All the world's a stage (William Shakespeare)

I can't remember if I have seen Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It," but I definitely know this piece from it. I mean, who doesn't? It's part of cannon, poetry cannon, sure, but also just the general lit cannon.

I think the reason it's so well known is because it, like many older poems, contains a world view and synthesizes everything and everybody everywhere. Don't ask me how many iterations of world-wide truths can be written, but I kind of wonder if there is a limit to these types of topics and that's why poetry has turned from these broad, all-encompassing views to the narrow, I-format of modern poetry.

That said, cannon is cannon for a reason. Cannon exists because things ring true for people everywhere. So Will S. was brilliant, a keen observer ("second childishness and mere oblivion"), and lucky to have lived and been writing at the right time for his poetry.

When I Heard the Learned Astronomer (Walt Whitman)

When I Heard the Learned Astronomer by Walt Whitman is the poem for this evening's post.

This poem is pretty to the point. It's not difficult to understand it. Nature doesn't need explanation to be appreciated. In fact, it might even take away from it. Crap, maybe that can be expanded to poetry as a whole and thus this blog is the over-starched lecture that N walks away from. Hrmmm. Grumble.

I do love this poem though. I first read it back in middle school and felt that the whole truth of everything was in this poem. Because sometimes (that's my current voice, before, in high school, I would have said 'because it's always..') it's like that.

Information is golden. That is not the issue, I think. It's more needing to listen to your own intelligence and understand things in your own way. Taking things at your own pace and knowing how best you interact with the world. This poem tells how to approach the world. And ain't that a true old fashioned poetry concept? And it being a Whitman poem, it's written with such modern phrasing. Neat-o.

Favorite line: "Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself"

The Raven (Edgar Allen Poe)

It's a Halloween poem and post. So cute! How to be Edgar Allen Poe.

And for the poem. Uh, The Raven. It's very, very famous. I mean, there was even a Simpson's episode based on the poem. When the Simpson's covers you you know you're a part of pop culture.

Long lines. Rhyme. That dodding rhythm. It's creepers, for sure. It makes me anxious just to read it. Definitely apt for Halloween.

And this has been a long day full of challenges, so I think that will be it in terms of "talk" for this poem. See you tomorrow!

Favorite line: "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams (Kenneth Koch)

This poem I adore. It also gave me the idea to create my own 'Variation on a Theme' which has recently been published. I owe much hearty laughter and a published poem to this poem by Kenneth Koch.

This is the only poem (out of all the poems I have read) that I cannot read with a straight face. I laugh so deeply when I read this poem. Always have and I guess I always will. That is some crazy level of skill to create a joke that is hilarious every single time you hear it.

I just cannot read the second stanza without my smile breaking through."We laughed at the hollyhocks together/and then I sprayed them with lye./Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing." :) :) :) :)

Favorite line: "We laughed at the hollyhocks together/and then I sprayed them with lye."

This Is Just To Say (William Carlos Williams)

Sure, I like this poem, but really I love the poem that is a variation on this theme, that I will hopefully find and talk about tomorrow. But before I get to that one, I must talk about this original. I think I like William Carlos Williams because he boils down big, big ideas into a single example using concrete language.

What I love about this poem is that it is so simple. It seems as though this was the hastily written apology scribbled on scratch paper--perhaps the back of a receipt--and stuck to the front of the fridge. But in that haste, poetry emerges: "so sweet/and so cold".

It starts with a single fact. The plums that were there have been taken. N imagines the owner's intentions regarding the fruits. "and which/you were probably/saving for breakfast". N then describes why he has taken the plums. "Forgive me/they were delicious". He talks about how they filled a sense within him. "so sweet/and so cold"

Okay, so expand-->Things happen. Writers imagine how things came to be. Writers then act themselves; they write to fill a void either in themselves or in their world. All three of those together equal a poem. Or a story. Or a novel. Any act of creation, I'd think.

