Blizzard (Carl Phillips)

Yesterday was a spring poem, but today were are back to winter with Carl Phillips' poem, Blizzard.

It starts describing a day in a winter and something like betrayal between N and a lover. Then it darkens even more and goes through feelings of trust and longing and losing and wanting. I like this poem (as I like all his poems) for being like the complications of a relationship. What is actually going on in this poem is shrouded in half-spoken images, but the nervous, unsureness of it comes through. You get a sense of a man who wholeheartedly wants to mean something only he can't boil it down enough in order to speak it.

Life is complicated and delicate - that is what I get from his writing and the intricate phrasing he uses. His poetry makes me feel so raw/so gutted, as though I've experienced his heartache, his betrayal. He's truly talented.

Favorite line: "When I say / I trust you, I mean I've considered / that you could betray me"

Civilization (Carl Phillips)

I love the poetry of Carl Phillips. I had to pick a poet to write about in a college class and somehow picked him and have been so glad for that chance introduction. His poem, Civilization, is kind of a case-in-point for why he's great.

He starts with a religious scene and melds his own relationship troubles into it but also with feelings of unworthiness that he has for himself. I think he's great at writing about how objects can stand for both themselves and something else - and of course, as it's described he ends up also talking (mostly, talking) about himself. And I think that's his big point - that any identity is a trinity. It's so cool.
 
Favorite line: "It / only looked, it -- / It must only look / like leaving. There's an art / to everything. Even / turning away."

It only looked, it—    It must only look like leaving. There's an art    to everything. Even    turning away. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22240#sthash.FsSQGxxI.dpuf

It only looked, it—    It must only look like leaving. There's an art    to everything. Even    turning away. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22240#sthash.FsSQGxxI.dpuf

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—"