Welcome to The Librarian Is In, The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

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Happy December! Thanks for joining us for another Book Club episode. This week Frank and Rhonda get delightfully off track and gush about their love of Barbra Streisand. Then they move on to discuss American Primitive —a book of poems from the NYPL's 125 Books We Love list—as well as their own thoughts and feelings about their connection (or disconnection) to the natural world. 

American Primitive, by Mary Oliver

Tell us what everybody's talking about in your world of books and libraries! Suggest Hot Topix(TM)! Send an email or voice memo to podcasts[at]nypl.org.

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Transcript

[Music ]

[Frank] Hello, and welcome to the Librarian Is In. The New York Public Library Podcast about book, culture and what to read next. My name is Frank.

[Rhonda] And my name is Rhonda.

[Frank] My Name is Barbra. Do know that record? Barbra Streisand?

[Rhonda] Yep I do.

[Frank] Oh, you know everything. You're an [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] I'm a huge Barbra Streisand fan. So, that's.

[Frank] Are you?

[Rhonda] Yes.

[Frank] You know, I just.

[Rhonda] I'm Barbra.

[Frank] Came out of nowhere, but I just watched her recent concert on Netflix because I happened to get a, you know, someone shared a subscription; I don't know how it works. But I one late night, I stumbled upon it and I watched and I cried and cried.

[Rhonda] Well, which concert is this?

[Frank] It's the Magic Mem'ries and Mayhem or whatever it is.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] It's one of her more recent ones and because like my mother loved her and I grew up with her records, and she's you know we went to "Yentl" on opening night and.

[Rhonda] Woo.

[Frank] And um it was just a memory of childhood in a way of hearing her voice and hearing her voice like actually she used to be like indomitable and she is indomitable, but like this like change in her voice that, that you know doesn't dilute the power but it's different and that shows a little bit of age.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] And growing older and, and I you know, just--just but, just having her around was just like she's, I realized how she's been a part of life since I was a child because my mother loved her.

[Rhonda] Oh I know. I--yeah. I love--I love "Color Me Barbara." Do you remember that? That one's just--can we just talk about Barbra Streisand?

[Frank] I know! I didn't even know that, "Color Me Barbra." I know there was a TV show.

[Rhonda] Yes she had a, and the special that she--when she was on the Judy Garland Show, oh my god. I love those duets.

[Frank] You're--if anyone hasn't they should get themselves in the position to see the duets that Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand did on Judy Garland's Show when Judy Garland was in her 40s and Barbra Streisand was like 21.

[Rhonda] Yeah, she was just [audio issues].

[Frank] Unbelievable. It's like an unbelievable duet because they're both powerhouses, but they both shine and they both seem to be dealing with each other in a loving way. There's not like a--I'm going to over sing you, even though either of them could in some ways.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] It's just gorgeous.

[Rhonda] And I think like Ethel Merman made some of appearance and Barbra didn't seem too pleased. I don't know. It's very entertaining.

[Frank] [Inaudible], really um I don't know. I think we could talk about this for a whole.

[Rhonda] We could.

[Frank] Because I've seen those clips as well when Ethel Merman comes on and she just like she over sings. Well she just powerhouses her way through the trio and Barbra might be annoyed, but she looks like she just sort of says, "I'm not competing. I'm not doing this." She looks a little like, okay, but she lets Ethel take it and it's an unusual experience to see a Barbra Streisand sort of muted a little bit.

[Rhonda] Well, but that's because she wasn't the legend yet. She was with the legend. She was with Ethel Merman, with Judy Garland, so she was the new kid. So, she had to, you know.

[Frank] Exactly.

[Rhonda] Be in her place at that moment. Now, it's a different story, but at the time she wasn't Barbra the icon and legend.

[Frank] It's true. I know. It's, yeah I think that's very gracious let's got with that. She wasn't. I mean, we look at it now as with her as a legend, but at the time Ethel Merman was like the supremo with Judy Garland.

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] I know they're amazing. So, I saw that concert, one of her most recent I guess and, you know, just--she just you know suggests a much, like I said, we spent--I remember my mother cleaning the house to a to "The Way We Were."

[Rhonda] Oh.

[Frank] You know, playing "The Way We Were" and "Stoney End" and just like [multiple speakers] through it.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] And I loved the "Funny Lady" soundtrack. I think.

[Rhonda] You bring back so many memories. I don't know, maybe this week when I'm cleaning I'm going to have to put on my--my Barbra Streisand Essential Hits.

[Frank] Oh my god. I love that we just discovered that which has nothing to do with the poetry of Mary Oliver, but maybe it does [multiple speakers]. >> Rhonda? At all.

[Frank] [Multiple speakers] I don't know.

[Rhonda] Okay. Yeah, so maybe we should start?

[Frank] Like yeah, no.

[Rhonda] Mary Oliver.

[Frank] Went off on a Barbra tangent.

[Rhonda] I could talk about [multiple speakers].

