Poems that you love

[Todd]

Might as well post it.

Onset

Watching that frenzy of insects above the bush of white flowers,   
bush I see everywhere on hill after hill, all I can think of   
is how terrifying spring is, in its tireless, mindless replications.   
Everywhere emergence: seed case, chrysalis, uterus, endless manufacturing.
And the wrapped stacks of Styrofoam cups in the grocery, lately
I can’t stand them, the shelves of canned beans and soups, freezers   
of identical dinners; then the snowflake-diamond-snowflake of the rug
beneath my chair, rows of books turning their backs,
even my two feet, how they mirror each other oppresses me,
the way they fit so perfectly together, how I can nestle one big toe into the other
like little continents that have drifted; my God the unity of everything,
my hands and eyes, yours; doesn’t that frighten you sometimes, remembering
the pleasure of nakedness in fresh sheets, all the lovers there before you,
beside you, crowding you out? And the scouring griefs,
don’t look at them all or they’ll kill you, you can barely encompass your own;
I’m saying I know all about you, whoever you are, it’s spring   
and it’s starting again, the longing that begins, and begins, and begins.

BY Kim Addonizio

[Todd]

Here's another of her poems I like (because I'm perverse).

Chicken


Why did she cross the road?
She should have stayed in her little cage,
shat upon by her sisters above her,
shitting on her sisters below her.

God knows how she got out.
God sees everything. God has his eye
on the chicken, making her break
like the convict headed for the river

who’s sloshing through the water
to throw off the dogs, raising
his arms to starlight to praise
whatever isn’t locked in a cell.

He’s headed for a farmhouse
where kind people will feed him.
They’ll bring green beans and bread,
home-brewed hops.  They’ll bring

the chicken the farmer found
by the side of the road, dazed 
from being clipped by a pickup,
whose delicate brain stem

he snapped with a twist,
whose asshole his wife stuffed
with rosemary and a lemon wedge.
Everything has its fate,

but only God knows what that is.
The spirit of the chicken will enter the convict.
Sometimes, in his boxy apartment,
listening to his neighbors above him,

annoying his neighbors below him,
he’ll feel a terrible hunger
and an overwhelming urge to jab
his head at the television over and over.

by Kim Addonizio

[danny_]

I've already just gone and bought a book she collaborated writing:
The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry

Always great to pick a book up used for a few bucks.

[Todd]

I've read that book. I like Dorianne Laux too. They did a nice job on it.

[danny_]

While I'm here, could you recommend any other writers or good books on poetry? I like that fluent, clear voice she has, and would welcome others like that. PM if that's more appropriate.

[Todd]

While I'm here, could you recommend any other writers or good books on poetry? I like that fluent, clear voice she has, and would welcome others like that. PM if that's more appropriate.

We have some liberty in a discussion forum. 

Recommendations can be a bit tricky and purely subjective but here are a few you may like:

Stephen Dobyns "Velocities": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014058...UTF8&psc=1

Nick Flynn "Some Ether": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155597...UTF8&psc=1

Marie Howe "What the Living Do": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039331...UTF8&psc=1

Mark Strand "Reasons for Moving": https://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Moving-Ma...for+moving

Strand wrote this in '68 (may have been reissued in '80). It isn't as easy to find. He rewrote prose using this title as part of the name so you want the older work.

I'm leaving a lot out.

[danny_]

Thanks! I'll be checking those out. Interesting that Strand hard cover is $250. Must be rare like you say. (Makes one even more curious to read.)

[cloud]

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

- Mark Strand

Wow, that's a real insight into sadness

[danny_]

At first I thought I wouldn't like that poem, until the end. The meaning is quite touching. You say sadness, but also such low self esteem, getting out of the way of everything because it's more important, valuable. Wow, I'm rather impressed with how simply the poem expresses that.

[cloud]

At first I thought I wouldn't like that poem, until the end. The meaning is quite touching. You say sadness, but also such low self esteem, getting out of the way of everything because it's more important, valuable. Wow, I'm rather impressed with how simply the poem expresses that.

I know right? That ending is all like: boom

I also see it as acknowledging the perfection of things without the intervention of oneself.

[RiverNotch]

taking a class on lit and society -- will post the poems we study here as much as i can. a few i've already read and love, particulary the basho, louise gluck, and conchitina cruz, and the posts may be a little redundant, but whatever.

---

At first I thought I wouldn't like that poem, until the end. The meaning is quite touching. You say sadness, but also such low self esteem, getting out of the way of everything because it's more important, valuable. Wow, I'm rather impressed with how simply the poem expresses that.

I know right? That ending is all like: boom

I also see it as acknowledging the perfection of things without the intervention of oneself.

more the second reading for me. kinda like schopenhauerian ethics, or at least how i understand schopenhauer's ethics --- to be less convoluted, perhaps the zen ideal of active inaction. there's too little wistfulness with regards to what the speaker leaves behind that makes his nothingness particularly melancholic.

---

also glorious dance of the stars and all that.

[Richard]

This poem is one of my favorites of all time, and just gets better each time I read it.

