April's Reminder to Enjoy Poetry

Photo credit:  Lyn Fenwick

 I don't know who is authorized to declare such things as "April is Poetry Month,...,"  but it raises a question that sounds like something Billy Collins might use to start a poem.

"It occurred to me

on a flight from London to Barcelona

that Shakespeare could have written

'This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England'

with more authority had he occupied

the window seat next to me

instead of this businessman from Frankfurt."

Excerpt from The Bard in Flight

Robert Frost said, "A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."  However, not every poet finds inspiration in the same way.

Photo credit:  Lyn Fenwick, "Day After the 4th of July, Waiting for the Trash Man" 

In 1955, Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg was inspired to write "A Supermarket in California."

"What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked

down the side streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious

looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the 

neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!"

Ginsberg's inspiration may not have been so different from that of Langston Hughes, who said, "I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh Street...," the block in Harlem where Hughes lived in NYC.

New Generations

Years ago, my husband and I went to a poetry reading where we heard Maxine Kumin read, and in her book that I bought that day is a poem titled, "For My Great-Grandfather:  A message Long Overdue,"  in which she describes the inspiration for the poem.

"...Great-Grandfather, old blue-eyes fox of foxes,

I have three pages of you.  That is all.

1895.  A three-page letter

from Newport News, Virginia, written

on your bleached-out bills of sale under the stern

heading:  Rosenberg The Tailor, Debtor,

A Full Line of Goods Of All The Latest In

Suiting And Pants.  My mother has just been born.

~   *   ~

You write to thank your daughter for the picture

of that sixth grandchild.  There are six more to come."

When I determined to share the journal of Kansas homesteader Isaac Werner at the center of history of the Populist Movement, it was a poem by Walt Whitman that inspired the structure of my book, "Prairie Bachelor."  Isaac's journal did not inspire me to write a poem, but a poet inspired me to structure the history of the Populist Movement through the eyes of a forgotten Kansas homesteader, and to begin the book with a funeral.

Photo credit:  Lyn Fenwick

Poetry comes in many forms, as the short selections I have chosen for this blog illustrate, and poems touch our lives in many ways.  Not everyone appreciates the same poems, nor must each person experience the same poem in the same way.  In his poem, "Music," Ralph Waldo Emerson finds music

"...not only in the rose."

"It is not only in the bird,

Nor only where the rainbow glows,

Nor in the song of a woman heard,

But in the darkest, meanest things

There alway, alway something sings."

Whatever poetry you enjoy, the annual reminder each April offers the opportunity to pull those neglected poetry books off the bookcase.  A poem might be just what you need during this unnatural season of Covid isolation. 

    

2016 Cather Conference

W.W. I inspired painting

Detail of the above painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since my blog post of March 17, 2016 titled "Occupying My Time" (which you can find in the blog archives) shared that my  proposal for a paper had been accepted, I thought you might enjoy a follow up blog about the conference.  This year's Cather Conference in Red Cloud, NE focused on Cather's Pulitzer Prize winning novel One of Ours, in which the main character struggles with finding a purposeful life until he becomes a soldier in W.W. I.  My paper, titled "The Road Not Taken:  Comparing Cather's One of Ours with W.W. I Poetry," began with the Robert Frost poem by that name, a well-known poem which is rarely recognized as being related to W.W. I.  Twenty-one different poets were referenced in my paper, many of whom were soldier poets.  Did you notice that the cloud behind the farmer in the above painting was created from images of soldiers?  Farmers were considered very important to the war effort, as were the frugal cooking efforts of women and the plot gardens growing food for families so commodities needed for the soldiers were not consumed. 





American poet Alan Seeger

Perhaps the poem that best describes struggles most similar to what Cather's hero Claude Wheeler faced is "Sonnet 10" by Alan Seeger.  Seeger lived a bohemian life in Greenwich Village and the Latin Quarter of Paris before enlisting in the French Foreign Legion in 1914, well before his own country entered the war.  The sonnet begins, "I have sought Happiness, but it has been a lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit..." and concludes "...Amid the clash of arms I was at peace."  Seeger is best known for his poem I Have a Rendezvous with Death, but it is Sonnet 10 that expresses the purposefulness of fighting for a cause in which you believe, which Seeger shared with the fictional Claude.  Seeger was killed in action on July 4, 1916, before the American troops arrived.

 



Der Tag from the exhibition

My paper was well received and I was pleased when several of the friends we have made at earlier conferences came to hear me read.  I had great fun preparing the paper, and I actually enjoyed presenting it.  I'm not sure whether I will ever have the opportunity to read it anywhere again nor whether I will publish it, but the days I spent exploring the wealth of W.W. I poetry, writing the paper, and preparing the slide presentation that accompanied my reading (with the power-point training from my nephew Darin Beck and my 'presentation assistant' Larry Fenwick), was time well spent for all of the things I learned.

 

On display in the Opera House was a wonderful exhibit curated by Tracy Tucker.  The painting at the top of this blog is from the collection of the Herbert Hoover Museum, one of six paintings loaned to the Cather Foundation for the conference.  It was the first time the Hoover Museum had allowed the paintings to travel--quite a privilege for the Cather Foundation.  Also on display was a W.W. I uniform, as well as many other interesting objects, including a copy of Der Tag from the collection of Cather's youngest brother. 

