The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon
A SALON GATHERING OF PRAISE POEMS 2022
BARBARA KNOTT, MODERATOR
Happy are they who begin each day looking upon images not only of beauty but of strength.
Gaston Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will, p.55.
Rainer Maria Rilke, the poet who above all others understands the need for praise, the love of praise, the purpose of praise, and who exhibits the genius for praise that may prove an inspiration to all of us who enter our work into this column and to our readers, calls out to us with this challenge (Dowrick, 295):
If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself, admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.
In one of his sonnets to Orpheus, the legendary Greek praise singer whose songs and music were powerful enough to move stones and trees and to cast a spell over wild animals, Rilke declares (Dowrick translation, pp. 252-3),
To praise is everything! The one chosen to praise
reaches out to us like ore from the silences
of stones. His mortal heart presses out
for us an immortal wine.
The value of darkness is enhanced in one of Rilke's pieces from A Book for the Hours of Prayer (Robert Bly, p. 43) by this stanza's placement of God in the mouths of poets:
You are the delicate hour at nightfall
that makes all the poets equally good;
you crowd full of darkness into their mouths,
and every poet, sensing he has discovered greatness,
surrounds you with magnificent things.
My own feeling for depth, darkness, and night has been telling me for a long time that these qualities are insufficiently praised in a culture that invests so much in height, light, and daytime, so you may imagine my leap of interest when I first read Rilke's poem (Dowrick, 131-2, trans. Mark S. Burrows):
You darkness that I come from,
I love you more than the fire
that rings the world
because it shines only for a single orbit,
and of this creature knows nothing at all.
But the darkness holds everything together:
Forms and flames, animals and myself,
all thrown together,
humans and powers
and it could be that a great strength
moves all about me where I am.
I believe in nights.
That's what praise does: it creates an expansion of its object, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, wind or fire or night, whether stone, river or woods, moon or rainbow, feathers or fur, hair, eyes or thighs, and it elicits a surge of interest in reader or listener. Perhaps, if we can trust wilderness philosopher David Abram's observations about the world's vitality (and I believe we can), that surge of interest occurs even in the objects being looked at.
Robert Bly (p. 5) offers this further insight:
It is something out there, with the energy of an animal, and at the same instant it is far inside. Once a man or a woman inhabits that space, he or she finds it hidden inside objects, in walnuts or tree roots, in places where people don't ordinarily look for it.
I chose this as one of two photos for the cover of a book of poems because they illustrate so well the theme expressed in the title In Every Carnation: the Body of God, and in the open walnut especially, we can see the metaphoric suggestion that what is "out there" (in the world) is also "in here" (in imagination, ensouled).
Stephanie Dowrick (In the Company of Rilke, p. 171) tells us,
Some of Rilke's finest and most immediately coherent poems are hymnic still lifes, capturing and holding a moment of something ordinary "out there" and transforming it "in here" through the power of the poet's gaze. This kind of deep noticing, that involves seeing something freshly and seeing oneself freshly in relation to it, itself provokes a kind of yearning while also expressing it.
She also mentions (p. 181) Rilke's habit: I was always disposed to concede a multiplicity of shapes to the Possible."
Metaphor is central both to poetry and to being human. One of the most powerful metaphorical comparisons is between flower and female sexuality. Quoting from David Miller's Three Faces of God (p. 9):
As Rainer Maria Rilke said, there is in poetic metaphor the "waking of a likeness within us." When Robert Burns writes, "My love is like a red, red rose," a flower and a woman are shown in erotic connection.
Another powerful comparison is between female sexuality and the moon. Who better to show us that than poet and novelist D. H. Lawrence, here praising the moon and beauty and bliss in lovemaking:
Moonrise
And who has seen the moon, who has not seen
Her rise from out the chamber of the deep,
Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber
Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw
Confession of delight upon the wave,
Littering the waves with her own superscription
Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes toward us
Spread out and known at last, and we are sure
That beauty is a thing beyond the grave,
That perfect, bright experience never falls
To nothingness, and time will dim the moon
Sooner than our full consummation here
In this odd life will tarnish or pass away.
