I like this: "One of the things that my college looks for is student voice. If there is less than 50 to 60 percent of student voice present, the paper will fail. We also use a rubric and one of our areas is citations. If there no citations, the student will not earn points for it.
Turnitin -- as a check.
One of the dangers of writing in a blog is the fun of reading other people's "stuff",
but such a fine line between "putting the puzzle pieces together" and using one's own voice.
Full moon out tonight playing hide and seek with clouds skittering in the wind.
Someone must have said that. "My voice" would be this way.
This is not a poem
If I were the moon,
I wouldn't judge the wind's spring-waltzing
or need some star to give its sole opinion
soon enough there won't be any "if"
or "I".
If I were to croon to the moon,
I would praise the constancy -- sun salting
light into crescents, halves, cream-soup bowl
full-mooning -- so many tastings
of just one moon.
The moon is not crazy
because it doesn't look just one way.
Imagine saying "I won't look at you, because
you cannot be trusted".
Oh moon, I know you're all there,
even when I can't see you.
How beautiful you are
no matter how you are prepared.
which is only one way of
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
poetry and spirituality 3/17: Hirshfield, Dunn, Addonizio, Supervieille and a Ghazal
What is it that we want a poem to tell us?
How do we receive the message, "I'm OK" -- whether by hearing another's story which validates in some way your own, or being called to reflect on what one "knows" and identifying with another's struggle...
It Was Like This: You Were Happy—Jane Hirshfield
Allegory of the Cave – Stephen Dunn
The Way of the World – Kim Addonizio
Hommage to Life, Jules Supervieille
In the Hirshfield poem, the holding of opposites: hard/soft
dark/light, happy/sad and dispassionate juxtaposition of judgements
creates both ambiguity and mystery… The key of the poem lies in the middle
"Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life." which is followed by the transformation of bread, and the fact that one's life is up to you to live -- and like bread, is put together, rises, is baked, eaten, digested, nourishing then discarded, only to have new wheat grown, and start the process again.
The Allegory of the Cave : updated version of Plato’s story with a bit of Dante thrown in.(Dark juxtaposition… of death of a father with a joke, disturbing news felt as fine music... what do we understand ????)
Realm of ideas: source of light. But open to interpretation even the end line "not a chance in heaven"... But do “real religions pray”? Doubt is part of being human -- and religion can be just as devoid of assurance as lack of it.
Both of Addonizio's poems are sarcastic, witty, and dark. Her negative view, which takes cliches, turns them inside out, is true, but there is no redemption in sight.
He who has the Gold Rules.
Do away with others as they would do away with you.
The soothing delight of Supervieille, holds appreciation, acceptance, patience -- even of the least beautiful... "And to have come upon the soul
With tiny strokes of the oars" does not mean we have avoided the black blood in our veins.
The final poem addresses the soul bag in musical terms, each couplet a pearl -- from the outer-space meteor feel, like a rushed life to the wanting to know -- suspended in emptiness.
How do we receive the message, "I'm OK" -- whether by hearing another's story which validates in some way your own, or being called to reflect on what one "knows" and identifying with another's struggle...
It Was Like This: You Were Happy—Jane Hirshfield
Allegory of the Cave – Stephen Dunn
The Way of the World – Kim Addonizio
Hommage to Life, Jules Supervieille
In the Hirshfield poem, the holding of opposites: hard/soft
dark/light, happy/sad and dispassionate juxtaposition of judgements
creates both ambiguity and mystery… The key of the poem lies in the middle
"Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life." which is followed by the transformation of bread, and the fact that one's life is up to you to live -- and like bread, is put together, rises, is baked, eaten, digested, nourishing then discarded, only to have new wheat grown, and start the process again.
The Allegory of the Cave : updated version of Plato’s story with a bit of Dante thrown in.(Dark juxtaposition… of death of a father with a joke, disturbing news felt as fine music... what do we understand ????)
Realm of ideas: source of light. But open to interpretation even the end line "not a chance in heaven"... But do “real religions pray”? Doubt is part of being human -- and religion can be just as devoid of assurance as lack of it.
Both of Addonizio's poems are sarcastic, witty, and dark. Her negative view, which takes cliches, turns them inside out, is true, but there is no redemption in sight.
He who has the Gold Rules.
Do away with others as they would do away with you.
The soothing delight of Supervieille, holds appreciation, acceptance, patience -- even of the least beautiful... "And to have come upon the soul
With tiny strokes of the oars" does not mean we have avoided the black blood in our veins.