[Frank] My name is Barbra. Alright.

[Rhonda] Pretty good. We should do a duet.

[Frank] Do you sing?

[Rhonda] No.

[Frank] Well I don't either, but. We can get the producer to auto tune us or something.

[Rhonda] Exactly. That might work.

[Frank] Is there a Barbra Streisand filter, audio filter?

[Rhonda] Yeah, and she had so many duets. We could do You Don't Bring Me Flowers.

[Frank] See that made me cry. She did that on her--I mean, I was just a mess like that late night watching this and it was really just all about the past and growing up and, and having her around still and I can't imagine a world in which she doesn't exist, so.

[Rhonda] Yeah. That talk.

[Frank] Right. We're stopping. We're not going to talk about that. Barbra is going to live forever!

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] So, hell yes. We read a--you and I Rhonda, we read a book from the New York Public Library's 125 Books we Love, and the book is Mary Oliver, "American Primitive:; a book of poetry from the early 80s it was published. She won the Pulitzer for it in 84, and I had never read Mary Oliver. I've heard of her of course and I thought it would be, and you thought it would be, fun to dig into it or interesting, and we did, and I hope everybody out there did too or will, so thoughts, comments, feelings?

[Rhonda] Yeah, so it's a, you know, this is our first time discussing poetry and it was a little kind of intimidating I guess to think about it, because I don't-I don't know, to me poetry is as a reader I guess, a little intimidating and maybe other people feel that way because I felt like it's an art, but it's also kind of a science to it. I remember in college I took a poetry class about writing poetry as like an elective, and I remember we had a book and it had all of these like terms and these different formats and all these different kind of ways and new language to speak about poetry and I'm like, awe you kind of have this--it seems like you kind of have to have a certain vocabulary to do that. So, I don't know.

[Frank] True.

[Rhonda] It was kind of like I thought kind of coming into this is how do I, you know, what's the proper way to really talk about poetry or if there is a way to talk about poetry.

[Frank] Yeah. I mean, it feels like it's a you know like opera or something with a secret language and you know there's power and like a high emotion there, but you feel--one might feel like kind of how to assess it, access it because it's a vocabulary like you put that's something to be learned that you can't just listen or read it, you have to sort of know something other to get it. Yeah, I mean I've lost a little bit of that intimidation over the years, but I do understand that feeling of how to talk about it and it took a--took a while in thinking about Mary Oliver and "American Primitive" to sort of realize it's okay, that I can talk about whatever I want when that's what I end up doing anyway.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] Most to the [inaudible] of all the listeners, but funny you should say accs-access because I did of course a little reading about Mary Oliver which you might have as well with [inaudible] reading, but she's considered one of the most "accessible" poets which might be a criticism or a compliment depending on where you're coming from, because again, may be implicit in our intimidation is that if it's too accessible it's not worth it.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and that kind of seems like you said, reading about her and about what people have written about her. You know, there's that does seem to be in some circles a bit of a--a criticism that's it's too, I don't know the word that they--I don't know if accessible was the word that they were using, but she--I don't know.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] Complex enough, it's too I don't know.

[Frank] Well, she deals with what one may call, again in quotes, "old-fashioned issues" like she talks a lot about nature, the beauty of nature and walking through nature and being in the natural world, and that might seem like a sort of words work being old, timey subject for now or for the 70s and 80s and 90s when she was publishing a lot. And also, like her a lot of her, Mary Oliver's quotes are memes online, you know, people have used to get the point across because she's very accessible which might seem lowbrow to some people. High-low graphing we don't even have to get into unless you want to because I don't care.

[Rhonda] Yeah, that you know, you know, I think that's probably where a lot of that kind of criticism falls into those different camps, but you know and again talking about you know the subject matter of what she writes about.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] A lot of nature. What I did read about her was that this was her kind of communing with nature was really her saving grace in life, that she had kind of this you know problematic childhood, there were some things that happened to her, and that her starting at a very young age these walks through the woods and just and hours observing the birds and the trees and the water was what really just kind of saved her life in a was--just.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] You know, in a place of peace and that's where she would even do a lot of her writing. So, I think that this is kind of beautiful that this is what inspires her.

[Frank] And then I wonder what--what brings that about? I mean, I know she said she didn't want enclosure, like before the enclosure of four walls and she wanted to be out of the house and outside, I mean, but like that ability to, which she's also famous for, pay attention to the world around her and see it. You know, she doesn't know how it happened and one doesn't know how it happened. It made me think and this is what I meant about you can say anything, because poetry can just inspire something that's personal to you, I mean that's the point of it sometimes too, is to contemplate. Like I loved being outside as a kid and grew up in suburbia, but I don't remember the natural world as being specific. It was very generalized. It was--it was trees and grass and rocks and dirt, but I didn't really say, it didn't--I did not have the brain or the ability or the happenstance or luck to really--I feel like I got to really see it. I love being in it and getting dirty and stuff like that, but I didn't see it and were you brought up around nature?

