Discussion: Blind Spots

[poetinahat]

Hello, poets and visitors --

Most of the accomplished poets around here (and writers in general) recommend READING as essential to writing.

What I'd like to try here is simple:

Find a poet of whose work you've read nothing (or very, very little). Find a poem of theirs; read it; post it. Maybe say a little about what you like or dislike. (It might be something you can't stand.)

I look forward to learning a great deal with you, and I'll start.

[poetinahat]

All are limitory, but each has her own
nuance of damage. The elite can dress and decent themselves,
are ambulant with a single stick, adroit
to read a book all through, or play the slow movements of
easy sonatas. (Yet, perhaps their very
carnal freedom is their spirit's bane: intelligent
of what has happened and why, they are obnoxious
to a glum beyond tears.) Then come those on wheels, the average
majority, who endure T.V. and, led by
lenient therapists, do community-singing, then
the loners, muttering in Limbo, and last
the terminally incompetent, as improvident,
unspeakable, impeccable as the plants
they parody. (Plants may sweat profusely but never
sully themselves.) One tie, though, unites them: all
appeared when the world, though much was awry there, was more
spacious, more comely to look at, it's Old Ones
with an audience and secular station. Then a child,
in dismay with Mamma, could refuge with Gran
to be revalued and told a story. As of now,
we all know what to expect, but their generation
is the first to fade like this, not at home but assigned
to a numbered frequent ward, stowed out of conscience
as unpopular luggage.
As I ride the subway
to spend half-an-hour with one, I revisage
who she was in the pomp and sumpture of her hey-day,
when week-end visits were a presumptive joy,
not a good work. Am I cold to wish for a speedy
painless dormition, pray, as I know she prays,
that God or Nature will abrupt her earthly function?

=====================

I find this an introspective piece -- it asks a difficult question at the end. The language is extremely poetic, but the message is clear.

To me, it's a beautiful read; I was put off originally by Auden's contrast of language with relatively unstructured form. I'm also a fan of breaking things into stanzas, allowing the reader a pause for air.

But this one just sucked me in -- seduced me. I started reading and couldn't stop. First try, and I've come up with a new favorite.

[DeniseK]

why must itself up every of a park by E. E. Cummings (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156)


why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice. Ain't freedom grand

----------------------------------------------------------

I intentionally picked out an E.E. Cummings poem because I don't like his poems much. They seem deliberatly obtuse and it feels as if he's trying too hard to be clever and original. (which obviously worked, huh?)

[wordsheff]

That's a sonnet...
I am intrigued by him...he makes things look like a mess but they're often old forms.

[poetinahat]

Mighty good catch, ws. Want to play next?

I was just about to say it looks like poetic cubism to me. Your explanation is better.

It reads angry to me, and the disjointedness makes it more prickly. But dang, there sure is 'some assembly required'.

I feel good about this thread.

[DeniseK]

All are limitory, but each has her own
nuance of damage. The elite can dress and decent themselves,
are ambulant with a single stick, adroit
to read a book all through, or play the slow movements of
easy sonatas. (Yet, perhaps their very
carnal freedom is their spirit's bane: intelligent
of what has happened and why, they are obnoxious
to a glum beyond tears.) Then come those on wheels, the average
majority, who endure T.V. and, led by
lenient therapists, do community-singing, then
the loners, muttering in Limbo, and last
the terminally incompetent, as improvident,
unspeakable, impeccable as the plants
they parody. (Plants may sweat profusely but never
sully themselves.) One tie, though, unites them: all
appeared when the world, though much was awry there, was more
spacious, more comely to look at, it's Old Ones
with an audience and secular station. Then a child,
in dismay with Mamma, could refuge with Gran
to be revalued and told a story. As of now,
we all know what to expect, but their generation
is the first to fade like this, not at home but assigned
to a numbered frequent ward, stowed out of conscience
as unpopular luggage.
As I ride the subway
to spend half-an-hour with one, I revisage
who she was in the pomp and sumpture of her hey-day,
when week-end visits were a presumptive joy,
not a good work. Am I cold to wish for a speedy
painless dormition, pray, as I know she prays,
that God or Nature will abrupt her earthly function?

=====================

I find this an introspective piece -- it asks a difficult question at the end. The language is extremely poetic, but the message is clear.

To me, it's a beautiful read; I was put off originally by Auden's contrast of language with relatively unstructured form. I'm also a fan of breaking things into stanzas, allowing the reader a pause for air.

But this one just sucked me in -- seduced me. I started reading and couldn't stop. First try, and I've come up with a new favorite.

I like this a lot. He certainly has a handle on the human condition, but it's the language that also drew me in.

