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Morton Marcus: Tonight, it's really going to be these two weeks in poetry history because I am going to go over events that occurred, mostly in English and American poetry, from January 25th to February 9th, but not in one year or two

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years, but in different centuries. So, let us begin and you'll see what I'm talking about. This day in history, January 25th, 1759, the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns was born. He only lived thirty-seven years. And I will talk about him

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more, then I'll read his poetry because Robert Burns, who is one of the major poets of the English tradition, wrote in a dialect, which is called a Scots dialect. So, it is very hard for people to understand what he's saying because there is this

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very, very strong dialect, which sounds very much like Gaelic. I will attempt to read some of the poems but what I would like to do on this feature, this day in poetry, is to have you get pencil and paper. And anything that I talk about tonight, or

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the different poets, and there will be many of them, who I will talk about, you may want to follow up what I'm saying, and look up their work, because they'll be famous poets and sometimes they'll be people who are not known for their poetry,

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but you may be interested in what their poetry is all about. Certainly, I would suggest that Robert Burns would be one person you want to know much more about. His works, when you give them time and you go over the words, and you really sort of

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have a glossary to go with them, really have a lot of meaning. He appeared at a time when he was, let's say, 1777, 1780, when poetry was moving away from the neoclassical period in the 18th century, and he is considered along with William Blake a

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precursor to the romantics. He was considered to be a natural, intuitive poet, a peasant poet, a farmer, if you will. And he actually was a farmer, who worked very hard trying to make three farms work, and failing at each one. And in fact worked so

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hard as such a young man that he died of a heart condition that he developed early on, when he was thirty-seven. But the fact of the matter is that any of these intuitive poets, or natural poets you hear about, really are very sophisticated,

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as Burns was as a conversationalist, as a wit. And though in his case, he educated himself, he really had a very, very strong educational background, really knew his poetry, and his verse forms are extremely complex and

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sophisticated. The difference between Burns and the other 18th century poets, who also excelled as he did, not really in love poetry but mostly in satire, is that Burns chose to write in the language of the people, in this case, as I said, the Scots

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dialect. And this makes him the precursor to the people's poetry that Wordsworth would pick up in the early years of the 19th century. Let me try to read you one stanza of one of his most famous

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poems called, TO A MOUSE, and it has this epigraph "On turning up the mouse in her nest with a plow on November 1785. And you'll see some of the difficulties of reading and understanding, and this is just one stanza:

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Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, oh, what a pannic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi' bickerin' brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee wi' murd'ring pattle!

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And that, and others to a louse, which he sees on the hat of the lady in front of him in church on Sunday, and a lot of other wonderful satires, really show the manners and irreverence that he had to the very strong Calvinist conservative world of

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Scotland at that time, and are wonderful pictures of human beings in their everyday life. He is known, as you know, for, "Auld Lang Syne," he is known for, "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," many, many poems that we just think are part of the English

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language, even though they are in dialect, are his, and this love poem, which I will read by him, called, "A Red, Red Rose," a very, very famous love poem. A lot of his poems, when not satires, were love poems.

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A RED, RED ROSE Oh my luve is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June; oh my luve is like the melody that's sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in luve am

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I; and I will luve thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt wi' the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, while the sands o' life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only luve! And fare thee weel

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awhile! And I will come again, my luve, though it were ten thousand mile. And in the last twelve years of his life, Burns was collecting all of the folk songs and all the folk material he could in

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Scotland, and this also is a precursor to the 19th century. And he is remembered, of course, as Scotland's greatest poet, and well he should be. So that is our first poet, and I would suggest again that you look further into the work of Robert

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Burns, who was born on January 25th, 1759. On January 28th, 1939, the great poet William Butler Yeats died in France at the age of seventy-three. His last poems, written mostly in 1938 and 1939, were his greatest poems, and I will read one or

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two now. If there is time at the end of the show, I will come back because really he has written major, major poems. And I will read a poem of- first of all called, "Lapis Lazuli," which is the very bright blue marble that is carved in China

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and also in the Middle East and in Italy, and that's what this poem is about. There is a refrain, which is the word, "gay," and the word gay since this poem has been written, has come to denote homosexuality, that is not the way he is using

