Two poets

It's about 9: 50, coming to ten in the morning now. Ignore the time at the end of the post, the computer does it, not me and so it's wonky. In fact, it makes my sleeping patterns and I sound weird.

I'm introducing two poets--an arbitrary two--today. I'm still in a celebratory mood, so I guess I'll be making hay while the sun shines--later on, I will be tidying up my room, it's in a mess after months of living in total disorder.

These two poets have touched me immensely, and I believe that they're both really, really good and that it'll be interesting for anyone else who reads them.

The first is Wallace Stevens, he's one of the "Great American Poets", or so I'm told. You will most probably have heard of him unless you live in a place where nobody read very much (like...Singapore--!--for instance). I dicovered him two years ago in--no prizes for guessing--Harold Bloom's book of "One hundred best poems in the English Language" (I'm not plugging him though, in fact, I even reccommend that you look for the good books and poems yourself, get your own idea of them or read a less opinionated, biased commentary by somebody else--who does not ry to sound too arcane but instead, tells you what you need and want to know in a straightforward, fun and compact way), I read the poems as I couldn't really make much sense of the critique that Bloom provided--it was a help nonetheless--and I like them although they were (and still are) pretty much way over my head. They're something that will grow on you, and with you as your views and understanding of them mature.

Since I'm no scholar of literature (unless you count the Joy Luck Club I'm doing at school), so instead of treating you to a long and possibly flawed commentary on him, I'll reccomend a website where you can find in-depth material on him--have faith in me, I'm not talking about that lousy kind of baby stuff which only says that a poem is very "beautiful" or "sad". Here: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets.htm, after you click and get there, you just scroll down to the "S" section or else you can click on "S" on the black and white bar just above the letter "a".

Great! Now for the next poet.

Keith Douglas: I've got an odd, friendly liking for this fellow. You might not have heard of him. He was one of the best poets of World War Two--which is often maligned by critics for not producing any poetry, unlike WWI, he and a couple of others prove them wrong. Douglas was a soldier on the front, and he got killed by a piece of shrapnel so small that one could barely make out a mark on his body. But in between that time--and even before that, I feel--he was a wonderful poet and it is a great pity that he had to die so unfulfilled. (And no, I'm not the way you think I am, I feel that the entire World War was a great tragedy--but that's another story.) I found out about Keith Douglas just two years or so ago, when I borrowed a book of "Mourning Poems" from the school library, and found the intriguing poem: Simplify Me when I am Dead. This touched me deeply, as it seemed a very personal poem--throughout his life, he did bear a "long pain" (look here: http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/S/soldier_poets/biog_douglas.html). There is no delicacy, not even the slightest euphemism, in it, it tells it as it is, stripped, bare as bones, angry, sad and rather resigned at Death's approach. (Douglas was quite the self-mourner--in the tradition of literary great such as Keats, Dickinson and hardy. Perhaps he was even fascinated at the meaning of death.) There is a palpable pathos infused throughout the poem, that reaches you to strike you hard in the face:

Simplify Me When I'm Dead

Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.

As the processes of earth strip off
the colour of the skin:
take the brown hair and blue eye
and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon entered the cold sky.

Of my skeleton perhaps, so stripped,
a learned man will say
"He was of such a type and intelligence," no more.

Thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may deduce,
from the long pain I bore

the opinions I held, who was my foe
and what I left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.

Time's wrong-way telescope will show
a minute man ten years hence
and by distance simplified.

Through that lens see if I seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion,

not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled,
leisurely arrive at an opinion.

Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.

Keith Douglas

... and another:

Desert Flowers
Living in a wide landscape are the flowers --
Rosenberg I only repeat what you were saying --
the shell and the hawk every hour
are slaying men and jerboas, slaying

the mind: but the body can fill
the hungry flowers and the dogs who cry words
at nights, the most hostile things of all.
But that is not new. Each time the night discards

draperies on the eyes and leaves the mind awake
I look each side of the door of sleep
for the little coin it will take
to buy the secret I shall not keep.

I see men as trees suffering
or confound the detail and the horizon.
Lay the coin on my tongue and I will sing
of what the others never set eyes on.

[? El Ballah, General Hospital, 1943]

Other poems by Keith Douglas:


Cairo Jag

How To Kill

The Knife

Vergissmeinnicht

Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not)

Villanelle Of Spring Bells

For more, I guess you'll just have to buy the book, check out the titles on Amazon.com or the local library.

