BOOK REVIEWS. Sort Of.

American Smooth - Rita Dove   

My "reviews" are merely my impressions of the books I've read, and could never be construed as comprehensive analyses in any way.  If that is the sort of thing you need, there are many wonderful Book Blogs out there covering just about every type of book.

That being said . . .

I came across this book while putting together last month's What Does a Poet Laureate Do? post on Rita Dove. I ordered it immediately and it was definitely a good move on my part. (Eating regularly is overrated, I say.)

The 'Smooth' of the book's title is an apt description of the poetry it contains. It is a celebration of music and dance in poetry, and it pulls together many disparate pieces of cultural heritage to create the underlying melody.

I enjoyed the entire book, which I must admit, is rare for me. Some of the pieces stopped me cold and touched me deeply. Others made me smile.

How about a few samples:

A different perspective on a very familiar story.

I have been a stranger in a strange land

Life's spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it.
- Emily Dickinson

It wasn't bliss. What was bliss   

but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours   

in patter, moving through whole days   

touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite   

housekeeping in a charmed world.   

And yet there was always   

more of the same, all that happiness,   

the aimless Being There.   

So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,   

lingered to look through a pond's restive mirror.   

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,   

pretending he could organize   

what was clearly someone else's chaos.   

That's when she found the tree,   

the dark, crabbed branches   

bearing up such speechless bounty,   

she knew without being told   

this was forbidden. It wasn't   

a question of ownership—   

who could lay claim to   

such maddening perfection?   

And there was no voice in her head,   

no whispered intelligence lurking   

in the leaves—just an ache that grew   

until she knew she'd already lost everything   

except desire, the red heft of it   

warming her outstretched palm.

Perhaps real happiness and contentment are in the ordinary, everyday, and introspective, 
rather than the grand and public as society would have us believe.

Cozy Apologia

- For Fred

I could pick anything and think of you—   

This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue   

My pen exudes, drying matte, upon the page.   

I could choose any hero, any cause or age   

And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart,   

Astride a dappled mare, legs braced as far apart   

As standing in silver stirrups will allow—   

There you'll be, with furrowed brow   

And chain mail glinting, to set me free:   

One eye smiling, the other firm upon the enemy.   

This post-postmodern age is all business: compact disks   

And faxes, a do-it-now-and-take-no-risks   

Event. Today a hurricane is nudging up the coast,   

Oddly male: Big Bad Floyd, who brings a host   

Of daydreams: awkward reminiscences   

Of teenage crushes on worthless boys   

Whose only talent was to kiss you senseless.   

They all had sissy names—Marcel, Percy, Dewey;   

Were thin as licorice and as chewy,   

Sweet with a dark and hollow center. Floyd's   

Cussing up a storm. You're bunkered in your   

Aerie, I'm perched in mine   

(Twin desks, computers, hardwood floors):   

We're content, but fall short of the Divine.   

Still, it's embarrassing, this happiness—   

Who's satisfied simply with what's good for us,   

When has the ordinary ever been news?   

And yet, because nothing else will do   

To keep me from melancholy (call it blues),   

I fill this stolen time with you.

Of course, when the ride is over it's time to go home.

Looking Up From the page, I Am Reminded of This Mortal Coil    

Mercurial ribbon licking the cut lip of the Blue Ridge—

       Daybreak

                    or end, I can't tell

as long as I ignore the body's marching orders, as long as            
                                I am alive in air ...     

What good is the brain without traveling shoes?   

We put our thoughts out there on the cosmos express

       and they hurtle on, tired and frightened,       
                   bundled up in their worrisome

                                shawls and gloves--I'm just

guessing here, but I suspect we don't

       travel easily at all, though we keep

       making better wheels—         
                   smaller phones and wider webs,

                   ye olde significant glance

                                across the half-empty goblet

                                of Chardonnay....    

The blaze freshens,

        five or six miniature birds

        strike up the band.

Daybreak, of course; no more strobe and pink gels

       from the heavenly paint shop: just

house lights, play's over, time to gather your things and go home.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Ted Kooser.

 A two term Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006.

Ted Kooser

 
“Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing poems? 

"After all, there’s a significant service to humanity in spending time doing no harm. While you’re writing your poem, there’s one less scoundrel in the world. 

"And I’d like a world, wouldn’t you, in which people actually took time to think about what they were saying? It would be, I’m certain, a more peaceful, more reasonable place. I don’t think there could ever be too many poets. 

