Like Him (Aaron Smith)

Like Him by Aaron Smith.

I am always a little in awe of narrative poems like this. Because even though I see it there on the page and hear it when as I read it aloud, I still marvel that this everyday speech about common emotions and relations can somehow be a poem.

I like how this poem talks about fathers/sons and maleness. There is such a current of anger tinged with sadness through it.

Favorite line: "like him, like men: / the meanest guy wins, don't ever apologize."

Chirality (Rae Armantrout)

I had to look up the meaning of the title of today's poem by Rae Armantrout (neat last name). It's a chemistry term meaning 'handedness' - like the symmetry observed between your right and left hand. A pairedness.

This poem, with its small stanzas, asks unanswerable questions. Perhaps, the chirality is between the question and its answer. You can ask an open ended question, but the answer may have nothing to do with the question.

Similar as to how your reflected right hand is not your right hand - the mirror, instead, shows a different image - your left hand -- a question with chirality is one that leads on and on to new topics and answers and doesn't really seem related to the original question at all. Perhaps, poetry is often like this too. When writing a poem, you often end up in a place you didn't expect at all.

Favorite line: "If I didn't need / to do anything, / would I?"

Light (An Ars Poetica) (Michael Cirelli)

The more I read this poem by Michael Cirelli (who bizarrely does not seem to have his own website - the link is to a blog posting of his), the more I like it. The title bugs me with its parenthetical. I don't want the explanation. The poem is incredibly strong. It's streaming and yet so obviously skilled, perfectly plotted.

I don't get the many proper nouns - "Basquiat", "SAMO", "Nonna", "Wylie Dufresne", "Viscusi", but I find that in poetry I often don't get every word, so I'm okay with that and I won't be turning to Google.

I love what it says about poetry - that it's different each similar act, that it's a comfort and that it's a portal into relationships and families and God and that art has the conflicts between artistry and commercialism and sentimentality and the mundane near its center.

I think this poem is a fantastic ars poetica. It contains essays worth of thought. So glad I found this.

Favorite line: "We all do the same ol’ same ol’ same. / (Some don’t.)"

Basquiat

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

Today's is a poem by David Lee.

There is a whole range of poems that begin like this - with literal directions on how to get somewhere or do something. I like that the directions lead to a reminiscence of N's first bout of drunkenness.  It's often like that, isn't it? One thing simply leads on to another. It's just as the last line in the poem says: "any time you find a trail off a branch / you follow it . . . "

Favorite line: "and he knew but I didn't"

Advice to Passengers (John Gallaher & G. C. Waldrep)

Advice to Passengers by John Gallaher & G. C. Waldrep.

From the title, you at first think that the people are on an airplane, perhaps a boat or maybe a train, but then as you read you get the sense that these passengers have died and that they are transitioning.

I simply love the last couplet: "Don't forget to thank them / for their time." Wow. It's such a grand thought - encapsulates all of life and gives a small hope that when you have died at least someone may thank you for your life. It's really very good advice.

I am puzzled how this poem has two authors. What were their roles? Did different people write different stanzas? Did one have the idea and the other the words? I just don't see how a poetic collaboration like this would work. A poem's shared byline - I've never seen that before.

Favorite line: "Don't forget to thank them / for their time."

Autumn (T. E. Hulme)

I like the images in this poem by T. E. Hulme. (Also of note -- the great number of poems titled 'Autumn' on poets.org - why does no one use 'fall'??)

I haven't looked to see about the poet yet (who I've not heard of), but just from reading the poem I bet the poet is from many generations back. "With white faces like town children" - I mean, really? Only a socially tone deaf statement like that could equate things celestial with race. Dumb!

Anyways though, the images (well most of them) in this poem are pretty good. I love this one which is my favorite line today:

Favorite line: "And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge / Like a red-faced farmer"

A Dream Within a Dream (Edgar Allan Poe)

A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe.

It's an Inception poem!

I like the rhyme - almost all couplets, but there is a triplet in each stanza (though in different lines). I also like the despair at the end of the second stanza. The fear of unknowing. Oh God, what if it is just a dream within a dream? One of Poe's scarier themes, neh?

Favorite line: "O God! can I not save"

Gone (Lia Purpura)

I like the tone of today's poem by Lia Purpura. It confronts an immense topic (fear of death/the afterlife) with such simple, conversational phrasing. She explains her opinion exactly and without a wasted word.

The last line is fantastic. It brings the topic from the didactic to the deeply personal. Such a blow of an ending. "I can't get over this." Death, thinking of death, thinking of your legacy. Maybe the "this" is both death and the poem itself.

Favorite line: "It’s that, when I’m gone, / (and right off this is tricky) / I won’t be worried / about being gone."

Amour Honestus (Edward Hirsch)

Amour Honestus by Edward Hirsch.

This is such a fun poem to read. It's a ghazal (rhymes and repetition). It's set during medieval times and is about love. Perhaps, it is a bit vexing that in all forms of love there are such hellish difficulties. Is it really that bad? This poem seems to say that honest love is complicated, difficult and entrancing. That it is hellish yet compelling. 'Suppose that's apt.

Favorite line: "Why bring it up? Just for the hell of it."

A Negro Love Song (Paul Laurence Dunbar)

A Negro Love Song by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

[A conversation after I read this aloud to my husband]

"You like it?"

"Huh?"

"The poem I just read."

"Wasn't really listening. Do you?"

"Well, um... I like the refrain - the "jump back, honey, jump back" part."

"Yeah, I did like that."

"But the rest of it - the story is kind of basic...."

"Yeah, just a 'She's so pretty. I like you. - Oh, I like you, too'- kind of thing."

"Exactly, the poem's story doesn't grab me. The dialect in it is accomplished, I guess, but aggravating in its 1800s-ness. Plus, it made it so slow to read. Having to figure out what each dialect word was."

"But that one line was pretty sweet."

"Yeah, totally made it."

Favorite line: "jump back, honey, jump back"