[P.H.Delarran]

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
"literalists of
the imagination"--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
==============================================
I have an anthology of poems by American women that I opened for the first time tonight..thanks to the prompt of this thread. I picked this one because she was one of the few in there that lived much into the 20th century. The topic seemed appropriate to some of the discussion we have had here regarding poetry. I wish I could get the format to show the way it does in the book, and on another website here (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15654).
The interesting thing about this woman is that she was twice a Pulitzer prize winner, and this is one of her more highly regarded poems. The form is surprisingly easy to read and the poem reads faster than I expected considering its lengthy lines. I found it interesting and worthy of some debate. The first and last stanzas for me are the heart of the poem, with the middle ones taking more effort to read through. Which I would guess was her intention.
Although I won't be putting it too high on my favorites list, it is interesting enough to cause me to explore more of her work.

[poetinahat]

I see what you mean. You can't really hum along to this one; it's extremely prosaic. But it's provocative.

I like how it begins as though it's mid-conversation.

imaginary gardens with real toads in them -- Love it.

Excellent, unusual, ironic choice. Thanks, p.h.

[ddgryphon]

The Black Riviera
by Mark Jarman (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/93)
For Garrett Hongo


There they are again. It's after dark.

The rain begins its sober comedy,

Slicking down their hair as they wait

Under a pepper tree or eucalyptus,

Larry Dietz, Luis Gonzalez, the Fitzgerald brothers,

And Jarman, hidden from the cop car

Sleeking innocently past. Stoned,

They giggle a little, with money ready

To pay for more, waiting in the rain.



They buy from the black Riviera

That silently appears, as if risen,

The apotheosis of wet asphalt

And smeary-silvery glare

And plush inner untouchability.

A hand takes money and withdraws,

Another extends a plastic sack--

Short, too dramatic to be questioned.

What they buy is light rolled in a wave.



They send the money off in a long car

A god himself could steal a girl in,

Clothing its metal sheen in the spectrum

Of bars and discos and restaurants.

And they are left, dripping rain

Under their melancholy tree, and see time

Knocked akilter, sort of funny,

But slowing down strangely, too.

So, what do they dream?



They might dream that they are in love

And wake to find they are,

That outside their own pumping arteries,

Which they can cargo with happiness

As they sink in their little bathyspheres,

Somebody else's body pressures theirs

With kisses, like bursts of bloody oxygen,

Until, stunned, they're dragged up,

Drawn from drowning, saved.



In fact, some of us woke up that way.

It has to do with how desire takes shape.

Tapered, encapsulated, engineered

To navigate an illusion of deep water,

Its beauty has the dark roots

Of a girl skipping down a high-school corridor

Selling Seconal from a bag,

Or a black car gliding close to the roadtop,

So insular, so quiet, it enters the earth.

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

Okay, I've never heard of this fellow -- but man can he write (of course, just my opinion). My poetic education ended sometime in the early to mid 80's with my writing in general -- both gone like dinosaurs. I am fortunate, my writing came back (relative merits for later discussion, I'm sure).

I'm drawn to the seductive darkness about this particular poem. The shifting perceptions and "time akilter" quality echoing the effects of the drugs.

At the same time vivid and distant, formal yet loose -- and there's more at the link.

Great first call Rob!

[poetinahat]

Wow. Dirk, that's positively edible. It does have a slight naive quality, only in that it reminds me of the days when cocaine was popular and thought to be non-addicting. No grime here -- it's all fun, cool and beautiful.

It's still early, but I'm knocked out by the variety between the first few entries.

[wordsheff]

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
"literalists of
the imagination"--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
==============================================
I have an anthology of poems by American women that I opened for the first time tonight..thanks to the prompt of this thread. I picked this one because she was one of the few in there that lived much into the 20th century. The topic seemed appropriate to some of the discussion we have had here regarding poetry. I wish I could get the format to show the way it does in the book, and on another website here (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15654).
The interesting thing about this woman is that she was twice a Pulitzer prize winner, and this is one of her more highly regarded poems. The form is surprisingly easy to read and the poem reads faster than I expected considering its lengthy lines. I found it interesting and worthy of some debate. The first and last stanzas for me are the heart of the poem, with the middle ones taking more effort to read through. Which I would guess was her intention.
Although I won't be putting it too high on my favorites list, it is interesting enough to cause me to explore more of her work.

Wow! I just read this one again yesterday! I really liked the end...but then on second and third thought I began wondering what she meant by genuine...b/c I thought what is genuine would be the raw material...
WS

[wordsheff]

.

imaginary gardens with real toads in them --



Is that her line, b/c she quotes it...I know I've heard it before and it is amazing...

oh and my book with the poem in says the line about school books and business docs is from Tolstoi who said poetry is everything but those, and the line about literalists of the imagination is something Yeats said about Blake...he called him TOO much of a literalist of the imagination.

