Sammi+Stander+-+Linda+Pastan

3.25.12

"Love Poem" I want to write you  a love poem as headlong  as our creek  after thaw  when we stand  on its dangerous  banks and watch it carry  with it every twig  every dry leaf and branch  in its path  every scruple  when we see it  so swollen  with runoff <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> that even as we watch <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> we must grab <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> each other <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> and step back <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> we must grab each <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> other or <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> get our shoes <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> soaked we must <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> grab each other

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This poem is a very emotional, love-filled poem that relates its message with colorful imagery. Pastan expresses her message about a love that needs saving with an extended metaphor. Each line says something different about the relationship, and the structure, or lack thereof also helps portray her message.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The first line immediately sets up the speaker’s desperate want to save the relationship she has. The description of “our creek” signifies the long relationship the speaker and her significant other have had. “Dangerous banks” are used to show the rockiness of the relationship. All of the sorrow and sadness and anger in their relationship is described by the twigs and dry leaves and branches that are taken away by the creek. The runoff is the hardships that the pair have to face together. When they see it they “must grab each other or get our shoes soaked” - they must rekindle their relationship before the water comes and douses whatever flame is left.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pastan sets up the poem without much of a structure. I believe she does so in order to give it the feel of a creek flowing. However, she could also be doing so to show the urgency of her message to her significant other. There is no time for them to waste or their relationship will be over. The lack of structure gives the reader an overwhelming feeling, which is exactly what the speaker wants to portray to her significant other. The creek fed by the runoff of nature expresses the feeling of helplessness - that nature has created a problem and it’s too late to fix it. This problem is taking everything away - even the good - so there is no hope in saving it. The need to react is expressed in the last section. The speaker truly does want to fix whatever problem is going on.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I think that this is a very deep, descriptive portrayal of love. Many relationships are full of difficulties and problems, but need both parties to work together to overcome these challenges. Pastan expresses this poem with beautiful imagery and word choice and does a great job putting in a variety of emotion.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">http://www.main.nc.us/graham/graphics/santeetlahcreek.jpg <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Here is a picture of a creek that I feel shows the creek that Pastan was describing in her poem.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"Unveiling" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In the cemetery <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">a mile away <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">from where we used to live <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">my aunts and mother, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">my father and uncles lie <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">in two long rows, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">almost the way <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">they used to sit around <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">the long planked table <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">at family dinners. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And walking beside <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">the graves today, down <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">one straight path <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">and up the next, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I don't feel sad <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">for them, just left out a bit, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">as if they kept <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">from me the kind <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">of grown-up secret <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">they used to share <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">back then, something <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I'm not quite ready yet <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">to learn. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Death is a mystery, not yet solved by humans. We often wonder what happens after we’re gone and what happens to those we lose. In this poem Pastan looks at this topic through a different lens, by comparing it to life.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The first section of the poem shows how even in death, some things do not change. Her family lies in the cemetery “almost the way they used to sit around the long planked table at family dinners.” This comforts the speaker because even though they are gone, they are still able to bring back warm memories. Her family is still together, just as they were when they were alive. Because of these arrangements, the reader feels a sort of comfort knowing that death might not be as foreign as we believe it to be. However, in the next part of her poem, Pastan points out that death is still mostly foreign to the living. The speaker feels “left out a bit” because she is still alive and they are all gone from her. She compares this to the exclusion of adults when they kept “grown-up secrets” when she was a child. Although this contrasts with the first part of the poem, they go together nicely showing that death may not be as scary as we think, but we have to wait until we are ready to understand it.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pastan writes this poem very simply, but gets a very important message across in the process. I think death is a very hard concept to write about and this is done so creatively and meaningfully that it should be applauded.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chasluke/lukefamilydoc/mtpleasantcem.jpg <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This image reminded me of the cemetery plot described in Pastan's poem.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4.12.12 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">While searching for my next two poems to discuss, I came upon this book called //The Imperfect Paradise// which contained six poems. I was going to choose just two of them, but thought they made the most sense when they were all together. These six Shakespearean sonnets reflect on different parts of the stories of Adam & Eve and the Fall of Man.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//The Imperfect Paradise// <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. Seasonal <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Which season is the loveliest of all? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Without a pause you smile and answer spring, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Thinking of Eden long before the fall. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I see green shrouds enclosing everything <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And choose instead the chaos of the snow <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Before God separated dark from light. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I hear the particles of matter blow <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Through wintry landscapes on a wintry night. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You find the world a warm and charming place, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">My Adam, you name everything in sight. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I find a garden of conspicuous waste -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The apple’s flesh is cold and hard and white. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Still, at your touch my house warms to the eaves <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">As autumn torches all the fragile leaves.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This poem starts out with a simple enough question. Which season is the loveliest, the speaker asks of her partner. This man is referred to later as Adam, which causes readers to believe that Eve is the speaker. When Adam answers spring, immediately happy thoughts come to mind. Contrasting this view, Eve chooses winter, but not the happy, beautiful winter that people often imagine. She speaks of “the chaos of the snow” and other dark images. Adam disagrees and states that he finds the world beautiful, while Eve “find[s] a garden of conspicuous waste.” This is ultimately what leads her to take the apple and leads to the fall of mankind. I wasn’t really sure what Pastan is referring to with the last two lines. I believe it has something to do with their expulsion from the Garden, but I plan to do more research to find out.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. In the Garden <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">How do we tell the flowers from the weeds <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Now that the old equality of space <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Has ended in the garden, and the seeds <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Of milkweed and daisy scatter in disgrace? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is it the stamen, petal, or the leaf <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">That like the ancient signature of Cain <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Marks the flesh of wildflowers, to their grief <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Just as the orchid blossoms into fame? