LLT 180: The Heroic Quest - Lecture 14: Vergil, Aeneid

Human societies have long used the theme of the quest for self-knowledge as a vehicle to assess their own cultures and to explore ethical situations arising in civic life. This course examines texts from diverse cultural traditions in which protagonists confront their inherited identity of culture and language, providing a broader perspective on self-discovery in our own society.

[Work-ccfw]

These kids have never heard Ween and the professor is hip as hell!

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Very much enjoyed your poems and reading. Your unique imagery engaged me throughout.
I, too, am a poet ( and also a fiction story writer which I’ll elaborate shortly but for now let me say I write mostly Japanese format poems i.e. haiku, senryu, tanka/kyoka, haibun etc. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a Tanka and a haiku dedicated to Matshuo Bashō’s frog with added insightful commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my haiku among her 10 favorite haiku of all time! What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem with Jane Reichhold’ insightful insightful commentary:


Bashō’s frog
four hundred years
of ripples


At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather
daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and
decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA forum.

The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing about realism–ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water

As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger
ponds, its ripples are wider–including us all. But his last word reminds us
that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain.

~~

Now the tanka:

returning home from
a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear paint on my face
and turn into art

~~

Finally, the fictional story that I alluded to earlier. It not only should appeal to Afro-Americans but all individual and groups that experience racial discrimination. It is based on a true incident that took place in the 1950s when racial prejudice was rampant. My story has an unexpected heartwarming ending that coincides with my own belief akin to Dr Martin Luther King’s in a non-violent approach and resolution to racial injustice Titled “ Eloise, Edna And The Chicken Coop”

ELOISE, EDNA & THE CHICKEN COOP

There was once a Black lady named Eloise who inherited from her grandmother a parcel of land in the suburbs of Compton California at a time when there was strong racial prejudice against women of color—especially those Black women who owned property in predominately white neighborhoods.
It happened there lived adjacent to Eloise’s land a white woman named Edna who did not like the fact that this Black woman owned land next to hers.
Eloise would try to be friendly because she believed Jesus when He said “Love Thy Neighbor” and to Eloise that meant even if your neighbor was unfriendly.
But whenever Eloise saw Edna, Edna would turn her back in disdain. In fact, ever since her husband died a decade ago, Edna became mean and unfriendly to everyone in the neighborhood.
But to Eloise, she was so hateful and full of animosity that one night when all the lights in Eloise home were off Edna went to her own backyard where she kept her chicken coop and gathered up all the manure and dumped it on Eloise land and upon her tomatoes and her greens and everything she was growing, in an attempt to destroy it.
And when Eloise realized the next morning that there was all this manure, instead of becoming angry, she decided to rake and mix it in with the soil and use it as fertilizer.
Every night Edna would dump the manure from her chicken coop litter box and Eloise would get up in the morning and turn it over and mix it.
This went on for almost a month until one morning Eloise noticed there was no manure in her yard.
Then one of the neighbors informed Eloise that Edna had fallen ill. But because Edna was so mean and unfriendly, no one came to see her when she was sick.
But when Eloise heard about Edna’s condition she picked the best flowers from her garden, walked to Edna’s house, knocked on her front door and when Edna opened the door, she was in complete shock that this Black Woman who she had been so cruel to, would be the only neighbor to visit
her and bring flowers.
Edna was deeply moved by Eloise kindness.
Then Eloise handed the flowers to Edna who said,
“These are the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen! Where’d you get them?”
Eloise replied,
“You helped me make them, Edna, because when you were dumping in my yard, I decided to plant some roses and use your manure as fertilizer.“
This genuine act of kindness opened the floodgate of Edna’s heart that had been closed for so long.
“When I’m feeling better, I would love to have you over for tea, ” Edna told Eloise.
“Thank you, “ Edna replied, assuring her she would come. And then added, “I will pray for your speedy recovery every night.”
And with those words Eloise departed.

It’s amazing what can blossom from manure.
There are some who allow manure to fall on them and do nothing.
But then there are others—like Eloise —who “turn the other cheek” when abused or in this case “turn over the soil” to make something new like those bevy of beautiful red roses that opened a white woman’s
heart.

~~

—All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida,
-Al

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

hope you don’t mind me sharing the following poem, one of my all time favorite meta poetic poems by a poet named Howard Dull that I recently chanced upon and discovered. When I read it, I became speechless. And most of my poetry friends consider this as one of their all time favorites also. It was published in a 1970s anthology titled “ Open Poetry” I hope you enjoy and it proves to me that once Poetry hits you, you could be the worst nefarious scoundrel with kings and Empires at your command....but you will relent!
All love,
Al


Suibhne Gheilt

1
He has haunted me now for over a year
that madman Suibhne Gheilt
who in the middle of a battle
looked up and saw something
that made him leap up and fly
over swords and trees
— a poet gifted above all others —
11