Favorite line: "Forgive me/they were delicious/so sweet/and so cold"

In the old days a poet once said (Ko Un)

The front page of poets.org still has the picture of transformed Mona Lisa. True. It also, in the far corner, has a link of poems for high schoolers. Yesterday's poem came from that collection. Clicking through that and finding myself in a section for ars poetica poems I found this post's poem: In the old days a poet once said by Korean poet Ko Un.

Poems of Nature give rise to poems of politics and space and boundaries. I can see that. I, however, do not share Ko Un's pessimistic view of the poetry and poets of tomorrow: "Tomorrow's poet will say/the mountains and rivers are destroyed/our nation is destroyed and Alas!/you and I are completely destroyed"

Though I guess I do believe that the next transformation of poetry (and I think it has already happened) is to be no more with the big topics of politics and nationalism, but rather a realignment with the personal. If I were to classify poetry today (gulp!), I would say it tends to be about people's personal problems and viewpoints. I happen to think that is a good thing. No more are poets speaking in generalities, for all humankind. Now, poems seem to be more rooted in what one person (the poet) is seeing and experiencing and they are rooted in their own backgrounds and experiences. Poetry today allows a glimpse of who the poet is which is something that cannot be said about earlier generations of poets. I (perhaps unlike Ko Un) don't find this progression to be narcissistic. Instead, I think it allows for greater compassion and connections to people who would otherwise be complete strangers.

Favorite line: "In the old days a poet once said/our nation is destroyed/yet the mountains and rivers survive"

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry (Howard Nemerov)

Well, I didn't, actually. I have always thought that the difference between poetry and prose is akin to the difference between porn and erotica. "I know it when I see it." But, I wanted to hear another take, so I delved into this poem by (new-to-me poet) Howard Nemerov.

This short poem rhymes, which is totally a short-cut. You don't need rhyme to make a poem. It also talks about Nature. Another short-cut.

Okay, so how it does it right. This poem, like a book or an essay, uses long, full, grammatically correct sentences and grammar. This poem has interesting line breaks (ugh, I used the word interesting!). I don't mean that sarcastically. I find that this poem breaks the lines in places that are unique to poetry. Each line seems complete as it is, but when you read it as prose, you take breaths at completely different locations. Very neat.

Favorite line: "Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle"

Theme in Yellow (Carl Sandburg)

They still have the vampire Mona Lisa picture up on poets.org, but tonight I went for a seasonal poem rather than a Halloween one. I found Theme in Yellow by Chicago's own Carl Sandburg.

I love that Carl Sandburg managed to write a poem that conveys yellow, that is yellow, without having to repeat yellow or talk about burning suns and traffic lights. The scene is set with yellow, sure, the autumn-leaved trees on the hillside and the ready-for-harvest grain in the fields. But then he goes farther along the color wheel and pulls in shades of orange, black, smoke-white, and moldy green-yellow.

I think that if the general population were asked what color autumn is, they would name the colors that Carl Sandburg lists in this poem. They might even site examples that he includes himself--pumpkins, grain, the moon, and nighttime.

Personally, I think that this poem is a better portrait of fall than yesterday's was. Yes, Halloween is pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the season, but the essence has been distilled into this poem.

Favorite line: "I light the prairie cornfields/Orange and tawny gold clusters/And I am called pumpkins."

Lamia (John Keats)

How could I resist? I opened poets.org looking for a poem to talk about this evening. There on the home page was this funny picture:



Ha!

So I clicked the link and searched for poems dealing with vampires. I simply had to pick the poem titled Lamia since that's the name of my boyfriend's mother. And it was written by John Keats! Woah.

I don't know if Lamia is really about turning into a vampire. I don't see anything that specific in it. Clearly, someone is turning into something new. And what a transformation! It's so dramatic. So full of importance. Such old, poetic language. It even rhymes. I'm impressed. Wow-e.

Favorite line: "Eclips'd her crescents, and lick'd up her stars"

Boa Constrictor (Shel Silverstein)

It's late. I have to get up early tomorrow. A light poem. Yup. This fits the bill. Shel Silverstein is a master of light verse.