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the word in this poem. He is meaning joyous or happy in the poem. So here is from "Last Poems" by the great William Butler Yeats: LAPIS LAZULI

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I have heard that hysterical women say they are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow, of poets that are always gay, for everybody knows or else should know that if nothing drastic is done aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out, pitch like King Billy

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bomb-balls in until the town lie beaten flat. All perform that tragic play, there struts Hamlet, there is Lear, that's Ophelia, that Cordelia; yet they, should the last scene be there, the great stage curtain about to drop, if

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worthy their prominent part in the play, do not break up their lines to weep. They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay; gaiety transfiguring all that dread. All men have aimed at, found and lost; blackout, heaven blazing into the head: tragedy wrought

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to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages, and all the drop scenes drop at once upon a hundred thousand stages, it cannot grow by an inch or an ounce. On their own feet they came, or on shipboard, camel-back,

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horse-back, ass-back, mule-back, old civilizations put to the sword. Then they and their wisdom went to rack: no handiwork of Callimachus who handled marble as if it were bronze, made draperies that seemed to rise when sea-wind

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swept the corner, stands; his long lamp chimney shaped like the stem of a slender palm, stood but a day; all things fall and are built again and those that build them again are gay. To Chinamen, behind them a third, are carved in Lapis

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Lazuli, over them flies a long-legged bird a symbol of longevity; the third, doubtless a serving-man, carries a musical instrument. Every discoloration of the stone, every accidental crack or

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dent seems a water-course or an avalanche, or lofty slope where it still snows though doubtless plum or cherry-branch sweetens the little half-way house those Chinamen climb towards, and I delight to imagine them seated there. There, on the mountain

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and the sky, on all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

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There are many poems from this last period by William Butler Yeats that are really major poems, and certainly the last one he wrote. And which I definitely should read, and therefore I think that's what I will read instead of some of the

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ones I was going to read. It's called, "Under Ben Bulben," which is a mountain near where Yeats lived. Yeats was a great fisherman and this is, "Under Ben Bulben," it's really his elegy. And the last three lines are actually on his tombstone,

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so this is most probably the last poem that William Butler Yeats ever wrote in 1939. He had a very complex idea about the kind of concentric movement of history, and he felt that right before World War II, Western civilization and civilization as

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we know it was about to end. He goes back, in these last poems, over the themes and characters in his poems, so you will hear that here. But here he is: UNDER BEN BULBEN, under the mountain and talking about

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fishing and talking about his life. And here is this famous poem by Yeats. I Swear by what the Sages spoke around the Mareotic Lake that the Witch of Atlas knew, spoke and said, the cocks

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a-crow. Swear by those horsemen, by those women, complexion and form prove superhuman, that pale, long visaged company that airs an immortality completeness of their passions won; now they ride the wintry dawn where Ben Bulben sets the scene. Here's

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the gist of what they mean. II Many times man lives and dies between his two eternities, that of race and that of soul, and ancient Ireland knew it all. Whether man dies in his bed or the rifle knocks him dead, a

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brief parting from those dear is the worst man has to fear. Though grave-diggers' toil is long, sharp their spades, their muscle strong, they but thrust their buried men back in the human mind again.

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III You that Mitchel's prayer have heard, send war in our time, oh Lord! Know that when all words are said and a man is fighting mad, something drops from eyes long blind he completes his partial mind, for an instant stands at ease,

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laughs aloud, his heart at peace, even the wisest man grows tense with some sort of violence before he can accomplish fate know his work or choose his mate. IV Poet and sculptor do the work nor let them modish painter

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shirk what his great forefathers did, bring the soul of man to God, make him fill the cradles right. Measurement began our might: forms a stark Egyptian thought, forms that gentler Phidias wrought. Michael Angelo left a proof on the Sistine

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Chapel roof, where but half-awakened Adam can disturb globe-trotting Madam till her bells are in heat, proof that there's a purpose set before the secret working mind: profane perfection of mankind. Quattrocento put in paint, on

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backgrounds for a God or Saint, gardens where a soul's at ease; where everything that meets the eye flowers and grass and cloudless sky resemble forms that are, or seem when sleepers wake and yet still dream, and when it's vanished still declare

