20 A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue all hues in his controlling, Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created, Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.
Category: sonnet
February 2, 2023 – Sonnet #16
Sonnet XVI
But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens, yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time’s pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.
This seems to take its cue from the preceding sonnet, and the two together are in the form of a continuous meditation. Here the poet takes a step backwards from the declaration of promised immortality, for he has second thoughts and his verse (his pupil pen) is found to be inadequate to represent the young man as he really is, or to give a true account of his inner and outer beauty. Therefore the boy is urged once more to give himself away, in marriage, and thus to recreate himself.
January 21, 2023 – Sonnet #10
Sonnet X
For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov’st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,
That ‘gainst thy self thou stick’st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
This is the first sonnet of the series in which the poet declares a personal interest in the youth, rather than the general one of desiring for the world’s sake that it be not deprived of his progeny. Here there are two statements, firstly, that he wishes to have an opportunity to change his opinion of the youth (l.9), as implying that his (the poet’s) better opinion is of some value; secondly he attempts the persuasive argument of ‘for love of me’ in orderto produce a change in the youth’s intentions. Neither of these amount to a declaration of love, although they do half imply it, for what is love if it is not reciprocated? In any case it is in some sense preparatory to the more impassioned statements of several of the sonnets which are to follow.
Apart from that, the argument of this sonnet is similar to that of the previous one: ‘Be not wilfully selfish and cruel to mankind, but replace and repair your decaying mansion by procreation. In that way you live on, and I myself and others will think the better of you.’
Commentary
1. For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,For shame may have an exclamatory sense (shame on you!) and is printed with an exclamation mark in some editions. Otherwise the meaning is ‘Prompted by feelings of shame you ought to admit that etc.’ The word is also an echo from the last line of the previous sonnet. That on himself such murderous shame commits and the two sonnets are clearly linked by this line and line 5.
2. Who for thy self art so unprovident.unprovident = failing to provide for the future, improvident. From the Latin providere ‘to look ahead’. The modern usage is ‘improvident’.
3. Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many, It may be an argument in your favour that you are loved by so many. Let us admit (if you desire to use that argument) that you are loved by many.
4. But that thou none lov’st is most evident: But it is evident that you yourself do not love anyone. (Therefore there is something seriously amiss). The line is further explained in the next quatrain.
5. For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,murderous hate refers back to the murderous shame of the previous sonnet, with its concomitant double meanings. He is seeking to murder his posterity by not having children.
6. That ‘gainst thy self thou stick’st not to conspire,’gainst = against;
thoustick’st not = you do not hesitate, you find no objection to (sticking point).
7. Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate Being determined to destroy that lovely house. roof is symbolic of house, family, lineage, especially an aristocratic one.
ruinate = bring to ruin, destroy.
8. Which to repair should be thy chief desire.Which refers to the roof of the previous line. To repair which etc. Continuous repair is necessary to keep a building in sound order. To maintain his house (family) should be the youth’s chief wish. The imagery recurs in Sonn.13:
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold etc.
9. O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind: Change your intention, your purpose, so that I may change my opinion (of your conduct). See introductory note.
10. Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love? Will you, who are the most fair of all creatures, be the house in which hate is lodged (whereas others, who are uglier, are yet capable of demonstrating love). lodged implies the residence of an idea in the mind, as in the previous sonnet, where sits is equivalent to is lodged.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murderous shame commits. 9.
The hatred referred to is that of refusing to procreate, hating posterity. See above, note to l.5.
11. Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, Be as your behaviour indicates you to be, generous, noble, graceful. presence is indicative of stature, mien, bearing, presence of mind in company, and so on.
12. Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:prove = turn out to be, become, i.e., by agreeing to produce children, thus taking pity on your ‘house’.
13. Make thee another self for love of me, Produce an heir, if not for the reasons stated already, at least do so for love of me.
14. That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
That = so that;
still = always, continually;
thine = thy children. His beauty will be carried on in his children. beauty here refers to the youth’s beauty, both in the individual sense that he as a beautiful youth must preserve himself, but also in that his beauty is the standard for the times, the essential essence of what it is to be beauteous.
January 12, 2023 – Shakespeare’s Sonnet #6
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
Today is, coincidentally, my father’s birthday. Had he lived he would be 110 years old.
Comments to follow later.
