An Answer

This poem may be a little too influenced by the fact that I'm reading Edgar Allan Poe, but here is my answer to that eternal question--


Maybe--
in the end--
it is a river.
Why else are we
patterned in cycles?

Swept up
in evaporation
the you and I
becoming
indiscernible boundaries
joined together in heat
and in coolness.

Maybe--
in the beginning--
a pool was formed
by countless
indiscernible contributions.

After a delay....

Spring is just bursting through in Michigan.  Yesterday as I walked home from working at the reference desk, where students scurry past to print final papers, I saw birds hop in similar paths pecking at the freshly green grass and I realized once again why I love the Midwest; the change in seasons always seem like a gift.

This blog has spent a short winter hibernating, but even in my absence, I have been thinking regularly about Susan's prompt from January; to re-read favorite poems and ponder on what makes the poem compelling.  After rereading dozens of contenders I returned again to Emily, and to the poem that spawned this blog:

THE LEAVES, like women, interchange
Sagacious confidence;
Somewhat of nods, and somewhat of
Portentous inference,
The parties in both cases	5
Enjoining secrecy,—
Inviolable compact
To notoriety.

                                                 Emily Dickinson

What is it about this poem, and much of Emily's work that moves me so much to write poetry? 

I love how this poem reads like an exhale, picks itself up in the middle of a conversation, as if to answer some question, or to interrupt an already flowing conversation with an abrupt observation.  Poetry, to me, is a way to answer the questions that we can't even form the words to ask.  As another favorite of mine, Robert Hass, wrote, "a word is elegy to what it signifies."  In this way, poems are elegies to abstract observations, to what the heart feels but cannot say.  This is why I love poems that pick up in the middle of an idea, or thought.

Maybe this can be our new challenge then - to answer an unspoken question with our next poems.

Happy spring, and happy writing!

Theme: Re-read

Elaborating on the theme of returns and branching out from our usual poetry assignments, I'd like to take time this week to rediscover our favorite poems, and perhaps discover some new ones. It's easy to get stuck in a stylistic rut when then only work you ever read is your own. I think it's important to keep reading poetry if one hopes to write it, but that can be difficult with school and work and then endless allure of novels and histories and all things prose.

This week, our assignment will be to revisit a favorite poem and write something about it. Notice its structure, its central theme - what is it that makes this particular work compelling? If you have the time, you might try to also find a new poem that strikes you in a different way and explore how it has been crafted. Happy reading!

Returns - Susan

After Christmas

I will not write about home.

You can never go back, that much

is well documented.

Here are the things I can return:

1 T-shirt, too tight around the middle

3 Spiral notebooks, poorly bound

1 Textbook, for a class not taken

One can give back what is useless, or broken.

One can lay claim to something new.

The former cannot re-emerge as the latter.

One can return, but not return to.

There are no stories in objects untouched,

spaces uninhabited, clothes as yet uncreased.

The old stories are gone.

They are in that home, whose doors are locked.

This emptiness is yours to fill –

Return

To return is to
turn into yourself.
As an archaeologist
carefully brushes years
of dust aside
to uncover the pieces
of symbols of life
left behind,
I parse my way
through odd things;
crumbling relationships,
disintegrating memories
seeking some fundamental truth--
only to find that the heart
of the substance
is the dust.

New Year, New Theme: Returns

For this week's exploration, we are going to delve into the idea of 'returns,' a common idea this time of year.  Whether you are wishing someone many happy returns, returning a sweater that just isn't you, returning home for the holidays, or returning to your daily life after a holiday trip, returns are popping up all over the place. 

A many happy returns to you!

A Recipe - Susan

1.

With your hands, pull together

this shaggy dough,

marbled with sweet butter,

smooth as the skin

across his shoulders, and also

freckled, with cinnamon and salt.

2.

Apples for sweetness –

slice them thinly,

mound them up and tuck them in.

There will be too many to fit,

eat one with honey,

lick your fingers clean.

3.

Play the serpent.

Kiss his lips and let him taste

the nectar on your tongue.

The air is heavy,

perfumed, sweet and spicy.

Realize, you are naked.

4.

Eat your fill.

On Vegetarianism and Monogamy - Naomi

On Vegetarianism and Monogamy



First I
sauteed the onions
until the opaque became
translucent
Alternative ingredients
build and thicken the dressing
Substituting animal fruits for
kinder, inanimate nutrients



Meeting daily caloric needs
of intimacy can be strained.
Hunting and gathering
compliments
and touches
But to refrain from
hunting--
against natural instincts--
evolutionarily seems
counterproductive.



