Parisian Literary Salon

Thursday June 19 & Wednesday June 25th The Parisian Literary Salon offers two poetry study evenings…
Where: The Hampstead School, Westbere Road
When: 7- 8:30 PM

Works to be discussed on the 19th: Elizabeth Bishop’s Sestina,
Leanne O’Sullivan’s The Cord & Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the
Night.
Works for the 25th: T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
Yeat’s The Second Coming and P. Levine: They Feed They Lion

The themes connecting these works one might propose to be chaos, apocalypse- the loss of the structure of a hierarchical universe- can we find notes of hope in these works of despair? Should we even try? Come add your voice.
For copies of the poems and registration, please send a message using the Contact Form here.

Be sure to pick up the Ham& High: Hampstead & Highgate Express on June 19 with a feature article on the Salon…

Living
By Denise Levertov

The fire in leaf and grass
So green it seems
Each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves
Shivering in the sun,
Each day the last day.

A red salamander
So cold and so
Easy to catch, dreamily

Moves his delicate feet
And long tail. I hold
My hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

So the Salon has moved to North London and a month after the move I am still struggling to put words to the idea of dislocation. As always, when I am struggling to name a tidal wave of feeling, I shuffle through my poetry books, looking for an echo, a line a pithy summary of all that is ineffable in the spectrum of human emotion. I was drawn to this poem by Levertov because of the sense of the fragility of the moment- and accompanying the understanding of that fragility is the gift of wonder at the moment. There is grief here- as we recognize the wonder, the moment is passing- the salamander slips away. This echoes my feeling at the moment of change; leaving Paris, leaving the incredible (superlative, indescribable) community of the Alesian Literary Salon and finding myself in London- casting about, muddled: then knowing, in that absolute way of knowing that the Salon is not finished- in that way of dynamic things it is changed and reborn.

Change requires recognition. To honor the incredible work and participants of the Alesian Literary Salon, the London-based Salon will be known as the Parisian Literary Salon. It rhymes as well as confuses. I am also working on a Salon intensive weekend back in Paris for September- stay tuned. In the meantime…

Parisian Literary Salon Events in London
JUNE 9- 7-8:30 PM Poetry Evening at the Highgate-Newton Centre
We will be studying

• Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina
• Leanne O’Sullivan, The Cord
• Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

Some themes that may ensue include adolescence …Abandonment … Mythology… Hope… Sin… Poetic form… Narrative perspective…Boundaries between the living & the Dead- should be quite a night. For those interested in joining, please register by emailing me using the Contact form.

I am also lining up two more poetry evenings at the Hampstead School for later in June…stay tuned for details.

In preparation-
I am hopeful you will at least be able to read through each poem a few times- even on the tube as you come- and jot down your thoughts, questions, responses- even if this looks like a list of question marks in the margins. Of course we will start- after brief introductions- with hearing the poem read aloud.

Robert Frost is often characterized as a regional writer. He certainly draws upon the landscape and culture of New England for much of his work and therefore is frequently seen as a ‘folksy’ writer. “Acquainted with the Night” is atypical in the body of his work- but I think more clearly reveals the gritty tensions that permeate even his nature poems.

I found this reflection interesting:

Whatever theme is encountered in a poem by Frost, a reader is likely to agree with him that “the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know.” To achieve that fresh sense of discovery, Frost allowed himself to follow his instincts; his poetry inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life–not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

This description from Frost’s essay, “The Figure a Poem Makes”, may sound as if his poetry is formless and merely “lucky” but his poems tend to be more conventional than experimental: “The artist in me, as he put the matter in one of his poems, “cries out for design.”

-From Poetry by Michael Meyer

Frost’s use of DESIGN (he has a poem with that title that I might just have to send out to you) gets at one of poetry’s primary aspects: how the construction of the thing weaves into its meaning.

Okay- I better stop there- I will hold myself back until June 9. Start time is 7 PM, end time 8:30 PM.

