Poetry Jam: Loss

We go to the wake of a 41-year-old man tonight, a co-worker and friend of Mama's who leaves behind a loving wife and two young children.

It is, frankly, one of my worst nightmares, alongside losing one of the children--a spouse expected home but instead the knock of a police office or call from a hospital in her place.  And so to have the exact thing happen to a man who sits a few cubes down . . . .

As April is poetry month, which I usually celebrate but have overlooked in our busy-ness this year, I post a poem that resonates so much this week.

May he rest in peace and may his family be comforted.


One Art
Elizabeth Bishop, 1911 - 1979

 The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Poetry Jam: Finding New Poets

People are introducing new-to-me poets to me regularly and I love it.  This way, I've read Mary Oliver, David Budbill, Naomi Shihab Nye, and now Danna Faulds.  Faulds writes "yoga poems," which sounds limiting or even gimicky.  But they aren't. I can't attest that they are great poems--I've never undertaken any academic poetry analysis--but I am touched by them. And even though I don't practice yoga, I can appreciate the focus on mindfulnessness and presence.  I'm reading her Go In and Out:  Poems from the Heart of Yoga, which I find inspiring, calming, and comforting.  

Walk Slowly 

It only takes a reminder to breathe,
a moment to be still, and just like that,
something in me settles, softens, makes
space for imperfection. The harsh voice
of judgement drops to a whisper and I
remember again that life isn't a relay
race; that we all will cross the finish
line; that waking up to life is what we
were born for. As many times as I
forget, to catch myself charging forward
without even knowing where I am going,
that many times I can make the choice
to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk
slowly into the mystery.

Poetry Jam: A Late Find

Tonight while Sis was doing my hair--she loves to see how many clips she can get into it!--I read her some poetry from a new favorite poet of mine, Naomi Shihab Nye, whose collection for girls, A Maze Me, arrived today.  Sis listened very quietly, which means she was absorbing it all.  

Even though poetry month is officially over, I find myself reading some everyday.

Here are three of our favorites from this evening:

Mystery

When I was two

I said to my mother

I don't like you, but I like  you.

She laughed a long time.

I will spend the rest of my life

trying to figure this out.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Life is a tangle of 

twisting paths.

Some short.

Some long.

There are dead ends.

And there are choices.

And wrong turns,

and detours,

and yield signs,

and instruction booklets,

and star maps,

and happiness,

and loneliness.

And friends.

And sisters.

And love.

And poetry.

Life is a maze.

You are a maze.

Amazed.

And amazing.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Feeling Wise

A lady was quoted in the newspaper.

"It is not so hard to feel wise.

Just think of something dumb you could say,

then don't say it."

I like her.

I would take her gingerbread

if I knew where her house was.

Julia Child the famous chef said,

"I never feel lonely in the kitchen.

Food is very friendly.

Just looking at a potato, I like

to pat it."

Staring down

makes you feel tall.

Staring into someone else's eyes

makes you feel not alone.

Staring out the window during school,

you become the future,

smooth and large.

Poetry Jam: Two Art/Love Poems

I've run across these in the last few days and like them both:

"In the Sistine Chapel"

• By Scott Brennan
• Smithsonian magazine, April 2013

 

The angels, please! It's Michelangelo showing off again,
mixing what's believable with what's not, work at heart

exaggerated, with those Schwarzeneggar biceps
and superhero legs that, because of the fresco's illusion,

seem to drop from the ceiling, more entertaining
than strictly religious, as if the crowd crammed

into the chapel were to be cloaked in an enormous page
not out of Genesis but of Marvel, enfolded in the powers

of red and blue pastel. When one has seen too much,
how can one then accept too little? The stars herald

the tour de force we're supposed to ooh and ahh at—
The Creation of Adam, now so ho-hum and cliché

(I can barely admit it, it's so perfect) after countless
coffee-table book appearances. Check it off, though,

as a birder checks off a pileated woodpecker, say, on his
or her "have seen" list. The person with the most wins,

though we're never sure what, except, one supposes,
bragging rights. Then: museum corridors, rooms, halls,

chambers, nooks, crannies—even more detail, more wonders:
goblets, urns, illuminated manuscripts, sculptures, vases,

globes, amulets, divans, thrones, hand-copied Bibles, putti,
Medieval tapestries, time-crazed maps, figurines, portraits

of pontiffs—the detail like too much icing on too much cake.
But, hey, what does a drop of water know of the depths

of the sea? Observe God's hand and Adam's bemused face,
the museum and the gift shop. Chronicle another chapter

of one's life in a notebook (and what a fabulous life it's been,
full of so many amazing experiences they have to be translated

into poetry)—and afterward the moment with Vanessa
in the old-fashioned trattoria when I tasted for the first time

saltimbocca alla Romana, leap into the mouth of Rome,
veal with garlic and wine sauce, and the putty-faced waiter

poured Chianti into my slightly speckled glass. The veal
melted . . . The Chapel was so . . . What did you think of . . .