"By writing poetry, even those poems that fail and fail miserably, we honor and affirm life. We say ‘We loved the earth but could not stay.”

As far as I'm concerned,

 that is the quote of the century!

In 2005 Mr Kooser launched American Life in Poetry, providing newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems, to help expand the reach of poetry.

And a little bit of poetry . . .

Flying at Night

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like
his.



from: Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985. Copyright 1980.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Ted Kooser:

• Online resources for Ted Kooser.
• Ted Kooser home page. 
• Previous posts on Ted Kooser here & here.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Joseph Brodsky.

Poet Laureate from 1991 to 1992 and winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature.

 Joseph Brodsky 

                 (1940-1996)

"What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective."






 
Astonished that poetry had so little place in our society, Brodsky initiated the idea of providing poetry free to members of the public, in public places - supermarkets, hotels, airports, hospitals, . . . "anyplace people congregate and can kill time as time kills them."

The result was The American Poetry & Literacy Project, a national, non-profit organization created by Brodsky and a young author named Andrew Carroll.

They hoped that the books might help people find some comfort and companionship and believe it or not, the idea was a bit controversial when Brodsky proposed it.

In addition, the Academy fosters the readership of poetry through outreach activities such as National Poetry Month.



Here are a few of the books published for The American Poetry & Literacy Project:

101 Great American Poems. 

How to Eat a Poem: A Smorgasbord of Tasty and Delicious Poems for Young Readers.

Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel and Adventure.

And now for some poetry:

A Song

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish you sat on the sofa
And I sat near.
The handkerchief could be yours,
the tear could be mine, chin-bound.
Though it could be, of course,
the other way around.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish we were in my car,
and you'd shift the gear.
We'd find ourselves elsewhere,
on an unknown shore.
Or else we'd repair
to where we've been before.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish I knew no astronomy
when stars appear,
when the moon skims the water
that sighs and shifts in its slumber.
I wish it were still a quarter
to dial your number.

I wish you were here, dear,
in this hemisphere,
as I sit on the porch
sipping a beer.
It's evening, the sun is setting;
boys shout and gulls are crying.
What's the point of forgetting
if it's followed by dying?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Joseph Brodsky:

• Online resources for Joseph Brodsky.
• The American Poetry & Literacy Project on Poets dot org.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Robert Hass.

Two term Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997, he also won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book, Time and Materials.

 Robert Hass

"Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day."

I first knew of Mr. Hass as translator and editor, specifically for The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, and Issa, which holds a prominent spot on in my bookcase.

He has been actively engaged in promoting ecoliteracy, and has turned to businesses for help supporting poetry contests for children.

Working with writer and environmentalist Pamela Michael during his tenure as Poet Laureate, he sponsored a major conference on nature writing called “Watershed," which explored connections between environmental awareness and the American literary imagination. 

The Watershed initiative continues today as the national poetry competition, River of Words, he co-founded in the mid-1990s for elementary and high school students.  

River of Words encourages "children to make art and poetry about their watersheds" and fosters interdisciplinary, interactive, environmental education."





On November 9, 2011, while participating in an Occupy movement demonstration at UC Berkeley called Occupy Cal, Hass was hit in the ribs by a police officer wielding a baton and his wife was shoved to the ground by a police officer. He wrote about their experience in a November 19, 2011, New York Times opinion piece entitled "Poet-Bashing Police."

Once the cordon formed, the deputy sheriffs pointed their truncheons toward the crowd. It looked like the oldest of military maneuvers, a phalanx out of the Trojan War, but with billy clubs instead of spears. The students were wearing scarves for the first time that year, their cheeks rosy with the first bite of real cold after the long Californian Indian summer.

The billy clubs were about the size of a boy’s Little League baseball bat. My wife was speaking to the young deputies about the importance of nonviolence and explaining why they should be at home reading to their children, when one of the deputies reached out, shoved my wife in the chest and knocked her down. . . . PLEASE READ. 

The photo accompanying the piece, this photo, is of Franco’s crackdown on Spain’s intelligentsia, where thousands were killed, but as you read Hass' description of the encounter, the image is eerily apt.

How about a bit of poetry:
 
After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa

New Year’s morning—

everything is in blossom!   

   I feel about average.

   A huge frog and I   

staring at each other,   

   neither of us moves.

