annoying
He butts into her study session with sighs and dramatic comments. "How do you not KNOW this stuff already?"
brushed
I don't hear the bike as it barrels towards me on the sidewalk. I only realize after, what could have happened if I'd stepped a foot to the left.
ineffective
Ineffective sorts of triage - that's what he calls the proposals to address an ever-growing wealth inequality and a middle class eroding.
inspire
He asks, "What inspires you?" "Good writing," I say, "good discussion, good books."
paralleled
A husky and a squirrel run alongside each other, with only a slender fence between them.
struck
I come across these lines from Emily Dickinson: "Not knowing when the dawn will come / I open every door."
tasteless
High-end department stores create a "poverty chic" aesthetic for their window displays. The clothes look like they were fished out of a donation bin an hour ago, but they cost hundreds of dollars.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Friday, September 13, 2019
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Week in Seven Words #437
creations
They're on the rooftop garden, sketching. Paths made of loose stones coil through the grass and overhanging plants. Blanket flowers burst from the greenness in pinwheels of red, orange, and yellow.
heaped
The art installation is a pile of boots, basically. It's a work of calculated indifference.
intently
A young man on the subway recites his own poetry. It's clumsy, in parts, but earnest. He speaks it with sincere intent and force of thought.
invitingly
To reach the porch of the pink house, you would walk on a path of uneven paving stones, past flowering bushes, under a trellis, and between two tables covered in a cloth patterned with sunflowers.
rehearsed
The children are arrayed before their parents to dutifully sing.
various
The neighborhood is a mix of quaint shops, charming cafes, industrial barrenness, churches, and patches of greenery.
yield
When the weeds are cleared away from the container, what's left is a lone pepper.
They're on the rooftop garden, sketching. Paths made of loose stones coil through the grass and overhanging plants. Blanket flowers burst from the greenness in pinwheels of red, orange, and yellow.
heaped
The art installation is a pile of boots, basically. It's a work of calculated indifference.
intently
A young man on the subway recites his own poetry. It's clumsy, in parts, but earnest. He speaks it with sincere intent and force of thought.
invitingly
To reach the porch of the pink house, you would walk on a path of uneven paving stones, past flowering bushes, under a trellis, and between two tables covered in a cloth patterned with sunflowers.
rehearsed
The children are arrayed before their parents to dutifully sing.
various
The neighborhood is a mix of quaint shops, charming cafes, industrial barrenness, churches, and patches of greenery.
yield
When the weeds are cleared away from the container, what's left is a lone pepper.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
For National Poetry Month: 30 Poem Recommendations
April is National Poetry Month in the US. Take the opportunity to enjoy some good poetry.
1) A Word on Statistics (by Wislawa Szymborska)
2) A Noiseless Patient Spider (by Walt Whitman)
3) The Jabberwocky (by Lewis Carroll)
4) To be of use (by Marge Piercy)
5) From Blossoms (by Li-Young Lee)
6) What Kind of Times Are These (by Adrienne Rich)
7) The Good-Morrow (by John Donne)
8) The Peace of Wild Things (by Wendell Berry)
9) Resumé (by Dorothy Parker)
10) The Writer (by Richard Wilbur)
11) Poetry (by Marianne Moore)
12) First Gestures (by Julia Kasdorf)
13) Translation (by Anne Spencer)
14) To fight aloud is very brave (by Emily Dickinson)
15) Bleezer's Ice Cream (by Jack Prelutsky)
1) A Word on Statistics (by Wislawa Szymborska)
2) A Noiseless Patient Spider (by Walt Whitman)
3) The Jabberwocky (by Lewis Carroll)
4) To be of use (by Marge Piercy)
5) From Blossoms (by Li-Young Lee)
6) What Kind of Times Are These (by Adrienne Rich)
7) The Good-Morrow (by John Donne)
8) The Peace of Wild Things (by Wendell Berry)
9) Resumé (by Dorothy Parker)
10) The Writer (by Richard Wilbur)
11) Poetry (by Marianne Moore)
12) First Gestures (by Julia Kasdorf)
13) Translation (by Anne Spencer)
14) To fight aloud is very brave (by Emily Dickinson)
15) Bleezer's Ice Cream (by Jack Prelutsky)
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Week in Seven Words #384
china
The town is charming and delicate. There's a sheltered dock with a gazebo, and a street with shops displaying quaint, insubstantial things. Only the vehicles seem out of place: heavy, expensive cars and a bus that wheezes to a stop to take us away.
chrome
A dazzling set of motorcycles outside a convenience store. Some of the riders head inside, others stretch out on a grassy slope that leads down to the trees.
consequence
They stand at opposite ends of a coppery pool and play catch. If the ball lands in the water, the game will end.
feathered
A bird drops backwards from a branch, then twirls midair and rockets off.
glade
The dirt track ends at a clearing steeped in early evening light. Logs and flat rocks are scattered around it, as if at nightfall creatures will emerge from the trees to take their seats and hold an assembly.
meter
When hiking a familiar route, he brings a book for the gentler sections. This time it's a collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Another time it was short stories by Chekhov.
talus
Sometimes the path is made up of wood planks or smooth dirt. Other times, it's a jumble of rocks and roots that jerk my ankles in different directions.