And the thousands around us (they moved me and I did
my best to move them)—all began to drift away,

leaving us with what we had almost forgotten
to appreciate: our two nearly touching fingertips.

Having a Coke with You

by Frank O'Hara

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Poetry Jam: For My Hospice Patient

My hospice patient is declining, not exactly rapidly but definitely noticeably.  Today she was barely responsive, though she opened her eyes some and managed a slight smile, I like to think.

This is for her:

Let Evening Come

By Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come. 

Poetry Jam: Spring

I went to school today to read poetry--verse about cats and dogs, bugs and spring--and to write our own diamante and cinquain, about dogs and spring.

Dogs

Barking at the mail carrier

Loud like a fire truck.

Big

Spring

flowers, beautiful

blooming, swinging, singing

those flowers are cool.

Flowers

And when we named flowers--daffodils, daisies, tulips, hyacinths--and one kid asked about bushes with yellow flowers, I knew because I'd asked on FB for Gommie the day before:  Forsythia.

There was also an acrostic using "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" . . . it's too long to put here (and I'm not sure I spelled it all correctly!)

It was a gentle morning, an innocent counterpoint to this afternoon.

Gommie took the picture on one of her walks so I could post it on FB and ask the name!

 

Poetry Jam: Something New

In past years of celebrating National Poetry Month, I have read poetry to the kids at bedtime most nights.

Well, this year, it's a little different.

We sit on my bed with our pile of poetry books scattered around--Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, random (and Random House) collections--and they choose poems to read to me!

It's such a treat to hear them read about Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout not taking the garbage out or one sister for sale, poems I read and recited as a kid.

And then I read something--"Jabberwocky," "The Owl and the Pussycat," "The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat," or "Casey at the Bat"--and we go back and forth.

Though, last night we noticed that we're so busy looking for our next poem that we don't always hear the one being read.  Tonight, we're going to take some time to choose first and then read aloud to each other.

It's better than I ever could've hoped.

Poetry Jam: Celebrate Poetry Month!

It's National Poetry Month again and I'm ready to celebrate by reading poetry with the kids every night, perhaps even writing some with them, sharing poetry with their class at school, and reading poetry on my own, especially from the collection by Caroline Kennedy, She Walks in Beauty, which the Easter Bunny brought me along with tea, chocolates, and flowers.  I will also continue to explore the poets Mary Oliver, Jane Hirshfield, and David Budbill, some of whose slim volumes I have, and the poem-a-day from Poets.org that appear in my inbox every morning.

If you're looking for ways to celebrate, check out the Academy of American Poets' ideas here or perhaps some of my old posts (here and here), just search "Poetry Jam."

Poetry Jam: Jammin' at School

I was invited to read poetry at school today, even though poetry month ended yesterday.  The class was amazing--attentive and engaged through 25 whole minutes of verse!  Choosing from the Random House Book of Poetry for Children and The 20th-Century Children's Poetry Treasury, I started with rain poems because it's raining here today (we've already gotten more than an inch, which is a lot for us), then did some spring poems and one about the wind.  And back to rain.  I did a few about school, particularly recess, and ended with several from Jack Prelutsky's Awful Ogre Running Wild.  I gave out Dr. Seuss bookmarks for everyone and topped the whole thing with lunch with Mama and the kids in the cafeteria.

Poetry Jam: I am a Poet

Well, perhaps "poet" is going a bit too far.  Let's just say I wrote some verse this month for the kids' lunchboxes.  And, as we wrap up National Poetry Month, I thought I'd post them, for posterity, not including the acrostics I did with their names.  Good verse is harder than it looks.

haiku
Penguins on the ice
sliding down, swimming freely.
Antarctica rocks!

Bunny underground,
sleeping in her burrow home,
dreaming of carrots.

diamante

Strawberries

red, sweet

growing under leaves

good with creamy yogurt.

Delicious!

Chocolate

dark, sweet

makes me smile

best in homemade cookies.

Yum!

And the ever-traditional,

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
You are our Bud/Sis
and we love you!

