Calling It

I'm just not keeping up. I think, therefore, that I will stop guilting myself on days when I don't and stop rushing myself on days when I do. I will start to post again, daily, at some undecided upon date in the future. Until then, this blog will go on hiatus. For your poetry needs, please refer to www.poets.org.

See you later!

A Supermarket in California (Allen Ginsberg)

What I love about this poem by Allen Ginsberg is that Walt Whitman features and that the way that A. Gins writes it mimics Whitman's prosey poems. I love that without even looking at the published date, I know approximately when this poem was written. It just smacks of the 1960s and hippies and the beat generation. Shoot, I just looked and it was actually written in 1956. Well, good stuff like him is always ahead of its time.

Favorite line: "Whole families shopping at/night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!"

In Flight (Jennifer K. Sweeney)

Not much information about the poet, but I love the poem. It's clear, clear-eyed, calm, directed. I guess that, maybe, makes it sound lame, but I mean all those adjectives in the best possible way.

I love the metaphor. I love the connection and the idea she makes between hard life - living, feeling without support or control - and the mythical Himalayan birds. God, it's just so good, so right. So damn apt.

Favorite line: "They are born in the air,/must learn to fly before falling"

MIA

I'm going to an out-of-town training for my job for the next few days. I'll be back to posting (promise!) on Thursday.

Small Talk (Eleanor Lerman)

Never heard of the poet or the poem, but that's fine, since I like this poem and I will want to explore more of the poems of this poet. Poems of the Day are like that. They (just occasionally) direct you to a gem.

This poem moves so carefully, so cautiously. If every day in the suburbs is mild than so is the poem, making no declarations, trying to stir no ripples. Even the title pushing down what the poem's getting across by calling it simply small talk. Nothing serious is said in small talk after all. Nothing important.

But then, you see, this poem is sneaky. Not all lives are dull in the suburbs and not all small talk is pointless. This poem also contains a sharp point after carefully describing how it does not. The last stanza shows that the babes of the suburban mothers to be asleep in the arms of the wind - wild in ways that suburban life cannot approach. If they are to be wild, however, it is due to the suburban mothers - the safety of their mild ways and of their mild suburbs. "Such small talk/before life begins"

Favorite line: "If there is/sunlight, it enters through the/kitchen window and spreads/itself, thin as a napkin, beside/the coffee cup"

The Debt (Paul Lawrence Dunbar)

More guilt, than gilt, I'd say. (Hehe, I be clever.) This poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar describes the feelings of debt that N has since 'one riotous day'.

I wonder what exactly N did that on that one day to cause years and years of anguish. I wonder if the incident was money related, since N uses debt and related words to describe the event.

It's an older poem. I think it was written in the late 1800s. Perhaps due to that, there is a rhyme scheme - AABB. Obvious and dodding. Mimics the guilt N feels.

Favorite line: "Pay it I will to the end—/Until the grave, my friend"

MIA

Ah, shoot. I should, perhaps, not have, stated my renewal to this website in the week in which I seem to be suffering from insomnia.

Sorry, cannot. Manana.

How Do I Love Thee? (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

And oops, but today has been wholly not good and all I want to do is limp to bed, so I will cheat this night and direct your attention to a wonderful, classic poem. The #1 most popular poem at poets.org. Fancy that.

If a Wilderness (Carl Phillips)

It's been more than 10 days. No real reason, just a mental vaca, I suppose. But now it is the weekend and I wanna start again. So, today's poem is "If a Wilderness" by Carl Phillips.

Hmmm, N "wagered on God in a kind stranger". And after the sexual encounter turns sour, the stranger leaves (more mentally, I think, than physically) and N thinks: "The difference between/God and luck is that luck, when it leaves,/does not go far". And ouch.

So, N wagered on God in the stranger, who leaves him. N feels as though he has been not only rebuffed by the lover, but by God too. That's a lot of symbolic weight to place on a casual encounter, don't ya think, C.P.?

And I think he realizes it too, but is stuck. Just like how the sweat lingers on the leather of the bridle, N could stop looking for large theoretical answers in tools like harnesses and bridles or in the beds of 'nice strangers', but as N says: "I don't want to."

