![]()
Robert Bly |
Robert Bly Stanford Poetry Workshop 9 Margaret Jacks Hall, Room 334 Wed., May 28, 2008, 3:15-6:00 pm Readings from The Thousands: Poems by Tomas Tranströmer, Robert Creeley & Robert Bly Essay: "Six Disciplines That Intensify Poetry"
Edited by Peter Y. Chou |
![]()
The Thousands |
Preface: Robert Bly tells the class that this is his last class to our surprise. We thought June 4 was our last class. Bly says Eavan Boland will be covering in his place next Wednesday. Bly will be flying to Maine the next day for "The Great Mother and New Father Conference". He tells us how much he enjoyed working with us this semester. Bly tells us "I've a gift for you all" and like Santa Claus reaches in his tote bag and tosses to each of us a copy of The Thousands (Number One, Fall 2001). This is Robert Bly's legendary literary journal, successively called The Fifties, The Sixties, and The Seventies, now updated into the 21st century. This issue begins with Robert Bly's major literary essay, "Six Disciplines That Intensify Poetry". There are poems by Louis Jenkins, Li-Young Lee, Jay Leeming, Thomas R. Smith, Louis Simpson, Myra Shapiro, Sharon Olds and Russell Edson. Foreign poets include Bhartrihari, Tomas Tranströmer, and Hafez. There is also a previously unpublished poem by James Wright. I tell Bly about Professor Paul Losensky of Indiana University and his lecture "To Revere, Revise, and Renew: Sa'eb of Tabriz Reads the Ghazals of Rumi" (May 22, 2008) and give him the 12-pages handout of their poems and translations. I tell Bly "Losensky's aunt lived in Bear Creek, Minnesota near where you lived. He heard through her all about your divorce from your first wife Carol. Before he told me any more gossip, I showed him your Rembrandt Notebook which you lend me to copy the Basho and Issa haikus from your first class. I told him how magnanimous you were in that gesture." When I give Bly his Rembrandt Notebook back, he says "Ah, there it is. I've been looking all over for it this week. I forgot that I'd given it to you." Now I ask Bly to lend me his Hafez book to copy down the poem "What Do We Really Need?", the only poem missing from his Colloquium. Bly not only gives me this poem but his whole book as a generous gift he's truly an angel! (see Afterword in Bly's Stanford Colloquium) (Peter Y. Chou, May 28, 2008) |
(1) Tomas Tranströmer "April and Silence" (p. 68)
Spring lies abandoned |
Bly's Commentary:
Tranströmer wrote this poem just before his stroke. Since then, he couldn't talk for 15 years. His mind is still alert. He communicates with his wife by writing. Could you sense the power of those last lines of his poem? "hovers just out of reach / like the family silver / at the pawnbroker's." That's some image few American writers could invoke that Tranströmer does all the time. |
(2) Tomas Tranströmer "Romanesque Arches" (p. 69)
Tourists have crowded into the half-dark ****************************************************
(3) Tomas Tranströmer
During the heavy months my life caught fire only when **************************************************** After reading the three Tranströmer poems, Bly asks the class whether they've read any of his poems. I raise my hand saying that after his reading of Tranströmer's "The Scattered Congregation" at his Colloquium (May 20), it inspired me to write "What Is The Address?" the next day. I used his last stanza about Nicodemus the sleepwalker as the epigraph of my poem. Bly asks me to read my poem and says my stanza "Ask Melencolia for / her compass to / square the circle" is too intellectual (mind weight) and suggests "Ask Melencolia to weep!" Bly doesn't care for "The Red Fountain at / Stanford Green Library / knows the secret". I tell him the Red Fountain portrays the symbol of π It resembles the Torii gates in Japan to a Shrine. The Library is a sacred shrine and the architect who designed this fountain knows the secret." Some students got excited when I mentioned this. Later I tell Bly that my Notes to this poem will explain my intentions more clearly. ****************************************************
(4) Robert Creeley
Love comes quietly,
from For Love: Poems 1950-1960 Bly's Commentary on Creeley's Poem & Friendship Between Sounds:
Creeley is excellent in chiming with sounds. Notice in the second stanza Robert Bly on Soul Weight in Poetry:
The universities teach mind weight to students and not soul weight. If you write only
happy poems, then it's called light verse because there's insufficient sadness in them.
Need soul weight in your poems, then people don't know whether it's happy or sad.
In Kafka tale about a son disliked by his father, he turned one day into a beetle. That
single sentence has huge soul weight. When the father found his son in beetle form
climbing up the wall, he threw an apple at him, which lodged in the son's back.
This apple seems to be from the Garden of Eden story. When a detail drawn from
mythology is woven into art, we feel some psychic weight.
The wind one brilliant day, called Poetry Workshop Session:
Bly asks each of us to read our poems, critiquing them for "soul weight".
