Breath: Poems (New Issues Poetry & Prose)

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The poem can be heard at https://www.lyrikline.org/de/gedichte/todesfuge-66#.WmoOxk3cvX4 and on the CD ‘Ich hörte sagen’ (note 13). To repossess ourselves of a methodology of expression which shall be the equal of the laws which so richly determine the original function which we call human life—this, surely, is the task. And I have elsewhere argued that the first principle is, that if you propose to transfer power you must manage in the process of the transfer a kinetic at least the equal of the thing from which you begin. Which is why we will do nothing until we front what we are, precisely, the conditions of a human being, what is, exactly, the nature of a human life. (Glover diss., p. 271)

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. Dr Seuss tried to dissuade a young Anthony Hecht from pursuing a career as a poet. The Cat in the Hat author was a family friend, and the young Hecht’s parents, not happy with their son’s poetic ambitions, asked the children’s author to have a word. He was unsuccessful: Hecht went on to win the Bollingen Prize, the Tanning Prize, and the Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal. But although the American poet Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) attained critical recognition for his poetry, he still doesn’t have the readership he deserves, perhaps because those unfamiliar with his work don’t know where to start. Here at IL Towers we had great fun devouring the two volumes Collected Earlier Poems and Collected Later Poems , which contain pretty much all of Hecht’s poems, and below we introduce six of his greatest. Base: Mindfulness is being aware of the present moment without judgment. It’s not always easy to do, especially when we are stressed out or anxious. We can practice mindfulness by taking time to focus on our breathing, noting what is around us, or simply having open awareness. So there were a series of poems that I’ve been developing over the last year-and-a-half that have related to spirit as breath as making poetry (that is, a spiritual poetry), poetry seen as wind coming out of the body, or wind, breath, like the winds of earth. From Williams’ poem to Shelley’s poems to the Elizabethan poems, amongst others. So here is one that.. [ Peter Orlovsky suddenly arrives!] For Celan’s recorded readings see ‘Ich hörte sagen’: Gedichte und Prosa (München: Der Hörverlag, 2004). Recordings of Celan reading are also available at www.lyrikline.org.

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A Voice at a Séance’. Taken from his 1967 collection The Hard Hours, this dramatic monologue shows Hecht’s peculiar but irresistible blend of the everyday and colloquial with the poignant and tragic: alongside the reference to ‘allergy to certain foods’ we also have the allusion to Hamlet in ‘Something too much of this.’ And the last line is a masterpiece of understated emotion. A great introduction to Hecht’s poetry. (Note: in the version of the poem linked to above, ‘bees’ should read ‘trees’.) In the English-language tradition, a seed-poem for the strategy of spiritual conversation is George Herbert’s“Love (III)”: Breathing is one of those essential things that we literally cannot do without. A bit like food – except that you can survive longer without food than you can without breathing! There are a lot of poems about food and drink, right? So what about the poems about breathing? But lineation introduces another variable that some poets use to their advantage. Robert Creeley is perhaps best known for breaking lines across expected grammatical pauses. This technique often introduces secondary meaning, sometimes in ironic contrast with the actual meaning of the complete grammatical phrase. Consider these lines from Creeley’s poem “The Language”: Warm-up: As a class, participate in the three minute meditation or the one minute meditation. While you participated, what did you notice about your breath, your thoughts, etc.?

Which gets us to what I promised, the degree to which the projective involves a stance toward reality outside a poem as well as a new stance towards the reality of a poem itself. It is a matter of content, the content of Homer or of Euripides or of Seami[18] as distinct from that which I might call the more “literary” masters. From the moment the projective purpose of the act of verse is recognized, the content does—it will—change. If the beginning and the end is breath, voice in its largest sense, then the material of verse shifts. It has to. It starts with the composer. The dimension of his line itself changes, not to speak of the change in his conceiving, of the matter he will turn to, of the scale in which he imagines that matter’s use. I myself would pose the difference by a physical image. It is no accident that Pound and Williams both were involved variously in a movement which got called “objectivism.”[19] But that word was then used in some sort of a necessary quarrel, I take it, with “subjectivism.” It is now too late to be bothered with the latter. It has excellently done itself to death, even though we are all caught in its dying. What seems to me a more valid formulation for present use is “objectism,” a word to be taken to stand for the kind of relation of man to experience which a poet might state as the necessity of a line or a work to be as wood is, to be as clean as wood is as it issues from the hand of nature, to be as shaped as wood can be when a man has had his hand to it. Objectism is the getting ride of the lyrical interference of the individual as ego, of the “subject” and his soul, that peculiar presumption by which western man has interposed himself between what he is as a creature of nature (with certain instructions to carry out) and those other creations of nature which we may, with no derogation, call objects. For a man is himself an object, whatever he may take to be his advantages, the more likely to recognize himself as such the greater his advantages, particularly at that moment that he achieves an humilitas sufficient to make him of use. Small-group Discussion: Share what you noticed in the poem with a small group of students. Based on the details you just shared with your small group, and the discussions from the beginning of class, what is the purpose of breath or how does the speaker feel about breath?

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Whole-class Discussion: ( Teachers, your students might need more context about George Floyd’s life, Eric Garner’s life, and about police brutality. You may want to review these teaching resources; You may also want to pair this poem with Ross Gay’s “ A Small Needful Fact.”) What correlations does the speaker make between breath and violence? Between violence and a contagious disease? Listening to the Poem ( enlist two volunteers to read the poem aloud): Listen as the poem is read aloud twice, and write down any additional words and phrases that stand out to you. Or, you may opt to listen to the poet read the poem aloud. The structure and metre of poetry can sometimes be similar to breathing – you have the rhythms, the ebb and flow, and the ins and outs (excuse the pun!) that can all help us to slow down and regulate our breathing. Identified by Ralph Maud as René Nelli, who asks in Poésie overte poésie fermée, “Mais y a-t—il une poésie ouverte sur le reel et un poésie fermée sur les mots? —“But is there a poetry open on the real and a poetry closed on the words?” ( Olson’s Reading, pp. 84 and 277 n. 29).