[Rhonda] Well, it's interesting because she grew up in Ohio. I grew up in Ohio.

[Frank] Really?

[Rhonda] Yeah. But not near where she lived. And I think I liked being outdoors, but like you said, it was--it wasn't like how she was you know really just sitting and really just being able to almost kind of be still and just observe the world around her, and I kind of think that's why I did enjoy reading some poems from this book, because I think kind of thinking about the way things are now and how many distractions that we have to be able to go out someplace like in the woods and just sit and just watch the natural, you know, goings on of birds and.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] Frogs and snakes. I mean, and things that she wrote about to have that ability to kind of do that now to just sit, I don't know how many people could do that or if could do it. Maybe people do it, but.

[Frank] I know. I mean, like [audio issues] it definitely was about focus and attention and it did make me feel at some point, "Oh, I wish I had been able to do that. Why couldn't I do that? What's failing in me?" But I didn't and it did bring around the question of like well I sort of did crave an urban life and of course nature, like I'm grateful I have one tree outside my window in New York and I revel in it and watch the leaves fall and watch them come back and watch them move when it's windy and I have that one tree and I feel like that's great, I have the one tree and I used to say that's my one bit of green and that's enough. So, like what is it to revel in like what's the difference of reveling in the so-called natural world as opposed to an urban environment, like the urban environment excites people, interests people's--the architectural detail, the urban excitement. I mean, I wonder if they're--I wonder how Mary Oliver would feel about that, if there's an interchange or if there is a separateness--I don't know. I mean, I think one thing that came out up along those lines is when I first started reading it I stopped and said to myself, "We have to stop this", maybe it's just me, but separating this idea of us and nature. Like we keep saying a "natural world" as if we're not part of it. It seems so important to say we are 100% a part of it, we're 100% in the natural world. I mean, we're all in the world, right? I mean, but yet and again a big thing for me, the language we use or can use seems to separate us as if we're different or special or stronger or smarter than the natural world and.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] I think we sometimes can feel like we are and then, you know, horribly natural disasters occur or we are focused on the butterfly flying by and feel amazing and realize how we're not and how we're prey to it and part of it.

[Rhonda] Yeah. And I think like being an urban environment like we are in New York City, you do feel or I feel, kind of disconnected from it, because the animals that I see you know are domesticated animals or the, you know, the New York pigeons which most people hate and even when you go to a park or someplace like that, it's never just you and nature. There's probably like 20 other people and on their phones, and so sometimes maybe it's work, like removing yourself from these kind of concrete jungles and going somewhere for a few days where you can just be with nature. And actually, it's interesting that that is becoming a thing now. I think during the pandemic, is people are kind of advertise these getaways where you can live in like one of the little tiny houses out in nature by yourself for a few weeks, so maybe it's something to think about.

[Frank] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I--yeah I can definitely feel from her poetry that that sense of and we've all had--we've all no matter what I think had the moments, all of us, where we were in nature and felt something that we ever really usually feel. I mean, that connection or fear of or separation. I mean, but something different because it is, maybe it is biological, you know, or whatever the word you want to use, biological organisms responding to other--what's? They're not biological [inaudible], but like you know, you know what I--what am I trying to say? What is the word? Not biological, but and I don't want to say natural, but or human, but living things that we're all of this world.

[Rhonda] Yeah, right.

[Frank] Uncreated, but well maybe the core is uncreated by the human touch. Like we didn't create trees.

[Rhonda] Right. Okay.

[Frank] We created the Empire State Building, but we didn't create trees.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] We are as created as they are from wherever and however we've been created--we have been created equally in a way; you know what I mean?

[Rhonda] Yeah. I feel like [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Sorry. The familial kinship that we see kind of.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] You were going to say, what?

[Rhonda] No, I just-like this is another topic that we could probably spend hours talking.

[Frank] I know. I know. So.

[Rhonda] So, let's vent.

[Frank] Well, yeah. Did you--I mean, did you--what have a problem that you felt?

[Rhonda] Yeah, I marked a few that really stood out to me and we kind of didn't agree or discuss you know which poems that we.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] So, I don't know--one of the ones that I really it kind of struck me I guess, was did you read "The Lost Children?"

[Frank] Yes. I read the whole book. So.

[Rhonda] Okay.

[Frank] That's why I didn't bother contact you about like what are we're going to read together? I was like, I read the whole book so whatever she brings up I can understand. Yes, I did "The Lost Children."

[Rhonda] Well, now was that one that kind of stood out to you or?

[Frank] It did and it made me think.

[Rhonda] Okay.

[Frank] About why, because I definitely cleaved towards the poems that had people in them.

[Rhonda] Me too.

[Frank] There's not many. Right, besides the speaker, the top speaker of the poem, so and that made me question too like why can I not fully engage with her natural world, but yes.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] It was notable because there were people.