The town is charming and delicate. There's a sheltered dock with a gazebo, and a street with shops displaying quaint, insubstantial things. Only the vehicles seem out of place: heavy, expensive cars and a bus that wheezes to a stop to take us away.
chrome
A dazzling set of motorcycles outside a convenience store. Some of the riders head inside, others stretch out on a grassy slope that leads down to the trees.
consequence
They stand at opposite ends of a coppery pool and play catch. If the ball lands in the water, the game will end.
feathered
A bird drops backwards from a branch, then twirls midair and rockets off.
glade
The dirt track ends at a clearing steeped in early evening light. Logs and flat rocks are scattered around it, as if at nightfall creatures will emerge from the trees to take their seats and hold an assembly.
meter
When hiking a familiar route, he brings a book for the gentler sections. This time it's a collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Another time it was short stories by Chekhov.
talus
Sometimes the path is made up of wood planks or smooth dirt. Other times, it's a jumble of rocks and roots that jerk my ankles in different directions.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Week in Seven Words #324
braying
He bullies away the gaps in his knowledge, filling them with loudness.
dispensing
The driver reacts to the near-collision by shouting at everyone else.
follicular
Wind that could tear the hair from your scalp.
jitters
When asking for feedback on her poems, she doesn't expect a blast of criticism, but braces herself just in case. It's an act of vulnerability.
lakeside
The branch has landed in a silken reflection of trees and clouds.
perch
The tree has a bare trunk and a tangled mass of branches at the top, like a nest for a giant bird.
portraiture
I pose badly, she says. It's in the way I hold my chin, look past her shoulder, keep my lips pursed so I won't laugh. But it doesn't matter, because the end result is the same: two sets of ellipses for eyes and glasses, a beaming crescent mouth, and a nose that looks like a raven in flight. I cherish it.
He bullies away the gaps in his knowledge, filling them with loudness.
dispensing
The driver reacts to the near-collision by shouting at everyone else.
follicular
Wind that could tear the hair from your scalp.
jitters
When asking for feedback on her poems, she doesn't expect a blast of criticism, but braces herself just in case. It's an act of vulnerability.
lakeside
The branch has landed in a silken reflection of trees and clouds.
perch
The tree has a bare trunk and a tangled mass of branches at the top, like a nest for a giant bird.
portraiture
I pose badly, she says. It's in the way I hold my chin, look past her shoulder, keep my lips pursed so I won't laugh. But it doesn't matter, because the end result is the same: two sets of ellipses for eyes and glasses, a beaming crescent mouth, and a nose that looks like a raven in flight. I cherish it.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Week in Seven Words #204 & 205
204
aseptic
Pearls of dark chocolate and mint, spilled onto Purelled hands.
echoes
Haven't we had this conversation before? In our respective chairs, one of us talking more than the other?
hometown
I take a dialect quiz (focusing on pronunciation, and certain vocab and expressions), and the results are supposed to tell you what region of the US you're from. As it turns out, the way I speak fits closest to these three cities: San Jose, Fremont, and Honolulu. Also, I'm generally a very strong fit with Long Island, NY. Given that I was born in California and spent close to six years of my life in southern California, then the rest of my childhood on Long Island, these are pretty accurate results.
keratinous
The days are slight, as thin as fingernails.
revival
Embers in me that I want to coax back to life.
sorted
The animals have one corner of the floor; the plants have the other. In his world, at this time, they can't mingle.
tonedeaf
"Are you with someone?" he asks, his eyes scanning the room, fishing for additional prospects. "Yes," I say. "If it doesn't work out," he immediately says, in a business-like tone, "could I be the first one to know? Let me know, right after." Yep. That's exactly what I'm going to do. The first thing I'll think of in the aftermath of a break-up is you. And I do in fact get his business card, with two phone numbers. His customer service skills are impeccable.
205
abrade
This is the kind of cold that scrubs away at your cheeks like steel wool.
arctic
I don't know how they do it - plunge into the cold water without their hearts stopping.
cellar
The space beneath my desk is very cold. I could chill wine in there, where the heat hasn't made its way.
earthy
Deft fingers on the mandolin and a rough and honest voice. Magnificent.
satiny
A sky like gray silk.
sisal
They're a married couple with no apparent chemistry. No shared looks, no laughter in their eyes, just a tiredness in the way they move and talk to each other. As if they'd always rather be in different rooms. There's no sense of what's holding them together except for social acceptableness.
versifying
Hours of poetry, some earnestly awful and some of it beautiful. It's been a while since I had the pleasure of listening to poetry read out loud. Even the bad poetry sounds better read out loud.
aseptic
Pearls of dark chocolate and mint, spilled onto Purelled hands.
echoes
Haven't we had this conversation before? In our respective chairs, one of us talking more than the other?
