Sherry Chandler

A Letter from the Front

I WAS out early to-day, spying about
From the top of a haystack—such a lovely morning—
And when I mounted again to canter back
I saw across a field in the broad sunlight
A young Gunner Subaltern, stalking along
With a rook-rifle held at the ready, and—would you believe it?—
A domestic cat, soberly marching beside him.  

So I laughed, and felt quite well disposed to the youngster,
And shouted out “the top of the morning” to him,
And wished him “Good sport!”—and then I remembered
My rank, and his, and what I ought to be doing:
And I rode nearer, and added, “I can only suppose
You have not seen the Commander-in-Chief’s order
Forbidding English officers to annoy their Allies
By hunting and shooting.”
        But he stood and saluted
And said earnestly, “I beg your pardon, Sir,
I was only going out to shoot a sparrow
To feed my cat with.”
        So there was the whole picture,
The lovely early morning, the occasional shell
Screeching and scattering past us, the empty landscape,—
Empty, except for the young Gunner saluting,
And the cat, anxiously watching his every movement.  

I may be wrong, and I may have told it badly,
But it struck me as being extremely ludicrous. 

—Henry Newbolt, Clarke, George Herbert, ed. A Treasury of War Poetry,
First Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1917; New York:
Bartleby.com, 2002. 

The Path to the Woods

ITS friendship and its carelessness
Did lead me many a mile,
Through goat’s-rue, with its dim caress,
And pink and pearl-white smile;
Through crowfoot, with its golden lure,
And promise of far things,
And sorrel with its glance demure
And wide-eyed wonderings.

It led me with its innocence,
As childhood leads the wise,
With elbows here of tattered fence,
And blue of wildflower eyes;
With whispers low of leafy speech,
And brook-sweet utterance;
With bird-like words of oak and beech,
And whisperings clear as Pan’s.

It led me with its childlike charm,
As candor leads desire,
Now with a clasp of blossomy arm,
A butterfly kiss of fire;
Now with a toss of tousled gold,
A barefoot sound of green,
A breath of musk, of mossy mold,
With vague allurements keen.

It led me with remembered things
Into an old-time vale,
Peopled with faëry glimmerings,
And flower-like fancies pale;
Where fungous forms stood, gold and gray,
Each in its mushroom gown,
And, roofed with red, glimpsed far away,
A little toadstool town.

It led me with an idle ease,
A vagabond look and air,
A sense of ragged arms and knees
In weeds grown everywhere;
It led me, as a gypsy leads,
To dingles no one knows,
With beauty burred with thorny seeds,
And tangled wild with rose.

It led me as simplicity
Leads age and its demands,
With bee-beat of its ecstasy,
And berry-stained touch of hands;
With round revealments, puff-ball white,
Through rents of weedy brown,
And petaled movements of delight
In roseleaf limb and gown.

It led me on and on and on,
Beyond the Far Away,
Into a world long dead and gone,—
The world of Yesterday:
A faëry world of memory,
Old with its hills and streams,
Wherein the child I used to be
Still wanders with his dreams.

— Madison Cawein, from Rittenhouse, Jessie B., ed. The Little Book of Modern Verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1917; New York: Bartleby.com, 2002

Le Chat

Viens, mon beau chat, sur mon coeur amoureux;
Retiens les griffes de ta patte,
Et laisse-moi plonger dans tes beaux yeux,
Mêlés de métal et d’agate.

Lorsque mes doigts caressent à loisir
Ta tête et ton dos élastique,
Et que ma main s’enivre du plaisir
De palper ton corps électrique,

Je vois ma femme en esprit. Son regard,
Comme le tien, aimable bête
Profond et froid, coupe et fend comme un dard,

Et, des pieds jusques à la tête,
Un air subtil, un dangereux parfum
Nagent autour de son corps brun.

— Charles Baudelaire

__________
And the translation:

The Cat

Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart;
Hold back the talons of your paws,
Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes
Of metal and agate.

When my fingers leisurely caress you,
Your head and your elastic back,
And when my hand tingles with the pleasure
Of feeling your electric body,

In spirit I see my woman. Her gaze
Like your own, amiable beast,
Profound and cold, cuts and cleaves like a dart,

And, from her head down to her feet,
A subtle air, a dangerous perfume
Floats about her dusky body.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

I do have a “selected” Fleurs du Mal that I am reading but I found this particular poem at the online edition here.