[Rhonda] Right, exactly. That's what I was going to say. I did the same thing. The ones that had people in them were really the ones that I kind of bookmarked like, okay I connected with this one a little bit more and also I think because for someone who doesn't read poetry a lot, which I would like to read more you know after this, I feel like the ones that have people in it tell a story, so that also kind of brought me in to that poem a little bit more, because "The Lost Children" I--definitely tells a story and the other ones tell a story too, but this one you know it's almost like you know you have a beginning, middle, and end here.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] Right

[Frank] I mean, that.

[Rhonda] There's characters, yeah.

[Frank] So, well because some of the poems that I like too were also about, which we'll get to, but darker emotions as you can imagine. There are some purely joyful poems about eating honey and/or a bear move sundry through the woods that are just very tactile and sensuous about living in the natural world, but yes you're right. So, "The Lost Children" though.

[Rhonda] I, well how? [Audio issues]. So, I guess you know how we should go about is it's broken up into different parts. So, there's 1, 2, 3, 4, oh no, 7 parts to this poem.

[Frank] But all her poems are, you know, usually a page not much more; this one is 3.

[Rhonda] Yeah, 3 pages. >> Frank. So, it's one of her longer ones.

[Rhonda] Right. And we have-there's 2, you know, kind of tells a story I guess of, you know again, it's very, very closely related to nature like all of the other poems in this book, but it talks more about these 2 people and they're kind of how their life was changed I guess by this connection to nature and--and the people who were connected to them and it starts, I guess Lydia Osborn she talks about a longtime ago. So, it seems you know from reading the poem that we might be in the Colonial days, because they talk about Native Americans and then you know being in Ohio and Kentucky, and it kind of just puts you in that--in that place. And at 11 years old she's--it talks about kind of her--her last scene walkthrough nature this young girl and how she's missing and people are looking for her and how they found these little different points of where she has left her kind of imprint on nature. They found where she slept under 2 fallen trees, I mean, fox, grapes and a little house that she built of sticks and her footprints by a stream, and how these are kind of the last pieces that her family ever see of her are these little imprints of nature and then the grief that they have of not really knowing where these clues have led to her and that's kind of the first 2 parts of this poem. I don't know if there's anything that you else you wanted to say about those parts.

[Frank] No. That it--well it's called "The Lost Children." It seems as if, I mean, with the first part with Lydia the 11-year-old girl it's sort of has her parents looking for her imagining the terrible possibility of where she could have possibly have gone. She just wondered away and the second story is of Isaac Zane who's 9 years old and it seems as if he was taken.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] By the Native American population. That he was, which then goes on to--I don't--well, what does it go on to?

[Rhonda] It--to me, and this is how I read it, you know with Isaac, you know, he lives, he grows up with these with the Native Americans and then he says he left, anyway, he left the streets and returned and for 50 years they lived together and this is talking about an Indian girl, Myeerah, the white crane that he meets and I guess he--he lives with her and to me, I was thinking that was Lydia. Was that what you were thinking Frank?

[Frank] Oh, no!

[Rhonda] Okay, so that's what I thought. Because they were--there's another section saying, you know, that they--her, you know, kind of going back to Lydia's story thinking that she may have been taken also by Native Americans and the fact that she's called, you know, this Indian girl is called "The White Crane."

[Frank] Oh.

[Rhonda] In my mind I'm like, oh this is beautiful. She has, you know, she goes off into nature and finds her way and lives with this Native American and he's stolen and he leaves but then he comes back and he finds her and these kind of lost children find each other. That's how I--I could be wrong, but that's what I saw in this story.

[Frank] I think that's very perceptive. I didn't--I, because I didn't see it, but yet I think you're right. Because the detail of the White Crane and the tribe, I mean, and they raise both of them basically and they both seem happy for it.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] So, there is that element of children, or these children returning again to a more natural or better world which is interesting because it's a kidnapping I suppose. I mean, it's not said explicitly, but it definitely made clear that children prefer the world of the tribe that they've been adopted by shall we say, right?

[Rhonda] Right. And I think, yeah. And I think one part that I thought was really, you know, kind of significant to this--well all of it is significant, but stood out to me for this poem was part 5, and it's short so I'll read it.

[Frank] Okay.

[Rhonda] It says, part 5 is: "I'm sorry for grief, I said that. But I think the girl knelt down somewhere in the woods and drank the cold water of some wild stream, and wanted to live. I think Isaac caught dancing feet. I think death has no country. Love has no name. And I was like well."

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] You know?

[Frank] Because that's the authorial voice talking. The.

[Rhonda] Right, yeah [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Like I'm sorry for grief. I said that refers to the people the children left behind.

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] Their parents. But yet, the girl and the boy wanted to live, meaning they weren't living where they were originally.

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] But they came alive with the tribe that took them.

[Rhonda] Uh-hum. And that death has no country.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And love has no name. You know?

[Frank] Which then.

[Rhonda] And that's probably, maybe that's what got me thinking kind of what that meant.