It's funny. It's cute. It's long(ish) and skinny. Looks like a boa (a stunted one, maybe). It uses rhyme, true. But to such comedic effect that's it's perfect. Love.

And we're out. I do adore light verse for being so darn light. It makes you feel better and is so easy to read that you don't consider how hard it was to write, but in this one, due to the forethought required for the rhyme scheme to work, you can see the skill it took to compose. Way to go, Shel.

Favorite line: "Oh, gee,/It's up to my knee."

Why I Am Not a Painter (Frank O'Hara)

Today's poem is Why I Am Not a Painter by Frank O'Hara.

This poem came up, sort of, one evening in workshop. Someone mentioned hearing about a painting called Sardines that had not a single sardine in it. The conversation started when another person had apologized for bringing in a poem with a title that had nothing to do with the words that followed. It was the spark for the poem only, she had said. It was funny: the person who brought up the example of the sardines was not quoting this poem. She must have read or heard it before, but she had forgotten the true source and she gave the example disassociated from the work. And ain't that proof of the poem in real life?

Favorite line: "My poem/is finished and I haven't mentioned/orange yet. It's twelve poems"

The World is Too Much With Us (William Wordsworth)

The last poem was a disappointment, so, it's true, for today's post I found a universally respected and loved poet and poem. And yep, I find much to love in the poem.

One. I love the title/first line. I'm not sure how or when, but I know I have heard that phrase before. It really lays out the theme of the whole poem. I mean, how can the world be too much??? How can "us" be without the "world"??? It can't, or at least, it cannot naturally be true. You know something is amiss right from the start and that is true great talent.

Two. It's a sonnet! Although, I don't know what kind exactly. It's 14 lines, so that makes it a sonnet, but it does not have the rhyme scheme that is most common with sonnets. This poem rhymes abbaabbacdcdcd. So, it's definitely some scheme, I just don't know what kind.

Three. Nature is set up on the other side of the scale against humankind. They both react to the other. But wait, I guess Wordsworth is saying that Nature and humankind have fallen out of sync since it says, "Little we see in Nature that is ours". Later in the poem, N does wish, does cry out to be reconnected with the natural world. He wishes that being in Nature he'd "Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn." N is hoping that the two will be connected again in the future. Though, it doesn't indicate whether they ever do, so it seems Wordsworth is pretty pessimistic.

Favorite line: "For this, for everything, we are out of tune;/It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be/A pagan"

A Muse (Reginald Shepherd)

Oh, ick. I knew it would come to this. Browsing at random, I came across this poem by somebody I've never heard of. He's famous enough to be included on poets.org, but I swear, if I had run across this poem not attached to a site I respect I would have thought it were written by a teenager who was sick with love for the first time.

I'm not sure how to talk about this poem. I've always had positive, sometimes very positive, things to say about the quotidian poem. With this one, however, I'm at a dry spell. The phrasing I don't find original or moving. The concepts seem well, duh. Even the title bugs me.

Something nice......something nice......hmm, I like that the phrasing is controlled. That the 16 lines form couplets. 16 seems a likely age for the speaker and couplets seem to be N's ideal.

From that, it seems that this poem was probably constructed by someone with talent, not just a love-sick teen. Perhaps, I am not seeing the deeper side to the piece. Who knows? I could look again, but I am tired from a long day and week. So, I will let it be and if anyone sees more to this poem, please tell me how you read it.

Favorite line: "simple birds staking claims/on no sleep. Whatever they call those particular birds."

i sing of Olaf glad and big (e.e. cummings)

I swear, I think if you polled every high schooler in the U.S. their favorite poet would be e.e. cummings. Because his poetry is graspable. Because his poetry is unique in the sense that he uses little capitalization and hardly any punctuation. Which is not to say that is isn't great. He's not my personal favorite though I do like this particular poem even though it's not very pleasant.

It's the only political poem I know of. Like many e.e. cummings poems this poem uses parentheses creatively. It tells a story and I do love a good story. I wonder when this poem was published. It seems like a Vietnam War poem, though I don't have specifics why I think so. Something about the phrase "conscientious object-or."