   This moth saw brightness   

in a woman’s chamber—

   burned to a crisp.

   Asked how old he was   

the boy in the new kimono   

   stretched out all five fingers.

   Blossoms at night,   

like people

   moved by music

   Napped half the day;   

no one

   punished me!

Fiftieth birthday:

   From now on,   

It’s all clear profit,   

   every sky.

   Don’t worry, spiders,   

I keep house   

   casually.

   These sea slugs,   

they just don’t seem   

   Japanese.

Hell:

   Bright autumn moon;   

pond snails crying   

   in the saucepan.

from: Field Guide. Copyright 1973.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Robert Hass:

• Online resources for Robert Hass.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Rita Dove.

Two time Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, and the youngest person to be awarded the honor, she also served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006.

Rita Dove 

"The first thing that could be done is to bring poetry into our children's lives at an early age --- without pressure."








Everyone who worries about understanding poetry would benefit from this: 

I had a ninth grade English teacher, Mr. Hicks, who put us in groups and gave us impossible poems to interpret. When I say "impossible," I mean poems which had Greek in them -- a little bit of Greek and -- languages we couldn't even -- we couldn't even read the alphabet. "Just tell me what it means. Tell me what you think it means."

And after a couple of class periods when we decided this is so impossible we might as well just make a wild guess, it turned out our guesses weren't so wild after all. So he taught us to trust what your gut reaction was to something. Even if you didn't understand every word, to work out the context. 

Ms Dove has concentrated on spreading the word about poetry and increasing public awareness of the benefits of literature. She brought together writers to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists, and also championed children’s poetry and jazz with poetry events.

She took Washington kids into the Library of Congress to read their poems and to be recorded for the Archives.

She brought Crow Indian children to Washington where they forced their Congressmen to listen to them tell what poetry meant to them.

She had an evening of poetry and jazz to join those two audiences.

She also, like others who have sought to open up the Literary Canon, stirred up controversy when she edited The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry. She was accused of valuing inclusion over quality.

Dove defended her choices and omissions vigorously and eloquently in The New York Review of Books.

Her most famous work to date is Thomas and Beulah, a collection of poems loosely based on the lives of her maternal grandparents, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

Ms Dove and her husband Fred Viebahn, are avid ballroom dancers, and have participated in a number of showcase performances. She has even published a book of poetry about dancing entitled American Smooth.

Take a moment and enjoy a bit of dancing and poetry.



Hades' Pitch

If I could just touch your ankle, he whispers, there
on the inside, above the bone—leans closer,
breath of lime and pepper—I know I could
make love to you.  She considers
this, secretly thrilled, though she wasn’t quite
sure what he meant.  He was good
with words, words that went straight to the liver.
Was she falling for him out of sheer boredom—
cooped up in this anything-but-humble dive, stone
gargoyles leering and brocade drapes licked with fire?
Her ankle burns where he described it.  She sighs
just as her mother aboveground stumbles, is caught
by the fetlock—bereft in an instant—
while the Great Man drives home his desire.  

from Mother Love. Copyright 1995.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Rita Dove:

• Online resources for Rita Dove.
• Prior posts on Rita Dove here, here, & here.
• Rita Dove's home page.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Robert Pinsky.

The first and only poet laureate to serve three terms, beginning in 1997 and continuing through the spring of 2000.

 Robert Pinsky

 “The test of whether it's poetry is: does it sound beautiful when you say the words over, in your mind or your voice, with no skilled performer, no music, just the sounds and meanings in the words themselves.”

He created the Favorite Poem Project 1997 and it is dedicated to celebrating, documenting and encouraging poetry’s role in Americans’ lives.

During the one-year open call for submissions, 18,000 Americans wrote to the project volunteering to share their favorite poems — Americans from ages 5 to 97, from every state, of diverse occupations, kinds of education and backgrounds. From those thousands of letters and emails, we've culled several enduring collections:

Favorite Poem Project

This popular, award-winning website, features an interactive gallery for viewing the Favorite Poem videos and is a growing resource for teachers and communities.

Here is an example of his poetry:



Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Robert Pinskey:

• Online resources for Robert Pinsky.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

Illustration: rodolfocarvalh, DeviantArt.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Kay Ryan.

 

A two time Poet Laureate, from 2008 until 2010.

Kay Ryan





“What poetry does is put more oxygen in the atmosphere. Poetry makes it easier to breathe.”