[Frank] I mean, yeah as you referred to it--I mean this is--the text should stand alone, but you know you referred to Mary Oliver's troubled childhood, it does seem to delve a little bit into that it doesn't--it doesn't mean--it doesn't mean much per se where you've grown up or how you've lived, where you find your life.

[Rhonda] Yes. Where you find your--yeah, where you find your place.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] Because I guess like, you know.

[Frank] Finding your place.

[Rhonda] Right, relates to who she grew up and, like you said, the girl wanted to live and even though she's moving all these grief, you know, behind her this is kind of what she had to do and then Isaac caught dancing feet.

[Frank] Yeah. I mean, that is--that's interesting, is that's one of the things I made a note about when I was reading the poems in general was that in one poem it deals explicitly with this is, why--how do we live in a world of no answers? Because she says in, I don't remember the name of the poem, but she says in one of the poems, actually. [ Singing ] The "First Snow", she says you know, there are no answers, like how do we live in this world? There are no answers, like what are the questions? But, you know, just walking through the woods seems to feel like an answer, or just to be among the natural world seems like an answer. But is it the answer? And I thought, wow we--so appear to be that difference I was saying before about the--how we might divide the natural world in human beings, is that we seem to feel like we're the only questing animals or the only questioning animals about why we even exist, but I don't know that for sure. I mean.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Python might be like I beg to differ and we wonder why [brief laughter] as well. We might not know, but we feel like we are and that might be the separating thing and we're, so we're questioning looking emotionally and intellectually for a place to be, like what inspired me was that you said that these kids in "The Lost Children" were looking for a place to be or whether they knew it or not and they found it. They found it surprisingly and unexpectedly. And then it made me think like why again the separation? Like I said before about humanity versus the natural world, but also why we separate emotion and intellect?

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Which this poem also seems to deal with and that intellect also, at least, serves emotion. Like we think and try to rationalize and to feel better or feel like we understand or to feel joy or to feel something. And again, that intellect through emotion is also in the premise of getting us to a place to be.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] That we feel at home and at peace, and Mary Oliver in this poem that you just read partly, is these kids she calls it "The Lost Children" but they basically have been found. They found each other.

[Rhonda] Right. They found each other. I think they found their place where they can--she said they wanted to live where they can live, love, you know without having any kind of she says no name, no label to it maybe, I don't know.

[Frank] Don't act like me. I'm the one that says, "I don't know."

[Rhonda] I don't know. I don't. I--there's --I thought as always, you know, this is the one that I kept kind of coming back to.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] About, so and again I think partly because there was a clear kind of story and characters in this, so I was like oh, this is you know I can kind of really-I can easily connect with this as you know more so than I did with some of the other poems. And again, like all of the kind of poems that I flagged to talk about had people in them and.

[Frank] With the--there's not a lot. I mean, that is not for any means from the journey, right?

[Rhonda] Yeah, and there was one that I flagged and you know we don't have to talk about this one next, but that almost kind of felt out of place.

[Frank] I think I know what you're going to say but go ahead.

[Rhonda] No you; which one did you think it was?

[Frank] Is it the poem called "Something?"

[Rhonda] Oh, no.

[Frank] Okay.

[Rhonda] Maybe it--I was looking at the one "Flying."

[Frank] Oh.

[Rhonda] When she's on the airplane?

[Frank] Oh, [inaudible].

[Rhonda] Well, and you know, there's also one about a whorehouse. So, that also.

[Frank] Well not an actual one, but a the ruins of one.

[Rhonda] The ruins like a ruins of a whorehouse. [Multiple speakers] The one about flying when she's on the airplane and I'm like, hmm that's an interesting kind of--it's like almost like, well in the copy that I have it's like right in the middle of the book too. And so.

[Frank] I liked that--yeah "Flying" and the "Old Whorehouse" which is the other one, did strike me too because the "Flying" one was like almost that, as I remember, the--she's observing a man and his profile and just saying how beautiful you are and how lovely and I just want to touch you in a way, but some of that joy of seeing beauty, but this time in the--amongst humans rather than between us.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Again them separating, but between us and the natural world, did you remember it that way?

[Rhonda] I did, and also because it's so far removed from nature. You know, being in this completely this manmade thing far, far, far you know above the clouds, you know taking her out of her the setting of like the woods and the.

[Frank] Yes.

[Rhonda] Nature and you're just you know being in this enclosed thing and still spinding, I guess you know still finding beauty wherever you are.

[Frank] Right. That's right.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] It does end with her, you know, flying--flying and then she ends though with the observation of the landscape below, thousands of feet below.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] When he's gone, because it ends with she's struggling with the man she had observed on the plane; "When he's gone you stare like an animal into the blinding clouds with a snapped chain of your life, the life you know; deeply affectionate Earth the familiar landscape slowly turning thousands of feet below." Actually, it almost seems like that when she says, "the snapped chain of your life" that the human connection is not the real life for her. It's not.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] The words you know. It's the--it's the, because I just saw that "the life you know;" that punctuation, life you know meaning which is the deeply affectionate Earth. The familiar landscape." So, she's actually it's an aberration in a way flying through the air and almost maybe leads to an aberration of thought.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] Not a negative way per se, but you can see his beauty, but it's not--it's not the world she knows below.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Interesting.