WS

[jst5150]

The poet's name is Luis de Camões (pronounced CA-mow-esh), lived 1524-1580.

He's considered one of Portugal's literary giants. Becuase of my Portuguese ancestory, I was made tacitly aware of his existence while living in the Azores. After discovering this thread, I delved into his work. I found this page (http://www.sonnets.org/camoes.htm), filled with sonnets (though he's best known for his epic work). And below is a poem I singled out as being stunning. There are indelible images here; and Camões has an incredible way with words. Now, that said, this is a translation. I reading the original Portuguese, this may have more impact.

This line in particular is important:

What! of a king all bathed in blood of Moor

It's important because the Moors overran Portugal in the 12th Century and held control for a very long time (there's a noticable Arabic influence on Portuguese culture). So, the poet was conscious of that and wove that into his work. Enjoy the poem below:

On the Death of King Sebastian

His generous visage gashed with heathen blade,
His Royal brow with dust and blood all wan,
Came to the mournful boat of Acheron
The great Sebastian, past into a shade.
The cruel boatman, seeing that undismayed
The King perforce would cross, pronounced his ban,
Vowing that never o'er that stream was man
Ferried, whose funeral rites were still unpaid.
The valorous King, whose anger knew no bounds,
Replied, Oh! false old man, and dost not know
Others by force of gold have passed before?
What! of a king all bathed in blood of Moor
Darest thou to claim that he a tomb shall show?
Claim it of him who comes with fewer wounds.

[wordsheff]

Somebody else's body pressures theirs

With kisses, like bursts of bloody oxygen,

Until, stunned, they're dragged up,

Drawn from drowning, saved.

Hey, D. This part reminds me of the end of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by Eliot:

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.
--

I really liked the imagery of this poem...it really created clear playful pictures when the subject matter was so dark.

WS

[wordsheff]

The poet's name is Luis de Camões (pronounced CA-mow-esh), lived 1524-1580.

He's considered one of Portugal's literary giants. Becuase of my Portuguese ancestory, I was made tacitly aware of his existence while living in the Azores. After discovering this thread, I delved into his work. I found this page (http://www.sonnets.org/camoes.htm), filled with sonnets (though he's best known for his epic work). And below is a poem I singled out as being stunning. There are indelible images here; and Camões has an incredible way with words. Now, that said, this is a translation. I reading the original Portuguese, this may have more impact.

This line in particular is important:

What! of a king all bathed in blood of Moor

It's important because the Moors overran Portugal in the 12th Century and held control for a very long time (there's a noticable Arabic influence on Portuguese culture). So, the poet was conscious of that and wove that into his work. Enjoy the poem below:

On the Death of King Sebastian

His generous visage gashed with heathen blade,
His Royal brow with dust and blood all wan,
Came to the mournful boat of Acheron
The great Sebastian, past into a shade.
The cruel boatman, seeing that undismayed
The King perforce would cross, pronounced his ban,
Vowing that never o'er that stream was man
Ferried, whose funeral rites were still unpaid.
The valorous King, whose anger knew no bounds,
Replied, Oh! false old man, and dost not know
Others by force of gold have passed before?
What! of a king all bathed in blood of Moor
Darest thou to claim that he a tomb shall show?
Claim it of him who comes with fewer wounds.


Before I even read this one thing struck me as VERY ODD...how did someone in Portugal know about English sonnets in the 16th century? Must have done some traveling or something b/c that's weird...I'm going to read this though...thanks so much for sharing something I probably NEVER would have seen or at least not for a long time had you not put it out there for us.
WS

[wordsheff]

Wow, J. that was intense. Still...those cultures that were also in Portugal sure influenced the literary world of there...I mean, he's referencing Greek/Roman mythology when I know Portugal had their own, as well. Weird...but nice piece. Thanks much.
WS

[wordsheff]

I have been reading some Keats lately and I think his career, his tragic, early death and his work are all very interesting...his Odes, many of you know, made him famous, put his name in the stars, and here is one that I really like (due to the dense, older english, I recommend reading it slow, letting the images form in your mind before reading on...the music of the piece is better appreciated on later readings):

Ode to Melancholy

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty -- Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

The first stanza is peading for the melancholy-inflicted to not give into suicidal temptations, telling him to foresake any inkling toward taking poison...the second stanza gives him an alternative...while those green april hills are shrouded and it is raining on you, let the beauty of the world warm you until it is gone...even if your mistress is raving mad, ignore that and enjoy the beauty in her eyes...then in stanza three I am really blown away...Melancholy is the Queen in the Temple of Delight dwelling there with and ruling over Joy, Beauty and Pleasure, all of whom disappear time to time except Melancholy...I LOOOVE this becuase it says there is no delight without her, you simply don't see her when the others are around...then if you do give into temptation and kill yourself, you become nothing but her "cloudy trophy."

