Today, one of the best-known war poems of all time. It's also the best-known rondeau in the English language. And although it is Memorial Day in the United States today and this post bears the image of an American flag, this poem was written by a Canadian poet. But when a poem is right for the day, it's right for the day.


In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Discussion of the poem:

As already mentioned, it's a rondeau. The "chorus" line of the poem is, in this case, derived from the first three words of the poem: "In Flanders fields". Apart from that line, the poem is written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), with end-rhyme options of "I" or "O". The first stanza has five lines, the second four, and the last stanza has six lines. The rhyme scheme is: AABBA AABX AABBAX (with X representing the shorter refrain "In Flanders fields", which is not rhymed to any other line).

This is one of the most famous of the War Poems from the First World War. It is frequently misprinted (including at The Academy of American Poets) using "grow" in the first line, but "blow" is actually correct. Flanders is, for those who aren't aware, an older name for the Flemish or Dutch-speaking portion of what is now called Belgium.

About John McCrae: McCrae was a Canadian who trained as a doctor. He trained two of the first female doctors in Canada prior to enlisting in the military. He served in battle, and was none-too-happy when he was diverted from the field and sent to organize a medical unit. In fact, he is quoted as having said, "[A]ll the goddamn doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men." His poem, "In Flanders Field", became internationally famous during his lifetime, and he regarded its success with detached amusement, although he was pleased that it was used to remind young men "where their duty lay". The first stanza of the poem is on the reverse side of the Canadian $10 bill. Because so many folks substitute "grow" for "blow" in the first line (in error), rumors abounded that the Bank of Canada got it wrong and was recalling the $10 bills. As Snopes.com pointed out, the first stanza of the poem is, in fact, correct, and any rumors of a recall are false.

McCrae died of pneumonia while working at a war hospital in Boulogne, and is buried in France. Below is an image of the poem in his own writing after it was published in Punch in 1915. (McCrae initially threw it out, but a fellow soldier named Edward Morrison salvaged it and submit it to Punch magazine. It initially appeared anonymously, but was rapidly identified as McCrae's work.)

I was just reading the Rolling Stone interview of George R.R. Martin, "The Hand Behind the Throne", from the May 24, 2012 issue of the magazine, and I was much taken with a lot of what Martin had to say. (You will note that I opted to put the cover photo up here, instead of a photo of Martin, but that is because I think Peter Dinklage is smokin' hot, and - no offense intended - I prefer him to a photo of George R.R. Martin. But I digress.)

Here's a bit of what Martin had to say in the interview:

Q: Some authors carefully plot out every page, while others improvise the whole thing. Where to you fall in that spectrum?

A: I have names for those types of writers: I call them architects and gardeners. The architect, before he drives a nail into a plank, has all the blueprints and knows what the house is going to be like and where the pipes are going to run. Then there are the gardeners, who dig a hole in the ground and plant a seed and water it -- with their blood sometimes -- and something comes up. They know what they planted, but there's still lots of surprises. Now, you seldom get a writer who is purely a gardener[.]

Definitely worth getting your hands on this issue in order to read the article. I especially liked what he had to say about how some people will tolerate the graphic description of an ax into a skull without blinking, but cannot bear any details involving a penis into a vagina, about how he works slowly, about nervousness that each check might be his last (still), and his closing comments about how books are in some ways more vivid in his memory than parts of his actual life.

Plus, if you get this issue, there's a nice interview with Peter Dinklage. With photos. Rrawr.

Come this Friday, The Omnibus of Doctor Bill Shakes and the Magnificent Ionic Pentatetrameter will be launched into the world, containing (among other things, including short fiction based on his plays and takes on poems by other people) my steampunk riff on today's poem choice, Sonnet 55 ("Not marble, nor the gilded monuments").

My poem, which keeps the Shakespearean rhyme scheme and, I might add, the general sentiment of the poem (whilst using steampunkery), is entitled "Nor iron, nor the Difference Engine". I am quite excited to be part of this collection, and hope that those of you with a penchant for all things steampunk and/or Shakespeare will give it a go!

Meanwhile, here's the exquisite original, with commentary by moi:

Sonnet 55
by William Shakespeare

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments,
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils* root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick** fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
  So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

*broils: tumults, battles

**quick: probably intended for its double meaning: 1) fast-burning and 2) the sort that burns something to its quick, or its very heart/center

Form: A Shakespearean sonnet, of course, written in iambic pentameter (5 iambic feet per line, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), and with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The first eight lines are grandstanding, in a way: "Monuments shall fall into ruin, but not your reputation" is the gist of it. The next six lines take a slight turn (or volta) when the focus shifts away from monuments falling to wars and the ravages of time and more to the active nature of the poem and its ability to preserve the memory and reputation of the Fair Youth: "My poems about you will keep your memory - and therefore the essence of you - alive until Doomsday".