[Rhonda] It is and then kind of.

[Frank] I didn't see [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] And she starts the poem saying, you know, sometimes on a plane you see a stranger and he's so beautiful and the thing is that she's not just looking at him and observing how beautiful she is, and she is compelled to kind of get up out of her seat.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And actually touch him; touch this person that is so beautiful and you know I just thought that, again, relating to kind of what is said what she knows the deeply affectionate Earth with the familiar landscapes.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] Of actually seeing this person and thinking that they're so beautiful that she has to touch them.

[Frank] I think I would hazard to say, that I think all of us when we're in an enclosed space like a train or a plane or we're in a waiting room where somebody has observed another person that we suddenly feel a little bit like, "Huh?" And I think you know what I mean.

[Rhonda] Okay.

[Frank] A little bit of an attraction, connection, sensuality maybe am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong.

[Rhonda] I don't think you're wrong, but I don't know if that's--I don't know if that's how I read this poem.

[Frank] No, no I didn't mean it like she was, here I go with the romance again, I didn't mean it quite that way, but I think what she meant and that I'm also trying to display, is an unexpected moment of connection and beauty with another human being. And then as you pointed out, it goes on to really say when you find that you just want to touch it and then you know, again, I don't mean it per se sexually. It's just this connection thing, it's definitely a connection in a visceral way and she says "When you find on the Earth somewhere stranding and unexpected and without thinking reach for." That's the--what I'm really riffing on is that without thinking.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Like we're in that waiting room when we observe someone and really without thinking we feel a yearning for them or we want to reach for them. "You stand there shaken by the strangeness, a splash with his touch. When he's gone you stare like an animal into the blinding clouds with the snapped chain of your life." Actually, it could mean that the temporality of human connection is--is temporal and the connection with the natural world is permanent.

[Rhonda] Yeah, I see that too. I see that, you know.

[Frank] That people leave or the snapped chain like there it's done, they're gone, They leave the plane or the waiting room and it's that connection is maybe done, but then she sees--she always and Mary Oliver actually said this about herself, the world when she was a child and went out into the nature, it was always there for her; it was always there.

[Rhonda] Always, yeah and the plane is always such kind of the setting of a plane it's just a temporary, you know, a temporary thing where you are connected in a way with all of these people.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] Kind of stuck just for a short period of time with these people, no escape, you know? And you have those moments of we're all kind of whatever this is in this one experience together.

[Frank] Huh. Yeah. I actually have a poem amongst a few that I--that I noted, but one that deals more with her being in the woods in for lack of a better term, the natural world.

[Rhonda] Great.

[Frank] And like I said, some of them are especially which she's most noted and remembered for at least culturally, her sort of well not elegy, but her sort of joyful avocations of nature and this one has a darker side which is of course something that appeals to me. It's the poem called, "Cold Poem."

[Rhonda] Okay.

[Frank] And, well I 'll just read it actually. It's--it.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] It's called "Cold Poem." "Cold now. Close to the edge. Almost unbearable. Clouds bunch up and boil down from the north of the white bear. This tree-splitting morning I dream of his fat tracks, the lifesaving suet. I think of summer with its luminous fruit, blossoms rounding to berries, leaves, handsful of grain. Maybe what cold is, is the time we measure the love we have always had, secretly for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe that is what it means, the beauty of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals. In the season of snow, in the immeasurable cold, we grow cruel but honest; we keep ourselves alive, if we can, taking one after another the necessary bodies of others, the many crushed red flowers." Wow, that's something that I [multiple speakers]. And when I said the night; that what did you say?

[Rhonda] I said there are definitely some dark undertones right there.

[Frank] Yeah. When she says "The hard knife-edged love the warm river of the eye", it's not the eyeball it's the capital "I", I. So, I "I" I should like this poem because it's like we talked about the critical aspect to Mary Oliver, that's she accessible and just talks about the joyfulness of nature, is that she doesn't do that all the time and not even all predominately. She talks about the violence and of nature and our part in it, and then I think this is sort of an interesting avocation of that, because she says, you know when it gets cold it's almost unbearable and that cold that she illuminates, you know maybe is that time when we realize or when we have to be very much for our own self; we have to survive. And she even says, like it's sort of lifesaving suet, like the fat of the bear which can be you know in summer the bear is a beautiful part of the world that she's observing, but in winter, it actually could save one's life like.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] I think "The Revenant" with Leonardo Dicaprio had a moment about a bear, but whether we're living in it or eating it or being this lifesaving fats that you need in cold weather. I mean, so you know that brings you--she says, cruel but honest, because it is and that's what I mean about it's not like joyful nature all the time, it's like it's honest that one--we all, animals as well as humans, all of us, have to survive and sometimes it means the other has to die for us.