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with only bed and bedstead there, that heavens had opened. Gyres run on; when the greater dream had gone Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude prepared a rest for the people of God, Palmer's phrase, but after that confusion fell upon

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our thought. V Irish poets learn your trade sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top, there unremembering hearts and heads base-born products of

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base beds. Seeing the peasantry, and then hard-riding country gentlemen, the holiness of monks, and after Porter-drinkers' randy laughter; sing the lords and ladies gay that were beaten into clay through seven heroic centuries;

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cast your mind on other days that we in coming days may be still the indomitable Irishry. VI Under bare Ben Bulben's head in Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid, an ancestor was rector there long years ago, a

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church stands near, by the road an ancient cross. No marble, no conventional phrase, on limestone quarried near the spot by his command these words are cut: Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman, pass by!

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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, And that was Yeats' implication to Irish poets that would follow him, and to the sense that though we cannot escape history, and that we cannot escape the rise and fall of civilizations

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and life itself, what we can do is make a permanent memoir, or memory, of it in the forms of art, in the capsules, or even if you will, the urns of art. We may come back to Yeate and read some of those later poems if we have time at the end of the

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show. This is, again, a new feature that I call "This Day in Poetry." And we're doing two weeks going from January 25th fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to until February 9th. Moving right along, on January 29th, 1845,

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Edgar Allan Poe published in the New York Evening Enquirer, "The Raven." And this poem made him immediately famous not only in the United States, but in England where it was reprinted. And, again, this was on January 29th, 1845, and I'm sure you

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know the poem, but I will at least read part of it because it dream before; but the silence was unbroken, and the stillness is quite long. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and

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weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber

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door, only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I gave no token, and the only word there spoken was the whispered

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wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore, for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, nameless here for evermore.

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And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain, thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; so that now, to steal the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance of my

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chamber door, some late visitor entreating entrance of my word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured chamber door; this it is and nothing more. Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

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"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; but the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, that I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;

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back the word, "Lenore!" Merely this and nothing more. darkness there and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, my soul within me burning, soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. "Surely,"

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said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore; let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; 'tis the wind and nothing more!"

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Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, in there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped to or stayed he; but, with mien of lord or lady,

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perched above my chamber door, perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door, perched, and, sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by

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the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore, tell me what the lordly name is on the night's Plutonian

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shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore; but we cannot help agreeing that no living human

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being ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door, bird or beast upon the sculpted bust above his chamber door, with such name as, "Nevermore." And so the poem goes on for twice that length, and is one of

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the great mood pieces in poetry by certainly one of the great tragic heroes, and one of the great tragic figures in literature, a person who began many of the genres of literature that were pursued for the 19th century and into the 20th.

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Moving from Edgar Allan Poe now to the next day in January, which is January 30th, 1933, I'm going to read you a curiosity here. And this is to show you that poets are not wholly untouchable, perfect beings, priests or prophets, much of the

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time. Here is probably one of the most wrongheaded poets of the 20th century, one of the most talented, one of the most intellectual, a man who championed T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and really was the spokesman for a lot of the great

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literature of the early part of the century and the directions it took, and I'm talking about Ezra Pound. On January 30th, 1933, Ezra Pound met with, for the first and only time, Benito Mussolini in Rome. And I want to read you this half-page from his

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biography by Noel Stock, "The Life of Ezra Pound." And as you may know, Ezra Pound became a fascist. He did radio broadcasts during the Second World War and though a great poet, he was very wrong-minded in his ideas of politics and certainly

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economics. So here is this page from his biography on this day, 30th of January, in this case, 1933. And of course, for you people who don't know, Benito Mussolini had marched in and taken over the Italian government in 1922 to have the

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first fascist government in the world and formed an axis with Adolf Hitler when Hitler came to power in '33. And of course, from this, World War II would occur. From again: NOEL STOCK'S BIOGRAPHY OF EZRA POUND

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Pound went to Rome, and on 30 January 1933, had an interview with Mussolini at the Palazzo Venezia. It was for Pound an important day, for the event matched his highest expectations. Not only was he able to present to the head of

