Poetry Break for Friday, October 12, 2007

I was looking for poems about daughters in the LitFinder database and ran across this great poem by Ellen Bass.  Here’s the first lines: 

 IF YOU KNEW 

     What if you knew you’d be the last
     to touch someone?
     If you were taking tickets, for example,
     at the theater, tearing them
     giving back the ragged stubs,
     you might take care to touch that palm
     or press your fingertips,
     into the crease of a life line.

This poem went right to the gut. 

Bass is best known for her non-fiction works, including “The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivor’s of Child Sexual Abuse”.  You can read more about Bass at her web site: http://www.ellenbass.com/. 

LitFinder is always such a treat, since you can search for poems by subject.  It’s like browsing a used book store - you never know if you’ll find trash or treaure!

Poetry Break

The Look by Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.

This poem can be found in Blushing: Expressions of Love in Poems and Letters compiled by Paul B. Janeczko. It’s available for check out at the library!

Poetry Break

Jonathan Carroll shares poems that he has enjoyed on his blog.  Visit his blog to read more wonderful poems, snippets from books he is writing or has written, intriguing observations and much more - www.jonathancarroll.com/blog1/archiveMain.html.

He recently shared part of ”Foreword to New Numbers” by Christopher Logue.  Here’s a taste:

     If this book doesn’t change you 
     give it no house space;
     if having read it you
     are the same person you
     were before picking it up,
     then throw it away.

I love the way Logue breaks up his lines, cutting them off at you, you, you…

To find out more about Christopher Logue, I visited Poets.org to see a profile of him  (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/24).  I discovered that he has also written screenplays and acted in films, so I noodled on over to IMDB.  His IMDB profile reveals that he was awarded the CBE in 2007 for his services to literature.  I can see why. 

Poetry Break

Charles Simic has been named the 15th Poet Laureate of the United States.  The Library of Congress offers a short biography here   http://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate_current.html.  

Here’s a fragment of his poetry to enjoy: 

     Once in Chicago, for instance,

     I caught sight of a man in a shaving mirror

     Who had my naked shoulders and face,

     But whose eyes terrified me!

     Two hard staring, all-knowing eyes!

                                             — from The Initiate

Poetry Break

A collection of children’s book bloggers participate in Poetry Friday, where they post children’s poems at the end of each week.  See this link for more information:   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/feature.children.html?id=179694). 

This isn’t a children’s book blog, but I like the idea of taking a poetry break once a week. 

So, I cruised our stacks and pulled out “Dance for Flute and Thunder: Praises, Prayers, and Insults: Poems from the Ancient Greek”.  It’s a collection of  poems and fragments of poems by ancient Greek authors that is beautifully translated by Brooks Haxton.  I thought the poem “Dog Days” fit today’s 95 degree weather:

 Wet those thirsty pipes, my friend, with two parts water,

one part wine, for now the Dog Star swings around again

to parch the world….

–Alkaios

Then I ran across the poem, “Taxing the Rain”, on novelist Jeannette Winterson’s site (http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/poem.asp).  It struck me as a sort of bookend to Alkaois’ poem.  Here’s a snippet:

… for rain comes

to slake all our thirsts, spurting
brusque and thrilling in hot needles,

showering on to anyone naked;
or blaming our skins in the shape of scented baths.

It’s by Penelope Shuttle, a poet I am not familiar with.  She’s good!  I’ll have to look for more of her work.