Variations,” a poem set during the Great Depression. “Tramps on the road: floating clouds” — Old Chinese poem 1 Agriculture and Industry Embraced in public on a wall- Heroes in shirt-sleeves! Next to them The average man felt small. 2 I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, By Vassar girls surrounded. They harmonized expertly; oh, Their little true hearts pounded. Joe went on smiling. 3 I thought I saw what Trotsky saw, A friendly cossack wink; And then his friends brought down their clubs. Christ, what would Trotsky think! 4 Train had just slowed for the crossing when Out from the bushes jumped a hundred men. With baseball bats and iron bars They persuaded us back onto the cars. 5 And out of dirty fists sometimes Would bloom the melancholy harp. Then low-low-low on the gon-doh-lah We swayed beneath our tarp. And far lights moving in and out of rain. 6 What you do with the Sunday news Oh, citizens of the great riffraff, Is you put the funny papers in your shoes. It gives the feet a laugh. 7 We read our brothers’ shirts for lice And moved around with the fruit, Went north to Billings for the beets And had three good days in the jail at Butte. 8 We chalked our names on red cliffsides, High up, where only eagles dwelled. Each time a big truck went by below, The earth trembled like a woman held. 9 And we passed fields of smoking stumps Where goats sometimes or ponies grazed. Abandoned tractors stood against the sky Like giant fists upraised. 10 But if we bent our knees it was To drink from a creek’s rust-colored slime, And splash our chests with it, and rub our eyes, And wake into another world and time. 11 Let us go then, you and me, While the neon bubbles upward ceaselessly To lure us down back streets and alleyways, Where we may wander and be lost for days. Many days and many hours. 12 I miss the smell of the ratty furs And saturday night cologne and beer, And I miss the juke and the sign that read: NO POLICE SERVED HERE. 13 Off Mission, wasn’t it? The old White Angel Breadline, where we met? You had just come west from Arkansas, But the rest of it I forget. A cup of coffee; afterwards a hymn. 14 Once we stood on a high bluff, Lights fanning out across the bay. A little ragged band of Christs we were, And tempted-but we turned away. 15 And didn’t I see you Saturday night, After the paycheck from the mill, Bearing a pot of store-bought lilies home, One budding still? Ah, oh, my banjo dog! This poem is prefaced by a line from an old Chinese poem. It reads, “tramps on the road: floating clouds.” This is fitting, seeing as “Banjo Dog Variations” is about traveling on the road during the Great Depression. Another one of Justice’s poems, “Pantoum of the Great Depression,” is also about — you guessed it — that devastating time period. It’s also a very interesting poem with a cool form! In “Banjo Dog Variations,” Justice has a very strict stanza form. There are fifteen numbered stanzas, each with four lines and its own story. The only time he breaks this form is when he has an italicized line, like in several of the stanzas. Donald Justice talks about how hard it was for working people during the Great Depression. Joe Hill, who he mentions in the second stanza, was a labor organizer. He also mentions Trotsky, a Russian Revolutionary. In “A History of the Russian Revolution,” Trotsky writes that when the Cossack soldiers were called in to fight the workers, they refused — a worker even saw a soldier wink at him! When Justice says, “I thought I saw what Trotsky saw, a friendly Cossack wink,” he means that he thinks that the police aren’t going to hurt him — they are going to be kind. However, immediately after, the police attack him — “but then their friends brought down their clubs.” In other
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Poetry Soup Ep. 3 – “No End of Fun” by Wisława Szymborska
