Fare thee well, 2013.

31 December 2013: Poetry Challenge

Last day. Feels strange. Do I pick something special? Is every poem special? 365 days. I’ve read at least 365 poems this year, though many more, often 3 or 4 just searching for the poem I want to write about, plus more for fun. When I saw the following in my mailbox, I knew what I had to do.

“It’s all I have to bring today” Emily Dickinson

If you know me at all, you know I dislike Emily Dickinson. Sure, I liked her when I was young. She was one of the first poets I read and devoured as I was discovering my love for reading and writing in my early teens. And I think her life’s story held a strong appeal for me. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her, but man, I often feel her work is contrived and didactic and insincere. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! This is just an invitation to many intelligent and appalled people around the globe. Don’t fret. You are totally smart and wonderful, even, and especially, if you love Dickinson. But preference and taste are subjective, and I don’t think I’ll ever come to love her as many do. That being said, I just read Dog Years by Mark Doty. It was amazing, and I love love love Mark Doty. Always have. Always will. He seems to admire Ms. D very much, so I started rethinking my whole "I Hate ED" spiel. It seems only fitting that I should end the year by giving the girl a chance. Well, maybe not a chance, but a shout-out. Compassion begins with an attempt at understanding where another is coming from. We could all use more compassion, so I’ll start with a person I have referred to in many unfavorable terms this past year.

It’s all I have to bring today

It's all I have to bring today-- 

This, and my heart beside-- 

This, and my heart, and all the fields-- 

And all the meadows wide-- 

Be sure you count--should I forget 

Some one the sum could tell-- 

This, and my heart, and all the Bees 

Which in the Clover dwell.

- Emily Dickinson

I’m not going to lie. I like this poem. I like it a lot (This does not mean I like ED’s body of work!). It’s short and sweet, which I admire in a poem. It also has just the right amount of repetition, which is nice, as well as difficult to pull off. The bees are wonderful. How is it that bees can be so scary and sexy simultaneously? And what is “it”? She  never says. She brings “it” and her heart. “It” could be anything! There’s a real sense of finality and confidence in this poem, a “Here is my heart. Take it or leave it” sentiment, yet underneath that, an implied vulnerability. Of course, in poetry we layer our own meaning onto others’ poems, so maybe I am way off base. But what I feel here is the joy of love with the slightest hint of fear that accompanies such a feeling. Take it or leave it.

11 November 2013 Entry

I was randomly searching body poems on poets.org and came across "Question" by May Swenson. I was feeling a little bad about my own body, and this one was a nice surprise that helped put things in perspective for me. My body is my home. She asks what she will do without her body. And ends: “How will it be / to lie in the sky / without roof or door / and wind for an eye // With cloud for shift / how will I hide?” This isn’t her point, but how many of us beat ourselves up constantly for our body's defects? And yet, where would we be without it? Dead, of course. Possibly nowhere, but possibly, as she says, floating around doing nothing, really. So thank you, body, for existing. I could do nothing without you. I could not think or feel or read or write or eat chocolate or laugh with my family without you, you beautiful, wonderful thing. There's also something about hiding here, and from what, I'm not exactly sure, but it could be from that brutal openness of death. But I'm not going there now, because I got what I came for.

The Final Countdown

In little over a week, I will be entering the final quarter of my 2013 Poetry Challenge. I have read at least one poem (though often more) every day so far this year, and for each day I have selected one poem to write a small paragraph about. It's been a rewarding experience, and the discipline involved has kept me reading and thinking about poetry all year long, quite a feat! Although often personal and poorly expressed, the little write-ups have forced me to engage in poetry in a way I haven't regularly done since grad school. You probably don't care, but my brain is very much appreciative.

Here's today's poem and write-up, in case you were curious (but mostly I just want to talk about Edna with the world):

Scrub

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

If I grow bitterly,
Like a gnarled and stunted tree,
Bearing harshly of my youth
Puckered fruit that sears the mouth;
If I make of my drawn boughs
An inhospitable house,
Out of which I never pry
Towards the water and the sky,
Under which I stand and hide
And hear the day go by outside;
It is that a wind too strong
Bent my back when I was young,
It is that I fear the rain
Lest it blister me again.

21 September 2013

“Scrub” Edna St. Vincent Millay

I’m in an Edna mood these days. I’m not sure whether this is a good, therapeutic move on my part, or just a bad influence that sparks my continued wallowing. Anyway, I was thinking about how much I admire and relate to Edna and wondering what she would write if she were alive today and thinking that her rhyming and metaphor-centric style is something I would not readily appreciate in anyone else. “Scrub” (she couldn’t know TLC would ruin this word for us all) is yet another one of her poems that compares grief, specifically the wounds of youth – for we’ve all been stilted by our young experiences, have we not? – to the ugliness of nature, a “gnarled and stunted tree”. It claims that if she is bitter now, it is the result of youthful sorrows.  “It is that I fear the rain / Lest it blister me again.” The beauty is the simplicity. We can all relate. We’ve all been injured, particularly in our youth. Those injuries make us wiser, but they can also make us bitter, untrusting, and hesitant to let people get close to us. I was looking for a hopeful ending to the poem, but I can’t seem to find one. The only word that gives me any hope is the “If” from the very beginning, which gives only the slightest suggestion that the speaker is perhaps not bitter but could have been if she let her sorrow overcome her.

I'm Sorry

I've been so busy reading poetry and writing about it for my 2013 Poetry Challenge that I haven't had the time or energy to write new and exciting posts for you. I apologize. You deserve some clever poetry insights.

