"April Rain Song" by Langston Hughes, plus a poetry game: Oulipo

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Central Park, NYC, April 2009

April Rain Song

by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

 Me in Central Park, April 2009

I appreciate the childlike pleasure in rain of Langston Hughes' lines. When do people learn to dislike rain? When I was little I played outside in it, stomping and sploshing in the wade-able gutters. Or I played indoors—Chinese checkers, Sorry, Scrabble, crosswords and word searches, or "house." I created divine and elaborate "mansions" with folios for walls, and my mother's jewelry boxes for furniture. (An open necklace box makes a perfect Davenport sofa for a paper doll, and embroidered handkerchiefs make elegant bedspreads.) Having to stay inside the walls of our house during inclement weather made us focus our creative attentions differently, and it was no less enjoyable to me than running in yard games or riding my bike 'round and 'round the block. In fact, I preferred the quieter play and bodily stillness of the cozy indoors, though I broke into somersaults and head stands if there were too many rainy days in a row.

I've been looking into poetic forms this poetry month. Part of me likes the "walls" and constraints of formal poetry like sonnets or villanelles. Focusing on a limited range of words that rhyme, or fit a certain metric, points my focus on what's inside me that wants to be written by eliminating the clutter of unnecessary material, and illuminating language choices in a smaller more limited range.

In these wanderings I discovered Oulipo. This "workshop of potential literature" (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle) was begun by a loose group of mathematicians, mostly French, who seek "new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy."

I played their N+7 game, remaking a couple of poems. (It's sometimes called S+7; N=Noun, S=Substantive.) What mathematicians and I like about N+7 is how it's both fixed and random. (How thrilling to have something in common with mathematicians.) What you do is this: Take an existing poem, like Langston Hughes' "April Rain Song" and replace each noun with the noun seven entries after it in the dictionary.

The point is to shake up language and open it up. What crazy new potentialities do you see? What do you discover about the original poem? What thought paths or inspirations reveal themselves like beckoning white rabbits down a hole, or songs of larks that make you pause and listen? I confess that besides these intriguing questions, I just really enjoy the nerdy pleasure of opening the dictionary and seeing what the seventh word away will be! By the way, you can eliminate all the words with the same root as your noun. So, for instance, I jumped past all the entries with "rain" in the word.

When I performed an oulipo on "April Rain Song" I was so happy that the noun replacing "rain" was "Rajasthani" because I remembered my dear friend Rauf's blog post about the manly herdsmen of Rajasthan and Gujarat who wear lots of big gold earrings ("Macho, Macho Jewelry"; Rauf let me borrow his photos below). For me, this game didn't "undo" Langston Hughes' poem, or poke fun at it. It shed light on his method of repeating a word for its sound, like continuous raindrops. The nouns that come seven entries after Hughes' nouns, in their fixed yet random aspect, blend into interesting play of syntax and word meaning. There is something synchronous and wondrous about the result. After reading Rauf's blog post about these shepherds, I see the "aqua" turban, I hear the "lumber-room" of the herded animal feet beating and mouths bleating like a rhythmic drowse-inducing lullaby, and I see the "poorhouses" of the Gujrati herdsmen in their fields of hard work and survival. And although the penultimate line of the oulipoem seems nonsensical, I hear the skill (sleight) of the sonny-herdsman, playing a shepherd's song that hovers around him like a shining halo (nimbus) in a dusty pasture at the end of a long, hot, sunny day.

By the way, Gandhi was born in Porbandar in Gujarat. Gandhi said:

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the atomic age—as in being able to remake ourselves."

Photo by rauf at Daylight Again;
Rauf knows how to shake things up

Aqua Rajasthani Sonny

An Oulipo N+7 response to Langston Hughes' "April Rain Song" — replacing each noun of Hughes' poem with the noun seven entries away in the dictionary

Let the Rajasthani kiss you.
Let the Rajasthani beat upon your heap with silver liquid drowse.
Let the Rajasthani sing you a lumber-room.

The Rajasthani makes still poorhouses on the sierra.
The Rajasthani makes running poorhouses in the gym.
The Rajasthani plays a little sleight-sonny on our roomette at nimbus—

And I love the Rajasthani.