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the Italian government a list of proposals for monetary and economic reform, but to glimpse what appeared to be his greatness of mind. It seems, for example, that Pound either took with him or had sent along earlier, a copy of the first

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thirty cantos, titled, "A Draft of Thirty Cantos," his great work. Mussolini glanced at a passage here and there, o perhaps the author pointed ou some lines of which he wa particularly fond Appropriately, as a famou

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statesman having his first meeting with a distinguished American poet, Mussolini remarke that he found the work, or th passage, "divertente," mean ng entertaining. Pounds seems to have taken this as a seri us comment, indicating that i

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a flash, the statesman had s en through to the heart of he matter, the liveliness nd strong flavor of the work, wh ch was, at once, a proof of Mussolini's brilliance and of the fact that the Cantos w re meat for a strong man and

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men of affairs. Another example f what seemed to Pound the high uality of Mussolini's mind was p ovided when the poet mentioned hat he was trying to put all hi ideas in order. The Duce asked "What do you wish to put your ideas- Why do you wish to p

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t your ideas in order?" Pound r plied, "For my poem," by which h meant his Cantos. This ques ion of Mussolini's, "Why do you ish to put your ideas in order? Pound said in, "Guide to Ku chur," written four years later was a sign of Mussolini's abi

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ity to carry his thought, unhesi ant to the root. And on the sam page, he wrote, "Mussolini, great man, demonstrably in his ffects on event, unadvisedly so in the swiftness of mind, and th speed with which his real em tion is shown in his face, so t

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at only a crooked man could misi terpret his meaning and h s basic intention." Pound did not succeed in meeting M ssolini again, but at that first and only interview was c mpletely captivated and often re erred to him thereafter as "Mu

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s" or "The Boss." He also kept scrapbook of Mussolini s life and activities, and on he wall of his flat in Rapall hung the official notice tha had come from Rome, granti g him the interview wit

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"The Cantos," by Pound, his great work, is full of beautiful poetry. Let me just give you an example of this. These are the early cantos and he is talking about the Greek invasion of Troy and what happened after it. I will just read several lines of

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this. CANTO IV Palace in smoky light, Troy but a heap of smoldering boundary stones. [...] Hear me. Cadmus of Golden Prows! The silver mirrors

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catch the bright stones and flare, dawn, to our waking, drifts in the green cool light; dew-haze blurs, and the grass, pale ankles moving. Beat, beat, whirr, thud, in the soft turf under the apple trees. A black cock crows in the sea-foam.

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And let me just read what will happen, as it seems Pound loses more and more balance, mental balance that is. Here is from the 38th Canto- this is after he has already met with Mussolini, and notice the difference, this is really like a harangue and is

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very, very confusing as he goes into his very strange ideas of economics. From: THE 38TH CANTO Factory has another aspect, which we call the financial

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aspect, it gives people the power to buy (wages, dividends, which are power to buy), but it is also the cause of prices or values. Financial, I mean financial values. It pays workers and pays for material; what it pays in wages and

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dividends stays fluid as power to buy. And this power is less, per forza, damn blast your intellex, is less than the total payments made by the factory (as wages, dividends, AND payments for raw material, bank charges, et cetera). And all, that is the

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whole, that is the total of these, is added into the total of prices caused by that factory, any damn factory, and there is, and must be, therefore, a clog and the power to purchase can never (under the present system) catch up with

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prices at large. Well, that's the same man who wrote those first beautiful lyric lines and was in many ways a beautiful lyric poet. And you have been listening for this first half-hour to a new feature

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on the Poetry Show, which I call This Day in Poetry" and we have gone from January 25th until January 30th and we will continue after this short musical break. And this is Mort Marcus again and this is a time in the Poetry

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Show when we present PSAs. So, let me go in order here. First of all, I want to say that UC Santa Cruz Arts and Lectures has provided a grant to help make this program possible. Arts and Lectures presents an evening with poet Adrienne Rich Friday,

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the fifth of February at the UCSC Performing Arts Mainstage Theater at 8pm. Again, that is this coming Friday at 8pm at the UCSC Performing Arts Mainstage Theater. Adrienne Rich, certainly our foremost poet living in the area and one of

