poems for Oct 11-12

Instructions for Stopping by Dana Levin
Good Bones  by Maggie Smith
Untitled [This is what was bequeathed us] by Gregory Orr

After the Opera by Richard Schiffman

 Strictly Speaking. by David Rivard

Watershed   by Tracy K. Smith  

The last poem, by current poet laureate, Tracy K. Smith, appointed in June 2017, is about 6 pages long which would probably preclude it from reading aloud in a weekly session aimed at an hour's discussion of poems.  However,  it is a fine example of  a found poem drawn from two sources: a New York Times Magazine January 6, 2016, article by Nathaniel Rich entitled, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare," and excepts of the narratives of survivors of near-death experiences as catalogued on www.nderf.org.--

Staging a long poem like this, requires an audience with stamina.  I am not usually fond of long

poems, as I prefer the pleasure of a pithy poem no longer than a page but feel this is a worthy challenge.  Do not feel it necessary to print the poem-- as it is an extra 5 and a half pages, I envisage staging a 2-voice reading, where one person will read the part from the NYT article, and I will read the italicized narratives.  I will bring the Fall-Winter volume of "American Poets" where it appears.

**
Instructions for Stopping.
What a title.  Commands ensure:  say stop.  keep your lips pressed...
and oh what fun as we played with the p and thought about how to say "stop"...
and to end on the choice of kiss or bullet, both unexpected and yet a perfect metaphor
for how good and bad are mirrors with minor distinctions when talking of human subjectivity.
The "stop stop stop" is a wonderful example of the "personal" -- as we read this poem--
how fast do you say this? do you whisper with those capital S's three times in a row?
P's in hospital, uP, gulPing aPPly... how do you "pry your breath out".. apply it?
Original and thought-provoking.  How do I stop myself from...
nothing happens until...
you suddenly are stopped...
Why instructions?  I see the period rolling off the page.  It doesn't stop.

Good bones employs lots of cool craft: repetition "though I keep this from my children";
and at the end the chirping, "this place could be beautiful, right?" the sense of a different voice repeating, "You could make this place beautiful."  Which place?  The world.. or ...  
There is only one fragment in the poem:  "For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake."  We talked about flip homes, how "every" gives off a pessimistic tone...
the title an invitation repeated in the last sentence.

I love a poem called "Untitled" followed by brackets which seem every bit a part of
the title.
What is bequeathed to us?  Bequeathed?????
Lovely repetitions, including verb "left" and adjective "left" as in bequeathed.
Unlike instructions for stopping, the last line sings out clearly the importance of a sense
of purpose.

We did not spend a lot of time on "After the Opera"  but enjoyed the contrasts-- as if whatever
show and audience mirror the game of life... with that eerie reminder that as audience/witnesses,
at the end, we can applaud what we see.  The theme of  creating what we see, by viewing it' was clear in all the exhibits.  We  barely scratched "Strictly Speaking" which seemed to need a bit of strict revision.  Watershed was well-received with two voices representing the two angles of newspaper and accounts of those with near-death experiences.

The Tracy K. Smith poem moved everyone.  If you read it, it would take well over the 13 minutes
we spent reading it with two voices.