Poem in Your Pocket Day 2014

Every time I begin writing this post, the sick computer fates decide to erase the clever things I have to say, so forget that. Here's what my partner, son, and I are carrying folded up in our little pockets today. You do the rest.

Note: All three poems are taken from Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets published by the Academy of American Poets, Inc. A nifty little book with perforated pages. Our pocket poems have come from this book for the last four years.

N's poem:

ELETELEPHONY

by Laura Elizabeth Richards

Once there was an elephant, 

Who tried to use the telephant— 

No! No! I mean an elephone 

Who tried to use the telephone— 

(Dear me! I am not certain quite 

That even now I've got it right.) 

Howe'er it was, he got his trunk 

Entangled in the telephunk; 

The more he tried to get it free, 

The louder buzzed the telephee— 

(I fear I'd better drop the song 

Of elephop and telephong!)

K's poem:

MAYBE TOMATOES
by Connie J. Green

if the vines mature

if the caterpillars don’t get them

if we water, sucker, feed

if we pick and preserve

maybe, tomatoes

thin, sliced on sandwiches
chunked into salads
peeled and whole
juiced and sauced
stewed
pickled
stuffed

My poem:

NO DEPOSIT
by Earle Thompson

Sometimes

you feel

like

a

bottle

sitting

by itself;

no

return,

just

empty;

ready

to

be

thrown away.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22275#sthash.fN0IisqH.dpuf

All Shiny & New

Beginning a new poetry book is exciting. I've finally finished Millay's mammoth collection and can now turn my attention to several smaller books that have been tempting me from their dusty positions on my unused desk. Yesterday, I began A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver, and today, I finished it. It's a pretty short book, and seemed to speak directly to my current inner turmoil, something I won't go into in depth about here, but if you're human and you're grappling with questions about life and what it is, you may very much enjoy this book. It's bittersweet because it sheds light on the inherent suffering of life, but it is also beautiful in its simplicity and sheer good writing. 

Now I'm moving on to Lucifer at the Starlite, by Kim Addonizio. The very first poem, called "Sign Your Name" is depressing and demanding, and in essence, challenges you to take control of your life, to make it beautifully yours. The second poem, "November 11," begins "O everyone's dead and the rain today is marvelous!" Possibly my favorite line of poetry ever. (At least until I see another great line and think oh! that is the best line ever!) After this book, I have the large-ish-looking What Love Comes To by Ruth Stone to look forward to. Throw in some anthologies that have been waving their arms at me for a year or so, and this spring and summer are looking up up up! 

It's spring (in theory), and so, it's a time for new things. Hello sun! Hello poetry! I'm so so ready.

"Let us to dinner, comrade, and be fed."

I just finished the greatest book in existence in this fine, fine multiverse:

Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Over 700 pages of Vincent's hand, it took me a little over a year to complete. Through the years, I have fallen for many poets and authors. My crushes usually give way to admiration and respect, but I move on. Even Austen, whose books I will reread until I'm dead, has lost her luster. Her books are great, but I don't feel a particular affection or connection to Jane, the person. To put it in modern terms, I don't want to have dinner with J.K. Rowling. But it's a little different with poets. I would love to have dinner with Mark Doty or Gregory Orr or Joy Harjo or Robert Bly or Robert Hass or any poet by the name of Robert, but I would sit there and awkwardly stare at them while feeling like I'm a total writing loser. Not so with Vincent. I would be nervously excited, but I would pour a couple of glasses of wine and say "Hey, Vincent, what do you think about a game of Scrabble?" Or "Isn't the moon nice tonight?" Maybe it's too soon to say this, but Vincent is my soul-poet; I just know it. 

Having finished her collected poems, I am moving on to her biography, Savage Beauty (Nancy Milford), and her letters (Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, edited by Allan Ross Macdougall). Why? I just want to know her. Maybe it's stalker-ish, but I just want to get as close as possible to the insides of her head. I have a vague understanding of her somewhat sensational life, but I want to know what she felt. Her poems, I think, are a good indication. Sure, there's always an element of fiction in the poems we write, but I think it's safe to say that Vincent the real, live woman was as full of passion and opinions as her poems suggest. She, like me, was capable of feeling the highest highs and the lowest lows. She truly, for good or ill, lived, loved, and lost.

I'm not saying I love every one of her poems. Nope. Not possible. Not even ideal. That would be totally weird. But there are so, so many that speak to me, piercingly. How to pick one last poem to share with you before moving on to new subjects, new poets? Randomly pick a dog-ear, I suppose. And yet, not so random after all. "Let us to dinner, comrade, and be fed."

Sonnet clxxiv

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you

All through my life?—Sharing my fire, my bed,

Sharing—oh, worst of all things!—the same head?—

And, when I feed myself, feeding you, too?

So be it, then, if what seems true, is true:

Let us to dinner, comrade, and be fed;

I cannot die till you yourself are dead,

And, with you living, I can live life through.

Yet have you done me harm, ungracious guest,

Spying upon my ardent offices

With frosty look; robbing my nights of rest;

And making harder things I did with ease.

You will die with me: but I shall, at best,

Forgive you with restraint, for deeds like these.