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the great American poets. I should tell you that her new book has just come out. It is called, "Midnight Salvage Poems, 1995 to 1998." It is a magnificent book, again, just adding to her canon. Go out, support her, hear great poetry,

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great intellectual thinking about our social and spiritual life from the person I certainly consider, and it's a minor title in this case, the poet laureate of Santa Cruz, the great Adrienne Rich this Friday. And on Tuesday, February 9th at 8pm

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in the Bookshop Santa Cruz on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, it's the monthly National Writers Union and Cultural Council of Santa Cruz readings. In this case, J.C. Watson, Doug McClellan, and Phil Wagner. Jeanie Watson describes herself

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as follows: "Born in Pittsburgh after World War II in time for the demise of the steel industry as the rust belt creeped into being." "Current Wisdom," a novel in progress is half complete and she has an alarmingly useless Master's in

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English from San Francisco State, she writes. Doug McClellan, as many of you know, exhibiting artists since 1948, has taught studio art since 1950 at Chaffey College, LA, Otis Art Institute, Scripps, and is an emeritus UCSC professor since

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1986. He is also the County Artist of the Year for 1992 and started writing poetry again about six years ago, marvelously talented painter and poet. And finally, Phil Wagner's first memory of his mother and grandmother dancing together in

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the kitchen is what he most recalls. He is a marvelous poet, he is one of the organizers of the National Writers Union readings, and he also has a poetry group and teaches at Mental Health Client Action Network. Certainly three people

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worthy of your time, at the Bookshop Santa Cruz, Pacific Avenue, on February 9th, Tuesday at 8pm. Well, this has been, up to now, a new program in which I am going through events that happened in the last two weeks

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in different centuries. And we are up to January 30th, 1948 and on that day, Robert Frost was asked, in fact, he had been urged by Ezra Pound, who I have just finished speaking about in the last half-hour of the show, he was urged by Ezra Pound,

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actually earlier than this, to write in free forms and not to continue to write in his very, very strict forms. And it was on this day that Robert Frost answered very specifically, "I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down as write in your

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free forms." We all know Robert Frost as a great poet, works like, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Two Tramps in Mud Time," "Provide, Provide," but I'm going to read a sonnet of his that many people do not know, it's a very early sonnet.

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And what many people do not know about him was that he was not really a farmer from the East Coast but grew up here in California. And this is a poem by him called , "Once by the Pacific," and I think you will recognize the seascape.

00:34:13.170 - 00:34:32.500

ONCE BY THE PACIFIC, a sonnet by Robert Frost. The shattered water made a misty din. Great waves looked over others coming in, and thought of doing something to the shore that water never did to land before. The clouds were low and

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hairy in the skies, like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. You could not tell, and yet it looked as if the shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, the cliff in being backed by continent. It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming,

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and not only a night, an age, someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken before God's last "Put out the light" was spoken. On February 1st, 1814, George Gordon, Lord Byron, published a

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long poem called, "The Corsair," one of his many oriental long poems, and the book which you can hardly find anywhere unless you go into Byron's collected work, sold ten thousand copies that first day on February 1st, 1814. I could not find any parts

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of, "The Corsair," but I will read you an oriental poem by Byron to give you a sense of his work. And here is a poem called, "The Destruction of Sennacherib," and it is suggested by a part of the Bible, the Book of Kings 2, 19,

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which tells how Sennacherib, King of Assyria, is about to attack the people of Israel, "And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand. And

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when they arose early in the morning, behold, they all were dead corpses." So, Sennacherib, King of Assyria, departed and did not pursue his invasion. Here is Lord Byron's poem written, in this case, a year after that astonishing tale of

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ten thousand copies of "The Corsair." This, 1815: THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; and the sheen of their

00:37:01.080 - 00:37:19.290

spears was like stars on the sea, when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, that host with their banners at sunset was seen: like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

00:37:19.860 - 00:37:35.430

that host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, and breathed in the face of the for as he passed; and the eyes of the sleepers wax deadly and chill, and their hearts but once

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heaved, and for ever grew still! And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, and through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; and the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, and cold is the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay

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the rider distorted and pale, with a dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail: and the tents were all silent, the banners alone, the lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, and the idols are broken in the

