For the readers II

[karmadog]

Senna Jawa asked me some time ago to revive a thread that I'd started some time ago. Rather than look for it (lazy, lazy me), I decided to just start a new one.

The point of this thread is to post links to poems that are good, awful, or interesting. Feel free to post, but don't just give a link, tell us how the poem made you feel.

Many of you are interested in the peace protests, so I'll give you this link to a new ezine that dedicated its first issue to 'World Peace'.

From reading the poetry, my guess is that protest causes bad poetry. Except for this one called 'Rewind' by Adam McConnaughey.

First the dust unsettles. Then
They come, with their unsplintering
Grenades that piece the sprinkled
Shards back into windows...

I'm sure you can see where it's going as I did, but I still liked McC's word choice, rhythm, lack of preachiness, and the symmetry of the poem.

Now check this out. I really like this poem by Charlotte Matthews. It's called The Shape of Memory. This below is actually an excerpt from an excerpt. I guess you have to but the whole mag to read the whole poem. Sadly, a google of the web indicates there are no other poems on the net from Charlotte Mattthews

It was February, the weather forgiving.
The calf was still wet, fur black as charcoal,
luminous in perfect whorls.
And when Mr. Hall came in his truck
to open the gate, he did not speak.

What this brief excerpt doesn't fully show, is how nicely she uses alliteration and whatever it's called when interior vowel sounds are echoed. This poem is beautiful to me. Wish I could read the whole thing.

I'm not at all sure how I feel about Beach Carnies by Julie Price Hutchinson. Don't get me wrong, I know I like it, but I'm not at all sure why. Feel free to tell me why you think I do or don't, or better, why you do or don't like it.

The carnies. As a group they were known
as Johnny's United Shows. And we heard,
though no one knew for sure, they had
individual names like Dog, Thug, and Digger.

Now, kids, I'm going to try to keep up with this thread at least once a week, but I can't guarantee anything, so if you should find something interesting, feel free to post it.

 

[Mythos50]

Karmadog wrote:
“The point of this thread is to post links to poems that are good, awful, or interesting. Feel free to post, but don't just give a link, tell us how the poem made you feel.”

I found this poem interesting to me. The link says from "K'desha, or The Face in the Window" by Linda Zisquit. Follow this link: http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/10/zisquit10.htm

to read this part of her poem. This portion is about her remembering the death of her mother and her life since.

Some will question if this is prose or poetry since she writes in a prose style in this poem. I'm not versed enough in poetry to judge. If poetry's purpose is to bring imagery and to provoke an emotional response in the reader then I would say this is poetry.

Some argue that poetry should not be about us, about pronouns, yet we are a part of nature and more, beyond nature, a nature unique to us as a species within the known universe. We can perceive our selves and transcend our basic instincts. Those who see this otherwise will probably vote this poem as prose.

The poem begins:
~~
So the concentrated mourning days
are past, your body that released you
as I watched the room fill with soft light,
and the pillow that supported your last
turning to peer out on this shrinking world —
~~

I remember my mother’s physical “release” from this world, this reality. She passed on in her home with family around her, so I can relate to the scene being described. “Concentrated mourning days” brings to focus the event and started all the emotions I felt at that time. Then the author releases us from the mourning with “are past” and I could feel myself releasing the sadness.

~~
our eyes — before you eased away, and the
dark liquid that encrusted your lungs with
its sticky film and erupted from the hole
that was your mouth, your voice that
seemed to fall and break like a tiny bird,
~~

My mother could not speak for about 15 months before her passing. Her voice went from strong, to waverly, to gravelish, to a voice “that seemed to fall and break like a tiny bird” to being “stopped”. Her lungs also filled with fluids and eventually she died of suffocation, common for throat cancer patients.

