April is Poetry Month

Yui-chan · April 11, 2006

I'm a little late in getting started, but I only found this poem-a-day link yesterday. I thought that the AAA members and other poetry fans here on the site might enjoy the opportunity to read and discuss some 'professional poems' and what makes them great. If they are...

Please feel free to comment and discuss in this thread. I will create a index for those who want to skip right to any given day's poem.

Thank you,

~Yui-chan

Yui-chan · April 11, 2006

April 10, 2006.

A Supermarket in California

Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I

walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache

self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into

the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at

night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the

tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the

watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,

poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery

boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork

chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans

following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary

fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never

passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an

hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the

supermarket and feel absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees

add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past

blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what

America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out

on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black

waters of Lethe?

[This is the first Ginsberg poem I ever read, and is still one of my

all-time favorites. There are a lot of similarities between Ginsberg

and Walt Whitman, maybe the most famous American poet, who wrote a

hundred years earlier. Both wrote poetry for and about ordinary

people, used a style that's almost conversational, and were gay.

Ginsberg teases out the similarities here, especially the loneliness

of being gay in America: "through solitary streets ... home to our

silent cottage." I adore the strange dreaminess of this, and the

vivid language and images. What peaches and what penumbras!]*

* Commentary is by the Yahoo user who created and chose these poems. I wish I could say I have some idea of who she is, but I honestly don't. Contact me if you're interested in some links that can give you more information about her or her Yahoo newsgroup.

Yui-chan · April 12, 2006

April 11, 2006

Anne Hathaway

Carol Ann Duffy

'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed …'

(from Shakespeare's will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world

of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas

where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words

were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses

on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme

to his, now echo, assonance; his touch

a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.

Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed

a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance

and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.

In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,

dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -

I hold him in the casket of my widow's head

as he held me upon that next best bed.

[Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife so this is, appropriately

enough, a Shakespearean sonnet, a form I've always loved because of

the punch of that last rhyming couplet. I really like the creativity

in building a love poem like this out of that line from Shakespeare's

will, the link between sex and writing, this idealized but still

lovely look at their relationship. The way it's responding to and

referencing all of his work -- the forests, castles, torchlight,

clifftops, seas.

In her book, The World's Wife, Carol Ann Duffy has written a whole

series of poems by the wives of famous men, some of which are

hilarious. I recommend Mrs. Darwin, which you can read here:

http://community.livejournal.com/greatpoet...html?mode=reply ]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: Sleep Positions, Lola Haskins --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/11 (one of my absolute

favorites!)

Yui-chan · April 12, 2006

April 12, 2006

Late Ripeness

Czeslaw Milosz

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,

I felt a door opening in me and I entered

the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,

like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas

assigned to my brush came closer,

ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,

grief and pity joined us.

We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division

into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part

of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -

a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror

of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel

staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,

waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,

as are all men and women living at the same time,

whether they are aware of it or not.

(translated by Robert Hass)

[i feel like there's something kind of lovely that happens among some

older poets -- a calmness and grace in the face of death, a focus on

religion. It shows up in Roethke's famous villanelle, "The Waking,"

and T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" and here. My favorite line is: "We

forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King." It's

so dreamlike and strangely comforting.

Then again, in his poem "Conversation with Jeanne," Milosz says, "I

don't pretend to the dignity of a wise old age." [

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/milosz/a_...with_jeanne.php

] So maybe nobody really knows what's going on. Czeslaw Milosz was

born in Poland in 1911 and was active in the anti-Nazi movement. He

received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/12

Yui-chan · April 14, 2006

April 13, 2006

Gamin

Frank O'Hara

All the roofs are wet

and underneath smoke

that piles softly in

streets, tongues are

on top of each other

mulling over the night.

We lay against each other

like banks of violets

while the slate slips

off the roof into the

garden of the old lady

next door. She is my

enemy. She hates cats

airplanes and my self

as if we were memories

of war. Bah! When you

are close I thumb my

nose at her and laugh.

[Last year I posted a very energetic city poem by O'Hara (Steps:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/5 ), and this is kind

of its inverse; quiet and indrawn and happily content. I'm in love

with the line "while the slate slips" rolling around my mouth -- say

it out loud to yourself. So good!]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: [this is what you love: more people. you remember],

D.A. Powell -- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/13

Yui-chan · April 14, 2006

April 14, 2006

Wish For a Young Wife

Theodore Roethke

My lizard, my lively writher,

May your limbs never wither,

May the eyes in your face

Survive the green ice

Of envy's mean gaze;

May you live out your life

Without hate, without grief,

And your hair ever blaze,

In the sun, in the sun,

When I am undone,

When I am no one.