hometown
I take a dialect quiz (focusing on pronunciation, and certain vocab and expressions), and the results are supposed to tell you what region of the US you're from. As it turns out, the way I speak fits closest to these three cities: San Jose, Fremont, and Honolulu. Also, I'm generally a very strong fit with Long Island, NY. Given that I was born in California and spent close to six years of my life in southern California, then the rest of my childhood on Long Island, these are pretty accurate results.
keratinous
The days are slight, as thin as fingernails.
revival
Embers in me that I want to coax back to life.
sorted
The animals have one corner of the floor; the plants have the other. In his world, at this time, they can't mingle.
tonedeaf
"Are you with someone?" he asks, his eyes scanning the room, fishing for additional prospects. "Yes," I say. "If it doesn't work out," he immediately says, in a business-like tone, "could I be the first one to know? Let me know, right after." Yep. That's exactly what I'm going to do. The first thing I'll think of in the aftermath of a break-up is you. And I do in fact get his business card, with two phone numbers. His customer service skills are impeccable.
205
abrade
This is the kind of cold that scrubs away at your cheeks like steel wool.
arctic
I don't know how they do it - plunge into the cold water without their hearts stopping.
cellar
The space beneath my desk is very cold. I could chill wine in there, where the heat hasn't made its way.
earthy
Deft fingers on the mandolin and a rough and honest voice. Magnificent.
satiny
A sky like gray silk.
sisal
They're a married couple with no apparent chemistry. No shared looks, no laughter in their eyes, just a tiredness in the way they move and talk to each other. As if they'd always rather be in different rooms. There's no sense of what's holding them together except for social acceptableness.
versifying
Hours of poetry, some earnestly awful and some of it beautiful. It's been a while since I had the pleasure of listening to poetry read out loud. Even the bad poetry sounds better read out loud.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Interview with Barbie Angell
I'm happy to have discovered Barbie Angell's poetry through her regular posts on Robert Frost's Banjo, and now she's here to share this wonderful interview with us. Before we start, here's a bit of background on Barbie:
Bio
Barbie Angell is a writer, poet & artist whose life is constantly under renovation. She graduated Lincoln College with high honors and went on to study Creative Writing, Children's Literature and Poetry at Illinois State University and Heartland Community College. Her dream, since the early 90s, has been to acquire literary world domination. In her spare time she plays full-contact tiddlywinks, studies mime architecture & says humorously inappropriate things on Twitter. You can typically find her, dressed like a confused, fairy princess, in Asheville, NC....unless she's at home hiding under her desk.
Now onto the interview...
Bio
Barbie Angell is a writer, poet & artist whose life is constantly under renovation. She graduated Lincoln College with high honors and went on to study Creative Writing, Children's Literature and Poetry at Illinois State University and Heartland Community College. Her dream, since the early 90s, has been to acquire literary world domination. In her spare time she plays full-contact tiddlywinks, studies mime architecture & says humorously inappropriate things on Twitter. You can typically find her, dressed like a confused, fairy princess, in Asheville, NC....unless she's at home hiding under her desk.
Now onto the interview...
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Interview with John Hayes
For a few years now I've been following Robert Frost's Banjo, a blog run by John Hayes, and it's my great pleasure to bring you this interview with him. His blog has introduced me to a lot of beautiful poetry and music (including his own), and I've bookmarked many of the posts for repeated reading and listening. I also have copies of two of his poetry collections, the excellent Spring Ghazals (which I reviewed here back in 2010) and The Days of Wine and Roses.
Bio:
John Hayes is a musician & poet who lives in Portland, Oregon in the company of several guitars, banjo & ukuleles. As a musician, he has performed with various bands in Idaho & Oregon, including the Alice in Wonder Band, the Bijou Orchestrette, Five & Dime Jazz, Bonnie Glenshee & others. As a solo performer, Hayes plays old-time blues, focusing particularly on music from the Mississippi Delta region from the 1920s & 30s. As a poet, Hayes obtained an MFA from the University of Virginia, where he studied with Charles Wright & Greg Orr. He has self-published four collections of poetry.
On to the interview...
Bio:
John Hayes is a musician & poet who lives in Portland, Oregon in the company of several guitars, banjo & ukuleles. As a musician, he has performed with various bands in Idaho & Oregon, including the Alice in Wonder Band, the Bijou Orchestrette, Five & Dime Jazz, Bonnie Glenshee & others. As a solo performer, Hayes plays old-time blues, focusing particularly on music from the Mississippi Delta region from the 1920s & 30s. As a poet, Hayes obtained an MFA from the University of Virginia, where he studied with Charles Wright & Greg Orr. He has self-published four collections of poetry.
On to the interview...
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Interview with Juliet Wilson
I don't remember when I first discovered Juliet Wilson's blog - Crafty Green Poet - but I've always found it worth visiting for many reasons including the haikus and other poems, beautiful photos, descriptions, and discussions of nature (she lives in Scotland), posts on crafty projects, and reviews of movies and books (for reviews also check out another blog she runs, Over Forty Shades). I'm happy she accepted my invitation to be interviewed here.
