Via Negativa

November 11, 2024November 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Poetry Blog Digest 2024, Week 45

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).

This week: notes on self-preservation, walking through fire, soundlessly mouthing the syllables for “beloved”, the gunpowder plot, the intimacies of the woods, and much more. Enjoy.

November 11, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Another minor atrocity

To the Wardrobe, and with Mr. Townsend and Moore to the Saracen’s Head to a barrel of oysters, and so Mr. Moore and I to Tom Trice’s, with whom I did first set my hand to answer to a writt of his this tearm. Thence to the Wardrobe to dinner, and there by appointment met my wife, who had by my direction brought some laces for my Lady to choose one for her. And after dinner I went away, and left my wife and ladies together, and all their work was about this lace of hers.
Captain Ferrers and I went together, and he carried me the first time that ever I saw any gaming house, to one, entering into Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, at the end of Bell Yard, where strange the folly of men to lay and lose so much money, and very glad I was to see the manner of a gamester’s life, which I see is very miserable, and poor, and unmanly.
And thence he took me to a dancing school in Fleet Street, where we saw a company of pretty girls dance, but I do not in myself like to have young girls exposed to so much vanity.
So to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lady had agreed upon a lace for my wife of 6l, which I seemed much glad of that it was no more, though in my mind I think it too much, and I pray God keep me so to order myself and my wife’s expenses that no inconvenience in purse or honour follow this my prodigality. So by coach home.

a head left out
in the yard of a school

where we do not like
to think too much

and pray that no inconvenience
follow this prodigality

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 11 November 1661.

November 11, 2024November 10, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Pitimini

river in November light between bare woods and mountain


My mother called them pitimini roses—
pitimini, pitimini, she'd croon as she worked
on pots and garden beds—miniature blooms 
that have been bred to bud smaller than regular 
roses, but in just as many colors. Only much later
did I realize these are the kinds that nurseries
label "petite minis" — some of them thornless,
or only sporting milder prickles that can still
embed themselves on the surface of a finger.
The saying goes, a rose by any other name is
just as sweet—but as she worked, talking to
her roses, I sometimes thought that she 
was really saying pity me, pity me—which is why
they let her pluck and gather them in her hands.

November 10, 2024 by Dave Bonta

View from the center

(Lord’s day). At our own church in the morning, where Mr. Mills preached. Thence alone to the Wardrobe to dinner with my Lady, where my Lady continues upon yesterday’s discourse still for me to lay out money upon my wife, which I think it is best for me to do for her honour and my own. Last night died Archibald, my Lady’s butler and Mrs. Sarah’s brother, of a dropsy, which I am troubled at.
In the afternoon went and sat with Mr. Turner in his pew at St. Gregory’s, where I hear our Queen Katherine, the first time by name as such, publickly prayed for, and heard Dr. Buck upon “Woe unto thee, Corazin,” &c., where he started a difficulty, which he left to another time to answer, about why God should give means of grace to those people which he knew would not receive them, and deny to others which he himself confesses, if they had had them, would have received them, and they would have been effectual too. I would I could hear him explain this, when he do come to it. Thence home to my wife, and took her to my Aunt Wight’s, and there sat a while with her (my uncle being at Katharine hill), and so home, and I to Sir W. Batten’s, where Captain Cock was, and we sent for two bottles of Canary to the Rose, which did do me a great deal of hurt, and did trouble me all night, and, indeed, came home so out of order that I was loth to say prayers to-night as I am used ever to do on Sundays, which my wife took notice of and people of the house, which I was sorry for.

the war continues
on our own public other

those people I took
as bottles of hurt

all out of prayers
to a Sunday knot

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 10 November 1661.

November 10, 2024November 10, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

Beautiful

What a beautiful family, others say,
piecing together a story they see
in photographs—us, smiling and in our good
clothes before a Christmas tree; celebrating

birthdays and graduations, travel and visits
from friends. How else could one respond
to what's offered as compliment, except
say Thank you? But half the time,

it seems a dishonesty—as if I could take
credit for something I cultivated and shaped
the way I might write and edit a manuscript: 
tightening the gaps, choosing the best

order; gently trying to ease my daughters' hurts
so they learn to walk this constantly harrowing 
life without giving all they are to suffering, to
sadness. And they are beautiful. Their visions 

dart like bright fish in the waters, even when 
a chemistry in their constitutions rakes and
churns the currents, whips up winds of anxiety
as if toying with the trust they want to continue 

to place in the world. I only desire a little
space for consolation; to know, before I
leave this world or it leaves us, 
beauty before any betrayal.

