Poetry In Motion

Irish Tradition : Poem "The Exile's Return"

 

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I'm not one for poetry, I also would rather read a novel but reading and listening to the posts it reminded me of a poem we had to memorize and recite for our 8th grade graduation,that was in 1959. The Man With The Hoe, by Edwin Markham. It was a very long poem and I was surprised after all these years I remembered so much of it. It took us months to learn and the evening of our graduation we were relieved that it was over and the principal said we did a great job.
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this —
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed —
More filled with signs and portents for the soul —
More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in the aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world.
A protest that is also a prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream,
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.
After the silence of the centuries?
 

"In 1899 an American schoolteacher, Charles Edward Anson Markham (1852-1940), who used the penname Edwin Markham, was inspired by an 1863 painting to write a poem. The painting was "L'homme à la houe" by the French artist, Jean-François Millet (1814-1875); the poem in English was "The Man with a Hoe".The poem quickly became as famous as the painting. Both continue to be moving testimonies to what the too prevalent inhumanity of humanity can cause.

Edwin's most famous poem was first presented at a public poetry reading in 1898. He read "The Man With the Hoe," which accented laborers' hardships. His main inspiration was a French painting of the same name (in French, L'homme à la houe) by Jean-François Millet. Markham's poem was published, and it became quite popular very soon. In New York, he gave many lectures to labor groups. These happened as often as his poetry readings.

Charles Edwin Anson Markham (April 23, 1852 - March 7, 1940) was an American poet. From 1923 to 1931 he was Poet Laureate of Oregon".
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Thank you Meanderer for the photo. It certainly brings the poem to life as well as a better understanding of the poem. I didn't know anything about the poets life either. I suppose we probably were given the background of the poet but being in 8th grade, I wasn't much interested, or it went right over my head. I'm 72 now and find it interesting how this has all come to light again. I'm going to print out the photo and history and put it with the original copy of the poem from my graduation. Maybe someday my kids will find it among my treasures and enjoy it also.
 
Yeah, the painting adds meaning to :

"Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain"?


Ruth n Jersey said:
Thank you Meanderer for the photo. It certainly brings the poem to life as well as a better understanding of the poem. I didn't know anything about the poets life either. I suppose we probably were given the background of the poet but being in 8th grade, I wasn't much interested, or it went right over my head. I'm 72 now and find it interesting how this has all come to light again. I'm going to print out the photo and history and put it with the original copy of the poem from my graduation. Maybe someday my kids will find it among my treasures and enjoy it also.
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Poetry in Motion: The Meaning behind the Stunning Sculpture at MSK’s Josie Robertson Surgery Center

Wordfall (link for video)

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"When visitors first enter the building, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, they surely notice Wordfall, a moving piece of art commissioned especially for the space.

"Artists Francie Hester and Lisa Hill created Wordfall in memory of Brendan Ogg, a young man with a passion for poetry. When Brendan developed a brain tumor, he wrote about life’s simple, sweet moments and the support he received throughout his care.

“Writing was his ambition and his life,” Brendan’s father, Clay Ogg, says. “It was his way of dealing with what was happening.”
 

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