The Poets' Lounge

Meet Our New Poet Laureate, W. S. Merwin

2010-07-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

W.S. Merwin has recently been named the country’s Poet Laureate, succeeding Kay Ryan. He’s 80-years-old and currently, lives in Hawaii. He attended Princeton University, where he studied with John Berryman and R. P. Blackmur, two high-profile poets in their own right. Later he and his wife became close friends with poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. During the course of his career, Merwin published over 20 books and has garnered numerous awards and critical acclaim.

In the poem below, “The Anniversary of My Death,” Merwin muses about the eventuality of death and then about what may occur in death itself. He passes his eventual death day every year. Then he describes the day of his death as the last day he will see earthly things or feel human emotions like being “Surprised at the earth/And the love of a woman/And the shamelessness of men.” He describes life and the things in it like being “in a strange garment.” It is as though, for the speaker, there is something always a bit foreign and perhaps uncomfortable in life— something always to become accustomed to.

Then after a long rain, a metaphor, perhaps, for the transition between life and death, he bows to the unknown that is death, and, I think the writing, in the poem and the poem itself is a bow or an act of homage to death.

Anyway those are my thoughts. Perhaps you have your own. If so, I’d love to hear them, or read them, as it were.

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

Blues for Kim Addonizio

2010-06-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I go looking for a poem to post, and sometimes they come looking for me. This poem by Amorak Huey knocked me over while I drowsily drank a cup of coffee and read emails. WOW. Now I am awake, at least, if not awakened.

Kim Addonizio is indeed a poet worthy of a love poem. Read one of my favorites in September 2007 of this blog.

Here's a glimmer of Huey's:
...Desire's
just another word for mourning--

Do not pass go. Stop and read it now. You won't regret it.

http://www.contrarymagazine.com/Contrary/Amorak_Huey_Blues_for_Kim_Addonizio.html

Two Poem Friday

2010-05-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Wow. I missed the entire month of April, which is National Poetry Month. I have the resolve of a flea.

So here are two poems. I heard both on NPR during April although they apply to two differently-themed collections. The first is from an new anthology on loss and grief edited by Kevin Young entitled The Art of Losing. The title gets its name from Elizabeth Bishop's much anthologized poem (which consequently can be found somewhere on this blog) by the same name.

Unfortunately, I don't yet have the book so what is written here is not in the form the author intends. This may take away from the experience of reading it and, for that, I apologize, but I felt like it was so strong that it will resonate with people regardless.

Written on the Due Date of a Son Never Born
by David Wojahn

Echinacea, bee balm, aster, trumpet vine. I watch your mother bend to prune, water sluicing silver from the hose. Another morning you will never see. Summer solstice, dragonflies flare, the un-petaled rose. Six a.m., and already she's breaking down, hose flung to the sidewalk where it snakes and pulses in a steady, keening glitter, both hands to her face. That much I can give you of these hours. That much only, fists and blossom forged by salt, trellising your wounded helixes against our days. Tell us how to live for we are shades, facing, caged, the chastening sun. Our eyes are scorched and lidless. We cannot bear your light.

***************************************************

This next poem is a bit more redemptive. It is an Emily Dickinson poem that is now anthologized in Poetry Speaks Who I Am: Poems of Discovery, Inspiration, Independence and Everything Else, edited by Elise Paschen.

Hope Is the Thing With Feathers
by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

A Blog Deferred

2010-03-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

So I've been woefully behind on blogging. Sorry to the seven of you faithful onlookers. I can't even say that am back per se. Life gets in the way, or so it goes.

This highly anthologized poem is by the great Langston Hughes. Enjoy.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

The Ineffable

2010-01-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

Ah, how easy it can be for us to throw out our contentment for the dream of something better, more romantic, for the idea that there is another person in the world who understands you in a way that no one in your current life possibly can.

We search for that ineffable connection. Whole conversations pass between you without a word spoken. The fantasy of this other happiness makes you whole, makes you better because they bring out the best in you. They inspire you, make you write poetry. When you have a fight, it's really just passion, and it always ends in a flurry of tearing clothes and long clingy nights. And sometimes we even mistakenly believe the dream is real, and the reality that we once found comforting becomes suffocating.

But, like the character in Bilgere's poem, who is smart enough to see the fantasy through to its likely conclusion, all of these dreams are just illusions. Eventually everyone smiles with broccoli in their teeth, hams up a cold, gets a wart or bad gas or smells like onions. Even us.

The Ineffable
by George Bilgere

I'm sitting here reading the paper,
feeling warm and satisfied, basically content
with my life and all I have achieved.
Then I go up for a refill and suddenly realize
how much happier I could be with the barista.
Late thirties, hennaed hair, an ahnk
or something tattooed on her ankle,
a little silver ring in her nostril.
There's some mystery surrounding why she's here,
pouring coffee and toasting bagels at her age.
But there's a lot of torsion when she walks,
which is interesting. I can sense right away
how it would all work out between us.

We'd get a loft in the artsy part of town,
and I can see how we'd look shopping together
at our favorite organic market
on a snowy winter Saturday,
snowflakes in our hair,
our arms full of leeks and shiitake mushrooms.
We would do tai chi in the park.
She'd be one of the few people
who actually "gets" my poetry
which I'd read to her in bed.
And I can see us making love, by candlelight,
Struggling to find words for the ineffable.
We never dreamed it could be like this.

And it would all be great, for many months,
until one day, unable to help myself,
I'd say something about that nostril ring.
Like, do you really need to wear that tonight
at Sarah and Mike's house, Sarah and Mike being
pediatricians who intimidate me slightly
with their patrician cool, and serious money.
And she would give me a look,
a certain lifting of the eyebrows
I can see she's capable of, and right there
that would be the end of the ineffable.

Winnie the Wonder Dog

2010-01-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

With the new year comes a new puppy! Winnie, the newest member of our little family is brimming with rascalidity. I have no doubt that she is fully aware of the power her cuteness has over us and that she wields said power without mercy or remorse. Her ears flop when she runs and her haunches are so for away from her muzzle that they seem to move entirely independently. Winnie is a diva dog--demanding, rebellious and completely irresistible. So, here is one for the Winster.

Nelson, My Dog

by Gary Soto

Like the cat he scratches the flea camping in fur.
Unlike the cat he delights in water up to his ears.
He frolics. He catches a crooked stick –
On his back he naps with legs straight up in the air.
Nelson shudders awake. He responds to love
From head to tail. In happiness
His front legs march in place
And his back legs spark when they push off.
On a leash he knows his geography.
For your sake he looks both ways before crossing,
He sniffs at the sight of a poodle trimmed like a hedge,
And he trots the street with you second in command.
In the park, he ponders a squirrel attached to a tree
And he shovels a paper cup on his nose.
He sweeps after himself with his tail,
And there is no hand that doesn't deserve a lick.
Note this now, my friends:
Nelson can account the heritage of heroic dogs:
One, canines lead the blind,
Two, they enter fire to rescue the child and the child's toy,
Three, they swim for the drowning,
Four, they spring at the thief,
Five, they paddle ponds for the ball that got away,
Six, for the elderly they walk side by side to the very end,
Seven, they search for bones but stop when called,
Eight, they bring mud to all parties,
Nine, they poke among the ruins of a burnt house,
Ten, they forgive what you dish out on a plate.