Favorite line: "I wagered on God in a kind stranger—/kind at first; strange, then less so—"

National Poetry Month

Who knew? April is National Poetry Month. I bet that's so because April is the door to spring and spring is such a font for poetry. Yay! poetry. Take a look at this page for all the books of poetry coming out this season. I think it really does make a difference to your understanding to be able to read a poem as part of a collection. Not a collected works of, but a book of poetry. Like a book, a novel, books of poetry have themes and unifying symbolism. I find that when you read a book of poetry the poems in them are easier to understand than if you find the poem in an anthology. Context is everything.

Spring is like a perhaps hand (E. E. Cummings)

Today has been gorgeous. It was the first time I haven't worn a coat all day. Just glorious.(Perhaps winter has been a tad too long for me this year.)Anyways, this poem by e.e. cummings was immediately appealing to me.

Yesterday was not a good weather day. A bit chilly. So today was exactly as cummings describes: "comes carefully/out of Nowhere". Good deal.

I like how the two single, stand-alone lines make a couplet. "changing everything carefully//without breaking anything." And that makes for a pretty pat definition of spring. Everything is altered, made new. Nothing is broken, since it's all natural, part of a cycle. It's just a shift.

Favorite line: "changing everything carefully"

Still I Rise (Maya Angelou)

Still on a Maya Angelou kick. Love her. Her only other poem on poets.org is Still I Rise.

I would love to hear it spoken. It just seems like it was made for spoken word. I guess I didn't have a strong reaction to the poem, a nodding of the head - yeah, that's it - because I've never felt downtrodden. Yeah, yeah, I'm not a White male, so I'm not quite at the top of the heap, but being White, I am close. So, while I like the poem, I don't quite feel it.

But, you know, being a woman I sure do respond to this line:

Favorite line: "Does my sexiness upset you?/Does it come as a surprise/That I dance like I've got diamonds/At the meeting of my thighs?"

Alone (Maya Angelou)

I'm currently reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and am loving it, so I searched for a poem of hers and found this one.

It's a poem sure, but my more immediate connection with it went something like, 'mmmhmm, hey! it's a song!'. It's so incredibly musical. It has a chorus: "That nobody,/But nobody/Can make it out here alone." It has changes in meter and rhythm which signify changes in verse and even isolates a bridge: "Now if you listen closely/I'll tell you what I know...."

It's pretty groovy stuff.

Favorite line: "Lying, thinking/Last night"

MIA

YAAAAAAAAAWN.

Later.

Red Slippers (Amy Lowell)

Sorry, but I do not have the time to write a real post tonight. I'm simply going to copypaste the 'talk' of someone else about this poem by Amy Lowell.

"Much like the moment in "Sex and the City" when Carrie Bradshaw peers into the shoe shop window and sultrily addresses a pair of heels through the glass as "Hello, lo-vah," this poem perfectly captures the iconic status of the shoe—especially for women. It hones in precisely on the shoe as a fantasy, an aspiration, an untouchable object of desire. By contrasting the gray and white of the everyday world of shops and windy sleet against the "crimson lacquer," the "stalactites of blood," the "red rockets" of these slippers hanging in the window, she heightens the shoe to this intense, pulsing otherworldly object, held just beyond reach, behind glass."

By: Meghan Cleary

Favorite line: "Snap, snap, they are cracker sparks of scarlet in the white"

My Shoes (Charles Simic)

'You never truly know someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes.' That well trod (pardon the pun) idiom must have been an inspiration for this poem by Charles Simic. "Shoes, secret face of my inner life"

I'm not a shoe lover, so honestly, I don't really see shoes, pieces of your wardrobe, as windows to your psyche. Maybe in the same way that your shirt or your socks are entries to Who You Are, I can see shoes as representing some part of a person.

However, I get that C. Sim thinks so: "With your mute patience, forming/The only true likeness of myself." Windows, mirrors. Shoes are the key.

Apparently.

Favorite line: "Ascetic and maternal, you endure:/Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men"

MIA

Sleep now. Poem later.

