Special Guest Post-

All of the guest posts have been special to me, but this one was written by someone whose writing--be it an email, a legal brief, a note on a birthday card, or what's below--always makes me fall for him a little harder.

Until I got to college, I saw poetry as I suppose many teenagers do -- an outlet
for emotion and pent-up angst. My first poetry class, one on 20th century poetry, changed all that. For the most part, I couldn't understand the poetry we read on my own. But the instructor -- Dr. Lensing, for those who took English classes at UNC -- was very good at explaining them, not just what they meant, but the subtle beauties in sound, texture, and rhythm. I liked virtually everything we studied, but I was particularly drawn to the likes of Philip Larkin, e.e. cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Frost. I suppose these poets are very different from one another, but one thing they have in common -- and probably what drew me to each of them -- is their relative straightforwardness. They all write beautifully precise poems using simple language and form. No need for a dictionary or a scholar's command of literature. By now I've realized that, like Liz Self, I like poetry I don't have to work too hard at.

Which brings me to the real subject of this post. I met Kim in college. There were a lot of things I fell in love with about her, but a main one was her writing. I bragged to my roomates about it and made them read her poems. (None were poetry-reading types, but they were patient.) Kim wrote (and writes) like all the poets I like write. Her poems are direct, precise, and uncluttered by allusions I don't understand. There is nothing pretentious about them. Since this is for her blog, I won't go on and on, but I love her writing. These days I don't read much poetry on my own. But I read all of Kim's poems, at least once she's ready for me to see them, and I'm proud to think of myself as something like an editor or at least someone who can make reasonably intelligent comments and suggestions. I suppose all this is to say that, for me, poetry is intertwined with my life with Kim. It was one of the first things I loved about her and remains so.

Guest Post: On subjectivity or just a rant really

Today's post was created by an old high school friend of mine, Chad Edwards. Chad, a musician, created a piece of music to accompany a poem by Emily Dickinson. Listen to the song and read the poem below. You can hear more of Chad's work on his blog, There's A Lot to Hear, which is now included on my blog list. Thanks, Chad, for this great multi-media post!




Emily Dickinson's I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain


I'll make a very subjective statement about subjectivity now: all is within the domain of subjectivity. Yes... everything period. Is that an oxymoron? Yeah, probably, but oh well, welcome to life! Right now you could easily and correctly be saying to yourself, you're full of it,
because breathing air is not subjective, my friend! All right, I won't deny you your subjective opinion so we'll just move on.

Why would I be talking about subjectivity when Kim's blog topic is poetry since it's National Poetry Month? Well, when it comes to the perception of poetry/art, subjectivity to me is the alpha and the omega, so to speak (well all perception in general but I'm struggling not to derail this sucker here). Without this subjectivity all art would have a correct/incorrect way or be either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, and so on. Though I don't see much usefulness coming from that sort of situation.

While thinking about what to write about for the blog, I was looking into the poem I chose for the song: "I felt a funeral in my brain," by Emily Dickinson. I noticed the many interpretations of the meaning of the poem itself. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with trying to discover the meaning behind things...in fact, I'd venture a guess and say that this searching could very well be a big part of our existence! But many times I worry that people seem to think there is an exact way to interpret a poem or any art form. In my opinion, no interpretation is correct, or incorrect.

The real beauty behind art is that we are always both creating and participating within and with the art form itself. Something interesting I've found over time is the malleability of meaning behind art and how your personal interpretations can change even from moment to moment. At one point in your life you can get something profound from a piece of art, and later that same piece could cause an entirely different reaction, or none at all. While working on the song, I had to think about the poem, the many ways I could interpret it, and how the friend I wrote the song for would as well. I created sounds to go with each section, adding yet another layer of subjectivity to what was there in the text combined with both my feelings at the moment and my interpretion of hers. This subjectivity in art is what makes it a blast for me both to participate in and ponder upon. Everyone is held together by the structure of the form yet each person is having their own unique experience.