I think this is brilliant and soooo clear and I love most that it proves great poets are made and not born.

Who hasn't felt that way about melancholy??? We all have...the ideas propounded are nothing new...but he writes about them so beautifully...man this is just great to me, I love it...it's a piece I could read over and over.

WS

[poetinahat]

Jason, wordsheff: excellent stuff. Thank you for posting marvelous works and providing some historical background. I feel richer and smarter already.

[Pat~]

First Child ... Second Child

FIRST

Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is fully equipped:
Fingers and toes with nails are tipped;
It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut;
When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut,
When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed
And the presence of lungs can be deduced.
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.

Biography of Ogden Nash
http://www.poemhunter.com/i/p/37/6637_b_8223.jpg Born Frederick Ogden Nash on August 19, 1902 in Rye, New York.

An ancestor, General Francis Nash, gave his name to Nashville, Tennesee.
Raised in Rye, New York and Savannah, Georgia. Educated at St. George's School in Rhode Island and, briefly, Harvard University.
Started work writing advertising copy for Doubleday, Page Publishing, New York, in 1925.

Published first book for children, The Cricket of Caradon in 1925.
First published poem Spring Comes to Murray Hill appears in New Yorker magazine in 1930.

Joins staff at New Yorker in 1932.
Married Frances Rider Leonard on June 6, 1933.
Published 19 books of poetry.
Collaborated, in 1943, in the musical comedy, One Touch of Venus
Elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1950.
Lived in New York but his principal home was in Baltimore, Maryland, where he died on May 19, 1971. He was buried in North Hampton, New Hampshire.


Okay, I'm embarassed to admit, I've read very little of Ogden Nash...though I'll definitely be reading more. I loved this poem; not only did it capture the feelings parents have about their newborn child, but I loved the title. You feel that way with each one, first or second. I appreciate the lighthearted humor of this poem, the rhyme and meter, and the fanciful vocabulary he uses to describe his child. And who can resist that last line?!

[jst5150]

A Two'fer here from me. First, Billy Joel.

I know. A songwriter. But I defy you to tell me the lyrics to many of his songs are NOt poetry and could stand alone. Take, for instance, "The Entertainer." A sample:

I am the entertainer
Been all around the world
I've played all kinds of palaces
And laid all kinds of girls
I can't remember faces
I don't remember names
Ah, but what the hell
You know it's just as well
'Cause after a while and a thousand miles
It all becomes the same

He has a library of lyrics that concretely fall into poetic verse. So, I'd put him here. I realize some of we older folks would be familiar with him, younger folks may not because he hasn't produced anything commercially in a while.

Second, Paul Simon.

Again, fairly well known, but I'd point to his work on "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints." The latter, especially, contains some visionary stuff. Like this, from the song "Cool Cool River":

Anger and no one can heal it
Slides through the metal detector
Lives like a mole in a motel
A slide in a slide projector
The cool, cool river
Sweeps the wild, white ocean
The rage of love turns inward
To prayers of devotion
And these prayers are
The constant road across the wilderness
These prayers are
These prayers are the memory of god
The memory of god

Pure magic. When backed by the music, which is haunting and invigorating at the same time, wow. I point to "Saints" because it went relatively unheard, but is perhaps his best work. So, for the younger, it's a good immersion into Paul Simon.

[Unique]

Facing It

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way - the stone lets me go.
I turn that way - I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names
half-expecting to find
my own letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

I had never heard of this poet. I liked the title. After I read the poem, I decided I wanted to know more of his work so I went here. (http://tinyurl.com/lxwly)
I wonder how it would read without punctuation - esp. this part.

My clouded reflection eyes me
Like a bird of prey the profile of night
Slanted against the morning I turn
This way the stone lets me go
I turn that way I'm inside
The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
Again depending on the light

I like poems that can be made to mean different things depending on the line breaks and the punctuation. It's like a new poem every time you read it. YMMV

[beezle]

THE ENEMY, by Billy Ah Lun.

