**Announcement**
Please join us at 2024’s last dVerse LIVE, Saturday, December 14th from 10 to 11 AM New York time (Eastern Standard Time). The link to join will be embedded in Thursday’s OLN prompt.

“The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.”

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian painter and art theorist.

Happy Holidays, friends and fellow poets! Thank you for joining us here at the dVerse Pub for the last Poetics of the year. I’m Dora from Dreams from a Pilgrimage, and as your pubtender, eager for you to drink in the title of this post despite its opacity and still in the spirit of curiosity.

Question: Do the holidays test you? For some of us, they can be filled with frantic activity: gifts to be bought, parties to attend, food to be cooked, hospitality extended, and in all the fast-paced, daily hurly-burly, the need to put on a holiday face of imperturbable cheer. For others of us, depression and loneliness, sometimes on top of chronic sickness, stalk the holidays, making them an excruciating test of endurance.

Yet despite the inevitable ruptures in social niceties, eruptions of bad temper, seething impatience, last-minute aggravations of crowded stores and holiday traffic, still there are those redeeming times of holiday memories created, the joy of seeing family and friends enjoying gifts, festive concerts, games, and religious observances.

^{(Click on the images for a better look. (Left) The poem “A Gift For You” is by the 13th c. Persian poet, Rumi. (Right) In the American South a pineapple is a symbol of hospitality, which I think the Danish painter Tatiana Ans’ painting, “Sommer Dessert” captures marvelously.)}

In the United States, the current climate of political hatred for the “other” side has brought into sharp focus how much we fear the Other, and in that fear we have turned our neighbors, even our family members, into our enemies. Despite it all, the holidays still offer the hope of mending fences torn down if we would only take advantage of the opportunity.

In the same way, despite the weight of the past and the anxiety for the future, still we discover peace, love, lasting joy, unshakable hope, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes sought.

Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.”

Theodore Roethke

One of the things many of us do is send out holiday cards to those we have not had occasion to see, separated by time and distance. Poet John N. Morris finds that despite the passage of years, we write in the hope that we will still receive a response that renews old ties.

John N. Morris (Poetry, Feb. 1977)

Despite … Still.

In Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen” (1915) the yearning for a child-like faith outruns childish faith in the events of Christmas.

Despite … Still.

In “Christmas Guilt,” the speaker apologetically addresses a squirrel yet promises to make amends.

Tom Disch in Poetry (December 1991)

Despite … Still.

It’s actually the title of a poem by Robert Graves (a great admirer of Thomas Hardy) written in Graves’ favorite Skeltonic style, to wit:

Despite and Still

Have you not read
The words in my head,
And I made part
Of your own heart?
We have been such as draw
The losing straw —
You of your gentleness,
I of my rashness,
Both of despair —
Yet still might share
This happy will:
To love despite and still.
Never let us deny
The thing’s necessity,
But, O, refuse
To choose,
Where chance may seem to give
Love in alternative.

from The Poems of Robert Graves (1958)

In “[what if a much of a which of a wind]” E. E. Cummings writes in the first stanza:

what if a much of a which of a wind
gives truth to the summer’s lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)
—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man

Despite … Still.

Seventeenth-century Welsh poet George Herbert wrote The Temple (published posthumously in 1633), a collection of poems with titles like “The Porch,” “The Altar,” and “The Windows.” The final poem was “Love (III)” which the French philosopher, mystic, and activist Simone Weil considered “the most beautiful poem ever written.” “Love (III)” operates on three levels: the narrative/dialogue, the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper, and the eschatological heavenly banquet.

George Herbert, “Love (III)” (from The Temple, 1633)

Despite … Still.

In Sonnet 29, Shakespeare’s persona appears to be trapped in a mimetic cycle of desire, wanting what he does not possess.

Despite … Still.

Margaret Atwood considers tableware in terms of Nature “tooth and claw” and finds unexpected comfort in spoons.

“Table Settings,” in Dearly (2020)

Despite … Still.

Ohio poet Mary Oliver, writes of the brokenness of the “green globe,” then finds that which remains undefeated in “On Winter’s Margin.”

Despite … Still.

The anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was jailed in South Africa for twenty-seven years. He later said that during his imprisonment he would regularly recite the poem “Invictus” (Latin. “unconquerable” or “undefeated”).

Despite … Still.

William Butler Yeats turns the formula on its head in “Adam’s Curse,” contemplating poetry, beauty, and finally love, looking back on what was once and finding it has faded or died. He ends his poem saying:

excerpt from “Adam’s Curse” by Yeats (first published in 1903)

The challenge: Write a poem on any theme that the “despite … still” dynamic evokes. As the above poems and art prove, the setting can be the holidays or any occasion, or a mood or fancy, your choice. Or you can choose to pull a Yeats and turn the “despite…still” dynamic on its head. Let the muse be your guide!

New to dVerse? Here’s how to join in:
* Write a poem in response to the challenge.
* Post your poem on your blog and link back to this post.
* Enter your name and the link to your post by clicking Mr. Linky below (remember to check the little box to accept the use/privacy policy).
* Read and comment on your fellow poets’ work –- there’s so much to derive from reading each other’s writing: new inspiration, new ideas, new friends.