The final poem addresses the soul bag in musical terms, each couplet a pearl -- from the outer-space meteor feel, like a rushed life to the wanting to know -- suspended in emptiness.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
O Pen -- March 14 -- poems: Cavafy, Frost, Stevens and other favorite poems
I opened with my favorite Haiku by Masahide, in honor of our Japanese friends.
Since my house burned down,
I know own a better view
of the rising moon.
Poems:
A life: Nemorov
Ides of March: Cavafy
Spring Pools: Robert Frost
Nomad Exquisite: Wallace Stevens
Haiku by Shikibu
Old favorites read: Those Winter Sundays: Hayden; The Gift: Li-Young Lee; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose: Dickinson + "Why Some People be Mad at me." Lucille Clifton
**
A Life – Howard Nemerov : 7 lines. The first 3 play on syllables of innocence. then a stanza break and the italics emphasizing the disbelief, "was that it". The humor.
7th line. That was it.
Ides of March – by C.P. Cavafy: fleeting role of power... how to avoid betrayal, role of the lesser role...
beloved poem, recommended by Alan Shapiro: Spring Pools by Robert Frost
A different view of "power", in this case, the power of trees, and the interconnectedness of life -- flowery/water: waters/flowers --
Recommended by Heather McHugh-- Nomad Exquisite by Wallace Stevens
The lush music, the tension in the title, the sense of danger -- even though the alligator is young... and meet as in "suitable" sounds also like "meat"...
I love the repetition of the first line in the second stanza, the trinity of “green”,
How the palm tree seems to swim like a fish, and how “angering for life” seems like the vine has the strength to escape any danger. Here is a small alligator (and one wonders if indeed it sees all this) and a transcendently flamed nomad – with all those light “f’s” . Hmmmm. Is he pulling our leg? The “snow bird” is not necessarily exquisite! I love the heavy, almost muscular G’s in green, angering (which gold doesn’t have…)
The repetition of “brings forth” with “big-finned” rhyming with hymn… helps along the organic lushness of this ONE sentence to progress to transcendence along with the sibilance of sides, colors, forms, flakes, flames.
If you didn't know that the following haiku was written almost a thousand years ago, by Izumi Shikibu, what associations would you have?
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight
also leaks between the roofplanks
of this ruined house.
**
Since my house burned down,
I know own a better view
of the rising moon.
Poems:
A life: Nemorov
Ides of March: Cavafy
Spring Pools: Robert Frost
Nomad Exquisite: Wallace Stevens
Haiku by Shikibu
Old favorites read: Those Winter Sundays: Hayden; The Gift: Li-Young Lee; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose: Dickinson + "Why Some People be Mad at me." Lucille Clifton
**
A Life – Howard Nemerov : 7 lines. The first 3 play on syllables of innocence. then a stanza break and the italics emphasizing the disbelief, "was that it". The humor.
7th line. That was it.
Ides of March – by C.P. Cavafy: fleeting role of power... how to avoid betrayal, role of the lesser role...
beloved poem, recommended by Alan Shapiro: Spring Pools by Robert Frost
A different view of "power", in this case, the power of trees, and the interconnectedness of life -- flowery/water: waters/flowers --
Recommended by Heather McHugh-- Nomad Exquisite by Wallace Stevens
The lush music, the tension in the title, the sense of danger -- even though the alligator is young... and meet as in "suitable" sounds also like "meat"...
I love the repetition of the first line in the second stanza, the trinity of “green”,
How the palm tree seems to swim like a fish, and how “angering for life” seems like the vine has the strength to escape any danger. Here is a small alligator (and one wonders if indeed it sees all this) and a transcendently flamed nomad – with all those light “f’s” . Hmmmm. Is he pulling our leg? The “snow bird” is not necessarily exquisite! I love the heavy, almost muscular G’s in green, angering (which gold doesn’t have…)
The repetition of “brings forth” with “big-finned” rhyming with hymn… helps along the organic lushness of this ONE sentence to progress to transcendence along with the sibilance of sides, colors, forms, flakes, flames.
If you didn't know that the following haiku was written almost a thousand years ago, by Izumi Shikibu, what associations would you have?
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight
also leaks between the roofplanks
of this ruined house.
**
O pen : March 14 Nowruz -- and poem "Declaration"
Nowruz! Persian New Year: (first day of Spring!) is being celebrated at the Memorial Art Gallery March 19th. In honor of this -- compare a translation of Omar Kayyam interpreted from French and English to the left, and the translation by Shahin Monshipour, on the right.