[Rhonda] Exactly. Yeah.

[Frank] It's like she says [multiple speakers]. Huh?

[Rhonda] I'm just, yeah I was thinking about that last stanza.

[Frank] Yeah, and then right before that she says, "The beauty of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals." I mean, she's--I mean that has to impact a lot of us, like that idea of a shark going to basically eat a seal; who doesn't love a seal? And then, but she's saying "The beauty of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling fields." So, she's basically saying it's part of it, it's beautiful because it's part of it.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] It's part of life, it's our life and it's a disingenuous of us to say that we're not amongst that and that like she says, "If we can taking one after another the necessary bodies of others to survive." Which is I guess cruel but honest. So.

[Rhonda] It is.

[Frank] Everyone thinks Mary Oliver is all like sunshine and daffodils.

[Rhonda] I feel like there's a lot of, to me and brining my own kind of you know knowledge to this, I feel a lot of kind of history in this poem "Iin the season of snow, in the immeasurable cold, we grow cruel but honest. We keep ourselves alive, if we can, taking one after another the necessary bodies of others." And I kind of think in a literal sense, you know, you hear throughout you know American history and she also you know connecting through other poems where we kind of get this, you know, what's the term? Not Colonial but kind of early American kind of imagery with the Native Americans, you know, and just this whole idea of survival and when the hardest time for human beings to survive is most often the winter, right? And so, of course, the first thing we think of is like the Donner Party, you know? Who were trapped in the Sierra Mountains in feet of snow and had to actually use each other's bodies to survive and then, again, like you know, there's also a lot of like folklore and folktales throughout American history about the different ways that human beings have had to survive throughout the winter and that this is kind of when we are, when we have to become the sharks, right? When you have to do what you have to do to get through nature's meanest moments I guess you would say.

[Frank] Yes, and I like what you said in that the weather aka the natural world again, informs all of us animals, all of us animals, and our society like how we come together, how we function. So, the summer can be blossoms, fruit, and grain. It sounds like there's, in other words, there's plenty. There's plenty so-called wheat and survive that doesn't seem to so-call call it grief. But that the winter comes along and it's all about red flesh and fat. You know, it's all about surviving and I love that line, you're right and you said it again, the cruel; "It makes us cruel but honest." That's an important thing. That, again, we could talk about that for a longtime because acknowledging what is true is such a difficult, difficult process. I mean, how many of us want to say we're sometimes cruel or can be cruel and then also from there, acknowledge it as--as it is and not necessarily anything other than what it is, you know, not a life-pounding pejorative but a necessary function.

[Rhonda] Right. She says, "Taking one after another the necessary bodies of others."

[Frank] That's edging into a whole like you referred to about Native Americans, the whole situation that is painful to talk about.

[Rhonda] Right, and "The many crushed red flower."

[Frank] I know. It's like I mean what this suggest is, it's true but how necessary and hopeful, I mean almost to be hopeful that it's not as necessary, you know what I mean? Like I'm basically talking about enslaving or a war, wow.

[Rhonda] Well, and another thing, yeah, that I was thinking about when I [inaudible] in it, and so it's a little bit of a side but not much. I do listen to a podcast, another podcast about kind of folklore, American folklore and the one that I listened to most recently was talking about this kind of American folktale of this man who spends, you know, goes to this kind of boarding house for the winter and he sees that the people who live in this house have given all of their elderly people, their elderly family this drug and the drug kind of puts them in this coma state and they take the elderly people and they put them out in the snow for a few days and then the put them in a box and then they bury it and he kind of asked they, you know, like well what are you doing with your elder members? Are they dead? Like what's happening and they say, no you know you come back in the spring and we'll show you. And so he comes back in the spring and they have given these people kind of this drug so that they could take out a certain number of people so they can survive the winter and have enough food. And then they would bring the elderly people back, you know, from their coma or whatever this thing is and kind of he's saying what this means is this desire to extend life, right? To extend the lives of ourselves to kind of extend the lives of others through whatever means is available as and I kind of also see that in the Cold poem as this call of not just, you know, the beauty of the blue shark and the necessary bodies, but also this just desire to kind of extend that we have is a natural instinct to do what we have to do to extend life even through its, you know, harshest moments. Yeah.

[Frank] Rhonda. Oh my god. I mean, now you've got me thinking about the term "necessary bodies", I mean, that's the great thing about poetry I think that you just sort of led us there. That to ruminate on just a line or a phrase. And a novel you can do that too, but obviously there's a big, a bigger in terms of volume world out there in a novel, whereas, poetry can lead you more specifically to contemplate just phrases and words which I love, but and you could spend a longtime thinking about what it means and you just actually explained it or your viewpoint wonderfully. It's almost like, I know people who have done this before, but just like to read a little like Mary Oliver frame or phrase or a passage; her poems are mostly very short every morning just to sort of start your language going, because it's like I always say, these words give ourselves meaning.