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temple of Baal; and the might of the Gentile unsmote by the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! On February 1st, 1902, the great African-American poet, Langston Hughes, was born. He would write a book, a memoir, called, "I,

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Too, Sing America," which means of course, white Walt Whitman sings America, but I, too, as a black man, sing America. And here are two poems by Langston Hughes, who would go on to write a lot of not only interesting poems, but become a real verbal

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picture-painter of life in Harlem with the simple books and many of his books of prose and essays. I really recommend him to you, a very important poet. Langston Hughes lived from 1902 to 1967, and as I said, he was born on February 1st, 1902. Two

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short poems, one: A NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS, and of course, the rivers he's mentioning here, very symbolic, are the rivers of Africa. I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and

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older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above

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it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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And the second poem by Langston Hughes is called: DREAM VARIATIONS To fling my arms wide in some place of the sun, to whirl and to dance till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening

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beneath a tall tree while night comes on gently, dark like me, that is my dream! To fling my arms wide in the face of the sun, dance! Whirl! Whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening, a tall, slim tree, night coming tenderly black like

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me. And on February 2nd, 1882, the great 20th century writer James Joyce was born. And what we know James Joyce for - and if you don't know him, you should, he really is one of the most

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amazing writers of the 20th century - you may know James Joyce as a prose writer, and his prose really, in many cases, is just beautiful poetry. I would recommend to you his collection of short stories called, "Dubliners." A collection, many

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of them the greatest short stories in the English language, all in one way or another thematically as well as geographically part of the same work and picture of Dublin. Then his first novel, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," a

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wonderful coming-of-age novel of life in Ireland at the turn of the century. And then his next novel, one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, "Ulysses," which records a day in Dublin, and at the same time, is sketching the Odyssey of

00:42:30.290 - 00:42:48.500

Homer, and really has around twenty different levels to it, an amazing book, which really makes the stream of consciousness part of the modern technique of literature. Then he writes, "Finnegans Wake," a very difficult work for around

00:42:48.500 - 00:43:07.070

sixteen years after that. But Joyce, with his beautiful sense of language, also was a marvelous poet. And I would like to read some of these early poems by him. He didn't write very many of them, but he did write poems that he wanted to be

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poems that should be set to music. So, he is really writing lyrics, but lyrics that are meant to be lyrics, poems to be set to music, and just listen to some of these beautiful love poems of his and I will read from, "Chamber Musi." Two poems

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from "Chamber music": STRINGS IN THE EARTH AND AIR Make music sweet; strings by the river where the willows meet. There's music along the river for love wanders there, pale

00:43:38.450 - 00:43:55.460

flowers on his mantle, dark leaves on his hair. All softly playing, with head to the music bent, and fingers straying upon an instrument. And this one:

00:43:55.670 - 00:44:12.830

THE TWILIGHT The Twilight turns from amethyst to deep and deeper blue, the lamp fills with a pale green glow the trees the avenue. The old piano plays an air, sedate and slow and gay. She bends upon

00:44:12.830 - 00:44:33.710

the yellow keys, her head inclines this way. Shy thoughts and grave wide eyes and hands that wander as they list. The twilight turns to darker blue with lights of amethyst. And just the sound, and the clarity, the simplicity of those

00:44:33.710 - 00:44:58.430

words and sentences are really marvelous, marvelous accomplishments of lyrics. Let me give you a different sense of different rhythms and dictions that he can employ. Here's the last two poems from this, "Chamber Music" volume:

00:44:59.960 - 00:45:17.900

All day I hear the noise of waters making moan, sad as the seabird is when going forth alone, he hears the winds crying to the water's monotone. The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing where I go. I hear the noise of many waters far below.

