Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Hey All you Poets- Poetry Prompt Numero Uno

I am going to post a poetry prompt on my blog each week for a month and see how it goes. I'll post on Thursday.



 And here it is Poetry Prompt Numero Uno


 Water. We drink  it. We  bath in it. We wash things with it. We pollute it. Thank you BP.

 Think about the phrase " dying of thirst." Write a poem.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Jane Kenyon OTHERWISE: New and Selected Poems

Jane Kenyon  was married to the poet Donald Hall. For twenty years they lived in New Hampshire. She died in 1995 after a year long battle with leukemia. With the help of  her husband she embarked on this book. In the book's Afterword Donald Hall writes about Jane Kenyon's work on this book, how he helped her and the way she revised her poems during the final days of her illness.

As I understand it Jane Kenyon struggled with depression her whole life. I don't find her poetry depressing even though the theme of despair is evident in many of the poems.  Her spiritual awareness, her inquiry, her earthiness, her attention to detail, to objects and the exquisite craft of her poetry transcends any darkness for me. Whatever she went through  her poems capture the humanness of "it." In that for this reader there is hope.

Otherwise: New & Selected Poems 

 Here is  a poem from OTHERWISE


Having it Out with Melancholy  
by Jane Kenyon

If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.
A. P. CHEKHOV The Cherry Orchard
1  FROM THE NURSERY


When I was born, you waited 
behind a pile of linen in the nursery, 
and when we were alone, you lay down 
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.


And from that day on 
everything under the sun and moon 
made me sad -- even the yellow 
wooden beads that slid and spun 
along a spindle on my crib.


You taught me to exist without gratitude. 
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death; 
the pleasures of earth are overrated."


I only appeared to belong to my mother, 
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts 
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases. 
I was already yours -- the anti-urge, 
the mutilator of souls.



           2  BOTTLES


Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin, 
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax, 
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft. 
The coated ones smell sweet or have 
no smell; the powdery ones smell 
like the chemistry lab at school 
that made me hold my breath.



3  SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND


You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.



           4  OFTEN


Often I go to bed as soon after dinner 
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away 
from the massive pain in sleep's 
frail wicker coracle.



5  ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT


Once, in my early thirties, I saw 
that I was a speck of light in the great 
river of light that undulates through time.


I was floating with the whole 
human family. We were all colors -- those 
who are living now, those who have died, 
those who are not yet born. For a few


moments I floated, completely calm, 
and I no longer hated having to exist.


Like a crow who smells hot blood 
you came flying to pull me out 
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear 
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.



       6  IN AND OUT


The dog searches until he finds me 
upstairs, lies down with a clatter 
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing 
saves my life -- in and out, in 
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . . 



           7  PARDON


A piece of burned meat 
wears my clothes, speaks 
in my voice, dispatches obligations 
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying 
to be stouthearted, tired 
beyond measure.


We move on to the monoamine 
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night 
I feel as if I had drunk six cups 
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder 
and bitterness of someone pardoned 
for a crime she did not commit 
I come back to marriage and friends, 
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back 
to my desk, books, and chair.



           8  CREDO


Pharmaceutical wonders are at work 
but I believe only in this moment 
of well-being. Unholy ghost, 
you are certain to come again.


Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet 
on the coffee table, lean back, 
and turn me into someone who can't 
take the trouble to speak; someone 
who can't sleep, or who does nothing 
but sleep; can't read, or call 
for an appointment for help.


There is nothing I can do 
against your coming. 
When I awake, I am still with thee.



  9  WOOD THRUSH


High on Nardil and June light 
I wake at four, 
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air 
presses through the screen 
with the wild, complex song 
of the bird, and I am overcome


by ordinary contentment. 
What hurt me so terribly 
all my life until this moment? 
How I love the small, swiftly 
beating heart of the bird 
singing in the great maples; 
its bright, unequivocal eye.


 Read about Jane Kenyon and listen to her poems at poets.org where I found
Having it Out with Melancholy
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/361


 Here are a few lines from her poem Happiness, one of my favorite poems in the book .

 "There's just no accounting for happiness,
 or the way it turns up like a prodigal
 who comes back to the dust at your feet
 having squandered a a fortune  far away."