February 1, 2021
Happy National Freedom Day! Today day is also, relatedly, the anniversary of the first day of the Greensboro Sit-ins of 1960 (my hometown) and the first day of African American History Month. This sonnet may be a good fit:
Our story has a happy ending.
I’m telling you up front so you know
what you can expect – how to overcome
any temporary darkness that may
attempt to cloud out the light we emit.
Our story is not a pop video.
It won’t make you dance or sing. Ain’t no blues
to wail, to welp, to beg, to plead, to scream.
Our story ends in celebration.
But Twitter and Instagram won’t tell you
what’s really going on. You have to read
between the lines, between the images
that flash past you faster than light or sound.
Don’t be depressed. Arise & celebrate.
Speaking of Freedom Day, information used to be so much more free during the Trump years. I know some readers of this blog will disagree, not on the merits but just because, but think about it. Just think about it. Trump sent us tweets day and night. We always knew exactly what was on his mind. Total transparency. And his transparency forced a degree of transparency by those below him, those around him. And transparency means information is free. Despite his departure, and despite the relative lack of information transfer between the White House and the public (other than all these damn Executive Orders he keeps signing, of which we have no clue about the consequences, short or long term, intended or unintended), a degree of the transparency Trump established remains. Small wonder we found out so quickly about Pelosi cashing in on stock futures on electric car technology stocks following a Biden executive order mandating electric car fleets in federal government.
But, they don’t want us knowing that stuff. I suspect that’s why they want to wipe Trump out completely so badly. They want the transparency Trump represented to disappear. They want the return of the cover of darkness to hide their deeds. And they want it quickly so they can get back to normal “business” on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans. I know. I’m rambling.
Last night I consulted one of my LIS books, Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives. The question of politics in archives goes straight to the relationship between access to information and democratic governance as a core democratic value. There is an interesting essay about Glasnost, openness, as an element of Gorbachev’s program to democratize the former Soviet Union. His top archivist, Yuri Afanasiev, led the charge in “re-processing” Soviet and Eastern European history and records, without which there would have been no Glasnost “opening” to speak of.
The other night we watched “The Lives of Others,” a film about life in East Germany just prior to and following the fall of the Berlin Wall. (We are marching towards a type of political censorship and repression – there’s not much difference between the Stasi regime and the modern surveillance state and cancel culture.) Because the East Germans kept a central index on the files they kept on journalists, artists, and political dissidents of all occupations, people were able, after reunification, to pull their files and learn the degree to which their privacy had been violated. The big difference between then and now, and between them and us, is that we will have a much less organized way of recapturing the truth after this period of repression is over. Who would ever imagine we are less organized that the East Germans?
My faith in “the system” diminishes a bit daily. Every day. “They” can’t cancel me, all I do is write bad poetry, and besides, my readership is loyal to a fault. But what is happening to the rest of the country? How many writers are self-censuring to stay below the radar of the cancel culture police? What is happening to access to information as a cornerstone of our democracy?
Finally, those who say there is no evidence of fraud or irregularity in the 2020 elections may all belong to the same club, but they are not friends to this country. They are only friends to each other. They are not patriots. But those who say there may be evidence of election, voter, and/or vote fraud, but not enough to change the outcome of the elections, they are the evil ones and they have made their beds in Hell. Y’all know what I’m saying. God don’t like ugly.
#Rhizo Anniversary Tweets
#recoveringrhizomist #rhizo15alum I gave a talk at a regional conference, “A Rhizomatic Approach to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education” in 2017. It was well received but I was between jobs and never developed it into a paper.
#recoveringrhizomist #rhizo15alum That same year I wrote my wife a rhizome valentines day sonnet, “The Roots of Our Love“
#recoveringrhizomist #rhizo15alum In 2015 i wrote a “rhizome” sonnet with a wicked internal rhyming scheme I called an invasive species that chokes and breeds.
#recoveringrhizomist #rhizo15alum And that same year, fresh off a wonderful gardening experience in the mountains, I penned the following (again about invasive species): “Another gardening poem.”
#recoveringrhizomist #rhizo15alum Finally, In my first August Wilson study group, we followed the order in which the ten plays were written. In subsequent sessions, we followed in decade by decade. But what about a rhizomatic approach?
DigiWriMo – November 1
OK. This is not a novel. It’s just that it has been so long since I posted anything to this blog. Today that all changes. For the rest of November, at least. Maybe.
