[New-Poetry] Toads

[Jeff Newberry]

Another favorite.  Thanks for posting this, Bob.

Jeff Newberry

On 7/5/07, Bob Marcacci <bmarcacci at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> DEATH OF A NATURALIST
> by Seamus Heaney
>
> All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
> of the townland; green and heavy headed
> Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
> Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
> Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
> Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
> There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
> But best of all was the warm thick slobber
> Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
> In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
> I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
> Specks to range on window-sills at home,
> On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
> The fattening dots burst into nimble-
> Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
> The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
> And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
> Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
> Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
> For they were yellow in the sun and brown
> In rain.
>
> Then one hot day when fields were rank
> With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
> Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
> To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
> Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
> Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
> On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
> The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
> Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
> I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
> Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
> That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
>
> --
> Bob Marcacci
>
> Take time to come home to yourself everyday.
> - Robin Casarjean
>
>
>
> > From: Skip Fox <skip at louisiana.edu>
> > Reply-To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp; Views"
> > <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 15:15:47 -0500
> > To: "'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp; Views'"
> > <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Toads
> >
> > I love this, using the talkative toad in _The Wind and the Willows_, as
> the
> > genesis  for the phrase. This does not preclude the possibility that she
> was
> > gently deflating Yeats' sense of grandeur, which would be in keeping
> with
> > her more restrained views of the poet's mission and abilities.
> >
> >
> >
> > Well . . .
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of David Graham
> > Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 2:30 PM
> > To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Toads
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jul 2, 2007, at 3:16 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> >
> > I'm skeptical.  The phrase "literalists of the imagination" Moore
> ascribes
> > to Yeats, but not the toads.  She was typically very scrupulous about
> > acknowledging her borrowings.
> >
> >
> >
> > The Yeats is from *Ideas of Good and Evil*:  "The limitation of his view
> was
> > from the very intensity of his vision; he was a too literal realist of
> > imagination, as others are of nature...."  He's discussing Blake's
> > illustrations of Dante.
> >
> >
> >
> > I could easily be wrong, but note that Moore puts the toads passage in
> > quotes.
> >
> >
> >
> > --Bob G.
> >
> > ================================
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> From Representative Poetry Online:
> >
> >
> >
> > imaginary gardens with real toads in them: in some editions, Moore
> places
> > quotation marks around these words, but their source is unknown.
> Possibly
> > Moore had in mind "the garden front of Toad Hall" in Kenneth Grahame's
> The
> > Wind in the Willows (New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1907; 1913 copy at
> del F
> > Fisher Rare Book Library), a children's book with real poems in it. Cf.
> > Grahame's account of Toad of Toad Hall: "During luncheon -- which was
> > excellent, of course, as everything at Toad Hall always was -- the Toad
> > simply let himself go. Disregarding the Rat, he proceeded to play upon
> the
> > inexperienced Mole as on a harp. Naturally a voluble animal, and always
> > mastered by his imagination, he painted the prospects of the trip and
> the
> > joys of the open life and the roadside in such glowing colours that the
> Mole
> > could hardly sit in his chair for excitement"
> >
> > http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1488.html
> >
> > -----------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ========================================
> >
> > David Graham
> >
> > grahamd at ripon.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > Home Page:
> >
> > http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html
> >
> >
> >
> > Poetry Library:
> >
> > http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> >
> > ==========================================
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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"Memory believes before knowing remembers.  Believes longer than recollects,
longer than knowing even wonders."
—William Faulkner, Light in August


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