Well I guess in the end the point being just simply that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... and I guess I could have saved a whole lot of everyone's time by just posting that, huh? But hey, isn't that what blogs were created for?

Sylvia Plath's "Black Rook in Rainy Weather"

Today's post on one of my favorite poems, Sylvia Plath's "Black Rook in Rainy Weather", is by Tyler Mills, a poet and former UMD classmate of mine who is so cool she has her own website. You can read the poem at the link above or at the end of Tyler's post.

This poem is maybe a little trickier to follow that some of the ones I have recently posted, so I will enter teacher mode for a moment to get you started, and tell you that a rook is a bird (according to my dictionary, it's "a gregarious Eurasian crow with black plumage and a bare face"). If you find yourself getting lost in the poem, try reading straight through the line breaks until the end of each sentence. Thanks, Tyler, for this great post!

This day in the second week of April, a cold rain has been soaking into the concrete of the walkways that lead to the looming buildings of my city university. It is the kind of morning when rusty drips find your scalp through the cracks in the platform overhang, the train is late, and people crush you against a metal bar with their damp coats. Later, the fluorescent lights of your composition classroom show rows of pale, tired students sitting in front of the crinkled pages of their homework.

I pull out a huge pink costume scarf from my backpack like a magician, but instead of it transforming into a long knotted rope to lead us out the window, I fold the fabric in half and wear it. A few students smile.

Whimsy. I’ll take it!

For those of us in a semester cycle (or those who experience spring’s seasonal tax-season stress), National Poetry Month occurs at a time when one’s own creative projects become buried under laundry, library books, and unopened junk mail. “April is the cruelest month,” writes T.S. Eliot in “The Waste Land.” Crocuses spike from the mud along a chain link fence, but we can’t help but smell the dirt and think of its duality—life and death—and the rain that makes this duality even more present to us. The earth is being creative, but even as we comment on its changes, our own struggle for creativity seems wan in comparison.

More bedraggled students wander into my classroom, and I point out that when they go outside, they will be able to see tiny yellow buds appearing on the bushes outside the building. A few more smile. The classroom is thawing slowly, but thawing.

In this second week of National Poetry Month, I keep returning to Sylvia Plath’s “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” and what we—poets and non-poets alike—can expect from inspiration at a time when inspiration can seem just out of reach or absolutely absent. Plath’s poem begins this way:

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye,

The black rook “[a]rranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain” promises design. The act of arrangement seems like a mind dealing with the problem of mood and deciding what to do with it. I love how the beginning of this poem acknowledges the speaker’s search for inspiration, especially in the way the stanzas break on “accident” after the speaker confesses, “I do not expect a miracle.” But “an accident”—enjambed, hanging out in the white space of the poem’s weather—throws us into even more uncertainty. Chance cannot even “set the sign on fire/ In my eye”.

What then?

If the mood of the weather cannot give us the bird, or even some abstract “accident” inspiration, what hope is there for us in the month of April? The speaker wants “some backtalk/ from the mute sky,” but the sky remains “mute.” Yet what I love about “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” is the poem’s turn that happens next:

I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—

The speaker “can’t honestly complain”? (And, we can read some word play in “honestly.” Is the speaker being conversational, or is she saying that complaining would be dishonest?) One reason that the poem gives us is the presence of “minor light” that she finds in the gloom: playing off of the domestic space of the “kitchen table or chair” and created perhaps by the speaker’s own will (by the word “incandescent,” suggesting a bulb switched on). April might be “mute” to us. But,
With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles.

The speaker’s voice is hesitant, self-correcting, and critical. But, honest. And, poetry at its best.

You can read the entire poem on the Poetry Foundation’s website: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178972 .

Three Poems

by my sister, Heather! These are about our grandparents and great-grandmother. Thank you, Heather, for these beautiful poems.

Poem About Granny

She was strong as strong as can be,
and now here stands a willow tree.
It represents her standing tall,
I remember it from when I was small.
We planted it when she was here,
when I look at it, it brings me tears.
Tears of laughter, shrieks, and joys,
from all the young girls and boys,
for these are her grandchildren children can't you see,
playing in the willow tree.