For those on the other side of the Channel, I am in negotiation for a September weekend Salon- I will post those dates as soon as I have them. Also please send me your notes on current reads and I will post them here next week- keep the conversation going!
Toby

A Parting, by Toby Brothers

One parts the hair, we are made of parts
Partings like pairings involve chipping away, finding the core.
Papers, photos nostalgic flotsam are thrown away without mercy
In preparation. We are cleaning.
Nothing though- no all night act of purging
Can clean from my soul all the aches and tears of leaving…
We’ll always have Paris
But Paris shimmies away forgetting us as we move and change address, change visas change countries, jobs, schools friends- as though this were in our control.
I leave a community of thinkers and fellow travelers in the world of words and images
I mourn the lost discoveries, the tumbling Tuesdays of laughter and recognition.
I wander alone in my apartment up here in the Paris sky
Getting things done or acting the part
Wondering how long it will be before I know where I am again
How long until biking the streets at night feels like my own old waltz.

Happy New Year to all !! The possibilities rush forward: resolutions are only one way of marking the freshness offered by this calendar change. In the Salons I have found the opportunity to bring threads of meaning and questions together- to turn over with other awake minds the wonder of the world, and come to some halting and brief truths in the face of our shared experience in the study of the literature. I expect the offerings for the coming series will offer this opportunity again- part of the magic is that I cannot predict where the studies will take us.

Although there are three choices below, I will probably only start the two most subscribed. Notice that Disgrace and To the Lighthouse are 5 weeks Salons- I am responding to the request by some participants for a shorter commitment: let’s see how that works. I will confirm your participation by email with the reading schedule and opening thoughts when I receive your commitment. For those who have previously done a Salon, an email stating your participation for one (or more) of the Salons listed below is sufficient. If this is your first Salon, please send a check for 25 euro to reserve your place in the Salon to me at 3 ter rue d’Alesia, Paris 75014. The 6 week Salon is 75 euro, 5 week Salons are 65 euro.

CHOICES:
1. The Odyssey by Homer (Translation: Robert Fagles)
Tuesday evenings, 8-10 PM first meeting Thursday January 17
Apologies for the change in pattern for the first meeting- the rest of the meetings will follow as usual on Tuesday evenings…

2. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee * 5 week Salon *
Monday evenings, 8-10 PM first meeting January 21st

3. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf * 5 week Salon*
Tuesday afternoons 2-4 PM first meeting January 22nd

The Odyssey - The Salon has certainly been a place to re-discover- or discover for the first time- the works that form the cornerstones of Western literary tradition. The Odyssey is a root for our understanding of ourselves as well as the words and ways of the ancients. How does it continue to shape our idea of the heroic? What do the dilemmas that Odysseus faces offer to us today? Can we still appreciate the lyric and narrative quality alongside a violent story filled with the suffering and death of nameless servants, slave girls and soldiers?

David Denby, in his work Great Books, describes his engagement with The Odyssey as an essential exploration of the formation of the self for the reader as well as for Telemachus and Odysseus:

Even at the beginning of the literary tradition of the West, the self has masks, and remakes itself as a fiction and not as a guiltless fiction either. . . The Odyssey is an after-the-war poem, a plea for relief and gratification, and it turns, at times, into a sensual, even carnal celebration.

Disgrace - Disgrace won the Booker Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and J.M. Coetzee was winner of the Noble Prize in Literature. While these are all good reasons to read the book, the work challenges the reader in disturbing ways. Written in the world of post-apartheid South Africa, the narrative perspective is uncomfortable: a 52 year old university professor whose solution to the problem of sex is first a paid liaison followed by a possible rape of a student of his. But this is not what the work is ultimately about- nor is it the most uncomfortable aspects of the work. Some critics have accused Disgrace of offering racist portrayals of the black characters who are limited in their presentation and behave violently. Reading this work will bring us to some jagged considerations: what is the responsibility of a writer in a politically charged landscape? What is the relationship between art and politics? How much do we trust the distance between a writer and his protagonist? Can a writer use a deeply disturbing situation to develop human understanding and compassion? Can art offer redemption?

The prose is fittingly sharp and spare. There are parallels in character and situations- both within and beyond the book- that get our attention. Just this week an essay in the NYT considers this work in light of its historical time and place:

An unsettling interweaving of realism and allegory, with biblical allusions and Dostoyevskian moral complexity, Disgrace has been called a masterpiece “a novel with which it is almost impossible to find fault,” wrote the critic James Wood, who praised “its loose wail of pain, its vigorous honesty.” The reviewer goes on to discuss the accusations of racism that have been aimed at the book. We will need to consider this carefully, and see if in our own study, we find the book offers us something more in exchange for the discomfort we experience.

