November: Courage
“Fear not November’s challenge bold. We’ve books and friends, and hearths that never can grow cold. These make amends.” - Alexander Louis Fraser (1870–1954)
NOTES
This month I feature four living poets whose work sustains and encourages.
Dennis Sampson for the detailed observation of nature both within and without.
Dave Morrison for warm performance on the page and onstage.
Hope Andersen for the honest, brave insistence we heal ourselves and the world.
Robert Hass for the sly, purposeful teaching of compassion in poetry and prose.
Poetry because it endures and survives when other forms of literature are restricted. Because it can be memorized and passed on. Because it is personal. Because it is national and international. Because it breaks hearts and mends them. Because the act of writing, reading, and sharing poetry creates community and empathy.
If anything can save us, it will be Community and Compassion.
BOOKS: "What It Must Be Like For You" Poems by Dennis Sampson
This newly released book could only have been written by a poet who lived a lifetime carving poetry line by line. It is the best that modern poetry can offer a reader. It breathes. The human heart beating in these poems is wise, gentle, wary, funny, and blazingly intelligent.
This is Sampson's tenth book of poetry. His previous books include The Double Genesis, Forgiveness, Constant Longing, Needlegrass, For my Father Falling Asleep at Saint Mary’s Hospital, Within the Shadow of a Man, The Lunatic in the Trees, and Selected Poems.
Monet withdrew to the banks of his lily pond when war broke his heart. Sampson's porch overlooking his yard is his lily pond and there is so much there, so much to see and hear. So much to feel.
I interviewed Sampson when his previous book was published and that interview is in the archives of this website.
Dennis Sampson's books are available on Amazon and other retailers.
BOOKS: "We are HERE and it is NOW" Poems by Dave Morrison
The title of Morrison's latest book (2023) is taken from a quote by H. L. Mencken: “We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
Morrison's poems can be subtle, bold, conversational, and heartfelt on the page and more than enough for the reader. But they come to vibrant life when performed by the poet. It seems to me that this writer is always thinking of his audience sitting out there in the dark, drinking wine, and sitting back. He wants them to hear the words, come alive, lean forward, and feel. He wants their attention and applause.
Morrison has published nineteen books of poetry including Clubland (poems about rock & roll bars in verse and meter, Fighting Cock Press 2011) and Cancer Poems (JukeBooks 2015). Listen to the way he backs up his readings with his guitar work.
His album Poetry Rocks is available on the Mishara Music website. There is a place in the world for a writer who reaches out like this. It's nothing less than beatific.
Dave Morrison's books are available on Amazon and other retailers.
BOOKS: "Postcards From A Loving God" poems by Hope Andersen
These poems are tracks from the soundtrack to the larger story that is Hope Andersen's life. It is one thing to survive. It is another to lead the way for others to find healing, new life, and creative expression.
Andersen tells her stunning story in her memoir How To Remodel a Life. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her forties, though having lived with its effects since childhood. Her struggles with alcoholism, pills, promiscuity, and abusive relationships led her to the brink of suicide.
It was her husband’s brush with death as they entered their sixties that allowed her to begin her life anew.
Hope Andersen's books are available on Amazon and other retailers.
BOOKS: "Poet in the New World" Poems (1946 - 1953) by Czeslaw Milosz translated by Robert Hass
The above book will be released in February 2025.
There are books of poetry and translations of poetry and anthologies of poetry and nonfiction books about poetry written or translated or edited by Robert Hass scattered all over my house. These are wayside stones that tell me to pay attention to the path. Pay attention or stumble.
His latest book of poetry (2020) is Summer Snow. His previous book of poems was The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems (2010).
My favorite poetry anthology that he edited is Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns, 1997-2000. Hass wrote a brief introduction for each poem in the book and they are exactly what I need. It's a daily reader for me.
His complex and important nonfiction book about poetry called Twentieth Century Pleasures"is a graduate course in modern poetry. It demands my full attention, as it should.
Here is one of my favorite Robert Hass poems read by the poet.
I am sorry to repeat myself, but I do that when there is something pushing on my heart. Please, find a compassionate community and be present there. Turns out, haters don't like poetry and art much at all. Wrap your arms around your friends. Protect each other.
POEM: "When I Heard at the Close of the Day" by Walt Whitman
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d,
And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I was happy.
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