Tis Late (April Bernard)

God, how many times have you passed that homeless guy on your way to work - on the far side of the street because he's mumbling out loud and randomly shouting at something not there. It's so disquieting. You would like to help him, but he scares you. Days when you are feeling confident you might even like to bring him a coffee and find out what he is mumbling about. But, perhaps like April Bernard (just perhaps), you don't (because you are scared or because things like that just aren't done). So you instead get out your feelings by going home where you compose today's poem.

N always comes across the same mentally disturbed person on the street corner. She even knows of the person - a former graduate student. She never seems to talk to her, but she imagines their sameness: "Her madness is my madness". But it's a helpless empathy. A poem, probably not of much use to the homeless woman, and some good thoughts about the state of homelessness and mental sanity are all that result from their meeting (fine, that we know of).

I like that the poem makes me contemplate such complexities. Has the poet composed a good poem if it does not help the poem's subject? Do you applaud or condone the artist who photographs starving children? Is art worthy for art's sake alone?

And yes, I get that the poem tackles the scene of the homeless woman and then the lucky stance of N - who, despite being 'mad' is safely ensconced away in her studies and not selling trinkets for small change.  But a good poem allows for other thoughts and this one got me thinking about the worth of art for social v artistic good and that's a very neat trick of today's poem.

Favorite line: "Of course the tall stringy woman / draped in a crocheted string-shawl / selling single red carnations / coned in newsprint"

Of course the tall stringy woman

draped in a crocheted string-shawl

selling single red carnations

coned in newsprint - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23386#sthash.M9sXfrr9.dpuf

Of course the tall stringy woman

draped in a crocheted string-shawl

selling single red carnations

coned in newsprint - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23386#sthash.M9sXfrr9.dpuf

Her madness is my madness

Her madness is my madness

Her madness is my madness

Poem Entering the Apple Valley Target (Lynn Melnick)

Isn't it considered bad form to put the word 'poem' in your poem's title? Perhaps, perhaps, but Lynn Melnick does so in today's poem - a neat, anxiety-ridden traipse about shopping/feeling overwhelmed/buying comfort from a store.

N is shopping at the Apple Valley Target, which I Googled for the below image and found is a SuperTarget. No wonder N feels overwhelmed upon entering it!

I like that N enters the Target and feels almost compelled to shop - to join the other shoppers. She feels anxious, but because of social pressures ("these racks of acrylic winter apparatus / won’t dazzle out of my head") and advertising ("the weight of America’s sales and specials") she also feels that maybe by buying the right things, she'll find her way out of her discomfort. Or as the author says herself, "I get confused and I can’t breathe and I can barely remember who I am or what I want. And then I buy something I don’t need."

Although I don't have anxiety like her when shopping at big box stores, I have definitely left a Target with something I don't need just because it seemed as though I should buy something. I think I'm not alone in doing that.

I like this poem for taking a mundane, common experience (shopping at a Target) and turning it into a poem about everyday American life that also touches on mental unstableness, consumer culture and comfort/need.

Favorite line: "that I was different than I am / in my own skin in this infinity / mirror, instructed such / to seduce myself, to go on."

Temple You (Lisa Russ Spaar)

What on earth is this poem by Lisa Russ Spaar doing?

She seems to be a talented poet, but this poem seems inexplicably bad. I like the title, Temple You, and it prepares me for a love/worship poem. Instead, I get couplets telling me that there is mystery in life, but that writers (who might be up for such mystery) more or less seem to say 'fuck it'. They keep on smoking/refuse to see the doctor (that is, refuse to find out the answers).

I'm still with it at this point. That's an interesting point - when creative sorts who write to seek meaning from nature/mystery just decide to give in. That there is no undoing nature's mysteries. This is a cool idea.