I know a lot of you all reading here think I’m in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and it’s true that I prefer Hillary on the issues (Obama has apparently made it a policy not to have policies). But —

Oh just read Joan Walsh:

Throughout this long campaign the Clintons have been turned into a vile caricature: amoral, power-mad narcissists who are not beyond using racism and even worries about Obama’s safety to press their political cause. I’ve criticized both Clintons repeatedly in the pages of Salon for over 10 years, but it’s really time to say: Enough.

For several months I’ve found myself bothered by a double standard in both the behavior and the media coverage of the Obama campaign, as supposedly representing a new kind of clean, post-partisan politics, by contrast with the dirty old win-at-any-cost Clintons. Hardball Obama campaign tactics — David Axelrod partly blaming Clinton for Benazir Bhutto’s death; the intimidation of Clinton voters by a pro-Obama union in Nevada (to be fair, some Obama supporters claimed intimidation by Clinton forces, too); the campaign’s infamous South Carolina race memo (prepared before Bill Clinton made his dumb Jesse Jackson remark); the multiple “Harry and Louise” mailers distorting Clinton’s healthcare proposal; not to mention ties between Obama, Axelrod and the Exelon Corp., even as Obama is touting his lobbyist-free campaign. Nothing seems to stick to Obama; he’s Teflon.

This episode was worse than many but not entirely atypical: After his staff helped whip up a frenzy about Clinton’s remarks, Obama himself said he accepted Clinton’s statement that she had been misunderstood, and Axelrod tried to act gracious and insist that it’s time to move on. But the damage had been done. Obama has run a better campaign than Clinton, there’s no doubt about it, but he’s had a lot of help from a fawning media. (Here’s a great piece making a point I made months ago about how such coverage may ultimately hurt Obama.)*

*Hint: backlash.

And then read Redstar. I’m not sure that I agree with everything she says here, but I have come to respect her intellectual integrity and she makes me think we might all need to step back and take a deep breath (emphasis added):

Part of the reason for last night’s insomnia has been my growing frustration from the Clinton RFK remarks skirmish. It began in earnest when I read Kevin’s response at Slant Truth, in which he stated that regardless of her intent, it was his personal associations of the assassinations of black leaders that mattered to him. He added that he was further troubled by the racially segregated - and polarized - link networks he was seeing in response to her comments; i.e., whites were linking to other whites in support of their perspectives, and bloggers of color - including many African-Americans - were linking to one another in opinion solidarity. When I read this, I thought Duh! Obviously. Anyone following this election, especially since early ‘08, has seen this cultural fracturing around the blogosphere, as we all interpret the candidates’ actions, statements and alleged motivations and intent based on our personal and/or collective experiences and identities.

Then I read a compelling analysis from Latoya at Racialicious, which I found to be strongly undermined by her strident vocabulary that “hell no…there is no way Hillary was talking about herself when referencing the RFK campaign.” Latoya’s voice is one I really respect in the ’sphere, yet so is Pocochina’s, who just as convincingly argues that of course Clinton is thinking of herself in referencing RFK, because it’s a) a defining (generational) moment for her in her political development, b) she faces her own threats of assassination, and c) and this is my elaboration of Pocochina’s point - that she has arguably come to represent for millions of moderate- to low-income Americans (mostly white, but not exclusively) the underdog candidate fighting for them. Just because this vision of her is routinely derided in many pundit circles does not mean that it does not ring true for countless Clinton supporters (if those I read on-line are any indication).

So who’s right, here? Who’s interpretation is valid? Hopefully you realize these are trick questions - obviously all of them are, as they are grounded in experience, identity, and each blogger’s situated knowledge. …

I remember last fall at the Congressional Black Caucus Conference wearing a Clinton pin and an Obama button. I remember my cynical detachment about the two of them, centrists not remotely interested in challenging the status quo other than via their own historic candidacies and the legitimately new perspectives they would bring to the Oval Office: the first serious female contender with her gendered and generational whiteness, modern marriage and professional career working with women and children, and the first multi-racial, cosmopolitan, almost-not-a-Baby-Boomer, black-middle-class Presidential candidate. Yet, as the months have passed since Iowa, I’m getting more and more narrow-minded in my support of Clinton, mainly in response to her unparalleled opposition. My emotionalism is seriously challenging my more “rational” preferences for her policy positions, campaign platform and professional experience.

