National Poetry Month: Day 30

Suddenly, it's the end of the month. It feels like April went by in a flash, yet when  I try to remember the beginning of the month it seems like light years away. Today was my penultimate day of work; they threw a little party for me and gave me a lovely card and parting gift. I wasn't expecting any of that. Tomorrow night I'm flying to Oregon to spend some time with my sister for my birthday. We're going to eat lots of yummy food and stare at the ocean. Should be fun. This morning I hired a babysitter who can start next week; I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing in my little 'interview', but she seems like she'll do a good job. I think May is going to be a good month. One last poem, in Spanish because I don't feel like I've done enough of these:
Meciendo
by Gabriela Mistral

El mar sus millares de olas mece, divino. Oyendo a los mares amantes, mezo a mi niño. El viento errabundo en la noche mece los trigos. Oyendo a los vientos amantes, mezo a mi niño. Dios Padre sus miles de mundos mece sin ruido. Sintiendo su mano en la sombra mezo a mi niño. ROCKING The sea its thousand of waves rocks, divine. Hearing the loving seas, I rock my child. The wandering wind of the night rock the ears of wheat. Hearing the loving winds, I rock my child. God the Father his thousands of worlds rocks without a noise. Feeling His hand in the shadows I rock my child.

National Poetry Month, Day 29

Last night I shut my computer at 10 in order to get some much-needed sleep. Then I realized that I had not yet posted a poem. Oh well. Yesterday was a full day and I think it helped. I went to the library in the morning to teach a computer class. I felt kind of grouchy about it, but after spending an hour showing 5 people how to create a basic budget with Excel, I felt better. They thought it was amazing; formulas are magic. Then I went to the temple, took Little Dude to his soccer game and out for frozen yogurt, and brought everyone home for dinner and Finding Nemo before bed. I actually didn't like that movie the first time I watched it, but it's growing on me. I just need to keep swimming; at least I'm at the top of the food chain and not the bottom. Here's a funny poem from Fire in the Pasture that's sort of Sunday-appropriate.

The Short Books
by Danny Nelson

Now, Micah lives near Nahum
in the Bible's closing pages.
Micah is an optimist,
while Nahum speaks in rages.

Micah sometimes wishes
he lived near Lamentation.
It even could be better if
he moved to Revelation.

Habakkuk and Haggai
and Zephaniah, too,
have said that if he leaves them
they're going with him too.

So if someday you find the books
are all in disarray,
open up to Nahum;
Read the things he'll say.
He'll roil with ringing rhetoric,
he'll every point belabor.
And I think that I'm with Micah:

He'd make a very lousy neighbor.

National Poetry Month: Day 27

I think I forgot about posting yesterday. In other news, this is post number 1000 on my blog. It seems like we should have some kind of celebration but I just don't feel like it. I've been pretty cranky for the last week or so. Change is hard--I feel like I'm throwing a bit of a tantrum. I don't want a new job. I don't want to have to hire a babysitter. I don't want to spend this summer working while my kids play with someone else all day. I don't want to have to do that each summer for the rest of their lives. I don't want my life anymore; I want someone else's. I know that this is the right step for me and for my family. I have had a clear answer that this is where I need to go. And yet, it is still so hard. But I know I'll keep surviving; I have in the past and I can keep going. My mantra lately is "the only way out is through." After a bit of time on Google I found out that this line actually comes from a Robert Frost poem; that one is too long and not quite the one I want today. This one is shorter and fits the mood better:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.  

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

National Poetry Month: Day 25

Today Kellie posted on Segullah about ANZAC day; it's not a holiday here in the US, and unfortunately tends to go a bit unnoticed. But I appreciated her post as a reminder that the world is a big place, and as a reminder of a time in history that seems to become the distant past even more each year. Whenever I read this poem to myself I can hear it in Thomas S. Monson's voice; I think that General Conference is when I first remember hearing it.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

National Poetry Month: Day 24

From an Atlas of the Difficult World
by Adrienne Rich

I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

National Poetry Month: Day 23

The cherry tree in my front yard finally bloomed, so I'm going to celebrate with this favorite poem of mine:

Lovliest of Trees
by A.E. Housman

Lovliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

National Poetry Month: Day 22

Another poem from Fire in the Pasture that I heard yesterday.