Nelson is a companion, this much we know,
And if he were a movie star, he would do his own stunts –
O, how he would fly, climb the pant legs of a scoundrel
And stand tall rafting on white-water rivers!
He has befriended the kingdom of animals:
He once ran with wolves but admittedly not very far,
He stepped two paces into a cave and peeked at the bear,
He sheltered a kitten,
He righted the turtle pedaling its stumps on its back,
Under the wheeling stars he caravanned with the mule,
He steered sheep over a hill,
He wisely let the skunk pass,
He growled at the long-bearded miser,
He joined ducks quacking with laughter,
Once he leaped at a pheasant but later whined from guilt.

Nelson's black nose is a compass in the wilds.
He knows nature. He has spied spires of summer smoke,
He circled cold campfires,
He howled at a gopher and scratched at the moon,
He doctored his wounds with his tongue,
He has pawed a star of blood left in snow.
He regards the fireplace, the embers like blinking cats,
This too we know about Nelson.
True, he is sometimes tied to parking meters
And sometimes wears the cone of shame from the vet's office.
But again, he is happiness.
He presents his belly for a friendly scratch.
If you call him, he will drop his tennis ball,
Look up, and come running,
This muddy friend for life. When you bring your nose
To his nose for something like a kiss,
You can find yourself in his eyes.

Have a Scary Christmas?

2009-12-23T08:29:00.000-08:00

Hey, sometimes it feels more like you have to survive Christmas than anything. Plus, I know you've all read everything there is to read about gratitude, good will, family and the Christmas spirit, so why not have a little fun?

The Jingle Bells

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Hear the jingle bells!

Hear them jingle!
How they jingle!

How they jangle!

And see the madman in the red suit!

Who is coming!

He sees you!

With wide wild eyes.

He wants you!

He sees you when you sleep!

He knows what mad dances

The reindeer make!

How they twirl and touch their antlers!

How their blood is stirred

By the madman they call Claus!

How merry they are

As they drink your blood and say,

"Merry Christmas to all,

And to all a good night!"

You are their daughter!

My love!

Nancy Drew

2009-12-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

Ok. I LOVED Nancy Drew when I was young. I had a copy of the latest girl detective mystery with me at all times. I loved the original books and the more contemporary ones. Honestly, these books are what began my love affair with books in general. Plus, I also love poems with some moral conflict as this one seems to indicate in the end. Enjoy, Super Sleuths!

Nancy Drew
by Ron Koertge

Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.
And she got to say things like, "But, gosh,
what if these plans should fall into the wrong
hands?" and it was pretty clear she didn't mean
plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but
something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.

In fact, the handsome exchange student turns
out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches
Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he
has something more sinister in mind than kissing
her with his mouth open

Locked in the pantry of an abandoned farm house,
Nancy makes a radio out of a shoelace and a muffin.
Pretty soon the police show up, and everything's
hunky dory.

Nancy accepts their thanks, but she's subdued.
It's not like her to fall for a cad. Even as she plans
a short vacation to sort our her emotions she knows
there will be a suspicious waiter, a woman in a green
off the shoulder dress, and her very jittery husband.

Very well. But no more handsome boys like the last one:
the part in his hair that was sheer propulsion, that way
he had of lifting his eyes to hers over the custard,
those feelings that made her not want to be brave
confident and daring, polite, sensitive and caring.

Happy Anniversary To Us

2009-12-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

Four years ago today, I made a very wise decision. One, that I have, perhaps, not always seen the wisdom in, but am very proud of today. I married a very wonderful man. Sometimes, I cannot believe the luck of it all.

On an Anniversary
by Donald Justice

On an Anniversary Thirty years and more go by
In the blinking of an eye,
And you are still the same
As when first you took my name.

Much the same blush now as then
Glimmers through the peach-pale skin.
Time (but as with a glove)
Lightly touches you, my love.

Stand with me a minute still
While night climbs our little hill.
Below, the lights of cars
Move, and overhead the stars.

The estranging years that come,
Come and go, and we are home.
Time joins us as a friend,
And the evening has no end.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2004/10/18

Poetry In Motion

2009-12-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

Saints pummel Pats to go 11-0. Be still my beating heart.

Lydia Davis

2009-11-19T13:50:00.000-08:00

Interesting little poem about how we define ourselves and how we are defined-- none of which can ever at any given time be completely true. Nonetheless, we go about our days assessing other people and giving worth to ourselves based on something like having a position at the university which is both revealing and superficial. As people, we are always sliding in and out of roles simultaneously, morphing between the truths of what it means to be you or me.

A Position at the University

by Lydia Davis

I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I think, But this stranger will imagine me quite otherwise when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for instance that I have a position at the university: the fact that I have a position at the university will appear to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a position at the university. But then I have to admit, with surprise, that, after all, it is true that I have a position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps I really am the sort of person you imagine when you hear that a person has a position at the university. But, on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of person I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at the university. Then I see what the problem is: when others describe me this way, they appear to describe me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe me completely, and a complete description of me would include truths that seem quite incompatible with the fact that I have a position at the university.

For this poem and more go to the Poetry Foundation

Shelley Puhak

2009-11-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

Shelley Puhak and I studied together for a summer in Italy. She was working on her MFA from the University of New Orleans and I was working on my MA. Although, we've lost touch as the years have gone by, she kept me kind of sane while I was there, and I have a great respect for her talent. So, I was very pleased to see that she's gotten a book of poems published-- some of which we discussed in our creative writing workshop. Stalin in Aruba is being well-received and can be purchased through Black Lawrence Press or Shelley's website: http://www.shelleypuhak.com/. I have not received my own copy yet, but from what I gather and remember, many of these poems are dramatic monologues based (loosely?) on Russian history. I am including here a poem from the book which was first published in the Adirondack Review.

Support emerging poets, and buy the book!

WHAT THEY LEFT OUT OF MY OBITUARY

What They Left Out of My Obituary:
Father Pritikin, Dead at 85
You've heard of me: when I was seventeen
I threw the perfect pass, seventy yards,
breaking the school record. Those present said
the pigskin arched into the sun, but I
saw nothing, only that same sun spinning spots
while my breath's smoke pawed the cold.
You wouldn't have heard I spent my twenty-first
in a Guatemalan hut, shivering with heat,
brown-skinned women crowding me, muttering padre,
padre, and forcing me to drink hot tea.
Or that at seven, I found my mother's razor
in the bathtub nook and slipped my thumb across
the blade. As blood spilled forth I knew
nothing but dead leaves crisping underfoot.
When I was conceived, it was winter. That spring
the snow never melted, just crusted into ice.
My mother toe-heeled, toe-heeled as belly swelled,
or did she run, hoping to slip, to jar me loose?
At fourteen, I found freckles, light and flat,
across the clavicle of a girl on the field
hockey team, constellations spilling across bare
shoulders while the trees pulsed green.

