Tag: Poetry

April ’11 was…

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April was a gentle thaw in more ways than one. My grandfather finally passed away. I have to admit, the event was bittersweet. Saying goodbye was easier than I expected, if only because I knew, for him, life on this earth had ceased to be everything it could be. It was time. April was also the end of snow (although Maine still had giant piles of dirty, dripping snow in places). For books it was alot of really good stuff:

  • Flint’s Law by Paul Eddy ~ read in April to finish the series started last month (although there is a third Flint book that is NOT on the challenge list that I want to read…
  • “Two Tramps at Mud Time” by Robert Frost ~ in honor of April being poetry month and Monhegan’s mud season.
  • A Drinking Life: a Memoir by Peter Hamill ~ in honor of April being Alcohol Awareness Month. This was my first audio book for the BL Challenge and here’s the cool thing – I didn’t feel like I was cheating! Yay!
  • “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Alice Springs by Nikki Gemmell ~ in honor of Australia and April being the best time to visit. This was lyrical and brassy. Just the way I like ’em.
  • “The Bells are Ringing for Me and Chagall” by Terence Winch ~ in honor of poetry month. Sexy poem by the way!
  • Great Fortune: the Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent ~ in honor of April being Architecture Month. This was fun to read because it ended up being about more than a building.
  • “At Marlborough House” by Michael Swift ~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Journey Beyond Selene: Remarkable Expeditions Past Our Moon and to the Ends of the Solar System by Jeffrey Kluger ~ in honor of April being the anniversary month of Apollo.
  • “Blue Garden” by Dean Young~ in honor of Poetry month.
  • Bear Went over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle ~ in honor of April Fool’s Day and something silly.
  • “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years” by Dean Young ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Skin of Our Teeth” a play by Thornton Wilder ~ in honor of April being National Brothers Month.
  • “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa” by Billy Collins ~ in honor of Poetry month
  • “Dear Derrida” and “Strip Poker” by David Kirby ~ in honor of Poetry Month

For the Early Review Program (LibraryThing) it was The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik.

“Dear Derrida”

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Kirby, David. “Dear Derrida.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 16-20.

When I first read “Dear Derrida” I thought of the word childish. Read it out loud and you get the sense of someone who is hopelessly involved with gossipers, someone who is in a group always looking for the next thing to poke fun of and is never really able to escape. For example, the narrator and his classmates make fun of a professor with a stutter. They drop water balloons on an unsuspecting victim. Even when the narrator has “had it” with present company he finds himself in the company of new roommates; individuals with more swagger and bravado.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“Strip Poker”

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Kirby, David. “Strip Poker.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. pp 3-5.

“Strip Poker” is a story wrapped in a memory. Kirby is donating blood when a picture of Ava Gardiner revives a lost memory. He remembers asking his mother if he would like to play strip poker. He is only eight and yet he knows that the strategy is to begin the game wearing as many articles of clothing possible. He can picture the different layers his mother would don. When she replies, “no, thank you, darling” he is struck by how there was no explanation for this declination. Nothing that would explain what was so wrong with his request. This leads to thoughts of other misrepresentations of the truth, each thought bouncing off another and another until Kirby is brought back to reality by the nurse taking his blood donation. She asks if he is a runner because his pulse is slow.

I liked this poem (the very first one in House of Blue Light because of the train of thoughts Kirby has while donating blood. It reminds me of my meandering ponderings and how when my husband asked what I am thinking about, before I can answer him, I have to ask “Do you want the whole train or just the caboose?”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“By a Swimming Pool…”

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Collins, Billy. “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa.” Nine Horses: Poems.New York: Random House, 2002.

I have to start off by saying every time I have a Billy Collins poem on my “read list” I know I’m in for a treat. His poetry is not the stuff of stuffy, if that makes sense. His poetry is the jeans and sneakers variety, hanging out just waiting to be approached. Take, for example, “By a Swimming Pool Outside Siracusa.” Here are the tags I jotted down the first time I read it, “first person, communication, language, weather, Italy.” Here are the tags I added the second time I read it, “vacation, alcohol, drunk, humor.” Because, as I read it, the narrator became less stringent about formality of words to the point of funny. You can almost feel the ooze of relaxation seep into the words.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years…”

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Young, Dean. “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years / Almost Everyone Left Before Me.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 50-51.