(loosely translated from Omar Kayyam)
On this splendid day, no more cold A Joyous day
nor any heaviness yet of summer not heavy with heat, not burdened by cold
a cloud is dusting off the faces of flowers cloud dusting off the garden’s tired
face
the nightingale coaxing the yellow roses the n’gale singing, his soul singing to a
“Drink this wine – allow these charms yellow rose,
wine, wine, red wine
Wine we must drink, wine we must drink. red wine, we must drink,
behold!
(Note: Nightingale – love – endures thorns of roses and still can sing praises.
No more cold=winter is over; equinox ; yellow implies faded, tired and the wine is metaphorical spiritual sustenance)
**
Shahin enjoyed this poem I wrote for her, based on Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, "Modern Declaration"
Declaration
(with a nod to Edna St. Vincent Millay)
I, having loved something I didn’t have a name for as a child,
the first robin in March, the last goose call in November,
the view of Venus shimmering in a sunset,
never lose, when surrounded by sidewalks and click of high heels, confused
by lack of sleep, too much food, drink, or misguided heart, even then,
my love, lariat-whipped like chocolate on an éclair,
clarity-sieved until each ion of sense becomes arabesque curling around
discounting, discredit, diminishment, wrung into to first bells of crocus,
the mourning dove, the nightingale, yes,
that love, I,
no matter which country, what season, what party in power,
declare my love for the dignity of being, yes,
I do this declare.
kjospe
(loosely translated from Omar Kayyam)
On this splendid day, no more cold A Joyous day
nor any heaviness yet of summer not heavy with heat, not burdened by cold
a cloud is dusting off the faces of flowers cloud dusting off the garden’s tired
face
the nightingale coaxing the yellow roses the n’gale singing, his soul singing to a
“Drink this wine – allow these charms yellow rose,
wine, wine, red wine
Wine we must drink, wine we must drink. red wine, we must drink,
behold!
(Note: Nightingale – love – endures thorns of roses and still can sing praises.
No more cold=winter is over; equinox ; yellow implies faded, tired and the wine is metaphorical spiritual sustenance)
**
Shahin enjoyed this poem I wrote for her, based on Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, "Modern Declaration"
Declaration
(with a nod to Edna St. Vincent Millay)
I, having loved something I didn’t have a name for as a child,
the first robin in March, the last goose call in November,
the view of Venus shimmering in a sunset,
never lose, when surrounded by sidewalks and click of high heels, confused
by lack of sleep, too much food, drink, or misguided heart, even then,
my love, lariat-whipped like chocolate on an éclair,
clarity-sieved until each ion of sense becomes arabesque curling around
discounting, discredit, diminishment, wrung into to first bells of crocus,
the mourning dove, the nightingale, yes,
that love, I,
no matter which country, what season, what party in power,
declare my love for the dignity of being, yes,
I do this declare.
kjospe
Friday, March 11, 2011
Poetry and Spirituality -- March 3
Knowledge – Louise Bogan
Essay on the Personal -- Stephen Dunn
The Pulses -- Albert Goldbarth
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken -- Rainer Maria Rilke
Knowledge – Stephen Dunn
Bogan's 8 line, two stanza, one sentence poem seems to speak of experience with a gnostic flavor -- as if realizing to be alive is to be a stranger in a world that is flawed. What does it mean to the speaker to lie (still); to learn how trees make a long shadow and light sound. Is that for humans to do? What do we need to learn?
She doesn't offer anything but what she has learned: treasure is brittle; passion does not have lasting warmth, if warm at all. Enigmatic and provocative.
Dunn's Essay is not an essay, but rather a challenging contradiction between objective and personal statements. We describe... until we're ready. For what?
Practise kissing on stones. What is the "fine edge" to bring to the parents.
Finally, if "personal" goes the way of "belief" -- can we trust it?
What is style? And love, is not just about what we love, but finally, beyond that --
understanding that our understanding is only partial -- but accepting that "almost satisfactory sense" of it.
Goldbarth's poem is fun, witty... Putrify your water instead of purify...
Relive not relieve your stress...
"The small things that we need to love, we need to love as if they were epic."
Our days are not "thick" with error, but rather "sick" with error. Pulse, yet, not plus. Is virus, wire uses? or latin for vir with an "us" ?
Rilke returns a sense of childlike innocence that doesn't allow the ego to block.