Then it returns to the 'you' in the title and it gets a little lovey:

For whatever part of   you
may be taken away, you said,

is the scar I will visit first
with my mouth, each time,

I still like it here, even. It's sweet - 'I'll kiss the parts that hurt'. But then it takes a turn that I just don't understand. I don't get the content and I flat out hate the mono-rhyme of the last four lines (ok, 3 out of 4): 

as gold visits the thieved till,
sun the obliterated sill,

saying praise you for leaving
me this you, this living still.

The language is 'poetic' without being meaningful and I don't see what the ending adds to the earlier content (which I like). Maybe I am just not seeing it, but this one did not work for me.

Favorite line: "is the scar I will visit first / with my mouth, each time"

Karen, Lost (Charles Harper Webb)

I mostly love this poem by Charles Harper Webb (who is a poet, psychotherapist and guitarist!).

It starts with N losing track of his wife, Karen, in kelp while scuba diving. His fear, so palpable, is instantly recognizable. My own breath felt clenched as I worried about her drowning, caught in the seaweed. (I have my own such fears when it comes to ever scuba diving.)

N then moves on to tell of other instances when Karen got lost. When she was a child, when he stood waiting for her at the alter (and I loved this example - it may have been truthful - she may have just been lost, but I like to imagine his impatience and the wait for her to emerge seeming forever and him wondering if she had gotten lost, she was taking so long).

N then gets to the impetus of his poem and of Karen being lost. Karen is in labor and N fears again that Karen may get 'lost' in the act - that she may not be the same Karen afterwards.

I love that in describing Karen, you get a good sense of N - that he is a worrier and that he likes to hold tight those whom he loves.

I like this poem a lot, but I hate this line, " I'll clasp your hands when you push / through the fronds of childbirth", which might just be the most cringe-inducing image for labor I've every heard (the fronds of childbirth?! [thumbs down!]). 

However, beside that line, this poem rings true for me and contains such love (and loving worry) that I feel very sentimental as I read it aloud. 

Favorite line: " Will she become / my son's mother, and nothing more?"

A Moment (Philip Schultz)

Today's is a skinny-little poem called 'A Moment' by Philip Schultz.

It only takes a moment to read (less than one commercial during an Oscar's break) and I like that it clues you into that fact by having most lines be only 3 words long.

The poem contains phrases/lines that define or describe 'a moment'. Some neat phrasing/images, but overall, I'm not wowed by this poem or its concept.

I do like that the last 5 lines are complete - all ending with a period. Earlier, each moment took multiple lines, but as the poem goes on things seem to speed up.

So a moment to read -->  a moment's worth of 'talk' concerning it.

Favorite line: "A plea to begin over again."

Magdalene Poem (John Taggart)

Here's another poem about Mary Magdalene. This one's by John Taggart.

Even though both Magdalene poems were written recently (both poets were born mid-1900s), this one feel much more modern. The phrases are experimental and even though this one, like yesterday's is non-direct with the meaning, I like it better here, since this poem is non-linear and isn't trying to tell you a story so much as get a feeling across.

What I get from the poem is something of a couple (see how many times a word is repeated - all those couples) that can never quite make a match. There is always something blocking the connection. And it sucks - 'beaten and broken', but there doesn't seem a way around the disconnect. It even ends with the fact that they (or one or the other) are 'untouchable' and that that is actually 'fortunate[ly]'.

So maybe you see Mary Magdalene and Jesus and maybe it's for the best that they were both, in their ways, 'untouchable fortunately, / untouchable'.

Favorite line: "already beaten and broken / peaceful if breaking if breaking / and entering the already broken is peaceful"

Magdalene (Marie Howe)

Magdalene by Marie Howe is a short poem that only hints at what is happening and requires you to fill in a lot of the details.

From the title, I get that N is Mary Magdalene and then guess that the "he" in the poem is Jesus. Or perhaps, if not the people themselves then stand-ins.

The poem seems to be taking place on a college campus and everything is going as normal when N (Magdalene) has a stray thought "I feel as if I’m going to lose something today", which once said suddenly seems prophetic. She rushes off to find/save Jesus or her modern version of Him.

