Recently, it occurred to me that I have not included a particularly diverse group of “Guest Poets” in my Monday posts over the last two years. Everyone is North American, with the odd poet of English extraction thrown in here and there. Oh, and there was that one Tang Dynasty post, plus a smattering of Buddhist-sourced poems. My point is that I want to be more open and thoughtful about presenting a balanced set of offerings that bring poetry from cultures other than our American opus.
Don’t get me wrong. American poets are some of the best in the world. Just ask them. (Kidding here – mostly.) In a nation that lives on the planet’s stage as prominently as does the U.S.A., it’s difficult to do too much inclusion of the fine poets from the rest of the world.
In today’s post, I offer a hybrid poet. Dr. Mo Saidi is Iranian by birth and immigrated to the United States in 1969. His professional credentials as an M.D. and as a writer offer an unusual perspective – a person trained in science melded with, as it’s said, the soul of a poet. If you read only one of his poems presented below, be sure to have a look at the first one, “We Are Poets.” This poem integrates the experience of an immigrant far from his home country with a writer’s endless search for just the right word – line – rhyme – the poem.
DR. MO SAIDI’S POETIC WORK - SELECTED
We Are Poets
A significant number of immigrants who have come
here to enjoy life and liberty and to pursue happiness
are not driving taxis: there in New York or here
in San Antonio. Some have become physicians,
some writers, and a very few poets:
Yes! “We think, therefore we live”
“we dream; therefore we exist.” Recalling our past,
we take our first step. Some cherish Rumi
and Khayam, and many read Shakespeare.
We search and struggle to find the right words
to describe our thoughts; and because
our vocabulary is small, we use dictionaries
and study words; we read our lines out loud,
albeit corrupted with accent; we write and rewrite;
we are perpetual students going to the academy ---
to the university without walls – to learn,
like engineers, how to construct lines.
We rehearse our verses aloud,
We hum and produce rhythm and rhyme.
In the end, when many hours have gone by,
like Buddhist monks
we blow away the light words and
what remains are only a few meaningful lines,
refined ideas, and a few poems:
the crux of our being, the heart of our mind.
Reunion
I look at this forty-fourth reunion photo
and still recognize a few faces.
Some are bald and plump, many were absent,
some too embarrassed to show up
and be compared to their young selves.
One frail and fatigued leans on his cane
waiting for the shutter to click.
Many are retired. Some bedridden.
One like Gilgamesh seeks eternal life,
explores the Amazon; deep in the rain
forest, he searches for a plant
that may prolong life
lest he be deaf and blind.
One hoards roots and extracts, consumes
an elixir, yet bears his aged body
bound to a cold wheelchair
in a nursing home.
I hold a grandson’s small hand
amble towards the nearby park
sit on a bench while the child
runs towards the pond
and counts the goslings.
Source: Poetry Foundation. Mo Saidi, "Reunion" from Between A and Z. , 2014.
On the Day I Die
The unkempt room, dusty and disused
the exiguous perfume concealed in the books
the blinking of the alarm clock, jammed printer
the cellphone, the incessant deep sleep
the dated OED flashing on the screen
the desk cluttered with stacks of old prints.
The black cat lies between my cold feet
the long blank night, mute mind.
After the chirp of the cuckoo clock
an eerie silence fills the still room.
The cat stares at my mute face
her paws pressing the fallen ballpoint.
My wife comes in, looks at a piece,
the last line, the scribbled words and searches
in vain for a clue; she walks over a dossier
of unfinished work, a chapbook.
The clotted arteries bring no life to the brain.
Thoughtless and cold, it is held taut in a bony
box; totally vanished are the stored images
past memories, phrases and metaphors.
On the day I die my incomplete works
are my orphans; forlorn, they are lifeless,
never to be redacted or groomed, lacking
the author, they are squashed into the files.
The cat circles the room, rubs my cold feet,
pauses, stares at the chair, at drooping hands
wants some nibbles, waits to hear my response,
voice, mesmerized by my ashen face.
Source: Poetry Foundation. Mo Saidi, "On the Day I Die" from Between A and Z. 2014
The Night of the Snowfall
Snow falls gently in the Hill Country
covering the meadows and the valleys.
The sluggish streaks of smoke climb quietly
from the roofs but fail to reach the lazy clouds.
On Alamo Plaza in the heart of the night
and under the flood of lights, the flakes float
like frozen moths and glow like fireflies.
They drop on the blades of dormant grass.
They alight on the cobblestones and live awhile
in silence, they dissolve before dawn.
The wet limestone walls of the mission
glow proudly after the night of snowfall.
Source: Poetry Foundation - Mo H. Saidi, The Color of Faith, Pecan Grove Press, 2010.