~~
that soothed and then was stopped in mid
flight, all these have accompanied me
the three months since your death. And
what has emerged in this region of no
choice and no return is a knowledge
of your deepening, widening life.
Like roots sprouting from the wooden box
where you lie, reaching down, stretching
outward, new perceptions of you my mother
appear on this black and finished slate.
~~

An acknowledgement of understanding that death can bring “new perceptions of you.” Why is it we wait to acknowledge those around us only after they are no longer in our lives?

“Death, a region of no choice and no return.” Maybe not, but it has brought knowledge to the author, or maybe affirmation to me, that death parts us only in the physical, not the mental or emotional realms of our being. Even from death do we affect the lives of those we leave behind, I believe. ‘Physical death’ ends our time here but even this we transcend in this physical world via the memories of others. The “sprouting,” “reaching”, “stretching” from the wooden box is, I feel, the author’s statement of this.

There is more of this poem but I think I have given enough to let you decide if you wish to read the rest. There are 41 more lines to this poem not posted.

I hope I do not sound preachy. The poem reminds me of a part of my own story and is why I chose to share it here. I hope I have understood and fulfilled your intention for this thread, Karmadog.

 

[Rybka]

Formative Poems

Here is the poem that first got me interested in poetry (although it took me over a year to realize it).
Epistle to Be Left in the Earth by Archibald MacLeish. My all time FAVORITE poem is by the same (my favorite) poet. Unfortunately "Excavation of Troy" seems not to be in Cyberspace.

Another poem I love (by E.E. Cummings) is attached, because I could not find it online either.
(O.K. It seems that attachments aren't working at the moment.)
Here is the poem. It should be "center justified".

1 x 1

XV1

one's not half two. It's two halves of one:
which halves reintegrating, shall occur
no death and any quantity; but than
all numerable mosts the actual more

minds ignorant of stern miraculous
this every truth-beware of heartless them
(given a scalpel, they dissect a kiss;
or, sold the reason, they undream a dream)

one is the song which fiends and angels sing:
all murdering lies by mortals told make two.
Let liars wilt, repaying life they're loaned;
we (by a gift called dying born) must grow

deep in dark least ourselves remembering
love only rides this year.
All lose, whole find

E.E. Cummings (1944)


Regards,                       Rybka

 

[karmadog]

What I really have in mind with this thread is to have those of us who read poetry online post links to the stuff that seemed most interesting to us. (My intent was probably lost in the echoing, redundant, reiterations I wrote wrote).

Still, I like all three of the poems I've seen so far, but, Rybka, why do you like those poems? How is it that McLeish got you into poetry? And what the hell does that epistle mean anyhow?

Mythos, I'm sorry for your loss, and, no, I don't think you sounded preachy. I've read that poem somewhere before, but I can't figure out where.

I think my favorite bit is when her mother is cleaning out the attic and reading her daughters old love letters for clues to her choices in men. That was a deftly drawn picture of the relationship between mothers and daughters, I think.

 

[OT]

from "Epistle to Be Left in the Earth" (link is up in Rybka's post)

Beware of
Elms in thunder,
The lights in the sky are stars –
We think they do not see,

I like the mix of "regular" wisdom with the um ... irregular.

What I really wonder about is the formatting. I know there are some around here who like to stray from the traditional Left Justified or Centered.

In this particular piece, I liked the strange formatting, but don't know why.

When I read poems with lines set strangely apart or indented, I often puzzle over them trying to find a hidden message (like an acrostic-like message or something) Usually none is there.

Is it a pure visual "artsy" thing, or is it part of a secret punctuation language ?

 

[Angeline]

Some Poetry Sites I Love

I definitely have a poetry obsession (like you didn't know); more than half the links in my "Favorites" file are to poetry (or poetry-related) sites. Here are a few of my favorites.

ubu.com--started by the great avant garde poet John Luongo, but the collection was conceived of with his pals Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, Ann Waldman, and a few others. There's obscure stuff here you simply won't find anywhere else. The site has an artist search engine, and there is also a fabulous spoken poems library with poets like Bukowski, Ted Berrigan, and many many more reading their work. Check out the late great Helen Adam reading her Cheerless Junkie Song--she was very good and very funny!


