An 'antidote for the excesses of civiliation'

Hey. Today's poem is "Poppies," by Mary Oliver.

It was recommended me by friend, and after reading it I think I'm in love with this lady. It is quite obvious we were meant to be. Surely, there must have been some sort of cosmic mishap, a mistake which caused me to be born in '86 and she '35. Life can be so cruel.

Oliver attended Ohio State University and Vasser College, dropping out of both, then making it as a poet in the world, publishing more than a dozen books of poems.

She has won a whole slew of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. You can read more about all her shenanigans here.

It's hard to say why I like "Poppies" so much. Usually nature poems cause me to point up my nose, sneering. But it isn't spoiled by the cheesiness of trancendentalists, and then it isn't really about nature—or poppies—for that matter, is it?

Once in English we read Frost's "Fireflies in the Garden," and the good teacher Allen said, "Poems are never about what they say they're about. Poems are always about people." Or something similar to that.

The poem's chock full of life and death, of thumbing the nose at death, giving it the bird and sitting in warm suns and all that stuff. Like Royal Tenenbaum, "Scrapping and yelling. Mixing it up. Loving every minute with this damn crew."

"Of course nothing stops the cold, / black, curved blade" and but for now we live, and "what can you do about it— / deep blue night?"

Picture-play

There will be regalete rejoicing today. In a celebration of the beauty of the day, there will be a flurry of short poems, all of the imagist persuasion.

These poems are like a direct injection of experience into your brain.

What I mean is this: sometimes we see something, a leaf fall, for example, that strikes us as beautiful, or noteworthy in some way.

However, if we try to convey this to someone ("I saw a leaf fall, and it was so cool), it's likely that it won't have the same meaning for them. We can't communicate it.

The beauty of imagetic poetry is that, if it's done right, the moment can be transported across the void between us people, in the same vividity of the original eye. We see what they see, feel what they feel.

Enjoy.

Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Taniguchi Buson "The Piercing Chill I Feel"

The piercing chill I feel:

my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom,

under my heel ...

T E Hulme "Image"

Old houses were scaffolding once

and workmen whistling

Penny Harter

broken bowl

the pieces

still rocking

Jennifer Brutshy

Born Again

she speaks excitedly

of death

Adelle Foley "Learning to Shave (Father Teaching Son)

A nick on the jaw

The razor's edge of manhood

Along the bloodline

To finish it off, a "vortograph" of imagist Ezra Pound

Apollo-gee

I give an apology for not writing. The great gods of the internet chose to cut unseen cords over the past few days, leaving a mysterious void where once was the information superhighway.

In addition to this, school decided to engage in some sort of sudden-death match, where all classes converged in fatal battles, melees of my making, like the The Running Man, but with pencils instead of flamethrowers, neon lights, and chainsaws. And it ain't over yet.

But it is back on. To celebrate, let's enjoy a poetry plethorum.

First, "Biopsy," from Sophie Cabot Black. She's a teacher at Colombia University and has two books of poems. There is something beautiful about the intersecting of human experience.

Second, ""When I was one-and-twenty..." by A E Housman. It's a poem who's lesson I should've learned by now. It will give you special insight into the state of my love-life. It's cheesy, but it's true.

Thanks to copyright mortality, read it below.

"When I was one-and-twenty..."

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.
'But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty

I heard him say again,
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.
'And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

And third, the anonymous, fabulous "The Virtues of Carnation Milk." I love it most for its gratuitous use of profanity. You just can't beat that.

Anonymous puts out some of the best verse out there. I've heard that he's from South Dakota, and is working on a screenplay.

"The Virtues of Carnation Milk"

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;
Here I sit with a can in my hand --
No tits to pull, no hay to pitch,

You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.

The Junk of Dreams: Jane Gentry's "The Concept of Morning"

Today's poem is "The Concept of Morning." It was written by Jane Gentry, Poet Laureate of Kentucky from 2007-2008, recipient of various honors, and professor at the University of Kentucky. You can read all about it here.

The poem is prefaced by a quote from "The Memoirs of Hadrian," which is as intriguing as the poem is beautiful, and the two compliment each other nicely. The quote tells what we descend into at night; the poem, the escape of it.

"Three Scenes from Jurassic Park," by Mike Ramm

"Three Scenes from Jurassic Park"

T-rex chews up the jeep with the kids inside.

When he bellows from the depths of his

tremendous chest, my six year old son roars,

"I know what he's saying; he's saying,

'I'm king and I can do what I want!'"

The gallimimus herd wheels every which way,

trying to escape the pursuit of King Tyrant Lizard.

My ten year old son, who can actually pronounce

pachycephalosaurus and every dinosaur in print,

informs me that coloring dinosaurs is guesswork,

and I can assign them any color I please.

Dr. Grant stares out the helicopter window

at a flock of birds which, as the theory goes,

evolved from dinosaurs, and I think maybe

there's hope for a bellowing world after all

if T-rex himself could lose the drive to be king

renouncing his title, diminishing himself until

the orange chest held just enough air for a song,

until fledgling wings delivered him into the sky.

*****

A year ago I bought a quarterly poetry journal for a quarter at a used book store.

One poem stood out to me in it. It was "Three Scenes from Jurassic Park," by Mike Ramm. The poem took a pop-culture resident and extracted something inspired from it. I love it when stuff does that.

On a lark, I googled "Mike Ramm," and found an email address. It turned out to be the same Mike. He's agreed to let me use the poem, and also answered a few questions for me. What a swell dude.

Mike Ramm Q &A

Question # 1. What is poetry to you?

I certainly hold with Robert Frost when he says a poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world. The key word, of course, being momentary. A poem temporarily crystalizes something that is otherwise ineffable.

Question #2 What do you do?

I've been teaching high school English for twenty-two years. (So what do you plan to do with your degree in English, Jeff?)

Question #3 Do you still writing occasionally?

Just starting to write again. Something about 9/11 forced the writer in me underground. Paying too much attention to politics is toxic to the imagination. Not surprising, though, my recent poems mostly focus on environmental and cultural issues.

Much thanks to Mike for his help.

Junk Mail: "Posthumous," by Jean Nordhaus

Today's poem is "Posthumous." It was written by Jean Nordhaus. You should read it here. Really, why wouldn't you? having come this far.

I first heard this poem listening to Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac" podcast, and it stuck with me ever since.

My grandmother's junk mail still routinely arrives at our door step. When it started I wondered how the senders didn't know that she was dead, and considered what her son felt as I watched him intercept telegrams to the dead.

Aside from the small gems of description found throughout (letters become "cold flakes drifting/through the mail slot," and "the last tremblings of your voice/have drained from my telephone wire."), it performs well that creative magic, where cotidian threads are woven into something extra-ordinary.

Nordhaus is a member of the Washington Writers' Publishing House, a non-profit press in the Washington-Baltimore areas. She has published four books, including Innocence, which, oddly enough, you can read here.

"The Dead" by Billy Collins

I rest on Sundays, so all I'll do is post this, of Billy Collins' (one-time poet laureate of the US) "The Dead."

It's beautiful, and speaks for itself.