Drunken Winter (Joseph Ceravolo)

Hee. I'm a little tipsy and so (or more) is this poem by Joe C.

It so does not make sense. I like the first line. The insistence and one-mindedness of the opening "Oak oak!" followed by the emotionality of "like like". It's an automatic draw to the meat of the poem. To be drunk. It makes no sense.

The poem is sort of fall-like. Or winter, so says the title. It's drunk, for sure. Ha, maybe the last line "Oak sky" is an explanation of where/how N ends up, gazing at the trees' branches reaching to the infinite. Infinite...fuzzy like the non-firmness of the poem with its nonlinear patterns, mayhaps.

Favorite line: "so sky then:"

When You are Old (W. B. Yeats)

It's been a week. A generally horrible week in which I discovered that when things go crappily I have no heart for poetry. I know that there must be downer poems, ones that would have fit my mood, but the poems I love and respond to are full of light and love. And since today starts a new (hopefully much better) week, I now turn to this poem which is full of quiet contentment.

W. B. Yeats is one of those must-read poets. I associate him with boarding schools as in the movie 'Dead Poets Society'. I honestly don't know his poetry very well though, so I can't tell if this poem is typical of his style or no. I like it though.

A life-long relationship. A loving partnership. Peace. This poem reads so quietly. There is no boasting, no dramatic declarations. It smacks of honesty. And that makes the sentiment that much more intense.

Favorite line: "But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you"

Driving and Drinking [North to Parowan Gap] (David Lee)

I don't know who David Lee is, but I found this poem of his through a series of uninteresting twists.

It's almost cheesy with its "Indins" and "Misippi". In fact, I wish he had found a way to express drunkenness without turning to those types of cop-outs. Not cop-outs exactly, it's just they are too easy. Where is the subtlety? I much prefer this tell: "you just turn there and that dirt road/goes out to the Gap/where them Indins wrote on them rocks/I remember the first time/I ever got drunk." The non-linear thinking, the childishness of his statement is just perfect in how it lets you know how much drinking and driving N has been doing.

Favorite line: "Me and my brother/we was following this branch back home in Misippi/when we seen a trail leading off/and he knew but I didn't"

Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle (John Updike)

I know John Updike for writing the Rabbit series. Had no idea he also wrote poetry. Poets.org only shows one poem to his name so it seems he mainly stuck with prose.

And even this poem is pretty prose-y. True, the lines are of equal measure. It's a sonnet and there is ample use of alliteration. Maybe too much alliteration really. I mean, this line: "across the Seine;/we rustled into place. Then violins/vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength' becomes almost funny with all of its trills. Maybe it's a clever statement of Vivaldi's music. I'm not familiar.

Favorite line: "in shapes/of shield and cross and strut and brace"

Bread Dipped in Olive Oil and Salt (Theo Dorgan)

Bread dipped in Olive Oil and Salt? Sounds like half of a bad idea. Or half a good one, I suppose. I mean, bread dipped in salt??? Shudder. Ew. And mostly impossible. How do you dip something into a solid? You can't. Only except, salt isn't a solid in the same way that steel is.

But still, makes me doubt the truth of what N is saying that stories lead on to stories. "Story opening story" Uh huh, yeah right, in the same way that salt is a great dipping sauce??

Dunno, I get that he's going for substance, but I don't buy it.

Favorite line: "Bread dipped in olive oil and salt"

What Was Told, That (Rumi)

What Was Told, That by the poet Rumi.

I know it's translated, but gosh, I love the phrasing and the line lengths and the couplets of this poem. Pretty groovy stuff.

The poem reminds me of the song sung by Nina Simone: Feeling Good. Things are wholly awesome. And by hearing that song, by reading this poem I feel a shadow of that complete goodness and simply have to smile. I felt a little lighter as I finished reading this poem.

Favorite line: "What was said to the rose that made it open was said/to me here in my chest."

Dreams (Langston Hughes)

Oh man, who doesn't know this poem? I had to memorize it back in the day. For some reason I think it may have been the first poem we ever truly covered in school - had a discussion about. Langston Hughes has written far better poems, but still, this one has a special place for me.

