{"id":26977,"date":"2014-10-07T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T17:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=26977"},"modified":"2014-10-04T18:07:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-04T05:07:28","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-refeaturing-michael-harlow-i-am-a-tyger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/10\/07\/the-tuesday-poem-refeaturing-michael-harlow-i-am-a-tyger\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Michael Harlow & “I Am A Tyger”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018I am a Tyger\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite 10 years
\nof \u2018talking cure\u2019, twice
\nweekly, such intimate
\nconversation between strangers,
\nhe remains quite convinced
\nthat he is still, you know,
\na tyger<\/p>\n

As a child no taller
\nthan a table leg, he always
\nsuspected he was a cat
\nIt was the last of the litter,
\nChatterwot, the family favourite,
\nwho taught him, age 11,
\nto speak \u2018cat\u2019<\/p>\n

And he did. Not dog
\nor stag or unicorn, he knows
\nhimself to be a tyger, \u2018burning
\nbright\u2019, in a body made strange
\nAnd of course he believes
\nhe was adopted \u2013 his true parents
\nyou see, were tygers, too.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Michael Harlow
\n.<\/span>
\nfrom Cassandra\u2019s Daughter<\/em><\/strong> (Auckland University Press) 2005<\/p>\n

I Am A Tyger<\/em> is reproduced here with permission.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Fine poems should be read and heard more than once, so I\u2019m continuing with my series of relooking at poets who have had multiple poems featured here on \u201c\u2026Anything, Really\u201d<\/em> since I joined the Tuesday Poem community in June 2010. Michael Harlow\u2019s I Am A Tyger<\/em> was posted here on August 24, 2010<\/a> at which time Michael offered the following comment:<\/p>\n

“Most immediately the poem grew out of note in a medical journal, so there are one or two \u2018found\u2019 items of language there, translated imaginatively. From early on I\u2019ve been fascinated by the imaginative role animals play in our collective psychic life \u2014 and that\u2019s universal. \u00a0In all manner of ways we identify with the animal world psychically, that is imaginatively alive in all of us. The ways in which we do this, and why, tell us a great deal about how we survive even ourselves. The extraordinary power of the \u00a0imaginative reality \u2018I am a Tyger\u2019 that can overwhelm another and actual reality. The spelling of \u2018Tyger\u2019 is meant to be a kind of underlying resonance to Blake\u2019s poem.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"michael_harlow\"<\/a>Michael Harlow<\/strong> was born in the United States and arrived in New Zealand in 1968. He has published seven poetry collections: Edges (1974), Nothing but Switzerland and Lemonade (1980), Today is the Piano\u2019s Birthday (1981), Vlaminck\u2019s Tie (1985), Giotto\u2019s Elephant (1991), Cassandra\u2019s Daughter (2005, 2006), and The Tram Conductor\u2019s Blue Cap (2009, Finalist National Book Awards 2010). He has been poetry editor of Landfall and Robert Burns fellow at the University of Otago. In March 2014 he received the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for Distinguished Contribution to Poetry in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

—
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/a>To check out the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon <\/strong>in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018I am a Tyger\u2019 Despite 10 years of \u2018talking cure\u2019, twice weekly, such intimate conversation between strangers, he remains quite convinced that he is still, you know, a tyger As a child no taller than a table leg, he always suspected he was a cat It was the last of the litter, Chatterwot, the family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26977"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26980,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26977\/revisions\/26980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}