Nanny's Cooking

The kitchen was filled with good smells and love,
we miss her great meals, she is now up above.
Cooking was her favorite thing,
I bet Papa felt like a king.
Everyone would clear their plates,
nobody could resist the wait.
Over the last helping we would fight,
each and every single night.

Papa Brown

Papa Brown is always working,
always up to something, always smirking.
Practical joker, you better watch out...
For his mongoose is out and about!
Walk up to the cage if you dare,
but be sure to take extra care.
"That thing is wild!" he'd always say,
and it would always make his day,
to throw that animal high in the air,
for it was just a teddy bear.

On Bakhtin, poetry, and country music

Today's post is brought to you by Liz Self. Liz, a PhD student, teacher, mother of two, and my dear friend, is also the author of the blogs AD and BD. I love this post and found myself nodding in agreement as I read. Thank you Liz!

I am not a poet. I know that every English teacher likes to think that they can have their kids read and write some poems and call them poets (in the hopes of making them like poetry and authentic writers), but I am not a poet. There’s something about poetry and being a poet that is at odds with my nonfiction reading and writing self.

I like poetry, some poetry. But I mostly like poetry I don’t have to think too hard about. I’ll analyze the theme of some fiction, critique the author’s tone in some nonfiction, even get into a little drama (Cyrano de Bergerac really saved drama for me; ironic since he is, in the play, a poet). But I don’t want to have to think too hard about poetry. I like my poetry like I like my country songs* – it just has to sound good and be a little fun or say a little something about life. I don’t want to get too deep. I know there’s a lot of poems I’ve heard and thought, “Ooh, I like that,” and there’s way more to it than I even realize. But I don’t want to know all that. I just want to like my poems.

I recently read some Bakhtin for my sociocultural theories class, and he talks about the role of different genres. He writes, “Each genre is only able to control certain aspects of reality. Each genre possesses definite principles of selection, definite forms for seeing and conceptualizing reality, and a definite scope and depth of penetration.” He continues later, “The artist must learn to see reality with the eyes of the genre. A particular aspect of reality can only be understood in connection with the particular means of representing it.” I know it is a favorite assignment for English teachers to have students transpose texts into different genres – turn a dialogue in some fiction into a drama piece or a newspaper article into a poem. I’m not sure Bakhtin would like that. I think poetry has a place, and it’s not something that can be interchanged with other genres.

One of my favorite poems of all times – and the poem I always started every poetry unit with (yes, former English teacher here, too) – is Marianne Moore’s “Poetry.” Most people know it from the first few lines (or even words: “I, too, dislike it…”). The full poem, though, goes on to make several important points. First, it talks about getting to read poetry with contempt for it. That appealed to me. Second, it talks about “the genuine” in poetry, and that resonated with me, too. And it made me think about, with respect to Bakhtin, poetry’s place in the world (both literary and otherwise). Poetry for me is something that I want to connect with. I can read fiction and nonfiction and drama about all kinds of things that baffle and confuse and frustrate me. But poetry – I just want to like it. I want to go, “Hey, that makes sense to me.” Moore writes, “We do not admire what/we cannot understand.” I can understand a complicated poem – my AP scores from high school attest to that – but I don’t want to work that hard if I want to like it. And I’m not saying that poems that are easy for me to understand aren’t deep poems or are “light” literature. I’m saying that for me, poetry’s place is simply to resonate with me, to make me feel something – not so much to make me think. I go to my fiction and nonfiction for that. My sense is that it’s different for others, though. Poetry might be just the place for others to go to get a mental workout. For me, I want it to be more like People magazine – something light and fun and just enjoyable. A guilty secret, perhaps.