It's seems like a poem written in an English class. "Take a common word and write a poem in which you creatively define it. At least two metaphors required." Guess that makes L. Hughes a slacker since he did the bare minimum.

Dunno, guess I liked it a lot more when I first encountered it. Wonder if that's the case for other people. That it doesn't have much repeat value.

Favorite line: "Life is a barren field"

MIA

Sleep now. Poem tomorrow.

Ulysses (Lord Alfred Tennyson)

I first read this poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson in high school, as I imagine most people do. This poem is certainly longer than most poems I cover in this blog. It's dense. Both in subject and in the physical placement of words on the page.

Ha! It's poetic fanfiction! Take a character from someone's work. Imagine their problem - put into a creative output. 14-year-olds do it. And apparently so do 19th century dudes. Of course, it's actual talent to put this kind of spin on something so established.

Ulysses has grown old. He wants to do new things once again. He wants to explore. He seems bored (ha! and that, perhaps, is why he spend days writing this masterpiece!). His declaration at the end of the poem, to never cease in exploration, at first seems wonderful - full of spirit. But on second look, it's totally an escape. He's bored at home, so he runs? And what about his family? His responsibilities?

Perhaps it's not such a bold declaration as much as the immature coward's way out.

Favorite line: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Lucille Clifton

Sorry to not have written in days. Not sure why I didn't. I've got to keep at this, daily.

In my absentia, the poet Lucille Clifton passed away. I've talked about a few of her poems in the past. For this memorial, I'm going to return to her rendition of homage to my hips. The pride in her voice is for her womanhood, true, but couldn't it also be for the art of poetry, for this poem, future poems, all poems.

Let's say it is and toast these last few days to Lucille Clifton - pure poet.

A Flea And A Fly (Unknown)

That's not the real title on this limerick. I don't know the title; I don't know the poet. I do know that this is one funny, clever poem.

Word play!

I was going to say more, but no, that pretty much sums it up. It's fun, clever, and literate. Love it!

Favorite line: "So they flew through a flaw in the flue"

Answer to a Child's Question (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Ha! and man, will lovers never tire of talking about anything but themselves?? I mean, yes, yes, this poem by Sam C. could be about a nice spring day or even Valentine's. But, what I first thought of after reading it was that N is just tired/fed up with lovers' inane talk concerning themselves.

Maybe I'm just hoping for and feeling out a comic note in what would be an ordinary 19th century short poem on Nature. Who knows? I see that too, but I prefer thinking that Coleridge is putting a smack-down on the neighborhood lovebirds.

Favorite line: "But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,/And singing, and loving—all come back together."

Untitled (Shido)

It's difficult to describe mystery without sounding cheesy. However, this poem by Shido does a good job of illustrating what is unknown and where it may be.

Right next to the brightest light in the sky is where the unimaginable (a shark?!) is. He's twice hidden there. He hides his head. He also hides beneath the wave. Wonder why he needs to be hidden two times since few would look too closely seeing as he's right next to the biggest thing in the night sky.

Haha, maybe the shark is self-conscious?

I like how the syntax in the poem mirrors hiding.

Favorite line: "There, by the crescent moon, the shark"

MIA

Tuesday actually. Sorry, just too much activity in this house to concentrate on a new post.

MIA

A friend is coming in from out of town, so I won't be able to post until Monday, I think. See you next week!

A Ditty (Sir Philip Sidney)

Don't know a bit bout the poet, but this is a ditty, uh huh.

Only, it's not. At least I don't think so. There is no rhythm, no gait, no musicality. It just sounds so ploddingly.

I like the poem, I think. It's a nice message: "My true-love hath my heart, and I have his." But there is no magic in it. No unique turns of phrase or striking comparisons, nada.

So, ya know, meh.

Favorite line: "His heart in me keeps him and me in one"

The Eel (Ogden Nash)

I'm tired and it is cute. The Eel by Ogden Nash. I adore this poem. I like the rhyme - it makes it comedic. I, personally, like eel. And I like the eels (and the way it all feels) in this delightful poem.