And yet--
the body moves more freely
not weighed down
with dense
digestion



And while beads
form and glisten
on the browning
skin of the turkey
I know
it will not be me
who dismantles
the strips of meat
with my tongue

Food, glorious food!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I propose we write poetry about FOOD!  Food is such a big part of our, or any, culture.  So much of Susan and my time together has been around various kitchen tables, enjoying amazing food with people we love.  There are wonderful amazing things that people are doing with food, and also hurtful ways that food is used against us.  This is the first time I am preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and I am looking forward to doing some serious meditating on the food we eat, and the wonderful people I will be eating with!

News Poem

For this poem I drew inspiration from National Geographic - Jimmy's mom got us a subscription last Christmas and it has been a monthly source of wonder.

Telescope

I want to talk about peripheries:

how we define ourselves by what surrounds us –

and what we keep at bay.

I was reading about the North,

about Scandinavia, up close to the Arctic.

There are people there, called Sami –

at the edge of all things, just before unending white.

They herd the reindeer, sing to them,

move with the living, beating, tide of fur and hoof

across imagined borders, inked and named

in far off, warmer places, where the lines are drawn.

I saw a picture, once, of galaxies colliding –

an image of the past so distant,

the mind recoils from the knowing.

Four arms encircled, spiraled tighter, and there,

became a Rose.

These stories are not connected.

Or, if they are, it is only from the outside,

looking in.

Don't Ask for the Meaning- Naomi

Here is my poem from the Social Media Found theme. All were notes on my Twitter feed. Luckily I follow some of the world's greatest minds, so my samples were extraordinary. Thanks New Yorker, John Darnielle, and Neil Gaiman!

Don't Ask for the Meaning

Now's the perfect time
Of the day,
lonely, cold, wet Halloween,
Beautiful and amazing.
Looking forward
Finally, the cries of our spiritual hunger are answered.
I felt it deserved to live
Petition to save
God Says
Lions mocking
A symbol left from the dictator’s regime
Postage stamps
Not sure I got what I was going for
A new chapter
The magical glorious peculiar show
in need of heavy editing
Humans evolved to be social creatures
Thank you to my co-conspirators--
Some of the world’s most beautiful.
Don’t ask for the meaning- ask for the use

What's the News?

I loved our last theme, and I've decided to build on it a little for our next prompt. One of the great things about living in our digital age is the ability to tap into a nearly infinite network of information. The whole of human knowledge is quite literally at our fingertips. The world is our library.

With that in mind, this week I'd like to dig a little deeper. For this prompt, choose one article, photograph, status update, headline, tweet, or whatever else you find out there on the world wide interwebs and elaborate it into a poem in your own words. Dive in, and enjoy!

Found Poem

To begin with: I apologize for my dereliction of duty last week! I was experiencing a serious case of writer's block tied to some recent anxieties and upsets. But I'm back now, and I absolutely love this week's prompt. Social media is so much a part of our every day lives, but it's rare that we stop to find the poetry in it.
Artists have been exploiting the bounty of the digital age since the 90s, acting something like DJ's, rearranging bits and pieces of found visual information, creating meaning by altering the context in which these images are received. I tried to approach this assignment from an artistic angle rather than a literary one, creating a collage of words that's meant to evoke a certain mood rather than prompt textual analysis. The poem is pieced together entirely from sentences and fragments of sentences that appeared on my Facebook newsfeed in the past few days, as is the picture, which was taken by a friend of mine in New York as Central Park was buried in the first snow of the season.

Fog Machines

Oh, hello, nor’easter.

The first flurries of the season fell, carried by the wind, followed by the leaves.

But there is still that lingering thought.

How could you ever

Confirm/deny?

There are no words

... Perchè niente è cambiato anche se tutto è diverso.

For now we are young.

Still, that lingering thought.

Chemistry and timing.

I write

and hope to see.

That lingering thought.

Even then it is a moment of grace.

Theme: Social Media Found Poetry

Found poetry has been one of my favorite genres of poetry since I first played with it in high school.  Infinite combinations can be made when you only take the words of other people and reconstruct them in new and meaningful ways.  Our dialogue theme last week made me think a lot about how we communicate today compared to generations past.  Certainly the internet and social media have opened communication channels that were previously untapped, whether that is for good or not is open to debate.  So, in honor of this meditation on communication I challenge you to choose one channel of social media, be it your e-mail inbox, your Facebook  or Twitter stream, or whatever the kids are keeping up with these days and create a found poem using the words of the social network.  Enjoy!