Kelly-Anne Riess

2009-10-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

You never know how your life would have gone if you made different choices. Things always only continue to go forward.

If I Gave Up
by Kelly-Anne Riess

I would have followed you

to Edmonton

found a job waitressing babysitting

even though I have three degrees

a temporary fix

while you finished school

near mountains where you climb

I wish I'd known you

when you didn't know what you wanted

then maybe you would've followed me to the Peg

I could never live in Manitoba you said

would feel bad if I gave up

anything for you

so you ended it

even so you couldn't stay away

visited me every summer

until she moved in

after graduation you went up north

how's that better than Winnipeg

you work 20 days on

fly down to her on days off

it could be me

"If I Gave Up" by Kelly-Anne Riess, from To End a Conversation. © Thistledown Press Ltd., 2008. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/10/11

Your Catfish Friend

2009-10-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

So, tomorrow night is a girls' night. The anticipation of girls' night, especially when the first cool fronts of fall have begun to blow through our cities is one of the few really childlike moments of stress-free (mostly stress-free) excitement that I have. In 2009, anyway. We will drink and eat and talk about everything from major works of literature to our long past, minor love affairs. Anyway, this one is for them. They know who they are.

Your Catfish Friend
by Richard Brautigan

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

Apart (Les Separes)

2009-09-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

I found this little gem by Louis Simpson and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore today and it kind of spoke to me. Some of the language seems a bit overdone, but then there are some very nice moments in this poem too, so why not share? Here it is in both the original French and the English translation.

PS I hate you blogspot for always screwing up the formatting.

Apart (Les Séparés)

by Louis Simpson and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Do not write. I am sad, and want my light put out.
Summers in your absence are as dark as a room.
I have closed my arms again. They must do without.
To knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb.
Do not write!

Do not write. Let us learn to die, as best we may.
Did I love you? Ask God. Ask yourself. Do you know?
To hear that you love me, when you are far away,
Is like hearing from heaven and never to go.
Do not write!

Do not write. I fear you. I fear to remember,
For memory holds the voice I have often heard.
To the one who cannot drink, do not show water,
The beloved one's picture in the handwritten word.
Do not write!

Do not write those gentle words that I dare not see,
It seems that your voice is spreading them on my heart,
Across your smile, on fire, they appear to me,
It seems that a kiss is printing them on my heart.
Do not write!

Les SéparésN'écris pas. Je suis triste, et je voudrais m'éteindre.
Les beaux étés sans toi, c'est la nuit sans flambeau.
J'ai refermé mes bras qui ne peuvent t'atteindre,
Et frapper à mon coeur, c'est frapper au tombeau.
N'écris pas!
N'écris pas. N'apprenons qu'à mourir à nous-mêmes.
Ne demande qu'à Dieu . . . qu'à toi, si je t'aimais!
Au fond de ton absence écouter que tu m'aimes,
C'est entendre le ciel sans y monter jamais.
N'écris pas!
N'écris pas. Je te crains; j'ai peur de ma mémoire;
Elle a gardé ta voix qui m'appelle souvent.
Ne montre pas l'eau vive à qui ne peut la boire.
Une chère écriture est un portrait vivant.
N'écris pas!
N'écris pas ces doux mots que je n'ose plus lire:
Il semble que ta voix les répand sur mon coeur;
Que je les vois brûler à travers ton sourire;
Il semble qu'un baiser les empreint sur mon coeur.
N'écris pas!

Charles Jensen

2009-09-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a poet named Charles Jensen and I am completely enamored of his writing. Insightful and rather dark, this guy is going places. I first read his work in The Collagist and then went in search of more. The poems in The Collagist are from an Jensen's book Nanopedia: The Smallest American Reference and I definitely encourage you to seek out the book or at least the excerpts included in The Collagist. The poem I have posted here, "Flowers," is from his book Living Things and first appeared in No Tell Motel. I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do!

Flowers
By Charles Jensen

Every room fills with buds
sprung open like snake heads.

The big, dumb eyes of the chrysanthemums
look jaundiced and sick.

The lilies
have nothing more to give and drop their petals
like small gloves.

Their sweet smell grows more fetid.
My head stays dizzy and numb.

Each day the house
takes on more death, more dying; more doomed flowers
go to pieces.

I want to know whose idea this was,
filling up death
with hundreds of smaller deaths.

Eight Ball

2009-09-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

"Eight Ball" is from Claudia Emerson's 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book, Late Wife. This book was published by the LSU Press (my alma mater), and from what I understand had very few copies printed prior to winning the Pulitzer. It is an amazing collection though. Emerson writes with stark, crisp imagery. It's both accessible and smart. I highly suggest picking up a copy if you can find one.

Eight Ball
by Claudia Emerson

It was fifty cents a game
beneath exhausted ceiling fans,

the smoke's old spiral. Hooded lights
burned distant, dull. I was tired, but you

insisted on one more, so I chalked
the cue--the bored blue--broke, scratched.

It was always possible
for you to run the table, leave me

nothing. But I recall the easy
shot you missed, and then the way

we both studied, circling--keeping
what you had left me between us.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2009-08-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

As I scanned over the last couple of years of poems that I've posted I was surprised to see I'd never posted this. Prufrock is the much anthologized, possibly most perfect poem ever written in my opinion. There are so many beautiful lines in this poem: I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, I have measured out my life on coffee spoons, and Do I dare/disturb the universe? Every time I read it, I find something new to love about it. Hopefully you will enjoy it or hate or feel something about it.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T. S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in on-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
. . . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald]
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts
that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or to,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Intolerable Nature of Yearning

2009-08-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

And now something from our sponsors... So, This is a Katie Kidder original. It was first published in Contrary Magazine in the fall of 2007 and is now here for your reading pleasure.

The Intolerable Nature of Yearning

I have been searching for you
as the mornings and the evenings scroll by in a mad collage of letters that want
to be your name.

I have looked in the phone book
and in Japanese. I found you thinly veiled in Freud's Illusion
just to lose you down a page of long division.
I watched my goldfish mouth you out a thousand times in spheres
that ascended slowly to the surface and then popped.
I have seen your name almost complete itself
in my husband's dirty socks.
I nearly licked you off
a whiskey label-- if I could swallow what you are
I would.

My friend, my friend who feels prettier
in her skull's long grin,
accused your terms of catching me like a fish
bone in the throat.