Ep. 3: “No End of Fun by Wislawa Szymborska Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. In this episode, I’ll be talking about the human race — which is, apparently, no end of fun. The great Polish poet, Wisława Szymborska, once said, “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.” Lucky for her, she has written many amazing poems, and today I’ll be talking about one of her best works, titled “No End of Fun.” Wisława Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923 in Prowent, Poznań Voivodeship, Poland, which is now Kórnik, Poland. When her father died, her family moved to Torun and then Krakow, where she spent the rest of her life. Wisława Szymborska was a staff member of a literary review magazine called Życie Literackie (which means Literary Life). She was a poet, essayist, and translator. In 1996, she was given the Nobel Prize in Literature. Much of her work is centered around history and war, for example, in her poem “Hitler’s First Photograph,” she ironically uses ultra-sweet language to describe Adolf Hitler as a baby. Now I’m going to read “No End of Fun.” In this satirical poem, you learn how strange humans are, and how, in some cases, we are to be pitied. So he’s got to have happiness, he’s got to have truth, too, he’s got to have eternity did you ever! He has only just learned to tell dreams from waking; only just realized that he is he; only just whittled with his hand né fin a flint, a rocket ship; easily drowned in the ocean’s teaspoon, not even funny enough to tickle the void; sees only with his eyes; hears only with his ears; his speech’s personal best is the conditional; he uses his reason to pick holes in reason. In short, he’s next to no one, but his head’s full of freedom, omniscience, and the Being beyond his foolish meat— did you ever! For he does apparently exist. He genuinely came to be beneath one of the more parochial stars. He’s lively and quite active in his fashion. His capacity for wonder is well advanced for a crystal’s deviant descendant. And considering his difficult childhood spent kowtowing to the herd’s needs, he’s already quite an individual indeed— did you ever! Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink! One wonders what will become of him, since he does in fact seem to be. And as far as being goes, he really tries quite hard. Quite hard indeed—one must admit. With that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater. He’s no end of fun, for all you say. Poor little beggar. A human, if ever we saw one. “No End of Fun” is the last poem in Szymborska’s 1967 collection by the same name. Szymborska begins her poem by talking about how humans desire so much. She writes how humans want everything — happiness, truth, and eternity. The ironic outside narrator, who is both Szymborska and some sort of extraterrestrial being, uses the words “did you ever!” three times throughout the poem to express disgust and surprise. This narrator appreciates the humans in the confines of their foolishness. The humans are like the country bumpkins of the universe, born beneath one of the “more parochial stars.” Szymborska repeats the exclamation of “did you ever!” three times in her poem. Then, in the end, she switches to, “if ever we saw one,” reinforcing the feeling of shock that we feel in the poem — how is it possible for us to even exist? She also comments on how young the human race really is, how quickly it will end, and how ignorant it is. According to Szymborska, man has “only just learned to tell dreams from waking.” Szymborska also writes, “a flint, a rocket ship;/easily drowned in the ocean’s teaspoon,/not even funny enough to tickle the void.” She shows that we’ve evolved so quickly, and yet we have so much more to explore and to do. She skips quickly through time here, and in the line, “with that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater.” Primitive man, ancient man, and modern man. The narrator uses this line to prove how old and wise it is. According to this cynical creature, human life spans are so short — you almost feel bad for them. The title of this poem is “No End of Fun,” and yet, the poem is about how the human race will end. It is almost like humanity is judging itself, and Szymborska is judging us, too. This poem makes us feel uncomfortable — most people would rather not think about these things. The poem is funny, but it’s also depressing. Szymborska shows that, compared to the rest of the universe, we’re really small and young — and that there could always be something out there that’s laughing at us. That was “No End of Fun” by Wislawa Szymborska. Maybe one day, you’ll meet a cynical alien just like the one she describes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one!