For starters, here's some background on Juliet:
Bio
Juliet is a writer, crafter, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She has written poetry since she lived in Malawi for two years, but recently has started writing much more fiction and non-fiction. She is currently working on her first novel. She blogs about literature, nature, environmental issues and recycled crafts at Crafty Green Poet and edits the poetry journal Bolts of Silk.
Now on to the interview...
HK: Why do you write?
JW: I write basically because I feel I have something to say and because I enjoy it. I like putting words together and polishing them to create something that hopefully other people will enjoy.
HK: Why are you drawn to poetry in particular?
JW: Poetry was what first spoke to me I think, thanks to a school teacher who used an excellent poetry anthology in introducing us to poetry. Plus I have always been a relatively concise sort of person, so the fact that poems can be really short appealed to me. (My favourite poetic form is the haiku, both for its brevity and its connection with nature.)
HK: What do you think your strengths are as a writer, and what do you hope to improve on?
JW: I think the fact I'm very concise benefits my poetry. However, now that I'm working on a novel, I'm starting to think I need to expand my writing sometimes! In general I think there's always room to improve and I enjoy attending writing classes.
HK: Through your art (and your blog) you communicate a love of nature and a commitment to environmentalist principles. In what ways has your art been an effective vehicle for addressing and promoting various environmental issues? (e.g. have you found that your work has changed people's minds, made an issue better known, etc.)
JW: This is an interesting question and it can be difficult to find out the answer, particularly looking at the bigger picture of environmental issues! I do know, though, that several people have read books after I've posted reviews about them (one reader of my blog seems to read almost every book that I review!). A couple of my readers have left comments on my blog to say they've started getting out into nature more often as a result of reading my posts.
HK: You also make a lot of crafts (and recycle materials while doing so). Describe what you feel are some of your cleverest moments of craftiness.
JW: I recently blogged about bookmarks I made from left over thread and chunky beads (which inspired a few people to make their own!). Even more recently I've been making bookmarks threading small beads onto discarded fishing line that I found by the Water of Leith, the river I volunteer to help look after. These are probably my best examples of using imaginative recycling to make pretty things that people want to use.
HK: If you could assemble a panel of any three poets (dead or alive) to give you feedback on your work and discuss poetry with you, who would they be and why?
JW: Margaret Atwood because she knows how to make every word count and every poem of hers feels significant. Chrystos because she has such a wonderful way with words and such a clear sense of connection with nature as well as a genuine engaged commitment to human rights, yet even her most political work is lyrical. Edwin Morgan because of his amazingly inventive poetic imagination. I think those three would make for a very stimulating discussion on how to make the most imaginative and powerful poetry.
Thank you, Juliet!
For starters, here's some background on Juliet:
Bio
Juliet is a writer, crafter, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She has written poetry since she lived in Malawi for two years, but recently has started writing much more fiction and non-fiction. She is currently working on her first novel. She blogs about literature, nature, environmental issues and recycled crafts at Crafty Green Poet and edits the poetry journal Bolts of Silk.
Now on to the interview...
HK: Why do you write?
JW: I write basically because I feel I have something to say and because I enjoy it. I like putting words together and polishing them to create something that hopefully other people will enjoy.
HK: Why are you drawn to poetry in particular?
JW: Poetry was what first spoke to me I think, thanks to a school teacher who used an excellent poetry anthology in introducing us to poetry. Plus I have always been a relatively concise sort of person, so the fact that poems can be really short appealed to me. (My favourite poetic form is the haiku, both for its brevity and its connection with nature.)
HK: What do you think your strengths are as a writer, and what do you hope to improve on?
JW: I think the fact I'm very concise benefits my poetry. However, now that I'm working on a novel, I'm starting to think I need to expand my writing sometimes! In general I think there's always room to improve and I enjoy attending writing classes.
HK: Through your art (and your blog) you communicate a love of nature and a commitment to environmentalist principles. In what ways has your art been an effective vehicle for addressing and promoting various environmental issues? (e.g. have you found that your work has changed people's minds, made an issue better known, etc.)
JW: This is an interesting question and it can be difficult to find out the answer, particularly looking at the bigger picture of environmental issues! I do know, though, that several people have read books after I've posted reviews about them (one reader of my blog seems to read almost every book that I review!). A couple of my readers have left comments on my blog to say they've started getting out into nature more often as a result of reading my posts.
HK: You also make a lot of crafts (and recycle materials while doing so). Describe what you feel are some of your cleverest moments of craftiness.
JW: I recently blogged about bookmarks I made from left over thread and chunky beads (which inspired a few people to make their own!). Even more recently I've been making bookmarks threading small beads onto discarded fishing line that I found by the Water of Leith, the river I volunteer to help look after. These are probably my best examples of using imaginative recycling to make pretty things that people want to use.
HK: If you could assemble a panel of any three poets (dead or alive) to give you feedback on your work and discuss poetry with you, who would they be and why?
