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."