…

What I think has been the real issue in this campaign - in the politics waged from both sides that have employed or capitalized on systemic sexism and racism - is that both campaign[s] have condescended to the other. …

All of this is getting to my long-drawn-out conclusion: that for most of us this primary has ceased to be about the two candidates, and all about ourselves - in all our complicated beauty. Which of our multiple identities is elevated consciously or otherwise in feeling drawn to the candidates, what our biases or privileges really are, what our core personal networks really look like, what we feel we’re owed by society personally or collectively, and what we’re projecting onto these two figureheads who are similar triangulating centrists - one with most of her dirty laundry exposed, and the other with his soon to come out to dry.

I feel like I’ve lost a lot of virtual allies in this primary (hopefully temporarily), but gained a plethora of new ones. At my old blog I wrote I how I tended to identify with middle- and moderate-income white ethnics and women and men of color I meet because our life experiences are often quite similar. Who I have met in numbers on-line via supporting Clinton are many new young outspoken working-class and middle-class Asian-American and white ethnic feminists. I have purged many middle-class and upper-middle-class mostly white male and female bloggers who I felt marginally about to begin with. Good riddance. They don’t speak for me. I’m not sure who does these days…

And from the Online Etymology Dictionary, tribe:

from O.Fr. tribu, from L. tribus “one of the three political/ethnic divisions of the original Roman state” (Tites, Ramnes, and Luceres, corresponding, perhaps, to the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans), later, one of the 30 political divisions instituted by Servius Tullius (increased to 35 in 241 B.C.E.), perhaps from tri- “three” + *bhu-, root of the verb be.

We are dividing ever more strongly into our tribes in this country. It’s dangerous.

Photographs taken by my son in support of my tweet of yesterday, to wit:

Orchard grass shoulder high, heads purple with seed. Bluegrass to the waist, red clover to the knee. The sun is shining, time to make hay.

Update: A correspondent has written to ask if I worry about haymaking harming small critters like box turtles, birds, and rabbits. And the fact is that any kind of mowing is dangerous to small creatures. My husband said he scared up a big turkey just mowing the farm road the way you see here. I’ve mowed up rabbits nests and snakes cutting the grass in our side yard with a push mower.

I think, though, even more dangerous than the mowing is the destruction of habitat. The very thing that makes the Bluegrass Region so picturesque, the lovely clean fencerows (some maintained with herbicides), make the place less friendly to small creatures who need shelter to nest and feed. As these photos illustrate, our place is comfortably shabby and our wildlife seems to be abundant. I was even wrong about the meadowlarks. I’ve seen several this year. I just wasn’t in the right place.

Here’s a bonus picture. I put up a photo of this tree earlier when it was bare and the red-winged blackbird was perched high up in it.

Every time I say to myself that I have cast my vote and I am through with this election, ready to step back and watch events develop, some new madness crops up and I feel as though I have to speak out.

I am, of course, referring to the “uproar,” largely manufactured by political partisans, over Hillary Clinton’s remarks about the Robert Kennedy primary campaign of 1968.

For the media and/or political partisans to accuse one candidate of calling for the physical assassination of another is not only character assassination but also very unwise. Such tactics are not just divisive, they are incendiary.

And the whole incident makes me very sad. I just want to weep for our country that it has come to this.

I will leave you with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s remarks:

I’ve heard her make that argument before,” Mr. Kennedy said, speaking on his cell phone as he drove to the family compound in Hyannis for the holiday weekend. “It sounds like she was invoking a familiar historical circumstance in support of her argument for continuing her campaign.” . . . [H]is support of Mrs. Clinton has not wavered.

…

I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband’s 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June. I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense.”

_______________

Updated May 25: Here’s an addendum from the ever wise Melissa McEwan (emphasis added):

Briefly, my opinion is that it was an ill-considered statement that warranted an apology, irrespective of intent. FWIW, I don’t think she intended to suggest anything nefarious, but it was not a particularly sensitive example to use to make her point, and careless in its disregard of the history of violence against black leaders. It was inevitable, and of course not unreasonable, that people would consider her competitor Obama within the frame she built, to upsetting results, even if she didn’t specifically mention him.

As I’ve said before, an apology after erring is not about the original intent; it’s about the result. It’s about making amends. When I step on someone’s foot unintentionally, I still say “I’m sorry.”