It's a short poem which, where I found it on poets.org, is followed by an 'About this poem' where the author is interviewed. In that she says,


"This poem is from a series written in Mary Magdalene's voice. When my brother was dying from complications from the AIDS virus in his apartment in Rochester New York, I learned that other young men had come home to die, some of them in their old childhood bedrooms on the suburban streets they had left for big cities. Hardly anyone in those suburbs knew what was occurring in their midst. Later that year I heard a banging hammer—someone banging nails two or three yards away from my own apartment in Cambridge, and I thought of those young men dying at home, and of the crucifixion—how someone hearing the banging hammer might not be aware of the true nature of what was being done."



Without her explanation I would have doubted much more about this evasive poem. It's really kind of half-said. Which is fine, but not terribly illuminating. I do love her idea for the poem  - but I think it's better captured in her prose than in her poem.

Favorite line: "You know it was funny because he seemed so well the night before"

The Ruin (Jacob Polley)

Tonight, I saw a commercial for the return of the show Game of Thrones. So when I read this poem by Jacob Polley I kept picturing scenes from the show - the castle and the town - only, as they would be later, in ruins.

The poem describes ruins of a medieval castle (or town). It's a loving portrait that makes me feel as though I were there seeing the same scene. Although, it helps that there are shows and books that cover much of the same ground so I already have a preset image when he gives keywords like 'Anglo-Saxon' and 'stronghold'.

The lines are iambic pentameter (I'm pretty certain) and that also adds to the old-fashioned feel of the thing. It's  classic meter to talk about a classic scene.

Favorite line: "And the builders are broken down, bone by bone, / mindless and muddled together in the bottomless muck."

A Cup of Water Turns into a Rose (excerpt) (Lawrence Raab)

Today's poem by Lawrence Raab is 1/7th of the whole thing. This first part is long enough though (it's broken up into 6 sections) , so the full thing must be quite the epic.

There is no cup of water or rose in this abridged selection, but still there is transformation and real and unreal things.

This poem seems to be concerned with dreaming, with the line between reality and imagined. between nature and the constructed. Oh, and a man named John Ruskin - whom I had never heard of, but in looking him up, seems to have been an art critic in the Victorian age who "emphasised the connections between nature, art and society" (thank you, Wikipedia).

I like that in this poem, it starts with N inside a dream, but then he wakes up and then goes on to dream/half-imagine a war scene and a stranger who knows about such things (he may actually be talking to the stranger in real life).

It's all a bit of muddle, but I like its complexity.

The poem -- " "At times," he says, "the impossible / looks like it's on our side / until it isn't." " The impossible, the dream, the imagined seems so real - so true, that it isn't until it's over that you even knew it really was a dream or imagined or impossible. 

Maybe it's because I don't have access to the other 6 parts, or perhaps it's my unfamiliarity with Ruskin, but I'm having a hard time coming to a conclusion about this poem. I feel like the point is almost -just- there, but I can't bring my observations to thread through the whole poem (er, section). However, I still like and feel challenged by this poem. And I am now curious to learn more about John Ruskin. 

Favorite line: "I noticed / the radio—shiny and black, with huge dials, / like nothing I'd ever owned, maybe/something out of the Second World War, / or a movie about it"

Break (Dorianne Laux)

I found this poem by Dorianne Laux on Poetry 180 which is a poem-a-day site for teachers/students in high school.

It's a pretty concrete poem (good for teaching) about parents putting together a puzzle while their daughter teenages (a needed verb - like sulks, but more complicated) upstairs.

The parents enjoy the simple act of solving the puzzle - more so currently, since now, their lives, their daughter are so fraught with difficulty. Their real problems, unlike the puzzle, are near impossible to put together/to solve.

They will have to return to attempting to fix the ruptures in their own lives at some point, but in the meantime they complete the puzzle as a reprieve - a pause. It is hard to deal with complex problems only. A mild puzzle is an appropriate break from it all for these two.

It's a nice poem, but one that I will probably forget before too much longer. It doesn't have much that would draw me to it again and again. No stunning language, no surprises or deeply held emotions (for me). It's mild - very much like a puzzle.