Besides writing poetry, she developed Poetry for the Mind’s Joy in 2009 to highlight poetry being written on community college campuses.

Poetry for the Mind’s Joy is a national initiative that includes a videoconference, a national celebration by community colleges, and a poetry writing contest. 

~ The ANTHOLOGY of winning poems ~

In April of 2011,  Ms Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her collection The Best of It: New and Selected Poems.

Here is an example of her poetry:


Hide and Seek
― Kay Ryan,
      The Niagara River

It’s hard not
to jump out
instead of
waiting to be
found. It’s
hard to be
alone so long
and then hear
someone come
around. It’s
like some form
of skin’s developed
in the air
that, rather
than have torn,
you tear.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Kay Ryan:

• Online resources for Kay Ryan.
• Prior posts on Kay Ryan here & here.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

Photo: Hide and Seek, Artsy Time.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Billy Collins.

As Howard Nemerov wrote, “The Consultant in Poetry is a very busy man, chiefly because he spends so much

 time talking with people who want to know what the Consultant in Poetry does.”

The title and duties have changed through the years since its inception, as have the activities of the honorees.

From 1937 to 1985, the position gradually placed less emphasis on developing the Library’s collections and more on organizing local poetry readings, lectures, conferences, and outreach programs. By the time the title was changed to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, the position bore little resemblance to its initial incarnation.

Officially, there are only three formal requirements.

Each Poet Laureate must: 

• give a reading or presentation to inaugurate their term
• select the two annual Witter Bynner Fellows and introduce them at their Library of Congress reading
• give a reading or presentation to close their term

Other than that, each one is left to mold the position after her/his own interests and inclinations. Some choose to be highly visible as national poetry advocates, while others turn from the spotlight and focus on their writing.

I decided to do a little digging. You see, I love poetry but there is so much that I don't know about the world of poetry.

When I first read the Library of Congress article about Poets Laureate, a bell rang in my head. Right here on my own blog I have the RSS feed for "Poetry 180," the brain child of none other than Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate. It's been there since August of 2009 and I had nearly forgotten its origin.

I think we'll start there.  

Two time Poet Laureate, from 2001 until 2003, he also served as Poet Laureate for the State of New York from 2004 until 2006.

Put your hands together for:

Billy Collins

What? A bit much?

"The reason you would carpe the diem is that you don’t have too many diems left."



So what did he do besides write poetry?

Well, most notably, he developed POETRY 180 in 2001 to introduce high school students to poetry by presenting them with a new poem for each of the 180 days of the school year.

The program also resulted in several Poetry 180 anthologies, as well as a Teachers' Guide to the book Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. 

Bringing accessible poetry to students (and students to poetry),

 pretty good use of time and influence, dontcha think.

Currently, he has the Billy Collins Action Poetry Project, in which 11 of his poems have been brought to life by artists.

Here is an example. Enjoy.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Billy Collins:

• Online resources for Billy Collins.
• Prior posts on Billy Collins here & here.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Patience  

by Kay Ryan

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant 
ranges and 
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest 
relish by
natives in their 
native dress.
Who would 
have guessed
it possible 
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with 
its own harvests.
Or that in 
time's fullness
the diamonds 
of patience
couldn't be 
distinguished
from the genuine 
in brilliance
or hardness.

from: Say Uncle. Copyright 2000. 

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Vacation  

by Rita Dove 

I love the hour before takeoff,
that stretch of no time, no home
but the gray vinyl seats linked like
unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall
be summoned to the gate, soon enough
there’ll be the clumsy procedure of row numbers
and perforated stubs—but for now
I can look at these ragtag nuclear families
with their cooing and bickering
or the heeled bachelorette trying
to ignore a baby’s wail and the baby’s
exhausted mother waiting to be called up early
while the athlete, one monstrous hand
asleep on his duffel bag, listens,
perched like a seal trained for the plunge.
Even the lone executive
who has wandered this far into summer
with his lasered itinerary, briefcase
knocking his knees—even he
has worked for the pleasure of bearing
no more than a scrap of himself
into this hall. He’ll dine out, she’ll sleep late,
they’ll let the sun burn them happy all morning
—a little hope, a little whimsy
before the loudspeaker blurts
and we leap up to become
Flight 828, now boarding at Gate 17.

Painting by: Karen Watson.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Earth Tremors Felt in Missouri  

by Mona Van Duyn

The quake last night was nothing personal, 
you told me this morning. I think one always wonders, 
unless, of course, something is visible: tremors 
that take us, private and willy-nilly, are usual.