Discussion: First, let me say how very much I love the line about "unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time", "sluttish" being a word which here means "disgustingly dirty", and not actually something sexual. Second, let me say that this poem conjured for me an image of fallen statues, which naturally called up "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which I discussed as part of 2009's National Poetry Month posts, with its image of trunkless legs standing in the desert.

Of particular interest are the personification of war through the invocation of Mars, the Roman god of war, and how Shakespeare claims that Mars is no match for poetry. In fact, he claims that poetry will outlast war, while the physical things built by men will not. (A different sort of take on ars longa, vita brevis, which is usually interpreted as meaning that a particular work of art - say, a marble statue - will long outlast a human life. Shakespeare's art is his poetry, which he claims will outlast even those marble statues (and he has been correct in some cases, as with respect to works of art destroyed by war or the ravages of time).

The final couplet is an extremely pithy summary of what he's been saying all along: "So, until judgment day, you live in my poem, and as a result, your spirit is kept alive in that of all lovers."

Pretty bold claim, and yet who am I to argue? Four hundred years or so after it was written, this poem is still around and we're still talking about it and about Shakespeare's obvious love (platonic, romantic, sexual, or otherwise) for the Fair Youth, whose identity can only be guessed at (although many believe it to be Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton). Still, that Fair Youth's spirit is kept alive, is it not, by these poems? And while it would be tempting to dismiss Shakespeare's talk of "powerful rhyme" and his claims of keeping the Youth's reputation and memory alive until Doomsday as hubris - and I'm nearly certain he took crap for it during his lifetime and was undoubtedly accused of puffery, to say the least - it would seem that the Bard might be having the last laugh. For while it is not yet time for the final judgment (best as I can tell), there are plenty of folks still admiring Shakespeare's "powerful rhyme".

Today, a review of TAKE TWO! A Celebration of Twins by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen, illustrated by Sophie Blackall. The book is a collection of poems - from formal forms like the sonnet and villanelle to songs to various rhymes. The book is split into four sections: "Twins in the Waiting Womb", "Twinfants", "How to Be One", and "Famous Twins", and includes, in places, some poems that overlap a bit in content (especially in the "How to Be One" section, where several poems cover the "twins are individuals" notion, albeit in differing ways).

One of my favorite formal poems in the book is the clever, nontraditional sonnet - it has the requisite 14 lines and follows the Shakespearean rhyme scheme (ABABCDCDEFEFGG), buy it contains only one syllable per line:

Sing a Song of Sonogram
(A Sonnet)

The
twin
be-
gin-
ning!
Wow!
Sing
now--
non-
stop,
Mom,
Pop,
proud
crowd!

So that you can see and (I hope) appreciate Sophie Blackall's artwork, here's a two-page spread:



Recommended as a shower gift for anyone expecting twins, as well as for families with young twins, and for fans of Pat Lewis's and Jane Yolen's work (and really, who isn't?)

I haven't been writing much lately. Not just here, but in general.

I did, however, write a haiku as part of a group project with my sisters from other misters: Andi Sibley, Laura Purdie Salas, Tanita Davis, Sara Lewis Holmes, Liz Garton Scanlon and Tricia Stohr-Hunt. All seven of us wrote a haiku, inspired in part by whosever haiku came before us, then Andi suggested turning the project into a renku, which is explained much better at other people's blogs today, but which involves a two-line bridge between haiku.

I hope you'll read the entire renku over at Sara's blog. In the meantime, here's my (slight) contribution:

palest pink dogwood
April breezes whisper by
petals flutter down

Here are links to the other posts today:

Tanita Davis talks about finding April's purpose
Andi Sibley explains renku
Liz Garton Scanlon's post is here
Tricia Stohr-Hunt posts some of the conversations that led to our renku.
Laura Purdie Salas posted the complete project (in a pretty, pretty font)
Sara Lewis Holmes has the poem and some explanation.

Jane Austen started writing stories at a very young age - at least as young as 8 or 9 - many of which she kept and copied into notebooks. Even though many of her "novels" contained in the juvenilia are extremely short (some only a few paragraphs in total), one can see her sense of fun and sense of humor coming through. She also loved to skewer the conventions of the time, taking widely-used story elements that one step further into absurdity.