Poetry Soup Ep. 2 – “The Keeper of Sheep” by Fernando Pessoa
Ep. 2: “The Keeper of Sheep” by Fernando Pessoa Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. Today, I’ll be talking about two different poets – one real and one fake. Can a poem be written by someone who doesn’t even exist? “The Keeper of Sheep” is written by Alberto Caeiro, which is a heteronym invented by the poet and writer Fernando Pessoa. A heteronym is different from a pseudonym, because a pseudonym is just a name, while a heteronym is an entire personality. I’ll talk more about the heteronym Alberto Caeiro later. But first, a little bit about Fernando Pessoa. Fernando Pessoa was born on June 13, 1888 in Lisbon, Portugal. When Pessoa was six years old, he made up his first heteronym, a man by the name of Chevalier de Pas. Pessoa created at least seventy-two heteronyms throughout his lifetime. Pessoa was a poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher. He was deeply influenced by English poets like William Shakespeare and Percy Bysshe Shelley. You can also see the influence of Walt Whitman in much of Pessoa’s work, including the poem we’ll be reading today. Fernando Pessoa died on November 30, 1935, in Lisbon, Portugal, at the age of 47. But now there’s another poet to talk about – Alberto Caeiro. In creating Caeiro, Pessoa had come up with a whole new personality with an entire history. Caeiro has had only a grade school education – he is a peasant who is in touch with his surroundings and is greatly influenced by them, yet not curious about their existence. According to Pessoa, Alberto Caeiro does not question the things around him – he has interesting ideas, but he simply takes in his surroundings without asking “why.” Speaking in the voice of another heteronym, Ricardo Reis, Pessoa said, “Caeiro, like Whitman, leaves me perplexed. We are thrown off our critical attitude by so extraordinary a phenomenon. We have never seen anything like it. Even after Whitman, Caeiro is strange and terrible, appallingly new.” Based on the personality of the heteronym Fernando Pessoa might be writing under at the time, the perspective of the poems differed in this way. Octavio Paz even called Caeiro the “innocent poet.” Since “The Keeper of Sheep” is a long poem, I’m only going to read part one and part nine. However, these parts are amazing even by themselves! I never kept sheep, But it’s as if I’d done so. My soul is like a shepherd. It knows wind and sun Walking hand in hand with the Seasons Observing, and following along. All of Nature’s unpeopled peacefulness Comes to sit alongside me. Still I’m sad, as a sunset is To the imagination, When it grows cold at the end of the plain And you feel the night come in Like s butterfly through the window, But my sadness is comforting Because it’s right and natural And because it’s what the soul should feel When it already thinks it exists And the hands pick flowers And the soul takes no notice. Like the clanking of cowbells Beyond the bend in the road, My thoughts are happy. My only regret is knowing they’re happy Because if I didn’t know it, They’d be glad and happy Instead of unhappy and glad. Thinking is discomforting like walking in the rain When the wind increases, making it look as if it’s raining harder. I’ve no ambitions or desires. My being a poet isn’t an ambition. It’s my way of being alone. And if sometimes in my fancy I desire to be a lamb (Or the whole flock of sheep So I can go over the hillside And be many happy things at the same time), It’s only because I feel what I’m writing when the sun sets Or when a cloud’s hand passes over the light And a silence runs off through the grass. When I sit down to write a poem Or when ambling along the main roads and bypaths, I write lines on the paper of my thoughts, I feel the staff in my hands And glimpse an outline of myself On top of some low-lying hill, Watching over my flock and seeing my ideas, Or watching over my ideas and seeing my flock, And smiling vaguely like one who doesn’t understand what’s said And likes to pretend he does. I greet everyone who’ll read me, Tipping my wide-brimmed hat to them As they see me at my door Just as the coach tips the top of the hill. I salute them and wish them sunshine, And rain when rain is called for, And may their houses contain Near an open window Somebody’s favorite chair Where they sit, reading my poems. And when reading my poems thinkin Of me as something quite natural – An ancient tree, for instance, In whose shade they thumped down When they were children, tired after play, Wiping the sweat off their hot foreheads With the sleeve of their striped smocks. (Translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown) “The Keeper of Sheep” is a beautiful poem, and this is proven even in just the first part. Referring to the title, the poem is technically about “a” keeper of sheep, and Caeiro proves that he both is and is not this shepherd. He does not have any sheep, and therefore he does not watch over any – but his mind is full and he is content with his thoughts, which he must arrange and keep, like sheep. This is an extended conceit – it’s a metaphor that runs throughout the entire poem. So, really, this poem, like so many poems, is about Caeiro’s mind and his being a poet. Caeiro also says how he wants to be a lamb, or, in fact, a whole flock of lambs (so he can be “many happy things at the same time.”) So, basically, referring back to the extended
