From the title of this poem, we’re faced with a paradox. I’ve read it several times now and I don’t know what the TONE is: resigned? Disappointed? Hopeful? I landed on hopeful. In the worst moments of our lives, the world doesn’t stop spinning. But maybe it should. Maybe it should. #PoemADayJuly
I just thought of the poem "We Lived Happily During the War" by Ilya Kaminsky on another read of this poem but I don't know if I actually want to follow thru on this connection...so I'm going to light the fire and run away (comment I got on an essay from a grad school prof years ago)
I thought of the same poem on my first read!
I feel like so many of these poems I could have a 60-minute minimum discussion with all of you 😂. Somewhere my students are like, WAIT are you ACTUALLY discussing poems with other teachers on the Internet on your summer vacation?????
"A Song on the End of the World" by Czeslav Milosz is about our intentional blindness to images of pain and suffering (Warsaw, 1944) or modern day Gaza or Ukraine-out of self-preservation or respect for life that we want to celebrate in songs and poems despite what is going on. #PoemADayJuly
A bumblebee, sparrows, a fisherman, women, a white-haired old man are busy living, moving, in the air, water, & land-the imagery of life and its continuity ("infants are born") juxtaposed against apocalyptic lines 14-17, creates an optimistic tone. However, are we in denial and keep ourselves busy?
I'm landing on resigned today, but that could change tomorrow.
“Maybe it should.” 😮💨 The repetition of “There will be no other end of the world” is why I love poetry. We are reminded that there will be many ends to the world, each separate and individual, but through that isolation we find ourselves in community. Contradiction of form and function - 👏🏻👏🏻
So many of poems of late with #PoemADayJuly that hold a mirror up to us and, whatever we read/interpret, says more about us than any fixed intention of the poet, I think. This poem could change daily for me, quite honestly.
I agree. I've always felt like my annotations are like pages from my journal. I've skipped poems because I didn't have the emotional capacity to engage with them right now.
Or "We are so busy / being small and hungry and alive"
Yes, Michelle. The line, “No, I’m tired of being / the one who sums things up.” From The Day of our Divorce Hearing has me completely undone for days.
Absolutely. I read it differently this evening than I did this morning! It was less devastating and more optimistic. Also—people survive!
I do hear hope in this poem, and a resistance to anxiety about the next day and what is beyond our control? I like how the tone is ambiguous here and I want to include this one in my discussion of The Road this year.
Could it be that the tone changes depending on one’s perspective in the moment of reading? Today we could land hopeful; tomorrow disappointed. This emphasizes importance of multiple readings of a text
That’s exactly what @marcusluther.bsky.social said!
The poem is already powerful before you get to "Warsaw, 1944" at the bottom, and the weight of that specific place and time just makes your head spin.