30 poems in 30 days (the sponge edition)

[AChild]

4 new poets one month (the sponge edition)

I first would like to say thank you. This forum has changed my life, but more importantly my writing. It creeps into the essays I write for scholarships about self worth. I don't use the name because educated people giving out money are uptight. I do say that this is where I learned to write everyday, this i where I go to challenge myself, and this is where I read new poetry that inspires me to be better tomorrow.

This year I began going to school at USC. I have had the opportunity to see Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka preform and speak on life. Both great poets, but both different. They said the same thing. In order to be great you have to write and read. So this is my challenge.

Read an new published poet every week for a month. Post the poets name, the year that they were born (and died if it applies), and how it affected you. What about this new poet would you like to incorporate into your own writing? or What would you like to obtain from incorporation?

At the end of the month write a poem that demonstrate any discoveries or peeves you have developed.
Thank You again for all the feed back and helping me develop my courage as a writer.
Good night. Good luck.

 

[Tzara]

I first would like to say thank you. This forum has changed my life, but more importantly my writing. It creeps into the essays I write for scholarships about self worth. I don't use the name because educated people giving out money are uptight. I do say that this is where I learned to write everyday, this i where I go to challenge myself, and this is where I read new poetry that inspires me to be better tomorrow.

Hey, AC. I'm well beyond the years where I am trying to get a scholarship, but I would say the same thing, or more or less the same thing, about Lit--it helped me learn to write. At least write better, if not well.

So, um, well... that.

This year I began going to school at USC. I have had the opportunity to see Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka preform and speak on life. Both great poets, but both different. They said the same thing. In order to be great you have to write and read. So this is my challenge. Read a published poet that you have never read before everyday for thirty days. Post the poets name, the year that they were born (and died if it applies), and how it affected you. What about this new poet would you like to incorporate into your own writing? or What would you like to obtain from incorporation?

I like this idea, though 30 days might be a bit much, and perhaps going away for 30 days and then coming back to comment (not, I'm sure, your intention, but that seems to me to be what the challenge says) probably wouldn't work all that well. Perhaps treat this challenge something like a diary, where you read said poet everyday and comment on what you've read?

Maybe that's what you meant and I just am being dimwitted. Whatever.

I like the idea and will try this. (Gulp.)

Good luck on that school thing, bud. And Go Trojans! (I went to grad school at USC.)

 

[Tzara]

Thomas Lux, born 1946. Currently professor at Georgia Tech.

First poem read: "Cucumber Fields Crossed by High-Tension Wires"

Thoughts: The first few lines feature a lot of alliteration: "spires spike the sky / beneath which boys bend". This is almost done to a point that is irritating by being over-obvious, but then the poet segues into less aurally repetitive lines. I love the phrase "the deep-sopped fruit" and the personification of "They part the plant's leaves / reach into the nest / and pull out mother, father, fat Uncle Phil."

The poem ends a bit oddly for me, on a transition to seeing the description of boys picking fruit in the fields as something past (though, of course, it is). I did not do fruit picking as a child, although that was a common summer job (strawberries, particularly, in my area), so while thematically the poem brings back memories, they aren't especially personal.

Liked the poem. Didn't wow me, though.

From The Street of Clocks.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I'm not sure I can post something each day for 30 days, but I like the idea because it gets at the "why" of poetry, not just the "how."

I have a "poem of the day" RSS feed from the Poetry Foundation and was intrigued by today's offering, "Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World" by Sherman Alexie.

Alexie, born in 1966, is a Native American from the Northwest and writes a lot about the Native American experience, a bit too one dimensional in my opinion. I say that because I have to fight my own ancestral Shanty Irish ghosts when I get excited about yet another Seamus Heany type inspiration.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed Alexie's poem because of the skillful way he employs irony. I try to weave irony into my poems sometimes, which carries its own risks, I think, if it predominates in a poem, rather than lead the reader to think about something larger in scope.

 

[bogert]

Idea

I must say that it is a great jdea.But writing for 30 days each is a bit more for the person that is of my type.But I assure this is a good idea for somebody else.

 

[AChild]

Basking in the glow

"Cucumber Fields Crossed by High-Tension Wires"

I the title is pretty sweet. I miss read them as electric wires. There is something about that green hue and the wires. Makes me think of how things were more vibrant as a kid. I never picked fruit. The tone was captivating as well.


Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World

I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I picked it up browsing a library. Good read. This poem is better. I like the part where it is a story in plain english. I didn't know he did poetry. I am going to have to read some of his stuff.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Read an new published poet every week for a month. Post the poets name, the year that they were born (and died if it applies), and how it affected you. What about this new poet would you like to incorporate into your own writing? or What would you like to obtain from incorporation?

At the end of the month write a poem that demonstrate any discoveries or peeves you have developed.

You, and then Tzara, showed great instinct. Let me make your idea more focused, zoomed on its most imortant element, and the rest is optional.

Select a poet who impresses you. Create a new thread for this poet, so that her/his poems and comments on the poems will stand out. For 30 days each day read one of this poet's poems, [size=+1]post it[/size] and comment on it. Allow others to comment too -- but everybody, be to the point, focused, no socialization allowed.

That's all. Later or during the 30 days one may or may not write new poems. They may be directly related to the poems of the selected poet or not. All the rest is optional and welcome. The main thing, utmost important to aspiring poets, is to read and to comment on the poems of the selected poet. (Do it for five outstanding poets, and you'll be an expert on poetry, while becoming a strong poet is still a moot point).

 

[Senna Jawa]

Select a poet who impresses you. Create a new thread for this poet, so that her/his poems and comments on the poems will stand out. For 30 days each day read one of this poet's poems, [size=+1]post it[/size] and comment on it. Allow others to comment too -- but everybody, be to the point, focused, no socialization allowed.

It's a very tempting challenge, simple and profound, no garbage, no BS. It'd be relatively easy for me to try a haiku master, either a classic or perhaps Keiko Imaoka and her haiku and tanka. But then perhaps I'd have to start with Du Fu.

I am glad that this board was good to several of you. I wish I could say the same about me. Indeed, I am an old man or as so many of you poets so gracefully said in the past -- an old grumpy man plus a bunch of much worse oh-so elegant negative epithets. I wish I had my old energy and enthusiasm but I don't. So it's unlikely that I will participate. I just wish you good luck.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Select a poet who impresses you. Create a new thread for this poet, so that her/his poems and comments on the poems will stand out. For 30 days each day read one of this poet's poems, [size=+1]post it[/size] and comment on it. Allow others to comment too -- but everybody, be to the point, focused, no socialization allowed.

That's all.

A[size=+1] telling[/size][size=+3] silence[/size].

 

[Tzara]

[size=+1]A telling[/size][size=+3] silence[/size].

Well, at least for me, what my silence most says is that it is holiday season and I've been busy with family and work things. I probably should not have started to participate in this thread, but I liked the idea of it. Now it turns out that I will be gone all next week with no Internet connection, so I wouldn't be able to post regularly anyway.

I don't know that I have the analytical skills to focus on a single poet for thirty days--I'm probably not a careful enough reader to pick up on the nuances of a series of poems. Even when I have read an entire volume of one poet's work, I tend to focus on perhaps six or seven poems out of the sixty or so in the book.

When I get back, I'll either give this thread another try or do a variant of AC and SJ's suggestions. I've been thinking for a while about trying to look at erotic poems that I like and trying to get some idea about what it is about the ones I like that is missing in the vast majority of poems here (and elsewhere) that are intended as erotic but which are usually dull, if not actively unerotic.

Or not. I have about as much focus as a broken microscope.

But my heart is pure.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

[size=+1]A telling[/size][size=+3] silence[/size].

This is the kind of challenge I avoid, I'm no critic - also cowardly. Apologies Senna but I do agree it's an interesting idea.

 

[AChild]

i love it.

I am going to start on December 10th. Do you have any recommendations for the poet Senna Jawa?

 

[Senna Jawa]

I am going to start on December 10th. Do you have any recommendations for the poet Senna Jawa?

AC, it's a very individual thing. For the sake of this Board I'd say that among Western authors a modern poet would be preferable. Brodsky comes to my mind. He's written many poems straight in English. Thus you would not have to worry about the quality of a translation. However Zbigniew Herbert ws translated very well by a duo which had Milosz as its member. I wonder how well Russian poetesses Akhmatova and Cvetaeva were translated. They were writing around 1920 etc.

But then, why not to go after top Internet poets. I think that they are more interesting than the non-Internet today's so-called established poets. They published some booklets but you may find their poems simply on rec.arts.poems. Try Marek Lugowski or Michael McNeilley or LeeAnn Heringer. Their poems may look nicer at some Internet places other than on the crude r.a.p.

Enjoy, AC, good luck,