Counting Hearts (a sonnet)

When I count the people I can turn to,
my left hand looks with envy at my right.
Others won’t value quirky things I do,
but I resist change in hopes that they might.

If other beliefs go to war with mine,
my words buckle and turn to walk away.
Our natural moments of silence are fine,
until they’re made awkward by what I say.

I guard my bottle of words left unsaid,
so my mind, alone, must clean up the mess.
Any time a name creeps into my head,
my cells see a plague that I must suppress.

Though my heart can’t seem to join another,
I believe lost souls will find each other.

Graduate (after Mark Strand)

Samantha Stevens

I sat and stared at the picture
projected onto the wall.
Two brothers stood- one arm wrapped
around their father, one wrapped
around their diplomas. The sun formed
lines of light across their faces
as they smiled, exposing the white
of their teeth.

You never realize
in the moment that you are already
becoming part of the past.

The first hints of spring are here.
I have already begun to experience
the things a new group experiences
each year for the first and last time.
The world will soon begin
to tell us we do not belong here.
The feeling that something waits
for us somewhere out there will pull
us from the comfort of the shade.

I will look in the mirror and ask,
“Is my reality the sum of my intentions?”
I will realize too late that time,
whether you ask it to or not,
will catch up with you eventually.

Catullus Carmina 76

Siqua recordanti benefacta prior voluptas
est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium,
nec sanctum violasse fidem, nec foedere nullo
divum ad fallendos numine abusum homines,
multa parata manent in longa aetate, Catulle,
ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore tibi.
Nam quaecumque homines bene cuiquam aut dicere possunt
aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt.
Omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti.
Quare iam te cur amplius excrucies?
Quin tu animo offirmas atque istinc te ipse reducis,
et dis invitis desinis esse miser?
Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem,
difficile est, verum hoc qualubet eficias:
una salus haec est, hoc est tibi pervincendum,
hoc facias, sive id non pote sive pote.
O di, si vestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquam
extremam iam ipsa in morte tulistis opem,
me miserum aspicite et, si vitam puriter egi,
eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi,
quae mihi subrepens imos ut torpor in artus
expulit ex omni pectore laetitias.
Non iam illud quaero, contra me ut diligat illa,
aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica velit:
ipse valere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum.
O di, redite mi hoc pro pietate mea.

Translation by Samantha Stevens
If man gains any pleasure by remembering former good deeds,
when he believes he is pious
and has not violated a sacred promise or abused divine
power to deceive men in any pact with the gods,
much joy remains for you in long life, Catullus,
created from this ungrateful love.
For you have said and done whatever men can say and do well for anyone, but
all these things you have presented to an ungrateful mind have perished.

Therefore, why do you suffer more?
Why not be firm in your mind and recover and cease to be miserable
in front of the unwilling gods?
It is difficult, but it must be done at any cost.
It is difficult to set aside a longstanding love.
This is the only defense, and you must overcome your misery,
whether it is impossible or it is possible.

O gods, if it is your will to have pity,
or if you have ever helped anyone
who faced death itself, look at miserable me and,
if I have lived purely,
remove this plague and ruin from me,
which stealing upon me as a lethargy in my limbs
expelled the happiness from all of my heart.

I no longer ask for her to love me in return,
or, for her to be chaste, because it is impossible:
I only wish to be healthy and put aside this horrible disease.
O gods, grant me this wish and reward me for my piety.

Walls (a sestina)

Samantha Stevens

She turned her back on the past
And pinky promised herself to be strong
Her only remaining fear- seeming weak
Now the rushing wind alone could bring tears
Instead, her emotions crash into walls
Only seen by others in the form of her scars.

Scrapes from contests of conceit, his only scars
He laughs at photos of himself from the past
Only those closest to him would see he puts up walls
Outsiders look and wonder how he can be so strong
Rough day ahead if even his eyes shed tears
Still, his shoulder comforts all who feel weak.

Judgmental eyes glance once and label her weak
She constantly reminds herself of her scars
Each disappointment forms a new puddle of tears
Tunnel vision prevents her from revisiting the past
A tower built of high expectations is only so strong
Words of encouragement head straight for the walls.