But the earth said last night that what I feel, 
you feel; what secretly moves you, moves me. 
One small, sensuous catastrophe 
makes inklings letters, spelled in a worldly tremble.

The earth, with others on it, turns in its course 
as we turn toward each other, less than ourselves, gross, 
mindless, more than we were. Pebbles, we swell 
to planets, nearing the universal roll, 
in our conceit even comprehending the sun, 
whose bright ordeal leaves cool men woebegone.

from: Selected Poems. Copyright 2002. 

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

The Lovers of the Poor

 arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment 

 League 

Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall. 
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel!
You had better not throw stones upon the wrens!
Herein they kiss and coddle and assault
Anew and dearly in the innocence
With which they baffle nature. Who are full,
Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all
Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit,
Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt
Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.
To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching post or plush.
To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem. 

 Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor. The very very worthy
And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?
Perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim
Nor--passionate. In truth, what they could wish
Is--something less than derelict or dull.
Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!
God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!
The noxious needy ones whose battle's bald
Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down. 

 But it's all so bad! and entirely too much for them.
The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans,
Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains,
The old smoke, heavy diapers, and, they're told,
Something called chitterlings. The darkness. Drawn
Darkness, or dirty light. The soil that stirs.
The soil that looks the soil of centuries.
And for that matter the general oldness. Old
Wood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old.
Note homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe.
Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic,
There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no
Unkillable infirmity of such
A tasteful turn as lately they have left,
Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars
Must presently restore them. When they're done
With dullards and distortions of this fistic
Patience of the poor and put-upon. 

 They've never seen such a make-do-ness as
Newspaper rugs before! In this, this "flat,"
Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich
Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered . . . ),
Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.
Here is a scene for you. The Ladies look,
In horror, behind a substantial citizeness
Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart.
Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door.
All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor
And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft-
Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt. 

 Their League is allotting largesse to the Lost.
But to put their clean, their pretty money, to put
Their money collected from delicate rose-fingers
Tipped with their hundred flawless rose-nails seems . . . 

 They own Spode, Lowestoft, candelabra,
Mantels, and hostess gowns, and sunburst clocks,
Turtle soup, Chippendale, red satin "hangings,"
Aubussons and Hattie Carnegie. They Winter
In Palm Beach; cross the Water in June; attend,
When suitable, the nice Art Institute;
Buy the right books in the best bindings; saunter
On Michigan, Easter mornings, in sun or wind.
Oh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre
With fissures everywhere! Why, what are bringings
Of loathe-love largesse? What shall peril hungers
So old old, what shall flatter the desolate?
Tin can, blocked fire escape and chitterling
And swaggering seeking youth and the puzzled wreckage
Of the middle passage, and urine and stale shames
And, again, the porridges of the underslung
And children children children. Heavens! That
Was a rat, surely, off there, in the shadows? Long
And long-tailed? Gray? The Ladies from the Ladies'
Betterment League agree it will be better
To achieve the outer air that rights and steadies,
To hie to a house that does not holler, to ring
Bells elsetime, better presently to cater
To no more Possibilities, to get
Away. Perhaps the money can be posted.
Perhaps they two may choose another Slum!
Some serious sooty half-unhappy home!--
Where loathe-lover likelier may be invested. 

 Keeping their scented bodies in the center
Of the hall as they walk down the hysterical hall,
They allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall,
Are off at what they manage of a canter,
And, resuming all the clues of what they were,
Try to avoid inhaling the laden air.

from: Selected Poems. by Gwendolyn Brooks. 
Copyright 1999.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

CONTINUUM: A LOVE POEM
- Maxine kumin

going for grapes with
ladder and pail in
the first slashing rain
of September    rain
steeping the dust
in a joyous squelch   the sky
standing up like steam
from a kettle of grapes
at the boil    wild fox grapes
wickedly high    tangled in must
of cobweb and bug spit
going for grapes    year
after year    we two with
ladder and pail stained
with the rain of grapes
our private language

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

The Animals

By Josephine Jacobsen

At night, alone, the animals came and shone.

The darkness whirled but silent shone the animals:   

The lion the man the calf the eagle saying   

Sanctus which was and is and is to come.

The sleeper watched the people at the waterless wilderness’ edge;   

The wilderness was made of granite, of thorn, of death,   

It was the goat which lightened the people praying.