Someone landed on my poetry blog last night and “liked” a poem I wrote during August Postcard Poetry Month. So I took a closer look at that poem, wondering what made it attractive to said anonymous person. It is a sonnet, non-modern perhaps because it has some internal rhyme and consistency, maybe post-modern. I was thinking these thoughts this morning when I got to my docent class. That’s when it dawned on me: focusing on art and architecture history in my docent class is altering the way I look at poetry. Is that a bad thing? Before you answer, I think it is a pretty cool thing.
OK. Before we get too deep in the weeds about the whys, here is the sonnet in question:
Bus stop (the 31 to Tenleytown)
I neither wanted nor needed freedom
in my youth. My brain, on fire, needed
a container with lots of oxygen
to cool and feed its insatiable thirst
for truth. Older now with vision clouded
by smoke & smog, I seek that same freedom
I once disdained, forsook, refused, denied.
Older now with knees that ache at the thought
of bridging the divides that hide inside
my conversations – – wait! My bus arrives
at its destination at last! One more
shuttle to catch, one more chapter to read,
one more sonnet of love or fate to extract.
And one more thirst, across the years, to quench.
It was one of those rare days when I chose to ride the bus instead of the subway to work. My knees need a break from those subway station escalators every now and then. I started writing the poem on the bus, but finished it at work. My colleague at work read and liked it, especially the line about “the divides that hide inside,” but I know she is just a sucker for rhymes. Maybe. And that is not a bad thing on most days. So I added it to the collection and forgot about it.
Then today, this morning, I noticed my poetry blog had a hit. Hmmm. Then I went to docent training class and we had a videocast of an art historian/professor, Thomas Somma, about DC statuary, except only the audio worked, so we had to focus on the words and see the images he described in our imagination, sort of like poetry, right? Anyway, here is a pertinent paragraph of his talk:
“That’s basically the aesthetic language that the American Renaissance artists adopt. And certainly, by the time we get into the 20th century, that’s seen as very conservative. And this is actually one of the reasons why the art that we see in the Library of Congress for a long time was not studied by American art historians, it was not taught by American art historians, it was not emulated by American artists, because they were modernists. And modernism means a number of things, but one of the things that modernism means, the modernist sensibility, is to disconnect from the past; a sort of assumption that the way things were done in the past are no longer relevant to the present. That’s always been a fundamental aspect of modernism, beginning in the middle of the 19th century and carrying right through the 20th century. So, a style that is so dependent on looking back to the past is something that was just out of vogue with the art establishment throughout the 20th century.
Now that we’re in a post-modern period, so-called post-modern period, we’re past modernism. We’re in a more pluralistic, even a globalistic cultural period. And so many artists, many art historians and so on, are reevaluating the past, are reevaluating styles in the 20th century, artists in the 20th century that were more dependent on the past. And so we’ve got a renewed interest in buildings like the Library of Congress, like the Pennsylvania State Capital, like the courthouse — Appellate Courthouse in New York, and on and on, because the art of these buildings, you know, was ignored for so long, and now we’re going back to look at them; they’re taking on new values. Okay, so this two-headed approach, looking back to the past for role models upon which to build a foundation off of which we’re moving to the future; a turn for influence back through the Italian Renaissance, back to ancient Greek and Roman Art.” (From transcript of Thomas Somma 2006 webcast of lecture to Library of Congress docents.)
So I am thinking about art and wondering if American poetry has a similar renaissance that got buried by the modernists. And I am feeling pretty good, for once, about liking sonnets, about trying to write sonnets, even though they don’t always have a rhyming scheme “as classified by those who classify.” And I am thinking it might be time to re-evaluate the poetry past. And I am thinking that perhaps there was an American Renaissance in poetry, but because the poets were black for the most part, they sort of got buried in the so-called Harlem Renaissance. Later in his talk Somma mentioned Matthew Arnold, but he was British (Back in the day I memorized portions of his poem, Dover Beach). I gotta go back and check out Matt Arnold!
So what else is up? My participation in ModPo has stalled. I’ve missed some webcasts because of work. I haven’t kept up. Work is cool, but I haven’t done any classroom teaching like before, and I feel that part fading out a bit, though I still get psyched and excited about Freire and hooks, about ethnography, and about the rhizome as it applies to everything educational. As soon as the docent training is done I’ll get back to some of these other pursuits. But for now, the docent training is thrilling, and fulfilling, and everything I had hoped for in this chapter of my life story.
I think I’ll log off on that note. Peace out, y’all!
Might be time for a change here 