The Woman In This Poem

The woman in this poem
lives in the suburbs
with her husband and two children
each day she waits for the mail and
once a week receives
a letter from her lover
who lives in another city
writes of roses warm patches
of sunlight on his bed
Come to me he pleads
I need you and the woman
reaches for the phone
to dial the airport
she will leave this afternoon
her suitcase packed
with a few light clothes

But as she is dialing
the woman in this poem
remembers the pot-roast
and that fact that it is Thursday
she thinks of how her husband's face
will look when he reads her note
his body curling sadly toward
the empty side of the bed

She stops dialing and begins
to chop onions for the pot roast
but behind her back the phone
shapes itself insistently
the number for airline reservations
chants in her head
in an hour her children will be
home from school and after that
her husband will arrive
to kiss the back of her neck
while she thickens the gravy
and she knows that
all through dinner
her mouth will laugh and chatter
while she walks with her lover
on a beach somewhere

She puts the onions in the pot
and turns toward the phone
but even as she reaches
she is thinking of
her daughter's piano lessons
her son's dental appointment

Her arms fall to her side
and as she stands there
in the middle of her spotless kitchen
we can see her growing
old like this
and wish for something   anything
to happen   we could have her go
mad perhaps and lock herself
in the closet crouch there
for days her dresses withering
around her like cast-off skins
or maybe she could take
to cruising the streets at night
in her husband's car
picking up teenage boys
and fucking them in the back seat
we can even imagine
finding her body
dumped in a ditch somewhere
on the edge of town

The woman in this poem offends us
with her useless phone and the persistent
smell of onions we regard her as we do
the poorly calculated overdose
who lies in bed somewhere
not knowing how her life drips
though her drop by measured drop
we want to think of death
as something sudden
stroke or the leap
that carries us over the railing
of the bridge in one determined arc
the pistol aimed precisely
at the right part of the brain
we want to hate this woman

but mostly we hate knowing
that for us too it is
moments like this
our thoughts stiff fingers
tear at again and again
when we stop in the middle
of an ordinary day and
like the woman in this poem
begin to feel
our own deaths
rising slow within us

by Bronwen Wallace

[Todd]

That was a great read. Thanks, Richard

[RiverNotch]

The Emperor's New Sonnet

by Jose Garcia Villa

---

[Todd]

The Emperor's New Sonnet

by Jose Garcia Villa

---

I'm sorry I have to do this. The first few reads were wonderful but then it got a bit stale. I clear it up in my Emperor's New Critique (below):




















Best,

Todd

[danny_]

Or is it just me seeing absolutely nothing?

[RiverNotch]

The Emperor's New Sonnet

by Jose Garcia Villa

---

I'm sorry I have to do this. The first few reads were wonderful but then it got a bit stale. I clear it up in my Emperor's New Critique (below):




















Best,

Todd

xD

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Garcia_Villa

he's what a lot would consider to be the preeminent modern filipino poet in english. i love how he was also a master troll.

[danny_]

That comma stuff looks ridiculous. Nobody enjoys a stutter in real life, why more in a poem? I don't too much mind the limit-stretching syntax of Cummings but I can't find much in liking commas after every word. I feel like I'm in paranoid grandma's car going 2-7 MPH, stop, go, stop, go... going places. Yea. Not really. Well it gave me a brilliant idea tho:

I'm! going! to! put!
a! serious! flare!
in! my! poems!

He says such poetry compares to Pointillism in that 'points of color are themselves the medium as well as the technique of statement.' - Problem is points of color are color, not black commas, or even individual words which rarely carry much meaning without the context of other words. The points of color form a whole picture together in a single glance, no need to look at each dot one at a time - poems with hundreds of commas slow down such a glance at the big picture. It's like trying to drive a mile down a pothole-plastered road.

[CRNDLSM]

The Emperor's New Sonnet

by Jose Garcia Villa

---

Legit

[RiverNotch]

Lola Coqueta
by Isabela Banzon -- her book is great, but I haven't bought a copy yet. The bookstore selling the thing's just too far a walk

No hay sabado sin sol
como no hay vieja sin amor.

Long ago, Cecilia,
the halls of Balanga
swelled like the moon outside
your window. Ay, sus,
the frog in the dry grass
of my throat kept pleading
to be freed and it was
hard not to turn away, just,
and ignore the hot
Saturday dust from your
Lolo's mahogany cane tapping to the croak
of my sweet kundiman.
Ay the things you must do
to ensure a wedding --
un poco pintura
y polvo, champaka
on the shy skin. It was
on such a night as this
under the gas-fed light
Don Manuel led me
to the courtyard of his
loneliness.
                A stage
presentation, hija,
the impresario said.

Pero, ahora, for
what are those tears? If
Ramoncito could see
the distress in your eyes,
he would no longer wait
to wake the maya
in your song. You must show him
your life is in his hands
and you must be grateful
to be at his service --
for what is a woman,
haber, but nada without
the grip of a man on
her life -- por favor,
use your cocote
and do not waste on that
poor boy Fidel your
undying love.



Witchgrass
by Louise Gluck -- I told the prof I really, really loved Gluck, so here we go

Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder --
if you hate me so much
don't bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything --
as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
One enemy --
I'm not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day
and you can't rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion --
It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.
I don't need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I'll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.




And then it was less bleak because we said so
by Wendy Xu -- I don't enjoy this as much. Perhaps because it's new to me, probably because the others are so mature, so seductive

Today there has been so much talk of things exploding
into other things, so much that we all become curious, that we
all run outside into the hot streets
and hug. Romance is a grotto of eager stones
anticipating light, or a girl whose teeth
you can always see. With more sparkle and pop
is the only way to live. Your confetti tongue explodes
into acid jazz. Small typewriters
that other people keep in their eyes
click away at all our farewell parties. It is hard
to pack for the rest of your life. Someone is always
eating cold cucumber noodles. Someone will drop by later
to help dismantle some furniture. A lot can go wrong
if you sleep or think, but the trees go on waving
their broken little hands.




Hope is that thing with feathers (254)
by Emily Dickinson -- of course

"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops -- at all --

And sweetest -- in the Gale -- is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm --

I've heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet -- never -- in Extremity,
It asked a crumb -- of me.