Dismayed by the loss of the life framed on her walls
She lashes out on herself each time she feels weak
Awaiting an independent life where she can feel strong
But she feels no shame at the sight of her scars
As long as they remain just a memory of her past
Only the mirror knows the sight of her tears.

The family breaks at the sight of her tears
Exclamations of anger and dejection bounce off the walls
Never speaking above a whisper of ghosts from her past
Stay together for them, do not show you are weak
Ignore all our shortcomings and cover the scars
Fight endlessly to make a broken unit strong.

Taught by those around me to always be strong
Bottle up the frustrations until they escape as tears
Ignore the bruises so they become faded scars
Write down my worst fears and tape them to the walls
A united front of happiness suggests I am not weak
Fight forever to keep their futures from becoming my past.

Regardless of our relationship with our past
At times, all of our sturdy foundations will go weak
Some attack, some evade them but we all have our walls.

Sensitive Memory

Samantha Stevens
January 20, 2011

the sound of that song that tricks me into thinking I will soon hear him say hi
the noises of the earth changing under my feet, telling me time has gone by

the touch of cold metal in my hands that motivates me to begin doing ballet
the feel of rough sidewalk beneath my feet that takes me back to childhood days

the sight of the scars that unleashes my worries about an illness I will harbor forever
the picture I drew that hangs on my wall, reminding me of our times spent together

the taste of nestle chocolates that mock me for spending countless dollars at AMC
the sweetness of fla-vor-ice that convinced me to buy so many because they were practically free

the smell of beer that sickens me, symbolizing your awful, unacknowledged habit
the scent of rosemary potatoes that tells me oddly, I will miss being in Abbott

Destined Pair

Samantha Stevens

We sat wallowing in our loneliness until the day our box moved,
not to be pushed aside but to be picked up by our new owner.

Fate had inscribed us with the 9 that brought her to us.
Chosen because we were 50% off and happened to be her size.

Our laces tied, our insides filled not with tissue paper, but with
the weight that would allow us to make our imprint on the world.

Again, we found ourselves sitting on a shelf among others,
but this time the shelf of the chosen, not the forgotten.

They stared, admiring our brilliance as we stood together
with our curves in perfect alignment.

We braved sweat and rough terrain together, feeling
textures our sheltered life had not prepared us for.

Fate had also inscribed us with an expiration date.

We felt ourselves wearing with each step, saw our brilliance
fade to a wrinkled dingy brown.

With our new vow to seize the pavement, we tried
each day to put our best foot forward.

Passing by others who had a bit more pep in their step,
we remembered our glory days and smiled.

Eventually, we knew it was time to let go. We tied up our loose
ends and allowed ourselves to be put in the box, this time

for good.


(The assignment was to talk about shoes in a way that made the reader think of death.)

Forgetting

1.23.11

Robert Pinsky’s Gulf Music

In Robert Pinsky’s “Poem of Disconnected Parts”, the first poem in Gulf Music, he says, “I write for dead people”. This statement becomes more apparent throughout the rest of the book as Pinsky writes about the past and how it relates to the present. As I read his poetry, I found myself rushing to Google and trying to recall historical facts, which was initially really frustrating. Eventually, I realized that Pinsky’s goal was not to flaunt his intelligence or confuse his readers. Rather, he believes that we can maintain our knowledge of the past by transferring it onto paper and that poetry can be a powerful form of communication. He expresses this opinion in his poem “Book”, which says, “Look! What thy mind cannot contain you can commit/to these waste blanks…we read…columns of characters that sting/ sometimes deeper than any music or movie or picture,/ deeper sometimes even than one body touching another. He also suggests that by taking time to analyze our memories, we can gain a better understanding of how we became who we are and who we may become.

In section one, Pinsky discusses the past both by recalling important historical figures and events and by recalling his own experiences. In “Gulf Music”, he talks about how the hurricane of 1900 affected Galveston, Texas, describing it as “the worst natural/ calamity in American history”. He also tells the story of how his grandfather immigrated to America and came through the port of Galveston, where he eventually met and married his grandmother Becky in 1910. The other poems in section one differ in subject, but they are all similar in nature. Most of them begin by introducing a historical event and then go on to explain how that event has affected people and how our perception of it has changed over time.