Blessing the Baby
by Susan Elizabeth Howe


We are low church--a plain chapel, unadorned pews and pulpit,
dahlias on the organ the only image of God. Come today
to give my brother's infant daughter a name and a blessing.

"The purpose of life," says the bishop, "is to gain
a tabernacle of flesh and bone," and I wonder
what my granddaughter imagines, having visited

the great hall on Temple Square but not
the house of metaphor. "He's explaining
our bodies," I tell her. "Why we love them."

But it is a tabernacle, a tabernacle of men
held by the priesthood as planets are held by the sun
who take this infant in their arms. Too many to form

a circle around the child, they make an ellipse. In the name
of Jesus Christ, says my brother, and gives his baby
his great grandmother's name, Julia Brooke Howe.

She sleeps through her blessing, a white bow honeyed
to the crown of her head, the clouds of her dress floating
over the arms of the men who hold her. The congregation

though happy for the parents, swirl in their personal orbits.
A boy lifts his throbbing hand in its cast. A neighbor reads
a novel hidden in his Bible. A grandmother can't remember

where she is or why she's come. Two teens thumb wrestle,
eyes closed. They are all of the earth, earthy. Julia, awake now,
is given from the arms of her father to the arms of her mother,

her eyes ocean-blue, just as she dirties her diaper.
She, too, belongs to this soiled Earth
that is sometimes washed, renewed, sweet-scented.

National Poetry Month: Day 21

I spent most of the day at the annual AML meeting and had a great time listening to people talk about literature. During the afternoon I spent several hours at a poetry reading from poets featured in the anthology Fire in the Pasture. I loved meeting the poets and I love listening to people read poetry. It was delightful. I enjoyed all the poetry today, but thought I'd share this one with you:


Kinetic Sculpture
by Elaine M. Craig


Perhaps my first experience
with kinetic sculpture
as at a recital
(violin and piano)
when marcato or accented notes
broke, from the violinist's bow,
several strands of horsehair
in the middle or near the frog
and the passage went on so furiously
that she must ignore them and let them dance wildly,
caught bright in the light,
whipping a sinuous halo
around instrument and player,
jouncing and squiggling--
not quite in time with the music, just behind--
until there was enough of a moment
in the music to stop,
hold the instrument with chin only,
feel to the end and then the tip of the bow
to snap the loose hairs off and let them fall,
before beginning again to play.

National Poetry Month: Day 20

I'd never read this poem or heard of Jack Gilbert before a friend posted this the other day. I think it is a wonderful poem and so full of things to ponder.

A Brief for the Defense
by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled posting

...for an important announcement. It's been fun posting poetry and I have more posts planned for the rest of the month. However, I haven't been writing about my life at all. I'm not sure if anyone cares too much at this point and I'm certainly not as eloquent as most poets out there. But I finally had some happy news on Tuesday and I wanted to share.

About six weeks ago I saw a job listing for a full-time library job at the university where I currently teach as an adjunct. I went ahead and applied, but then didn't hear back within a few weeks like I have for other jobs. I was a little perplexed that I didn't even get an interview; thankfully they were just slower than I had expected in interviewing. I interviewed last Friday morning and I actually did not think I had done that well. It was a longer interview than I had expected and I felt like I didn't answer things as well as I could have. However, I still kept having a feeling like this was the right job for me and that I would get an offer. Then they called me back on Tuesday afternoon and offered me the job; I immediately said yes. I wasn't able to stop grinning for the rest of the day. This is the first full-time, benefited job I've ever had in my life. It is a great way to start a career in libraries and I hope it will be a lot of fun.

Of course now that I've had a few days to think about it I've started to worry just a little. I don't have many details about my schedule or salary yet. Working more hours means I'm going to have to find more childcare, particularly during the summer. While on the one hand I feel glad to have a good, concrete plan for the future, many of the details are still hazy. I'm also experiencing the worry about being everything that they expected. When you apply for a job, you really have to sell yourself and I hope I can live up to the first impression that they got from me. And I am sad to leave my part-time job right now. I love working there and I've been there long enough to feel comfortable in what I do. I will not, however, miss teaching very much. I am happy to have a job that I can leave behind at the end of every day and that actually pays me for all my time. Since this post contains no poetry, I will end with a bit of doggerel that I repeat to myself at the end of every semester:

No more papers,
No more books,
No more [students'] dirty looks!

National Poetry Month: Day 18

Piano
by D.H. Lawrence

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

National Poetry Month: Day 17

On His Blindness
by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."      