For the full text of the article, see- Essay: Out of South Africa
BY RACHEL DONADIO
Published: December 16, 2007 in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/books/review/Donadio-t.html?ref=review

To the Lighthouse
- by Virginia Woolf
see ‘What We might read’ section

Tuesday Nights 8-10 PM: Hamlet by William Shakespeare (4 spaces available)

Tuesday Afternoons 2-4 PM: Hamlet by William Shakespeare (6 spaces available)

November/December Salons commence the week of November 13th, registration is happening now. Cost for the Salons is 75 euro for the six week session- this includes all photocopies. If this is your first Salon, you can reserve your place with a 25 euro deposit. If you have participated in a past Salon, your electronic commitment is enough. For more details and queries, please write via the “Contact Me” link above.

Love Like Salt by Lisel Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals

Too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet

Without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine

We step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies

In secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table

Talking of holidays by the sea.

I was considering poems for the next Poetry Salon when I came across this exquisite piece. I recently had a conversation with some friends on the nature of love and was awoken again to the many perspectives and possible models of love. As we ascend to the end of Dante’s magnificent vision in Paradise, I am surprised how deeply we struggle to understand the relationship between Beatrice and Dante- and how fundamental that understanding is to the work as a whole even as we consider the architecture of the universe Dante created, his levels of shining souls residing in Paradise, his theological arguments and political concerns.

In Love Like Salt, the careful and economic choice of words (Love is never named in the poem) reinforces the quotidian nature of love. Moving from its precious, ineffable nature in the first stanza directly to the kitchen floor in the second and third, the poem does not attempt to obscure love but by the playing out of the extended metaphor (love = salt), I am brought anew to my occasional thought of the absolute necessity of love in my life- not just as an enhancer, but as life-giving.

Even the final line- that seems to pint to our distraction from the thing at hand, contains within it a further image of the love/salt duo- the holidays at by the sea involve being immersed in the buoyant salty world; again without awareness, without consideration. We are immersed in our love all the time.

Poetry Salon: October 23, 20.00-22.00

After the pure pleasure of the September Salon night, this looks to be a Salon regular feature. My aim is to have the Poetry night occur at the start of the new series. Please sign up by your email commitment and I will send you the specifics including poems as they are determined. The cost is 10 euro and a suggested contribution of a nibble or boisson. I am considering some Emily Dickinson works perhaps to paired (oh, it is so cliché but the contrast brings each into clarity) with Walt Whitman (some stanzas from Leaves of Grass or A Noiseless Patient Spider) along with Louise Gluck or Phil Levine or Sharon Olds…there is so much to choose from! And while I am procrastinating the choice, I must read more poetry every day…

Next Salon series Hamlet starting November13^th

I had a difficult time deciding on this series- but with the approach of the holidays, decided it was time for an old favorite- and I have been missing Shakespeare. Please see the description below and email me to sign up for this Salon. Both the Tuesday afternoon (2-4 PM, location to be announced) and the evening (8-10 PM, 3 ter rue d’Alesia) salons will be Hamlet- a work fundamental to understanding the individual in society. See description below…

Although the future can NEVER be predicted- I am preparing for January The Odyssey and J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.

See you in the pages-

Toby Brothers

Alesian Literary Salon Director

Hamlet

- by William Shakespeare

How does one introduce a play that is already drunk on its own superlatives? For this Salon, I propose we come to study Hamlet afresh, not worrying about whether we see it as Shakespeare’s greatest play ever or whether we stand breathless at the language…but finding within the play that that has so riveted audiences and readers for centuries. I welcome to this Salon those who have never read or seen the play along with those who have memorized entire soliloquies - we will need both perspectives to carefully negotiate our way through the ‘constantly shifting register not only of action but of language’ (Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language, 2000).

What is Hamlet about? Themes include the most precise questions of loyalty, revenge and allegiance, what it means to be human, the role of fate and self-will, the truth of madness- the essences of human experience. The language must stand up to the weight of these themes- we will closely examine the words and structures to decide if it does and if so, how. As I seek to describe the text, I am aware that the terms approximate that of a wisdom tradition. Harold Bloom, one of the twentieth centuries’ most highly regarded and prolific literary critics, puts Shakespeare even more emphatically in the role of deity:

“Shakespeare is my model and my mortal god…Hamlet is part of Shakespeare’s revenge upon revenge tragedy, and is of no genre. Of all poems, it is the most unlimited. As a meditation upon human fragility in confrontation with death, it competes only with the world’s scriptures.” (Harold Bloom, Hamlet, Poem Unlimited, 2003)

As with any other Salon dealing with a dramatic work, we will perform large parts of the text and view various filmed adaptations. If the group feels an extra session is required to complete our study, we will work to find an extra meeting time.