She laughed at me, smoked and puffed,
"A man who writes knows too much."*

*From Anne Sexton's "The Black Art"

Ulysses Unbanned

2009-08-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

This piece, posted on The Writer's Almanac tells the tale of obscenity in literature and how James Joyce duped the government. Be sure to read the Quote from Ulysses that was considered pornographic. It's hardly comprehensible. sheesh.

On this day in 1934, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the novel Ulysses, by James Joyce. (books by this author) In 1920, a literary magazine called The Little Review published an episode of Ulysses in which Leopold Bloom, the hero, masturbates while getting a glimpse of a young woman's undergarment, as fireworks go off over a beach. It was not difficult for a person to find real pornography in 1920, but Ulysses stood out to officials for its highbrow aura and the publicity it attracted as the newest, most advanced thing in literature. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice brought The Little Review to trial under the state's obscenity law. The episode was ruled obscene, and Ulysses was banned in the United States.

The banned book was a hot item on the black market, and Joyce knew he was losing a lot of money to pirate publishers. He wanted an American readership and the royalties that came with it, so his lawyers worked with the executives at Random House to bait the U.S. government into going to trial. In 1933, Random House decided to import a single version of the French edition of Ulysses, and the company had people wait at the New York docks for the book's arrival. It was a hot day and the U.S. Customs inspector didn't want to be bothered with another inspection, but the Random House people made sure that one book was seized.

A second trial, "United States v. One Book Called Ulysses," was held over the fate of that single copy of Ulysses. Judge John Woolsey ruled that the book had no "dirt for dirt's sake" and was not, in fact, pornographic. His ruling changed the standards for literary obscenity. He disregarded the traditional standard for obscenity — whether the work would "deprave and corrupt" a vulnerable young reader — and said that the proper test is whether it would "lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts" in the average adult. Also, no longer could a single line make a whole book obscene. Woolsey pointed out that the book was so difficult to understand, people would be unlikely to read it for titillation. The Court of Appeals agreed and called Ulysses "a sincere portrayal" and "executed with real art." Ulysses was safe to sell in the United States.

In his opinion for the case, Judge Woolsey wrote: "In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring."

[From the aforementioned undergarment scene] Joyce wrote:"And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and they all saw it and shouted to look, look there it was and she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was flying about through the air, a soft thing to and fro, dark."

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Spoilers I've Delivered To English Lit Majors

2009-08-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

And now for something different... McSweeny's is often a source of much amusement for me. Check it out sometime if you get a chance.

Spoilers I've Delivered To English Lit Majors.

BY WAYNE GLADSTONE
- - - -
Godot never comes.

Bartleby is a lot like humanity in his preferring not to.

Peyton Farquhar sure has an active imagination at Owl Creek.

Your close reading skills and knowledge of symbolism will not be rewarded in your job as a lawyer or coffee barista.

http://www.mcsweenys.net/

Trapped

2009-07-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

This one of my favorite Charles Bukowski poems from one of my favorite books of poetry, "Love is a Dog from Hell." It is a difficult thing to want something from someone when you know it is simply not in their nature to ever give it to you.

trapped

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin;
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.

she's long ago
forgotten me.

she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and
death.

I can't hate
that.

she didn't do
anything
unusual.

I only wanted her
to.

Happy Birthday to Me

2009-07-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my birthday. I turn 33. So here, is a joyful birthday poem.

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich

2009-05-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Make Yourself Invisible

2009-05-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

So, I've been pretty lax about posting lately. I'd like to say it's because I'm so damn busy, but it's just because I haven't been motivated.

To kick off what I hope will be a prolific posting cycle, what could be better than Charles Simic? This one is from his book Walking the Black Cat. It is haunting and lovely. Like many of Simic's poems this one takes the reader back to WWII--a period of time that appears to have had a profound effect on his poetry. Simic lived in Europe during WWII and did not move to the United States until he was a teenager. This poem also features a dog, as do some of his other WWII poems, which I think, for Simic, symbolizes innocence, but perhaps you will want to investigate that yourself and make your own judgement. The idea of being/not being (as is apparent in the idea of invisibility, here) is a theme that is prevalent throughout Simic's body of work also. Very rich and complex work indeed.

Make Yourself Invisible

Drew islands with palm trees
My sister did.
The beaches were empty.
We wanted to lie on their hot sand
And drink lemonade.

Read your book and be quiet,
They yelled at us from the kitchen.

That spring we could smell lilacs
During the blackout.
Boom! Boom! The bombs fell
While a dog barked bravely
In someone's back yard.

Make yourself invisible,
The old witch said.
From now on, we were breadcrumbs
In a dark forest
Where the little red birds
Had just fallen silent.

Time + Distance

2009-02-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

Oh how I love a villanelle. I should just post the link to The Writer's Almanac, since that is wehare I am discovering all the best poems

Time + Distance
by Leslie MonsourThe Alarming Beauty of the Sky)

The tea you pour is black and strong.
It doesn't taste like tea to me;
I must have been away too long.

It isn't jasmine, spice, oolong;
It tastes like an apology—
This tea you pour, so black and strong.

Where's that old fork with the bent prong?
What happened to the hemlock tree?
Have I really been gone that long?

I think I hear the saddest song;
It has no words, no tune, no key.
The tea you pour is black and strong.

You're careful to say nothing wrong,
You seem too eager to agree...
Yes, I've been travelling far and long,
And now it's clear, I don't belong.

I watch you sash your robe, as we
sit, sipping tea that's black and strong.
I went away too far, too long.

"Time + Distance" by Leslie Monsour, from The Alarming Beauty of the Sky. © Red Hen Press, 2005. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/02/10

Asking for Directions

2009-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Ah, this one makes me feel nostalgic.

Asking for Directions
by Linda Gregg

We could have been mistaken for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan to Chicago
that last time we were together. I remember
looking out the window and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places, the world
with its back turned to us, the small neglected
stations of our history. I slept across your
chest and stomach without asking permission
because they were the last hours. There was
a smell to the sheepskin lining of your new
Chinese vest that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early and asked you
to come with me for coffee. You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour and you came.
We didn't say much after that. In the station,
you took your things and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned. So you would have
ten minutes to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end, so still I was
aware of myself breathing. I put on the vest
and my coat, got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window standing outside looking
up at me. We looked at each other without any
expression at all. Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of as proof
that you loved me permanently. After that I was
a woman alone carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi.

"Asking for Directions" by Linda Gregg, from Chosen by the Lion. © Graywolf Press, 1994

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/01/09

After the Movie

2008-09-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post something on friendship today because a buddy of mine is moving on to greener pastures and I'm a bit sad about it. I thought this was perfect. Enjoy.

As always I apologize for f-ing up Marie Howe's formatting. Blogger just doesn't respect poetic form. What can I say?