Photo by rauf at Daylight Again

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Blogger buried in poetry avalanche . . . new poem found in the rubble

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Her family had warned her, but it made no difference. The stack of poetry books on the table by her red leather chair grew and grew, as if in competition with the Christmas tree by which it loomed. It happened gradually, as things do, one book pulled from the bookcase and added to the pile one week, two more the next, and then another, and another. Finally one day, the inevitable happened. It was just before Christmas, the house aglow with candle spirits. A spicy Cabernet had been poured. The woman in the red chair hunkered down for an evening's read under the alpenglow of her poetry mountain, the crackle and hiss of the woodstove in her ears. But alas, when she slid Keats out from the foundation, the whole damn tower tumbled and buried our poor sitting duck. When they dug her out, a miracle had occurred. She lived! And the volumes of poems had coalesced into a condensed Pompeii of a poem, layered and conglomerate. Two lines of poetry from each book had tumbled out from precisely the pages where their bookmarks were tucked, not one page in either direction, beautifully inscribed through some unknown alchemy on a page of freshly scraped parchment. And, these couplets were joined in exactly the order in which the books had been stacked (except that rebel Bukowski tried to get to the bottom after being on the top; he's a reverse elitist, you know).

Our bruised and concussed woman has requested the help of her blog friends to interpret the mystery revealed in these aggregated lines before she sends them off to Dan Brown. She feels there must be great portent after a near poetic death by suffocation. Please read the mystery poem and leave your interpretation (or get well wishes) in the comment box.

(You will find a list of poems, poets and the volumes of poetry in the Babel-rabble (or is it Babel-rubble?) at the bottom of this post, with links to the poems that are available online. There is a podcast of the poem here, which somehow begins to make sense of these joined couplets.

Avalanche Poem
          a conglomerate of couplets from fifteen poems by other poets

Twas the night before Christmas
when all through the house

The tastes come from afar
and slowly grow nameless on the tongue

There is a hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox

Misquote me and cause confusion, there is a voice that
doesn’t use words. Listen

He says, “There is nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.

Once I looked inside
the darkness

as the shadows assume
shapes

The nights are not made for the masses.
Night divides you from your neighbor,

Once in a while someone will make a pronouncement
about the movement of the stars, the density of silence,

and in the wild transparency submerged
your celestial geometry of flight.

Those who have chosen to pass the night
Entertaining friends

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning

A quiet family, one mother one father one
toddler, around them the breath of the earth,

The house settles down on its haunches
for a doze.

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind

- by the following poets . . .

Listen to a podcast of this found poem here, recorded by the recovering woman of the avalanche.

Couplets are from the following poems and books, in the order that the books were stacked (except for that rebel Bukowski), and only lines from poems at the place of each bookmark were magically contributed to the new poem:

"A Visit from St. Nicholas" - Clement Moore, Christmas Poems
"Summer Fruit" - Rainer Maria Rilke, A Year with Rilke
"Fasting" - Rumi, A Year with Rumi
"Being Slow to Blame" - Rumi, The Soul of Rumi
"The Sunrise Ruby" - Rumi, Rumi: The Book of Love
"The Hermit Crab" - Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems
"Cornered" - Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
"Human Beings at Night" - Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Images
"The First Geniuses" - Billy Collins, Questions About Angels
"Not Alone the Albatross" - Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems
"Violent Storm" - Mark Strand, Reasons for Moving
"Four Quartets" - T.S. Eliot
"Unknown" - Sharon Olds, The Unswept Room
"Afternoon in the House" - Jane Kenyon, Otherwise
"Endymion" - John Keats, The Complete Poems

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The Willow Ball!

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Tomorrow night, this farm chick will giddily galavant to a ball! Our favorite blog sophisticate, Willow of Life at Willow Manor, is throwing a sparkling and extravagant party, the third Willow Ball, and this is the first time I am going. It is a blog event so massive that everyone is invited. To participate, all you have to do is "shop" for your attire, your escort, and any other accourtrements you please on the Internet (or from your own archives, if you are so fortunate), and post them as images at your blog, like I'm doing today. (We hope the original sites for what we borrow won't mind. I'm giving credit for my sources at the bottom of this post.)

I'm asking Willow, Fred and Ginger to bend their ball rules the way they bend their bodies dancing. Here at my place I am morphing the event into a Regency Willow Ball, because, well, I can, and because I have sat waiting to dance at a Jane Austen ball long enough. There are never enough partners . . . or balls for that matter!

I shopped and shopped until my fingers dropped, and I found just what I wanted to wear, how I want to get there, and who will escort me.

