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WELL. I'm one of those oddballs who adore poetry.... and I came to poetry rather late in life.... got all the way through college still kinda hating poetry.... Back in the day, it was all about those dead poets, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats.... a few American poets, Dickinson, Longfellow.... but By the Shore of Gitcheegoomee (ok, i can't remember how to spell it, i'm old and have no brain cells left) didn't do it for me, nor did Poe, and nope, couldn't understand Emily....she was way above my head, I had to think think think think about what the heck she was trying to say.... and in my youth, who had time to think think think think.... Poetry was a waste of time if you couldn't just understand it, enjoy it. I never understood the need to have to figure out what a poem meant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bet you feel the same way!!!!
BUT: MODERN AMERICAN POETRY IS NOT LIKE THAT. Not at all. I was already enjoying languid summer nights in a garden up in Farmington, CT.... at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival.... i'd pack cold dinner, a bottle of wine and lotsa napkins for my kids and we'd enjoy an evening of beautiful words dancing like stars above. If you live anywhere near CT, this summer there you can catch America's poet laureate Tracey Smith, and you won't be disappointed at all. truly a magnificent modern poet.
Then, 1.5 hours after 9/11 happened, and after doing 90 mph down I-84, I was back in residence in New Joisey, for I knew my dad was not going to be able to handle this. At age 80, he was a retired Port Authority Police Officer, was in charge of dangerous cargo on the GWB for almost 20 years (with stints in the Holland and Lincoln tunnels before his final assignment on the bridge), he was also a lifelong volunteer fireman and he knew what this meant, we had been thru it already, and he knew what the death toll would be..... by the time i got home, he was literally catatonic..... and he died exactly 2 weeks to the day from 9/ll. I'd like to think God knew my dad was the only man he could trust to gather up all the lost souls never found and bring them home to him. I do believe that.
But returning home meant now I would regularly be able to attend North America's largest poetry festival, The Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival and back then it was in beautiful Waterloo NJ, at a restored mill town on a canal, with hawks flying overhead and swans swimming in the canal.... what a perfect spot for poetry. Between these two poetry festivals, one small one humongous, I got to meet some of the world's greatest poets and have a library of over a thousand poetry books, most signed by the poets. Plus, I was truly blessed that Robert Bly (the guy who brought poets like Machado and Neruda and Transtromer to the forefront of Poetry circles in America) kinda liked me, and I was able to attend his yearly Great Mother Conference in Maine, where I was the luckiest person in the world, meeting, living, eating with the greatest of the great poets.
But the reason for all that explaining allows you to understand the breadth of what I have been able to experience in the poetry world.... and this one sheer simple fact. I am nobody. I am not the brightest bulb on the porch, I'm that cracked egg in the dozen that you put back for the perfect dozen. I am just like any common Joe, but probably because I'm Irish and Polish, I have this amazing love of words gene.
So: here's the deal, I'm going to introduce all of you who have an open mind to some truly great American Poems (and maybe a few foreign ones too.... i guarantee there are some that will leave you either rolling in the aisles or just purely amazed by the gymnastics of words leaping everywhere)
I know I should start with a short poem so as not to overwhelm anyone.... BUT: I think i MUST start with a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, whose heritage is Arab, but like all of us who have a grandparent or parent who came from somewhere else, she is as American as I am (yeppers I'm a crazy Irish/Polish Joisey tomata with an Italian soul!!!!)..... Great Poems speak the truth, universal to all. And with the current political climate hell bent on fear, anger, rampant xenophobia ripping the unity of us to shreds and the populism and isolationism growing by leaps and bounds day by day by day, I prefer to live in the world Naomi creates here. Do Enjoy this poem. It might open a few hearts, not only to poetry, but to people who are just different from us:
GATE 4-A....
