Dear friends,
Last weekend, staying in Maine during the Camden poetry festival, I was at a night party hosted by Mark, one of the festival’s founders (poet and translator too, including a new forthcoming translation of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus). It was a party for people, yes, but I was particularly delighted at how some people also brought their (gorgeous) dogs.
That evening, 13 people sat around the table of food and talk, while multiple dogs shuffled their way underneath that table between the legs of humans and chairs. Above the table, we were talking about politics, or poetry, or family, or war, or health, or hopelessness, or happiness. Underneath the table, something else entirely was occurring: smells, sounds, territory, loyalty, protection. Animals wanted to be near the feet of those they love. Every now and then, my knee would be bumped by a dog who was finding a better position for a) rest; b) vigilance; or c) scraps. I glanced down and saw that one man, while continuing a conversation above table, was passing food under table to a grateful Retriever named Toby. Tom and Toby — human and hound.
It’s a nice image of the layers of a poem, I think: hungers above the table, other hungers below. The language and syntax of poetics employed in the visual realm of a poem’s composition, while underneath other hungers — based on scent, loyalty, need, and survival — establish territory and proximity.
Of course, sometimes a poem’s underworld is less at ease than the image of the handsome Toby. There are things that tear up the Hadesland of the table conversation — we all know that. I think of a poem like Yehuda Amichai’s “The Place Where We Are Right”: while employing nature-based metaphors, he’s traversing territory that might lead him to be accused of being a traitor to the country that he loves. I think of how the hospitality of Mosab Abu Toha’s “Ibrahim Abu Lughod and brother in Yaffa” is undergirded by an unflinching assertion: “our kitchen” (emphasis mine). I sat with a new friend the other day, and we talked about the ravages of conflict; his political commitment is driven by an unquenchable need to address — and prevent, if possible — childhood trauma. The more I think about it, the more the primal undertable-territory of our world is the foundation of what’s exchanged in language above.
I am often drawn to the hunger of a poem: the presence of an absence upon which the form and syntax build. The need underpinning the language, the risk of it too. Jane Kenyon’s “The Suitor” is an old favourite, elegant in its composition, but supported by something that, I think, howls:
We lie back to back. Curtains lift and fall, like the chest of someone sleeping. Wind moves the leaves of the box elder; they show their light undersides, turning all at once like a school of fish. Suddenly I understand that I am happy. For months this feeling has been coming closer, stopping for short visits, like a timid suitor.
From Jane Kenyon’s Otherwise: New & Selected Poems (Graywolf Press)
It’s the “Suddenly” that moves me every time. “The Suitor” is a poem poised upon a gorgeous, generative moment in time, but its surrounding landscape is one intimately influenced by the opposite of “happy”: where the positive has to approach timidly, and only occasionally, so as not to frighten. The table of the poem is how a person is happy underneath a tree. The undertable is how long it’s taken, and how strange and ambivalent our relationship with change can be.
I wonder what it is that you see in the undertable of your engagements lately? The place where animals’ and hungers’ intuitions and senses have more power than the logic and communication of language’s structure?
As always, I’ll look forward to reading your responses. And my thanks, as always.
Poetry in the World
A list of events: Online; in the US (Keene Valley and Rhinebeck, NY); Greece; England; and the Scottish island of Iona
June 27–July 7, Patmos, Greece
I’m one of the speakers at the 10-night “Journeying into Common Good” salon, together with Krista Tippett, Allison Russell, JT Nero, and Joe Henry. More details here.
August 7 at 6-7:30pm (Eastern Time, US), online
I’ll be exploring conflict and change through poetry at an online event in partnership with the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University. You can register for free here.
August 10–11, Keene Valley, New York, US
I’ll be speaking and sharing at a weekend of events titled “Living Well in a Troubled World,” held at Keene Valley Congregational Church UCC. Go here to learn about it and to register.
August 23–25, Northamptonshire, England
I’ll be at the Greenbelt Festival, and, among other events, I will be interviewing the brilliant Jenny Mitchell (whose poem “A Man in Love with Plants” we featured on a Season 7 episode of Poetry Unbound). You can go here to learn about the festival.
October 6–11, Rhinebeck, New York, US
I’m back for a week at Omega (just two hours north of NYC) for a week of reflection on poetry, poetry prompts, and group discussions. Expect lovely people, gorgeous surroundings and food, and conversations about how poetry opens your world. Learn more here.
March 10–15 and March 18–23 2025, Isle of Iona, Scotland
I’m holding two Poetry Unbound retreats on the gorgeous Scottish island of Iona. Each retreat is the same. Both retreats are booked up, but you can get on the waiting list by contacting the folks at the St. Columba here.
There is a whole universe underneath, which drives the primal needs and desires of not only ourselves but of all of life. It is a mysterious, wonder-filled dynamic force, unfolding and expanding at this moment. The wonders of creation are, in the words of Judy Cannoto, radically amazing. I love the image described by Pádraig: “Every now and then, my knee would be bumped by a dog who was finding a better position for a) rest; b) vigilance; or c) scraps.” Aren’t we all, in some sense, seeking to find a better position for these things?
There is so much for which to be grateful on my "over table" - healthy children growing into young adults poised for their next adventures, a profession through which I may speak into the lives & accompany the next generation into their next stages of growth, friends with whom to share laughter & tears as we face our individual & collective life challenges. But the "under table" is there - with concern for how we as human beings have failed to honor the beauty & gifts of
creation, how we might reverse our destruction of one another, for how we have failed to love one another & all of creation as
well as needed. I look forward to the day when Julian of Norwich's words of courageous hope are made true: "All is well, and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well." As I try to integrate my "over & under tables," I trust to effect that hope.