Lieutenant Calley
Seems to be
A sane & reasonable man
(Sunday. My wife
sips coffee, puts a record
on the turntable)
the newspaper reports
he admits shooting
3 men & a boy
as well as firing
into a ditch.
There were about
70 Vietnamese
men women & children
in the ditch.
Calley remained
Calm, & spoke softly
During his evidence.
(ceasefire ends soon
in the Middle East on
the other side
of the page...
he denied he
had taken part
in killing a group of 3
civilians whose bodies
were found in another
section of the village
(of My Lai)
he admited
striking a vietnamese
in the face with a rifle
butt however denied
that he shot the man
who was dressed as a monk.
Calley remained calm
& spoke softly while
giving his evidence.
He had formed
no intent or conscious
conception
to kill men
women & children
& had concentrated
instead on
what he considered enemy
or enemy sympathisers.
He acted as he was directed
he carried out orders
He does not feel
Even now
that he did wrong is doing so.
Lieutenant Calley
Seems to be a sane
& reasonable man
despite the evidence
of pyschologists &
the contentions of the defence
"if something is dead
you put it in the body count,
anything dead."
The newspaper
also says
the fighting in Laos
is heavy & casualties
are heavy.
The record scratches
In the next room
& and couple are arguing
down the road.
Lieutentant Calley
Remained calm & spoke softly
During his evidence.


Now, some will say this is too wordy or newsy, but that's what appeals to me about it. That's exactly what it is, a dispassionate account of a newspaper article the guy is reading. But the narrator isn't totally absent from the piece, his own world is intruding on the telling. So it is his story.

[poetinahat]

Those two make startling bookends.

Thank you, Unique and beezle.

[poetinahat]

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

-----------------------------------------------

I tried three Angelou poems, of which this is the most well-known. And an obvious blind spot for me.

The message is bell-clear and strong. As with the other Angelou poems I read, there's a repeated chorus here; it doesn't sit well with me. I suspect that's something I'll soften on with reading and thinking.

Otherwise, I enjoy it, but it doesn't grab me and refuse to let me look away, the way my very favorites do. I don't know why; the sentiments and the vividness of expression are faultless, but I'm just not quite swept away. Maybe it's that repetition. And the common poetic "for" -- sounds too much like poetry, if you follow.

You never know; I may live to regret this assessment, but it marks where I am now in my evolution as a poetry reader.

Angelou fans, I earnestly invite you to rebut.

[wordsheff]

I'd never read that tho i heard of it and admitedly, knowing the author, thought it would be allegorical to slavery, which it probably is, but the imagery and lines like "The caged bird sings with a fearful trill/
of things unknown but longed for still" are so beautiful even if its just about a caged bird.

Anyway, I liked it, and I think the repetition is probably there to make it sound like one of the chorus to a song ppl sing while they're working in the fields. I'm not very familiar with Angelou, but I know most black artists I've read are very adamant about using old forms from slavery times often in a new way.

WS

[P.H.Delarran]

On Angelou;
I've recently begun reading her, funny you picked her for this, I almost posted one of hers but since I had a bit of familiarity with her I looked for someone new to me. She has a few poems that make civil statements, and really they are beautiful in context. I agree with Wordsheff that "Caged Bird's" use of a traditional rythym does help put it in context with the slavery theme. Didn't she write a book by the same name?
I think her poetry is appealing enough, but I usually shy away from activist type work. However, I found a couple of others by her that have a completely different style, surprising me.
(there's a whole page full here (http://www.poemhunter.com/maya-angelou/poems/poet-6834/page-1/)for anyone interested)
Glad you picked her.

Refusal


Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.
Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.
What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.
I defy my body's haste.
Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die.

Maya Angelou

and this one:



Insomniac

There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful.

Maya Angelou

[Silver King]

"Horse Latitudes," By Jim Morrison (The Doors) with some help from Nostradamus in the first four lines.

When the still sea conspires an armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters
True sailing is dead
Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over

[poetinahat]

So, Silver, do you like or dislike it?

[Silver King]

I love it, Poet. The poem came to mind when you mentioned Billy Joel and Paul Simon upthread. I know for sure the first four lines are from a Nostradamus quatrain, and I'm fairly certain the rest comes from Jim Morrison. The poem is from the album, "Strange Days." There's no music set to it, only the sounds of wind and roiling seas and a ship's rigging echoing through a storm.

The first time I heard the poem, it seemed completely out of place, appearing between standard lyrics and music. Later, I understood it as yet another example of how much more it meant to Jim Morrison to be remembered as a poet rather than a rock star.

I love the physical images created by language, and how in only a word or two a reader can be made to stroke and feel the meaning behind ideas.

Phrases like "stiff green gallop" and "mute nostril agony" evoke strong imagery on a physical level that remain with the reader long after the intellectual subtleties of the poem are lost to the subconscious.

[poetinahat]

Wasn't me, sir -- that was Jason (jst5150). I'll admit to a bias against Jim Morrison, which I struggle to overcome. Not that I never like his stuff. But anyway. Thank you for posting this work and commenting; he's indeed a blind spot for me, mostly because I shut my eyes.