National Poetry Month: Day 16

The Author to Her Book
by Anne Bradstreet

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

National Poetry Month: Day 15

I've heard the line from this poem about picking blackberries numerous times, but I had never sought it out in context until I was writing a talk about parables a few weeks ago. This section is from a much larger poem called "Aurora Leigh" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And, — glancing on my own thin, veined wrist, —
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.  

National Poetry Month: Day 14

One of the best poems about lost love that has ever been written.

Rima LIII
by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer


Volverán las oscuras golondrinas
en tu balcón sus nidos a colgar,
y otra vez con el ala a sus cristales
jugando llamarán.

Pero aquellas que el vuelo refrenaban
tu hermosura y mi dicha a contemplar,
aquellas que aprendieron nuestros nombres...
¡esas... no volverán!.

Volverán las tupidas madreselvas
de tu jardín las tapias a escalar,
y otra vez a la tarde aún más hermosas
sus flores se abrirán.

Pero aquellas, cuajadas de rocío
cuyas gotas mirábamos temblar
y caer como lágrimas del día...
¡esas... no volverán!

Volverán del amor en tus oídos
las palabras ardientes a sonar;
tu corazón de su profundo sueño
tal vez despertará.

Pero mudo y absorto y de rodillas
como se adora a Dios ante su altar,
como yo te he querido...; desengáñate,
¡así... no te querrán!

(English version here)

National Poetry Month: Day 13

I totally forgot to post a poem yesterday. Oops! I first read this one on Jana's blog.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

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 beloved 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!) a disaster.

Reading Roundup: March 2012

I read a lot of books this month; some of them were quick reads and a number of them were Whitney finalists. I'm just about finished reading the categories that I chose--I plan to read everything except the speculative categories. 

Geek Girl by Cindy C. Bennett

I first checked out this book simply because I liked the cover. It's quite different from what you usually see on Cedar Fort books. The plot itself was fairly stereotypical (opposites attract and find they actually like each other), but the writing was fun and I had a good time reading it. Sometimes I wanted a bit more introspection from the characters, but since they are high school students that was probably a bit too much to ask for.

Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock by David Margolick

This book gave me a greater, more complex understanding of recent American history. Margolick doesn’t shy away from describing the difficult and ugly parts of our past, and he doesn’t try to force the story into a moral or a happy ending. At the same time, this was a very good book and I felt like I understood and empathized with both of these women much more than I would have before reading it.

With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo

I didn't expect to like this book so much because I got tired of Quirky Southern Books a while ago. But the story is really well-done and I think it is one of the better middle-grade novels out there. I liked that the protagonist had a good relationship with her family, that the plot involved a boy and a girl who become friends without romantic innuendo, and that someone managed to write a historical novel set in the South that actually wasn't about civil rights (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's been done a lot and I think it's good for kids to read about Southern states in other contexts besides just that of race relations).

Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

The Whitney nominees for Youth Fiction this year are all really good; I can tell it's going to be hard to choose when it comes time to vote. This was another book that manages to cover familiar tropes of YA literature in new and refreshing ways. There were some things I didn't like about it, particularly the protagonist's best friend, but it had many strengths. I especially liked the way the romance developed as a more natural outgrowth of friendship--I wish I could have had something like that as a teenager.

Miles from Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams

Williams is a very skilled writer and I always enjoy her books. That being said, I felt like this book wasn't much different from any of her other books that I have read. I also thought the plot felt fairly insubstantial, like this could have been told in a short story rather than a novel.

Miles to Go by Richard Paul Evans

I have never read anything by Richard Paul Evans before and I expected to dislike this book. The good news is that I didn't dislike it; the bad news is that I didn't really like it either. It was really boring; I felt like there was a lot of "telling" rather than "showing" and that nothing much happened. I understand that it is the middle book in a series and that it is supposed to be a person's diary, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't have a plot.

If I Should Die by Jennie Hansen

I thought the mystery element of this book was well-done and I was kept guessing until the end. This book was more romantic suspense than straight mystery and I wasn’t expecting so much focus on the love story, but it is a good, quick read

Bloodborne by Gregg Luke

The first chapter of this book was great, but when I started the second chapter I actually burst out laughing due to a bizarre plot twist that was completely unexpected and poorly executed. This book was somewhat painful to read, but mercifully quick to get through. 