After the Movie
by Marie Howe

My friend Michael and I are walking home arguing about the movie.
He says that he believes a person can love someone
and still be able to murder that person.
I say, No, that's not love. That's attachment.
Michael says, No, that's love. You can love someone, then come to a day
when you're forced to think "it's him or me"
think "me" and kill him.
I say, Then it's not love anymore.
Michael says, It was love up to then though.
I say, Maybe we mean different things by the same word.
Michael says, Humans are complicated: love can exist even in the
murderous heart.
I say that what he might mean by love is desire.
Love is not a feeling, I say. And Michael says, Then what is it?
We're walking along West 16th Street—a clear unclouded night—and I hear my voice
repeating what I used to say to my husband: Love is action, I used to say
to him.
Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at
someone you want to eat and not eat them.
Janis Joplin says, take another little piece of my heart now baby.
Meister Eckhardt says that as long as we love images we are doomed to
live in purgatory.
Michael and I stand on the corner of 6th Avenue saying goodnight.
I can't drink enough of the tangerine spritzer I've just bought—
again and again I bring the cold can to my mouth and suck the stuff from
the hole the flip top made.
What are you doing tomorrow? Michael says.
But what I think he's saying is "You are too strict. You are
a nun."
Then I think, Do I love Michael enough to allow him to think these things
of me even if he's not thinking them?
Above Manhattan, the moon wanes, and the sky turns clearer and colder.
Although the days, after the solstice, have started to lengthen,
we both know the winter has only begun.

The Wrong Tormented Sea

2008-08-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is a poem from my thesis director's new book Gallery of Ghosts. Pretty amazing I think. It seared me when I read it and made me sad. He was the last bastion of hope I had for finding meaning in one's profession. The formatting of this poem is a bit off because my blog does not like ragged beginnings. If you want to read it in its most authentic form, click on the bottom link or buy the book.

The Wrong Tormented Sea
By John Gery

I am as dumb as anyone, of course.
I just can’t accept it. Educate!
they cried back in the 60s, with all the force
of Magellan sailing through his strait,
he who discovered in the Phillipines
one head is worth one coconut.
I’ve never learned to dwell within my means.
Across my ship’s top deck I strut,
assuming immortality will follow
since I’ve surveyed the seas of Homer
and stomached all the Plato I could swallow,
bellying up amid the foam or,
when tossed in rougher waters, Aristotle.
I’ve stayed this course for years on end.
Yet aimless as a message in a bottle,
barely afloat, I can’t pretend
any longer I can see which horizon
my navigators had in mind,
nor that the craft a person lives and dies in
can outperform its paradigm.

http://unopress.uno.edu/Excerpts/galleryexcerpt.cfm

Famous

2008-07-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Famous
By Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

via: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=177521

Translation

2008-04-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

Komo to yu mo

Komo to yu mo
Konu toki aru wo
Koji to yu wo
Komu to wa mataji
Koji to yu mono wo

You Say, "I Will Come"

You say, "I will come."

And you do not come.

Now you say, "I will not come."

So I shall expect you.

Have I learned to understand you?

Lady Otomo No Sakanoe (eighth century)Translated from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth"You Say 'I Will Come'" by Lady Otomo No Sakanoe from 100 Poems from the Japanese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
via:http://www.poetrysociety.org/

Sex and the City Blog

2008-02-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

Ok. Random, completely non-poetic blog. Its Friday night and I'm watching old episodes of Sex in the City with my dog. I don't think I have to mention exactly what that says about my life but whatever. The episode was about Modelizers-men who only date models. I think we all know I guy are two like that. Maybe they don't date models per se, but seemingly normal men completely satisfied with dating someone because of the way they look, regardless of intelligence, wit or even common sense. At any rate the show goes through the ups and owns of dating blah blah blah and in the end Mr.Big tells Carrie there are so many georgeous women out there, but eventually, you just want a girl that can make you laugh. Here's to hoping there are a few guys out there that really feel that way and its not just made for TV.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

2008-01-31T20:04:00.000-08:00

I gotta tell ya. I love a villanelle. You can keep a sonnet, but I love a vilannelle.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

ONCE: When You Mind's Made Up

2008-01-08T19:24:00.001-08:00

I saw this movie this past weekend and I thought it was so quietly beautiful and sad. Truth be told I bawled like a baby. I think a tear evn glistened in my husband's eye. The soundtrack is also amazing. Its on video now so if you have the opportunity I highly suggest renting it.

Mark Strand

2007-12-30T18:14:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I don't know where the rest of this poem by Mark Strand is or what the names of the poem is, but I like it.

It will always be this way.
I stand here scared
that you will disappear,
scared that you will stay--

This Was Once A Love Poem

2007-11-25T19:47:00.000-08:00

This Was Once a Love Poem
by Jane Hirshfield

This was once a love poem, before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short, before it found itself sitting, perplexed and a little embarrassed, on the fender of a parked car, while many people passed by without turning their heads. It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement. It remembers choosing these shoes, this scarf or tie. Once, it drank beer for breakfast, drifted its feet in a river side by side with the feet of another. Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy, dropping its head so the hair would fall forward, so the eyes would not be seen. IT spoke with passion of history, of art. It was lovely then, this poem. Under its chin, no fold of skin softened. Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat. What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall. An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks. The longing has not diminished. Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat, the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus. Yes, it decides: Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots. When it finds itself disquieted by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life, it will touch them—one, then another— with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19013

From Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane Hirshfield, published by HarperCollins. Copyright © 2001 by Jane Hirshfield. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Little Miss Electra

2007-11-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

This is the first poem I ever had published in respected journal. Kind of clunky in some parts now that I look back on it, but I think it's still a worthwhile read.

Little Miss Electra
by Katie Kidder

I like old guys, because they are gray where I am dyed.
Old men amusing me with motown Otis after hours
supposing I don't know that with the lights down and our faces numb from a cheap shiraz,
I look like that little Miss Rah-Rah they never got to palm
in the green glow of their daddies' dashboards.

I like old guys, because they have dyed where I will gray.
Old men with thighs that forgot to age, bellies that remembered,
and hindsight like the long impregnable stare of a fighter pilot.
They have seen wars, read books about wars,
waged little private wars of their own
back when I was still a part of my father's fight.

I like old guys because they will lose the gray before I dye.
Old men with crows' feet around the eyes and tobacco in their sighs
they are not the dad I knew when I was five.
Not that one with the farmer's tan and the cocaine fog,
and not the one when I was twenty-three, too drunk to know the difference
between his girlfriend's name and mine.

I like old guys because they do not care about the gray.
Old men as flawless as my father was when I was twelve and he was sober,
when we discussed our dreams over stewed meat and moon pies.
What would Jung say? What would Freud think?
Perfect, beautiful old men who know who I'm looking for,
but still, they let me look.