Many of her novels are dedicated to family members, including "The Beautifull Cassandra", which was dedicated to Austen's sister, whose name was also Cassandra. I especially love the dedication she wrote to her sister:

MADAM

You are a Phoenix. Your taste is refined, your Sentiments are noble, & your Virtues innumerable. Your Person is lovely, your Figure, elegant, & your Form, magestic. Your Manners, are polished, your Conversation is rational & your appearance singular. If therefore the following Tale will afford one moment's amusement to you, every wish will be gratified of

your most obedient
humble servant

THE AUTHOR

Don't you love how saucy she is? And how she pretty much insults her sister's appearance in calling it "singular"? And how, at such a young age (probably age 12 or so), she was already referring to herself as "THE AUTHOR" in all capital letters? (Not "the authoress", you'll notice.)

Today's accompanying poem choice takes a bit more set-up, I'm afraid. "The Beautifull Cassandra" has 12 chapters, many of which are only one to two sentences in length. In it, Cassandra first steals a bonnet from her mother's millinery shop, then gets into all sorts of trouble, committing petty crimes, including the theft of ice cream and of a carriage ride. (On finding she had no money to pay for the ride she'd taken, she stuffs her stolen bonnet over the coachman's head and runs off.) The story ends with Cassandra saying "This was a day well spent."

I got to thinking about that bonnet, which is how I came to today's selection:

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes
by Billy Collins

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer's dividing water,
and slip inside.

Read the rest here.

Sadly, I was only there for one day, but it was for a good reason, since it was M's junior prom on Saturday. As Angela De Groot reminds me, there will be other conferences, but there will not be another junior prom for M.

My wonderful companion got up at 4:30 with me yesterday morning so we could drive to Springfield, Mass (about 4 hours away). We arrived shortly after 9, and I can tell you that the day passed extremely quickly. There's simply not enough time to catch up with everyone the way I would've liked - particularly when so many of the "everyones" had left already, or were cutting out early.

My workshop went well (I think), despite my rapping the lyrics to "It's Tricky", singing "Amazing Grace" and the theme song to Gilligan's Island, and invoking Toto as an example of how to put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. (Go ahead - listen to the line in "Africa" about Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus about the Serengeti - you'll hear it.) I was thrilled to have such a large and interested audience, and thankful to the two Lindas who moved a table to the front of the room for me when it turned out the podium I'd requested wasn't there.

I managed to catch most of Jane Yolen's speech (questions from my workshop ran over), which was terrific and well worthy of the standing ovation she received. (Jane, in turn, had caught most of my workshop, leaving a few minutes early to get upstairs for her speech.) Then there was a bit of time for catching up, and it was time to go. In the pouring rain. Thank goodness for my wonderful guy, who took care of the driving all the way home (and still managed to make good time, even with the bad weather).

Tomorrow, I start some new writing in earnest. (Today was for recovering.)

In Volume II, chapter 4 (or, if you prefer, Chapter 27) of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen writes "What are men to rocks and mountains?" As noted in a previous post about the chapter, Elizabeth Bennet (and perhaps Austen herself) is expressing an affinity with the Romantic movement of the time, which asserted the importance of Nature.

Instead of an associated poem today, here's an excerpt of William Wordsworth's "Introduction" to Lyrical Poems, a collection of poems by Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge:

Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Two pieces of good news about AT THE BOARDWALK today:

1. At the Boardwalk is one of the books featured today over at A Year of Reading. Thank you, Mary Lee!

2. I stopped into the Barnes & Noble store in Marlton, NJ today to purchase IMAGINE: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. Whilst there, I thought I'd visit my book - the first time I'd be seeing it inside a store. I was gobsmacked to find it faced on the featured picture book wall with a number of other sea- and summer-related titles. You may then imagine my shock when, after shoe-shopping for prom with M this evening, we found it in the same place on the featured picture book wall at the B&N in Cherry Hill, NJ as well.

So, uh, if you happen to be in a Barnes & Noble near you, could you check the picture book feature wall and let me know if this is a national thing? Because I might just faint dead away if it is . . . but I'd still like to know.

Today's quote comes from a letter Jane Austen wrote to her sister, Cassandra, on Friday, May 31, 1811.

I thought to provide you with the lyrics to "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush", or perhaps "Mulberry Fields" by Lucille Clifton, which is brilliant, but a bit too dark for what I wanted.

Instead, I'm going with a silly sort of poem by William Jay Smith, entitled "Moon", which is written using a form of accentual verse in three stanzas composed of rhymed triplets.


Moon
by William Jay Smith

I have a white cat whose name is Moon;
He eats catfish from a wooden spoon,
And sleeps till five each afternoon.

Moon goes out when the moon is bright
And sycamore trees are spotted white
To sit and stare in the dead of night.

Read the last stanza here.