Often he'll say there's too much "mind weight" in certain lines.
Carla Baku, who has returned to college after raising four sons,
has just received the Stanford
Poetry Prize for undergraduates.
Bly asks her to read her prize-winning poem to us
"Living
By Our Lights 1966".
Bly says "You could feel soul weight there about other people's suffering."
Q & A Session: Bly: Since this is my last class, I'm open for any questions from you folks. Q: In your younger days, did you consult with anyone after writing your poems? Bly: Yes. I would send my poems to James Wright [1927-1980] for feedback. You need to choose someone who's not vicious. Also not someone to please you. Not necessary to write in a group, but not always alone. It's hard to find people to critique your poems. Lots of fun to have your poems talked about. How hard is it to write about your parents. Q: One student quotes Flannery O'Connor [1925-1964]: "If you survive childhood, you have lots to write about." She says "Family material is a good source for my writing." PYC: I tell Bly that his reading of "My Father at Eighty-Five" at San Jose State University in 1988 impressed me even more than his guitar playing and reciting Rumi quatrains. Suddenly I began reciting Bly's poem: "My father's big ears / hear everything. / He complains that / I do not bring him / the jokes the nurses do. / He is a small bird / waiting to be fed / more beak than eagle. / My arm on the bedrail / All I know of the Troubadours / I bring to this bed. / He can shame me no longer. / The general of shame / has dismissed him and / left him in this small / provincial Egyptian town. / If I do not wish / to shame him then / why not love him." Bly was impressed that I was reciting his poem from memory. I only recalled less than half of the poem and was somewhat nervous that I even forgot the crucial last line "And I am his son." (Poem #6 in Bly Anthology)
Bly: I had a brother who was my father's ally. My father was an alcoholic. My mother was my ally. During World War II, I was involved in radar development in the Navy with Eisy Eisenstein. He was the first person I'd known who wrote poetry. He later taught at the University of Pennsylvania [?]. Then some thirty years later, someone connected me up with Eisy. I phoned him and agreed to meet him in a hotel in New York City. I was so eager to see him. But he never showed up. [Bly sighed as if to say "That's one disappointment."] I've been very lucky in my life. My wife Ruth loves poetry. You need to have a friend to show your poems to. My life has been a blessing. Someone once said at a party "I hate Robert Bly" and I wasn't even there. I have a daughter Mary Bly who's a professor of Shakespeare and English literature at Fordham University. She's also a Romance novel writer with a pseudonym Eloisa James which she didn't reveal until recently. When people asked her how did she manage to have two careers, she said "When I was ten, I loved reading Romance novels. My Dad said it was trash, and that I should read real literature. But he made a deal with me. For every Romance novel you read, you have to read a classic book as well. And I held up to that promise." [NY Times OP-ED] I had forgotten about that deal, but she reminded me. Well, that's my daughter, we'll see her in Elba [Napoleon's former hangout] for vacation this summer. Q: Most poets hold another job teaching. How did you support yourself having never taught in an university? Bly: I did lots of translations. They paid by the page translated. I've translated 15 books. Then I made my living giving poetry readings. I used to do readings two weeks straight, sometimes 14 nights in different cities in my younger days. I enjoyed it. I'm an extrovert. I didn't want to be tied down at an university. Some dryness comes in when you get involved in departmental politics. So I loved my freedom in what I'm doing. Bly then read two ghazals from his My Sentence Was A Thousand Years of Joy:
THE BUFF-CHESTED GROUSE ****************************************************
THE BRIDEGROOM **************************************************** Bly concludes the class blowing a farewell kiss to us all, saying "I'll miss you loonies." Many students go up to him for autographs of his The Thousands magazine which he gave us as parting gifts. The men in the class give Bly hugs thanking him for his guidance in their poetry and their lives. Many ask for his email address and snail mail address to keep in touch. Two Stanford Stegner Fellows [Michael McGriff & Alexandra Teague] arrive to give Bly a ride home. I walk with them to the Stanford Oval where they parked their car. Bly tells us "Stanford is such a beautiful campus. I stayed at Professor Stephen Orgel's house as he's on sabbatical this quarter. He's got all the Shakespeare books plus a lovely huge back yard." I ask Bly about his Sufi teacher in London which he mentioned during his Colloquium. Bly says "His name is Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh" spelling his name letter by letter for me. "He's 81, same as my age," Bly tells me, "but I'm just a mosquito compared to him." Bly continues "When the Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah (1979), he wanted Nurbakhsh to stay in Iran. But after their meeting, Nurbakhsh flew to Paris and then London. He needed freedom." Michael's car has arrived. Bly and I have a big hug, saying good-bye. I thank him for his generous gifts and a wonderful semester of poetry. ****************************************************
|