My hard-earned Keith Douglas links (all the un-crap ones I can find at the momen)t:
http://www.durham21.co.uk/archive/archive.asp?ID=2134 (about Douglas)

http://themargins.net/anth/1930-1939/douglas.html (an early poem by Douglas)

http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/20century/topic_2/alamein.htm

http://www.getcited.org/?PUB=100066686&showStat=Ratings (a book you might consider reading)

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1494038,00.html (an article on the man himself--again--click on the links at the bottom too!)

http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/review/_pdfs/review05-09-kendall.pdf (great article on Douglas's "vision"--might take awhile to load, though)

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nova_foresta_books/douglas.htm (not particularly good, but oh well, why not?)

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n03/print/hami01_.html (a review of "Keith Douglas: The Letters by Keith Douglas ed. Desmond Graham · Carcanet, 369 pp, £14.95"

http://www.utpjournals.com/product/utq/582/582_sherry.html (wonderful! read this one even if you choose to ignore the others)

http://www.warchronicle.com/eighth_army/soldierstory/douglas.htm (from "Alamein to Zem Zem"--a book by Douglas)

http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/performance_poetry/104447 (a pretty lousy link, but it provides the text of his beautiful "Farewell Poem")

I think that's about all. I've been through, like, TEN pages on the Altavista search engine.

Note: There are plenty of links and great books on Wallace Stevens, just search through Amazon.com or your local library. The link I provided above has a wealth of resources--have fun!

Just finished my Chinese O'Level paper today--almost

Backstory:
Yes, after like two weeks of torture, all the kids in my school are finally free (for maybe afew days or so before we go back to practising for our Oral Examinations in July plus the rest of the O'Levels). We were dismissed at around 1 in the afternoon, after a half-hour delay as the invigilators were doing something (either checking the papers or carrying on their conversations), then just about all of us headed off to Orchard Road, the local shopping district. The bus was really crowded.

Yes, so we headed off to the shopping district after which my sister and I went to a bookstore (Kinokuniya at Takashimaya)--after an unremarkable lunch, which isn't really the point of this post. After a few hours of browsing (two?), I saw this old, perhaps middle-aged, guy who was quite big and grey, sitting in the corner near where i was standing. He was reading a--car?--magazine and...picking his nose...and rubbing his dirty old grey hair, rubbing his dirty old grey feet, and rubbing the magazine, and picking his dirty old grey nose. Yep, yep, it's all true, every word of it, I swear. So I was standing by there, browsing and giving him disapproving looks and making funny old-ladyish noises in my mouth until I finally couldn't stand it anymore.

--------------------------------------The Show-down------------------------------------------
Not quite, which is really what has been happening all my life.

Me: Uh, mm, excuse me...you're picking your nose and flipping that magazine...you shouldn't do that...

guy: AHh...why cannot? (acting D-U-M-B, I could n't really hear him)

Me: Umm (now beginning to lose my nerve), because it's like umm wrong...

Then I giggle, my voice was growing softer and softer from the beginning. Not the way to tell someone off. He doesn't respond, but it really isn't my fault. I move off. I think I'm afraid of him really (I was, then), he's quite big, looks heavy and might be a rapist. No, not really, it's just my own imagination, but really, I'm far too timid to go at him again, nevermind. I hate dirty people.

This is how it usually ends when I try to be socially responsible and protect my rights/public property/other people's business/other people's rights/public health in general. My mother has always told me to be assertive, I've always told her that I can't. Well, that's over and done with. Whatever it is, i just hope that guy bought the magazine and isn't really like that with other people's property, or else, it's just a big All the best/Take care/Bless you/Wash your hands, always to the unlucky soul who actually touched or bought the magazine after he was done with it--if he even bothered to put it back in it's proper place and not just leave it lying around to be trampled to bits.



Well, when my sister and I were lining up to get a cab to get home, there was this other middle-aged man with grey hair (here we go again) who was skulking around the taxi queue rather suspiciously. I guess he was doing it so as to make us people who were queueing up wonder: Is he, or isn't he? And then, as our cab came in, he actually walked up next to it...skulking...suspiciously...again. Is he or isn't he? And then...

Me:Excuse me, there's a queue here. (Snippishly, loudly)

guy:--

lets us get in, shuffles off

next cab...

guy: tries to go for next cab

people behind + good Samaritan Sister: Hey, hey! Excuse me, excuse me!

Then G. S.G. gets in with me. Cab drives off. I'm not sure if the folks behind get their cab...no...they're still yelling for his notice.

Good luck, people.

These are the folks with no shame and no respect for other people and themselves. I was really pretty thrown on both counts here (the two incidents), I didn't expect anyone to behave in that way--it's just so outrageous and totally incredible. It's totally overblown how they could have been so brazen. I'm surprised at them, not young children but grown-ups--and old ones at that. I suppose what I saw today pretty much speaks for our modern Singapore society (and I've seen other examples too, so many other times), it's evident that people simply lack good breeding and simple consideration for others. It's not something that will bring on the apocalypse, not something that will bring civillisation to it's knees, it's what you would call "a small thing" and then advise me not to bother about, and yes it's a small thing, in a little big way. It's not just the physical action but the quality of their thoughts, their lack of consideration for other people, their selfishness, their small-mindedness.