November 9, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

On Prayer

When a former grad student who attends
the same church in your parish mentions 
he hasn't seen you lately on Sundays, you say 
after three years of pandemic isolation and 
the resulting germaphobia, plus the heaviness
of each day in the world, it's just harder to come 
back. For lesser sins (like eating breakfast before 
mass yet taking communion anyway, then chewing 
the body of Christ), you used to be afraid your soul 
would char in the eternal barbecue of hell, or languish 
in the triage station called purgatory, someday to be 
extracted like a dented plush toy out of a claw machine, 
but only after the right number of prayers for your 
salvation are dropped into the coin slot by people 
you don't even know. So now, maybe you're only a little 
surprised at how matter-of-fact you feel: it is what it is. 
In Sunday school, the nuns used to say, imagine 
your soul after baptism: a luminous white, like new-
fallen snow across an entire city. No surface runoff, 
no dust, grime, or mud; not even the herringbone 
tracks left by birds nor the flower-petal prints 
of light-stepping foxes. But snow melts, rain falls, 
swells into flood. Houses and bridges go under. 
In autumn, your mother dies; then a friend, 
and a friend of that friend. Fires rage, bombs 
fall; wars never seem to end. You can't imagine
how many prayers are sobbed at each site of ruin
or howled into the cold, clear naves of night.

November 9, 2024 by Dave Bonta

The good urge

At the office all the morning. At noon Mr. Davenport, Phillips, and Mr. Wm. Bernard and Furbisher, came by appointment and dined with me, and we were very merry. After dinner I to the Wardrobe, and there staid talking with my Lady all the afternoon till late at night. Among other things my Lady did mightily urge me to lay out money upon my wife, which I perceived was a little more earnest than ordinary, and so I seemed to be pleased with it, and do resolve to bestow a lace upon her, and what with this and other talk, we were exceeding merry. So home at night.

all lips and fur we were
an all-night urge

to perceive more
than ordinary
to be another

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 9 November 1661.

November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 by Luisa A. Igloria

On the Behavior of Light

"The higher the temperature of a body, the more radiation it emits."         
                                                                                         ~ Wikipedia


        All day, we try to keep alive some small  
flickering in our cupped hands, in our mouths, our
        breasts. The sun drops earlier now, and this

country is streaked again in shadow. But when
       have we ever lived, really, in an absence of darkness?
This is no holiday, but the neighbor at the end of the street

       has unfurled the largest flag across her front porch—
it looks so smug, especially the red and white parts
       above the flower boxes, an idea of self made

even more visible for its refusal to remember certain
       truths in history. Which is to say, the archive
is full of instances when light was reflected, refracted;

polarized, diffracted, scattered. But also transmitted, 
        as the world is still filled with light-emitting bodies.

November 8, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Time out

This morning up early, and to my Lord Chancellor’s with a letter to him from my Lord, and did speak with him; and he did ask me whether I was son to Mr. Talbot Pepys or no (with whom he was once acquainted in the Court of Requests), and spoke to me with great respect. Thence to Westminster Hall (it being Term time) and there met with Commissioner Pett, and so at noon he and I by appointment to the Sun in New Fish Street, where Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and we all were to dine, at an invitation of Captain Stoaks and Captain Clerk, and were very merry, and by discourse I found Sir J. Minnes a fine gentleman and a very good scholler.
After dinner to the Wardrobe, and thence to Dr. Williams, who went with me (the first time that he has been abroad a great while) to the Six Clerks Office to find me a clerk there able to advise me in my business with Tom Trice, and after I had heard them talk, and had given me some comfort, I went to my brother Tom’s, and took him with me to my coz. Turner at the Temple, and had his opinion that I should not pay more than the principal 200l, with which I was much pleased, and so home.

ask me the time
and I point to the sun
where oaks go

wartime has been
a great while
given to rot

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 8 November 1661.

November 7, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Down to earth

This morning came one Mr. Hill (sent by Mr. Hunt, the Instrument maker), to teach me to play on the Theorbo, but I do not like his play nor singing, and so I found a way to put him off. So to the office. And then to dinner, and got Mr. Pett the Commissioner to dinner with me, he and I alone, my wife not being well, and so after dinner parted. And I to Tom Trice, who in short shewed me a writt he had ready for my father, and I promised to answer it. So I went to Dr. Williams (who is now pretty well got up after his sickness), and after that to Mr. Moore to advise, and so returned home late on foot, with my mind cleared, though not satisfied. I met with letters at home from my Lord from Lisbone, which speak of his being well; and he tells me he had seen at the court there the day before he wrote this letter, the Juego de Toro. So fitted myself for bed.
Coming home I called at my uncle Fenner’s, who tells that Peg Kite now hath declared she will have the beggarly rogue the weaver, and so we are resolved neither to meddle nor make with her.

this morning hill
like a short answer

pretty and clear
though no peak

for god or a kite
to meddle with

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 7 November 1661.