[The rhythm of those last three lines is wonderful, and the whole

thing is so wistful. I like the idea of this addressed to a child, as

well. It reminds me of Marilynne Robinson's recent novel Gilead --

which is absolutely lovely.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: The Benjamin Franklin of Monogamy, Jeffrey McDaniel

-- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/14

reverie · April 17, 2006

Ginsberg and Whitman were hard to digest for me.

Their list poem style (Howl and Leaves of Grass) just goes on and on and on and on and on...

If whitman and ginsberg had a duel, Whitman would win hands down.

Hmm, Beatnick Chonicler vs Trancendental Mystic.

Yean, Whitman wins hands down.

For me

Howl expressed the frustration of a generation. Railing against the hypocracy and choas of the world that they had inherated.

While on the other hand Leaves embraced the chaos of society and tried to show the connectiveness of everything. Mystism meets the American Dream... Sure, the hypocrasy was highlighted too (treaments on slavery, plight of the working class / native americans etc.), but this work strove to acknowledge and unite... Too bad he went and got himself an Omi-potent God complex in the process. Just goes with the territory, though... Mystisms a tricky path, even more so if you walk it alone.

rev...

Edited April 17, 2006 by reverie

Yui-chan · April 17, 2006

April 15, 2006

There Are Two Worlds

Larry Levis

Perhaps the ankle of a horse is holy.

Crossing the Mississippi at dusk, Clemens thought

Of a sequel in which Huck Finn, in old age, became

A hermit, & insane. And never wrote it.

And perhaps all that he left out is holy.

The river, anyway, became a sacrament when

He spoke of it, even though

The last ten chapters were a failure he devised

To please America, & make his lady

Happy: to buy her silk, furs, & jewels with

Hues no one in Hannibal had ever seen.

There, above the river, if

The pattern of the stars is a blueprint for a heaven

Left unfinished,

I also believe the ankle of a horse,

In the seventh furlong, is as delicate as the fine lace

Of faith, & therefore holy.

I think it was only Twain's cynicism, the smell of a river

Lingering in his nostrils forever, that kept

His humor alive to the end.

I don't know how he managed it.

I used to make love to a woman, who,

When I left, would kiss the door she held open for me,

As if instead of me, as if she already missed me.

I would stand there in the cold air, breathing it,

Amused by her charm, which was, like the scent of a river,

Provocative, the dusk & first lights along the shore.

Should I say my soul went mad for a year, &

Could not sleep? To whom should I say so?

She was gentle, & intended no harm.

If the ankle of a horse is holy, & if it fails

In the stretch & the horse goes down, &

The jockey in the bright shout of his silks

Is pitched headlong onto

The track, & maimed, & if later, the horse is

Destroyed, & all that is holy

Is also destroyed: hundreds of bones & muscles that

Tried their best to be pure flight, a lyric

Made flesh, then

I would like to go home, please.

Even though I betrayed it, & left, even though

I might be, at such a time as I am permitted

To go back to my wife, my son -- no one, or

No more than a stone in a pasture full

Of stones, full of the indifferent grasses,

(& Huck Finn insane by then & living alone)

It will be, it might be still,

A place where what can only remain holy grazes, &

Where men might, also, approach with soft halters,

And, having no alternative, lead that fast world

Home -- though it is only to the closed dark of stalls,

And though the men walk ahead of the horses slightly

Afraid, & at times in awe of their

Quickness, & how they have nothing to lose, especially

Now, when the first stars appear slowly enough

To be counted, & the breath of horses makes white signatures

On the air: Last Button, No Kidding, Brief Affair --

And the air is colder.

[On this lovely Saturday, one of my all-time favorite poems. Larry

Levis is very good at weaving together a bunch of disparate elements

into something complex and lovely and distinct: here it's the idea of

holiness, and Huckleberry Finn (from which Hemingway says all modern

American literature comes), and the decay or dissolution of beautiful

things, and the river, and the South, and horses, and sorrow, and

contentment.

