(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Morning Open Thread: Through All My Tears I Still Shall Laugh [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-20 “Survival is a form of resistance.” ― Meridel Le Sueur “The people are a story that never ends, A river that winds and falls and gleams erect in many dawns … The people always know that some of the grain will be good, Some of the crop will be saved, some will return and Bear the strength of the kernel, that from the bloodiest year Some survive to outfox the frost.” ― Meridel Le Sueur, North Star Country ____________________________ . Welcome to Morning Open Thread, a daily post with a MOTley crew of hosts who choose the topic for the day's posting. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule. So grab your cuppa, and join in. ____________________________ Ten poets with birthdays this week ____________________________ February 19 1869 – Hovhannes Toumanian (also spelled Tumanyan) born in Desegh, a village in what was then the Russian Empire but today is part of Armenia; poet, writer, translator, and pacifist; Armenia’s national poet. He was arrested twice for criticizing the government for its role in the oppression and massacres of Armenians. He died at age 54 in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, in 1923. The Armenian Grief by Hovannes Toumanian . The Armenian grief is a shoreless sea, An enormous abyss of water; My soul swims mournfully On this huge and black expanse. It prances at times – enraged, And looks for the shore – blue and serene, Where sometimes, it wearily dives deeply Looking for fathomless rest; But it will never reach the bottom of this sea. It will never reach the shore. . In the Armenian grief – on the black expanse My soul lives and mourns… . – translator not credited ____________________________ . 1941 – Stephen Dobyns born in Orange, New Jersey; prolific American poet and novelist, who has also taught at several colleges and universities, including Sarah Lawrence College and Boston University. He is the author of 24 novels and 14 poetry collections, including The Balthus Poems; Black Dog, Red Dog; Cemetery Nights; Velocities: New and Selected Poems; and Winter’s Journey. Prague by Stephen Dobyns . The day I learned my wife was dying I told myself if anyone said, Well, she had a good life, I’d punch him in the nose. How much life represents a good life? . Maybe a hundred years, which would give us nearly forty more to visit Oslo and take the train to Vladivostok, learn German to read Thomas Mann . in the original. Even more baseball games, more days at the beach and the baking of more walnut cakes for family birthdays. How much time is enough time? How much . is needed for all these unspent kisses, those slow walks along cobbled streets? . "Prague" from The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech, © 2016 by Stephen Dobyns – BOA Editions, Ltd. ____________________________ February 20 1870 – Pieter Cornelis Boutens born in Zeeland, the least populated and westernmost province of the Netherlands; Dutch poet, classicist, and mystic. He taught classical languages at a boarding school for boys from 1894 to 1904, when he suffered a physical collapse. After he recovered, he settled in The Hague, and earned his living as a private tutor. Boutens was a member of the Association of Writers (founded in 1905), and became its president in 1918. He died at age 73 in 1943, after he had become a member of the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer, part of the German occupier’s Nazification of Dutch society to keep the press and the art world under their control. This taint did not hinder his posthumous fame as a poet and translator: his voluminous collected works were successively published in seven volumes from 1943-1954. starry sky by Pieter Cornelis Boutens . Now you can go to sleep safely, Now all the heavens are open: Soul, whose longing oak dark walls In star to star burns transparently, And in the beauty of this temporary land Your eternal fate must already be loved, As your delight looks to The throne of God. . – translator not credited ____________________________ February 21 1907 – W. H. Auden born in York, England; British-American poet, playwright, and prose author who grew up near Birmingham and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After graduation, he spent a few months in Berlin, then taught in British preparatory schools (1930-1935). His first book Poems was published in 1930, and was very influential with his contemporaries, in spite of being poorly reviewed by most critics. He took journeys to Iceland and China (1936-1937), and wrote books about his travels. In 1939, he moved to the U.S., then became a dual American-British citizen in 1946. He taught at American universities, and occasionally at Oxford as a visiting professor. His many poetry collections include Another Time; The Double Man; The Age of Anxiety, which won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; The Shield of Achilles, which won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry; and Thank You, Fog: Last Poems. Base Words Are Uttered by W.H. Auden . Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood, But noble platitudes:—ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded. . “Base Words Are Uttered” from The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems, Volume II, © 2022 by the Estate of W.H. Auden – Princeton University Press ____________________________ February 22 1892 – Edna St. Vincent Millay born in Maine; American poet and playwright. She graduated from Vassar College in 1917, and published her first book of poetry that same year. She became a well-known and highly respected poet and playwright, with a strong feminist sensibility. She was the third woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1923, for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver. In 1936, she was in a road accident which severely damaged nerves in her spine, requiring frequent surgeries and hospitalizations, and at least daily doses of morphine. Millay lived the rest of her life in pain. Though she had been a dedicated and active pacifist during WWI, in the 1930s, she became very alarmed by the rise of fascism, and was an ardent supporter of U.S. involvement in WWII. She worked with the Writers’ War Board to create propaganda, including poetry. Millay’s reputation in poetry circles was damaged by her war work. Book critic Merle Rubin noted, “She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism.” In 1943, St. Vincent Millay became the second woman to be awarded the Robert Frost Medal for body of work. Tavern by Edna St. Vincent Millay . I'll keep a little tavern Below the high hill's crest, Wherein all grey-eyed people May set them down and rest. There shall be plates a-plenty, And mugs to melt the chill Of all the grey-eyed people Who happen up the hill. There sound will sleep the traveller, And dream his journey's end, But I will rouse at midnight The falling fire to tend. Aye, 'tis a curious fancy— But all the good I know Was taught me out of two grey eyes A long time ago. . “Tavern” from Renascenceand Other Poems, first published in 1917 ____________________________ . 1900 – Meridel LeSeuer was born in Murray, Iowa; radical leftist American poet, short fiction writer, essayist, feminist, activist against unfair labor conditions and in favor of the land rights of Southwest and Minnesota Native American tribes. After studying dance and physical fitness, in the early 1920s she moved to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Acting, and lived in an anarchist commune. By 1925, she was a member of the Communist Party. She found work in Hollywood as an extra and a stunt woman in silent pictures, but also continued to write articles for newspapers and journals, and children’s books which became popular, including biographies like Nancy Hanks of Wilderness Road and Sparrow Hawk. During the Depression, she wrote the harrowing “Women on the Breadlines,” published in New Masses magazine in January 1932. Lesueur was blacklisted in the 1950s as a communist, and taught writing classes in her mother’s home. In the 1960s, she travelled the U.S., attending and writing about the student protests, and in the 1970s, she lived among the Navajo people in Arizona. Her work was discovered by feminists in the 1970s, and enjoyed a revival. LeSueur’s unpublished novel, The Girl, written in the 1930s, was finally published in 1978. Ripening: Selected Work was published 1993. She died at the age of 96 in 1996. This poem was written after LeSeuer attended the 1985 UN Conference on Women in Nairobi. ARISE! by Meridel LeSeuer . They came, bright over the old African horizon They came, wave after wave with their wounds bandaged in flowered woven bandages. They rose in great waves, earth in their flesh They came out of slavery upon which the western world was built. They came appearing in their massive soaring power. They came rising out of the mortgaged stolen country. They came out of the corrupt city of Nairobi, the skyscrapers actually embedded in the starving breasts of thousands of starving farmers and workers. The property sign brazenly, Standard Oil, Exxon, General Motors, all the predators from my country now looting the earth and the cheap labor of living beings. They came in the thunder, carrying their dead children. They drummed and danced and shook the gourds in flesh and power and survival. Don’t stop me, the Sudan woman cried, I came to speak of hunger. Don’t stop me, I appear at last. I am not supposed to be here, I was not supposed to survive. We are supposed to be gone. But we appear in the thunder of our solidarity. We claim our earth. We claim our flesh We have been nought We shall be all. I saw them. I am an old woman and I began to dance. I will never be afraid again. I will never feel alone again. Dying in the old deathly world with the murderers. Assassins. Vultures. I will never leave the rising power of the oppressed. The earth shall rise on new foundations, dancing, singing and the touch of love and the hosanna of freedom They come. . ____________________________ . 1900 – Giorgios Seferis born as Georgios Seferriades in Urla, in the Ottoman Empire; one of the most important 20th century Greek poets, and a career diplomat in the Greek Foreign Service (1926-1967). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 “for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture.” When the repressive right-wing ‘Regime of the Colonels’ overthrew the Greek government in 1967, many of his poems were banned, and Seferis went into voluntary seclusion. After two years of widespread censorship, political detentions, and torture, Seferis broke his silence in March, 1969, making a personal statement against the regime on the BBC World Service, with copies distributed simultaneously to every newspaper in Athens. Seferis died at age 71 in 1971, and huge crowds followed his coffin through the streets of Athens, in defiance of the military junta, singing composer Mikis Theodorakis’ setting of the banned Seferis poem. 