Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Groundhog Day: One for the Poets
My poetry mentor, the late Joel Oppenheimer, loved Groundhog Day. It's the day he felt he could allow himself to think of spring. He was right. Thinking of spring in December & January is premature & frustrating, especially in an unusually harsh winter like this one. It was irrelevant to joel whether or not the groundhog saw its shadow. Soon enough, pitchers & catchers would be warming up in Arizona & Florida, which put a seal on the matter of spring.
Joel loved all minor holidays & occasions. He used them as prompts for poems.
Americans have never had enough holidays. But we're trying. We moved them to Mondays to get three day weekends. We've elevated Halloween & Valentine's Day. We turned Christmas into a six week festival & shopping orgy & really go at it from the week before Christmas to New Year's Day. We advanced the beginning of summer from the Summer solstice or the 4th of July to Memorial Day weekend. We made Superbowl Sunday into a national party; those who dislike football do something special to avoid it (one year I attended a Tupperware party).
Can there be too many holidays? Probably yes, if they shut businesses down too often. By the time of Augustus, some Romans were complaining that they were becoming more than an annoyance, & were actually causing serious economic disruption, as both citizens & slaves were inclined to observe them for days & even weeks at a time. In cosmopolitan Rome, new gods & holidays from conquered provinces & trade nations were being added to the pantheon & calendar.
But India's doing alright. Hindus enjoy their festivals, & have a special affection for colorful, garish decorations. They have sense of occasion. When I was teaching piano, one day a young female Indian-American student arrived with a small gift for me. It was, I think, Guru Purnima, a day in July to honor spiritual guides, including music teachers, but it may have been Saraswati Puja, for the Goddess of creativity, in February or November depending on the part of India. I was delighted. I consider instruction in listening a very important aspect of music teaching, & I did this by trying to broaden a student's concept of what constitutes "music." Most children grasp this easily. They want music to be limitless. There is certainly something "spiritual" about it, because I picked it up in part from Indian music. It enriched my day rather than interrupting, & the student taught the teacher something new & important, as another of my gurus, Zen-influenced Mary Caroline Richards, encouraged in the teacher/student relationship. She wrote: "Remember, when I say teacher I also mean student."
Groundhog Day is an appropriate occasion to remember & honor a poetry teacher. For good poetry teachers also teach more than poems.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Joel loved all minor holidays & occasions. He used them as prompts for poems.
Americans have never had enough holidays. But we're trying. We moved them to Mondays to get three day weekends. We've elevated Halloween & Valentine's Day. We turned Christmas into a six week festival & shopping orgy & really go at it from the week before Christmas to New Year's Day. We advanced the beginning of summer from the Summer solstice or the 4th of July to Memorial Day weekend. We made Superbowl Sunday into a national party; those who dislike football do something special to avoid it (one year I attended a Tupperware party).
Can there be too many holidays? Probably yes, if they shut businesses down too often. By the time of Augustus, some Romans were complaining that they were becoming more than an annoyance, & were actually causing serious economic disruption, as both citizens & slaves were inclined to observe them for days & even weeks at a time. In cosmopolitan Rome, new gods & holidays from conquered provinces & trade nations were being added to the pantheon & calendar.
But India's doing alright. Hindus enjoy their festivals, & have a special affection for colorful, garish decorations. They have sense of occasion. When I was teaching piano, one day a young female Indian-American student arrived with a small gift for me. It was, I think, Guru Purnima, a day in July to honor spiritual guides, including music teachers, but it may have been Saraswati Puja, for the Goddess of creativity, in February or November depending on the part of India. I was delighted. I consider instruction in listening a very important aspect of music teaching, & I did this by trying to broaden a student's concept of what constitutes "music." Most children grasp this easily. They want music to be limitless. There is certainly something "spiritual" about it, because I picked it up in part from Indian music. It enriched my day rather than interrupting, & the student taught the teacher something new & important, as another of my gurus, Zen-influenced Mary Caroline Richards, encouraged in the teacher/student relationship. She wrote: "Remember, when I say teacher I also mean student."Groundhog Day is an appropriate occasion to remember & honor a poetry teacher. For good poetry teachers also teach more than poems.
Labels: art, holidays, poem, religion