If you didn't find out in time to post this event on your blog, you can still party all night long at Willow's Manor and at all the other Willow Ball blogs that are linked there (Willow will have a Mr. Linky widget with participating blogs starting at midnight tonight). Just hop in the coach and click, tap and waltz your way around the floors of the world. Ahh, music, ahh, candlelight, ahh, romance.

Before departing the farm tomorrow,
here is what I'll be wearing.

One must have the proper undergarments, mustn't one?

Don't you think the hairstyle I've asked André

to coif is dressy, without being stiff? No hairspray pour moi.

When you see my dress, you'll understand why my favorite gems, garnets, are the necklace I must wear. Besides, they match my copy of P & P.

I decided against heels, since I'll be dancing through the night,
although maybe uncomfortable shoes would help me stay awake.
Not that these toes look comfortable,
but they're the fashion, what can I do?

I must have a fan to yawn behind,
and I need a handkerchief after certain, ahem, wild dances
when I'll be sweating glowing.
This warm glow will bring out the subtle
scent of lavender oil I've dabbed on my neck, temples and wrists.
(Chanel No. 5 hasn't been blended yet.)
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Here is my silk gown. I'm going to hold it just like this, 

while I twirl and swirl and stub my tiny pointed toes
(and bruise and puncture my poor dance partners). 

I trust my neck will not look as thick as hers,
although it would be harder to break.

Since Willow lives just one state away from me, 

my escort and I really could ride in this cozy coach the whole way.
So romantic, all enclosed, and someone else
to pay attention to the road.

As for my escort, sadly, my husband Don made a commitment for this night (cleaning the chicken coop and his nails afterward). I did get some enchanting offers from dear friends (who had better not forget their promises to dance the night away with me if my escort will permit me to leave his side - forget what I said about punctures and bruises) but they were after my dear, dear friend Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy had already pitied me and charitably offered her husband. Hmph! said I in my head. Second-hand goods, and not directly from the man himself! I considered her offer long and hard over tea and crumpets. I ate a whole package of crumpets! Finally, I sent a note with my carrier chicken to Eliza's dearest Fitzwilliam, sidestepping my dear friend, because I don't want any of those horrid misunderstandings that our friend Emma Woodhouse got into as a result of second-hand news. As I say, I sent this note to Fitzwilliam:  

Colin Firth, as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy in BBC's Pride & Prejudice,

giving Elizabeth The Look

Update: Fitzwilliam Darcy has agreed to my terms, 

and his note also said that we won't be riding in any 

puny little one horse buggy. 

He'll be coming 'round with his coach and four.
Willow, don't worry about the horse puckey!
Fitzwilliam's man will take care of it.

I look forward to seeing you, my dear blog friends, here, at Willow's and all around the world as we turn, spin and swoosh, and drink toasts to each other and our splendid hostess all night long. I have several of you penciled in on my ballspenden and can hardly wait to dance with you. There's still room on it, so don't be shy, gentlemen. And ladies, Mr. Darcy assured me that Eliza has rid him of his infernal pride, and he will dance with as many of you who desire it. Will the night be long enough? Cheers!

Image sources:

The ball

The garnet necklace

The Regency undergarments

The hair

The shoes

The fan
The handkerchief 
The perfume bottle

The ball gown

The little coach

The look

The big coach

The wallpaper designs

Last Minute Prep for the Willow Ball Thursday

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Did you get your invitation to the Willow Ball? Willow of the famous Life at Willow Manor, Magpie Tales and all things willow? You didn't? You just have to go pick it up. Everyone's invited. I especially encourage and cajole you men into going, otherwise we women will have to dance with each other when our escorts need a rest. Not that there's anything wrong with dancing with women, but I prefer a man for a partner. On the other hand, my escort may be available several dances while I nap curled up in the corner.

This is the third year for this famous virtual ball, but this is my first! I don't know what I was thinking the last two years. I was a little intimidated by Willow's grandeur, to be honest. But I've discovered she is down to earth and funny. No doubt another reason I didn't leap into Willow's ball was hearing my once Baptist feet whine, "But we don't know how to dance." Add to that my early bedtime and wondering how in God's name I would stay awake until 10, let alone dawn, and . . . zzzzzzzz

Oh! Yes, I was saying . . . 

No more excuses, I'm going! I'm spending all my spare time getting ready. I have my gown picked out, just need the shoes. And I'm waiting to hear from my possible escort, since Don is going to be busy (I think he plans to clean his nails; or did he say he has to clean out the chicken coop? or clean his nails after the coop . . . .? Whatever . . . ).

