A Gift of Three Poems (& far below a brief reminder of the Independent Reading & Research work)

In term two we have studied many works of art that make use of the story of Daedalus and Icarus. We've also talked about the ways other works of art make use of other old stories--not just by retelling them but by imaginatively re-envisioning them to serve new purposes. Some of you will be exploring retellings and reimaginings in your independent reading and research projects.

Below are three very different poems from the second half of the twentieth century, each of which make an imaginative re-use of the Christian Nativity narrative.

 

December 21^st                                                              Jean Valentine

How will I think of you

“God-with-us”

a name: a word

and trees paths stars this earth

how will I think of them

and the dead I love       and all absent friends

here-with-me

and table: hand: white coffee mug:

a northern still life:

and you

without a body

quietness

and the infant’s red-brown mouth           a star

at the star of the girl’s nipple…

1974

Note about December 21^st : The words in quotations, “God-with-us,” are a literal translation of “Emmanuel” and the next phrase “a name: a word” recalls Jesus Christ. The “girl” offering her nipple to the infant evokes Mary.

***

from Midwinter Day                                           Bernadette Mayer

…

Like the curtain like the moon’s oval pebbles

Under the exciting microscope

Of the Western world

                                       I speak out loud against it

Other lights in the town might be broken

By accident or widespread vandalism

But they’re too high and look like Christ

On the cross with the hands of an eye’s fluorescent fish

Like a talent unspotlit and queer

                                                          To be me is to be

Queer sleep after death, its modesty deriving

What from the eyes of the immodest living

Is offered at the cost of a ruinous leaving

Well, I have to close them

                                              This paid incandescent light

Is like the vigil of a virgin

Last to tell before my eyes I’ll end.

From dreams I made sentences, then what I’ve seen today,

Then past the past of afternoons of stories like memory

To seeing as a plain introduction to modes of love and reason,

Then to end I guess with love, a method to this winter season

Now I’ve said this love it’s all I can remember

Of Midwinter Day the twenty-second of December

Welcome sun, at last with thy softer light

That takes the bite from winter weather

And weaves the random cloth of life together

And drives away the long black night!

1982

Note: Midwinter Day is an extraordinary book-length poem written on a single day, the Winter Solstice, December 22, 1978 (published in 1982). The passage above is excerpted from the very end of the poem.

***

Christ Climbed Down                                             Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit

and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

1958

***

Independent Reading and Research: Term 2

1. Some of you still need to fine tune your proposals. Make sure you've clearly stated the title and author of the main text (novel; play(s); collection of stories, poems, essays) you are reading, the title and author of the text you are reading to gain background, context, and/or a critical perspective on the main reading, and the approach you are taking. (The options are outlined in the previous post.)

2. Quotation Responses: You will complete ten quotation responses on the main text and two on the supplemental text. Consult the models on the blog and the feedback on your summer work in order to improve your work.

3. Blog posts: You will also write two blog posts. In one you will discuss the main text and in another the supplemental text. It should be absolutely clear what texts you are referring to. This post should intelligently and insightfully (but not necessarily formally) discuss the texts and the ideas you have about the texts. Be bold. Be specific. Be thoughtful and convincing.

This work will be due January 13.