JW: Margaret Atwood because she knows how to make every word count and every poem of hers feels significant. Chrystos because she has such a wonderful way with words and such a clear sense of connection with nature as well as a genuine engaged commitment to human rights, yet even her most political work is lyrical. Edwin Morgan because of his amazingly inventive poetic imagination. I think those three would make for a very stimulating discussion on how to make the most imaginative and powerful poetry.
Thank you, Juliet!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Scenes from a green Fourth of July
One of the day's highlights was walking by the lake in Central Park and through the Ramble, which is my favorite part of the park.
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?
- from "You Reading This, Be Ready" by William Stafford
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah)
The song in the video, sung by Sophie Milman, is "Eli, Eli" - a poem written by Hannah Senesh and set to a melody composed by David Zahavi.
Senesh (1921-1944) was a Jewish parachutist who was captured by the Nazis and their collaborators in Hungary in 1944. After subjecting her to months of torture, through which they tried and failed to get information out of her about her mission, they executed her by firing squad.
Here's an English translation from the Hebrew of "Eli, Eli":
My God, my God,
May these things never end,
The sand and the sea,
The murmur of the water,
The lightning of the heavens,
The prayer of man.
May these things never end,
The sand and the sea,
The murmur of the water,
The lightning of the heavens,
The prayer of man.
אלי, אלי
שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמים
תפילת האדם
שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמים
תפילת האדם
Friday, February 24, 2012
Week in Seven Words #107
passive-aggressive
The clerks at the library have sullenness down to an art. They would rather be anywhere than here, scanning your books and DVDs, and they let you know it with every dead-eyed resentful look.
quiescent
On the train he nods off beside me, clutching his backpack to his stomach. He's quiet, asleep, self-contained - a great neighbor for a train ride.
ricocheting
Playing soccer in the corridor, I feel like I'm in a pinball machine, trying to keep the ball from zig-zagging into doorways and slamming off the walls.
spelunker
She can't yet clear the couch, not consistently, so she settles for crawling under it, flattening out and squirming around in the dust, only her hind feet showing us where she is.
squinch
A steel bowl and in it strawberries, and over those, blackberries - the kind of blackberries that will always bring to mind Galway Kinnell's poem "Blackberry Eating" where the berries are so plump, firm and juicy you don't just eat them, you squinch and splurge well on them.
tackling
He reads four books to me, making his way through them with determination. The most daunting one is Green Eggs and Ham - 60 odd pages - but once you've seen 'could' and 'would' a few dozen times you're less likely to trip up on those silent 'L's.
truce
The city is gentle dark and damp after the rain. I'd like to think that bad things can't happen on an evening like this.
The clerks at the library have sullenness down to an art. They would rather be anywhere than here, scanning your books and DVDs, and they let you know it with every dead-eyed resentful look.
quiescent
On the train he nods off beside me, clutching his backpack to his stomach. He's quiet, asleep, self-contained - a great neighbor for a train ride.
ricocheting
Playing soccer in the corridor, I feel like I'm in a pinball machine, trying to keep the ball from zig-zagging into doorways and slamming off the walls.
spelunker
She can't yet clear the couch, not consistently, so she settles for crawling under it, flattening out and squirming around in the dust, only her hind feet showing us where she is.
squinch
A steel bowl and in it strawberries, and over those, blackberries - the kind of blackberries that will always bring to mind Galway Kinnell's poem "Blackberry Eating" where the berries are so plump, firm and juicy you don't just eat them, you squinch and splurge well on them.
tackling
He reads four books to me, making his way through them with determination. The most daunting one is Green Eggs and Ham - 60 odd pages - but once you've seen 'could' and 'would' a few dozen times you're less likely to trip up on those silent 'L's.
truce
The city is gentle dark and damp after the rain. I'd like to think that bad things can't happen on an evening like this.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Eloquently idle
Play
Subtle, clever brain, wiser than I am,
by what devious means do you contrive
to remian idle? Teach me, O master.
-- William Carlos Williams
Subtle, clever brain, wiser than I am,
by what devious means do you contrive
to remian idle? Teach me, O master.
-- William Carlos Williams
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Week in Seven Words #58
anywhere
Via gmail chat, a discussion of the 33rd psalm.
camouflage
She laughs so merrily, so uncontrollably, that you can almost forget that she's hurt.
inexorable
The hour comes. Time to put the books away.
kibble
In a bookstore cafe, against a backdrop of music and the grinding of a blender, two people argue over what makes good poetry. At a few points throughout they state the importance of taste and personal inclination, even as they dig beneath each other's feet for something else.
prognosis
A crushed dreamcatcher lies at the foot of a short flight of steps leading to a drug research and rehab clinic; the net and feathers are crumpled.
provider
Just as we think she's finished unpacking the food from the suitcase, she remembers a side pocket full of chocolatey treats.
ulnar
Streams of hot cold pain run up and down my arm, shimmering in my fingers, pooling at my elbow.
