Flint for Dreams » Poems

How Doth The Crocodile

Paul — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:03:00 +0000

From Alice in Wonderland:

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

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From Wikipedia:

"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is a parody of the moralistic poem "Against Idleness And Mischief" by Isaac Watts[1] (Alice was originally trying to recite that). Watts' poem begins "How doth the little busy bee," and uses a bee as a model of hard work. In Carroll's parody, the crocodile's corresponding "virtues" are deception and predation, themes which recur throughout Alice's adventures in both books, and especially in the poems.

Against Idleness And Mischief - Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

The Song Of Wandering Aengus - William Butler Yeats

Paul — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:15:00 +0000

The Song Of Wandering Aengus - William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

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In the poem Yeats seems to be playing with two themes: Undying affection for a lost love, and nostalgia for the romance of youth. The character in the book sets out in expectation, casting out and hoping for a catch. This can symbolize both a quest for romance and a general quest for achievement. The fish that turns into the woman resembles unexpected fortune that is like all good fortune, destined to fade eventually. Yeats seems to console us believing that the loves and good times in our life are never lost if we can remember enough to walk through them, and treasure how the beautiful moments in our life resemble them, thus plucking the silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

Philip Levine

Paul — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:23:00 +0000

I just went to a poetry reading by Philip Levine. Up in his 80s it was hard for him to escape identifying with his age. Still Levine read and delivered some fine poems, cracked some jokes, and kept the audience's attention with a bit of profanity mixed in.

Here is a sample from his poem "Two"

"And the lovers?" you ask. I wrote nothing about lovers.
Take a look. Clouds, trucks, traffic lights, a diner, work,
a wooden shoe, East Moline, poached eggs, the perfume
of frying bacon, the chaos of language, the spices
of spent breath after eight hours of night work.
Can you hear all I feared and never dared to write?
Why the two are more real than either you or me,
why I never returned to keep them in my life,
how little I now mean to myself or anyone else,
what any of this could mean, where you found
the patience to endure these truths and confessions?

Levine's style draws to that which is missing in our souls, and seems to have been stolen by the common objects of life which distracts us.

His second last poem was one on death where he states "and so I will rest, free at last". The whole poem hinted toward death being a time where we can finally escape the images of ourselves which burden us as our own, and obscure whatever it is that is enduring and real in us.

Jane Hirshfield

Paul — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:19:00 +0000

Jane Hirshfield is an American poet who has extensively studied zen and served to translate Japanese poems into English.

Her poems have a modern beat to them, with unusual imagery and metaphor, take the line from A Critique of Pure Reason for example:

A dog catching a tennis ball lobbed into darkness
holds her breath silent, to keep the descent in her ears.

When I understand that, I will come back here and blog about it.

The other lines from the poem are good though, and give a nod to her zen background:

Perimeter is not meaning, but it changes meaning,
as wit increases distance and compassion erodes it.
Let reason flow like water around a stone, the stone remains.

This poem reminds us of the times reasoning and convincing arguments just don't work. They don't apply to reality, they don't always solve arguments.

Hirshfield's title for the poem alludes to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason where he asserts all ideas are presentations of sensory experience, and not pure logic alone. The poem itself sheds light on implications of how we treat people and talk to them. What is it that convinces us so thoroughly that our reality is right? Why don't we empathize first and not enter into an argument? The poem is saying we should emphasize emotional aspects to our thoughts and deductions. Well, I don't know how I feel about that. ;)

Click here to get Hirshfield's book: After: Poems