Poetry Jam: Poem in My Pocket

The poem in my pocket, selected from the Academy of American Poets, to celebrate National Poem in Your Pocket Day:



 Afternoon on a Hill

I WILL be the gladdest thing
    Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
    And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds      
    With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
    And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
    Up from the town,      
I will mark which must be mine,
    And then start down!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay


And I also have on in my pocket for the kids to find when they come home:

If The World Was Crazy


If the world was crazy, you know what I'd eat?
A big slice of soup and a whole quart of meat,
A lemonade sandwich, and then I might try
Some roasted ice cream or a bicycle pie,
A nice notebook salad, an underwear roast,
An omelet of hats and some crisp cardboard toast,
A thick malted milk made from pencils and daisies,
And that's what I'd eat if the world was crazy.

If the world was crazy, you know what I'd wear?
A chocolate suit and a tie of eclair,
Some marshmallow earmuffs, some licorice shoes,
And I'd read a paper of peppermint news.
I'd call the boys "Suzy" and I'd call the girls "Harry,"
I'd talk through my ears, and I always would carry
A paper umbrella for when it grew hazy
To keep in the rain, if the world was crazy.

If the world was crazy, you know what I'd do?
I'd walk on the ocean and swim in my shoe,
I'd fly through the ground and I'd skip through the air,
I'd run down the bathtub and bathe on the stair.
When I met somebody I'd say "G'bye, Joe,"
And when I was leaving--then I'd say "Hello."
And the greatest of men would be silly and lazy
So I would be king...if the world was crazy.

--Shel Silverstein

Poetry Jam: Planning a Poetry Party

We're having a poetry party this weekend to wrap up National Poetry Month.  So far I have several (too many) options for activities:

• Recite memorized poems.  Sis has "Pelicans" down.  Bud might do that one, too.  I'm still choosing mine.
• Read selected verses (should there be a theme like Shel Silverstein Saturday?  Or Ogden Nash Night?). I'm still working on a focus.  I toyed with food in verse with attendant morsels, but all the poems seem to be about spaghetti!  Somewhere I read suggested doing a cafe theme.  Not sure Sis and Bud are up for espressos and black turtlenecks (and cigarettes!)
• Create poetry together:
• Exquisite Corpse (people write verses separately and then you put them altogether, I believe)
• bring lots of words (cut from magazines or written on sheets of paper) to put in center of table and everyone chooses ten from the pile (peeking or not) to use (plus 5 additional "freebies")
• write a line at a time going around the room to add to it
• choose a topic and everyone write for five minutes
• fill-in-the-blank/Mad-Lib like verse
• complete-an-acrostic poem based on everyone's name
• Create poetry alone and share--haiku, acrostic, cinquain, diamante, concrete/shape, free verse etc etc etc (the list could go on forever)
• Illustrate favorite verses and frame pictures on the wall
• Make our own commonplace book to collect our favorite verses

Love to hear your poetry ideas . . . or poetic food ideas, as long as it's not pasta!

Poetry Jam: A Gas

Check out Shelley's son's favorite poem here.

It's a toot!

Poetry Jam: Down the Rabbit Hole

We are reading Alice in Wonderland these days, a story I know but have actually never read.  And in it we are finding a variety of verse, beginning with:

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

Of course, being a child of the end of the 20th century and my children firmly ensconced in the 21st, I could not comprehend the parody of the crocodile poem until Mama told us the original:

Against Idleness And Mischief
Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skillfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthy play,
Let my first years be passed
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

For more of Lewis Carroll's verses in Alice contrasted with their original bases, visit here.

Poetry Jam: Ways to Celebrate

I've been checking out poetry resources and like this list of 30 ways to celebrate from the Academy of American Poets.  At the kids' request, I'm going to include poems in their lunches instead of jokes this month (which is good because I'm running out of riddles), both published ones and homemade ones.  They particularly like the acrostics based on their names.

I also want to try:

• Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 26, which gives me time to choose a good one
• Read a book of poetry--I'm reading Garrison Keillor's Good Poems
• Memorize a poem--I know very few (Silverstein's "Sister for Sale," Burns's "Red, Red Rose," and I used to know Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and EBB's "How Do I Love Thee?"  My dad knows three--"Luck" by W.W. Gibson, a rhyme about pelicans, and the into to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) and would like to add another, but which one?
• Play "Exquisite Corpse," which is a group poetry-writing effort with an established sentence structure.  Or the kids and I will just write poetry together using some other structures.
• Take a poem to lunch (I'll be putting one in the kids' lunchboxes and read some during my own lunch)
• Put a poem in a letter.
• Start a commonplace book, a personal anthology of favorite poems or quotes--my blog is a digital version of this, at least for this month.
• Integrate poetry and technology--I downloaded the app for Android from the Poetry Foundation.