Favorite line: "unless statistics lie he was/more brave than me:more blond than you."

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle (Black Elk)

Shortest title is quickly followed by the longest title I've ever had. Figure that. Not sure the title, Everything the Power of the World is done in a circle, counts since it's the first whole line though.

I like that this poem reads almost like prose. There are no "poetic" words. No sentence has poor grammar so as to fit meter or to be a smoother read. It is a marvel that this collection of eight sentences read like poetry. But I think that the power of language is on full display here. Eight complete sentences=a poem of great beauty, truth, and a complete world view.

Favorite line: "The sky is round/and I have heard that the earth is round/like a ball"

First winter rain (Matsuo Basho)

I am not in a peaceful, contemplative mood tonight. Poetry is not high on my list of things to do, but readtalkpoem I must. It's raining like woah here, so I searched for a poem about the rain. I was hoping for one that expressed how awful it can be as I have experienced it tonight. I found this poem by famous Japanese poet Basho.

And yep, this poem tells it like it is. Rain can suck sometimes and everyone, even the monkey, looks miserable and in need of protection. I like neat little truths like these.

The poem is not a quite a haiku, though I had at first thought it might be one. Instead, its syllable count is 4,5,6. And that's kind of neat. You do take small steps when it's wet outside.

Favorite line: "even the monkey/seems to want a raincoat."

Helen (H.D.)

Well, that's the shortest title I have probably ever written. And ouch, this poem is harsh. I found it listed under the category "Enemies", and I don't know if I would have expanded my reading of this poem that far if it had not been categorized like that. But now that I see that connection, I feel for H.D. and the situation she was in that made her recognize the strengths and the beauties of her enemy and yet feel no compassion, make no space or leeway for understanding and instead wished her dead. Ouch!

I don't have much more to say about this poem. It's good. I can tell that, but I don't really care about it. Perhaps because I have no enemy I wish to death. Or maybe because the story of the Trojan War never sparked my imagination. Ah well. Not all poems have to impress me. Do you like it?

Favorite line: "All Greece hates/the still eyes in the white face"

A Blessing (James Wright)

Sometimes luck and happenstance direct you to a gem. This poem was featured on the home page of Poets.org. I've never heard of the author, but I was immediately receptive to the poem because it mentioned a town I know in the first line. It then went on and expressed wonder at the natural world. And me, I'm a sucker for people who marvel and slow at the same types of things I do, so I read slower, knowing that I was going to like the poem.

And I like how the lines, which are so untidy, mirror the roughness and non-standard quality of the natural world. I like how the scene that is portrayed is done in such a way that I am right there with N.

I like how, when talking of the horses, N keeps referring to them as a pair and also as being so solitaire and lonely. Because that's how it always seems. You go into Nature to connect, but you go alone. You must love yourself before you can love anyone else. You write poems for an audience, but you need solitude to write them.

Ooooh! The last line! It's advice really, not just description. "Suddenly I realize/ That if I stepped out of my body I would break/Into blossom." Once you stop focusing inward great, beautiful things happen. You treat people as part of the whole they are and which you only discovered by entering Nature and learning its lessons. You love yourself and then you can form a lasting bridge to another person on Earth. You write and send out a poem so strangers can read it and understand and grow.

Favorite line: "And the eyes of those two Indian ponies/Darken with kindness."

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock (TS Eliot)

Okay, today is the day to talk about this wonderful, wonderful poem. I remember hearing that TS Eliot was not British (American) though he longed to be so and that he even adapted a British accent despite the fact that he was born and grew up in Missouri. For a man that seems to fit the caricature of the man portrayed in Miniver Cheevy, TS Eliot actually accomplished quite a bit. He wrote a number of ridiculously well-known poems. He even wrote the book of poems that was later used as the source material for the musical Cats. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature about mid-century. Anyways, he's a famous and grossly talented guy.