Just the title of the poem alone had me scratching my head. Where was this place? This place someone lived for nearly 23 years? At first (logical) thought, childhood home. Many people do not venture from the nest immediately after turning 18. Later, after I read the poem more than once I thought commune. Definitely some sort of hazy, free-love commune where drugs and music are involved. Still later I wondered if I was trying too hard to decipher something that didn’t need such analysis. I mean, how can one respond to the line, “When I told Scoot my father died, he told me he was gay. A trade? Yes but no” (p 50 -51). There is no real flirty funny in this and yet I was amused all the same.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p138).

“Blue Garden”

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Young, Dean. “Blue Garden.” Skid. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. pp 18-19.

At first reading, “Blue Garden” seemed nothing more than an admonishment to the reader about what a poem should and shouldn’t be. Upon closer evaluation the interpretation falls away and the potential for something completely different is revealed. It all seems up to you. And yet. Yet, it comes back to words and seems to be about the words. What works for a word and what doesn’t. Imagery follows the lines like a movie, linked to the psyche. Powerful stuff. My favorite part was, “Never put an eclair in a suitcase or a poem” (p 19). It made me laugh and feel a certain sense of sadness all at once.What can’t you put an eclair into a poem, I’d like to know!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen-Sink Poetry (p 139).

“At Marlborough House”

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Swift, Michael. “At Marlborough House.” The New Yorker June 18th, 1990: 40.

This poem is loaded with details; details easily visualized into a short story. There are little shockers peppered throughout the entire poem told from the point of view of a patient at Marlborough House. Imagine: it is early afternoon and the patients of a psychiatric hospital are languishing in their rooms awaiting nurses with medication. There are a host of characters besides the patients – Jake the gardener and Dr. Levitz, the man in charge, but it’s the speaker of the poem you want to know more about. You snatch details, more like hints, in the things he says. He is male, old enough to still have parents who visit. He likes to read, knows pop cultural references and has homosexual tendencies. He is smart and funny and sarcastic. You want to ignore his suicidal thoughts.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188). Incidentally, Pearl called this poem “mysterious.”

Postscript ~ Every April I think the same thing. It is really unfair of Nancy Pearl to list poems she recommends for reading without proper citations. From what I can tell “At Marlborough House” was never published in a book. I found it tucked away in a 1990 New Yorker magazine. It might well have been the only place it was published. Here are the tags I would have used on LibraryThing: mental illness, hospital, first person, homosexuality, poetry, librarian, doctor, sex, paranoia, alcohol, suicidal, sarcastic”

House of Blue Light

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Kirby, David. The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

It’s really hard to call this book a book of poetry. Each poem reads like a short story full of interesting characters and plots. In one 77 page book the reader is transported across countries and cultures. It has been said that House of Blue Light is autobiographical. For example Kirby’s characters mention a Barbara and Kirby is indeed married to a woman named Barbara Hamby. I do not know if she is the same Barbara of House of Blue Light’s poetry. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Regardless, Kirby’s poetry is funny, situationally (my word) real, and intensely soulful. In a word, substantial; this was poetry I could sink my teeth into and actually taste something.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

“Two Tramps in Mud Time”

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Frost, Robert. “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays. New York: Library of America, 1984. pp 251-252.

Too many people have tried to analyze Frost’s poem, “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” giving me license to not even try.  Long, rambling, didactic essays have been written explaining Frost’s position on charity, society, and the psychological differences between need versus want. I will refrain. Instead I will look at the poem for what it meant to me. At first blush I took the poem personally. The words “mud time” in the title made me think of Monhegan. We have a whole season dedicated to muck and mire and mud – early spring when everything is thawing more quickly than the sun can dry up. This runoff of excessive, exuberant water creates deep, thick, oozing traps of mud. The kind of mud you sink 4-5″ inches in; strong enough to suck a man’s Bean boot right off his foot.
Then, there is Frost’s description of a fickle spring. I can relate. Here it is, a week into spring and we have a snow storm on our doorstep. April Fools we are for living in New England. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute – as they say.

Another aspect of “Two Tramps in Mud Time” that I took to heart is the concept of loving your work so much that work is not the operative word to describe your actions. The narrator is chopping wood. Not because it is a necessity – winter is over. It is April and presumably he wouldn’t need to light another fire again until fall. No. He enjoys the physical labor of chopping wood. Love what you do. Do what you love. It’s something my father has (countless times) drummed into my head. But, along come two unemployed tramps, looking to take the narrator’s work away from him. They need the work whereas the narrator wants the work. Herein lies the psychological babble about questioning obligation, confronting humanity with charity.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the introduction (p xi).