Favorite line: "I don't mind eels/Except as meals."

Be Drunk (Charles Baudelaire)

It's a poem full of advice. One person's (Charles B's) perspective on the world and how to get along in it. I kind of like his sentiment - that one should be drunk "On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish". Doesn't matter on what you are drunk, but be flush with something.

I like this poem. It has three stanzas, but no real lines though. It doesn't have line breaks like most poems do. It's more like three textual paragraphs. Maybe, it could be classified as a prose poem. In that case, the language better be beautiful and, luckily, it is. This line, in particular, is just fantastic: "And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the/ mournful solitude of your room, you wake again". All those 's' sounds. :).

Favorite line: "And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the/ mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or/ gone, ask the wind"

First Fig (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Hehe. Her name is practically as long as the poem. This is one of the few poems that has transcended academia and filtered through becoming a common expression for everyone. I don't know why it's titled First Fig, but who doesn't know what the phrase to burn your candle at both ends means? And who would have suspected it derives from this small piece?

So, yeah, work real hard - and you can't maintain that pace, but while you are, you can accomplish sooo much.

Uh huh. Nods. That's what I take that idiom to mean, at least. I've got to run, but isn't it great that a poem written last century (I was about to write this century - sheesh, it's been ten years) is so entrenched in the common vernacular?

Favorite line: "My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night"

Clothes, Chapter X (Khalil Gibran)

I had not heard of this poet before, but he is, apparently, "the third most widely read poet, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, in history". I clicked on this poem at random - no real reason. Guess I liked the idea that there have to be nine other verses concerning clothing out there.

Don't know if the poem was originally in another language and then translated or not. The language is pretty straight-forward. The lines themselves don't hold to any form. And there are not even stanzas. I can't tell if the single spacing is intentional and original or simply the site's default. Either way, the poem doesn't look pretty. There is no spice to these words, these lines. They all end the same way - with a period. For that reason there is no lilt to the thing. Flat, flat, flat. The last line has some music to it, at the very least.

I guess it's nice in a broad, cultural way. It's good in that same sense too. I wish it were more pulled together - with more intentional line breaks and stanzas. Personal preference, is all.

Well, Khalil might be beloved and read by millions all over the world, but, at least with this poem, he does not impress me much.

Favorite line: "the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

MIA

Taking a break. Be around tomorrow. Or actually, tomorrow's really busy. Friday for sure.

Sidekicks (Ronald Koertge)

Today, I looked to Poetry180 for a poem to talk about. Poetry180 is a collection that is meant to provide a poem-a-day for high school students. Today's choice is the poem (by Ronald Koertge) for Day 2.

It's very graspable. The meaning does not hide - nor does the poem use tough vocab or grammar. It doesn't seem to fall into any particular poetic form. In fact, it's pretty messy - structurally.

It's good for school because it tells what the point is right in the text: "[Sidekicks] remind us of a part/of ourselves,/the dependent part that can never grow up". The depth comes from the truth found in that statement. It would make for a good assignment and makes for a good poem because you can take the truth that stems from that statement and see it in your own life.

Favorite line: "the dependent part that can never grow up,/the part that is painfully eager to please,/always wants a hug and never gets enough."

The Kiss (Stephen Dunn)

Valentine's Day is in less than two weeks. But, ya know, since it's Groundhog's Day tomorrow, this poem by Stephen Dunn, which begins with a typo, is most apt. (Apt in the Billy Murray-movie way, that is.)

It is near-impossible to write about something as common as a kiss without filling with treacle or cliche. But, darn it, Mr. Dunn does it. There's not a line of cliche in this poem. Not a line that is trying to subvert what a kiss normally is or means. The poem is romantic. Sweetly so. I mean, the whole thing ends in wedded bliss.

I think it avoids treacle by remaining firmly on the ground. Everything is rooted in something that is real. The language is real; the phrasing sounds like someone I know might say those very lines. The repetition of 'kiss' and of the 's' sound help to root the poem in place - keep it centered on what the whole thing is about - that which is the only thing that N can consider.