Enduring Light by Carla Kelly

After reading and loving Borrowed Light last month I was happy to go right into the sequel. Like sequels sometimes do, this did disappoint a bit simply because the major narrative arc of their story (falling in love)was already completed. It was still fun to read some more about the characters and to spend a little more time with them (even if they were newlyweds and spent half the book making veiled remarks about sex).

Smokescreen by Traci Hunter Abramson

I had a bit of a hard time getting into this book at first because I don't usually read suspenseful thrillers and because this is one in a series. Thankfully it was still able to stand on its own quite well and I generally enjoyed it reading it.

A Thousand Lives: the Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres

I had this book checked out for a few weeks before I decided to read it. I just wasn't sure if I was up for reading about a bunch of people who were going to die in a horrific way (yes, I know I read a lot of gritty stuff, but still). I'm glad I read this book; it was difficult to read but also very enlightening. It does not focus much on Jim Jones, but rather on the people who followed him and why they did. It gave me a lot to think about.

The Wedding Letters by Jason Wright

This is another book I didn't particularly hate, but that I didn't particularly love either. It mostly left me feeling 'meh', even though I could tell that it was trying hard to make me feel something. I couldn't connect with any of the characters--they felt like stereotypes rather than real people and I just didn't understand some of their motivations at all. This was also another book that suffered from being a sequel in which characters constantly reference things that happened in a previous book, but they are never well-explained to new readers.

You Against Me by Jenny Downham

This book's plot is not really anything new, but I thought the writing was particularly well-done and I enjoyed reading it. I didn't like the ending, however, and felt that it was underdeveloped.

Pride and Popularity by Jenni James

This book wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, which I know is faint praise. I was impressed by the author's ability to retell Pride and Prejudice in a modern setting without the plot or characters feeling too forced. However, the language all sounded like a bad imitation of the movie Clueless and I don't think that teenagers currently talk like that. 

Movies

The Ides of March

After seeing this movie, I mostly had a strong desire to see it as a play. I think it's an intriguing story and I felt like all the actors did a great job, but I would love to see how the original version went. 

A Better Life

The plot of this movie is basically The Bicycle Thief all over again, but the acting is great and I really liked the director's choices. It's interesting to watch a movie set in Los Angeles where most of the dialogue is in Spanish and the only white people you see are police officers. 

The Descendants

This was another movie that made me want to seek out the original; I felt like there was quite a bit of backstory that I was missing out on somehow. That said, I liked the fact that it was a movie set in Hawaii that felt real (well, as real as a movie about rich haoles can be).

National Poetry Month: Day 11

Last year when we went to California for the weekend to see a play, it was actually a double feature with another student work that dramatized poetry by Robert Hass. I'll confess that I'd never heard of Hass before (I don't pay much attention to modern poetry), and I was more interested in the play we came to see, but I kind of liked the other work as well. As I think I've mentioned before, I don't often spontaneously read poetry on my own, but I really love hearing it read out loud; that is when I enjoy it most This particular poem particularly touched me in its performance. I also find myself still mulling over the title; it's one of my favorite poem titles.

The World as Will and Representation
by Robert Hass

When I was a child my father every morning—
Some mornings, for a time, when I was ten or so,
My father gave my mother a drug called antabuse.
It makes you sick if you drink alcohol.
They were little yellow pills. He ground them
In a glass, dissolved them in water, handed her
The glass and watched her closely while she drank.
It was the late nineteen-forties, a time,
A social world, in which the men got up
And went to work, leaving the women with the children.
His wink at me was a nineteen-forties wink.
He watched her closely so she couldn’t “pull
A fast one” or “put anything over” on a pair
As shrewd as the two of us. I hear those phrases
In old movies and my mind begins to drift.
The reason he ground the medications fine
Was that the pills could be hidden under the tongue
And spit out later. The reason that this ritual
Occurred so early in the morning—I was told,
And knew it to be true—was that she could,
If she wanted, induce herself to vomit,
So she had to be watched until her system had
Absorbed the drug. Hard to render, in these lines,
The rhythm of the act. He ground two of them
To powder in a glass, filled it with water,
Handed it to her, and watched her drink.
In my memory, he’s wearing a suit, gray,
Herringbone, a white shirt she had ironed.
Some mornings, as in the comics we read
When Dagwood went off early to placate
Mr. Dithers, leaving Blondie with crusts
Of toast and yellow rivulets of egg yolk
To be cleared before she went shopping—
On what the comic called a shopping spree—
With Trixie, the next-door neighbor, my father
Would catch an early bus and leave the task
Of vigilance to me. “Keep and eye on Mama, pardner.”
You know the passage of the Aeneid? The man
Who leaves the burning city with his father
On his shoulders, holding his young son’s hand,
Means to do well among the flaming arras
And the falling columns while the blind prophet,
Arms upraised, howls from the inner chamber,
“Great Troy is fallen. Great Troy is no more.”
Slumped in a bathrobe, penitent and biddable,
My mother at the kitchen table gagged and drank,
Drank and gagged. We get our first moral idea
About the world—about justice and power,
Gender and the order of things—from somewhere.

