Oswego

December 5, 2001

Saved from the rubbish heap

Yesterday, in a fit of ambition, I started gathering up out of some cardboard boxes quantities of paper and junk to discard. I got up such momentum that before I knew it everything was going into the big, black plastic trashbag. Then I stopped and looked down, and I couldn’t believe what I was just about to throw away: An 11th grade English paper titled “Poems of American Poets.” It was dated March 27, 1968. I was 16 years old.

The paper had received a high grade and had some very nice comments on it by the teacher, which is probably one reason I saved it all these years. And also, looking at it now, it gives me a very clear indication why, just a couple of years later, I was at the University of New Orleans majoring in English. I think I had the makings of an English major in high school, but I probably only vaguely realized it at the time.

Here are the poets I chose and the poems I briefly explicated, after typing out the poem on the page: John Greenleaf Whittier — “The Frost Spirit,” “The Worship of Nature,” and “Hymn”; Ralph Waldo Emerson — “Days” and “Grace”; Emily Dickinson — “This is My Letter to the World”; Walt Whitman — “Come Up From the Fields, Father”; Robert Frost — “The Smile”; Edgar Allen Poe — To One in Paradise”; and finally, Whittier’s “The Indian’s Tale.” I really can’t quite fathom why I chose so many of Whittier’s poems, for I haven’t read his work since that time, except during one course in college where we studied him as part of a survey of American literature. I think I will have to go back and find out what the appeal was. The other poems and poets I chose don’t really surprise me. I’ve always liked Dickinson’s work, although I certainly haven’t been a student of her poetry. As an adult,I was always much more interested in the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

But the Dickinson poem is interesting:

This is My Letter to the World
by Emily Dickinson

This is my letter to the world
That never wrote to me
The simple news that Nature told
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see
For love of Her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me.

And this is my explication, a tiny glimpse into my teenage mind, studying literature in high school those many years ago:

This poem tells much about the life of Emily Dickinson the poet and Emily Dickinson the real and extraordinary person (I guess I thought the two terms were mutually exclusive). She lived alone and for the most part felt indifference toward an outward social life. This could have been the result of a reciprocal feeling she felt society had for her.

Nevertheless, her constant companion was Nature, and she sensed the miracles of God’s creation and became aware of His plan. For her it did not take fervent church attendance nor complex doctrines or theologies, but instead, the birds in the sky, a shallow, meandering brook, or perhaps the blooms of colorful orchids in spring. Her life was one of inner fulfillment and happiness with what she had. To many around her it seemed empty, barren, and they pitied her. But in her mind and soul lived an alter ego which was apart from the confine’s of man’s material and idealistic goals. In this poem she imparts to the world in seemingly simple, but rather symbolic words, that in Nature lie unanswered solutions to riddles that haunt many men.

I guess also I liked the images from Nature that inhabit Whittier’s verse, such as this stanza from “The Worship of Nature”:

The green earth sends its incense up
From every mountain shrine,
From every flower and dewy cup
That greeteth the sunshine.

And I said in my explication: To Whittier, all Nature reveals the greatness and power of God.

Little did I know when I was writing that paper back in 1968 that I would someday be teaching poetry to English classes and writing poetry myself, although writing poems has been only a very recent development, coinciding with the start of this journal, now exactly two years ago.

(Written June 4, 2000)

Paradise Regained (2)

December 6, 2001

What a treasure! So glad you rescued it. I found one of mine from age 16, about “Ishi, the last of the Yahi Indians.” When I found it, I had been tutoring some high school kids, and was appalled by the absolute cr*p they were turning in and getting A’s on. I made them read my paper, and they were properly humbled. The schools just have no standards anymore. *SIGH*

You were meant to catch that paper before it disappeared forever! How wonderful to have a reminder, a glimpse of your budding self. How I wish I had my long-lost notebooks from those late teen years. I think of that girl now and then, and feel she still lives in a sort of separate continuum…

A lucky find. I wished I had kept more from days past.

When I cleaned out my mom’s house, in the attic were all my old class notebooks. I ditched the French translations, and science and math notes. However I had to save my English and Psychology papers. These old papers give so much insight to who we were back then. I’m glad you saved this..

I am very glad that you found it…the roots on which your soul would continue to grow! You found a treasure yesterday! It tells you the “path” of your journey through life was laying ahead of you. Listening to the wispers of your soul you became who you are now!! Be happy! 🙂

Thank God, you paused long enough to retrieve this treasure.

This brings to mind a round we used to sing during Sufi dancing at an ashram in India over 2 decades ago.Sitting silentlydoing nothingSpring comesand the grass grows by itself.Singing it as a group as we walked in rhythm past each other brought a still presence to the moment. Remembering these words still makes me breathe more deeply and softly smile so many years later. ~X-F

The threads and themes of your poetic life are woven beautifully, 33 years ago, 2 years ago, and in the present. I wonder what you would say about it in Dec. 2001? You seem to be a kindred spirit to Emily Dickenson, perhaps in some ways? And to Thoreau as well, I wonder?