Favorite line: "She kissed me again, reaching that place/that sends messages to toes and fingertips,/then all the way to something like home."

Orfeo (Jack Spicer)

I don't know what the title to this poem means or refers to, so normally I would veer away from talking about this type of poem - one where I am at a loss right from the first syllable. But, ya know, I'm feeling reckless and what can I say, I like the poet's name.

The poem is about hell. The "music" that N keeps referring to might as well be poetry since both are arts. So, poetry, music, art heals nothing, but it is the only home, or bed N (or any artist) has to sleep in. It's worthless, but N returns to it again and again.

Is that hell? It must be something akin to it, else this poem would never have been written. But I don't know. I like the message of Emerson's "The Rhodora" better - that beauty (art) is it's own excuse for being. Bosh with these weighty questions of culpability, purpose, and decadence.

Favorite line: "The expansiveness of salt"

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein)

This is a famous poem, most importantly because it is the title of a fantastic collection of Shel's poetry. It, unlike his other poems, is actually somber. It rhymes, but the tone is not light.

The sidewalk winds through land "where the smoke blows black". It's unpleasant and adult. In the poem, the children know where the sidewalk ends and are telling you how to get to it. You have to "walk with a walk that is measured and slow" and follow the signs that others have laid out before you. And you will arrive at the place that all the children know, that is far beyond the reach of black smoke and "dark streets".

It ain't quite childhood that you to look forward to, at least in this somber poem, but I think I remember this poem coming first in the collection, so it serves as a sort of an entry way to his other, lighter, more kid-friendly poems.

Favorite line: "We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow"

Mr. Grumpledump's Song (Shel Silverstein)

Another delight from Shel Silverstein. This one also rhymes AND it uses pretty much the same language throughout. All that sameness lends a dodding tone to the poem which is definitely appropriate for such a dour perspective.

Favorite line: "Stars are too twinkly,/Moon is too high,/Water's too drippy"

Hymn to the Neck (Amy Gerstler)

This poem by Amy Gerstler seems very old fashioned. From taking a quick glimpse of her profile, she's not that old, but still, the poem reads very 1800s.

You take an unusual topic (the neck). You put it in a strict form (hey, sonnet). You allude to old-fashioned things: "starched collars" and hanging. And you use metaphor to draw a mental image: "frail cranial buttercup".

It's a little too old-fashioned sounding for my taste, but it seems to be well constructed. Just wish it were more in tune with its own age.

Favorite line: "Speech is its pilgrim."

Sick (Shel Silverstein)

Thinking of Shel Silverstein yesterday made me find a poem of his today. Today's poem is Sick. It's told in first-person. A school-aged girl makes up illness after illness, malady after malady so as to avoid school. Of course all of her ills disappear when she discovers it's Saturday.

The poem rhymes. AABB. Except for the surprise end which is XAAA. It adds a nice spice to the poem and ends it very well. It's the big splash after the dive.

Just noticed that the vast majority of the lines begin with either an "I" or a "my". Cool, that. The poem doesn't sound that monotonous. And again, only in that oddly-rhymed closer do we have any other type of pronoun - a "you" twice repeated. It's a very inward focused poem. I get a good sense of who N is from this poem. She's very creative, no?

Favorite line: "I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,/I'm sure that my left leg is broke--"

Mother Doesn't Want a Dog (Judith Viorst)

Okay, so this doesn't quite fit the bill. But, hey, it is about dogs and even better it's relatively short and funny too. I don't know the poet, but the poem kind of reminds me of Shel Silverstein with the rhyme, the misdirection.

Every stanza begins the same. It's got that rhythm inherent. That repetition mimics the mother's words. No, no, no. The humor derives from the surprise that N went ahead and subverted the mother's words and got a different, more terrifying pet.

Favorite line: "Mother doesn't want a dog./She's making a mistake.'

Doggerel

This weekend, I got a dog! I'm really excited about that, so I thought that doggy thoughts should invade this blog as well. While my dog is of the utmost quality, while trying to connect my puppy and poetry, my thoughts immediately went to doggerel.