How could a proud loud mouth
who yelled KILL KILL KILL
as he plowed done the enemy
— heads rolling off of his sword —
be so lifted up
( or fly up
as those below saw it
— wings beating)
be so suddenly gifted
with poetry
and nest so high
in Ireland’s tall trees?
Is there a point
where all paths cross?
And why am I so drawn to him
that all my questions
seem shot in his direction?
“And they ran into the woods
and threw their lances
and shot their arrows
up through the branches”
What parallels could I ever hope to find —
my refusal to fight
( weaseling out on psychiatric grounds)?
my leaving my country behind?
my poetry?
“and my wife wept
on the path below. . .
Oh memory is sweet
but sweeter is the sorrel
in the pool in the path below”
I fly down every night
to eat
111

Sweeney like the rest of us would have been better off if he had never anything to do with women.
But the point of it lies hidden
in a pool of milk
in a pile of shit
for you to see
when a milkmaid smiles
Sweeney like the rest of us flies down
and when she pours the milk
into the hole her heel made in the cowdung
Sweeney like the rest of us kneels down and drinks
and dies on the horn the cowherd hid in it.
So before you have anything to do with women
remember Sweeney the bird of Ireland
lying on his back
in the middle of that path
in the moonlight.
1V

And on my way home
this morning
( my wife
waiting)
my shadow
racing up the path ahead of me
I saw something
( a black stone?)
thrown
at the back of its head
ducked
and spun around
so fast
I almost fell down
— it was a bird
flying up into a tree
V
No good could come out of this war
out of what burns in the heart of our highly disciplined
John Q. Killer as a whole village bursts into one flame —
the villagers streaming like tears
towards the forest
cover his helicopter’s blades
blow the leaves off and
and the flame towards. . .

as we sit in front of our bubbles watching our president
( whose bubbletalk no one can escape and he is a little bit
mad —calling the reporters in for an interview while he’s
sitting on the bubble having
a bubble movement) and first
lady climb into their big bubble bed an Lucy, born of
their own bubbles, crawls in between —
“ Mah daddy has so many
troubles
turning the world into a bubble
and sick of crossfire —
the cries of the women and
children flying over his head —
he stumbled down to the
riverbank and found,
the wreckage twisted around the tree
behind, his skull. . .

Noises, there are noises,
noises that of themselves drive
a man mad —NOISES!

But last night the Stockhausen penetrated from the four
sides of the auditorium, stripping each layer of feeling
and thought until all that was left was something the size
of a nut — so tiny, so hard, so impenetrable it was alone
in the middle of an infinite space. . .

—Howard Dull

All love in isolation from Miami Beach, Florida,
Al

[BUKCOLLECTOR]

Brief bio with examples of senryu and haibun ( I’ve already posted a Tanka about Jackson Pollock)
I’m Al Fogel Born in 1945 and in 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun.
Subsequently I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka, Senryu, and Haibun.
Here are some examples of each of my specialties

senryu
~
dentist chair
the hygienist removes
my Bluetooth
~
Internet argument
all his words in CAPS
hers in EMOTICONS
~
after the divorce
he spends more time
at the dollar store
~
damsel in distress
clarke kent still searching
for a phone booth
~
cauliflower ears
once a contender
now boxing vegetables
~
under
the influence —
moonshine
~
Audubon sale
all variety of seeds. . .
early birds welcome

** as you can see, senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two are horrific and heartbreaking dealing with the Holocaust
~
cattle cars
between the slats
human eyes
~
stutthof —
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~
Haibun

The Mathematics of Retribution

“Karma is i fathomable, ”
I inform her
It’s late and our conversation turns heavy
“ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds.
“If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.”

“ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin.
“What if you murdered me in this life
because I murdered you in a prior life
karmic debts and dues are now equalized.”

“But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?”
“As I said, karma is unfathomable.”

We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix

Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep

Stutthof —
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~~
Mama

There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace —her arms the heat of home

Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness.

She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior.

nursing home
bumper wheelchair
her favorite pastime

Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together —grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes.

When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened.

thrift store
the dress mama donated
she wants to buy

On a cold December morn mama passed.
The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes.

autumn twilight —
oh mama tuck me under
hug me one more time
~

‘Round Midnight
It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way.
My uncle still talks with reverence about how —in his heyday —he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect?  One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar —with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough.
But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night.

new Harlem
the a-train replaced
by the bullet
~

Atlantic City New Jersey
I had just graduated from high school
I remember stopping for saltwater taffy —as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in...

french kiss
under the boardwalk
over the moon!

All love,
Al

[shaunmccoy]

Information given here is misleading. Augustus Caesar did not directly commission the Aeneid. Nor did Virgil come up with Aeneas as the founder of Rome because he needed a "cooler hero than Romulus and Remus." Rather, there was a prophecy in Homer that Aeneas would survive the fall of Troy, and then found another city. Many Greeks had already pinpointed Rome as this city by the time Virgil started writing.

[ida-hv]

AENEA— PELLASG ILLYR DARDAN von ILIRICUM ILLYRIEN .🇦🇱🦅🇦🇱

[meyerjac]

Hint to the prof... none of your students know who Beavis and Butthead or Urkel are. They had to ask their parents.