I am glad the book wasn’t trashed. I have several composition books I’ve saved…and now and again I like to read my thoughts of then. I created a Civil War notebook in school. Though it is long gone, but I won’t go into that. It was special for all the work and time I put into it – mom even let me cut up the “sacred” National Geographics for pictures.

I did nearly the same thing – I had to write an original poem and then a prose version of it when I was about 16. I received an A on it and found myself throwing it into a trash pile a few years ago. Luckily I too was able to stop myself from doing that. It’s no Dickenson or Poe, but I am still proud of it.

It’s easy to understand that you see her as a kindred spirit. I love her poems too. Take care and have a nice weekend my friend!

You have high standards for poet laureates. I with you!

I really like the Whittier poem. I haven’t read him before, but I’ll look into it now. I wish I still had some of the writings from my youth. But (sigh) I’m afraid all is gone in a whirlwind of living in the present.

I love poetry, and I hope you save that paper. I am real big on saving everything. My mom calls me a pack rat, but I am just cherishing the memories. ALL OF THEM! It’s always fun to take a trip down memory lane. Thanx for stopping by my diary. I’ll be sure to come back and visit.

Just got enveloped by your current entry.It kicked off a memory for me, when I was ten yrs. old.Our paper had a childrens page, called Uncle Joe’s. I still have my membership card, awarded when they published my little four line poem.It was about looking up. Thanks. That was a trip looking back.

adrift

December 7, 2001

June 4th~My birth date & I feel you have given me a gift listing your favorite poems here. Many have been my favs as well, especially Frost, Dickinson, Emerson & Whitman. So many times, we do not see beneath the surface of those we meet & yet, if we pause long enough & truly listen, we often are given a glimpse of what lies within~

In Nature, God’s artistry & Love are truly revealed to us. I feel his blessings in every flower, in each bird’s song, in the caress of a gentle wind, in the sweet aroma that lingers after the rain, in the graceful swoop of a red tailed hawk, in the dawning of each day & in the crimson hues of an evening’s sunset slowly fading behind majestic mountains. Thanks for these reminders, dear friend~

adrift

December 7, 2001

Your writings are indeed precious gifts my friend. I hope you will post more of your poetry here in the future. I have enjoyed it very much & it is among “my favorite things.” Thank you for your gracious notes & friendship. They mean a great deal to me. With a *smile* always~

I have a book with excerpts from writers’ journals, essays, poems, and other works that observe nature in glowing terms. I have a book of Emily Dickinson’s poems and can relate very well to her references to the outdoors as her cathedral. It’s in nature that balance and peace return. Spring cleaning, are we? lol Me, too…..one bag filled but I kept most of my stash!

I feel like I wasn’t exposed to enough poetry in high school.

Hello! You are giving me a strange sense of déjà vu, here! No, not for my school age accomplishments. For my entry the very same day as yours, with almost exactly the same experience. Yours is ever so much more well-crafted, (I chose not to share my Williams critique for fear of boredom) but the nostalgia and the look to the future is unmistakably the same…I’m amazed at the coincidence, though~

It’s odd to think that the things I write about now captivate the mindset I’m in to such a degree that thirty years from now, I’ll be able to remember how I felt when I wrote them. I hope so anyway..

You don’t know how wonderful and fascinating it was for me to read something you wrote when you were sixteen. Thank you for posting that

It was generation ago, as a little girl I loved Whittier, probably thanks to a mother who loved him and beacause a new age critics had not yet scornfully pronounced his work “Sentimental.” But how I loved the poet’s memory of a little girl who had apologized to the little boy whom “her childish favor singled.” And ” as if a fault confessing.”

“I’m sorry I spelt the word: I hate to go above you, Because– the brown eyes lower fell– Because you see, I love you!” And the poet’s last verse conclusion:”He lives to learn in life’s hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her,–becasue they love him. ” Call me Sentimental!

This entry bears more personal significance that I could possibly explain, Oswego. The poetry and poets, all of whom I like but have retained Edna St. Vincent Millay as my favorite. The part of almost tossing out something valuable in the rubbish pile which happens in real life and to people sometimes as well. Also, my friend, you achieved my original dream!

I too majored in English in college and intended to teach English but life and circumstance got in the way and I never finished it. I admire you for doing all that you set out to do. I am sorry for my absence here for a couple of times but I had to work through something, sort of being tossed in a rubbish pile. However, I am back and just fine. Thank you for your wisdom!

You are the poet that I look to first every time I get into OD. I want to find out what you have to say, and I want to luxuriate in the beautiful way you’ll no doubt say it. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.

little did you know..but i would have guessed from reading it you would be a teacher… smile my friend…

Blonde Harlow

December 10, 2001

I like that Emily was such a recluse, seeking nature as her church. It makes me not feel so strange in my solitude…there is honor in artistic hermitage. Don’t throw that paper away. Such a hint of things that came later in your life.

🙂

I enjoy reading through my old stuff at times too, tho a lot of my teacher’s comments bother me now. a lot of that teacher does too, but that’s a story in itself