A message for these pests (on the small scale, yes, but still a nuisance):
Yes, after all, why cannot, it's not going to kill anyone now is it? No, honestly no. But take a look at yourself, take a look at yourselves, anyone who has ever done something of this sort. The world does not operate on the X-Men scale, it's really all the little things, which are big things deep down. Please change yourselves, make yourselves people whom you can be proud of, who can provide a good role model for young people.


And the rest of you:
Stand up to these pests if you will. Please.


Note: Most of the people I know think that I'm peculiarly concerned and fussy over these things, but I think that one should care, at least to some extent.
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On a happier note: I bought a volume of Dante's Purgatory, translated by Jean and Robert Hollander. Looks good.

P.S.: The dialogue is as accurate as possible only, my memory for speech is not too good.

P.P.S.: The two men today looked pretty similar...funny, huh?

What I've got to do now:

Now, in preparation for my (our--the entire level at my school's) Chinese O' Levels, I've got to do this incredibly intensive Chinese practice. The exam's in two weeks and for that entire length of time, I've got to climb such a mountain of assessment; it's nearly heartbreaking. For some strange reason, endurance was never really a virtue I could profess to own.

I'd much rather be reading my books. Over the past months (stretching into the previous year), I've amassed this great list of books I have to read--well, not so big, it's got just over fifty titles, but for serious reading I consider it alot--and, god, it's an exciting list. When i've the time, I'll try typing up the entire list.

And also, the translation of Dante's Inferno that I got yesterday is the one by Elio Zapulla. It's not exactly one that will appeal to purists as it's done away with the terza rima of the original and set the lines into the traditional English blank verse instead. But it's readable, like a story and not so much a towering epic that distances itself from it's readers--at least that's the way I see it as I'm just reading it now, the analysis comes later after I'm good and ready for it. I guess that's the way I've been reading all these "good" books. (I started this just a year and a bit ago, a long story which i might consider putting up at a later date--it's rather amusing.) But I'm really not much of a judge of this, the only other translation of Dante I've read is of Purgatorio and that (being a library book) was all old and wrinkled and off-putting before I even opened it, and the insides were about just as musty and antiquated (a very personal opinion) as it came in one of those dead-serious, drab little Penguin Classics editions (for the purists, I suppose).

What I may look forward to is a long weekend, down here, Friday's Vesak Day, a Buddhist holiday.

Leave comments and come back once in awhile!

Completed my exams today and then went to the library

The first semestral exams at my school are completed today. Since we have to go back to attending classes tomorrow in preparation for the really important Chinese O' Level exams, my sister and I went to the library to have our good time today.(The library is rather close by to our school, so we could go without any prior planning.)

I borrowed Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, Dante's Inferno (an English translation) and this other book which I'm not too sure I like (and I regret this, there were two other books which I could have picked up, just that I didn't--in favour of this one, but I guess I'll read it anyway). Inferno is the only one which I really planned on reading, and only in the, if I see it and if there's nothing else, and if I don't have to pay for it, I guess I will kind of way. My sister borrowed The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (we are interested since we have just finished East of Eden) and a tiny book of verse by Emily Dickinson (for some strange reason, the library actually sees fit to buy these infuriating "pocket editions" which are really just excuses by publishers to fleece the general public of their hard-earned money, it's often like just forty or fifty pages of books whose copyright has expired for more than a half-century already).

I looked at the Emily Dickinson, it's difficult but beautiful and tends toward swallowing the reader entirely. I keep trying to reccommend books to people, but it doesn't often work. It's rather painful as I really hate seeing people wasting their time and money (and sacrificing a truly astounding number of trees) buying and reading inane books (chick-lit, Tom Clancy--no, I can't say anymore, I don't want even to have traces of such filth here). I hope you find some good books as well, go to your local library if you're free; after all, you do pay taxes for it..why not use it?

Something to start you off:
After Nature---W. G. Sebald (his first literary work, a long poem of sorts, wonderful and strange--a peculiar, enchanting metaphysical musing on the nature of ourselves as men in our lives)

The Great Gatsby---F. Scott Fitzgerald (this is one my sister absolutely raves about)

Autobiography of Red---Anne Carson

Plainwater---Anne Carson

A Dead Man in Deptford---Anthony Burgess, (perhaps) parental guidance required--or keep it stashed hidden in your dirty bedclothes, away from your parents.

and

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde--not too good but witty and laugh-out-loud funny), perhaps?