 

The cast of Der Tag

Der Tag is a 1-act play written by Sir J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan) as part of an effort by England to utilize the talents of its famous writers to create propaganda.  Barrie's concept was to show the political and military pressure imposed on the Kaiser to declare war through the characters of Chancellor and Officer, who exit the scene to allow the Kaiser time to reflect on what he is about to do.  He dreams, and The Spirit of Culture enters to urge against war, and the Kaiser (called Emperor in the play) tears up the declaration of war in front of Chancellor and Officer.  Again, he falls asleep and Culture reappears, wearing a bloody wound.  The Kaiser awakens believing his earlier dream had been real and war had been avoided, only to be told by Culture that he had brought the war upon his now devastated people.  The play was performed with high expectations in England and America but was not successfully received, perhaps because the Kaiser was depicted too sympathetically. 

 

Culture offers the Kaiser a dagger to end his regret 

Because of the illness of the woman intended to portray Culture, I was asked to assume the role.  To my surprise, I had a great time!  The play was performed twice in the lovely Red Cloud Episcopal Chapel to a nearly full house both times, and apparently we received more cheers than the actors did in the W.W. I productions of 1915!  (Notice my bleeding wound, a red scarf.)

 

 

 

Learning W.W. I dance steps

As always, we had a great time in Red Cloud enjoying speakers, the papers that were read, author Karen Gettert Shoemaker reading from her book The Meaning of Names, the singing and playing of popular W.W. I music by Kansans Dr. Sarah Young and Judy Chadwick, and learning a few dance steps from the era.  That's my partner stand-in-male-dancer Nancy and me just to the right of the support beam.  We were short of men eager to dance but certainly not short of eager dancers!

 

It is no surprise to any of you who follow my blog that I am a great fan of Willa Cather.  She is not only a great American author but also is among the few great authors to depict the central region of America, and many would say that she is the greatest among them.  You may want to revisit "What If Isaac had met Alexandra Bergson?," 5-2-2013, and "My Steadfast Tin Soldier," 9-25-2014, and the sequel 10-2-2014 for more W.W. I history.  I hope my love of Cather makes at least some of you curious to read her novels and short stories, and perhaps even to visit Red Cloud, NE!

 

 

 

Isaac Visits the future Hoopeston

When we left Rossville, Illinois, there was another place I wanted to see. I remembered that in the spring of 1871, Isaac, his friends John and Frederick, and this cousins Ezra and Henry, had borrowed a buggy to take a Sunday drive north of Rossville to the farm of a man named Hoopes. It was a time of rapid expansion of rail lines, and promoters would arrive with promises of new rail lines to serve rural communities and small towns, predicting that at every point where two rail lines intersected, a prosperous town was certain to grow. One such crossing was planned on Hoopes Farm, and the young men wanted to see if any evidence of actual construction to back up all the promises could be seen.

Having found the town of Rossville in the atlas, I also noticed a town with the name of Hoopeston, and although Isaac had called the prospective railroad town "Hoopstown" and had expressed his doubts that the promoters' predictions would occur, the location in the atlas and the farm described in Isaac's Journal seemed about the same. I wanted to see the countryside along the route the five men took to reach Hoopes Farm, which Isaac had described: "Some considerable tracts of prairie land lying open yet...noticed few wild geese and ducks on west side of road on few ponds...Passed by old Hoop's [sic] residence--on a very beautiful mount, commanding the landscape on every side, presenting beautiful prairie views." Our drive north of Rossville, nearly a century and a half later, passed through interesting country, but my imagination could not impose on the landscape the open prairie Isaac had described in his journal.

The five young men continued on their journey, and Isaac wrote: "...reaching the famous prairie site where the great future Hoopstown is to rear its wealths. ...Hearing so much about Hoopstown and R.R. crossing from the lips of Rail Road Maniacs, one gets to feel as I did--craving to gaze personally on the covetous spot then make up mind accordingly." Despite his skepticism, Isaac admitted in his journal: "What musing and dreaming takes possession of any one, contemplating the scene and project. Could we easily raise the means? Could we possibly buy these covetous acres at reasonable prices? Could we get all the Western R.R. to intersect this charming spot? ...But sighing Ah! It is all desert prairie yet. Not a habitation within three miles!"

Although Hoopstown was only a railroad promoter's description, with the prairie grass having been mowed to mark the future placement of the tracks at the time of Isaac's visit, the work on the railroad lines soon commenced and a town grew around the crossing. When we reached Hoopeston, we drove around to explore a little. By chance, we discovered the library. It was still open, so we went inside and met Linda Mitchell, Director of the Hoopeston Public Library. With limited time to spend and no research preparation or notes, I was ill prepared, but she graciously spent time with us, checking to see if any of their collection of local newspapers might have been published as early as 1871. They had not. It was an impressively busy library, which is always wonderful to see. We looked at what limited information she had to share from that era, and my husband took a photograph of the framed Hoopeston town map from 1893 (apologies for the glare from the glass).

As Isaac had stood on the spot where Hoopstown was predicted to bloom, he had imagined the potential an investor might gain if the town were to succeed: "...what a wealth and prospect would we enjoy." Instead, he dismissed the prospects for the future of the town on Hoopes Farm and returned to Rossville to form a milling partnership with his cousin Henry Werner and Mr. Ross, which lasted only a few years before Isaac moved on to stake his claim in Kansas. As Robert Frost wrote of roads not taken: "...I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the under growth; then took the other...And that has made all the difference."