Gaston Bachelard, in his book The Poetics of Reverie, quotes this from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to illustrate a lover's effect on the beloved who cries out: Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth (p. 84). He also tells us, When the forces of matter must be awakened, praise is sovereign. Let us remember that praise has a magical action (p.72). Since this is evident in the psychology of humans, he believes it ought, then, to be the same in a psychology of matter which gives substances human forces and desires. So also with the gods, as in this Indian example: Thus covered with praise, Indra began to grow. (from Dumezil's Servius and Fortune, p. 67, quoted in Bachelard, p. 72)
The poet walks in such a world, where reverie dwells on "praiseworthy space" and, watching the flow of poetic imagery, engages in the psychology of wonder. Bachelard (p. 124) declares, We should so much like to be able to demonstrate that poetry is a synthesizing force for human existence! And I declare that he did just that. I pass his insights along to you as context for this new column devoted to praise poems from around the world.
Keeping in mind our selections from Rilke (out of Eastern Europe) praising praise poems in the German language, and Lawrence (out of England) praising the moon and the night in English, I'd like to call your attention to one more example, this one a classic from the United States, Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," in which he delivers praise to animals (echoing many discussions in this issue of The Grapevine):
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
OUR LATEST GATHERING OF POEMS SUBMITTED BY OUR READERS, SOME OF WHOM ARE REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS.
AFFAQ NAIBE, artist, lyricist, and philatelist from Gulmarg in India, joins us with his poem in praise of love:
Aye Mariah!
I shall not love
anyone in this world but you
nor shall I go to any other
stream to wash my mouth but yours.
Aye Mariah!
O daisy of love, listen.
The truth is
name, fame, royal living
riches and more
are all slaves of love.
Love is above all.
Leave fear and live with harmony
my little dear!
O you promise me
and I promise you my love:
I shall not love
anyone in this world but you.
Oh, stars or moon
moonshine in the water
be viewers of my oath
of my heart full of soul!
My eyes love you.
My hopes stand on the high road.
Lo, O love, I hear the drums roll.
I shall not love
anyone in this world but you.
Give me your hand.
Ah, innocent flower
with my hands I offer you my crown!
Let's make our world anew.
The heart hops up resounding
I shall not love
anyone in this world but you.
Aye Mariah!
BAM DEV SHARMA, teacher and writer of poetry and children's short stories from Nepal, makes another appearance with this praise of poems:
I Want to Write Such Poems
Someday I want to write poems
on the sheet of human miseries
cloyed with happiness and sorrow
with the ink of compassionate tears!
I wonder who will read these poems
and what meanings they could infer.
I think these poems would have words
spilled on numb sheets
Like dew being soaked
in the balmy rays of morning!
When these poems are read
they will melt like ice
flowing down craggy paths of hills
and becoming waves of destiny!
When I write with ink
many of my poems fly
like ruffling leaves of summer
and some of them take part
like mercenaries in foreign lands
and get imprisoned in anthologies
cloyed in ornate metaphors
and chilled in exasperating ironies.
But when I write with the ink of tears
they emit warmth
they melt hearts
they can become rivers.
And then such rivers would flow
from high hills towards the pensive sea
in sonorous muse
fraught with new destination
beyond human misery
carving new destinies!
CHIGOZIE COCO-B EMMA OKONKWO, writer from Nigeria, gives us another poem in praise of love.
What is Love?
"I love you"
the familiar saying goes.
Yet very few know
what it means to love.
Love is not only
to be called "calf-love"
that leads nowhere.
This could just be.
It takes an honest feeling to love.
Love is not only to be looked at.
It takes inner sight
not just window dressing.
To really get a feeling of lust
in the amorous garden
by food, wine, dance and drink
could lead to life-long regret.
This could be also.
It takes a real mind-searching to love.
A display of material wealth
or even natural beauty
is no real sign of love.
A means of defrauding, this may be.
But what is love?
Many tags it has been given by many.
Here is my answer:
Behold, true love is invincible.
It transcends all barriers.
It doubts not.
It bears all things.
And with it
the world a happy place can be.
COLLINS HILLZ, returning Nigerian poet, offers this one in praise of love and water.
Your Glass of Water
Since you have journeyed alone
in this desert of love
you have become so lean.
Since you have been lost
in this wilderness of lonesomeness
you have been a walking shell.
You have been drained
in motion and emotion.
Let me be your glass of water.
Sip me and let me
water your dry heart with love.
Let me be your glass of water.
Let me flow in every muscle, vein and bone.
Let my flow flourish
in this desert you're sunk in.
Pour me down your heart
oh my love.
Let me fill your emptiness
with love
with compassion
and powerful emotion.
Let me be the river
that washes away your guilt.