 Read the rest  of this poem at poets.org

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16898

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Lovely Bones -Hmmm



I've decided to go on a summer marathon reading binge reading many books (fiction and poetry) I've wanted to read but never have. I was at the library last week and found myself standing in front of the books on tape shelf coming face to face with the audio of  Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. What to do? Is this a book I want to read considering I have a long list. I had read the  glowing reviews of this book but also knew that it was about the brutal murder of  fourteen year old Susie Salmon as she walked home from school and Susie's view of  her murder and her family and their  grief and transformation told to us  from Susie's new home in heaven.

 Recently in Massachusetts where I live, there was a  murder ( Mortimer/ Stone murder). A father killed his wife, his mother-in-law and his two young children ages 2 and 4. The  story was on the news. It was disturbing. I was not sure I could take reading a book where a family was torn apart by the murder of a young girl by someone she knew. Young children being killed was too much for me, but I reluctantly took the audio version telling myself I could turn it off or tune out the awful scenes if I had had enough. I took the audio home. There is something like ten CDs  to listen to. Books on tape are now often CDs.

 I am on  disc 2 and still having a hard time listening to the story.  The thing that keeps me going is Sebold's way of storytelling, of unfolding the story. I keep hearing moments that  create a feeling of compassion in me and I want to  hear more. I want to hear that the family is healed and Susie is okay.  I  wonder if and when the murderer will be caught. What will the parent's reaction be when they find out who killed their daughter? Will forgiveness be part of their journey? So I listen.

Read others opinions of the book under customer reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/Lovely-Bones-Alice-Sebold/dp/1402532903

Thursday, June 10, 2010

NO BOUNDARIES, Prose Poems by 24 American Poets



This is a terrific anthology  filled with the writing of many well known poets, many icons in contemporary  American Poetry including Mary Koncel, Robert Bly, John Bradley, -Killarney Clary, Jon Davis, Linda Dyer, Russell Edson, Amy Gerstler, Ray Gonzalez, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Juan Felipe Herrera, Louis Jenkins, Peter Johnson, George Kalamaras, Christine Boyka Kluge, Nin Andrews, Morton Marcus, Harryette Mullen, Naomi Shahib Nye, Liz -Waldner, Gary Young, Karen Volkman, Campbell McGrath, Charles Simic

I couldn't put  this anthology down.  Each poem was a surprise. The poems  are funny, profound, magical, relevant. They are lyrical, experimental, "formal." Something for every taste.

From the introduction of NO BOUNDARIES by editor Ray Gonzalez

" In his long out  of print anthology, The Prose Poem (Laurel, 1976), poet Michael Benedikt defines a prose poem as 'a genre of poetry, self-consciously written in prose, and characterized by the intense use of virtually all the devices of poetry, which includes the intense use of devices of verse. The sole exception to access to the possibilities, rather than the set priorities of verse is, the line break.' "

 Benedikt goes on to list the special properties of prose poems.

" 'attention to the unconscious and its logic
    accelerated  use of colloquial  and everyday speech
    patterns,
    a visionary thrust
    reliance on humour and wit
    an enlightened doubtfulness' "


 Here is the first line from one of my favorite poems "Involving the Use of the Word America" by John Bradley


 "In America, Kafka began and paused, staring  at the peeling gray planks
on the front porch. In America he began again, but lost his way in the enormity
of the phrase."


Another favorite

 The poem "The Gulf"  by Campbell McGrath is particularly relevant  in the face of the BP oil spill. McGrath captures the magic of the gulf focusing on seashells and the creatures that live in the water.  The poem is sound magical.


 "Floating in the gulf, on a hot June day, listening to the seashells sing.

 Eyes open I watch their migration, their seismic shifts and tidal seizures, as I am
 seized and lifted, lulled, and hushed and serenaded.  Eyes closed, I drift amid their
 resonant sibilance, soft hiss and crackle in the tide wash...."

"-flop,whoosh-a fine wash of shells and shell
bits and shards, a slurry of coquinas and scallops and sunrays, coral chunks, tubes..."

 More about NO BOUNDARIES
From Amazon editorial review
""As more poets write prose poems, one of the most common reasons they give for turning to them is that their fluent composition offers a 'freedom of expression' lined poetry often restricts. To many, this sounds like a contradiction stemming from the eternal belief that any kind of good poetry has no boundaries. Yet those that write prose poems insist the act of placing their poems into sentences and paragraphs gives them a fresh approach to content and form."" -- From the introduction by Ray Gonzalez.


http://www.amazon.com/No-Boundaries-Ray-Gonzalez/dp/1932195017

 NO BOUNDARIES was published by Tupelo Press in 2003.

http://www.tupelopress.org/