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All day, all night, I hear them flowing to and fro. And this very apocalyptic, in fact, it almost sounds like a piece from St. John's Apocalypse, this apocalyptic dream vision, if you will:

00:45:40.580 - 00:45:56.720

I hear an army charging upon the land, and the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees: arrogant, in black armor, behind them stand, disstaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers. They cry into the night their

00:45:56.720 - 00:46:14.510

battle-name: I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter. They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil. They come shaking and triumph their long, green hair: they come out

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of the sea and run shouting by the shore. My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair? My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone? And there's a development in that that I think you'll find

00:46:32.990 - 00:46:48.560

later in James Wright, the dream, a horrible nightmare, and then suddenly the reason for the nightmare, suddenly at the end you have to make the connection, which is his love having left him. There's another one called, "Poems Penny Each," or, "Poems

00:46:48.560 - 00:47:07.190

for a Penny," are written later when he was living in exile in Italy, in the Mediterranean, Switzerland and I don't have time to read those. Also some marvelous satires in heroic couplets, I would suggest, "Gas From the Burner," in which he

00:47:07.190 - 00:47:26.900

takes the voice of the printer who destroyed his first prose works, and just is a real satiric job on him. However, I do want to end the Joyce section by reading, "Ecce Puer," or, "This Child," and what it is about, and again beautifully

00:47:26.900 - 00:47:49.490

said, the last poem he wrote, it is recording the strange turn of generations where his father has just died as his grandchild is born and that is what this poem is about. It is, again, just this perfectly clear, crystalline, lyrical sense of

00:47:49.490 - 00:48:06.950

music. ECCE PUER by James Joyce. Of the dark past a child is born; with joy and grief my heart is torn. Calm in his cradle the living lies. May love

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and mercy unclose his eyes! Young life is breathed on the glass; the world that was not comes to pass. A child is sleeping: an old man gone. Oh, father forsaken, forgive your son!

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And if you hear religious tones in those last father, certainly James Joyce, and his battle with his Catholic upbringing and belief, which is so much part of the "Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man," is certainly in those lines. On February 2nd,

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also born but not in 1882 as Joyce was, but in 1923, the great American poet, James Dickey was born. And Dickey was obsessed with his young brother who had died before him, and an older brother that lived, and I would like to read a poem by

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Dickey which I shall, I hope, but I guess not. Yes, 66, I just had the wrong page here and this is, "In the Tree House at Night," pardon me. And it's just a wonderful evocation of climbing into a tree house at night but the tree really

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becomes the family tree, and the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge, and it's really magical. And you probably know James Dickey, who died last year, as the author of, "Deliverance," the motion picture which is still very well

00:50:01.400 - 00:50:16.860

thought of. Here he is as poet, which is what established his reputation, and he's really a fine American poet. IN THE TREE HOUSE AT NIGHT And now the green household is dark. The half-moon completely

00:50:16.860 - 00:50:37.800

is shining on the earth-lighted tops of the trees. To be dead, a house must be still. The floor and the walls wave me slowly; I am deep in them over my head. The needles and pine cones about me are full of small birds at their roundest, their fists

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without mercy gripping hard down through the tree to the roots to sing back at light when they feel it. We lie here like angels in bodies, my brothers and I, one dead, the other asleep from much living, in mid-air huddled beside me. Dark climbed to us

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here as we climbed up the nails I have hammered all day through the sprained, comic rungs of a ladder of broom handles, crate slats, and laths foot by foot up the trunk to the branches where we came out at last over lakes of leaves, of fields

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disencumbered of earth that move with the moves of the spirit. Each nail that sustains us I set here; each nail in the house is now steadied by my dead brother's huge, freckled hand. Through the years, he has pointed his hammer up into these

00:51:32.730 - 00:51:53.610

limbs, and told us that we must ascend, and all lie here. Step after step he has brought me, embracing the trunk as his body, shaking its limbs with my heartbeat, till the pine cones danced without wind and fell from the branches like apples.

00:51:55.260 - 00:52:12.750

In the arm-slender forks of our dwelling I breathe my live brother's light hair. The blanket around us becomes as solid as stone, and it sways. With all my heart, I close the blue, timeless eye of my mind. Wind springs, as my dead

00:52:12.750 - 00:52:34.020

rother smiles and touches the ree at its root. A shudder of oy runs up the trunk; the eedles tingle; one bird ncontrollably cries. The wind hanges round, and I stir within nother's life. Whose life? Who s dead? Whose presence is

00:52:34.020 - 00:52:56.580

iving? When may I fall trangely to earth, who am ailed to this branch by a pirit? Can two bodies make up a hird? To sing, must I feel the orld's light? My green, raceful bones fill the air with leeping birds. Alone, alone and

