The tendency is for viewers of this site to read for a while and pass on quietly - so it is rare I receive comments or thoughts on the postings or poems. But in the spirit of counteracting this trend I pose a question to readers both regular and not. Over the past two months a fair amount of traffic has come to poem.oftheweek.org due to searches for E.E. Cummings’ “as freedom is a breakfast food”. A month ago there were 60 unique hits on that page - certainly an oddity for potw.org. Why is this? The poem does not seem to have cropped up in the zeitgeist recently in any significant way that I have noticed. My hope is that one of these searchers will pause on this post to answer, but all readers are welcome to hypothesize (my current theory is that questions on the American high school AP English test may have centered around this poem, though I have have no verification).
NPR brings an interesting angle to the current economic discussion. Noting that while publishing is in a tailspin, poetry publishing is relatively sheltered, being used to living on scraps. So next time your parents flip out that you live on ramen noodles and scribble words on scraps of paper, you can gently remind them that they’ll be joining you soon enough.
The above site also provides a link to a Planet Money Haiku contest. I think my favorite is the following:
Technical writer
Moved to the Haiku Department –
Still paid by the word.
–Thomas Lanaghan
The site has been quiet recently - lots going on. But we certainly couldn’t let National Poetry Month pass us by. Since April has been so named it gives news organizations license to run their “special interest” pieces. We certainly could never hope (nor wish) to link to all of them, but you will find a few. And if over the course of the month you come across particular sites or stories of interest, please share them. Now read on for assorted and sundry links!
Poem in Your Pocket Day. About what it sounds like. On April 30th various organizations encourage you to carry a poem in your pocket - share it with your friends. I think the most famous example of someone carrying a poem in his (or her) pocket was Percy Shelley - supposedly he had Keats’ poetry in his shirt pocket on the day Shelley drowned. So, there’s that (link courtesy of nataline).
So Thursday (4/23) is Shakespeare’s birthday. Cool. Apparently people are encouraging Talk Like Shakespeare Day to celebrate this. p.otw.org will not be participating.
NPR has been doing a number of poetry stories recently (no doubt tied to NaPoMo). Here’s one that discusses performing Wendell Berry’s work. Wish we could have seen the performance.
And unrelated to anything at all - faithful reader johnlos alerts us to the existence of the Whittier College Poets. As he notes in his email, “Whittier College is probably most famous for being where Richard Nixon went to undergrad. For some reason their athletics aren’t very well known…” Alas.
My father and mother, my brother and sister
and I, with uncle Pat, our dour best-loved uncle,
had set out that Sunday afternoon in July
in his broken-down Ford
not to visit some graveyard—one died of shingles,
one of fever, another’s knees turned to jelly—
but the brand-new roundabout at Ballygawley,
the first in mid-Ulster.
Uncle Pat was telling us how the B-Specials
had stopped him one night somewhere near Ballygawley
and smashed his bicycle
and made him sing the Sash and curse the Pope of Rome.
They held a pistol so hard against his forehead
there was still the mark of an O when he got home.
Against all odds, the feature returns. This will be playing a bit of catch-up, touching on some stories over the past couple of weeks.
On January 27 John Updike passed away. He was best known for his prose work (books like Rabbit, Run), but was also a well-regarded poet. Much has been written about him, but this obituary from the New York times was particularly well-written and thoughtful.
The Times also printed a poem from his forthcoming collection:
Requiem
It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!”
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
“I thought he died a while ago.”
For life’s a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.
A little slam poetry about Barack and Michelle Obama’s imagined first date. Make of it as you will. (link courtesy of nataline).
Continuing with poetry slam, NPR features four poets and their writings about love. We here at potw.org may have missed Valentine’s Day by a few days, but you can still check it out. The link includes text and readings.
modern translation:
(1:21) old english:
(1:16)
audio read by Burton Raffel and Robert P. Creed. recordings made on January 1, 1964. audio translation unknown. text translation from the Old English by Richard Hamer.
It is as though my people had been given
A present. They will wish to capture him
If he comes with a troop. We are apart.
Wulf is on one isle, I am on another.
Fast is that island set among the fens.
Murderous are the people who inhabit
That island. They will wish to capture him
If he comes with a troop. We are apart.
Grieved have I for my Wulf with distant longings.
Then was it rainy weather, and I sad,
When the bold warrior laid his arms about me.
I took delight in that and also pain.
O Wulf, my Wulf, my longing for your coming
Has made me ill, the rareness of your visits,
My grieving spirit, not the lack of food.
Eadwacer, do you hear me? For a wolf
Shall carry to the woods our wretched whelp.
Men very easily may put asunder
That which was never joined, our song together.
Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus…
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there…
Only she on her knees, peeking into
I once held on my knees a simple wooden box
in which a rainbow lay dusty and broken.
It was a set of pastels that had years before
belonged to the painter Mary Cassatt,
and all of the colors she’d used in her work
lay open before me. Those hues she’d most used,
the peaches and pinks, were worn down to stubs,
while the cool colors — violet, ultramarine –
had been set, scarcely touched, to one side.
She’d had little patience with darkness, and her heart
held only a measure of shadow. I touched
the warm dust of those colors, her tools,
and left there with light on the tips of my fingers.
1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
2.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew Someone had blunder’d. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
Against all odds, the feature returns. This will be playing a bit of catch-up, touching on some stories over the past couple of weeks.
Rode the six hundred.