Alesian Literary Salon Newsletter

August 27, 2007

How quickly the summer passes, sifting through my fingers with an almost imperceptible change from the weight of many days to weightlessness. While I regret being so completely out of touch for the past two months, the gift of a newly washed perspective lessens the pang of missed communications and conversations. I hope for all a sloughing off of the old frustrations and struggles; a re-entering into our lives of work, ideas and learning that is so deeply part of the rhythm of life in France.

Salon News

1. Upcoming Salons
2. Poetry Night- September 5^th

1. Upcoming Salons

Tuesday Nights, 8-10 PM Paradiso by Dante (recommended edition: trans. by Mark Musa- Penguin Classics)

Start date Sept. 11

As I wrote at the start of the summer, the Tuesday evening Salon will continue as we explore the final piece of the Divine Comedy, Paradisio. There is room for 2 participants to join this very strong group of readers, please email me by the end of this (Aug 27^th) week if you are interested. I will send out the reading schedule & opening notes by the end of the week.

Salon Two- Still open….

I had many folks interested in the other Salon- now is the time for a commitment!!! We are down to three choices:

The Sound & the Fury

Hamlet

Middlemarch

These Salons would either meet Tuesday afternoons (2-4 PM) or Monday evenings (8-10 PM). Please indicate your preference with your request for inscription. I will confirm the book choice & meeting times as soon as I have enough subscribed to run the Salon. If you have been considering doing a Salon, this would be a great time to dive in!! If you have done Salons and know of someone who would be a good addition to the Salon community, please pass along the information. The Salon thrives with the vibrancy of the core members and the fresh perspectives of new voices.

2. Salon Poetry Night– Wednesday September 5^th

“What I care about is the hardness of the poems. I don’t like them soft, I want them to be little pebbles, but placed where they won’t dislodge easily. And I’d like them to be little pebbles of precious stone-precious, or semi-precious…”

-Robert Frost from an interview with J. Ciardi, Saturday Review, March 1959

I have had many requests for a poetry salon or a poetry night. We would read a poem or two together and respond to the poem with a structure similar to that we use in the regular Salon but condensed into one evening, as a poem condenses experience into its gathered images and language.

I know there are those who fervently love poetry as well as many who don’t know how to read a poem. I will offer some structures for the study of the poem, but the focus will be on our responses to the language & sounds & structure of the work. As with the Salon, we will use our individual responses and questions to build to a full-bodied read and through this enlarge our own perspectives on the work. I encourage especially those who want to get a taste of the Salon experience or who may not have the time to commit to a 6 week Salon.

Sound enticing? Read on…

Details:

Date: Wednesday, September 5^th

Time: 8-10 PM

Works studied:

· Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost

· The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

I know that proposing two works may be ambitious. We will use the Frost poem to do a very close reading, then use the work we have done there (considerations of tone, rhyme, images, symbols, word choice…) to inform our discussion of Prufrock.

Place: Chez moi, 3 ter rue d’Alesia in the 14^th

Registration: Send me an email with your commitment and I will send copies of the poems and other details

Cost: 5-10 euro sliding scale and optional food or beverage contribution

Fall 2007 Salons:

The Sound & the Fury by William Faulkner (possibly)
Paradise by Dante Alighieri (Mark Musa, translator- Penguin Edit.)

Poetry Evening Sept 5 - see details in previous post….

There is a story of a celebrated Russian dancer who was asked by someone what she meant by a certain dance. She answered with some exasperation, ‘If I could say it in so many words, do you think I should take the very great trouble of dancing it?’

It is an important story, because it is a valid explanation of obscurity in art. A method involving apparent obscurity is surely justified when it is the clearest, the simplest, the only method possible of saying in full what the writer has to say.

This is the case with The Sound & the Fury. I shall not attempt to give either a summary or an explanation of it: for if I could say in three pages what takes Faulkner three hundred there would obviously be no need for the book. All I propose to do is offer a few introductory, and desultory, comments, my chief purpose being to encourage the reader. For the general reader is quite rightly shy of apparently difficult writing. Too often it is used, not because of its intrinsic necessity, but to drape the poverty of the writer: too often the reader, after drilling an arduous passage through the strata of the mountain, finds only the mouse, and has little profit but his exercise.