Originally published at the Exquisite Corpse

Me in Paradise

2007-11-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

I just read this for the first time today and it blew me away. God damn, what can I say... just read it.

Me in Paradise
by Brenda Shaughnessy

Oh, to be ready for it, unfucked, ever-fucked.
To have only one critical eye that never
divides a flaw from its lesson.

To play without shame. To be a woman
who feels only the pleasure of being used
and who reanimates the user's

anguished release in a land
for the future to relish, to buy
new tights for, to parade in fishboats.

To scare up hope without fear of hope,
not holding the hole, I will catch
the superbullet in my throat

and feel its astounding force
with admiration. Absorbing its kind
of glory. I must be someone

with very short arms to have lost you,
to be checking the windows
of the pawnshop renting space in my head,

which pounds with all the clarity
of a policeman on my southernmost door.
To wish and not jinx it: to wish

and not fish for it: to wish and forget it.
To ratchet myself up with hot liquid
and find a true surprise.

Prowling the living room for the lightning,
just one more shock,
to bring my slow purity back.

To miss you without being so damn cold
all the time. To hold you without dying otherwise.
To die without losing death as an alternative.

To explode with flesh, without collapse.
To feel sick in my skeleton, in all the serious
confetti of my cells, and know why.

Loving you has made me so scandalously
beautiful. To give myself to everyone but you.
To luck out of you. To make any other mistake.

Cameo Appearance

2007-10-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned Chales Simic before in my blog as one of the poets that I'm working with for my thesis. Well This is one of the poems I'm working on. And for those of you who don't know, Simic recently was named Poet Laureate.

Cameo Appearance
by Charles Simic

I had a small, nonspeaking part
In a bloody epic. I was one of the
Bombed and fleeing humanity.
In the distance our great leader
Crowed like a rooster from a balcony,
Or was it a great actor
Impersonating our great leader?

That’s me there, I said to the kiddies.
I’m squeezed between the man
With two bandaged hands raised
And the old woman with her mouth open
As if she were showing us a tooth

That hurts badly. The hundred times
I rewound the tape, not once
Could they catch sight of me
In the huge gray crowd,
That was like any other crowd.

Trot off to bed, I said finally.
I know I was there. One take
Is all they had time for.
We ran, and the planes grazed our hair,
An then they were no more
As we stood dazed in the burning city,
But, of course, they didn’t film that.

Fugue

2007-10-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

Fugue
By Andrei Codrescu
Here is a project: Reread everything you've ever read, look again at all the art works that you once had strong opinions about, listen again to the music that had such existential meaning back when all questions were grave and all answers were poetic, see again all the movies that once made an impression on you. Of course, you'd have to have another life just about the size of the one you already had to do such a thing. You barely have time to reread a few snippets from books now and then, and that's only because you recommended them to somebody and want to make sure that you remembered right. So, let's face it: You'll never again read the books that formed your young intellect; you'll never see again the art that was so important to you back when; the weight of the music you once worshiped has evaporated like an old perfume; you won't have time to review the movies that made you feel so smart, even if they do show up on the old movie channel. Besides, even if you set out to undertake such a project, another difficulty looms: You barely remember those books and their authors, those artists, those musicians, those actors and directors. But suppose that you were, like me, an inveterate list maker and you have 100 diary books in which you recorded everything you read, saw and heard, and what you thought about it. And suppose that you'll actually read those hundred diaries and make it through them without throwing yourself off a cliff. Well, then, as your mad project progresses, you'll need a hundred new diary books to write down everything you read, see and hear in order to compare your maturity to your youth. And if you do use those old diaries as guides and actually embark on such a journey, you would have to begin exactly in the middle of your middle-age, so that you can run again through your whole intellectual life (or all life, for that matter) to prove a point: Did you know instinctively more when you were young than you know now? To answer this question you would, in effect, suspend your life in the middle and start from the beginning. Of course, you don't know when the middle of your middle-age is. Nobody does, but you can look at yourself from the outside, like an insurance company, and make a guess. You make a bet: it will cost you all the rest of your life anyway, whether it's the middle or not. And then, when you're finished with the 100 new diary books, you put them alongside the 100 old diary books, close your eyes and die. Somebody else will have to answer that question, because you won't live long enough to compare the 100 diaries written by an adolescent and a youth with the 100 diaries written by an old fool to answer a question he cannot answer. As to what kind of thinking this is, it's called a Fugue. You run away as many times as you can from your themes until they bring you back up in stronger and stronger chains. The art of the Fugue, once practiced by the baroque masters, is all the rage today in art, politics, style, films. Drop whatever you're doing and run. But look, you can't get out of the frame, you're always inside a new world in your old mind. And then notice, please, that everything you thought you knew is wrong is wrong, but you already knew that, didn't you?

via: gambitweekly.com

This Is Just To Say

2007-10-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

This is a much anthologized poem by William Carlos Williams, one of the modern greats. This is the kind of poem that sticks with you, or at least with me. I think of it often and feel my own mischievousness.

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

You Wear Me Out: Country Feedback remarks

2007-10-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

ok. This is a post on a post, but for some reason I couldn't add my comments to the song and this was the best version YouTube had to offer. Anyway. Good ole Country Feedback. This is the first and only song I ever learned how to play on guitar and have since forgotten how to play on guitar. Not my gift, what can I say? Still a great song though.

R.E.M. _ Country Feedback

2007-10-11T19:48:00.001-07:00

Design

2007-10-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Design
by Robert Frost
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

The Elephant Is Slow To Mate

2007-10-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

The Elephant is Slow to Mate
by D.H. Lawrence

The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait
for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse
and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.
So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.
Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.
They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.

What Do Women Want?

2007-09-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

The eternal question, huh? I, being a woman, don't know either. Great poem though by Kim Addonizio though. I love when a poem ends with a smack and this one certainly does.

What Do Women Want?

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

The Duality of Man or Woman, in this case

2007-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Emily Dickinson has much to do with why I love poetry today. This poem deals with the difficulties of conflicting feelings or thoughts, some which may even be harmful, but are nonetheless hard to let go of, because they are still part of what makes you you. I love it.

Me from Myself -- to banish –
Had I Art –
Impregnable my Fortress
Unto All Heart --
But since Myself -- assault Me –
How have I peace
Except by subjugating
Consciousness?And since We're mutual Monarch
How this be
Except by Abdication
–Me -- of Me?

-Emily Dickinson

Siren Song

2007-09-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

Margaret Atwood, is one of my favorite novelists as well as poets. Her writing contains a strong feminist sensibility. I suggest checking out books such as Cat's Eye and A Handmaid's Tales for great prose. I like this poem because it describes itself while it becomes what it is. The reader is as much a sucker as the men the siren lures. Good stuff.

Siren Song

by Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn: the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men

to leap overboard in squadron

seven though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who had heard it

is dead, and the others can’t remember.