[DeniseK]

This is the poem that made me fall in love with Maya Angelo

Phenomenal Woman


Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou

[Silver King]

Wasn't me, sir -- that was Jason (jst5150).
Sorry, Poet. Those dang surf boards had me confused.

[ddgryphon]

Came across these today:

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poet.html?id=5124

I Go Back to May 1937

By Sharon Olds

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

******************************************** and

Mrs. Krikorian

By Sharon Olds

She saved me. When I arrived in 6th grade,
a known criminal, the new teacher
asked me to stay after school the first day, she said
I’ve heard about you. She was a tall woman,
with a deep crevice between her breasts,
and a large, calm nose. She said,
This is a special library pass.
As soon as you finish your hour’s work—
that hour’s work that took ten minutes
and then the devil glanced into the room
and found me empty, a house standing open—
you can go to the library. Every hour
I’d zip through the work in a dash and slip out of my
seat as if out of God’s side and sail
down to the library, solo through the empty
powerful halls, flash my pass
and stroll over to the dictionary
to look up the most interesting word
I knew, spank, dipping two fingers
into the jar of library paste to
suck that tart mucilage as I
came to the page with the cocker spaniel’s
silks curling up like the fine steam of the body.
After spank, and breast, I’d move on
to Abe Lincoln and Helen Keller,
safe in their goodness till the bell, thanks
to Mrs. Krikorian, amiable giantess
with the kind eyes. When she asked me to write
a play, and direct it, and it was a flop, and I
hid in the coat-closet, she brought me a candy-cane
as you lay a peppermint on the tongue, and the worm
will come up out of the bowel to get it.
And so I was emptied of Lucifer
and filled with school glue and eros and
Amelia Earhart, saved by Mrs. Krikorian.
And who had saved Mrs. Krikorian?
When the Turks came across Armenia, who
slid her into the belly of a quilt, who
locked her in a chest, who mailed her to America?
And that one, who saved her, and that one—
who saved her, to save the one
who saved Mrs. Krikorian, who was
standing there on the sill of 6th grade, a
wide-hipped angel, smokey hair
standing up weightless all around her head?
I end up owing my soul to so many,
to the Armenian nation, one more soul someone
jammed behind a stove, drove
deep into a crack in a wall,
shoved under a bed. I would wake
up, in the morning, under my bed—not
knowing how I had got there—and lie
in the dusk, the dustballs beside my face
round and ashen, shining slightly
with the eerie comfort of what is neither good nor evil.

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

Of the two, I prefer the second, but I think both are fantastically rich pieces -- simple, plain, yet affecting in their intimacy.

Just a new poet for me -- how about the rest of you, ever read her before?

[C.bronco]

Facing It

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way - the stone lets me go.
I turn that way - I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names
half-expecting to find
my own letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

I had never heard of this poet. I liked the title. After I read the poem, I decided I wanted to know more of his work so I went here. (http://tinyurl.com/lxwly)
I wonder how it would read without punctuation - esp. this part.

My clouded reflection eyes me
Like a bird of prey the profile of night
Slanted against the morning I turn
This way the stone lets me go
I turn that way I'm inside
The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
Again depending on the light

I like poems that can be made to mean different things depending on the line breaks and the punctuation. It's like a new poem every time you read it. YMMV

I've heard him read this one on 3 occassions, and each time it takes my breath away. That's what his poetry does for me. His others that I love are "Water Buffalo," "You and I Are Disappearing" and "Thanks" among others.

Oh yeah, the poem is by Yusef Komunyakaa

[Rivana]

The Thousandth Man by Rudyard Kipling

0ne man in a thousand, Solomon says.
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it's worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.

'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for 'ee.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go
By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.

But if he finds you and you find him,
The rest of the world don't matter;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
With you in any water.

You can use his purse with no more talk
Than he uses yours for his spendings,
And laugh and meet in your daily walk
As though there had been no lendings.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all
Because you can show him your feelings.

His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men's sight
With that for your only reason!

Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide
The shame or mocking or laughter,
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
To the gallows-foot - and after!

***

I never thought about Kipling as a poet until I saw a verse of this poem quoted in a story I was reading. I was intrigued and so read the rest.
Though I don't think all of it flows the way I'd like it to and some of it may be just this side of overly sentimental -the emotions and undeniable truths of this one still take my breath away.

[P.H.Delarran]

((Sharon Olds))
Of the two, I prefer the second, but I think both are fantastically rich pieces -- simple, plain, yet affecting in their intimacy.

Just a new poet for me -- how about the rest of you, ever read her before?

I've never read her either. Very powerful, although the form makes me stumble a bit. I think I like the second one, although they both speak deeply. I'll definitely bookmark her for further study. Great choice.