I found this beginner waltz lesson. Oh dear, I think I'm definitely going to fall asleep before I even get there.




I looked for How to Stay Awake videos, and when I saw this first one, titled "Stay Awake," I got excited! And then I played it. Mary Poppins is going to be no help whatsoever.

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On a lighter note . . .

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After NY's Spring 2011 fashion shows (it's just walking art, people), I have sifted through the outrageous and the silly and chosen something I would like to wear next spring.

Is it this one, by Marchesa?

Or maybe this, #2, by Monique Lhullier:

Perhaps this one, #3, by Donna Karan:

Or this ensemble, by Karen Walker:

CLUE: It isn't the top or the bottom one. Are you kidding me? 

TOP: Your worst enemy asked you to be her Maid of Honor.
You said NO.

TWO: Wear it to your son-in-law's
PhD commencement ceremony in May, YES.

THREE: A beee-utiful garden party on the Amalfi Coast,
on a terrace overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea? YES!

BOTTOM: Um. Didn't I make that in eighth grade Home Economics sewing class? NO.

And here is what some people have thought of fashion:

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” ~ Oscar Wilde

“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” 
~ Thomas Jefferson
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“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

“Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.” 
~ Francis Bacon, Sr.
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“Fashion condemns us to many follies; the greatest is to make ourselves its slave” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

“Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it's an open mind.”

~ Gail Ruben Bereny

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common - this is my symphony."
~ William Ellery Channing

Fashion quotes found here.

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A Major Blog Award!

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Dear Bloggy Friend!

How did you name your blog? Was it a no brainer, easy as pie? Or was it obscure, esoteric and deep - only you could understand it? Did you choose from five stellar names - or struggle to think of one?? Do you ever regret your blog name? Wish you'd called it something like "The Daily Life of Cindy Jones" because you get tired of explaining what "Les écritures d'une nymphe des bois*" means incessantly? Or vice versa?? Inquiring minds want to know!!!! Namely, mine!!!!

Why not take a break from travel, food, music, book or movie reviews, photos of your grandchildren, your cat, your dog, the chickens, your garden, city, nature, politics, art and poetry and tell the fascinating story of how you came to choose your blog name?!!! Maybe your blog naming story IS about your cat or dog - all the better!!!! What hidden truths about yourself lie within that moniker? And is your profile name a pseudonym??? Completely different from your blog name?? How intriguing, how delightfully freeing to choose a name when you couldn't name yourself at birth!!! A blog is a wondrous playground!!!!

On December 1, publish your own "How I Named My Blog" (echo echo echo) post!!!! Participate with THOUSANDS - perhaps TENS of THOUSANDS - of Bloggers around the world in this first time ever highly anticipated truly GLOBAL event!!!!

But wait, there's MORE!!!! Like my dear friend Al Pacino, I despise and shun awards of any kind!!! But I am going to bestow a Major Blog Award to ONE blogger for "How I Named My Blog" (echo echo echo, and henceforth)!!!! What could be more thrilling?!!!

Did you choose a straightforward name of small proportions and your story will impress me with simplicity, subtlety, nuance and grace? Or will you take your ordinary name of "Nathan's New York" and unfold a titillating and seductive tale - fiction or non-fiction??? Ah - will you transform your blog naming narrative into poetic form - a haiku, a limerick or maybe an epic??? (God be pleased, NO EPICS.) Will you try to make me laugh? How well do you know me? That is the allure for this Major Blog Award - YOU CAN'T KNOW for sure!!!! Maybe I'll lay them all before the chickens and let them "peck" one!!!! I might just give the Major Blog Award to my BBF**!!!!! Or maybe I'll give it to myself - even though I despise and shun awards of any kind - since I myself will explain how I named synch-ro-ni-zing on December 1st!!!! There are no rules or criteria (except NO EPICS)!!!! All bloggers are welcome!!!! You don't even have to have a Blogger blog!!!! WordPress or any other weird site will do!!!! Will I choose the story with the most exclamation points???? The most words in BOLD???? The most embedded LINKS???? Who knows!!!!!!!!!