“Exorcist of Notre-Dame”

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Kirby, David. “The Exorcist of Notre-Dame.” The House of Blue Light. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. pp 75-77.

This poem made me sad. Maybe it’s because the narrator wants to talk to an exorcist about seeing someone who reminded him of his dead dad. Maybe it’s because the narrator doesn’t speak French so even if he wanted to he wouldn’t be able to communicate effectively with the exorcist. So, technically, there are two different disappointments at play here – missing one’s father and the inability to communicate. I can relate to both but connect on a deeper level with the loss of a father. There is a little reprieve from the sadness when the narrator imagines the exorcist trying to describe him: “a stuttering sort of spastic hillbilly zombie hayseed type person” (p 77).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Kitchen Sink Poetry” (p 138).

April ’11 is…

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April marks the start of new ideas, new ways of thinking. Actually, the ideas sprouted in March but April is the month for seriously taking action. Idea #1 – probably the one I am the most conflicted about – A U D I O books. Yes, audio books. After nearly five years I am breaking my own rule. I must have known it would come to this because if you note, I say in this rule I will try to read the book rather than listen to audio or watch a video interpretation…It’s like I knew it would come to this. I guess I would like to think for the month of April I am breaking down and trying something new. This doesn’t come about because I didn’t try. Try, I did. Walking and reading don’t necessarily go together, especially on a treadmill. I know, ‘cuz I’ve tried. Since I can’t give up the training and I refuse to give up the reading I needed to find a compromise. I have. In the form of someone reading to me. So, without further delay, here is the list for April:

  • Flint’s Law by Paul Eddy. Finishing the series I started last month.
  • “At Marlborough House” by Michael Swift ~ in honor of April being poetry month I plan to read a poem in between each book.
  • Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle ~ in honor of April Fools Day
  • “Two Tramps in Mud Time” by Robert Frost ~ in honor of poetry month.
  • A Drinking Life by Pete Hamill ~ in honor of April being Alcohol Awareness month. This is the book I will try to listen to instead of read…
  • “The Discovery of Daily Experience” by William Stafford ~ in honor of poetry month
  • Great Fortune: the Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent ~ in honor of National Architect month. What better way to celebrate architecture than with a book about one of the best known structures out there?
  • “Blue Garden” by Dean Young ~ in honor of poetry month
  • Alice Springs by Nikki Gemmell ~ in honor of April being the best time to visit Australia

For Librarything and the Early Review program I have The Good Daughter: a Memoir of My Mother’s Hidden Life by Jasmin Darznik. It (finally) came in the middle of last month.

Night Before Christmas

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Moore, Clement Clarke. A Visit From St. Nicholas. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper Press, 1950.

When I was a child no five words filed my head with more wonder than, “Twas the night before Christmas…” On Christmas Eve my sister and I would crowd around the cb radio and listen to a local fisherman read Moore’s famous poem. When did he start this tradition, I have no idea. When did he stop, I haven’t the faintest. But while I was young and believed with a capital B I hung on his every word.

Who doesn’t know the rest of that first line, “Twas the night before Christmas”? It has got to be the most recited, most beloved poem of Christmas and all year round. I went years without knowing who wrote it but could recite it line for line.

Here’s the basic premise for a poem you all know by heart. It’s the night before Christmas and an overly observant man is just getting ready for bed. He makes comments about how still the house is, how the kids are sleeping, and so forth when suddenly he hears something. His wife must be a heavy sleeper for only the man hears a commotion outside. A portly man driving a sleigh with a herd of deer leading the way flies across the sky. They land on the roof and enter the house via the chimney. Somehow this doesn’t faze the homeowner at all. He takes his time describing the intruder and accepts the gifts he leaves. I suppose the detailed description would come in handy for the police should the homeowner later report the odd event. When the little man has finished unpacking his sack he disappears up the chimney again and drives out of sight exclaiming my favorite line, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!” (p 16).

Author Fact: Moore was a professor at Columbia and taught Oriental and Greek literature.

Book Poem Trivia: Since A Visit From St. Nicholas was first published anonymously there is some controversy surrounding the true author. Interestingly enough, Nancy Pearl doesn’t give any author credit.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Christmas Books for the Whole Family” (p 55). I have a confession to make. Because Nancy Pearl called it “The Night Before Christmas” and not “A Visit From St. Nicholas” I am assuming they are one and the same.

ps~ the version I borrowed from the library had sign language as an accompaniment to the story. Very cool.

April ’10 was…

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April was that kind of month that just flew by without warning. When Just’ Cause is over I will get back to writing in the real sense… for now here is the literary month of April.