.... or such is my guess anyway! I can read this poem over and over

and I'm still not sure I know what it's getting at, but I think that's

probably what makes it great.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: America, Allen Ginsberg --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/15

Yui-chan · April 17, 2006

April 16, 2006

For the Sisters of the Hotel Dieu

A.M. Klein

In pairs,

as if to illustrate their sisterhood,

the sisters pace the hospital garden walks.

In their robes black and white immaculate hoods

they are like birds,

the safe domestic fowl of the House of God.

O biblic birds, who fluttered to me in my childhood illnesses

- me little, afraid, ill, not of your race, -

the cool wing for my fever, the hovering solace,

the sense of angels-

be thanked, O plumage of paradise, be praised.

[Awww, nuns.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem,

Bob Hicok -- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/16

Yui-chan · April 17, 2006

April 17, 2006

An Offer Received In This Morning's Mail:

(On misreading an ad for a set of CDs entitled "Beethoven's Complete

Symphonies")

Amy Gerstler

The Musical Heritage Society

invites you to accept

Beethoven's Complete Sympathies.

A full $80.00 value, yours for $49.95.

The brooding composer

of "Ode to Joy" now delighting

audiences in paradise nightly

knows your sorrows. Just look

at his furrowed brow, his thin

lipped grimace. Your sweaty

2 am writhings have touched

his great teutonic heart. Peering

invisibly over your shoulder

he reads those poems you scribble

on memo pads at the office,

containing lines like o lethal blossom,

I am your marionette forever,

and a compassionate smile trembles

at the corners of his formerly stern

mouth. (He'd be thrilled to set

your poems to music.) This immortal

master, gathered to the bosom

of his ancestors over a century ago,

has not forgotten those left behind

to endure gridlock and mind-ache,

wearily crosshatching the earth's surface

with our miseries, or belching complaints

into grimy skies, further besmirching

the firmament. But just how relevant

is Beethoven these days, you may ask.

Wouldn't the sympathies of a modern

composer provide a more up-to-date

form of solace? Well, process this info-byte

21st century skeptic. A single lock

of Beethoven's hair fetched over $7,000

last week at auction. The hairs were then

divided into lots of two or three and resold

at astronomical prices. That's how significant

he remains today. Beethoven the great-hearted,

who used to sign his letters ever thine,

the unhappiest of men, wants you

to know how deeply sorry he is

that you're having such a rough time.

Prone to illness, self-criticism

and squandered affections -

Ludwig (he'd like you to call him that,

if you'd do him the honor),

son of a drunk and a depressive,

was beaten, cheated, and eventually

went stone deaf. He too had to content

himself with clutching his beloved's

toothmarked yellow pencils

(as the tortured scrawls in his notebooks

show) to sketch out symphonies, concerti,

chamber music, etcetera-works

that still brim, as does your disconsolate

soul, with unquenched fire and brilliance.

Give Beethoven a chance to show

how much he cares. Easy financing

available. And remember:

a century in heaven has not calmed

the maestro's celebrated temper, so act now.

For god's sake don't make him wait.

[Ha! I adore when someone can take a silly idea and run with it.

Talk about commitment to the joke, and it ends up being kind of

strangely lovely because of it.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: The Last Poem In The World, Hayden Carruth --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/17

Sweetcherrie · April 17, 2006

*giggles*

Been reading these from the start already, and wanted to thank you for posting them here.

I really liked that last one, excellent example of how far you can take a misprint *grins*

Thanks Yui

Akallabeth · April 18, 2006

Really liked this last one...

Just finished with learning of Beethoven & his life in Music Appreciation today. It's odd seeing much of what I learned in class transferred to an interesting poetic form. As well as offering some wonderful CDs at a reduced price.

Yui-chan · April 18, 2006

I'm really glad y'all are enjoying these. It's really interesting to me as a poetry-illiterate type of person to see what the broader community views as 'good poems'. I think I would probably have scoffed at some of these, but the group coordinator's commentary has helped me understand why they appeal to others. I'm kind of sad that Poetry Month is almost over.

Anyway, on to the next!

~Yui

Yui-chan · April 18, 2006

April 18, 2006

The Old Liberators

Robert Hedin

Of all the people in the mornings at the mall,

It's the old liberators I like best,

Those veterans of the Bulge, Anzio, or Monte Cassino

I see lost in Automotive or back in Home Repair,

Bored among the paints and power tools.

Or the really old ones, the ones who are going fast,

Who keep dozing off in the little orchards

Of shade under the distant skylights.

