September 11

 special speaker, John Roche has an impressive CV of his accomplishments which includes involving community in poetry and using poetry as an activist for human rights, the environment (see his trilogy of anthologies: Water, (2017)  Walls, (2018)  and Survival.  You see I have used the introductory poem from Water: A Poets Speak Anthology, edited by John Roche: Water by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841 as well as  a recent poem by another author in the anthology on September 4.  

(2018).  I first knew him as from his work on the selection committee for Poets Walk [1] that borders the Memorial Art Gallery campus from Prince St. to Goodman and as President of the local Rochester organization of Just Poets.  

I've asked Barb Murphy to be MC.  This special event coincides with the "O Pen" time slot, but is open to the public.  I do hope you will invite all your friends!!! 

His talk for September 11 : Light Verse for Serious Times: A Talk and Reading for Pittsford Community Library by John Roche, 9/11/2024

 

John Roche, RIT emeritus associate English professor and former president of the Just Poets organization, will be discussing the tension between accessibility and substance in poetry,

as well as reading from his new book Tubbables. (see press release)

 

Questions: How does a writer navigate between what Horace said were poetry's two purposes, to educate and to delight? Is it "barbaric" to write poetry in our era that does not directly address war, poverty, and climate apocalypse? Can "light verse" or children's verse or "trifling verse" also be a "poetry of witness"? Can poetry help keep us sane in these times? Is there a danger of poetry (or performance poetry) striving to be too explicitly "therapeutic." How does your poetry respond to such considerations?

Poems from Tubbables for discussion:

 

 

Prologue, or, A Defense of Trifling Verse

 

                        When the stars threw down their spears

                        And water'd heaven with their tears:

                        —William Blake, The Tyger

 

 

Because London Bridge is perpetually falling down

Because no one can put Humpty Dumpty together again

Because the cupboard was bare

Because the old woman who lives in the shoe still doesn’t know what to do

Because three blind mice

Because Mary is quite contrary

Because along came a spider who sat down beside her

Because the bough is breaking

Because the sky may not be falling

but the polar ice is surely melting 

 

Double Tubbable

 

                        Tubbable, 1920s synonym for washable:  tub + able (fabrics)

 

Whites and darks in the tub tubbable

Suds and spray and toil and bubble 

Pound on rock or play washboard trouble

Anna Livia Plurabelle gossips double 

Splashes and sprays and tells oh tells does lovely Annabelle

 

 

Heffalump

 

                        If honey's what you covet

                        You'll find that they love it

                        Because they guzzle up

                        The things you prize

                        --"Heffalumps and Woozles" from Disney's 

                        The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

 

The word “heffalump,” meaning “elephant,” was coined by British author A.A. Milne in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. The first appearance of the charming term was in the original 1926 “Winnie-the-Pooh,” with the fifth chapter titled, “In Which Piglet Meets a Heffalump.” While the illustrations by E.H. Shepard clearly depict what adult readers would know to be an elephant, Pooh and Piglet only meet the Heffalump in their imaginations. The word “heffalump” thus became a childlike synonym for the giant animal, and a metaphorical term for an imaginary creature. Heffalumps became more popularized in Disney’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” depictions, beginning with a song called “Heffalumps and Woozles” in a 1968 animated featurette. --"Heffalump," Word Daily

 

An elephant in the ear of a child

penned by a man with the eye of a child.

 

My father used to read us

Winnie the Pooh and Doctor Doolittle

in between Bible stories

I still talk to animals 

but they seldom talk back.

Been a long time since I could decipher 

more than a bark or a hiss. 

 

 

Penny Ha’penny

 

Penny Ha’penny was a childhood friend 

who lived on Ha’penny Bridge on Penny Lane 

Penny, we’d say, a penny for your thoughts?

Penny would throw a penny o’er her shoulder in reply

Penny had too much sense to trade a pound for a pence 

Penny always wore a mac in the pouring rain

though it seldom rains on Penny Lane

Penny left a bike lock on Ha’penny Bridge

wouldn’t tell us who it was for

Penny Ha’penny left Penny Lane one morn

and her mum wouldn’t tell us where or what for

Hey, Penny Ha’penny, where’ve you been?

Hey, Penny Ha'penny, where’ve you been?

Where've you been?

 

Naptime

 

dust motes float

across universe

 

four years old

not sleepy at-all

 

dust motes float

prism on the wall

 

laughs and shrieks

kids playing outdoors

 

dust motes float

fireflies appear

 

four years old

a portal opens

  

 

In the Blueblack

 

                                    After Robert Hayden

 

Wake to sound of snowplow

dopplering down the street

notice scraping of shovel—

Dad out in the blueblack cold—

Aromas send you and your brother hurtling down the stairs

to the kitchen where Mom is making breakfast

Radio’s alphabetically announcing school closings—

first big snow of the year—

Listen impatiently as a thousand small towns report in

—delayed or closed—

But the tea kettle's hiss drowns out the S’s

so you’ll have to listen all over again

 

I Stole an Eclipse

 

I stole an eclipse today

Rode a snapping turtle 

all the way to San Luis Obispo

Climbed an agave stalk taller than an oak

higher than the campanile

Held up the sun with my BB gun

Put it in my back pocket

Ate a tangerine

Kicked a soccer ball to the moon

Listened to the Music of the Spheres

Watched as it ricocheted through the galaxy

Rode vampire fish sailing celestial seas

Hummed L’Éclair de Lune

and composed a sonnet

 

 

Eggs in a Basket 

 

Chicks may hatch

Hatchets may cleave

Cleave unto the Lord

The Lord of Dynamite

Dynamite omelette!

Omelans walk away

Away, come away, human child

Children cross the border

The border is wide, we cannot cross 

Cross of Fire, Cross of Shame

Shaming, naming, gaming the same

The same rain that falls on the rich man…

The rich man eats pâté de foie gras

Gross old man eats Big Macs on silver platter

The platters spin, the planets spin, the Wheel spins, 

the whale of a ride

Riding Hood holds her basket dear

Dear Heart, keep your ducks in a row

Row, row, row your boat ashore 

Ashore, on the other side, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhisvaha

Buddha sits basket in lap

Lapping waves all atwitter

Atwittering sparrows and avenging hawks

Hawking their wares at the county fair

Fair weather friend, what will be your end?

The End Is Nigh, or Never!

Never mind that man behind the curtain

It’s curtains for you, Mr. Rooster

Rooster may broil or broast, but hen will sit

Sitting, sitting, sitting, what chicks may hatch?

 

 

Snug of a Pub

 

When you get locked out of Twitter

When Spoutible fails to load

When you can’t recall your Linkedin password

When Facebook gets too boring

 

Remember that snug in a Dublin pub

etched in your mind

always open

always serving

good conversation 

and non-refrigerated Guinness

with reels and jigs

slightly muffled

by the oak partition

 

On a particular night,

maybe Joyce himself in one chair, 

Flann O’Brien in another, 

and you doing your best

to keep up with the ricocheting words

 

 

 

I Saw That Movie

 

It came on at midnight

I was too tired to sleep

so I watched it

Tried changing the channel

but there was only Bowling for Dollars,

reruns of My Favorite Martian,

and some guy demonstrating how to use a potato peeler.

 

The movie started in some American small town

What we used to call The Heartland

Though I never knew why.

 

Then there were monsters.

 

 

Virtual Reality Check

 

Sorry, friends,

but even your best poem 

won’t get nearly as many “likes”

as two koala cubs grooming

a tabby on top of a roof

or a bobcat lounging

on somebody’s patio