Poems from the Dirty Orange Book

There is something about reading a sonnet. It only takes about a minute, and one gets the feel for how the lines should turn, whether there should be stress at the end or at the beginning of a line, any internal rhymes or pauses within the lines. Of course, the form is usually set, though some poets enjoy playing with the rules. Here Millay keeps the rules, and conventions, the meter, and rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet, right down to the turn of thought at line nine (the Volta) and the concluding "twist," or epigram of final couplet. As titles go, I like to think of this as called "As Summer goes." Depending on the way you view the relationship described in this poem, you might also think of it "As Summer Comes." But it is known as Sonnet 4 from "The Harp-Weaver And Other Poems". I have also seen this called Sonnet 27, perhaps from The Complete Sonnets. It was first published in the anthology "American Poetry 1922." I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.

Another in the series of poems that Micah and I are recording for National Poetry Month this year. Is it only national? Can't it be global now too? Do we have to keep living in ancient times? The text of this poem can be found in the pages of Richard Blanco's 1988 collection, City of a Hundred Fires. Please go to his website and purchase the book. You can thank me later.

Poet of the Week on http://DavidJBauman.com

I recorded this three years ago with an inferior microphone. I've been wanting to rerecord it and now with the current world situation, the US election and the hell in Alepo, it seemed like the right time. A Brief For The Defense by Jack Gilbert Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants. Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women at the fountain are laughing together between the suffering they have known and the awfulness in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody in the village is very sick. There is laughter every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta, and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay. If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down, we should give thanks that the end had magnitude. We must admit there will be music despite everything. We stand at the prow again of a small ship anchored late at night in the tiny port looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning. To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come. (From REFUSING HEAVEN (Knopf, 2005))

One of my favorite poems from An Oregon Message, ©1987

My dear friend Stuart came to America to visit with his son, and on the way to Frank Lloyd Wight's "Falling Water," they took the time to divert slightly north and meet me at a restaurant in Selinsgrove. There we had a lovely time over food and drink. And after, he asked if I would read a poem that was meaningful to my life right now, and of several possibilities, I finally decided on this one. Unfortunately, as of yet I haven't been able to clean up the static, which grows in intensity throughout the video file. So for now, here is a studio version of my reading (unfortunately devoid of the sound of waves and wind and children) along with a snapshot from the video, with me reading on an upturned boat by the Susquehanna on the nearby Isle of Que. The text of Stafford's poem, "A Ritual to Read to Each Other can be found here: http://williamstafford.org/spoems/pages/ritual.html