All around, from one bright rack to another,

Their wives stride big as generals,

Their handbags bulging like ripe fruit.

They are almost all gone now,

And with them they are taking the flak

And fire storms, the names of the old bombing runs.

Each day a little more of their memory goes out,

Darkens the way a house darkens,

Its rooms quietly filling with evening,

Until nothing but the wind lifts the lace curtains,

The wind bearing through the empty rooms

The rich far off scent of gardens

Where just now, this morning,

Light is falling on the wild philodendrons.

[Like yesterday's poem, this finds the poetic in something kind of

unusual -- who knew old people at the mall could come off seeming

lovely? This poem makes me so sad: "They are almost all gone now."

It's just what T.S. Eliot is getting at in The Waste Land -- time

moving forward is awful because you're always losing something. Here,

it's the veterans, and all their memories that soon won't exist at

all.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: Morning Song, Sylvia Plath --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/18

Sweetcherrie · April 18, 2006

I really like this one.

It gives me the shivers as it forces me to stand still with the thought that nothing is forever. Nothing will stay the way it is right now, and this can sometimes make me sad.

At the same time, each step forward is a good one, since it means you live in the now. Tomorrow will never exist, and yesterday is dead already, so best live with the now since it's the only time we have.

Though....wouldn't it be nice if we could capture certain moments in a jar, and relive them when needed?

Yui-chan · April 20, 2006

April 19, 2005

The Chores

Frannie Lindsay

My father sets the box of newborn kittens

into the pit of soil. I've done a good job

with his shovel.

He pats my bottom. I've tucked the right bullets

into the pouch of my overalls. He lets me

load the revolver, closes his hands around mine

from behind. The gravel and silo and sky

run together with mewing.

Eggs over easy sputter and clap from the kitchen.

I push the loose hair from my face,

aim down. The morning air is slow

with green flies. The straps of my first bra

pinch my shoulders. I am his

good, good daughter. Now, he says,

and I don't waste a shot.

[What really gets me about this poem isn't the shock of the subject,

but the relationship between father and daughter; how precisely it's

placed in time ("The straps of my first bra") and the weight of

something like longing in the line "I am his / good, good daughter."]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: Direct Address, Joan Larkin --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/19

Mira · April 20, 2006

April 10, 2006.

A Supermarket in California

Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I

walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache

self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into

the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at

night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the

tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the

watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,

poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery

boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork

chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans

following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary

fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never

passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an

hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the

supermarket and feel absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees

add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past

blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what

America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out

on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black

waters of Lethe?

[This is the first Ginsberg poem I ever read, and is still one of my

all-time favorites. There are a lot of similarities between Ginsberg

and Walt Whitman, maybe the most famous American poet, who wrote a

hundred years earlier. Both wrote poetry for and about ordinary

people, used a style that's almost conversational, and were gay.

Ginsberg teases out the similarities here, especially the loneliness

of being gay in America: "through solitary streets ... home to our

silent cottage." I adore the strange dreaminess of this, and the

vivid language and images. What peaches and what penumbras!]*

* Commentary is by the Yahoo user who created and chose these poems. I wish I could say I have some idea of who she is, but I honestly don't. Contact me if you're interested in some links that can give you more information about her or her Yahoo newsgroup.

I love Ginsberg and Whitman, so this poem is wonderful. I do not however agree with some of the comments made by the Yahoo Reviewer.

Yui-chan · April 20, 2006

April 20, 2006

Tantalus in May

Reginald Shepherd

When I look down, I see the season's blinding flowers,

the usual mesmerizing and repellent artifacts:

the frat boy who turns too sharply from my stare,

a cardinal capturing vision in a lilac bush

on my walk home. I'm left to long

even for simple dangers. From the waist up

it's still winter, I left world behind

a long time ago; waist down it's catching

up, a woodpecker out my window is mining grubs

from some nameless tree squirrels scramble over.

When I turn back it's gone, I hadn't realized

this had gone so far. (Everywhere I look

it's suddenly spring. No one asked

if I would like to open drastically. Look up.

It's gone.) Everywhere fruits dangle

I can't taste, their branches insurmountable,

my tongue burnt by frost. White boys, white flowers,

and foul-mouthed jays, days made of sky-blue boredoms

and everything is seen much too clearly:

the utterance itself is adoration, kissing

stolid air. I hate every lovely thing about them.