A prayer to do what has to be done. (Letter to a young poet: *Ich glaube an alles noch nie gesagte – I believe in everything that has not yet been said – ...
And finally, Stephen Dunn: "Knowledge"
God KNOWS...
Gravitas
Presto.
God knows nothing we don't know.
We gave him every word he ever said.
A strange little poem -- filled with conundrum, yet appearing simple.
Essay on the Personal -- Stephen Dunn
The Pulses -- Albert Goldbarth
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken -- Rainer Maria Rilke
Knowledge – Stephen Dunn
Bogan's 8 line, two stanza, one sentence poem seems to speak of experience with a gnostic flavor -- as if realizing to be alive is to be a stranger in a world that is flawed. What does it mean to the speaker to lie (still); to learn how trees make a long shadow and light sound. Is that for humans to do? What do we need to learn?
She doesn't offer anything but what she has learned: treasure is brittle; passion does not have lasting warmth, if warm at all. Enigmatic and provocative.
Dunn's Essay is not an essay, but rather a challenging contradiction between objective and personal statements. We describe... until we're ready. For what?
Practise kissing on stones. What is the "fine edge" to bring to the parents.
Finally, if "personal" goes the way of "belief" -- can we trust it?
What is style? And love, is not just about what we love, but finally, beyond that --
understanding that our understanding is only partial -- but accepting that "almost satisfactory sense" of it.
Goldbarth's poem is fun, witty... Putrify your water instead of purify...
Relive not relieve your stress...
"The small things that we need to love, we need to love as if they were epic."
Our days are not "thick" with error, but rather "sick" with error. Pulse, yet, not plus. Is virus, wire uses? or latin for vir with an "us" ?
Rilke returns a sense of childlike innocence that doesn't allow the ego to block.
A prayer to do what has to be done. (Letter to a young poet: *Ich glaube an alles noch nie gesagte – I believe in everything that has not yet been said – ...
And finally, Stephen Dunn: "Knowledge"
God KNOWS...
Gravitas
Presto.
God knows nothing we don't know.
We gave him every word he ever said.
A strange little poem -- filled with conundrum, yet appearing simple.
Poetry and Spirituality: March 10 : The Self... other selves
What is it to "know" -- what is "knowing" -- perceiving through senses, intuition,
what a self is...
-- What is this life? (Tony Hoagland: Still Life -- where "still" is both art, life as suspense between birth and death; Life, is life, is still life)If you don’t listen to self it might be vicious… like that badger... tone is amusing, except when he talks about the sad child, "who feels secretly proud for being sad" ?
**
-- what happens with an alphabet? (Nemerov and Primer of the Daily Round )
instead of names, the alphabet, a little soap opera... pretending to be gay. Talking about life… but there is a lot of bitterness. The letters are used artfully, with attention to rhyme and pattern, J/clay; k and the nightstick. primer, as in prime the pump; primer as in instruction; and daily round, as life round.
-- what systems do we use (Brenda Hillman -- Several Errands) -- intimacy of shoes and the shoe man; and shoes -- relationship... "fingering the well-worn inner sole, and I am grateful for those who serve us knowing nothing of our lives ..."
which brings you to wonder what we know about our own lives, not just of others...
The cleaner from Cambodia and the plaid coat of the ex-husband, chasing other skirts perhaps...
the violence of the butcher... "Somehow I thought we would know everything
through the flesh. Perhaps. But my days have become
spirit. The young butcher splits the chicken
down the back, seems to enjoy the crack of the knife
as it enters the bone, so I try to." the "I love that" -- allows more than just one detail in the shop... the leaning against the glass... the way the butcher doesn't look up...
and then the strange 4th stanza -- past the French hotel... to the dentist... how the "pain shines through" -- and the odd final stanza "a man" /// which man? And what is this system? We were touched by the very human portraits, the speaker sketched by each of her observations.
-- what do we know from images, from imagination?
How does Stephen Dunn’s idea in “Knowledge” apply to these poems – (that the more we “know” the more mysterious the world becomes.)
Finally, what is it that we build, with our knowledge (as in Hoagland's "Hardware store".)
Ordinary people living their life.
Inner community. Equal value of the two women despite age...
Mystic embedded in ordinary.
what a self is...
-- What is this life? (Tony Hoagland: Still Life -- where "still" is both art, life as suspense between birth and death; Life, is life, is still life)If you don’t listen to self it might be vicious… like that badger... tone is amusing, except when he talks about the sad child, "who feels secretly proud for being sad" ?