As a result of several such fiascos I myself share this initial prejudice. Yet I have read The Sound & the Fury three times now and that not in the least for exercise, but for pure pleasure.

– Richard Hughes, Introduction to The Sound & the Fury, Picador Classics Edition

I use this quote because I have found it difficult to explain why it is useful to attempt to read a text that seems aloof or unreachable at first. Those who have studied Beloved or To the Lighthouse in previous courses or Salons may know what I mean when I say that the work comes easier when we consider it as a dynamic and motivated group — each person’s question or insight adds to our understanding. I also think that the Salon allows us to make the very private act of reading a part of the public world, and in so doing helps each of us understand our own thoughts about the work more precisely.

———————————————

The Salons start the week of September 10th- NOW is the time to register. The cost of the Salon is 75 euro to be paid in full at the first meeting (this includes copying costs). If this is your first Salon, you must reserve your place by sending a check for 25 euro to me: Toby Brothers at 3 ter rue d’Alesia, Paris 75014. If you have previously done a Salon, your emailed commitment is sufficient. Below you will find further descriptions of the texts.

• The Sound & the Fury- Tuesday afternoons 2-4 PM or Monday evenings 8-10 PM
• Hamlet
• Middlemarch (see descriptions on the site)
  

*please indicate your preference when signing up for this Salon- if both times work for you, tell me that!*

• Paradise– Tuesday Evenings 8-10 PM, Chez moi

*Please note that I will be off-line much of the summer. I will respond to registrations & questions as soon as possible but do not be concerned if I do not respond immediately.

———————————————

The Sound & the Fury
see description under ‘What we might read’ ….

Paradise

Having come this far through Inferno and Purgatory, of course we cannot stop now. But I need more than that to justify the commitment this Salon requires- and I realize I balk a bit at this last section of the Commedia. Certainly I have grown (in my understanding of literature, literary & theological history and human nature) in my study of the first two sections; I am afraid of being let down by the last. There is something more intrinsically interesting I think about souls in torment and anguish- this seems to be where we discover our greatest truths. The common cord in the literature I find great and worthy of our study is the struggle. As Mark Twain wrote, (and I badly paraphrase) ‘why would I want to hang out in Paradise? All these souls at peace and in bliss do not sound so exciting….’

What drives me forward into Paradise is the need to find resolution to our discussions about the nature of love and faith. I am also curious- more than curious- to understand Dante’s full vision of his Creator- and how his faith and meeting of his God brings him to unity. Also I want to know how the figures of the women are resolved- is Beatrice ultimately a believable human portrait? Or does her symbolic and allegorical role hold her to some cold ideal?

Having read Purgatario for the first time and grasping how much the poem adds to the universe set up in Inferno helps me to trust that Paradise will also illuminate the earlier works. Here is a bit from Musa’s introduction of Paradise:

“The main action of the Paradise is concerned with how man’s soul, as it contemplates the making of God’s universe, rises by stages in order to arrive at an understanding of the One creator of that universe. To see the universe as One is the final goal of the journey, and the movement of the journey is from fragmentation to unity. What the pilgrim sees in the cantos of the lower heavens is all in preparation for his vision in the highest heaven, the Empyrean, where he will see the redeemed, united with their bodies, as they will be after the Last Judgment. The cantos of the lower heavens are the steps of knowledge leading to Perfect Vision and union with God. “

– M. Musa, The Divine Comedy Vol. III Paradise pg. ix intro

Finally, our study thus far, though hard, has been truly joyful with the particular readers who have chosen this tough read. Our discussions around the nature of Love and its ennobling aspects have given me much to muse on - I look forward to continuing the conversation.

See you in the pages & happy summer - Toby

Contents

1. Opening thoughts

2. Salon updates - Salon happenings - Salons future

3. Salon trips: Italy, India

1. Opening thoughts

As those who pay attention to these kinds of things may have noticed, the Salon newsletters have trickled down to less than once a month- perhaps due to more happening around the Salons rather than less, and the delicious distraction of trying to write a book on the Salon- and oh yes, the pressing details of daily life, bike accidents and madness of impending summer…I imagine you are also juggling the many calls to your attention and work at this time of the year. This is the moment to look back in astonishment at what the year has brought, and look towards the coming rentrée with the sense of possibility that a new term offers. Below you will find one participant’s reflection on the past few Salons. I look forward to meeting new participants and the wonderful & curious current members in the Salon events ahead.