For books it was:

  • Affliction by Russell Banks ~ can’t wait to see the movie
  • Belshazzar’s Daughter by Barbara Nadel ~ speaking of movies, this should be one
  • Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King ~ probably my second favorite read of the month
  • South Wind Through the Kitchen by Elizabeth David ~ a collection of “best of” Elizabeth David
  • Without End by Adam Zagajewski ~ a collection of poetry
  • Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian ~ my favorite read of the month

For poetry it was:

  • “Luncheon on the Grass” by Carl Phillips (In the Blood, 1993.)
  • “Rebus” by Jane Hirschfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt, 2002.)
  • “Hospital” by Karl Shapiro (Poems: 1040-1953, 1953.)
  • “A Secret Life” by Stephen Dunn (Landscape at the End of the Century, 1999.)
  • “The Welcoming” by Edward Hirsch (Earthly Measures, 1994.)
  • “Prophet” by Carl Dennis (Practical Gods, 2001.)
  • “Funeral II” by — (New & Collected Poems, 2000.)
  • “Days of Pie and Coffee” by — (Shroud of the Gnome, 1997.)
  • “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski (Without End, 2002)
  • “Kaddish” by Allen Ginsberg (Kaddish and Other Poems 1958 – 1960, 2001)
  • “Wisdom of the Desert Fathers” by Katha Pollitt (the mind- body problem, 2009)
  • “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins (Sailing Alone Around the Room, 2002)

For poetry set to music it was Natalie Merchant’s long awaited Leave Your Sleep. This is the track listing for the fantastically amazing album:

Part I

  1. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience by Charles Causley
  2. Equestrienne by Rachel Field
  3. Calico Pie by Edward Lear
  4. Bleezer’s Ice-Cream by Jack Prelutsky
  5. It Makes a Change by Mervyn Peak
  6. The King of China’s Daughter by Anonymous
  7. The Dancing Bear by Albert Bigelow Paine
  8. The Man in the Wilderness by Mother Goose
  9. maggie and milly and molly and may by E.E. Cummings
  10. If No One Ever Marries Me by Laurence Alma-Tadema
  11. The Sleepy Giant by Charles Edward Carryl
  12. The Peppery Man by Arthur Macy
  13. The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe

Part II

  1. Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash
  2. The Walloping Window Blind by Charles Edward Carryl
  3. Topsyturvey World by William Brighty Rands
  4. The Janitor’s Boy by Nathalia Crane
  5. Griselda by Eleanor Farjeon
  6. The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson
  7. Vain and Careless by Robert Graves
  8. Crying, My Little One by Christina Rossetti
  9. Sweet and a Lullaby by Anonymous
  10. I Saw a Ship A-Sailing by Anonymous
  11. Autumn Lullaby by Anonymous
  12. Spring and Fall: to a young child by Gerard Manley Hopkins
  13. Indian Names by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program it was: a browse through a weight training book. Full review coming next month…

For fun it was: The Book of Calamities by Peter Trachtenberg

“Funeral II”

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Szymborska, Wislawa. “Funeral II.” New and Collected Poems. New York: Mariner Books, 2000. p 206.

This poem disturbed me to the core. To read it quite literally it is people standing around before (or after, or anytime in between) a funeral and gossiping. This sort of thing happens all the time. Events like funerals and weddings bring people together. Conversations are bound to happen, especially when people haven’t seen each other since the last milestone – wedding, or funeral…
I think what disturbed me the most is that I could identify with it so readily. I, too, have stood around making small talk; commenting on the people strangers around me. Call it catty. Call it human nature. It happens.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Poetry Pleasers” (p 189).

“Forgetfulness”

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Collins, Billy. “Forgetfulness.” Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poetry. New York: Random House: 2002. 29.

You know that point in a conversation when someone says something so true and indisputable all you can do is nod in emphatic agreement? “Forgetfulness” is that point in the conversation. How many of us read something, whether it be an article, book or poem and couldn’t remember who wrote it a week later? A week after that and now we can’t remember the title of what we read. We find ourselves saying stupid things like, “I read this great book about the tenth largest island in the world by…by..oh what was his name? Anyway, it was really interesting.” I also like Billy’s imagery of a brain making room for something else to remember. When a new address or phone number is added to the brain, the author or title of a book must come out. For every new piece of information stored, something older must come out and slip away. Who knows where it goes? Billy has the answer:
“…to a little fishing village where there are no phone lines” (p 29).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Kitchen-Sink Poetry” (p 138).