You need a RealAudio player for it, but hey you can download that for free at Download.com.


ArtandCulture.com--a humanities compendium that,while not exhaustive, presents many of the best-known (and some lesser-known) poets in the context of the cultural movements with which each is associated. Artists here (writers, musicians,visual artists) are thus linked across movements and styles--a very cool place to learn.


bartleby.com--it just has so much in one place, including an excellent reference section.

 

[karmadog]

Check these out by Barbara Nightingale:

This is from the second poem--which I liked the best of the Three Poems.

So there I was sitting on a barstool
and in comes these two fellas
with a tawdry look about them as if
they’d just arrived from the bogland,
the smell of peat still faint about their clothes,
and I could see we were in for a treat
'cause as soon as they smiled
I was standing knee deep in heather,
a lonesome reel carried in on the wind.
It was enough to make a hardass weep.

She does a pretty nice job of evoking Ireland though she apparently lives in Fla. The third poem, while pretty, lacks any real focus, I think. Just fluff, but I sure liked the last stanza.

 

[Rybka]

Still, I like all three of the poems I've seen so far, but, Rybka, why do you like those poems? How is it that MacLeish got you into poetry? And what the hell does that epistle mean anyhow? [/B]

When I was a senior ("Many moons come Choctaw"), we had a brand-new English teacher, straight out of "Hahvaad". He was not satisfied with the course poetry book (12 Poets), so he mimeographed some of the poems he liked. (Also, I think he had met, or at least heard Archie read at Harvard.) Anyhow, he made us read "Epistle...". Which we all hated because we didn't like our teacher at all. (Although, I admit now that he did know what he was trying to teach us.) Next year at Cornell, for some reason I have forgotten, (probably a dorm discussion) I went to the library and looked up all of MacLeish's works. I guess a year of being on my own allowed me to get hooked. I have loved his writings ever since. I was fortunate enough to meet him later on at the Melon's home in Mill Reef. - He was a fantastic man.

from "Epistle to Be Left in the Earth" (link is up in Rybka's post)

I like the mix of "regular" wisdom with the um ... irregular.

What I really wonder about is the formatting. I know there are some around here who like to stray from the traditional Left Justified or Centered.

In this particular piece, I liked the strange formatting, but don't know why.

When I read poems with lines set strangely apart or indented, I often puzzle over them trying to find a hidden message (like an acrostic-like message or something) Usually none is there.

Is it a pure visual "artsy" thing, or is it part of a secret punctuation language ?

Maybe the spacing in this poem is what drew me to Cummings and has caused/influenced my predilection for specific form and spacing on the page?? It is not an "artsy" thing, but there is no secret language here either. (Although I have written such. Not really "secret language", but it means different things, depending on how you read it.) Read the work out loud. Do not the spacings fall just where you would/should emphasize or pause? It seems so natural to me.
But, "De gustibus non desputandum".


Regards,                       Rybka

 

[Angeline]

W.S. Merwin

wrote this poem about the late poet John Berryman and about becoming a poet. I really liked it, so here it is. (Oh check out the attached picture of Berryman--Merwin described him perfectly in the poem.)


Berryman

by W.S. Merwin


I will tell you what he told me
in the years just after the war
as we then called
the second world war

don’t lose your arrogance yet he said
you can do that when you’re older
lose it too soon and you may
merely replace it with vanity

just one time he suggested
changing the usual order
of the same words in a line of verse
why point out a thing twice

he suggested I pray to the Muse
get down on my knees and pray
right there in the corner and he
said he meant it literally

it was the days before the beard
and the drink but he was deep
in tides of his own through which he sailed
chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop

he was far older than the dates allowed for
much older than I was he was in his thirties
he snapped down his nose with an accent
I think he had affected in England

as for publishing he advised me
to paper my wall with rejection slips
his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
with the vehemence of his views on poetry

he said the great presence
that permitted everything and transmuted it
in poetry was passion and he praised movement
and invention

I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write