[pconsidine]

Song To Diana
by Ben Jonson

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
======================================

Frankly, this is a perfect example of the kind of work that turned me off from poetry for so very long. The obsession with classical antiquity always made poetry feel light years removed from anything that might actually interest me. It always defied my sense of straight-forwardness ("say what you mean and mean what you say") that instead of writing a poem about the night or the moon or what have you, someone would feel the need to wax so excessively rhapsodic about a goddess that represents those things. My feeling was always "invent your own damn symbology, dude!"

Alternately, here's one that's always been a favorite of mine:

If you can't eat you got to

smoke and we aint got
nothing to smoke:come on kid

let's go to sleep
if you can't smoke you got to

Sing and we aint got

nothing to sing;come on kid
let's go to sleep

if you can't sing you got to
die and we aint got

Nothing to die,come on kid

let's go to sleep
if you can't die you got to

dream and we aint got
nothing to dream(come on kid

Let's go to sleep)

ee cummings
========================

I first heard this poem when I was 12 as part of a performance of Songfest by Leonard Bernstein. His music was rather atonal, with the vocalists ever stretching to make the fantastic leaps that Bernstein had written for them. However, that single line - "if you can't die you go to dream" - made such a strong impact that it's stuck with me ever since. And when I read it on the page, I found myself expecially drawn to the way cummings followed the form he set up even through a somewhat nonsensical break in logic (what exactly is "nothing to die"?), and still comes down to such a powerful final moment. I think it's on par with Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" as a testament to perseverance in the face of adversity.

But that's just what I think. :)

[poetinahat]

Interesting point, Pete. I had a similar feeling of alienation from classical poetry, but it was more that I felt inadequate: I could never be well-read enough to understand, let alone actually have, such feelings. A good teacher and a Norton Anthology help, but finding Wilde, Kipling and Ferlinghetti eased the path.

The cummings poem reads much like a Negro Spiritual version of "Hush, Little Baby". It does reach out to the reader much more, doesn't it?

[poetinahat]

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15280

"Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam."


The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.

My hand draws back. I often sigh still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized

fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.

Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,

shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake.

Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.

He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gently tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.

He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die--
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.

On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year--
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .

Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his "niggers."

The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling

over a Mosler Safe, the "Rock of Ages"
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.

Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.

The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.

[poetinahat]

I'm quite fond of this poem. It reads beautifully, it depicts the environment richly, and it's clearly understood. Its message of history lost or forgotten is personal and poignant.

[Stew21]

I am troubled
Immeasurably
By your eyes

I am struck
By the feather
of your soft
Reply

The sound of glass
Speaks quick
Disdain

And conceals
What your eyes fight
To explain

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

Years ago I bought a book of poetry, Jim Morrison. I read it at the time, and thought it was weird, but there was some good.
Last night I wanted to do a little light reading and I thought, jeez, I haven't picked that up in years, so opened it up.
Some of it was as I remembered, a little to out there, or a great thought but not executed well, but this one, I just absolutely loved. (which would be the first time I'd thought that about any of his poetry).

[poetinahat]

I was just thinking today about what to post here and revive this thread. Trish, you've done it!

Traditionally, I'm "not a Morrison fan", but I'm with you on this one. I like your taste in poetry.

[Stew21]

it stuck out like a big shiny jewel in the midst of a lot of mumbo-jumbo in that book. amazing work. and I thought immediately of it belonging in this thread because I was so surprised by it's lovely simplicity. TYpically he tried to take much bigger ideas and I think struggled to explain them. He had great word usage, good metaphors but maybe he was just trying too hard.

there was another one that tickled me a little because I love double entendre' as you know. This one:

Poet of the call-girl storm

She left a note on the bedroom door.
"If I'm out, bring me to."

[Shiraz]

I'd never read that tho i heard of it (I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou) and admitedly, knowing the author, thought it would be allegorical to slavery, which it probably is, but the imagery and lines like "The caged bird sings with a fearful trill/
of things unknown but longed for still" are so beautiful even if its just about a caged bird.

Anyway, I liked it, and I think the repetition is probably there to make it sound like one of the chorus to a song ppl sing while they're working in the fields. I'm not very familiar with Angelou, but I know most black artists I've read are very adamant about using old forms from slavery times often in a new way.

WS

Actually, I believe this poem was done as a self-portrayal - she had a very traumatic childhood if I remember correctly, and it took her a long time to feel comfortable in her own skin and come out of her shell.

I don't remember where I heard it - Oprah I think - but Maya Angelou actually didn't speak for a time during her early childhood for some reason and that's why it's so remarkable that she's the gifted writer and speaker she is today.