Doggerel is a type of poetry marked by badness. "Doggerel is a derogatory term for verse considered of little literary value." Limericks are, for the most part, doggerel. As are, I feel some satisfaction in noting, inexpert attempts at rhyming.

Poor pups, that they are named for terrible writing by amateur poets. I'll be looking for a good poem about puppies or dogs. Anyone have any suggestions?

MIA

MLK - my big project - is almost done. Worked a very long time tonight, so I don't really have the energy, the mental space to write a post. I'll see you on Sunday!

Forgetfulness (Billy Collins)

It is so light, this poem by Billy Collins. To forget such trivial school-based things like the quadratic formula, "a state flower perhaps,/the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay" seems like no big deal. I mean, flip if I know my uncle's address.

But it took serious attention and time to craft this poem, so I doubt that Billy really believes his forgetfulness to be so trivial. The stanzas are all different lengths. 5332344. There is no pattern to that. It makes me uneasy. I want to find some logic to those numbers. But there is none, like there is none when it comes to what one remembers and what one forgets. There is no order as one gets older. No progression - you may even, one day, forget "how to swim and how to ride a bicycle." And once you have forgotten the trades of youth, you might as well finish your slide away.

Favorite line: "even now as you memorize the order of the planets,/something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps"

The Busy-Man's Picture (Benjamin Franklin)

Ben Franklin wrote poetry? So says poets.org. It's no great art, but after the work week I've had I can appreciate a poem about busyness.

Can't live with it; can't live without it. That's the essence of this poem. I wonder if Ben was bored so he turned to poetry or if he was stressed and therefore accomplished more than he thought possible.

I'm very bad at identifying meter, but I don't think this one is in even iambs. Reading it and looking at it, I thought for sure it would have an even meter. But just goes to show what I and my ears know.

Favorite line: "Thou charming Mistress, thou vexatious Wife"

MIA

Sorry I have not been posting lately. Things probably won't calm down until Wednesday, maybe Tuesday. I'll see you again then!

The Poetry Foundation

Another busy day, another link. The Poetry Foundation is pretty much just like poets.org. The paper-and-ink version seems to be the uber-well-known Poetry. It has a really nice interface. It's a bit more serious in overall tone than poets.org. Hmm, well, if you want to find a poem based on subject, like 'sadness', 'love', or 'pets' then be sure to check out http://www.poetryfoundation.org/.

Most Meaningful Poems

I found this collection from my desk at Kizaki Junior High School while I was in Japan in 2008. I was bored, bored, bored as I often was in those days. I would spend hours reading the New York Times in between my classes. The day I found this article I hit pay-dirt. The reader comments came with the tagline: "What poem has made a difference in your life?" Almost 300 comments/poems and I sat that entire afternoon and just delved into the commentary. I remember reaching "Invictus" and tears springing to my eyes. I still can't read that post without a similar reaction. I discovered poems from this collection that, to this day, are treasured favorites of mine. Please, I encourage you to spend some time with this selection.

Favorite Poem Project

I first read the book from which this website springs back in high school. It really changed how I viewed poetry. Or maybe, it was just the right thing in just the right moment in time. I was hooked. So hard. From this one source material I noted my favorites and created my own personal anthology of personal favorites. And I just kept adding. I went through every Norton Anthology we had, every text book in HS English classes. Just love. This website is just as the book, only with live footage. And it is just as lovely, as full of passion as the original source.

Poetry Terms

Okay, so tonight is another of those nights were I neither have the time nor the energy to post something thoughtful. Instead I will move on to link #2 under Outside Sources: Poetry Terms. Poetry has its own vocab. I often field questions I have on this site. Feel free to do the same. Or simply take a gander and learn for its own sake.

homage to my hips (Lucille Clifton)

A variation. Listen to this audio file for the poem 'homage to my hips' by Lucille Clifton. See if you don't sit a little straighter - emboldened by her pride. See if you don't crack a smile at how she describes her "magic" hips.