UPDATE: Also, I want to quickly note, when I step on someone’s foot unintentionally and say I’m sorry, that doesn’t give them license to premeditatedly punch me in the nose and claim I deserved it. Clearly, the usual suspects are seeking to deliberately misconstrue Clinton’s statement for maximum outrage-ginning, and I don’t guess I need to give you my opinion on that.

__________

Updating the Update: In response to Melissa McEwan, Six Degrees of Obama

So the new rule is Hillary (and Bill, her surrogates, etc.) cannot mention anything that someone might possibly, in some bizarre fashion, connect in some offensive way to Barack Obama within six degrees of separation?

…

The first player takes quote out of any statement by Hillary, Bill, or any Hillary staff member or prominent supporter, and the second player has to link a word from it to Barack Obama in an offensive way within six links.

Hillary says* “This is all a big kabuki dance”

Dance - racial sterotype of black people being good dancers - Obama is black - Obama danced with Ellen Degeneres on her show - Hillary is saying Obama is a good dancer because he’s black.

___________

Update to the update of the update: From the Argus Leader, where Hillary Clinton was being interviewed:

The Argus Leader’s Executive Editor Randell Beck issued the following statement today:

“The context of the question and answer with Sen. Clinton was whether her continued candidacy jeopardized party unity this close to the Democratic convention. Her reference to Mr. Kennedy’s assassination appeared to focus on the timeline of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.”

_________

One more: Commenter talex at TalkLeft:

What you won’t read on the blogs:

People are also ignoring the historical reference to Kennedy. Via Wikipedia:

“At the time of his death, [Bobby] Kennedy was significantly behind Vice President Hubert Humphrey in convention delegate support”

So you see, Bobby was still in the race in June even though he was running behind Humphrey in convention delegate support.

So the parallels with RFK are all Clinton’s: Senator from New York and underdog

(I chose this shot because, if you look closely, you can see the locust blossoms surrounding Bertie’s head and reflected in the car.)

How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted

A POET had a cat.
There is nothing odd in that—
  (I might make a little pun about the Mews!)
But what is really more
Remarkable, she wore
  A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.
      And I doubt me greatly whether
          E'er you heard the like of that:
      Pointed shoes of patent-leather
              On a cat!	 

His time he used to pass
Writing sonnets, on the grass—
  (I might say something good on pen and sward!)
While the cat sat near at hand,
Trying hard to understand
  The poems he occasionally roared.
      (I myself possess a feline,
          But when poetry I roar
      He is sure to make a bee-line
              For the door.)	 

The poet, cent by cent,
All his patrimony spent—
  (I might tell how he went from verse to werse!)
Till the cat was sure she could,
By advising, do him good.
  So addressed him in a manner that was terse:
      "We are bound toward the scuppers,
          And the time has come to act,
      Or we'll both be on our uppers
              For a fact!"	  

On her boot she fixed her eye,
But the boot made no reply—
  (I might say: "Couldn't speak to save its sole!")
And the foolish bard, instead
Of responding, only read
  A verse that wasn't bad upon the whole.
      And it pleased the cat so greatly,
          Though she knew not what it meant,
      That I'll quote approximately
              How it went:—	  

"If I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree"—
  (I might put in: "I think I'd just as leaf!")
"Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough"—
  Well, he'd plagiarized it bodily, in brief!
      But that cat of simple breeding
          Couldn't read the lines between,
      So she took it to a leading
              Magazine.	  

She was jarred and very sore
When they showed her to the door.
  (I might hit off the door that was a jar!)
To the spot she swift returned
Where the poet sighed and yearned,
  And she told him that he'd gone a little far.
      "Your performance with this rhyme has
          Made me absolutely sick,"
      She remarked. "I think the time has
              Come to kick!"	 

I could fill up half the page
With descriptions of her rage—
  (I might say that she went a bit too fur!)
When he smiled and murmured: "Shoo!"
"There is one thing I can do!"
  She answered with a wrathful kind of purr.
      "You may shoo me, and it suit you,
          But I feel my conscience bid
      Me, as tit for tat, to boot you!"
              (Which she did.)	  

The Moral of the plot
(Though I say it, as should not!)
  Is: An editor is difficult to suit.
But again there're other times
When the man who fashions rhymes
  Is a rascal, and a bully one to boot!	 