This poem was my first introduction to him. It has also been something of a cyclical poem for me, always re-entering my life when I thought I had read it/studied it enough. I first read it at home, then later read and studied it during high school and again in college. In college, I wrote a brief re-interpretation of Prufrock for an English class. Later, actually a few weeks ago, it was accepted for publication by a nationally distributed journal of short verse. (Yay! me.)

So, I have a long history with this poem and I hold great love and affection for it. This post would be too long if I were to talk about every angle of the poem, so I will mention just a few great things.

I love the opening of the poem. I once said I would memorize the whole poem, all the way through. While I know bits from the entire poem, the only stanza I have memorized in full is the first. "LET us go then, you and I,/When the evening is spread out against the sky...." I love how it sets the stage and then takes you away from the city you thought you were walking about and plants you in a crowded art museum. I love how this poem constantly does that; that it isn't linear; how it doesn't take place in a particular location (or maybe it really does, but I don't think N ever fully explains where that is); how the only constant thing that is given is a portrait of the titular character.

And what a picture that is! Prufrock, this poor, sad man, lost in the modern age; lost under the eyes of countless strangers; lost while he tries to make up his mind; lost while he gathers courage. Aw!!! My heart goes out to him even as I laugh at him and yet I marvel at his turns of phrase. Oh, Prufrock! An everyman and yet so singular!

And, oh my goodness, I have so many favorite lines. I have never before had this much difficulty in hi-lighting just one. Oh, um, hem-haw.........

Favorite line: "In a minute there is time/For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

If anyone should read this post, maybe, perhaps, you'll comment by hi-lighting your own favorite line?

There was a young person from Perth (Unknown)

Okay, so I lied again. Tonight is not the night for Prufrock. When will it come? Perhaps tomorrow. Who knows. This is the night for another light limerick. (Is there any other kind? Has someone subverted the style and made a tragic one?) Like the last time, I neither know who wrote the poem nor can I find it online. I will copy in full here and hope that Unknown never finds out.

There was a young person from Perth,
Who was born on the day of his birth.
He was married, they say,
On his wife`s wedding day
And died when he quitted this earth.

The two limericks that I have talked about are my favorites. In this one, I love the bright originality hiding in the uneducated speech of the last line. High-larious! I also love this poem for doing a common thing--telling the history of a person--with none of the usual turns of phrase.

Favorite line: "He was married, they say,/On his wife's wedding day"

National Poetry Day

Okay, so I lied. Tonight is not the night I talk about Prufrock. That poem is too great to be written about when I feel as I do. Today for the world of poetry is the National Poetry Day if you're in Great Britain. I wonder if the United States has a national poetry day. I really think that poetry needs to get back into common knowledge/pop culture. It used to be. Poetry has, overall, gotten easier to understand and read. Perhaps, that's just because because I fluently read modern English, whereas the English from the 1700s and earlier can be archaic. So, then why isn't poetry loved and recited by every person?

Poetry, yay!!!

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock (TS Eliot)

I have had a rough day, was up much too early, and am now up too late. I am not going to talk about a poem today. I am going to sleep and hope that tomorrow is a happier, better day. Though, I'm not going to leave this day poemless. Today's poem is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. I adore this poem. I will talk about it later, hopefully tomorrow. For now, I'll let it stand by itself.

One Art (Elizabeth Bishop)

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night was the first and One Art is the other really famous villanelle, I think. From the little I know about Elizabeth Bishop's life this poem is pretty autobiographical. Not sure how she lost her love, if she ever did, but I do know that she did live and lose homes in many countries.

Villanelles are ridiculously complicated and difficult to write. Which is why, in canon, there are so few--two might be the official count. Wikipedia describes the form: "A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close." The rigidity of this form inspires greatness, I think, in equally great poets.

I like the attitude of N in the poem. The losing, the forgetting of things, even important things, is treated almost as a game. The process seems glib. So, it comes as a shock of human honesty when this line comes: "though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." And suddenly, the rigid form makes perfect sense when compared to poem's content. N is holding back deep emotions and is probably seconds from crashing, from bawling. Forms like villanelle are best suited when they add to the poem's content, I believe.