Via gmail chat, a discussion of the 33rd psalm.
camouflage
She laughs so merrily, so uncontrollably, that you can almost forget that she's hurt.
inexorable
The hour comes. Time to put the books away.
kibble
In a bookstore cafe, against a backdrop of music and the grinding of a blender, two people argue over what makes good poetry. At a few points throughout they state the importance of taste and personal inclination, even as they dig beneath each other's feet for something else.
prognosis
A crushed dreamcatcher lies at the foot of a short flight of steps leading to a drug research and rehab clinic; the net and feathers are crumpled.
provider
Just as we think she's finished unpacking the food from the suitcase, she remembers a side pocket full of chocolatey treats.
ulnar
Streams of hot cold pain run up and down my arm, shimmering in my fingers, pooling at my elbow.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Many moons and wonders
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
But these photos show us things that can't be seen with the unaided eye. Like Titan and Rhea, two moons of Saturn:
Click on the photo to see more amazing images from space. If unlike Whitman you'd like to know what each one is there's an explanation on every page.
Earth feels precious and improbable to me, after I look at these.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Extracts: Ghazals and Kitchen Poems
After the last post showing autumn photos I took in Central Park, I thought I'd skip ahead in the seasons and talk about some Spring Ghazals.
The Spring Ghazals is a book of poetry by Jack Hayes. I thought it fitting to talk about the book as part of the 'Extracts' series because as I read through it there were a lot of lines that jumped out, like this verse from the poem "distance equals rate times time":
There are many moments like this in the book, where I've never seen something described a certain way (like clouds that canoe) or in another poem, "Ghazal 4/29" where he describes "smothered velvet air" - but when I read it I think of course (why hasn't anyone else described it just this way?), I see exactly what he's saying. And not just seeing it either, because any given image like that stirs up multiple senses (spirit and motion and shape, texture), so you have a "cow pond exhaling smoke" in the poem "January Morning", "an aimless magnolia morning" in "Ghazal 5/3", and "the pipe smoke's choking sweetness dispelled thru the trellis" (this one again from "Ghazal 4/29").
Poems echo in other poems in this collection. That "choking sweetness" of the pipe takes on another form in the poem "song my father taught me":
(This workshop also emerges in "Ghazal 4/27".)
One poem can blend various places and points in time, which mix together but remain distinct too. Different memories lap at each other, impressions hitch onto other impressions. You never know where a poem will take you.
I think a lot of this comes out in the section called Kitchen Poems. There you'll find several poems with foods as their titles (like "French Toast", "Greek Salad", "Strawberry Rhubarb Pie", etc.) These poems blend together cooking, music, life, a roving mind examining its memories and sensory impressions, and it often struck me that the cooking (or food preparation) process shaped the poem itself. Like with "Greek Salad", the memories in the poem feel like ingredients thrown into a bowl chopped (they come across that way in the reading and rhythm). In "French Toast" things seem to melt together more, amid butter, yellow and gold, and the toast itself is described at the end as being "light amber like a window - the golden crust this morning/is everyone's sweet eggshell heartache"; the food is a window opening to the world (and it gives the poem a sense of expanding out). "Strawberry Rhubarb Pie" gave me the impression of someone sitting alone savoring what might be the last sweet wholesome thing he'll eat (maybe ever, maybe only for another long while); he wants to savor each forkful that must go the way of other forkfuls and disappear - maybe like those tunes he mentions:
As with other poems, there are beautiful synesthetic associations, between tasting and listening to music for instance or music and the color of sky (and potatoes) in "Potato Salad": "The sky, too, needs to be white, not exactly an oboe awash in Debussy but maybe a clarinet basking in a Hoagy Carmichael chromatic progression..."
And there are moments where something seems to swim out of the words and reach into you and wrench you.
There's a lot of beauty in these poems.
The Spring Ghazals is a book of poetry by Jack Hayes. I thought it fitting to talk about the book as part of the 'Extracts' series because as I read through it there were a lot of lines that jumped out, like this verse from the poem "distance equals rate times time":
I have nothing to say about the white cirrus clouds as they canoed
over the motley sky in a distant Vermont October...
There are many moments like this in the book, where I've never seen something described a certain way (like clouds that canoe) or in another poem, "Ghazal 4/29" where he describes "smothered velvet air" - but when I read it I think of course (why hasn't anyone else described it just this way?), I see exactly what he's saying. And not just seeing it either, because any given image like that stirs up multiple senses (spirit and motion and shape, texture), so you have a "cow pond exhaling smoke" in the poem "January Morning", "an aimless magnolia morning" in "Ghazal 5/3", and "the pipe smoke's choking sweetness dispelled thru the trellis" (this one again from "Ghazal 4/29").
Poems echo in other poems in this collection. That "choking sweetness" of the pipe takes on another form in the poem "song my father taught me":
dented & heavy he fished in black pools
where perch swirled yellow the sawdust's choking sweetness
in his workshop under the bandsaw's gray evening whirr...
(This workshop also emerges in "Ghazal 4/27".)
One poem can blend various places and points in time, which mix together but remain distinct too. Different memories lap at each other, impressions hitch onto other impressions. You never know where a poem will take you.