Shall I tell you the secret

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don’t enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don’t enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only to you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

at last. Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time.

One Art

2007-09-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop, is one of my favorite poems written in one of my favorite forms, the villanelle. I lost a job today that I wanted to keep-- or rather-- I gave it up for other things, but it stings a bit. Not so much as losing a someone, of course, but the poem has been in my head at any rate.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.
Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.
None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea live

2007-09-04T20:01:00.001-07:00

What a beautiful face I have found in this place that is circling all around the sun...

Neutral Milk Hotel, a little band from Ruston, LA fronted by the uniquely talented, Jeff Mangum, that made a big stir in the world of indie music. One of my all time favorite bands and one of my favorite songs. Unfortunately this is the second and final album made by the band. This album always reminds me of September and September always feels so full of promise. The weather changes; school begins; there is the promise of possibilities. The music and the month both fill me with nostalgia and excitement.

Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all...

Courtship

2007-08-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

I've just recently discovered Mark Strand and I have to say so far, so good. I will have to investigate further, but this I really got a kick out of this one.... The simultaneous awkward/sexiness of the beginning of a relationship .

Courtship
by Mark Strand

There is a girl you like so you tell her
your penis is big, but that you cannot get yourself
to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say,
even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow,
briefly, inconspicuously in the dark.

When she closes her eyes in horror,
you take it all back. You tell her you're almost
a girl yourself and can understand why she is shocked.
When she is about to walk away, you tell her
you have no penis, that you don't

know what got into you. You get on your knees.
She suddenly bends down to kiss your shoulder and you know
you're on the right track. You tell her you want
to bear children and that is why you seem confused.
You wrinkle your brow and curse the day you were born

She tries to calm you, but you lose control.
You reach for her panties and beg forgiveness as you do.
She squirms and you howl like a wolf. Your craving
seems monumental. You know you will have her.
Taken by storm, she is the girl you will marry.

I Can Feel Your Smile

2007-08-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

I don't suppose this constitutes poetry, but it pleases me to know it's out there.

Via: The Richardson Art Photography Blog.

Esprit d'Escalier

2007-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

The French have a saying that translates in English to The Spirit of the Stairway. Basically this refers to when you think of the perfect remark or retort at exactly the wrong time, i.e. as you are heading down the stairs and out of the house.

I was thinking of this today, as I'm sure that I did have some perfect retort or clever witticism that did not occur to me until long after the fact . This happens innumerable times a day. Nothing unusual.

I wonder though, is there a phrase for all of the things you said but wish you hadn't? That moment right after it comes out when you think, 'Oh, fuck. I wish I could put that one back in.' I have a phrase, that I stole from a friend for the evenings when I lie awake plagued by years of things I wish I hadn't said or done. I refer to this as enumerating my regrets.

Is it worse to have said something that you wish you could take back or to have never said anything at all?

Rare Film Clips Of The Poet Anne Sexton

2007-08-19T19:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfvS_fgbuDI

I really can't say enough about Anne Sexton. She was probably the first poet that I felt a real visceral connection to. Having just come back from a girls' weekend at the beach I thought of her, The poem Her Kind, which she reads on this clip, and so many other poem s by Anne that have made an impact on me. The audio is not great on this one so I want to include the poem Her Kind as well. I find it difficult to post just one because I love so many of them, but there will be more to come in time. I apologize if some of the line breaks are not what they should be; it is a hazard of posting poetry sometimes.

Her kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

Commitment

2007-08-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

What better way to follow up a sweet love poem post than with a scathing indictment on commitment. (Which, happily, is not indicative of my current state of affairs.) This poem was written some years ago and was published originally in the Summer/Fall 2005 issue of So to Speak.

Happy reading.

Commitment

by Katie Kidder

I am home late from work again today.

The doorknob is greasy and unlocked.
All of the lights are on,
even the one over the oven that I never use.
Somewhere, water is running.

You are still here.

What have you been doing with my dog?
She’s running in circles.
There’s red velvet cake on her nose—
I was saving that cake for Saturday.

I can hear you upstairs.

You are either in my bed or on my computer.
“Hardcore.com isn’t what it looks like, honey.
I don’t know why Horny Housewives is highlighted.
I was looking at people with their eyes torn out ‘n stuff.”

You seem glad that I do not care either way.

Tonight while you are downstairs,
getting high, watching Return of the Jedi,
clipping your toenails on the coffee table,
opting not to bathe,

I will not ask you to leave.

I will crawl into the closet like a child,
where it is quiet and black
and envy the people on the Internet
with their eyes torn out.

When You Are Old

2007-08-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is one of three poems that was read at my wedding, so I am especially fond of it. My friend (and a talented writer I might add) Dan McNamara read it, as he and Yeats are fellow Irishman. I tried to find a picture of my husband and I at our wedding to post, but apparently that does not exist digitally, so you will get this lovely picture of the fiercely talented and classic poet, William Butler Yeats. (Picture and poem can be found at poets.org)

When You are Old
by W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Of Mice and Men...

2007-08-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

OK, this blog is not really about Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. It is really about Kay Ryan's poem, On the Difficulty of Drawing Oneself Up, as this is indeed a most arduous task at times.

On the Difficulty of Drawing Oneself Up

One does not stack.
It would be like
a mouse on the back
of a mouse
on a mouse's back.
Courses of mice,
layers of shivers
and whiskers,
a wobbling tower
mouse-wide,
with nothing more
than a mouse inside.

By Kay Ryan

Moonshine and Rosebuds and all that Dross

2007-08-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

"Moonshine and rosebuds" for some reason is the one phrase that I can always remember from Jack Keroac's On The Road. Its been a long time since I read it but I think it is referring to the way things are not, as in, it's not all moonshine and rosebuds. Or it may have been the kind of lines Sal Paradise (aka Jack Keroac) and Dean Moriarty (aka Neal Cassady, who also plays a starring role in The Electric Koolaide Acid Test, by Tom Wolf) the two man characters laid on women as they traveled across the 66. As in, he filled her full of moonshine and rosebuds. Either way, I don't suppose I'm going to find out today as is seems my copy of On The Road has hit the road. Big sigh.

The 50th anniversary of the book is coming up next month so look forward to lots of media hype on the subject. It was the beginning of the media blitz that actually inspired me to write this. While reading an article, I came across something even better than moonshine and rosebuds, and I thought it was worth quoting. So here it is:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center pop and everybody goes, 'Awww!'"

They are the only ones for me too, Jack.

Should I be Flattered or Pissed?