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And Esau was the wildflower of his clan, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And Jacob was the brother who was chosen. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">So we learn to distinguish man from man <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Like botanists, our categories frozen. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">But in a single morning roses die <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">While dandelions and chokeweed multiply.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This poem, like the first, begins with a question: How do we tell flowers from weeds? Here, the speaker is asking how they are to choose between good and evil now that paradise has been lost. Now, people must choose among people, like Jacob and Esau whose father chose between them. I feel out of this entire the poem, the last two lines are the most powerful. They show the fragility of beauty and purity and good, and represent how evil continues to grow in the world. The evil brings down the good and we must do something to stop it. I view it almost as a call to action.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. Deep in These Woods <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Darling, how do you make your garden grow <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Deep in these woods, drowning in so much shade <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">That even hardly may apples are slow <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">To rise above the shadows where they wade? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Are you a threat to every living tree? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">We lean against two trunks, resting our backs <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">But through your craggy face is what I see <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I know that somewhere you conceal an axe. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">When he planned Eden did great God conceive <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Flowers that flourish with no need of light? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And was there nothing Adam hid from Eve? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And doesn’t the cereus bloom at night? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You place a burst of lilac in my hand <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And sacrifice an oak. I almost understand.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I find this poem to be a very literal one. The speaker is asking her husband how he can possible make his garden grow in darkness. She feels that he is using and axe to chop down oaks to make room for sunlight, in secrecy. This, in turn, makes her wonder what other secrets her partner may be hiding from her. She wonders if Adam and Eve ever had the same type of secrecy in their lives. The line that stuck out the most to me was the second to last one. I think that this represents all that the gardener has worked to achieve and that he just wants the speaker to enjoy it. He doesn’t want her to question him, just to accept things as they are.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. Thief <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You caught a thieving squirrel in your trap <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And for the sake of cardinal and jay <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You put it, fat with birdseed, in a sack <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And carried it a full five miles away. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Today there is another squirrel there <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Or else, more likely, this one is the same, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Making its way through all the clues of air <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Along the highway ‘til it found our name. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is this a metaphor for what we feel, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pushing our nibbling doubts five miles from sight? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Boredom and passion, alternately real, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pull us apart, then stagger us with light. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The animals of marriage are as wild, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">hungry, and stubborn as any squirrel’s child.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This poem, like the last, is also very literal. The first half narrates the story of a thieving squirrel who is placed somewhere away, but returns to his original spot. The speaker asks if this is a metaphor for our lives, for the way we feel. She suggests that we take our doubts and fears and push them away, but they continue to come back and nibble at us some more. She is saying that we need to face these doubts and take care of them in order for us to go on living our lives.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. The Imperfect Paradise <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">If God had stopped work after the fifth day <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">With Eden full of vegetables and fruits, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">If oak and lilac held exclusive sway <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Over a kingdom made of stems and roots, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">If landscape were the genius of creation <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And neither man nor serpent played a role <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And God must look to wind for lamentation <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And not to picture postcards of the soul, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Would he have rested on his bank of cloud <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">With nothing in the universe to lose, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Or would he hunger for a human crowd? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Which would a wise and just creator choose: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The green hosannas of a budding leaf <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Or the strict contract between love and grief?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Out of all the poems in this series, I feel that this one and the last are the most powerful. In this one Pastan questions our existence and what would happen if we had not been created. What if God had stopped after the fifth day? There would have been no evil in the world, no sadness. No expulsion from paradise, no questioning our creator. The world would have been in harmony. But the speaker asks “would he hunger for a human crowd?” I like to think that he would. Sure, the world would be a happier, simpler place, but what is a world without mistakes. One can only truly appreciate happiness when one has suffered grief to; I’m sure this applies to God too. After all, we were made in his image right?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">6. Somewhere in the Euphrates <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Somewhere in the Euphrates, buried, lost <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The rusted gates of Eden still remain, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And archeologists at awful cost <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Search for a snakeskin or an apple stain, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Talk of Atlantis and the walls of Troy <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">As if they had to prove each legend real <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Or else, like fools of science, must destroy <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Geographies of what we only feel. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">While sometimes watching at the window here <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I see you in the garden on your knees; <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">It is as close you have come to prayer, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Planting the shadblow and the peonies, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Making azalias, hollies, dogwoods grow, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Digging up Eden with a single hoe.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In this last poem, Pastan is contrasting the two different ways people might view the Eden story. The speaker imagines archaeologists trying to find proof that such a place existed, much like they did with Atlantis and Troy. She finds this attempt foolish, and believes that we should search for “geographies of what we only feel.” By this, she is saying that the Eden story makes humans who they are and to that extent the story is true. In the last section of the poem the speaker talks to a gardener that she sees. She sees him on his knees planting, and says that this is a type of prayer. She states that he is “digging up Eden,” finding his own paradise by these actions.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Although the sonnets are different from each other, each has a central theme that relates to the others. The first five start with questions. Each of them speculates on a question raised by the stories of Adam & Eve and the Fall. In all of them, no direct answer is given. Rather, she allows the reader space to speculate and come up with their own answers. The final poem gives the reader Pastan’s answer to the question of Eden and its existence. I think that all of these poems give great meanings separately, but when put together create a powerful work of art that should be taken seriously.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is an image that I though portrayed the Garden of Eden very well: http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/images/GardenOfEden3.jpg