[Image: “Extrange shoes,” by user pepel at stock.xchng]
From whiskey river:
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
(William Stafford)
…and:
The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception. If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, one poet would be enough. But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.
(Wallace Stevens)
…and (highlighted portion):
How It Adds Up
There was the day we swam in a river, a lake, and an ocean.
And the day I quit the job my father got me.
And the day I stood outside a door,
and listened to my girlfriend making love
to someone obviously not me, inside,and I felt strange because I didn’t care.
There was the morning I was born,
and the year I was a loser,
and the night I was the winner of the prize
for which the audience applauded.Then there was someone else I met,
whose face and voice I can’t forget,
and the memory of her
is like a jail I’m trapped inside,or maybe she is something I just use
to hold my real life at a distance.Happiness, Joe says, is a wild red flower
plucked from a river of lava
and held aloft on a tightrope
strung between two scrawny trees
above a canyon
in a manic-depressive windstorm.Don’t drop it, Don’t drop it, Don’t drop it—,
And when you do, you will keep looking for it
everywhere, for years,
while right behind you,
the footprints you are leavingwill look like notes
of a crazy song.
(Tony Hoagland)
Not from whiskey river:
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew. I am in a place, in a situation, as if I had materialized from cloud or risen out of the ground. There is a glad recognition of the long lost and the rest follows. Step by step the wonder of unexpected supply keeps growing…
More than once I should have lost my soul to radicalism if it had been the originality it was mistaken for by its young converts. Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country. For myself the originality need be no more than the freshness of a poem run in the way I have described: from delight to wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.
(Robert Frost [source])
…and:
Numbers
I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.I like the domesticity of addition —
add two cups of milk and stir —
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.And multiplication’s school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else’s
garden now.There’s an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.Three boys beyond their mother’s call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn’t anywhere you look.
(Mary Cornish [source])
…and:
Since you are now studying geometry and trigonometry, I will give you a problem. A ship sails the ocean. It left Boston with a cargo of wool. It grosses 200 tons. It is bound for Le Havre. The mainmast is broken, the cabin boy is on deck, there are 12 passengers aboard, the wind is blowing East-North-East, the clock points to a quarter past three in the afternoon. It is the month of May. How old is the captain?
(Gustave Flaubert)
Bob Fosse’s quasi-autobiographical film All That Jazz is probably not everyone’s cup of tea; it’s not a typical happy-go-lucky musical, by any means. But this dance number? Wow, hard to resist smiling. Ann Reinking (Fosse’s real-life ex-girlfriend at that time) as Roy Scheider’s girlfriend Kate, and Erzsebet Foldi as his daughter Michelle, tear up a stairway, a floor, and the lead character’s sour mood in a tightly choreographed three-minute version of — yes — “Everything Old Is New Again.” (That’s Peter Allen’s live version which plays on the soundtrack; the song was written by but left uncredited to Allen and Carole Bayer Sager.)
[Lyrics]
Nance says
“… there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.” Yes, and we never know who might be waiting for our voice, now or later. I picked up Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Cross Creek again this week after just admiring its spine on my bookshelf for the last few years. She couldn’t have thought of me, but she knows me.
“and the memory of her/is like a jail I’m trapped inside,/or maybe she is something I just use/to hold my real life at a distance.” I call this person–and we may all have one–the Crowbar Lover whose job is to spring us from reality. Works even better when unrequited.
“For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew.” My favorite sort of place to go to. I often have that experience in a Whiskey River Friday.
“Numbers” goes in an email to Mr. Mature.
And the video was just the happiest dance routine in the world…everything happy I can think of, all moving together.
John says
As always, I find fresh rewards for a Friday quote-fest in reading your comments about this one. Thank you for the attention you pay!
And, you know, it’s a little scary to have seen your own lovely Friday post…
Carolyn says
Thank you for introducing me to the work of Mary Cornish. Delightful!
John says
Hello, Carolyn — nice to see you here! So glad you liked the poem. :)
cynth says
I just love that musical number! I have since the first time I saw it. That and the auditioning number at the beginning of that musical are the best of the best. I bought the movie, just to watch those hopefuls moving in unison to “On Broadway”. Thanks for reminding me.
And I love Robert Frost, of course!
John says
You know I would have been VERY disappointed if, seeing this post’s title, you had not shown up to check it out.
(And btw, you also need to see Nance’s most recent post — completely coincidentally relevant to this one, and I think to you, too.)
One weird thing about All That Jazz is the sort of modernish-jazzy ensemble number which I think takes place fairly early in the film. One of the characters comments along the lines of, You son of a bitch — it’s one of the best things you’ve ever done! But actually I found it to be one of the least interesting routines in the movie!
marta says
I have always wanted to see All That Jazz but never have. Joyous little number there.
John says
Great, isn’t it? :)
cynth says
The quote you remember is from his former wife who will not be appearing in the new musical that Gideon has developed because she is too old (much the way Gwen Verdon was too old for whatever musical Fosse did at the time). I found it funny/ironic that his best work would be after her–she was so talented!
And Nance’s post was so beautiful! I couldn’t figure out how to comment to her so I’m hoping she reads it here. I remember wanting to be a ballerina for such a long time. I even took lessons as an adult (a mortifying experience if ever there was one!), but alas, I’m not built to be one and really the work is a little too intense for me. Thanks Nance!
Nance says
Cynth,
Thank you, dear! I’m glad I dropped back by to read the comments here. John gets real conversations going. As to my Blogger Comments widget, off with its head! Supposedly, one just clicks on the word “comments” at the bottom of the post, but it hasn’t been working well at all lately. Perhaps I’ll get the nerve to try one of the newer fanglements.
Froog says
Where is that Flaubert piece from?
John says
Oh, shoot — I meant to go back through this post and fill in the missing “[source]” entries — thanks for the reminder!
According to Wikipedia, the line appeared in a letter from Flaubert to his sister Caroline in 1843, although I think she was actually his niece. I first saw it on a page of mathematical quotations (not the one which Wikipedia references, though; this one, instead). Most of the references in Google books seem to be in books about math, particularly about word problems (of which this quotation seems to be a parody), but I did find one in a periodical (worded slightly differently) called The Westminster Review, dated 1895. (That also, incidentally, refers to Caroline as his sister.)
This is a good example of why preparing these Friday posts can be more time-consuming on some occasions than on others. The captain can age quite a bit in the meantime. :)
Froog says
Wow, more riches to go check out!
Have you ever come across a book called Impro by Keith Johnstone? It was recommended to me by my supervisor on the teacher training course I attended after my finishing my first degree. It’s mostly about theatre games that can be used in an actor’s training, but a lot of these can be used in writing too, and it starts from the perspective of trying to unlock creativity – or avoid blocking it – in kids at school. Flaubert’s little quip here is quite similar: if people start painting a picture for you, you fill in details for yourself automatically.
Even a single detail or a simple phrase can be the jumping-off point to start creating an elaborate story. One of my favourite games in Johnstone’s book is “It’s Tuesday!”: man and woman sitting on a sofa, one of them suddenly blurts this out, then they take it in turns to create a dialogue from that.
Jayne says
Wow, wouldn’t I like to be able to pack all my belongings in just one of those shoes.
Tony Hoagland’s poem resonates with me. Makes me wonder what the shape of my footprints look like.
Oh, how I was tempted to leave a “burning boy” note/poem after reading the quote by Flaubert! ;)