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”
Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
Known far more for his novels, the Pulitzer Prize not once by 3 times, John Updike also wrote poetry. I forget when this was written, i fell across it when i was hospitalized for a severe car accident, in a coma for a week... and my fiancee's aunt sent me a book of poetry of all things... (i NEVER read poetry).... with the wondrous title REFLECTIONS ON A GIFT OF A WATERMELON PICKLE, lol. I think this poem was in that book, i remember sobbing uncontrollably at the end..... for it felt just like the death of my most beloved dog just 6 years prior, my boxer Shelly, who had a stroke, my parents whisked her out of the house while i was in school, and when i got home i was told they put her down, for she was suffering so much. I never got over that death, and the way my parents handled it. It's not like I was 6 years old, I was 13, maybe even 14, and I still to this day believe I should have been allowed to be with her at her death.
I love this poem, and read it thru the years regularly
Dog's Death
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
Remember that Ode to a Grecian Urn that bored you to tears?????
Well............modern poetry has Odes to many more mundane topics....there's even an Ode to my Tampon by Sharon Olds that is really a hoot and a half...... i'd post it, but who knows who it would offend???
Here is an ode i have always loved, by Neruda..... I have always loved Neruda, well, always being the last 20 years that I have truly been crazy for modern poetry... Robert Bly steered me to Neruda poems, knowing well how ignorant i was about poetry when he met me.... I adore Robert, probably more so than others who love his poetry..... i adore him for thumbing his nose at the American poetry elitists and their rules and structures..... he had no use for the muckety-mucks of staid American poetry of the 40's and 50's....and it was Robert who opened his arms to poetry from around the world..... brought Neruda, Machado, Transtromer, Milosz and hundreds of others, even Rumi into American consciousness....he was the one who encouraged Coleman Barks to "americanize" Rumi, bringing cult status and fervor to that 13th century poet. So here is Neruda's "Ode to my Socks", the first Neruda poem I ever read
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
Remember that Ode to a Grecian Urn that bored you to tears?????
Well............modern poetry has Odes to many more mundane topics....there's even an Ode to my Tampon by Sharon Olds that is really a hoot and a half...... i'd post it, but who knows who it would offend???
Here is an ode i have always loved, by Neruda..... I have always loved Neruda, well, always being the last 20 years that I have truly been crazy for modern poetry... Robert Bly steered me to Neruda poems, knowing well how ignorant i was about poetry when he met me.... I adore Robert, probably more so than others who love his poetry..... i adore him for thumbing his nose at the American poetry elitists and their rules and structures..... he had no use for the muckety-mucks of staid American poetry of the 40's and 50's....and it was Robert who opened his arms to poetry from around the world..... brought Neruda, Machado, Transtromer, Milosz and hundreds of others, even Rumi into American consciousness....he was the one who encouraged Coleman Barks to "americanize" Rumi, bringing cult status and fervor to that 13th century poet. So here is Neruda's "Ode to my Socks", the first Neruda poem I ever read
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
Really enjoyed your posts... The socks poetry too
You might pull me into more poetry reading...newer poetry could be the key. I do have favorite older poets, Edna St Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson...
Thank you GreatBlueHeron!!! (one of my fave birds by the way..... I painted one on an eco-art project in Teaneck NJ and it hopefully will last til the end of time )...... I do believe people don't realize how great modern poetry is, and how much easier it is to read..... I'm glad you liked this one..... I have hundreds of great poems I want to share, and hopefully people will get in the habit of reading more and more poetry, even if it is only here..... another good source since you already have loved poetry is Ted Kooser's An American Life in Poetry...... it's totally free, just visit the website and subscribe and one poem will arrive in your email once a week, on a Monday. I met Ted, who was our poet Laureate in 2004-2006 at the Dodge Poetry Festival in gee-orge-geous Waterloo NJ .... absolutely the bestest poetry festival except for the one in Wales which is entirely in Welsh but has an even more passionate poetry audience by far!!! He is the cutest little guy ever...retired insurance executive, he retired to a farm in Nebraska, he shows up at his poetry readings wearing his overalls and yellow work boots, too cute!!!!! he's just adorable..... and though I don't always like some of the poems he chooses, I usually do like most of them, culled from poetry journals and presses from all over the country. Here is a poem from Ted, called Tattoo :
What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.