So what are my guilty pleasures? Most of them are African American poets. There is universally among them a freshness and directness that belies the depth (both literary and experiential) beneath. I read and learned about these poets while teaching my predominantly African American students (at an all-girls school) and fell in love with the themes and styles. I like a variety – almost anything by Nikki Giovanni (love “Kidnap Poem”), Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” (read it and then look at this photo of Chris Rock, taken by Annie Leibovitz), “Incident” by Countee Cullen, Alice Walker’s “I Said to Poetry.” Maya Angelou is a given – the woman is genius. On and on, I could go. But one of my absolute favorites is Lucille Clifton. This woman knew how to capture a perspective, a life experience, womanhood, African American womanhood, in poetry. Who else could write “homage to my hips” and “to my last period.” The one I loved to teach: “i am accused of tending to the past.” There’s a depth to these poems that reveals the African American experience and a breadth to them that makes their message universal to any reader while retaining their roots. Some are for fun; some are very serious. But all of these poems are about the genuine.

These are not simple poems. These are not poems written to be someone’s guilty pleasure. But that’s how I enjoy them – the sound, the feel, the movement, the first read. I know there’s more there, and perhaps one day I’ll read more into it. But for now – I’m gonna do what real poets do and just feel it. (Insert the sound of snapping fingers here.)

*Interestingly, one of the earliest poems I remember reading and totally missing the point on was John Donne’s “The Flea.” the thing over and over and never realized it had anything to do with sex. I think my literary analysis professor (a frightening Russian man with bushy beard who was suspect of my German last name) thought I was an idiot. He may be right. But then a few months ago I heard Brad Paisley’s song, “Ticks,” and this time I did know it was about sex. So evidently I can be taught. And furthermore, this really makes my point about the relationship between poetry and country music.

Guest Post: On Rod McKuen

Today's post is brought to you by my mom!!!

I think you are right that poetry is misunderstood as to hard. I wish I had had a teacher who knew how to teach it. Any teacher I had taught that poetry had to rhyme. I don't think that is true.

I think I must have been a poet at heart because I have attempted to write a lot but I always slam dunked it in the trash can after I read what I wrote. I missed the chance to see a famous poet when I was in high school. He came to our school in honor of a student who had been struck and killed by a car as he was walking. The student's name was Jeff Hefner and the poet was Rod McKuen. They must have met earlier. I was sick that day so I missed the experience but I bought a few of his books, which are no longer in my possession. I liked his poetry. One of my favorites is "Thirty-Six."

Note: I also found this Rod McKuen site that discusses the last words of the poem and posts the poem in a slightly different version. Also, I think I might have to steal the idea of missing hearing the poet speak for a poem. Hmm. Thanks, Mom!

Guest Post: How poetry made me feel smart

On the second day of NPM, our first guest post! Although many people might say poetry makes them feel anything but smart, this hilarious essay by my dear friend Corrie shows how poetry can be a place of solace. After six years of being an awesome high school teacher, Corrie now works as a private tutor to her beautiful baby boy. Enjoy!


I remember an oversized Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes on our bookshelf in the basement. In my best teacher voice I would recite “Little Miss Muffet Sat on a Tuffet” to all my imaginary students. It was a very good thing that the little poems rhymed and that I had memorized the illustrations because being 4 or 5 I couldn’t properly read yet. These facts were ignored by my parents who claimed to friends and family members that I could already “read as good as any grown up.” I also loved Dr. Seuss and Shel Sliverstein --who taught me that if you write poetry, you can be a man with a very odd name. I remember the weight of Where the Sidewalk Ends hunkering me down as I lumbered off the school bus.

In middle-school I had several brief love affairs with boys who wrote me sonnets and odes. Of course none of us knew what either of these poetry titles meant. But they sounded classy right? Your odds of getting to first base were particularly good if you composed a sonnet entitled “Ode to Corrie.” Also, if you could rhyme anything with Corrie besides “hunkie dorie” you might get to hold my hand.

In the dark days of high school, I tried to counterweight my cheerleading uniform with copies of Longfellow and Dickinson. After Friday’s game of chanting “Hit ‘em again, Hit ‘em again, Harder, Har, DER!” to my quarterback boyfriend, I appeased the part of my brain that called me a stereotyped airhead by staying up late and memorizing “The Day is Done” or Poe’s “Annabel Lee.” I then told myself that I was really moving up in the world by dumping the quarterback for a soulful dreamer I met on the beach, doing what? You guessed it, writing his own poetry.

