Frog Praises Night : Poems With title: Commentary author: Thomas, F. Richard. publisher: Southern Illinois University Press isbn10 | asin: 0809309599 print isbn13: 9780809309597 ebook isbn13: 9780585186627 language: English Thomas, F. Richard--Criticism and subject interpretation. publication date: 1980 lcc: PS3570.H5626F7eb ddc: 811/.5/4 Thomas, F. Richard--Criticism and subject: interpretation. Page iii Frog Praises Night Poems with Commentary By F. Richard Thomas Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale and Edwardsville Feffer & Simons, Inc. London and Amsterdam Page iv Copyright © 1980 by Southern Illinois University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Designed by Richard Neal Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Thomas, F Richard. Frog praises night. I. Title PS3570.H5626F7 811'.5'4 79-22296 ISBN 0-8093-0959-9 Page v For my father, Franklin A. Thomas (19091978) Page vii Contents Acknowledgments ix The Poetry Reading xi Sunset Bridge (A Dream) 1 My Friends 3 Millard Buckman 5 Dream (for Gary C.) 8 Judy Lowe 10 Lee Ann 12 Dear Rick and Ann 14 Aerogram to a Friend (Roger Pfingston) 17 Friends (for John Barnie) 19 My Loved Ones 21 My Brother, Born Dead 23 We Are Forcing Forsythia 26 For Sherry 28 Things 30 Marital Bliss 32 Nobody Will Talk About My Poem 35 Omen 36 For My Son 39 Nikstlitslepmur 41 Log Slide Dune, Lake Superior 43 My Self 47 Myself, My Home, The Moon 52 The Dream 53 This Office 54 The Awakening 55 On Reincarnation and Related Matter 56 A Poem 57 Poets 58 The Soft Repose of Is 59 Frog Praises Night 60 Page ix Acknowledgements "Millard Buckman" appeared in Poetry Now, 2:1 (1975); "Dream (for Gary C.)"; appeared in Wind/Literary Journal (Fall 1977); "Lee Ann" appeared in Fadge (Spring 1974) and in Red Cedar Review, 9:1 (Spring 1974); "Friends (for John Barnie)" appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, 26: 34 (SpringSummer 1976); "My Brother, Born Dead'' appeared in the anthology The Day After Yesterday, 1971; "We Are Forcing Forsythia" appeared in The Windless Orchard Calendar 1973 (January 1973) and in Notations, 6 (1975); "For Sherry" appeared in Streets (NovemberDecember 1978); "Things" appeared in Centering: A Magazine of Poetry 1, (1973); "Marital Bliss" and "Nobody will Talk About My Poem" appeared in Happiness Holding Tank (Fall 1979); "Omen" appeared in The Mississippi Valley Review, 3:1 (Winter 1974) and in Centering, 1 (1973); "For My Son" appeared in Centering, 3 (1977); "Nikstlitslepmur" appeared in Poetry Now 4:1 (Spring 1978) and in University College Quarterly (Spring 1977); "Myself, My Home, The Moon" appeared in Indiana Writes (Fall 1976); "The Dream" appeared in Star-Web Paper (Spring 1973); "This Office" appeared in Streets (NovemberDecember 1978); "The Awakening" appeared in Stoney Lonesome (Winter 1978); "On Reincarnation and Related Matter" appeared in Centering; 1 (1973); "A Poem" appeared in Fault, 6 (November 1974); "The Soft Repose of Is" appeared in Stoney Lonesome (Winter 1978); and "Frog Praises Night" appeared in Bits (July 1976). I would also like to thank the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire; and the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University for providing me with the time to complete this project; and Christoph Lohmann, Director, Graduate Program in American Studies, for offering a faculty appointment that provided excellent working conditions during my sabbatical year at Indiana University. RICHARD THOMAS EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN AUGUST 17, 1979 Page xi The Poetry Reading In the poetry reading poems come alive, become more accessible, because the poet is there with anecdotes, stories, tidbits. In a reading we become aware of the process as well as the product. To provide the flavor of a reading in this book I have supplied my own comments. Some of them are internal monologues, and others have become prose poems. But all are given simply for the purpose of enriching the original poems. The poems existed before the concept of this book. Nevertheless, I have not attempted to exclude difficult poems. Rather, with the help of the forewords and afterwords to the poems, I hope untrained readers may better understand the ingredients of poetrymetaphor, ambiguity, mystery. As for experienced readers, I hope they will find the comments as interesting as those they might hear at a reading. Why one would want to do this, why one would want to broaden the audience for poetry, is probably related to a personal, though not original, credo: In my experiences as a teacher I have learned that most enmity and fear of others is based on ignorance of what others think and feel. We tend to imagine those we don't understand as either more than human or less than human. What better way for me to reveal my humanness to others than through a reading of poems inspired by some of the people who have meant the most to me: my friends, my loved ones, my self. Page 1 Sunset Bridge (A Dream) For Franklin A. Thomas, 2/2/09-5/2/78. Poem written, 12/77. As arranged, we meet at Sunset Bridge thirty years ago; or, rather, you are thirty years younger, and I the age I am now. I'm surprised by the mud road, your long wool coat and limp grey fedora; surprised that we talk near a deserted band shell on a crumbling concrete bench, the yellow sky threatening. I tell you, Dad, I tell you: you must not smoke; you mustn't eat so much; you are dying of cancer thirty years from now. Why do you smile as if you already know, or don't care? Perhaps I shouldn't have come to tell you how urgent this is.