Just tell me in a comment at this post that you are going to participate in posting your very own story of "How I Named My Blog" on December 1st, give me the URL for the blog where you will post it, and I will list and link to your blog that day!!!!! Then I will read every last one of the posts posted by posting participants and choose a WINNER!!!! Mark your calendar!! (Did you notice that only two "!!" was such a letdown?!!!!) Don't miss out on this FIRST-EVER CHANCE to participate in this unique and major Major Blog Event!!!! Are you going to be away December 1st?? No worries!!!! You can schedule a post ahead of time!!!! Just click on "Post Options" at the bottom of your Compose box!!!! I will announce the WINNER in my first post after December 1st!!!! (If I get the THOUSANDS - PERHAPS TENS OF THOUSANDS - I expect, I'll see you sometime next year!!!!!)

If you get weak at the knees thinking of increased traffic at your site, participate!!!!!! If you get sweaty palms thinking about winning such a Major Blog Award and a traffic jam in front of your blog, or the drama of paparazzi camped out on one side of your lawn and protesters with placards on the other, consider long and hard, my friends!!!!! I am IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!! Any damages are not my problem!!!!

The lucky winner of this prestigious Major Blog Award will get to post on their own site the pulchritudinous award above of an elegant woman christening her blogship!!!!! Imagine how it will look on your site!!!! But don't worry, if you have always been like me and my good friend Al Pacino and despise and shun awards of any kind, and you WIN - post your story anyway, and just don't show up for the award, it's simple!!!!!! Even if you don't WIN the coveted Major Blog Award, you will have gotten that marvelous story down in the annals of blogdom and participated in this highly anticipated Major Blog Event!!!!

I know you are unused to this kind of hysterical buzz at such a serious and sober blog as mine!!! But I couldn't be more serious or sober - even if a little delirious and dervishy!!!! Don't delay, sign up TODAY!!!!!

Now sing along with my close friends Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews as Bert and Mary Poppins as they sing, "It's a bloggy holiday with you, Ruth!!!!!"

Sincerely, soberly and ecstatically yours -
Ruth





*Les écritures d'une nymphe des bois = Writings of a Woodland Nymph

**BBF=Best Blog Friend - (You thought you'd find out who this is down here???)

Note: Emily Dickinson said a poet has license to use one exclamation point in their entire oeuvre. I'm sorry, but I have used all of yours and mine up for this global cause.

Note2: Again I apologize, this was written between 1 and 3 in the morning one night when I couldn't sleep. We can only pray it won't happen again, and this blog will return to its state of peace and tranquility.

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corny garden fun

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If April showers bring May flowers . . .

what do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims.

Planting tulip bulbs Saturday I thought about my dad in his quilted plaid wool shirt raking leaves. His wavy rusty hair had gone gray in those later years, but I still see him standing in the russet maple leaves with matching hair blowing up like a flame to the sky.

Dad was a Baptist minister. He crafted words into two sermons every week, fifty weeks a year, one for the formal Sunday morning service and another for the more casual evening service. His words were not flowery, they were just right. He wanted the gospel to speak for itself through him, a simple vessel. His Virginian accent had softened so you could just barely tell he was Southern. My ever-supportive mother said every week, "Carl, that was the best sermon you have ever preached."

But when he was home, he hardly spoke. We - my mother and eight kids - had to guess what he was thinking. Sometimes he would sit at his end of the big dining table, put his fork down and wait while we figured out what he required. Was it the salt? The bread, butter? The peas? At last after we passed him two or three things he would help himself and we would go on with our own plates. I am guessing he thought the other nine of us talked enough and he just didn't want to add anything else to the room.

But both my parents loved words, the English language, witticisms and word plays of any kind. Nothing got my dad to chuckle through his teeth like a word play. He didn't write this verse I found, but it is just the kind of thing he would have memorized and recited with a big goofy smile.

Cabbage always has a heart;
Green beans string along.
You're such a Tomato,
Will you Peas to me belong?
You've been the Apple of my eye,
You know how much I care;
So Lettuce get together,
We'd make a perfect Pear.
Now, something's sure to Turnip,
To prove you can't be Beet;
So, if you Carrot all for me
Let's let our Tulips meet.
Don't Squash my hopes and dreams now,
Bee my Honey, dear;
Or tears will fill Potato's eyes,
While Sweet Corn lends an ear.
I'll Cauliflower shop and say
Your dreams are Parsley mine.
I'll work and share my Celery,
So be my Valentine.

"Let's let our Tulips meet."

Do you know about "spoonerisms"? Take a minute and at least read the first story of Rindercella, her mugly other and two sad bisters and how she eventually slopped her dripper for the prandsom hince to find who tried it on her mugly other and it fidn't dit.
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