The goat went out with sin on its sunken head.

On the sleeper’s midnight and the smaller after hours   

From above below elsewhere there shone the animals   

Through the circular dark; the cock appeared in light   

Crying three times, for tears for tears for tears.

High in the frozen tree the sparrow sat. At three o’clock   

The luminous thunder of its fall fractured the earth.   

The somber serpent looped its coils to write

In scales the slow snake-music of the red ripe globe.

To the sleeper, alone, the animals came and shone,   

The darkness whirled but silent shone the animals.   

Just before dawn the dove flew out of the dark

Flying with green in her beak; the dove also had come.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

One Art

- 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 fluster
of 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 beloved 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 a disaster.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Thought's End
- Léonie Adams

I'd watched the hills drink the last colour of light,
All shapes grow bright and wane on the pale air,
Till down the traitorous east there came the night
And swept the circle of my seeing bare;
Its intimate beauty like a wanton's veil
Tore from the void as from an empty face.
I felt at being's rim all being fail,
And my one body pitted against space.
O heart more frightened than a wild bird's wings
Beating at green, now is no fiery mark
Left on the quiet nothingness of things.
Be self no more against the flooding dark;
There thousandwise, sown in that cloudy blot,
Stars that are worlds look out and see you not.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Tears in Sleep  

by Louise Bogan

All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day,
And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger's breast,
Shed tears, like a task not to be put away---
In the false light, false grief in my happy bed,
A labor of tears, set against joy's undoing.
I would not wake at your word, I had tears to say.
I clung to the bars of the dream and they were said,
And pain's derisive hand had given me rest
From the night giving off flames, and the dark renewing.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

To My Despoiler
- Joseph Auslander

Yes, you have taken everything from me:
Beauty and love and all the measureless
Impatience of proud April; even our sea
Shouting under the gulls; all loveliness
Of form and sound and colour; all that we
Had touched; the curve of things we used to press
Glowing against our senses; mystery
And movement. . . everything taken. . . taken. . . Yes,
Even the little brave irrelevancies
Like brooding water, dripping water-cress,
The cool dark noise of cropping; cruising bees
On hot gold expeditions--even these
You took from me--Oh spare me your caress,
Leave me at least my own stark loneliness!

from Our New Poet Laureate. A Round of Applause, Please.

Letter Home  

by Natasha Trethewey

--New Orleans, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still 
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down 
the soles and walked through the tightness 
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants, 
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking 
my plain English and good writing would secure 
for me some modest position Though I dress each day 
in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves 
you crocheted--no one needs a girl. How flat 
the word sounds, and heavy. My purse thins. 
I spend foolishly to make an appearance of quiet 
industry, to mask the desperation that tightens 
my throat. I sit watching-- 

though I pretend not to notice--the dark maids
ambling by with their white charges. Do I deceive 
anyone? Were they to see my hands, brown 
as your dear face, they'd know I'm not quite 
what I pretend to be. I walk these streets 
a white woman, or so I think, until I catch the eyes 
of some stranger upon me, and I must lower mine, 
a negress again. There are enough things here 
to remind me who I am. Mules lumbering through 
the crowded streets send me into reverie, their footfall 
the sound of a pointer and chalk hitting the blackboard 
at school, only louder. Then there are women, clicking 
their tongues in conversation, carrying their loads 
on their heads. Their husky voices, the wash pots 
and irons of the laundresses call to me.

I thought not to do the work I once did, back bending 
and domestic; my schooling a gift--even those half days
at picking time, listening to Miss J--. How 
I'd come to know words, the recitations I practiced 
to sound like her, lilting, my sentences curling up
or trailing off at the ends. I read my books until
I nearly broke their spines, and in the cotton field,
I repeated whole sections I'd learned by heart,
spelling each word in my head to make a picture
I could see, as well as a weight I could feel
in my mouth. So now, even as I write this
and think of you at home, Goodbye

is the waving map of your palm, is 
a stone on my tongue.

from Bellocq's Ophelia. Copyright 2002.

FROM THE BOOKSHELF

On Turning Ten
- Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

Two time Poet Laureate of
the United States, 201-2003

Also responsible for Poetry 180,
which I have placed on the side
bar as a permanent link. It is a
wonderful site, to use in the
classroom, with a new poem
for students daily.


Teaching With Fire, Intrator, Sam M. & Scribner, Megan, Ed.