[This is a poem about being an outsider -- Reginald Shepherd is both

black and gay -- about observing and wanting and still being on the

edges of things. It's also about contrasts: spring and winter,

classic mythology (Tantalus was sentenced to eternal hunger and thirst

by the Greek gods) and frat boys, being on the periphery versus being

surrounded by sensations, desire and hate.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: September Song, Geoffrey Hill --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/20

Akallabeth · April 22, 2006

*returns to read poems, and pauses for a long while on "The Old Liberators" by Robert Hedin"

Quite enjoyable, and quite sad.

I came into this poem knowing some about WWII, and knowing a few veterans of WWII. From my perspective, it is interesting how the writer describes the men, simply watching life go by, and having memories vanish as time takes its toll.

From my perspective, WWII was one of very few undeniably "just" wars in the US's history. Though war isn't something to rejoice in, it is sometimes necessary, and it is sad to see these men who fought for the freedom and lives of others pass away without much recognition for what they did.

Guess I just like sad or depressing poems.

Ayshela · April 22, 2006

many thanks for posting these, Yui! I've enjoyed reading them, though I still think my favourite is "An Offer Received In This Morning's Mail"... =)

Yui-chan · April 24, 2006

I'm glad everyone is finding these worth reading. Here's the catch-up group from the weekend...

April 21, 2006

A Sad Child

Margaret Atwood

You're sad because you're sad.

It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.

Go see a shrink or take a pill,

or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll

you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad

but some get over it.

Count your blessings. Better than that,

buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.

Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what?

Your sadness, your shadow,

whatever it was that was done to you

the day of the lawn party

when you came inside flushed with the sun,

your mouth sulky with sugar,

in your new dress with the ribbon

and the ice-cream smear,

and said to yourself in the bathroom,

I am not the favourite child.

My darling, when it comes

right down to it

and the light fails and the fog rolls in

and you're trapped in your overturned body

under a blanket or burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you

and igniting the tarmac beside your head

or else the floor, or else the pillow,

none of us is;

or else we all are.

[i love the way Atwood contrasts short, staccato statements with

longer sentences in this poem. This is so pretty and sad.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: The Crunch, Charles Bukowski --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/21

Yui-chan · April 24, 2006

April 22, 2006

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

[Happy Earth Day!]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: A Brief for the Defense, Jack Gilbert --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/22

Yui-chan · April 24, 2006

April 23, 2006

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Amiri Baraka

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way

The ground opens up and envelopes me

Each time I go out to walk the dog.

Or the broad edged silly music the wind

Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.

And each night I get the same number.

And when they will not come to be counted,

I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up

To my daughter's room and heard her

Talking to someone, and when I opened

The door, there was no one there...

Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

[The decision about whether or not to post this threw me for kind of a

philosophical loop. The poet, Amiri Baraka (born LeRoi Jones), has a

lot of controversial and unpleasant political and racial beliefs.

It's always a tough question: should you separate the artist from your

appreciation of the art? Can you?

Nevertheless I really like this poem. It reminds me of a lot of J.D.

Salinger's work (although I really don't think that's its intention),

in how it uses ordinary everyday images, and the way small children

act, to talk indirectly about what a difficult thing life is. And not

accepting the status quo is, I think, a good subject for poetry, no

matter what the motivation.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/23

Yui-chan · April 25, 2006

24 April, 2006

Autumn

Rainer Maria Rilke; translated by Robert Bly

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

[in contrast to yesterday's poem -- the weight of existence, life's

difficulty met by God's presence, rather than absence. I love how

gentle Rilke's wording is, and the repetition of "falling," how it

works on both the large and small scale, the heavy earth, and this

hand.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: On Turning Ten, Billy Collins --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/24

Yui-chan · April 26, 2006

25 April, 2006

The Quiet World

Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look

into each other's eyes more,

the government has decided to allot

each person exactly one hundred

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it

to my ear without saying hello.

In the restaurant I point

at chicken noodle soup. I am

adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long-

distance lover and proudly say:

I only used fifty-nine today.

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond, I know

she's used up all her words,

so I slowly whisper I love you,

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line

and listen to each other breathe.

[i love that with such a silly idea, and such simple language, Jeffrey

McDaniel can make a poem that's so strangely memorable and tender.]

A YEAR AGO TODAY: Man and Wife, Robert Lowell --

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/april_is/message/25

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