In college I had Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” taped to my dorm room door. Between classes I would sit on walls or on patches of grass smoking and writing in journals—sometimes poems, sometimes pieces of nothing that someone maybe somewhere might call poetry. Both the smoking and the writing and Maya Angelou’s poem taped to my dorm room door made me feel capable of getting through four years without my family. I was mature. I was smart. I read and wrote poetry, had gotten into Carolina and was taking classes where they asked me to read very old guy’s work –Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare. I found out that as long as I raised my hand to answer some open ended question thereby breaking the horrific silence in the room, the professor gratefully agreed with me.

My total and complete failure of attempts to teach poetry to high school students somehow continued to make me feel smart. I could see them thinking I knew what e.e cummings’ “1(a…(a leaf falls on loneliness” was about, and they were pissed that I wouldn’t just tell them. They really wanted things to rhyme. I abandoned all hope of ever teaching Elliot while reading Gatsby. I found the titillation of Burn’s titled poem in Catcher in the Rye always got good reviews.

The first time I sang “Row row row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream” to my nine month old, he squealed like a pig and looked up at me with eyes that said “Awesome!” And I felt, brilliant.

Tomorrow

is the first day of National Poetry Month! I spent the wee hours of the morning planning my post and came to no decisions.

Anyway, I found 30 Ways to Celebrate on Poets.org. Start planning!

If anyone is still considering being a guest blogger, please let me know! I received a comment with a good question about whether favorite poems can be published on the blog. If they are your poems (as in, you wrote them), and they haven't been published anywhere else, sure! But otherwise, any poems you want to include need to be included through a link. In other words, if you can find them elsewhere on the Internet, we can link to them. But because of possible copyright issues, I don't want to just copy down poems word for word on the blog. If the poem can't be found on the Internet, you can provide title and author information, and of course can cite lines of poems as you would in an essay.

Just a reminder, if you want to write a post, you need to submit a comment with your idea and your email address so I can contact you. I promise not to publish your email address for the whole Internet to see.

In the meantime, happy planning! I am going to spend the rest of Amelia's nap reading some of the 8 books about toddlers I got from the library yesterday. I think I just wrote last week that having a toddler was easier than having a baby... the universe is chuckling at me now.

National Poetry Month: A Call for Writers

April is National Poetry Month. A couple of weeks ago, I had this great idea. I was going to write a poetry-post a day, one every day in April. I planned to write about poems and poets I love, poems and poets that have influenced me as a writer. I even made a spreadsheet with dates and ideas.

But. If you have read this blog long enough, you will remember other great ideas I have had where I was going to a a certain number of posts about certain things. And most of those posts did not happen. (I blame Amelia.) So I came down to earth a little bit. I will simply say this: during April, National Poetry Month, I will write some posts about poetry.

I want there to be as many posts as possible, though, so I want to invite you to write a post of your own. Yes, you, reading this blog right now. Will you be a guest blogger? Will you write a post about poetry for National Poetry Month?

Maybe there is one poem you always remember, one that sticks with you. You could write about that poem and why it means so much. Maybe there is a teacher who introduced you to poetry you could celebrate. Maybe you have taught poetry or read poetry to kids and want to share that experience. Maybe you write poems of your own. You could share the poems here, or write about how or why you write. Maybe you study poetry and have something specific you would like to share with a wider audience. Heck, maybe you hate poetry and want to say why. I would like to invite any and all readers to share any and all thoughts about poetry here during National Poetry Month.

If you are willing go be a guest blogger, let me know. If you know me, you can email me or call. If you don't, leave a comment here with your email address, what you would like to write, and what week in April (the first, second, third, or fourth) you would like to send me your post. I won't publish these comments, but I will get back to you to confirm your post date and answer any questions you might have.

I am excited to spend a month thinking more about poetry, and I hope you can help!