Favorite line: "The art of losing isn't hard to master"

Ah Sunflower (William Blake)

I have a great fondness for sunflowers. I've started my own garden where I have grown four sunflowers all from seed. They are not so tall, and I have much to learn before they can reach their full potential. Seeing how much I adore sunflowers I simply had to read the poem I stumbled upon by William Blake called Ah! Sunflowers (I wasn't allowed an exclamation point in the title. Pout.).

The poem is only eight lines long--not much for a sunflower's grandness. However, the span that is in the poem makes up for the stubbiness of the poem itself. This small poem is about the life span of a sunflower. Or rather, it seems to be about the end of its life.

I think that this poem must have been written after Blake saw a sunflower in late September when sunflowers are waning and they do seem "weary of time". And then it says that sunflowers are wishing for youth and innocence as they lean towards an unseen entity. At the end of their life, similar to humans, they harken back to "the good old days" of "youth" and "pale virgin(s)".

Favorite line: "Ah! sunflower.../Seeking after that sweet golden clime"

The Creation (James Weldon Johnson)

You know what I love? A good story. Things are not read aloud much past childhood, but I first heard this poem by James Weldon Johnson at a high school assembly performed by another student. The most repeated comment about this poem that I have heard from other people is that this is a poem that is meant to be read aloud. While I think that all poems would benefit from being read aloud, it is true that this particular one shines when performed.

This poem is one of the longest poems that I have talked about. I think it reads quickly because the lines are not so long and because the story is so well known.

It is a wonder that this common story can be retold in a way that still strikes one (er, me) as new and original. I love that this common, old, white story is reinterpreted as being more regional and yet, also more universal.

Favorite line: "Darkness covered everything,/Blacker than a hundred midnights/Down in a cypress swamp."

Water Music (Robert Creeley)

I like the poet, so I picked a new poem of his at random. And, ha, what is with poets telling me that poems don't have meaning or rather that they don't have to. I don't think so. Maybe poems don't have to have a grand idea at their heart, but I do not agree with the claim that words mean nothing, which is what this poem is trying to do. It's just telling me that words sound good, like "water music", but that they do not have to hold greater importance than that.

But, you know, bosh! To say that words never mean anything is ridiculously unworldly. Words and images contain a great deal. Even if that 'deal' is simply the eating of lunch, I don't see how that statement is a zero-sum. It still means something. From the "nothing" in this poem I learn that words are like water. They bounce about through water making music. I learn that words are always on the search for a place to stop, rest, and replenish. That words are searching, and that through their searching they make "beautiful music."

Favorite line: "off the boats,/birds, leaves."

In a Station of the Metro (Ezra Pound)

It's been a long day. I was searching for short forms on poets.org when I discovered this famous poem by Ezra Pound listed under haiku. I had never considered this a haiku. Nor am I clear about how poets.org put it in that category. Haiku is a form that is three lines of certain metrical feet: 5, 7, 5. However, this poem is only two lines long. If I were to divide it into three line then the way I see it is as a mini-poem of 5, 7, 7 feet. So, almost a haiku, but not quite.

However, even if it's not a formal haiku there is no doubt that it is a great poem. I think poetry is about creating images. Images that ring very clear, but with words that no one has thought of before. It's also, of course, about economy of words. With those qualifications then this poem is pretty perfect poetry.

Favorite line: "Petals on a wet, black bough."

Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners (Unknown)

I don't know who wrote this delightful poem. Through Google, it seems the options are Unknown, TSW, or George Bernard Shaw. So, that narrows it down.

What I think is kind-of grand in this poem is how it brings out and really emphasizes the non-standard-ness of English (kinda like that word I just used. Hee!). This poem is most definitely only for strong English speakers. And even as a native speaker I still could not read this poem fluidly. Whoever wrote this chose brilliantly for the word pairs. I always stumble here: "A moth is not a moth in mother,/Nor both in bother, broth in brother" because seriously, bother? both? "both"-er!

Favorite line: "A dreadful language? Man alive,/I'd mastered it when I was five!"