“What a marvelously diverse and rich array of books! It really has been - once again - a wonderful intellectual and emotional journey through these pages and how they relate sometimes in the same ways, sometimes differently to the various members of our salon. We learn so much more through this communal reading, this team effort at understanding and enjoying these books than we would on our own. All were complex, beautiful masterpieces. And reading them all, will have in some way, changed our lives, and the way we view the world. Thank you for giving us this unique learning opportunity - and for all the FUN we have doing this together in your lovely apartment, full of light, its windows stretching away to the skyline on either side, it is such an OPEN space.”

2. Salon updates- Salon happenings, Salons future

This week marks the end of the Salons on Dante’s Purgatory, the second in a three part series. This study has brought us all deep into the world of 13^th & 14^th century Italy: particularly studying medieval theology, the tradition of Courtly Love, the nature of allegory and symbol, good and evil, divine judgment, free will- all this through one man’s attempt to make meaning of his faith by exploring the soul’s journey in the afterlife. Of course we must finish the Commedia in September with Paradiso- although I am not sure we will ever truly be finished with our study of this work. There is a solid group of 8-11 current participants interested in continuing- if someone would like to join at this point in the journey (a challenge, certainly but not an overwhelming one) please let me know now so I can be sure the numbers work.

In May and June I worked with a dynamic group of readers out in the western suburbs of Paris on a study of Beloved. One member of the group moderated the discussion using the notes and reflections I have been compiling for the Salon book. The feedback has been very positive- and I enjoyed getting new insights and ideas from a group reading this momentous work for the first time.

I am missing the voice of the modern even as my study of Dante’s Divine Comedy is teaching me about the roots and paradoxes of contemporary culture & literature. For those who have always wanted to do a Salon, I would like to offer one of the Salon classics as well for the fall. Below you will find several choices and possible times. Please let me know by the end of June if you are interested in one or more of the following, and your time preference. Each of these Salons will meet for 6 consecutive weeks starting the week of September 10^th and costs 75 euro, including copying costs.

* September-October Salon offerings *

· Tuesday Nights (8-10 PM)- Paradiso by Dante

· Other choices:

The Sound & the Fury Invisible Man

To the Lighthouse Midnights’ Children

Hamlet King Lear

The God of Small Things Middlemarch

These Salons would either meet Tuesday afternoons (2-4 PM) or Monday evenings (8-10 PM). Please indicate your preference with your request for inscription.

Looking ahead to the November Salon series, I am hoping to offer some new (to the Salon) works. Under consideration are:

Dead Souls - Gogol, Mrs. Dalloway - V. Woolf, Paradise Lost - Milton, The Odyssey - Homer, Daniel Deronda - G. Eliot, Absalom, Absalom! - Faulkner

Thoughts ? Interests ? Other suggestions ?

Salon Poetry Night

I have had many requests for a poetry salon or a poetry night. We would read a poem or two together and respond to the poem with a structure similar to that we use in the regular Salon but condensed into one evening, as a poem condenses experience into its gathered images and language.

I know there are those who fervently love poetry as well as many who don’t know how to read a poem. I will offer some structures for the study of the poem, but the focus will be on our responses to the language & sounds & structure of the work. As with the Salon, we will use our individual responses and questions to build to a full-bodied read and through this enlarge our own perspectives on the work. I encourage especially those who want to get a taste of the Salon experience or who may not have the time to commit to a 6 week Salon.

Sound enticing? Let me know if you are interested by email.

Details:

Date: (choice) June 27^th and September 5^th *

Time: 8-10 PM

Works studied: possibilities are poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, Denise Levertov…

Place: Chez moi, 3 ter rue d’Alesia in the 14^th (details to follow for those registered)

Cost: 5-10 euro sliding scale and optional food or beverage contribution

* DATE: This is a crazy time of the year for everyone- so if an evening of poetry wouldn’t be a nice break at the moment- or it is just not possible- please let me know of your interest. Considering the timing, I think the September offering is more likely.

3. Salon trips: Italy, India

Based on the success and pure pleasure of our trip to Dublin for Bloomsday after studying Ulysses, I am researching two Salon trips for the coming years. Those who went to Dublin saw their study come alive and aspects of Joyce’s world that needed the lived experience of the home he left broadened our understanding of the book. And we had a really good time.