2007-08-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is not the blog I thought it would be. I just discovered the title of one of my poems has been usurped by a classmate. I was actually looking at poems by Carrie Addington to post here. She and I did a workshop together in 2004 in Italy. She was one of my best buds there. We roomed together in Venice. She is a damn good poet. And apparently a bit of a thief. The poem that I workshopped (which she gave many accolades to) was called "The Intolerable Nature of Yearning." Oh, but what do I find when looking for poetry by Carrie? A poem published in 2006 called "The Intolerable Nature of Drifting." Worst of all she won an award for it. Thankfully the rest of the poem is completely different but still.... That seems pretty blatant. Mine has not actually been published yet so potentially, when it is, it will look like I jacked her idea. At any rate I was very surprised to find that and more than a little hurt.
Thoughts on this matter are welcome.

Another Reason Why I don't Keep a Gun in the House

2007-08-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

This post could be construed as a blatant excuse for me to post a picture of my oh-so-charming dog, Talula. But it's not--really. ok, maybe a little. To be honest, Billy Collins, despite the fact that he was Poet Laureate and is widely hailed as terrific, is not even one of my favorite poets. But this one is fun, and I'm in a light mood so why not?

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark

that he barks every time they leave the house.

They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

I close all the windows in the house

and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast

but I can still hear him muffled under the music,

barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,

his head raised confidently as if Beethoven

had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,

sitting there in the oboe section barking,

his eyes fixed on the conductor who is

entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful

silence to the famous barking dog solo,

that endless coda that first established

Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Billy Collins

Hypnotized

2007-08-04T09:13:00.001-07:00

Ok. After much inner turmoil and debate over what to post, I have finally settled on this Ani DiFranco clip. Certainly music plays a big part in my life and is a source of inspiration. Ani especially has had particular influence on me. For those of you that don't know she began her own record label, Righteous Babe Records, in the early 1990s, basically because she didn't want to fold to the whims of major record labels. This chick has oodles of integrity and talent.

I remember distinctly when I was introduced to her music. My buddy Jen and I were taking a feminist art class (very Me right?) with Robin Toler in Baton Rouge (a terrific artist in her own right),and we had gone back to some of the other girls' apartment. They played Ani, and I have been enamored ever since. Other great songs of hers that you should check out if you get a moment are: Swan Dive, Untouchable Face, Superhero, If He Tries Anything, , and the list goes on really.

Muse

2007-07-31T20:58:00.001-07:00

Muse Katie Kidder

Oh, it's so bad
to get stuck with a muse you don't want.
Why couldn't I have been assigned Bobby Frost's muse,
or someone with something like grace?

Mine belches and scratches her ass in the hall.
She has the sickly sweet smell of children
and stale Nilla Wafers, as though she was sprung
from the foam of the sofa.

She grabs at my smokes during the two-point conversion,
and she swims in my wine like a gnat.
I trip over her, by the bed, reading Plath on the floor
at six in the morning when I get up for tea.

My muse is nothing like me.
She waxes perverse in the thighs of thin blondes
when we've a perfectly good blonde at home.
And that bitch burns my old lovers' letters
and makes up her face with the ashes.

Kissing my muse, I imagine,
is like swallowing a mouthful of honey and rust,
and twisting your legs in her legs in the cold comfort of dark
is like spooning, in the sea, on the rag, with a shark.

My muse works with the mercy of bullets, falling.

read about the author © 2004 Contrary Magazine

From Walking the Black Cat, 1996

2007-07-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot of about Charles Simic lately. He will be playing a starring role in my thesis if and when that ever gets completed. Simic, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia immigrated to the United States in 1954. He's won numerous awards, most notably the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for The World Doesn't End in 1990. His poetry is influenced by philosophers such as Hegel, Breton, Nietche and especially Heidegger. in his essay, "Negative Capability and Its Children" Simic decrisbes the influence of these philosophers on contemporary poets thusly: "Their poetics have to do with the nature of perception, with being, with psyche, with time and consciousness. Not to subject oneself to their dialetics and uncertainties is truly not to experience the age we have inherited." ("Charles Simic and Mark Strand: The Presense of Absence" by Richard Jackson) Fascinating the way the theories of an individual can eventually make their way into to the collective unconscious and that the spaces they hold can eventually evolve into new ideas, which in turn spread into new spaces.

But enough of philosophy. I really chose the poem Blood Orange because I liked the idea and can relate, at least today to the feeling that, "Everything is teetering on the edge of everything/ With a polite smile."

Blood Orange

By Charles Simic

It looks so dark the end of the world may be near.

I believe it's going to rain.

The birds in the park are silent.

Nothing is what it seems to be,

Nor are we.

There's a tree on our street so big

We can all hide in its leaves.

We won't need any clothes either.

I feel as old as a cockroach, you said.

In my head, I'm a passenger on a ghost ship.

Not even a sigh outdoors now,

If a child was left on our doorstep,

It must be asleep.

Everything is teetering on the edge of everything

With a polite smile.

It's because there are things in this world

That just can't be helped, you said.

Right then, I heard the blood orange

Roll off the table and with a thud

Lie cracked open on the floor.

Drunk Ole Bukowski, Drunk

2007-07-27T21:42:00.001-07:00

Charles Bukowski has been a huge influence on me. He is a misogynist, vile, raunchy, sad and beautiful. I can't help but love him. Love is a Dog from Hell is one of my staple books of poetry, and I revisit it often. Although, he has only recently garnered some respect critically, Bukowski has had wide public appeal for a long time. I think it is because of his accessibility and his candor. Look for more from him in the future, and I will try to point out specific areas of his influence in my own work.

Dreaming in Blue Linens

2007-07-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

This, like most poems, was a long time in the making. I originally wrote it as an undergrad at LSU. At the time it was entitled The Color of Longing. Well, many moons and many, many drafts later it found its final resting place in the 2005 issue of Ellipsis. Enjoy!

Dreaming in Blue Linens

I shouldn’t
because you’re much too young.
You’d come too quick
and leave too soon.

Still…
You push me up
against the bedroom wall,
one hand up my skirt,
pawing at my body
like climbing a breaking ladder—
clinging, frantic.

Buttons pop off
like bunk fireworks, as the smell
of your hair and breath fills me. We stumble, laughing,
almost fucking
but bound at the ankles
by our underwear.

Until our laughter becomes
sighing, moaning, those gentle
but forgettable declarations
of desire, love maybe, something dirty?

In the dark I stutter the name,
(and it sounds nearly like crying for help)
of a god I won’t consider in the light.

Then it’s done
and life is ordinary again.
I look lonely
past the miles of blue,
miles and miles of pale,
blue empty sheets.
I light a smoke and think
Baby, you should have been here.
You were great.

Somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

2007-07-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

This poem by e.e. cummings comes to mind periodically for me and it has been on my mind as of late. Enjoy. Check out more info on e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Accidents Happen

2007-07-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

Ok. I have created an accidental blog. How does one go about doing such a thing you might ask? Well, I was attempting to post something to Fais Do Do, a blog you should check out and stumbled into creating my own. So what the hell, I thought, why not? I will see if this keeps me entertained.