**
-- what happens with an alphabet? (Nemerov and Primer of the Daily Round )
instead of names, the alphabet, a little soap opera... pretending to be gay. Talking about life… but there is a lot of bitterness. The letters are used artfully, with attention to rhyme and pattern, J/clay; k and the nightstick. primer, as in prime the pump; primer as in instruction; and daily round, as life round.
-- what systems do we use (Brenda Hillman -- Several Errands) -- intimacy of shoes and the shoe man; and shoes -- relationship... "fingering the well-worn inner sole, and I am grateful for those who serve us knowing nothing of our lives ..."
which brings you to wonder what we know about our own lives, not just of others...
The cleaner from Cambodia and the plaid coat of the ex-husband, chasing other skirts perhaps...
the violence of the butcher... "Somehow I thought we would know everything
through the flesh. Perhaps. But my days have become
spirit. The young butcher splits the chicken
down the back, seems to enjoy the crack of the knife
as it enters the bone, so I try to." the "I love that" -- allows more than just one detail in the shop... the leaning against the glass... the way the butcher doesn't look up...
and then the strange 4th stanza -- past the French hotel... to the dentist... how the "pain shines through" -- and the odd final stanza "a man" /// which man? And what is this system? We were touched by the very human portraits, the speaker sketched by each of her observations.
-- what do we know from images, from imagination?
How does Stephen Dunn’s idea in “Knowledge” apply to these poems – (that the more we “know” the more mysterious the world becomes.)
Finally, what is it that we build, with our knowledge (as in Hoagland's "Hardware store".)
Ordinary people living their life.
Inner community. Equal value of the two women despite age...
Mystic embedded in ordinary.
O pen -- missed March 7, March 14
Favorite poems: whose favorite and why?
Favorite is a difficult word, especially when it comes to expression...
Favor is elastic, often shedding light first on one thing, then another as circumstances, moods, connections shift.
March 7 :
"They Feed they Lion" by Philip Levine
"To His Coy Mistress" Andrew Marvell
"I Hear America Singing" -- Walt Whitman
"The Windhover" Gerard Manley Hopkins
I can't make better commentary on the first poem than this:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levine/lion.htm
What is curious to me is the strength of the title which looks like a misprint:
They feed the lion -- which is immediately asking for the "Y" of the definite article to turn into this anonymous population... and the lion, Rex Majestatis, is not just something to be feed, but the act of roaring the accumulation of things gathered "from" and created "out of". The lines lengthen before each "they lion"-- first 4 filled with "b" and a rhythm requiring a pulsing, relentless beat;
then 5, then twice 6, finally 7.
In "To his Coy Mistress" -- the energy is playful, without a thought to the apocalyptic or oppressive...
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Whitman sings a giant hopefulness -- and I wonder what he would make of Levine's poem, or the way our country is today.
In the Windhover, the language is complex, manic in energy -- the first sentence leaves you breathless! "I caught this morning morning’s minion king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! "
m's to d's to r's and w's.
Like Levine, the B's gather force... brute beauty... buckle... blue bleak embers...
the interlaced tercets (here/ chevalier
with the sandwiched billion rhyming with the next tercet's sillion and vermillion.
sandwiching "dear" disguised by the enjambments... here / buckle; billion/ times; sillion / shine, just as one would not read the first line, "king (pause) dom.
The energy of accumulated aliteration, the shift from short to long "I", the unwieldy "sprung" rhythm, make this a sonnet of astonishment first, triggered by the falcon.
As for Hecht's "Sestina d'Iverno" Charlene would replace Hecht with Tony Hoagland's "A Color of the Sky" ( http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171303) and throw in Heather McHugh's poem "What He Thought" (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180964) for good measure.
For the 14th:
We will not have time for everyone's favorite:
Deborah : For my Cat Geoffrey (Christopher Smart)
Marcie: Dorianne's "Antilamentation"
Sue: "First Trip Through the Automatic Car
Wash" by Mona Van Duyn.
Emily: Ellen Bass "Pray for Peace" and the refrain of Les Mis - "bring him home"
Kimberley:
The Riddle of the Sphinx Moth- by Sarah Hanna from Inflorescence (2007)Her friends were doing a poem a month for the year following her death. (Unfort. the poet committed suicide by jumping from a building in Boston.)