Favorite line: "We do this as the child / circles her room, impatient / with her blossoming"

A Song (Ghassan Zaqtan)

Today's poet, Ghassan Zaqtan, is a Palestinian and his poem, "A Song", seems to be about the continual state of war that that area of the world seems to be in. Either at war, or tensing for the next.

It's a short poem (perhaps the length of the cease-fire?) and despite its title I don't find it to be very musical. There is not a lot of lilt in these lines.

It seems to be just a breather - the length of time needed to roll and smoke a cigarette - but this poem doesn't seem to do much more. I don't know, it's fine, but without any specialness in the language or in the overall point, I can't get too enthused about it.

Favorite line: "The glory that has been evenly split / among everyone / into medals for the leaders / praise for rank and file / and pictures for the dead"

Summer Elegy (David Livewell)

I love this poet's last name - Mr. Livewell. Isn't that great? The poem, however, I don't love as much.

I think I am the wrong audience. If I had a background in summer baseball games or listening to live events via radio or family road trips in the old station wagon or was even old enough that the many (many) brand names he drops would echo in memory, then perhaps.

But none of that is true, so for me, this poem is a piece of nostalgia from a stranger's history and I can't bring myself to care. It doesn't strike an emotional note for me and it doesn't hit any larger truths either. It's a fine, tight poem about one man's past, but it doesn't do it for me.

The language doesn't impress me either. There are a lot of brand names here and I guess that would root it in place for someone familiar with any of them, but it reads overdone to me. Almost like a commercial. This line makes me feel the outsider and makes me want to skim: "sipping Schmidt's / and dipping Reisman pretzel sticks in blobs / of mustard in between their puffed Pall Malls".

I do like that the poem is just one long stanza. Even though the words/lines are measured and adult-sounding, the lack of stanza breaks brings childish excitement to the thing (rushing/never pausing for even a breath).

Favorite line: "He seemed to wait / on possibilities that hung like pop flies."

My Love Sent Me a List (Olena Kalytiak Davis)

The title of this poem is great. It automatically starts my imagination going (what list? why sent? why aren't you together?......). The poem itself, by Olena Kalytiak Davis, is a sonnet and with the mention of a Moor (coupled with the fact that it is a sonnet) brings to mind Shakespeare. But with Davis' fun use of parentheticals and other grammatical tricks makes this a modern-sounding poem.

I don't quite understand this line: "And left, none-the-less, the Greater Moor of me." Anyone, any leads? A Moor is someone from Northern Africa, right? Othello was a Moor. But does Moor come with certain characteristics?

But even not getting the full meaning behind the last line, I really like the penultimate line: "And yet these mores undid but his own plea(s)(e)". In sending the note with all her faults to N, he is protesting a bit too much. (Another Shakespearean influence! - Hamlet's "The lady doth protest too much, methinks") I also really love the use of the two parentheses. Layered meaning - fun and clever.

This poem is almost too clever for its own good. I like it.

Favorite line: "O my Love sent me a lusty list"

Fog (Giovanni Pascoli)

Today's poem, Fog by Giovanni Pascoli (or a better Italian version) reminds me of the fog that chokes Sacramento's streets some mornings. I had never seen much fog before I moved to California and it's such a phenomenon - it sits and obscures and eventually the sun does lift it. Somehow when they are aloft, clouds seem way more magical. Fog is not wispy or daydream-inspiring (for me, at least). It's neat, but it seems to get in the way.

Although, the N is today's poem, seems to kind of want the fog to sit and obscure many things from him. Repeatedly, he demands, "Hide every distant thing" of the fog. Maybe N's mind is too concerned with the past and future that he does not see what is present / in front of him. From the things he asks the fog to hide from him (the dead, people drunk on tears), it seems that someone he cares for has recently died and he wants the fog to insulate him from his grief. 


Which is definitely understandable, though if it's a healthy way to deal with one's grief is yet to be seen. Although, I do understand wanting space from your grief, so that N may engage with the present world - may notice - "near / to me, my dog". 