(Read a discussion of the poem here).

National Poetry Month: Day 10

I don't know at what age I first read this poem, but I was fairly young and this was my first real experience with symbolic language. I remember reading an explanation that talked about how the "resonance of emerald" and "rush of cochineal" described a hummingbird, and suddenly in my mind I could see it. It was magical.

A Route of Evanescence
by Emily Dickinson

A Route of Evanescence,
With a revolving Wheel --
A Resonance of Emerald
A Rush of Cochineal--
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head--
The Mail from Tunis--probably,
An easy Morning's Ride--

Source

National Poetry Month: Day 9

Time for something a little lighter.

Angels of Mercy
by Darlene Young
The Seventh Ward Relief Society
presidency argued long and soft
whether Janie Goodmansen deserved
to have the sisters bring her family meals.
It seems that precedent was vague—
no one was sure if “boob job” qualified
as a legitimate call for aid.
Janie herself had never asked for help—
a fault they found it harder to forgive
even than the vanity behind
the worldliness of D-cup ambition.
But in the end charity did not fail.
The sisters marched on in grim duty
each evening clutching covered casseroles
(for, after all, it wasn’t the children’s fault).
More than once, though, by some oversight
the dessert came out a little short, as if
by some consensus they all knew
that Janie’s husband, Jim, could do
without a piece of pie that night.

First published in Segullah

National Poetry Month: Day 8

Christ and Mary at the Tomb by Joseph Brickey

Resurrection

by John Donne

Moist with one drop of Thy blood, my dry soul
Shall—though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly—be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard or foul,
And life by this death abled shall control
Death, whom Thy death slew ; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death bring misery,
If in thy life-book my name thou enroll.
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which it was ;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin's sleep and death soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last and everlasting day.

National Poetry Month: Day 7

Pieta by Michelangelo

My first major at BYU was Art History, and for that I had to take classes in either French, German, or Italian. I decided to take Italian and got through four semesters of it. We read this poem in my fourth semester class, and even years later I can still hear the way my instructor read it and her reverence for the words. The English translation does not quite caputure the feeling of the last line in Italian, because the phrase "a prender noi 'n croce le braccia", which can mean 'spreading his arms on the cross' or 'carrying us in his arms'. I thought this was a beautiful poem for today.

Rime 285 por Michelangelo Buonarroti

Giunto è già ’l corso della vita mia,
con tempestoso mar, per fragil barca,
al comun porto, ov’a render si varca
conto e ragion d’ogni opra trista e pia.
 
Onde l’affettüosa fantasia
che l’arte mi fece idol e monarca
conosco or ben com’era d’error carca
e quel c’a mal suo grado ogn’uom desia.


Gli amorosi pensier, già vani e lieti,
che fien or, s’a duo morte m’avvicino?
D’una so ’l certo, e l’altra mi minaccia.


Né pinger né scolpir fie più che quieti
l’anima, volta a quell’amor divino
c’aperse, a prender noi, ’n croce le braccia.


Translation:

Now hath my life across a stormy sea

Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all

Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall

Of good and evil for eternity.

Now know I well how that fond phantasy

Which made my soul the worshiper and thrall

Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal

Is that which all men seek unwillingly.

Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed,

What are they when the double death is nigh?

The one I know for sure, the other dread.

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest

My soul that turns to His great love on high,

Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.

National Poetry Month: Day 6

An anonymous sonnet from Spain for Good Friday:


A Cristo crucificado
No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido;
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

Tú me mueves, señor; muéveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido;
muéveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido;
muévenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.

Muéveme, en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No me tienes que dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque cuanto espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.

