Poem of the Week: "Flirtation," by Rita Dove

I figured I might as well post a love poem in response to today's celebration of Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I've never been one for love poems. Not because I'm bitter or even because I'm cynical. I just think most of them sound the same. The only ones I like are the ones that are extremely specific to a moment or event, and even those get old after awhile. So for today's poem, I wanted something short, sweet, and simple. Luckily, the Poetry Foundation's website was here to help. (Side note: If you are looking for a poem for any occasion, the Poetry Foundation's Poetry Tool is an absolute one-stop shop. They've done an awesome job putting it together.) There, I found this lovely little poem by Rita Dove, one of my favorite living American poets. I hope you enjoy the day, whether you're celebrating V-Day or not.

Flirtation, by Rita Dove

After all, there’s no need
to say anything

at first. An orange, peeled
and quartered, flares

like a tulip on a wedgewood plate
Anything can happen.

Outside the sun
has rolled up her rugs

and night strewn salt
across the sky. My heart

is humming a tune
I haven’t heard in years!

Quiet’s cool flesh—
let’s sniff and eat it.

There are ways
to make of the moment

a topiary
so the pleasure’s in

walking through.

Favorite Passages: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

I know what you're thinking. Gilead again? Isn't she beating a dead horse, etc? Well, I'm not going to apologize. And here's why:

So we've established that it's Valentine's Day, a holiday I don't celebrate (with the exception of some delightful zombie-themed valentines I gave to friends last year). But this coming weekend has made me think about love. And one of the first conclusions I came to was that I don't read very many happy love stories. I'm not talking about romances. I'm just talking about positive, well-written depictions of love and relationships - romantic, familial, or friendly. So today, I decided to find a passage that describes the way I personally want everyone to think about love. And the only passage (besides Captain Wentworth writing that letter to Anne Elliot in Persuasion) that really came to mind was this one from Gilead.

It's not surprising this happened, of course. Gilead is, hands-down, the most perfect portrait of a life that I've ever read. It's about highs and lows, tremendous joy and tremendous grief, life and death, heaven and hell. So it's inevitable that Marilynne Robinson's passage contain a perfect passage about love and it's simultaneous misery and grace.

In this passage, narrator/minister John Ames, meditates on a newfound discovery about his godson, the extremely troubled Jack Boughton. I don't want to give away the book, since I secretly wish everyone in the world would read it, but this discovery makes Ames think about his relationship with his young son, who this book's narration is addressed to, and Ames's wife. The fact that this passage is located towards the end of the book, with Ames's death imminent, makes it extra poignant.

All I can think when I read this passage is that the optimist in me only really wants everyone in the world to be loved like this, whether it's by a family member, friend, or lover.

From: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

I can tell you this, that if I'd married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had each given me ten grandchildren, I'd leave them all, on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother's face. And if I never found you, my comfort would be in that hope, my lonely and singular hope, which could not exist in the whole of Creation except in my heart and the heart of the Lord. That is just a way of saying that I could never thank God sufficiently for the splendor He has hidden from the world - your mother excepted, of course - and revealed to me in your sweetly ordinary face. Those kind Boughton brothers and sisters would be ashamed of the wealth of their lives beside the seeming poverty of Jack's life, and he would utterly and bitterly prefer what he had lost to everything they had. That is not a tolerable state of mind to be in, I'm well aware.

Literary Matchmaking

You can blame it on a mix of Jane Austen, PBS, and Valentine's Day. Although I've never paid much attention to V-Day (my parents don't really celebrate it, so I never grew up with much respect for the holdiay), it's hard to ignore it completely. So I already had love on the mind before I watched the conclusion to Masterpiece Theater's latest version of Austen's Emma. Misguided Emma Woodhouse is the great matchmaker of literature, and even though she is not as clever at it as she might suppose, she's still famous for her romantic machinations. So she inspired this particular list: literary matchmaking.

Here's how it works. I take two single characters who could use a little excitement in their lives from two separate books (often books from different decades, even centuries), and put them together. This is just a tiny list, but it gives you a pretty nice view of my messed-up literary viewpoints. Just call me the match.com of obscure made-up people. Oh, and be careful - spoilers abound!

1. Cecelia Brady (from The Last Tycoon, by F. Scott Fitzgerald) and Gabriel Gibbs (from The Season of Lillian Dawes, by Katherine Mosby): Call this couple "the loveless narrators." Cecelia, the narrator of Fitzgerald's unfinished critique on Hollywood, harbors a buried crush on protagonist Monroe Stahr while watching him struggle as a producer. Gabriel Gibbs, meanwhile, watches the dramatic love story unfold between his genius older brother Spencer and the mysterious Lillian Dawes, even though he is also in love with Lillian. Cecelia and Gabriel are perfect for each other, with their voyeuristic tendencies and unrequited loves. Not to mention that their author-creators have very similar writing styles.

2. Bryon Douglas (from That Was Then, This is Now, by S.E. Hinton) and Briony Tallis (from Atonement, by Ian McEwan): This is a relationship built mainly on guilt. At the end of Hinton's novel, poor Bryon is unable to cope with his regrets over ruining his best friend's life by getting him thrown in jail. And Briony Tallis might well be one of the guiltiest guilt-trips in contemporary literature, destroying the love affair and lives of her sister and her sister's doomed lover. She attempts to redeem herself by writing a version of their story with a happy ending, but it's no real help to her own torment. Hopefully, these two can find some redemption in each other. Also, look at how cutesy-similar their names are! (On a side note: If you haven't read the book or seen the movie version of Atonement, do so ASAP. I'm not sure there's a better or more dramatic depiction of how writers use others to their own advantages only to find it an impossibly painful task. Also, the narrative techniques used are masterfully-done.).