I think fog's a great metaphor for grief. It sits - seemingly immobile, obscures, is all consuming. And eventually, some midday sun lessens it until you can move about your day. 

Cool poem.

Favorite line: "Hide every distant thing, / you wan impalpable fog"

Sometimes with One I Love (Walt Whitman)

Happy Valentine's Day!!

In the spirit of that (and acknowledging I have loads of other things to do), a short poem by a prolific writer which I will "talk" about with a single quote --> And since it is the day of love, I'll even make it easy and copy the whole (prose-y) poem here: 

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd, yet out of that I have written these songs.)

I think this poem hits on the same truth as the following quote - which is to say, that love is grand, always worth having and never for naught.

Quote: "Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart." - Washington Irving

Favorite line: "Sometime with one I love I fill myself with rage"

Domestic (Deborah Landau)

I like this poem by Deborah Landau. The plainness of the words coupled with their subject strikes me as very suburban. So maybe this poem is limiting in that domesticity occurs in other places outside of green lawned suburbs. But then again, in comparing domestic life to a play (set roles and everyone reading from a script), she is pushing against the conformity often found in a suburban life. If everyone is acting, then at some time the domesticity must come to an end. Something must change. I wish the poem had gone on to talk a bit about that jolt. Perhaps others of hers do.

I also like that as I read this, I kept picturing a cuckoo clock's figurines turning and maneuvering in planned and pleasing ways.

Favorite line: "Life accumulates, a series of commas, / first this, then that, then him, then here. / A clump of matter (paragraph) / and here we are: minutes, years."

Editing Job (Carl Dennis)

In "Editing Job" (not Editing Job - a different task - sorry I couldn't use italics in the title of this post - but a cute double entendre either way) by Carl Dennis, N is running through the chapter of Job in the Bible and taking out some bits while preserving others.

I was so bored while reading this poem. The language contains no spark and the subject, while interesting, is wholly subjective (after all, maybe I think the prologue, which N recommends removing, is essential). I could hardly hear what the poet was saying since I kept wanting to give a counter argument to his objections. And N's final point - that God too makes mistakes - is hardly novel. Most modern (and not so modern) uses of God in lit. give Him human characteristics/foibles.

Favorite line: "For assuming the definition of justice/ That holds on earth holds as well above?"

Five Tiny Doves (Oni Buchanan)

I started to go to my poetry workshop again a few months ago. It's good for me, I think, to have a creative bent again. I'm also especially busy this week, so in homage to the adage [see what I did there :)] of the busiest man having the most time I've decided to restart my RTP blog. Wish me luck going forward!

Today's poem is the poem o' the day on Poetry Daily. By Oni Buchanan (bet no one else shares her name!), the poem "Five Tiny Doves" is about life/death and the sea and attentiveness and details and sensitivity and seeing and hearing, observing all.

That's what I get from the poem, at least. A fish craft and a death blow, yes, but the poem is more so concerned with all the details to be found on the boat and in the sea and in the creatures of the sea.

I should write a poem like this - pick a scene and describe. I bet Oni started with a fishing boat, but then kept finding more and more detail to write about. She starts with the boat and with a person on the boat, but then goes to the very visible school of silver fish to the not-so-easily-observed sounds of a sea slug and ends with the near-impossible-to-root-out doves in a sand dollar (if such things even exist).

I love her journey of observing. A poem, too, is like that, I think. You start with the obvious - the title or a flashy image, but you keep looking at it and it starts to divulge more of itself (or you see things not quite there - doves in a starfish, eh?).

"How much more can I ignore?" - The N in the poem questions as if chiding herself for her not noticing. Me too: How can I have ignored the ants in my front lawn this morning? How can I be so oblivious to so much action and natural beauty? How many more poems can I ignore? Thank you, today's poem, for posing the question and making me resolute to keep reading and seeing and posting.

 Favorite line: "It was clear she had carefully considered"