Background
Poet, short story writer, and obstetrician/gynecologist, Dr. Mo H. Saidi was born in Ahwaz, Iran. He earned an MD at the University of Tehran Medical School and immigrated to the United States in 1969, where he became a citizen in 1975. Saidi also earned an MA at Harvard University. Dr. Saidi is now retired and lives in San Antonio, Texas. Saidi is married and has three children and three grandchildren.
In his poetry, Saidi engages themes of love, faith, and the cyclical nature of history. His debut collection, Art in the City (2008), won the Poetry Society of Texas’s Eakin Memorial Book Publication Award. He is the author of the poetry collections The Color of Faith (2010) and Between A and Z (2014) and the short story collection The Garden of Milk and Wine (2012). He also published more than fifty scientific papers in American medical journals, as well as a textbook, Female Sterilization: A Handbook for Women (Garland Publishing). His medical career focused on gynecological surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. He also founded an OB/GYN group practice.
Exploration 1: “We Are Poets” reminded me of my poem, “Poets in Autumn,” posted a week ago. If you care to, read both poems, and compare/contrast them.
Exploration 2: “Reunion” – the poet’s 44th – looks back (or presently) on the event. What number reunion year will your event be in 2021? Consider briefly your experiences at your most recent reunion?
Exploration 3: “On the Day I Die” – “On the day I die my incomplete works . . .” Complete the sentence, if you like.
"On the day I die my incomplete works . . ." will be in possession of my wife, unless she walks on before me as she claims she's going to do given our age difference (almost a decade) or my daughter. Either way I doubt that anyone will ponder my leavings, that day. That day, the house will remain closed up and empty sounding, the furnace will start when the thermostat calls for it as long as there is propane in the tank; flies will come alive in the upstairs bedroom windows again after finding their way in through our cheap-ass vinyl windows my wife complained we bought with no thought to quality and more thought to 'low-maintenance.'
ReplyDeleteOdors will arise typical of whose ever occupancy was prominent there; as everyone's home has 'that smell' to it that identifies it as theirs whether there are cooking odors or oil painting or heavy doses of air fresheners or wood smoke; all homes have odors and our home will be no different.
I suspect whomever it is will be aghast at the disorganization of my work area, primarily my writing desk and the old Raven office/home office area. As they sift through the literally thousands of pages of handwritten and typewritten disjointed manuscript, they'll understand why our house is badly in need of a paint job or new siding or never got the eight-foot addition it needed or the deck we always wanted on the east side of the house or a garage or machine shed typical of a farm dwelling: I was always writing.
In fact, should anyone ask the right people whom I used to work with at the toy factory (1983-2017) about my one fault in particular (Let's limit it to just one) they'd say "He was always writing!" And they'd be entirely right; I did, I always wrote, every day. When the idea came to me -- I'd sometimes pull to the shoulder of the road on the way to work, and dash something off (Well, rather than take my eyes off on-coming traffic to write a key phrase or word on notebook paper --which I often had with me on the passenger seat.) And at work, I just couldn't help myself. I even got 'written up for it' (a disciplinary action by management) but, in the end, was exonerated when the facts were known; my supervisor even gave me a notebook afterward.
It's all in my 'collection' somewhere; a collection with no beginning and no end. No rhyme or reason unless someone can figure it out. Some poetry, some essays; some autobiographical stories; some fiction. Some are dated like journal entries and others just lend themselves to a particular era, woman, relationship, marriage, or car accident. Oh yeah, I've been there done that. Never went to Boston College though.
Did go to Northland College in Tuff Rubber Balls, Minnesota, as a SOTA. (Known as 'Thief River Falls, MN' to some people and as a Student Older Than Average.) I met wife No. 2, and Wife No. 3, there, same day, same class. That too is documented somewhere in all 'this'. Never, ever said I graduated from there, although somebody inferred I had and now I get fundraising 'alumni mail every year. WTH. Even so, I got quite the education . . Yessiree . . .
But would that be interesting to anybody? No. Probably not. So it was just a waste of time and paper. I'm no Shakespeare or Cummings or Keats. But maybe in a hundred years . . .
DeleteMoby Dick was forgotten for years
So never despair.
Millions of dollars
Might go to your heirs.
This was sad.
May your coffin be made from a hundred year old oak.
And may you and I go tomorrow and plant the acorn for that tree.
ReplyDeleteNo reunions for me in ‘21. My high school closed after I left. In college I hung around with a dissolute group. No going back. I was an itinerant in the service. Never spent enough time in any one trench to get invited to a reunion.
There’s my wedding reunion. I’ll have 365 of those next year, the good Lord willin’.