I think a lot of this comes out in the section called Kitchen Poems. There you'll find several poems with foods as their titles (like "French Toast", "Greek Salad", "Strawberry Rhubarb Pie", etc.) These poems blend together cooking, music, life, a roving mind examining its memories and sensory impressions, and it often struck me that the cooking (or food preparation) process shaped the poem itself. Like with "Greek Salad", the memories in the poem feel like ingredients thrown into a bowl chopped (they come across that way in the reading and rhythm). In "French Toast" things seem to melt together more, amid butter, yellow and gold, and the toast itself is described at the end as being "light amber like a window - the golden crust this morning/is everyone's sweet eggshell heartache"; the food is a window opening to the world (and it gives the poem a sense of expanding out). "Strawberry Rhubarb Pie" gave me the impression of someone sitting alone savoring what might be the last sweet wholesome thing he'll eat (maybe ever, maybe only for another long while); he wants to savor each forkful that must go the way of other forkfuls and disappear - maybe like those tunes he mentions:
... not to mention a
tune you hear dreaming you can even hum it
you wake up the tune is lost inside yourself
As with other poems, there are beautiful synesthetic associations, between tasting and listening to music for instance or music and the color of sky (and potatoes) in "Potato Salad": "The sky, too, needs to be white, not exactly an oboe awash in Debussy but maybe a clarinet basking in a Hoagy Carmichael chromatic progression..."
And there are moments where something seems to swim out of the words and reach into you and wrench you.
There's a lot of beauty in these poems.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
An interview with...
Robert Frost's Banjo features a wonderful weekly series of interviews with writers, "Writers Talk". I'm honored to say that this week I'm the interviewee.
As part of the interview I also submitted a poem to the related Writers Talk blog called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe (and I talk briefly about the origins of this funny little piece in the interview...)
Also take the opportunity to enjoy Robert Frost's Banjo; it's a blog to explore and savor - there's poetry and short fiction, music recordings (with background for each piece), photography and history and cultural commentary. The blog is run by John Hayes, a poet and musician who features his work there along with other writers' and musicians' work; he's also written books of poetry, the latest one being The Spring Ghazals, an excellent book that has gotten enthusiastic, positive and in-depth reviews.
As part of the interview I also submitted a poem to the related Writers Talk blog called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe (and I talk briefly about the origins of this funny little piece in the interview...)
Also take the opportunity to enjoy Robert Frost's Banjo; it's a blog to explore and savor - there's poetry and short fiction, music recordings (with background for each piece), photography and history and cultural commentary. The blog is run by John Hayes, a poet and musician who features his work there along with other writers' and musicians' work; he's also written books of poetry, the latest one being The Spring Ghazals, an excellent book that has gotten enthusiastic, positive and in-depth reviews.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
One Reading of "The Broken Sandal"
This is how Denise Levertov's poem ends:
The speaker has dreamt that her sandal came apart, and now she has to stop walking and actually consider the conditions of the road she's on - the dirt, the rocks - and where she is and where she's going.
It's a short poem, and abrupt like the thong of the sandal snapping, but like with any good poem there's much in it. Yesterday I read something about the tendency to sleep-walk through life, and the poem stirred those thoughts up too - how it's easy to fall into a direction or rhythm that we don't think about too much, make choices small and large in a similar way, until something finally arrests us. Comfort, complacency, a numbed mind then give way to uncertainty and agitation. We wonder where we are, where we're headed to, and how we'll deal with it all; things we assumed would last are absent, our previous state of mind has fallen apart. We look around us and wonder how we even got here.
What's also interesting is that the poet isn't describing an actual event - that the sandal did break - but that she dreamt it did. She's anticipating these events, thinking about life and what she's doing with her life even before circumstances might force her to. And as a poet she's calling on us to have that kind of dream too, to imagine our travels stalled, difficulties cropping up along with insistent questions about our purpose. How would we begin to answer?
Where was I going?
Where was I going I can't
go to now, unless hurting?
Where am I standing, if I'm
to stand still now?
The speaker has dreamt that her sandal came apart, and now she has to stop walking and actually consider the conditions of the road she's on - the dirt, the rocks - and where she is and where she's going.
It's a short poem, and abrupt like the thong of the sandal snapping, but like with any good poem there's much in it. Yesterday I read something about the tendency to sleep-walk through life, and the poem stirred those thoughts up too - how it's easy to fall into a direction or rhythm that we don't think about too much, make choices small and large in a similar way, until something finally arrests us. Comfort, complacency, a numbed mind then give way to uncertainty and agitation. We wonder where we are, where we're headed to, and how we'll deal with it all; things we assumed would last are absent, our previous state of mind has fallen apart. We look around us and wonder how we even got here.
What's also interesting is that the poet isn't describing an actual event - that the sandal did break - but that she dreamt it did. She's anticipating these events, thinking about life and what she's doing with her life even before circumstances might force her to. And as a poet she's calling on us to have that kind of dream too, to imagine our travels stalled, difficulties cropping up along with insistent questions about our purpose. How would we begin to answer?
