Our reading took an exciting twist this week. We read “This Connection of Everyone With Lungs,” by Juliana Spahr. She is a lovely writer that I really enjoyed reading. Her use of cataloguing and repetition let us know right off the get-go that she was a fan of Walt Whitman. I had my children take turns reading the first poem, “Poem Written After September 1/2001,” to me while I was driving them to Spartanburg for the Halloween festivities. They were hilarious reading to me because they thought the poem was so funny. They were in hysterics, I guess because of all the repetition, by the end of the poem. And they were chanting it so rhythmically that it made listening to the poem very enjoyable and a really happy time for all of us. The boys kept sing-songing different parts of the poem all weekend long!
All of this is to say that when we began to discuss the poetry in class Tuesday, I was still floating on the happy cloud of our fun-in-the-car poetry reading. Apparently, her poetry was not as fun and happy a read for others as it was for me. I felt like, in spite of the serious and somewhat negative material that Juliana Spahr was writing about, her work managed to be read as a positive outlook in a not so positive world. This is evident to me particularly in the following portion of her poem:
“Then all of it entering in and out.
The entering in and out of the space of the mesosphere in the
entering in and out of the space of the stratosphere in the entering
in and out of the space of the troposphere in the entering in and
out of the space of the oceans in the entering in and out of the
space of the continents and islands and the entering in and out of
the space of the nations in the entering in and out of the space of
the regions in the entering in and out of the space of the cities in
the entering in and out of the space of the neighborhoods nearby
in the entering in and out of the space of the building in the
entering in and out of the space of the room in the entering in
and out of the space around the hands in the entering in and out
of the space between the hands.
How connected we are with everyone.”
I read the beauty of this world through her eyes. I see real beauty in all of us being so very connected. Her listing, cataloguing, and repetition adds to the severity of us all being one great collection of spiritual oneness.
