Robert Bly Poetry Reading

On October 16, I went to Robert Bly’s poetry reading for his new book “Stealing Sugar from the Castle.”  His new book is a collection of poems ranging from 1950 to the present.  It is, essentially, a biography of all of his poems.  The audience ranged in age and personality.  There were many middle-aged people but also some very young people too.  A guy behind me played the guitar softly while a young French couple was in front of me.  There were some college students as well off to the sides.

There was a 15 minute introduction by one of the organizers and then another 5 minute introduction by someone else before Robert Bly got up.  Throughout the hour and a half slot, he would make self-deprecating jokes about himself as a poet and have a few jokes in his poems.  He’d often say to the side things such as “At least that’s what poets say,” or “Like poetry is not ever random.”  His poems weave humor and beauty together, using imagery and structure to sway the reader and the listener.

One of my favorite poems that he read was “Wanting Sumptuous Heavens” (right). 

Along with his side comments, joking about this poem here and there, he covers a bunch of different topics in a short amount of time.  One of the topics coming up a lot is religion.  Bly writes here about wanting a comfortable earth and a sumptuous heaven.  Not so much the fact of it but more that people are obsessed with having a comfortable life on earth and in heaven, if there is even a heaven.  His next line “But the heron standing on one leg in the bog // Drinks his dark rum all day.”  He describes how even though we humans try to think in the future and try to everything right, the heron, like many animals, just think about the present.  About what is going on now.  And I think that it’s kind of like a whistle, like we should follow what the animals do and be who we are and what we want now and don’t worry about the future.