Friday, October 15, 2010
Extracts: a peek into Bleezer's Freezer
COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
And there's more. Click on the link to the get the full Bleezer's Ice Cream Store experience.
I've lost count of the number of times I've read this poem. I love Jack Prelutsky's absurd, brilliant confections.
Friday, March 12, 2010
One reading of "Travel Directions"
Earlier this week I came across a good poem. Travel Directions by Joan Siegel doesn't focus on the traveler's destination, which remains unspecified.
The poem speaks of a number of things. For one, the very real phenomenon of knowing how to get around a place or from one place to another without necessarily knowing street names, exact distances, or any other details you could readily use to direct other people. It's just a route you've taken so often it's embedded in your cognition, your senses and muscles. You don't have to think about it, and if you do, the details that emerge will probably be meaningful only to you.
That's another thing about this poem - how ultimately personal life and its travels are. We can share our perceptions with others, but at a fundamental level we experience the world alone; no two people will perceive, experience, think about something the same way. We can always do our best to share though, invite people into our minds (as far as they can go).
Another beautiful excerpt:
The dog offers enthusiasm, joy, and simple companionship; these are kept at the roadside, never embraced, as the journey unfolds.
There's a shift from the outward senses and the external world (which, even if experienced differently, can still be acknowledged and experienced together) to the writer's inner world, to a dream that only the writer knows about and no one else can guess at. The traveler's at a place where really no one can follow her.
Now I'm going to go off on a neurology-related tangent:
The poem reminds me of an article I read a few months back on episodic vs. semantic memory. Episodic memory is the term used to describe our memory for autobiographical events, our personal narrative; semantic memory is for general knowledge (knowing the state capitals, or what a watch is used for, or the multiplication tables). The two kinds of memories can certainly overlap and be enmeshed, but there are also distinctions between them; these distinctions can be seen, for example, in people with certain kinds of neurological damage that predominantly affect one type of memory but not the other.
In one neurological study, a person with episodic memory amnesia was asked to describe his old neighborhood. He could remember major landmarks and broad, general spatial relations between different places. But it was all a brittle, bare sort of mental map, very sparse. Minor landmarks and details were absent. Associations, memories, the whole personal feel was gone; I don't think he would have had the experience of the person in Travel Directions, being able to describe a journey based on such personal recollections/associations rather than the most abstract generalities.
(Though I'm not sure how he well he would navigate those places on foot, and I forget if they gave him such a test. Episodic memory can also be distinct from motor memory; for instance, a person with episodic memory amnesia would not necessarily lose his ability to play the piano, so maybe he could walk around his old neighborhood in habitual accustomed routes.)
There ought to be a word
for the way you know how to get some place
but don't remember the names of streets
The poem speaks of a number of things. For one, the very real phenomenon of knowing how to get around a place or from one place to another without necessarily knowing street names, exact distances, or any other details you could readily use to direct other people. It's just a route you've taken so often it's embedded in your cognition, your senses and muscles. You don't have to think about it, and if you do, the details that emerge will probably be meaningful only to you.
That's another thing about this poem - how ultimately personal life and its travels are. We can share our perceptions with others, but at a fundamental level we experience the world alone; no two people will perceive, experience, think about something the same way. We can always do our best to share though, invite people into our minds (as far as they can go).
Another beautiful excerpt:
then the road turns sharply uphill past a red barn
where a black dog jumps out to race you for a quarter mile
and finally recedes in the mirror like a disappointment
The dog offers enthusiasm, joy, and simple companionship; these are kept at the roadside, never embraced, as the journey unfolds.
the road winds vaguely past
houses people road signs
while time hums in your ear and you remember
the dream you left behind that morning
There's a shift from the outward senses and the external world (which, even if experienced differently, can still be acknowledged and experienced together) to the writer's inner world, to a dream that only the writer knows about and no one else can guess at. The traveler's at a place where really no one can follow her.
Now I'm going to go off on a neurology-related tangent:
The poem reminds me of an article I read a few months back on episodic vs. semantic memory. Episodic memory is the term used to describe our memory for autobiographical events, our personal narrative; semantic memory is for general knowledge (knowing the state capitals, or what a watch is used for, or the multiplication tables). The two kinds of memories can certainly overlap and be enmeshed, but there are also distinctions between them; these distinctions can be seen, for example, in people with certain kinds of neurological damage that predominantly affect one type of memory but not the other.
In one neurological study, a person with episodic memory amnesia was asked to describe his old neighborhood. He could remember major landmarks and broad, general spatial relations between different places. But it was all a brittle, bare sort of mental map, very sparse. Minor landmarks and details were absent. Associations, memories, the whole personal feel was gone; I don't think he would have had the experience of the person in Travel Directions, being able to describe a journey based on such personal recollections/associations rather than the most abstract generalities.
(Though I'm not sure how he well he would navigate those places on foot, and I forget if they gave him such a test. Episodic memory can also be distinct from motor memory; for instance, a person with episodic memory amnesia would not necessarily lose his ability to play the piano, so maybe he could walk around his old neighborhood in habitual accustomed routes.)
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