Off the Shelf Archive ~August

Time to shove in a new selection for the Off the Shelf Page before the month is completely gone. I recently ordered several poetry collections on sale, to replace lost originals or read a few new authors. Among them was a slim and cheap volume of T.S. Eliot, one of the most influential and widely read poets of the 20th Century. I'm not going to bother giving his bio as I imagine anyone who writes or reads poetry knows his name and has been exposed to his work, which is not very voluminous. Nonetheless, sometimes a rereading of words absorbed years ago reveals something new and valuable, and so it was for me thumbing through this new book of old poems of Eliot's. I've selected a portion of the first of his lengthy Four Quartets (Burnt Norton) the work Eliot considered his best, and responsible for his 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature. 

You'll find it here, in the  Off The Shelf Archive for September 

And to make room for Eliot, below is the previous selection, two shorter poems by D.H. Lawrence. As always feel free to make comments on either selection here, as comments are disabled off the main page, and suggestions for next time are always welcome.

Two Short Poems by D.H. Lawrence

Won’t It Be Strange—?

Won’t it be strange, when the nurse brings the newborn

     infant

to the proud father, and shows its little, webbed greenish

     feet

made to smite the waters behind it?

or the round wild vivid eye of a wild goose staring

out of fathomless skies and seas?

or when it utters that undaunted little bird-cry

of one who will settle on ice-bergs, and honk across the

     Nile?—

And when the father says: This is none of mine!

Woman, where got you this little beast?—

will there be a whistle of wings in the air; and an icy

     draught?

will the singing of swans, high up, high up, invisible

break the drums of his ears

and leave him forever listening for the answer?

The Gods! The Gods!

People were bathing and posturing themselves on the

     beach

and all was dreary, great robot limbs, robot breasts

robot voices, robot even the gay umbrellas.

But a woman, shy and alone, was washing herself under

     a tap

and the glimmer of the presence of the gods was like

     lilies,

and like water-lilies.

by D.H. Lawrence

Image: Mother, by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida

1895, Oil on canvas

Off the Shelf Archive ~July

The archivist has been even more remiss than usual in replenishing the shelves this month. Let's blame it on the mind-melting heat. But she has been reading a lot of poetry in her thirst for some cooling and some relief. Ruth Mowry, of syn-chro-ni-zing, posted an excerpt from  a poem by D.H. Lawrence  accompanied by some deliciously cool paintings of  ocean scenes by Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida earlier in the month, a post which got me back into reading Lawrence's rebellious and ingenious poetry, so I've decided to share two of his shorter poems I particularly enjoyed this month while broiling in the heat.

Most know Lawrence (1885-1930) as a novelist, the author of the shibboleth-defying Lady Chatterley's Lover, which in my childhood always had the dubious rider "banned in Boston" following it around, and for which he spent the latter half of his life treated as a pariah by the literary establishment. He also wrote several more ambitious novels, novelettes, short stories, essays, critiques, plays, and innumerable poems, and his contemporary reputation is of a writer whose 
" ...collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct."  as wikipedia puts it.

So without further ado, this link will take you to the Off the Shelf Archive for August where Won't it Be Strange---? and The Gods! The Gods! by D.H.Lawrence are preserved for re-reading.

As usual, the former selection, three short poems by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, appears below for a final read before going into the archives. Feel free to comment on either selection here, as comments are disabled off the main page. (And suggestions for next time are always welcome.)

Three Short Poems by Anna Akhmatova

Lot' s Wife

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

Everything

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?

By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.

And something miraculous will come
close to the darkness and ruin,
something no-one, no-one, has known,
though we’ve longed for it since we were children.

You Thought I Was That Type

You thought I was that type:
That you could forget me,
And that I'd plead and weep
And throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare,

Or that I'd ask the sorcerers
For some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift:
My precious perfumed handkerchief.

Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul
Vicarious tears or a single glance.

And I swear to you by the garden of the angels,
I swear by the miracle-working icon,
And by the fire and smoke of our nights:
I will never come back to you. 

by Anna Akhmatova 

Image: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, by Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya, 1914

courtesy wikimedia commons