'Denial.' Denial by Giorgios Seferis . On the secret seashore white like a pigeon we thirsted at noon; but the water was brackish. . On the golden sand we wrote her name; but the sea-breeze blew and the writing vanished. . With what spirit, what heart, what desire and passion we lived our life; a mistake! So we changed our life. . — translation by Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard “Denial” from George Seferis: Collected Poems, © 1995 by Princeton University Press ____________________________ February 23 1942 – Haki R. Madhubuti born as Don Luther Lee in Little Rock, Arkansas; African-American author, poet, publisher, educator, and operator of a black-themed bookstore. Co-founder in 1967 of Third World Press, considered the oldest independent black publishing house in the U.S. His poetry collections include Book of Life and HeartLove: Wedding and Love Poems. Is Truth Liberating? by Haki R. Madhubuti . if it is truth that binds why are there so many lies between lovers? . if it is truth that is liberating why are people told: they look good when they don't they are loved when they aren't everything is fine when it ain't glad you're back when you're not. . Black people in america may not be made for the truth we wrap our lives in disco and sunday sermons while selling false dreams to our children. . lies are refundable, can be bought on our revolving charge cards as we all catch truth on the next go round if it doesn't hurt. . “Is Truth Liberating?” from Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems: 1966-2009, © 2009 by Haki R. Madhubuti – Third World Press ____________________________ February 24 1837 – Rosalia de Castro born in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, an autonomous community of Spain; one of the most important figures of 19th century Spanish modern lyricism, and leading figure of the emergence of the literary Galician Language. Castro published her first poetry collection, on May 17, 1863, now celebrated as Día das Letras Galegas (Galician Literature Day), an official holiday in Galicia. I Know Not What I Seek Eternally by Rosalia de Castro . I know not what I seek eternally on earth, in air, and sky; I know not what I seek; but it is something that I have lost, I know not when, and cannot find, although in dreams invisibly it dwells in all I touch and see. . Ah bliss! Never can I recapture you either on earth, in air, or sky, although I know you have reality and are no futile dream. . – translated Muriel Kittel ____________________________ February 25 1871 – Lesya Ukrainka born as Larysa Petrivna Kosach in Novorad-Volynskyi in what was then the Russian Empire; Ukrainian poet and political, civil and feminist activist; contributed greatly to the development of Ukrainian Modernism and its transition from Ukrainian ethnographic themes to subjects that were universal, historical and psychological. In her early teens, she contracted tuberculosis of the bone, and often had to spend time away from home in places with dryer climates. She was arrested by tsarist police in 1907, and remained under surveillance until her death at age 42 at a health spa in the Georgia region of Russia in 1913. Contra Spem Spero (Against All Hope I Hope) . by Lesya Ukrainka . Away, dark thoughts, you autumn clouds! A golden spring is here! Shall it be thus in sorrow and in lamentation That my youthful years pass away? . No, through all my tears I still shall laugh, Sing songs despite my troubles; Have hope despite all odds, I want to live! Away, you sorrowful thoughts! . On this poor, indigent ground I shall sow flowers of flowing colors; I shall sow flowers even amidst the frost, And water them with my bitter tears. . And from those burning tears will melt The frozen crust, so hard and strong, Perhaps the flowers will bloom and Bring about for me a joyous spring. . Unto a winding, flinty mountain Shall I bear my weighty stone, Yet, even bearing such a crushing weight, Will I sing a joyful song. . Throughout a lasting night of darkness Ne'er shall I rest my own eyes, Always searching for the guiding star, The bright empress of the dark night skies. . I shall not allow my heart to fall sleep, Though gloom and misery envelop me, Despite my certain feelings That death is beating at my breast. . Death will settle heavily on that breast, The snow covered by a cruel haze, But fierce shall beat my little heart, And maybe, with its ferocity, overcome death. . Yes, I will laugh despite my tears, I'll sing out songs amidst my misfortunes; I'll have hope despite all odds, I will live! Away, you sorrowful thoughts! . – translation by Vera Rich “Contra Spem Spero” from Lesya Ukrainka: Selected Works – University of Toronto Press, 2014 edition, originally published in 1968 ____________________________ G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies! ____________________________ [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/20/2153921/-Morning-Open-Thread-Through-All-My-Tears-I-Still-Shall-Laugh Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/