Today I'd like to talk about Seamus Heaney, who passed away last week. Heaney was an amazing Irish poet, and I'd read about three of his poems before he died. That's embarrassing but true. There are so many great poets out there, so many famous, acclaimed ones, too, that no matter how much you try to keep up, you will find that you've missed something. I missed Heaney, and now that I've found him, I feel guilty for not noticing him while he was alive. I won't list his accomplishments here, as you surely know how to use Google. I will, however, provide you with one his poems, which just happens to be the poem I read and wrote about this morning.

Anything Can Happen 

by Seamus Heaney

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter

Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head

Before he hurls the lightening? Well, just now

He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth

And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,

The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.

Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,

Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune

Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,

Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven's weight

Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.

Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.

Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

This poem could mean so many things. It could be a metaphor for natural disasters or man-made tragedies or human relationships. It can be whatever you want it to be. It's colossal. Today, I like to think of it as an homage. Heaney's gone, and the gods have spoken.

Stealing

Oddly, I've read more poetry this year than any other year, yet I haven't felt like writing about poetry much. Luckily, I can steal other people's writing. Mark Doty has always been able to say things better than I ever could:

The Happiness of Nearly Being Finished from Mark Doty's Blog

2013 Poetry Challenge

My New Year's Resolution was to read at least one poem every day and to write about it.  Today is Day 79! It's been awesome so far, and in addition to reading and writing about one poem a day, I have also read fiction and nonfiction, if only a page, every single day so far this year. This is the best and most rewarding resolution I have ever made. Some days it's hard to carve out the time (the night we were at the ER for four hours with an unexpectedly sick kid, I completed the challenge with mere minutes to spare), but most days it is so ridiculously easy because I look forward to it so much. Just think: You have to read today. You have to read today. You have to read today. Um, OK!

You may be wondering what my poetry challenge entails. Well, I read some poems, usually a handful, and find one that resonates with me. Not that I like all of them. I have forced myself to write about long poems and ones that upset me as well. As the weeks go by, I am confronted by my own poetry biases and strive to think more deeply on that. Anyway, here's a sample. This entry (which is messily transcribed in one of my journals) is from February 15, 2013. There's nothing academic about it. I just write down my thoughts. The result is usually a largeish paragraph full of me saying the same things over and over again. You'll see. :-) 

"Okay, so clearly I am deliberately picking short poems to write about...deal with it. I did read several before I got to this one, and truly, how can you ignore it? It demands attention, demands to be given its due:

Separation

by W. S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me   

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

My god, what an image. Suddenly absence has substance. Absence isn't the thing through which we move, it is the thing that moves through us. We are hollow, like the head of a needle, an empty space, and absence is a thread. So absence moves through us, but doesn't fill us. The last line is incredible. The absence of our loved one means that everything we touch is tainted by that absence. The absence is a bright color. It's vivid and real and obvious, and we move through life carrying it around, showing it to people. My god, my god, how can you say so much so perfectly in three freaking lines? How can you not choose it, not write about it?"

Poetry Pressure

For some reason (perhaps because I am neurotic), I've been meditating on a conversation I had about five years ago with an older gentleman concerning poetry. The conversation went something like this:

Gentleman: I looked at that poetry site of yours.

Me: Oh, yeah?

Gentleman: I didn't get it.

Me: Oh. Um, okay.

Gentleman: What makes a poem, anyway? Shouldn't they rhyme?

Me: Um [flustered], well, you see...

What followed was my embarrassing attempt to define poetry, stuff about line breaks and rhythm, about how a poem is like a photograph or painting, how it should paint a picture or evoke an emotion, how grammar is not so important, how rhyming poems suck. What I should have said is:

Me: There's nothing to get. It either resonates with you or doesn't. Maybe you should read some other types of poems before writing poetry off forever. Or not. Whatever feels right to you.

This hole "pin a poem down like a wiggling pig" thing frustrates me. If you've studied poetry, you know about styles and forms and techniques. You can recognize good writing from bad. But you should also know that in the end, what matters most is your reaction and tastes. Personally, I loathe experimental poetry, can't stand weird indentations that play with the visual spacing on the page, dislike anything seeking shock value or vulgarity, am not so cool with rhyme. These are my preferences. If I only read the stuff I don't like, I wouldn't get poetry either. Nobody likes every novel they read.

So, broaden your poetry horizons. Stop putting pressure on yourself to analyze a poem or stuff it into some academic box. You'll find there's a lot of stuff to like.

Resolutions 2013

Happy New Year! You know what that means. Resolution time. This year, one of my many goals is to read a poem every single day. 365 poems in 2013, at the least. This may seem like a ridiculously easy goal. Don't underestimate the power of laziness. Although I subscribe to two poem-a-day emails, my favorites tool-bar is a row of poetry websites that are only a click away, and my house is littered with old and new poetry books, I go days, sometimes weeks, without reading poetry. Just because you love something doesn't make you faithful. Loyalty requires hard work and determination.

Sometimes I sit down with a poetry book and read it cover to cover, like a greedy child hording candy bars. The satisfaction is short-lived. I feel real good for an hour or so, and then I can't remember the pleasure of what I just shoved into my body. I don't savor things. Maybe my resolution should be to savor every part of my life, and maybe I'll work on that. For now, let's focus on poetry. Not only will I read at least a poem a day, but I'll actually ponder the poem without rushing, without just thinking Oh, that sounds lovely; I wish I had time to think about what it means.

Today is Day 1. Wish me luck. My bookmark tells me we're beginning our journey with "After Apple Picking" by Robert Frost. Beginning anything with Mr. Frost is the way to go, methinks.