(You can read several different translations here)

National Poetry Month: Day 5

Way back when I was an undergraduate, before my mission, I took a class on Shakespeare. I had read some Shakespeare before, but this class particularly focused on rhetoric and on Shakespeare's writing. We spent quite a bit of time on the sonnets, and my professor even had us write a sonnet (mine wasn't very good), and I fell in love with sonnets. After that first time, I took several other classes on Early Modern literature, both in England and the rest of Europe. I still love sonnets; I love the way that a tight form governs word choice and I love their particular rhythm. A sonnet is beauty wrapped up in a neat little package.

This is a sonnet that I encountered several times in my studies. It was written by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who is generally considered to be the person who introduced the sonnet form to England through his translations of Petrach. He was a member of the Tudor court and was one imprisioned on suspicion of having an affair with Anne Boleyn. Many people think this poem refers to Anne Boleyn as the forbidden deer (or hind) that he wanted to hunt and yet could never catch. There was a legend that Cesaer's royal deer wore diamond collars inscribed in Latin "touch me not for I am Cesaer's". I don't know why I love this particular sonnet so much; it's just fun to read out loud.

Whoso list to hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

 

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

National Poetry Month: Day 4

Today's poem comes from someone I know, Sharlee Mullins Glenn. We've become friends through Segullah, which is also where I discovered this poem. I love the use of symbolic language in this poem and the way she explores choice in our lives.

 Blood and Milk

I dreamed of Oxford . . .

     (spires, a thousand spires, endless lectures, musty halls

     a solitary self in a Bodleian expanse

    A good life, my dear Wormwood. An orderly life.)

 

then awakened to laundry

     and things to be wiped

     (countertops, noses, bottoms)

 

How did this happen? And when, exactly?

Time flows, it flows, it flows
and there are choices to be made:

    left or right?

    paper or plastic?

    blood or milk?

 

There’s freedom in the bleeding;
bondage in the milk—do not be deceived.

Ah, but it’s an empty freedom; a holy bondage,
A sweet and holy bondage.

Five times I chose the chains, those tender chains,
(though once will bind you just as well!)
and checked the crimson flow.
Suckled while dreaming of Trinity Term
but awakened, always awakened, to the laundry
and to that small and cherished captor at my breast.

(I'm not sure I got the spacing right. See the original here)

National Poetry Month: Day 3

There are two books of poems that I remember well from my childhood. One was an edition of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson that had illustrations made of string and burlap (very 1970s). I couldn't remember the name of the other book, but I could vividly remember most of the poems and stories from it. There was one about animal crackers, The Owl and the Pussycat, the Nonsense Alphabet from Edward Lear (A was once an apple pie...), and Wynken, Blinken, and Nod. Thankfully a bit of investigation on Google revealed the name of the book: The Bumper Book. I was so excited to find out what the name was! My kids don't seem to be as attached to particular books in the same way that I was, but if they were to fall in love with a book I wish it could be this one. A favorite poem from this was The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, which now that I read it is a little violent and disturbing. I think I just liked the sound of the words "gingham" and "calico".

THE GINGHAM dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t' other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
(I was n't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)
The gingham dog went "bow-wow-wow!"
And the calico cat replied "mee-ow!"
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
(Never mind: I 'm only telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)
The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
Employing every tooth and claw
In the awfullest way you ever saw—
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
(Don't fancy I exaggerate—
I got my news from the Chinese plate!)
Next morning where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.) --"The Duel" by Eugene Field

National Poetry Month: Day 2

Yes, I know that there wasn't any Day 1. However, I have challenged myself to try posting a poem every day for this month and talk about it. I will admit that I rarely pick up poetry spontaneously, and though I like to complain that no one checks out the poetry books at the library, I don't either. Many of my friends are poets and I always feel a little guilty that I'm not so great and appreciating poetry in the way that I should. Nevertheless, when I started thinking about poetry the other day I could easily recall a number of poems that have touched my life in various ways. I will be posting them throughout the month and possibly commenting on them. Some are very well-known, some or not. Some are written by my friends, and I hope that if I omit some of my friend-poets they will forgive me. This is a personal challenge, but it's a loosely structured one.

Today I will start with a poem by Billy Collins that is a lot of fun. It's fairly well-known and you've probably read it before. I think the way it plays with symbolism is a perfect introduction to a month of poetry:

Litany
by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.