This poem is made better by being read aloud. If it were simply text, I probably would not have talked about it. Since I don't see it written down, I can't be sure, but I have a feeling I would not think it were anything great. There is no flash to the words - nothing makes me pause for being fresh or a fantastic turn of phrase. But man, in the right the hands - the right voice, layers are added. Or maybe they are simply expressed. I doubt she could have read the phone book with such panache.

Favorite line: "these hips are big hips"

Haunted Seas (Cale Young Rice)

First, what a strange name is Cale Young Rice. It doesn't sound real. Second, this poem of his strikes me as just plain bad. It contains lines that twist just to fit a rhyme scheme - never a good idea. And what exactly does this line mean: "Or moves, as the dead may"? It's an airy line. You could plug anything in for the noun and the line would still read the same.

Bleh, bleh, bleh. I think the site stretched the definition of quality poem just to include one more about sharks for their poetic shark week collection.

Favorite line: "Far from the land, and lost"

I cry your mercy (John Keats)

Is it just me, or is this poem not all that? Perhaps it is published because it written by a famous poet, but to me it sounds like what a smart love-sick teenager would write. Maybe I'm just in a bleh mood though and don't see its greatness.

N is madly in love/lust with some woman. And that's all I get from this poem. I don't like it very much since it doesn't expand the love to anything greater. It's too personal.

Favorite line: "lucent, million-pleasured breast"

Letters (Frances Richey)

I get a few things from this poem. One, the obvious, is the great, personal value of a handwritten letter - not the things, the presents it comes with. Two is the stretched-farther-than-thought-possible bonds between the mother and the son. Three is the difference between part one and part two of the poem. How in part one it's all memory and "not-quite". There is an expectation. It sets you up for dread, knowing that the son is at war.

Stanza two begins along the same thread. "Last Mother's Day, when/he was incommunicado,/nothing came." You begin to worry. But then the package comes! Like N, you could care less about the actual contents of the package. N wants the letter - the sweat, the hand's contact - pieces of her son. Her son is so far, but in a letter she has connection with him. She can be close to him through the letter.

Favorite line: "the salt from his hand,/the words."

Poets

Okay, so I am very stressed by work now and I will probably remain that way for about a month. I want to write every day, but some days, like this one, I will just be unable to. Instead, I will direct your attention to a site I love. One that I use most days is www.poets.org. If you are looking for a poet's biography, look here. If you want a collection of poems arranged around a theme, look here. If you want a Halloween costume for a poet, look here. Or a poetic Valentine's card.

It's large and thorough, with a quirky sense about it.

Thirteen Ways of Looking: Poems About Birds

Okay, so this is cheating. But when I found it, I was amused. Today's "poem" will be the montage/smash Thirteen Ways of Looking: Poems About Birds.

This is totally brilliant. It's based on the poem of a similar name: 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, which funnily enough is not a poem included among the selection.

As a poem, I'd have to give it a C-. Some great lines, true. But the titles of each stanza seem unnecessary and very tell-y. Hee!

Favorite line: "What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves."

Exiled (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

It doesn't really fit my mood, but I can tell a good poem when I find it, so today's selection is Exiled (pdf) by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

I don't believe N is literally exiled. Life and its turns keep N from home, the places she finds familiar, that's all. I don't miss the sea as N does in this poem, but I have known enough people who had longed for the shores of their youth to know that Millay nails it.

Perhaps N's day was rough, nothing pleasant at all happened. She craved comfort, something familiar and true that she did not have to work at or think over. She was low and wanted the sea - her home - her childhood.

Favorite line: "Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound/Of the big surf that breaks all day."

New Year's Day (Kobayashi Issa)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I keep saying it to people I meet, even though it is a little past the new year, so I figure I might as well continue to say it to you. I found this poem while looking for a topical entry. Apparently, the poet is a prolific haiku writer, though I haven't heard of him before.

I finished the poem and I laughed. And that is pretty great to be humorous in so few words. Can't say that my New Year's this year felt this way to me, but plenty in the past have been so.

You just feel out of sync with the awesomeness of what is happening. Perhaps, you are not so awesome as everything else is? It's a funny poem, but it's tinged with that sadness.

Favorite line: "I feel about average."