This is a small poetry club that started as a poetry email exchange between two friends. Our goal is to read a poem everyday, and this blog is one way to help keep us accountable. There is only one valid rule in poetry club: there are no rules in poetry club. Read any poem, in any order, with any or no interactions. You decide. We only suggest you read poetry!
13 Mar: "Noah / Ham: Fathers of the Year" by Douglas Kearney
For some reason I cannot see this image, can you? And now I see why it has to be a picture :) copied link below: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/56654
I think I understand the biblical irony here- in the Old Testament I just read about the curse of "Canaan" below: Genesis 9:20-27.
20And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 ¶ And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. —Authorized King James Version
So in this poem, there is a flipping of curses...Ham is giving Noah all kinds of fun trouble.
It are these kinds of poems that make me wish I knew all of the background thoroughly!!
For some reason I cannot see this image, can you? And now I see why it has to be a picture :) copied link below:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/56654
I think I understand the biblical irony here- in the Old Testament I just read about the curse of "Canaan" below:
Genesis 9:20-27.
20And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 ¶ And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
—Authorized King James Version
So in this poem, there is a flipping of curses...Ham is giving Noah all kinds of fun trouble.
It are these kinds of poems that make me wish I knew all of the background thoroughly!!
I wrote my own story of Ham and Noah.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah this poem is wild.