In the coming weeks, I'll post lots more Kooser poems...and Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Sharon Olds, Linda Pastan, Rumi, Henry Braun, Milosz, Galway Kinnell....and some spoken word poets,..... all of whom I have met over the years, well, all but Rumi LOL
Thank you GreatBlueHeron!!! (one of my fave birds by the way..... I painted one on an eco-art project in Teaneck NJ and it hopefully will last til the end of time )...... I do believe people don't realize how great modern poetry is, and how much easier it is to read..... I'm glad you liked this one..... I have hundreds of great poems I want to share, and hopefully people will get in the habit of reading more and more poetry, even if it is only here..... another good source since you already have loved poetry is Ted Kooser's An American Life in Poetry...... it's totally free, just visit the website and subscribe and one poem will arrive in your email once a week, on a Monday. I met Ted, who was our poet Laureate in 2004-2006 at the Dodge Poetry Festival in gee-orge-geous Waterloo NJ .... absolutely the bestest poetry festival except for the one in Wales which is entirely in Welsh but has an even more passionate poetry audience by far!!! He is the cutest little guy ever...retired insurance executive, he retired to a farm in Nebraska, he shows up at his poetry readings wearing his overalls and yellow work boots, too cute!!!!! he's just adorable..... and though I don't always like some of the poems he chooses, I usually do like most of them, culled from poetry journals and presses from all over the country. Here is a poem from Ted, called Tattoo :
What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.
In the coming weeks, I'll post lots more Kooser poems...and Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Sharon Olds, Linda Pastan, Rumi, Henry Braun, Milosz, Galway Kinnell....and some spoken word poets,..... all of whom I have met over the years, well, all but Rumi LOL
Like your thread title
I also live in north narrowlina!!(yep, narrow in mind indeed)
Here's a Rumi poem as translated by Coleman Barks.... if anyone in the past 10 years has been reading Rumi, it's probably because of the more modern interpretation that Coleman gave to these ancient poems. He was encouraged to tackle these poems by Robert Bly, who already had quite a history with ancient sufi poets like Kabir, Hafez, Mirabelle and both he and Coleman used to have a Saturday early morning Rumi session, often with the Paul Winter consort playing gorgeous music in the background, at the Dodge..... we'd have to get up at 6:00 am to get there by 6:40 to get the best seats, for even at that ungodly hour, it drew at least 2,000 people. If you've read any Rumi over the past 10 years, it's probably because of Coleman's translations, which made these ancient poems more palatable to the modern sensibility. Bly and Coleman visited Iran in 2006 in order to visit the graves of these great poets, and to foster communication between our two countries, which was and still is sorely lacking. The Iranian people couldn't have been warmer and everywhere they went they drew huge crowds. People are just people despite their ridiculous governments
I particularly enjoy this poem, called Love Dogs, it makes such a beautiful statement about being passionate and in love with whatever brings you great joy.... and this love is love enough for some of us.
One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
"So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever
gotten any response?"
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
"Why did you stop praising?"
"Because I've never heard anything back."
"This longing
you express is the return message."
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
Thank you for starting this thread! I plan on coming back daily to see if you've posted.
I enjoyed all the poems you posted, but the John Updike poem gave me goosebumps.
I'll also defend the romantic poets. I loved them in college and love them now. In fact, here's a favorite by John Keats who got tuberculosis at a young age and was contemplating the fact that he would not live a long life:
I hate to be the wet blanket here, but posting poems in their entirety is not allowed due to copyright issues...unless you have the rights to republish a poem. You can however post links to the poems. If you send me links, i can edit your posts. Thank you.
__________________
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
I hate to be the wet blanket here, but posting poems in their entirety is not allowed due to copyright issues...unless you have the rights to republish a poem. You can however post links to the poems. If you send me links, i can edit your posts. Thank you.
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