[Rhonda] I know, I have the desire to kind of do that afterwards.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] I'm reading in the morning too and it was like, oh what a kind of good way to start the day with some.

[Frank] Specifically. You know, it's a--which story I thought of when I was reading this too that struck me so hard because I'm, and you just brought up an outside story as well that related to it, like the author Graham Greene, I'm actually reading a book of his for my book discussion group in the library called "The End of the Affair", but I remember reading a quote and I don't-I should have looked it up before, but I didn't know I was going to talk about it, that Graham Greene had witnessed a terrible situation a child had died and the mother was in the hospital crying and talking to the doctor and he somehow overheard this Graham Greene, and he said her grief absolutely notwithstanding that that was just pure there. He said the language she was using about the situation, about her own child being gone, was of the most prosaic and meaningless prattle that it was just borrowed language, that it was language that she picked up from the culture and say what you will, you could say Graham Greene is a big old sob, but what I took him to say was that she didn't have access to language for herself. I think that she didn't have true language to, to express "her" feeling about what happened. That she had to use borrowed [inaudible] you could say language and there's a lot to debate in there, but I think ultimately I took from it was that to find your own language that truly expresses you, that expresses your situation of what you really feel about life and challenging yourself. And I think that both poems we've discussed do that, I mean, and your observations like helped me also find the phrases that I didn't know I was thinking about as much as I was. So, does that make sense what I just said?

[Rhonda] Yeah, absolutely.

[Frank] You know? Just that it's important to me. Just I think it's always got like where it's telling stories in our head all the time about our lives and what we're doing, and the more the better vocabulary you have, um you know, god knows it can help you, but back to Barbara.

[Rhonda] Yeah, back to Barbara. I think we're kind of a--I don't know if we're you know if we were--this is kind of a nice way to wrap [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] To think about.

[Frank] What is?

[Rhonda] Reading poetry in the morning.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And kind of how that can open up you know different ways, different vocabulary, different ways of thinking of expressing yourself of viewing the world. I mean, you could do like you said, you could do that through any type of reading, but there's something different with poetry where you can really just kind of focus and.

[Frank] Focus.

[Rhonda] On needs of few words, you know?

[Frank] Exactly the word "focus." And again like it could be like this annoying like irritating and anxious making thing, like oh reading poetry I don't like because I don't get it, like what does that mean? It just suddenly because of the conversation with you made me feel like you can read a phrase and let it carry with you or not.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] You know, it might not adhere, but that focus, that momentary at least focus on--on those words, so important. Do you like Barbara's rendition of "Being Alive?"

[Rhonda] Yes. Of course I do.

[Frank] One of my favorites. What a great musical company Stephen Sondheim.

[Rhonda] That's on her "Back to Broadway" album, right?

[Frank] You.

[Rhonda] That [audio issues] song?

[Frank] You're my idol. I worship you. [Multiple speakers] you know everything!

[Rhonda] I love that song.

[Frank] Being alive!

[Rhonda] She has a few songs from company, maybe she does. I--yeah, but that--she--that's a great, great cover that she does.

[Frank] In a way that song is very much like some of the poems we read, because it's like someone forced me to care and like there's negatives about being loved, but those things that make you in love also make you feel alive and Mary Oliver is certainly talking about being alive, right?

[Rhonda] And actually years, yes. And for years that was the only version of "Being Alive" that I have ever [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Me too. I didn't know.

[Rhonda] [Audio issues] until I saw "A Marriage Story" on Netflix and someone else sings it.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And I'm like, oh that's Barbra's song, but it's really you know that's how I always felt.

[Frank] It's from Company and it was sung originally by a guy.

[Rhonda] I know. Yeah, that who sang it in the.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] The movie that I watched.

[Frank] That's another thing.

[Rhonda] I [audio issues] have Barbara in my head singing it, so.

[Frank] The culture--the part of the book's culture in What to Read Next is the Marriage Story is such a good movie.

[Rhonda] It is. So, you've seen it?

[Frank] Yes.

[Rhonda] I saw the part where he saying being alive, right?

[Frank] Yeah. Someone [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] Right. Yeah.

[Frank] With Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson and Laura Dern. Well, Barbra and Mary Oliver.

[Rhonda] There you go.

[Frank] Who would have known such a juxtaposition would occur. Well, thank you Rhonda really. Thank you so much. I totally enjoyed this conversation. I hope it was as interesting to listen to. One can hope. But it made her poems even more interesting to me to go back to, so.

[Rhonda] Yeah, absolutely.

[Frank] So, thank you everybody for listening and we shall be back soon with books that Rhonda and I are going to read on our own and we'll surprise each other with those titles and I hope everyone is okay out there and take care. Thanks for listening.

[Rhonda] Thank you. Next time.