**
poems slated: Omar Khayyam -- trans. by Shahin
Favorites from Palm Beach
Ides of March – by C.P. Cavafy
Spring Pools -- Robert Frost
Nomad Exquisite -- Wallace Stevens
Shikubu -- haiku
Elaine: The Gift -- by Li-Young Lee
Nora: Why some people be mad at me sometimes
- a poem by Lucille Clifton
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering mine
From Louise:
Emily Dickinson: "I'll Tell you How the Sun Rose" http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/sunrose.html
Edna St Vincent Millay "Recuerdo":we were very tired,we were merry.. http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/recuerdo.html
more from Charlene:
I'm in a Marge Piercy mood (because I heard she has a new collection out, gosh darn it! http://www.margepiercy.com/books/hunger_moon.htm)
But this is the poem I keep at my desk:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-the-young-who-want-to/
And I love the fact that Mark Doty has a photo of the inspirational sign posted above his poem "Signal", another favorite:
http://www.markdoty.org/id13.html
Favorite is a difficult word, especially when it comes to expression...
Favor is elastic, often shedding light first on one thing, then another as circumstances, moods, connections shift.
March 7 :
"They Feed they Lion" by Philip Levine
"To His Coy Mistress" Andrew Marvell
"I Hear America Singing" -- Walt Whitman
"The Windhover" Gerard Manley Hopkins
I can't make better commentary on the first poem than this:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/levine/lion.htm
What is curious to me is the strength of the title which looks like a misprint:
They feed the lion -- which is immediately asking for the "Y" of the definite article to turn into this anonymous population... and the lion, Rex Majestatis, is not just something to be feed, but the act of roaring the accumulation of things gathered "from" and created "out of". The lines lengthen before each "they lion"-- first 4 filled with "b" and a rhythm requiring a pulsing, relentless beat;
then 5, then twice 6, finally 7.
In "To his Coy Mistress" -- the energy is playful, without a thought to the apocalyptic or oppressive...
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Whitman sings a giant hopefulness -- and I wonder what he would make of Levine's poem, or the way our country is today.
In the Windhover, the language is complex, manic in energy -- the first sentence leaves you breathless! "I caught this morning morning’s minion king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! "
m's to d's to r's and w's.
Like Levine, the B's gather force... brute beauty... buckle... blue bleak embers...
the interlaced tercets (here/ chevalier
with the sandwiched billion rhyming with the next tercet's sillion and vermillion.
sandwiching "dear" disguised by the enjambments... here / buckle; billion/ times; sillion / shine, just as one would not read the first line, "king (pause) dom.
The energy of accumulated aliteration, the shift from short to long "I", the unwieldy "sprung" rhythm, make this a sonnet of astonishment first, triggered by the falcon.
As for Hecht's "Sestina d'Iverno" Charlene would replace Hecht with Tony Hoagland's "A Color of the Sky" ( http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171303) and throw in Heather McHugh's poem "What He Thought" (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180964) for good measure.
For the 14th:
We will not have time for everyone's favorite:
Deborah : For my Cat Geoffrey (Christopher Smart)
Marcie: Dorianne's "Antilamentation"
Sue: "First Trip Through the Automatic Car
Wash" by Mona Van Duyn.
Emily: Ellen Bass "Pray for Peace" and the refrain of Les Mis - "bring him home"
Kimberley:
The Riddle of the Sphinx Moth- by Sarah Hanna from Inflorescence (2007)Her friends were doing a poem a month for the year following her death. (Unfort. the poet committed suicide by jumping from a building in Boston.)
**
poems slated: Omar Khayyam -- trans. by Shahin
Favorites from Palm Beach
Ides of March – by C.P. Cavafy
Spring Pools -- Robert Frost
Nomad Exquisite -- Wallace Stevens
Shikubu -- haiku
Elaine: The Gift -- by Li-Young Lee
Nora: Why some people be mad at me sometimes
- a poem by Lucille Clifton
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering mine
From Louise:
Emily Dickinson: "I'll Tell you How the Sun Rose" http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/sunrose.html
Edna St Vincent Millay "Recuerdo":we were very tired,we were merry.. http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/recuerdo.html
more from Charlene:
I'm in a Marge Piercy mood (because I heard she has a new collection out, gosh darn it! http://www.margepiercy.com/books/hunger_moon.htm)
But this is the poem I keep at my desk:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-the-young-who-want-to/
And I love the fact that Mark Doty has a photo of the inspirational sign posted above his poem "Signal", another favorite:
http://www.markdoty.org/id13.html
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