I'll have to go do a little digging into her bio. You have me curious enough to refamiliarize myself. I've been a pretty big fan of her work for years.

[poetinahat]

Lot's Wife (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15867)
Anna Akhmatova
(translated by Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz)

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

Simple, a bit moralistic, and a bit sad -- I enjoy the empathy Akhmatova shows with one of history's bit players.

It's difficult to know how much of the beauty and structural quality is due the poet, and how much to the translators. Since the original language would have been Russian (or Ukrainian?), issues of meter and syntax would be quite different in English.

This piece may be a bit dated, but it's direct and honest. I'd never read Akhmatova's work before, but I enjoyed this poem's directness. Her summary biography (see link) is interesting too. It's not surprising that she might have identified with Lot's wife, given her life as the wife who stayed behind, and saw her child raised by her mother-in-law (at her husband's wish).

[poetinahat]

Seen my lady home las' night,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye,
An' a smile go flittin' by--
Jump back, honey, jump back.

Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine,
Jump back, honey, jump back,
Mockin'-bird was singin' fine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
An' my hea't was beatin' so,
When I reached my lady's do',
Dat I couldn't ba' to go--
Jump back, honey, jump back.

Put my ahm aroun' huh wais',
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Raised huh lips an' took a tase,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Love me, honey, love me true?
Love me well ez I love you?
An' she answe'd, "'Cose I do"--
Jump back, honey, jump back.

-0-

I love this one. Love it. It's upbeat, tender, almost danceable. The "jump back" chorus gives it a backbeat.

The language feels true and unaffected, not satirical; simple. Dignified rather than condescending.

It reminds me of the ending of Nat King Cole's song "Nature Boy":

The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.

[P.H.Delarran]

Ohh, that one is fun to read out loud. I just need someone chantin' the 'jump back..' part. I found myself drumming a little beat to match. And in spite of the (because of?) colorful approach, the emotion came through quite well.

[P.H.Delarran]

I love to browse at a little used bookstore here and found 'The Penguin Book of Women Poets' which I peruse from time to time. I liked this particular one because it included poets from all over the world, (including translations), rather than just the english ones I usually find.
Anyway, I don't read in any order, just thumb through until something interests me. Well I found someone I liked enough to research a bit. Her name is Judith Wright, an Australian (1915-2000).
This was the first one I read, and it touched me, but she has many stunning poems. Much of her work can be found here (http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/show/Judith_Wright).

Woman to Child
You who were darkness warmed my flesh
where out of darkness rose the seed.
Then all a world I made in me;
all the world you hear and see
hung upon my dreaming blood.

There moved the multitudinous stars,
and coloured birds and fishes moved.
There swam the sliding continents.
All time lay rolled in me, and sense,
and love that knew not its beloved.

O node and focus of the world;
I hold you deep within that well
you shall escape and not escape-
that mirrors still your sleeping shape;
that nurtures still your crescent cell.

I wither and you break from me;
yet though you dance in living light
I am the earth, I am the root,
I am the stem that fed the fruit,
the link that joins you to the night.

[LimeyDawg]

Frankly, this is a perfect example of the kind of work that turned me off from poetry for so very long. The obsession with classical antiquity always made poetry feel light years removed from anything that might actually interest me. It always defied my sense of straight-forwardness ("say what you mean and mean what you say") that instead of writing a poem about the night or the moon or what have you, someone would feel the need to wax so excessively rhapsodic about a goddess that represents those things. My feeling was always "invent your own damn symbology, dude!"

Wow. Difficult to fault Johnson's symbology given the era in which he wrote. What often gets left out of discussions on classical poetry is that it worked for the time it was written. Imagine: they had no instant communication, little by way of reproducing writing effectively, and no moving pictures to entertain them. They had to rely on memory, for the most part, to communicate. It is postulated that ancient Greeks could go to the ampitheatres to see a play, travel god-knows-how-many-days home, and then virtually repeat the play verbatim because that was all they had with regards to communication. Same, probably, for contemporaries of Ben Johnson. Also, with nothing visual to accessorize the poetry, they relied on extended metaphors, lenghty development of abstractions, and witty wordplay to engage the audience. Modern poets have the benefit of centuries of insulation between themselves and Shakespeare; Johnson had no such luck.

[poetinahat]

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.

Ted Kooser was the American Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006.

The few poems of his that I've read, so far, have a clarity, directness and beauty that both impresses me and makes me think that I, too, can write good poetry. His work is encouraging, too, because it makes it clear to me that poetry need not be remote; the stuff of it is right there, always.

I like poems without answers -- observations of moments, absent of conclusions. I have some reflex action to call his style folksy or simple, but if I just read it and enjoy it, it feels good.