— Guy Wetmore Carryl, from Untermeyer, Louis. Modern American Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1919; Bartleby.com, 1999.

because it’s Monday morning and I need a laugh, though it’s actually MSNBC with which I have the biggest quarrel in this regard. Correction: This is the Australian Broadcasting Company. Thanks Harry.

Harry, in turn, got it from monkeyc’s flickr set.

Harry has a generally interesting post about the different connotations of the word cunt in Great Britain.

…in British English: although it is still a coarse slang term for the female genitalia, it’s mainly used to insult men. Not out of any kind of profound sensitivity to gender relations, but just because that’s the way it is. And as a result, although it is regarded as a very offensive word—you can’t exactly use it on daytime telly—it doesn’t have the same kind of edge it clearly has in America. The parallel with ‘nigger’ is interesting: the word ‘cunt’ is taboo in Britain, but I don’t think anyone thinks of it as hate speech.

So maybe after all, Barack Obama has somewhere been called a cunt. But it wasn’t praise.

I actually have a certain respect for the word cunt. Like fuck, it’s one of those Anglo-Saxon monosyllables — well Middle English anyway — with roots perhaps back to Latin. Chaucer renders it queynte, which has a certain charm, and the word is certainly of more use to poets than female intercrural foramen. Cunt may come from the same root as queen and gyne or it may be related to coney or rabbit, which may explain the name of the Rampant Rabbit vibrator. I’ll let you look that one up for yourselves.

See also Poppysmatus’s translation of Catullus 41.

Here’s the entry for cunt at the Online Etymology Dictionary:

“female intercrural foramen,” or, as some 18c. writers refer to it, “the monosyllable,” M.E. cunte “female genitalia,” akin to O.N. kunta, from P.Gmc. *kunton, of uncertain origin. Some suggest a link with L. cuneus “wedge,” others to PIE base *geu- “hollow place,” still others to PIE *gwen-, root of queen and Gk. gyne “woman.” The form is similar to L. cunnus “female pudenda,” which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps lit. “gash, slit,” from PIE *sker- “to cut,” or lit. “sheath,” from PIE *kut-no-, from base *(s)keu- “to conceal, hide.” First known reference in Eng. is said to be c.1230 Oxford or London street name Gropecuntlane, presumably a haunt of prostitutes. Avoided in public speech since 15c.; considered obscene since 17c. Du. cognate de kont means “a bottom, an arse.” Du. also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, lit. “cave of love,” and vleesroos “rose of flesh.” Alternate form cunny is attested from c.1720 but is certainly much earlier and forced a change in the pronunciation of coney (q.v.), but it was good for a pun while coney was still the common word for “rabbit”: “A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers’ wive

Note: This is the entire entry but it looks truncated to me. A quick Google search turns up Tilley’s Dictionary of Proverbs. Part II which completes the rhyme thusly:

A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers’ wives “No money, no coney.”

Ah, here’s the full entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary

A blogger named Callimachus at Done With Mirrors says this line is from a 1622 play by Philip Massinger. His post on the etymology is also worth reading.

Note 2: Oh, this little quote is even move fun than I thought. It occurred to me to look up cocatrice:

A serpent hatched from a cock’s egg and having the power to kill by its glance.

Intercrural means “taking place between the legs.” Interesting vocabulary addition.

The mounds were, among other things, burial sites for important clan members. The VIPs were both men and women, some as young as 12. A mound excavated in Owen County in the 1950s contained remains thought to be those of a shaman. Four of the man’s upper front teeth had (probably) been pulled (probably) to accommodate the modified wolf jaw found in the grave with him. Speculation is that wearing skull, skin, and the jaw, the shaman was transformed into a wolf spirit during religious ceremonies, when the clan was high on something like tobacco, smoked in carved stone pipes.

I. J. Chandler, 1942, with his son’s Percherons, Daisy & Dodgen.

My grandfather, I. J. Chandler, had a buggy horse named Dan. Old Dan was a pacer known for his speed. Occasionally, Dad-Dad would take my grandmother, Lizzie Shupert Chandler, for an overnight visit with her uncle on the Sparta – Glencoe road. Sparta was a thriving depot back then and the railroad ran south from Glencoe. When time came to depart, Dad-Dad would load his family into the buggy and indulge in a long country farewell until time for the train to pass through. At just the right moment, he’d let Old Dan go and race the train for the crossing.