Poem 4- War Correspondence

I work in the Clements Library at the University of Michigan which is a collection of primary materials and documents all focused on American History. It is an amazing place to be, and I have access to people's personal lives over 500 years (take that, Facebook!). One collection I just spent some time with was a collection of letters between an Army doctor serving in England in World War II and his fiancee at home in Syracuse. They wrote more than 600 letters in the two years that they were apart, sometimes writing 3 or 4 letters a day. However, despite the seemingly prolific communication, there was a month wait time for their letters to float across the Atlantic Ocean so they never were really able to have a dialogue. They weren't able to respond to each other in time, so their correspondence takes the form as parallel individual narratives. They are quite lovely, and made me think a lot about how much dialogue has changed. My own significant other lived in England for a year and our communication took quite different forms. I wonder if historians will have access to our correspondence?

Some of these lines are taken directly from the original letters, though much of it is inferred. Read it as you like. I attempted to construct separate narratives, as their letters were, but also give it an overall structure that could be read in multiple ways.

War Correspondence

(I had a hard time with formatting, so I just took a picture of the text)

I've lost count of the themes...

But here is this week's! It's always a challenge to try out new forms of poetry - it can be a real pain trying to mold your own unique style and language into a form that can seem stilted and archaic. It's amazing, though, how liberating restrictions can be. Closing one creative pathway inevitably necessitates the opening of another. I'm not going to propose we write sonnets, although the thought did cross my mind, but I am interested in exploring one of the less common poetry forms: the dialogue poem. Unlike most poetry which is written from the vantage point of a single character, dialogue poems allow for a conversation rather than a dramatic monologue. For this week's assignment, write a poem that engages two or more characters in some kind of verbal exchange. To inspire us, here's one of my favorite (racy!) dialogue poems by e.e. cummings.

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

Poem 3 - Susan

Navigation

Distance is losing meaning –

this, we know.

It is an old thought;

old as telephone lines,

railways, steamships,

rickety, rolling, shining cars,

and all things that puff and chug

and cough up fumes.

Old as the great grey

snakey windings

of a million-tailed nest

of highways, byways,

and stubby driveways,

leading nowhere,

and everywhere at once.

There is meaning in a journey –

from solid ground surrounded

on all sides by endless blue.

You wrap your bundles tightly,

one by one:

here is taro, breadfruit,

coconut, banana,

here is clothing, weapons.

There are animals, packed,

as well, alongside human cargo.

They are fat, now;

the sea will leave them gaunt

and wild eyed.

Your hope, you tuck

beside your gods,

at the prow of the boat.

You strike out into nothing –

and for days that will be all you see.

You will watch the stars;

mark their passing

from one concave horizon to another –

the birds will guide you,

and the color of the sea,

the gathering of clouds

hugging the flanks

of still invisible peaks.

One day, your will again see green –

mountains rising taller than the waves.

Your feet will kiss the sand,

sweet and white, untouched and infinite,

and you, also, will be made new.

There are no journeys, now –

only transportations.

I am here, and the sand is white

and sweet, and bounded on all sides

by glass, and concrete, and cement.

There are a thousand miles

that separate myself

from all I left behind.

But my bundles can’t sustain me,

and, not having marked the path

with my own un-callused feet,

I cannot seem to find

the right way home.

Poem 3 - Naomi

There is a system here--
a pattern of whirs and purrs and churns,
its presence is not as felt now
as it once was,
exhaling thick black
panting
slowly at first and then with increasing
intensity
But now
--not without starts and stops
crossing lines--
we glide,
the system pushing me
steadily to you.

A Favorite Transportation Poem

She Being Brand

e.e. cummings 

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg.  ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

         (it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

Theme 3: Transportation

This summer David and I went to Promontory Point on our way to Michigan.  We saw the place where the Transcontinental Railroad came together, opening the United States up to rapid travel from sea to shining sea it had recently taken in their war(s) with Mexico.  It hit me particularly because my students and I had studied wagon travel extensively, had followed Lewis and Clark and then the ill-fated Donner Party across the treacherous American landscape.  And then bam!  Suddenly you could take the same journey in a matter of days, on cushioned seats, with warm dining car food!  I know we talk about our current age as the technological age, but I can't think about many things that have had so profound an impact on our lives as transportation.

Susan and I are probably acutely aware of transportation as we both live far from our families and dearest friends and both have, until recently, maintained relationships over miles and oceans.

I have met few people who don't love to travel, but most people also complain about transportation (especially in this 'post-9/11' world everyone keeps talking about).  But transportation can be an escape in itself.  Sometimes I like the trip separately from the journey.  Being on a plane, or a train, or a long car ride, or even a bicycle ride can take us out of the every day movement of things.  There is also a certain beauty in the mechanics of these things (refer to the Steampunk aesthetic).

So this week's theme is transportation.  Take it as you will.