Italy: October/November 2007

This trip will come at the end of our study of The Divine Commedia and will be focused on the art and architecture of Medieval Florence and Tuscany. I am working with Claude Rocca (Art Historian) who I hope will be able to lead us through the heart of Dante’s world.

India: La Toussaint 2008

I am working with a Salon participant who splits her time between India and Paris to organize this proposed week-long visit to India (Bombay & Poona). The focus of this trip will be to glimpse aspects of contemporary India as this huge collection of histories, languages and cultures gallops into the global market. We will have discussions and presentations from local poets, editors, writers and others as we immerse ourselves in the land and traditions. In preparation for this trip, I will offer a work based on India in three Salons before the occasion of the trip.

Both of these trips are still in the planning stages. Please email me if you have questions or thoughts.

Alesian Literary Salon Newsletter

May 1, 2007

First, A poem by Wislawa Szymborska

NOTHING TWICE

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you’re here with me,
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stav:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

Contents

1. Comments on poem
2. Salon update
3. Requests for September 2007
4. Some Events
5. A final Szymborska poem

1. Comments on the poem - If you have not discovered the poetry of Wistawa Szymborska, you are in for a treat. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, but is not generally known outside of poetry circles- which is unfortunate: I found her work so lively and sharp- even in translation, the rhymes dance and the images create reverberations. She balances the private and public realms –the poem above appears at first metaphysical & reflective- but within this there is a drama between two people alluded to but not completely revealed that grounds the arching reflection. She also seems to hold both a worldly despair and a discovery of the bliss of the moment; these do not contradict each other. Let me know what you think, and as always please pass on your favorites so I can discover as well!

2. Salon Update - I have been remiss in the Salon newsletters recently. Perhaps it is the immersion in the Inferno and now struggling up the of Purgatory that has made it difficult for me to pick up my gaze and step out of 13^th ct. Italy, Medieval theology, a visit to Virgil & Ovid and the structures of Hell, Purgatory and (maybe) Heaven. This series on Dante’s Commedia is bringing me to new territory- well, actually very ancient territory that is part of the root system of more contemporary writing. Although I am less able to predict the direction and goal of the Salon conversations, our study together has been rich and dynamic indeed. The current groups of participants (afternoon & evening) are a willing and courageous bunch. Together we are working to understand the layers of Dante’s metaphors along with the word view that impels his poetry. I am finding myself thinking hard about human responsibility and issues of justice and the nature of grace whether divine or human. Rev. Tina Blair, pastor with the American Church, joined us one evening to share her knowledge of the medieval church. Some of the participants have been reading up on Virgil and Ovid to understand the Classical inspirations Dante was weaving into his Christian worldview. I am studying C.S. Lewis’s Allegory of Love to understand a very different paradigm of romantic love that is, for Dante, an aspect of his salvation. Where will this takes us? For now, we are moving up the mountain in Purgatory…

3. Requests for September 2007 - So I am looking ahead to September. I would like to open wide the possibilities for the Fall as I know many folks on the Salon mailing list are interested in doing a Salon now but did not want to jump into Commedia mid-journey. There are probably enough participants wanting to finish the Commedia with Paradisio in September, but I would also like to be offering other studies—either previous Salon offerings or other great works…what would you like to read???? Now is the time for suggestions, I will run these by the current participants and where there is a cluster of interest, I will make an offer. Let me know by sending a message to this email - I am always glad to hear from past and future Salon participants.

4. Some Events - Because I did not get this newsletter out earlier, I did not announce the evening with the author Renee Levine at the Red Wheelbarrow. Renee is part of the greater literary community here in Paris. I am currently reading her autobiographical work, One-Way Tickets, and finding it provocative meditation on the meaning of home. Here is a lively event happening tomorrow night:

http://spokenwordpa ris.blogspot. com/

This Wednesday at L'Ogre à Plumes,

49 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud

metro Parmentier

9pm.

Last time - lots of great poetry from the likes of

Ariana Reines and others too numerous to mention. This

time it's gonna be more ''rapid fire'' - shorter

sharper slots for each poet, and the chance to come

back to the mic for a second go later.

I will pass on more events as I hear about them…but I want to get this out today as the sun and good weather are calling me from my studies. Happy reading and adventures to all — Toby

5. A final Szymborska poem….

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.