3. Severus Snape (from the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling) and Mary Bennet (from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen): I know, I know. It's a stretch. But come on! Two people who act as if it's their duty to bring down everyone around them could not be more perfect for each other. Both of them are so unpleasant, and yet you can't help but feel quite sorry for them as people. Put these two together, and I think you'd be surprised at the chemistry that might explode. It might be a little tense at first; they might even hate each other. But what's that Shakespeare line? "My only love sprung from my only hate," or something like that? Exactly what would happen here, I think.

So what about all of you, readers? Any literary matches you can imagine?

Stuff

Hey, all! Here's some notes and apologies and whatnot for the last weird week:

- I apologize for not posting a Poem of the Week yesterday. Because of my job and the Super Bowl (yes, I stop everything to watch the Super Bowl), I ran out of time to post. But don't worry, Poem of the Week will be back to its usual schedule next Sunday.

- I am currently reading two books right now: W.H. Auden's Selected Poems and Alice Munro's new book of short stories. I'll post reviews as soon as they're finished.

- This week, I'll be posting a new list and some other stuff, since I've been so errant in posting lately.

- And finally, for those of you who watched the Super Bowl, let me say that I was really dismayed with how sexist the commercials were this year. I felt like every other commercial portrayed women as nagging, shopaholic, bitchy objects of sexual lust. Women watch the Super Bowl too, corporate America!

This Week in Embarrassing Reads...

Were you wondering why I haven't updated on any new reads lately? That's because I've been indulging in some cheesy reading time. And with me, that can only mean one thing: I've been reading Nora Roberts. That's right. Nora Roberts. As in she of the dark-haired heroes, ridiculously cutesy small town love affairs, and surprisingly strong dialogue. But what can I say? Sometimes, when life has me a little down and I can't find anything in particular I feel like reading, I could use a little cheese. So this weekend I finished Nora Roberts's two-for-one The MacKade Brothers: Devin and Shane. Both of the short novels were dumb as hell, but I have to admit I quite enjoyed them, especially Devin's story, which was particularly high in treacle factor. So sue me.

Now, let's never speak of this again.

Poem of the Week: "The Island," by A.A. Milne

During the dregs of winter, I really begin to miss the ocean. When I was growing up, my father's extended family would rent a house on the beach for one week every July in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Most of my fondest memories come from those vacations, when my cousins and I would run wild on the beaches, eating ice cream and watching dolphins follow the shrimp boats in the early morning. To this day, I am still ridiculously nostalgic when it comes to the ocean. So today, I'm posting a happy little children's poem by A.A. Milne (he of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) about this subject.

The Island, by A.A. Milne

If I had a ship,
I'd sail my ship
I'd sail my ship
Through Eastern seas;
Down to a beach where the slow waves thunder -
The green curls over and the white falls under -
Boom! Boom! Boom!
On the sun-bright sand.
Then I'd leave my ship and I'd land,
And climb the steep white sand,
And climb to the trees
The six dark trees,
The coco-nut trees on the cliff's green crown -
Hands and knees
To the coco-nut trees,
Face to the cliff as the stones patter down,
Up, up, up, staggering, stumbling,
Round the corner where the rock is crumbling,
Round this shoulder,
Over this boulder,
Up to the top where the six trees stand....

And there I would rest, and lie,
My chin in my hands, and gaze
At the dazzle of the sand below,
And the green waves curling slow
And the grey-blue distant haze
Where the sea goes up to the sky....

And I'd say to myself as I looked so lazily down at the sea:
"There's nobody else in the world, and the world was made for me."

Rest in Peace, J.D. Salinger

In case you haven't heard, J.D. Salinger passed away today at the age of 91. As cliche as it is, The Catcher in the Rye was one of my transformative reading experiences as an adolescent. Although that book means less to me now, it's still one of the great important American literary works.

And although I may not be as enamored with Catcher any more, I still go head-over-heels for Salinger's short stories. His collection, Nine Stories, never ceases to amaze me. I've read it multiple times, and each story becomes more resonant and complex with each reading. So, in honor of Salinger, I am including a passage from my favorite Salinger story, "For Esme - with Love and Squalor."

This passage takes place after a meeting between an American soldier and an adolescent British girl during World War II. The soldier/narrator promises to write a story for the girl, and she reminds him of this before they part ways.

From "For Esme - with Love and Squalor," by J.D. Salinger

Esme was standing with crossed ankles again. "You're quite sure you won't forget to write that story for me?" she asked. "It doesn't have to be exclusively for me. It can -"

I said there was absolutley no chance that I'd forget. I told her that I'd never written a story for anybody, but that it seemed like exactly the right time to get down to it.

She nodded. "Make it extremely squalid and moving," she suggested. "Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"

I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time, and that I'd do my best to come up to her specifications. We shook hands.

"Isn't it a pity that we didn't meet under less extenuating circumstances?"

I said it was, I said it certainly was.

"Goodbye," Esme said, "I hope you return from the war with all your faculties intact."

I thanked her, and said a few other words, and then watched her leave the tearoom. She left it slowly, reflectively, testing the ends of her hair for dryness.


RIP, Salinger. Maybe now we'll get to see all that secret work you've been hiding away...