Nature Literature discussion

Please enter your comments about The Echoing Green here.

Hello:
If you have your book (mine will arrive Tuesday) please select some poems you would like to read and discuss.

I think we may find Frost and some of the others in the poll featured in this book, so we will be sure to read some of their poems also.

Who plans to join in as time allows in December!

Thanks, Sher

Rach wrote: "I'll be picking this up from the library later this week. I'm still finishing The Running Hare, in addition to a couple other books I'm reading, so I will do my best!"

Thank you Rach-- I understand. I am sure we will get to some of the poems, and I bet they will be perfect for the season since so many of us may be preoccupied and a longer work like a 300 page book might be too much! Sher

Hello Everyone:
My cop of Echoing Green arrived last night, and it is a lovely palm-sized Everyman's edition.

I was thinking about a successful way we might have the most active and inclusive discussion of the some of the poems in the book throughout December.

Here is my idea:
When a poem strikes you and you'd like to comment, question, analyze it-- please post the The Title and Author and your comments.

This way any member can possibly find the poem on the web (if they are not reading the whole book with us), if they wish, and join in. The poems come from a range of time periods and also regions. Robert Frost is included ; I am not sure about Wendell Berry, but if you have a Berry poem that you find on the web for us to read- please post the link. We'd be happy to read a Wendell Berry with you.

I've already begun reading the collection. I so seldom read poetry, this is a really pleasant diversion.

Sher

Thanks for the suggestion, Sher. I would appreciate at least being able to see some of the poems in the collection, as once again my little rural library does not have access to a copy. :(

Becky- I will be sure to share as many as I can so you may be able to join in.

I wanted to begin with asking everyone a question-- how often do you read poetry ? What makes poetry special as a literary form- why do you like it, or why do you struggle "liking" poetry?

I hope some of you will share our thoughts, then I'll share mine. :)

Sher

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

Above "Grass"

Surprisingly I wasn't able to easily find the Dickinson poem.

More soon.

A poem from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, where he compares Elenor to a Summer Storm: http://www.poetry-archive.com/f/a_poe...

Jamie wrote: "A poem from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, where he compares Elenor to a Summer Storm: http://www.poetry-archive.com/f/a_poe..."

I never thought of Fitzgerald as a poet! I love this line

"There was a summer every rain was rare;"

A really wild in the sense of primitive and sensual poem! Thanks for sharing...

What I love best about poetry is the way it can bring a moment alive - bring a scene alive. I love this existing in the moment . I also love shorts -- short fiction and prose poems.

I like least when the meaning is so tangled and I have to work too, too hard.

And, oh yes, I love the way language is used in some poetry; so rich and glorious a feast --

Page 56 In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

I read this again, and the same thoughts struck me - that the ghosts wish for us to take up the fight to do justice to those men who fell and to do justice to their cause. When I read this poem 15 years ago I responded the same way- I found it unsettling and haunting that the fallen asked "take up our quarrel with the foe."

Just after WWI - I expect these sentiments were accepted, yet I feel a great sadness about them..

Other poems in this collection speak of the fields that remain- the grass that covers the battlefields.

Rach wrote: "Sher, I found the poems about WWI very sad and moving. What an awful thing. I have been to Verdun, and despite the grass and trees "covering" the battlefield, the landscape is still deeply cratered..."

Thank you Rach; I appreciate your comments. I've not been to Verdun, but I have lived right next to the Antietam Battlefield in Maryland. This was many years back when I live in that civil war era house--but I recall the town and the battlefields being haunted.

Several poems later -- Basho (1644-1694) put it so much more simply and smoothly (for me).

Summer Grass

Summer grass
where warriors dream.

Rach wrote: "I enjoyed Emily Dickinson's little gem of a poem, "To Make a Prairie" (p. 103).

Also, Willa Cather's "Prairie Spring" (p. 151)."

"To Make a Prairie" is so powerful. It took me immediately there sitting in the prairie --observing -- wonderful.

Cather's piece is also so powerful as she compares the freshly turned and planted prairie with youth in all its yearning , sharpness, and pungency. I can so relate at this moment- as I think of youth-- Tomorrow we drive to a town just outside Glacier National Park in Montana (WINTER) to pick up an 8 week old bird dog puppy. My first winter puppy. Many years of dogs, and somehow I have always lucked out with spring or early summer pups.

And, the prairie - her image of the prairie rings for me. We sit in this big farm house and look right out on the prairie where in the 1860s and beyond teams of draft horses plowed the fields. And, we still have meadowlarks singing all summer long out there. One big difference is the draft horses are long gone, though the blacksmith's shop area remains down at our 19th century barn, and we no longer plow fields but use drills that slice the ground to deposit its seed.

Two wonderful selections Rach!

I finished this delightful collection of poems. Each, did you send yours back to the library yet? I enjoyed the collection for its diversity of authors and time periods. Some of my favorite authors: Thomas Hardy, Frost, Emily Dickinson were included.

Does anyone have an all time favorite poem? I do- and it's perfect for Dec 31st, so I will share it with you after Christmas and you can let me know what you think.

Sher