What are you doing to celebrate poetry month?

Poetry Jam: Gateway Drug

Our minister called poetry a gateway drug to mindfulness, gratitude, and even prayer during our membership class on Saturday.  True, in its way, I think:  I took both a poetry and a prayer online class last year!

So, here's another "ordinary day miracle" poem I've read recently, in the wonderful collection Good Poems (ed. Garrison Keillor):

Welcome Morning
 
There is joy 
in all: 
in the hair I brush each morning, 
in the Cannon towel, newly washed, 
that I rub my body with each morning, 
in the chapel of eggs I cook 
each morning, 
in the outcry from the kettle 
that heats my coffee 
each morning, 
in the spoon and the chair 
that cry "hello there, Anne" 
each morning, 
in the godhead of the table 
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon 
each morning.
 
All this is God, 
right here in my pea-green house 
each morning 
and I mean, 
though often forget, 
to give thanks, 
to faint down by the kitchen table 
in a prayer of rejoicing 
as the holy birds at the kitchen window 
peck into their marriage of seeds.
 
So while I think of it, 
let me paint a thank-you on my palm 
for this God, this laughter of the morning, 
lest it go unspoken.
 
The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard, 
dies young.
 
~ Anne Sexton ~

Poetry Jam: Joetry Pam

For SQUIRT (sustained quiet uninterrupted reading time--they liked the acronym of the otherwise unwieldly phrase), Bud started Shel Silverstein's mixed up poetry in Runny Babbit.  While he and Sis had been perplexed by many of the poems of Where the Sidewalk Ends because they took Silverstein took literally--was Sylvia Stout really covered by garbage?  How did Peggy Ann Mackay break her leg and have chicken pox and still go out to play?  How can you sell your crying, spying sister?--Bud loved the wordplay of Runny Babbit, just as he loves Pig Latin and Ferb Latin and such.  We heard him gigging way after lights out.

Poetry Jam: Sources

Not being very poetry literate, I'm following my verse-loving minister's advice to read widely so I can learn whom and what I like.  I've been perusing Garrison Keillor's wonderfully diverse Good Poems (there are two other collections in that series--on hard times and American places) and have found two new online sources for poems:

• Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, which I believe is heard every morning on NPR and from which were drawn the selections for his Good Poems collection.  There is a poem and other literary notes everyday, with today and years previous archived here.
•  Poetry 180:  a poem a day for American high school students, selected by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

Poetry Jam: A Common Thread

I've come across these today, finding a message of daily, ordinary miracles:

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.  Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.  Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.  Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." --Mary Jean Iron, quoted from A Grateful Heart -=-=-=-=-=-

"Otherwise"


I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

--Jane Kenyon
from Otherwise, 1996
Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Copyright 1996 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon.
All rights reserved.


-=-=-=-=-=-

“The Orange"


At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I got a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over. 
I love you. I'm glad I exist.



by Wendy Cope, from Serious Concerns (Faber & Faber).


(N.B.  Funny how being a mom of twins effects things.  I read this last poem as about motherhood, with Robert and Dave young twins--eating a quarter of an orange--and the mom thrilled to have time to shop or walk in the park--"new" after those hard early days.  She finished her to do list and likes her spouse (which you don't always when you're sleep deprived) and is glad to be alive!  I made it all up but it works for me.)

Poetry Jam: Recommendations

Corresponding with our minister today, I got a recommendation to peruse Garrison Keillor's Good Poems, which apparently contains numerous poems by a variety of poets, including some of her favorites.  Two of these--Jane Hirshfeld and W.S. Merwin--were also included in PBS's documentary, "Buddha."  I look forward to reading through the book.  


She also suggested some Billy Collins for the kids and sent along this from 18th-century poet/author Christopher Smart, on his cat Jeoffry:

For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships inhis way.For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegantquickness.For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.  For he is of the tribe of Tiger.For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking inthe spirit.For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.  For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

Lines from "Jubilate Agno, Fragment B [For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry]" by Christopher Smart.  (See whole 74 lines on his cat  here.)

We also emailed about the Bible, which I have never really read.  The kids, specifically Sis, have been asking about Moses, Joseph, and Jesus and I know what I've seen in Cecil B. Demille, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and medieval and renaissance art.  I think it might be time for me to read through some of it.  And since it's poetry month, I think I'll start with the Pslams.  Or since Passover just took place, and it is the custom of Ashkenazi Jews to read the Song of Solomon (text) in the middle of Passover, perhaps I'll read that (Sephardic Jews apparently read it every Friday.)