00:52:56.580 - 00:53:24.270

ith them I move gently. I move t the heart of the world. Well, the day before, another American poet was born, who I think is very much like James Dickey, but really has a greater lyrical gift and that is Galway Kinnell, who was born on

00:53:24.450 - 00:53:55.590

February 1st, 1902 and is still making poetry among us. And I will read part of his poem called, "Another Night in the Ruins," and just read part of it, and I think this really is what- and I'll read two sections, what James Dickey is

00:53:55.590 - 00:54:08.850

trying to get at but which Kinnell with his magic lyricism can get at with much shorter lines. This is part five and then part seven of: ANOTHER NIGHT IN THE RUINS

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I listen. I hear nothing. Only the cow, the cow of nothingness, mooing down the bones. How many nights must it take one such as me to learn that we aren't, after all, made from that bird which flies out of its ashes, that for a man as he goes up in

00:54:33.090 - 00:54:58.180

flames, his one work is to open himself, to be the flames. On February 6th, 1564, Christopher Marlowe - maybe a thief, maybe an assassin, certainly a precursor to Shakespeare with his great play, "Dr. Faustus," and a person who

00:54:58.180 - 00:55:24.430

many people think actually came back years later from being assassinated, and was William Shakespeare, but that again is apocryphal - was born. And he started off a group of poems that were to be followed by several centuries of poets and

00:55:24.460 - 00:55:40.510

they take off from this poem of his called, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Again, Marlowe was a great playwright, wrote a marvelous narrative poem called, "Hero and Leander." He was born in 1564 and died in 1593, he was actually killed

00:55:40.510 - 00:55:58.240

outside a tavern. We think it was a murder ordered by the crown because he may have been a Spanish spy. But it is at that time in 1593, really, that William Shakespeare makes his appearance in London and begins his career. But anyway, whatever

00:55:58.240 - 00:56:12.160

the question may be, here is Christopher Marlowe, born on February 6th, 1564: THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the

00:56:12.160 - 00:56:31.690

pleasures prove, that valleys, groves, hills and fields, woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the Rocks, seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, by shallow Rivers to whose falls melodious birds sing Madrigals. And I will make thee

00:56:31.690 - 00:56:48.190

beds of Roses and a thousand fragrant posies, a cap of flowers, and a kirtle embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle; a gown made of the finest wool which from our pretty Lambs we pull; fair lined slippers for the cold, with

00:56:48.190 - 00:57:08.260

buckles of the purest gold; a belt of straw and Ivy buds, with Coral clasps and Amber studs: and if these pleasures may thee move, come live with me, and be my love. The Shepherd's Swains shall dance and sing for thy delight each May-morning: if

00:57:08.260 - 00:57:26.700

these delights thy mind may move, then live with me, and be my love. I have been presenting tonight a new series that from time to time I will bring you on the Poetry Show called "This Day in

00:57:26.700 - 00:57:45.900

Poetry," or in this case, these two weeks in poetry. And we've looked at some of the events and the people who were born or made momentous decisions or famous statements from January 25th until February 6th. Actually, there were other people, I

00:57:45.900 - 00:58:05.520

wanted to do Elizabeth Bishop, the great American poet who was born on February 8th, 1911, and I certainly would suggest you look up her work, especially her great poem, "The Fish." And if Yeats was the great person who gave us such a great body of

00:58:05.520 - 00:58:24.090

work at about this time, his last poems. To finish these two weeks off, on February 9th, 1922, the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, once more took up his pen and in eighteen days wrote the last five of the "Duino Elegies," maybe the

00:58:24.090 - 00:58:38.640

greatest sequence of poems written in the 20th century, all done in eighteen days. I was going to read some of those to you in a translation by Al [unidentified], but I leave you to find those on your own. There are many fine translations of

00:58:38.640 - 00:58:58.710

Rainer Maria Rilke's, "The Duino Elegies," he wrote of course in German. But that is the program for tonight, and this is Mort Marcus telling you to stay tuned for "Book Before Bedtime," and I got it wrong again. I'm never gonna get it right. But Billie

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Harris will be here in a moment. I will see you in three weeks and Kim will be here next week. This is the Poetry Show.