Make me responsible for taking away
your desolation.
Let me be your glass of water
to quench your thirst for love.
EMEGHARA COLLINS OSINACHI, poet from Nigeria, returns with this piece in praise of mindfulness.
Beneath your Soul
Life is what you make it.
If you make it a mountain
it will rage like a mountain.
If you make it a rainbow
it will spread like a rainbow.
Your mindset controls who you are.
What rules your world
lives beneath your soul.
If you make life a sunshine
you'll live like sunshine.
If you make life a flower
you'll flourish like a flower.
Your state of mind
takes charge of you.
What rules your world
lives beneath your soul.
If you make life a songbird
you'll lavish in sweet rhyme.
If you see life as Rift Valley
you will sink in depression.
Be careful of what reaches your mind.
What rules your world
lives beneath your soul.
If your mindset sees poverty
poverty will lick you like a sweet.
You can be poor but feel so rich.
Yet you can be rich
but not better than a beggar.
Your state of mind rules your world.
What rules your world
lives beneath your soul.
Not that pretty woman
standing in the mirror.
You can be so tall
yet live like a dwarf.
You lose your world
when you lose the grip of your mind.
Now we turn to our earlier discussion of the tradition of praise poems in Africa.
AFRICAN TRADITIONS OF PRAISE POEMS
My first acquaintance with the designation "praise" poem began in graduate school at NYU where I took a class in creative play with Judith Gleason, a woman who spent significant time on the continent of Africa collecting a large crop of African poems, then translated them from their many languages into English and published them with Viking Press in 1980: a volume called Leaf and Bone: African Praise-Poems.
W. S. Merwin, appointed as U. S. Poet Laureate in 2010, author of over 50 books of poetry (twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, along with many other awards), wrote of Gleason's Leaf and Bone:
Since time immemorial the praise-poem has been the fundamental form of African literature, and indeed the staple of all African social discourse. Praise-poems are used to name children and to initiate young people into adulthood. They flatter the host and hail the gods. Yoruba girls undergo formal training in praise-poetry before they marry. And throughout the continent, praise-poems serve as spoken autobiographies and resumes: they are the way in which Africans announce themselves to the world.
This classic anthology of praise-poems has been newly updated by the author to make it the most authoritative volume of its kind. Its poems originate everywhere from the Cape to the sub-Sahara and concern every conceivable subject, from kings and gods to hunters, truck drivers, animals, and bicycles. Elegantly translated and extensively annotated by the renowned African scholar Judith Gleason, the verse in Leaf and Bone is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Africa's heritage, and a feast for anyone who loves language.
In 1994, Penguin Books published an updated edition of Leaf and Bone. (For those who'd like to have a look at it, some hardcover copies of this book are still available on Amazon.com for as little as $5.)
Among the poems we will present in this column, we are fortunate to have a selection by some African poets whose work I first saw on Facebook after joining Motivational Strips, an international writing group where these poets often post a poem a day, each accompanied by a closely related photographic image. The poems fluctuate between praise for love and praise for the world live in, and outcries against corruption and mistreatment, especially of children. I have created a linked page for each one so that we can continue to post their contributions. First, their poems will appear at the top of our page for easy access to readers, then we will move them here to build their pages. We will also create new pages for others as we go along.
AROUND THE WORLD
Now I would like to introduce you to the Facebook site Motivational Strips where I have made so many international acquaintances among poets and writers.
SHIJU H. PALLITHAZHETH and MOTIVATIONAL STRIPS
I recommend to you to see what it looks and feels like to be with a fascinating array of people making daily posts, all in English, sometimes irregular but always sturdy, from around the world.
Sources
Gaston Bachelard, Earth and Reveries of Will: An Essay on the Imagination (Dallas, Texas: Institute of Humanities and Culture, 2002).
Stephanie Dowrick, In the Company of Rilke (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher: Penguin, 2011).
David Abrams, Becoming Animal (New York: Vintage Books, 2011).
Robert Bly, Selected Poems of Rilke: A Translation from the German and Commentary by Robert Bly (New York: Harper & Rowe, 1981).
David Miller, The Three Faces of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).
D. H. Lawrence, "Moonrise" (https://poets.org/poem/moonrise-0). "Moonrise" was published in Lawrence's book Look! We have come through! (Chatto & Windus, 1917).
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960).
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass (New York: The Modern Library, p. 75).
Copyright 2021, Barbara Knott. All Rights Reserved.