The poems in the second section continue to follow the same theme, but Pinsky uses a different perspective. He explains how like people and events, even the simplest things experience the effects of time and can serve as a window into the past. The section begins with a set of definitions, and Pinsky notes, somewhat humorously, that even the word thing has evolved over time from “the sense of a matter at hand, an issue for debate” to “the nearly opposite sense of a concrete object, a physical or bodily thing”. The poems that follow describe a book, glass, a jar of pens, a photograph, and other objects that are seemingly insignificant. In the fourth poem, “Jar of Pens”, we get the image of the pens “huddled in their cylindrical formation…in their rinsed-out honey crock”, and he develops the image into a story, personifying the pens and giving them all unique experiences. For example, the second pen “strains to call back/ The characters of the thousand/ world languages dead since 1900, and he ends the poem by referring to the pens as “scabbards of the soul, [that] have/ outlived the sword-talons and wingfeathers for the hand.” All of the other objects in this section are described in the same manner- we receive a concrete image, which develops into an abstract image that increases the significance of the object and somehow tells a story.

Identifying all of the poems in this section as having a single defining characteristic would feel a bit forced, but each of them alone fits the theme, and seven out of the seventeen refer to the concept of allusion. As I mentioned, Pinsky alludes to certain people and events throughout all of his poems, but in this section, he is much more direct. The second poem, “In Defense of Allusion” jokingly explains that people should not criticize him for his allusions because “the world is allusive”. This defense serves as an introduction to the six poems that explicitly allude to the works of other poets. “Work Song” begins by responding to W.B. Yeats’s “The Fascination of What’s Difficult”, and uses that to transition to other related topics. In two of the poems, “From the Last Canto of Paradise” and “The Wave”, Pinsky only offers a translation of the original work. Although I would not identify any of the poems as outliers of the volume, I have trouble determining why certain poems are in certain sections. Some of the poems in section three, like “El Burro Es un Animal”, seem like they belong in section one. In this poem, Pinsky relates his having to take Spanish class to his observations of Fidel Castro. Like many of the other poems in section one, this poem relates a historical figure to one of Pinsky’s own experiences. “Akhmatova’s “Summer Garden”” also seems like it should be in the third section with the other translations. These contradictions lead me to believe that either I misunderstood the sections, or section three is composed of random poems.

Almost all of Pinsky’s poems are either couplets or triplets, and he does not seem to alter the form of the poem to correspond with the meaning, except in “The Thicket”, “Newspaper”, “Pliers”, and “The Dig”, in which he shaped the poems to mirror what he was describing. He typically ended each stanza with a period, but left out a lot of punctuation within each stanza. Pinsky does not seem to confine the poems as a whole to any specific length because they vary in length from two lines to multiple pages. He used enjambment often, but he capitalized the first letter of the first word in each line, regardless of its function in the sentence. I did not notice any specific meter throughout his poems, and he only uses subtle internal slant rhyme, except in the poem “Rhyme”. The subtle rhyming can be seen in “Work Song”, which has rhymes similar to “Fascination that dries the sap out of Yeats’s veins”. Pinsky also likes to repeat words throughout his poems, which we also see in “Watch Song” with the repetition of the word difficult. The only poem that sticks out structurally is “The Material” because the length of the stanzas varies, and all of the other poems have stanzas of equal lengths.

The poem that I would say best characterizes Gulf Music as a whole is “The Forgetting”, not necessarily because of its structure, but because of the voice that Pinsky uses in it. All of the poems fit the overarching theme of the book, but I think this poem alone captures the essence of what Pinsky is trying to show in the others because it describes the act of forgetting. In this poem, Pinsky does an amazing job of describing the effects of time by asking, “What if the Baseball Hall of Fame overflowed/ with too many thousands of greats all in time unremembered” and pointing out that “hardly anybody can name all eight of their great-grandparents”. He explains that even though we are sometimes unaware of it, we lose memories with the passing of time as both an individual and a member of a collective group. We create ways of remembering-our attempt to distinguish people from the larger whole makes them over time undistinguished. Our attempt to remember events by assigning names to them fails because names too are eventually forgotten. Even our written records in the form of letters, journal entries, declarations, and poetry will eventually become part of the inevitable cycle of forgetting.