FollowI have been reading a lot of poetry this year.
I am struck by what an individual experience it is, and how we all love different things.
For instance, Nate Amadon of Port Veritas, among many, many others loves Dylan Thomas. I got a collection of his from the library, and it was good but left me cold.
And example for me is this poem:
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
by Dylan ThomasThe force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
I am sure many find it brilliant, it just doesn’t sink into my heart.
——
One of my favorite ways to get some poetry every day is the poem of the day at poets.org … decided to look for some random poems and found this:
Approach of Winter
by William Carlos WilliamsThe half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine,—
like no leaf that ever was—
edge the bare garden.
To me lovely and evocative of the pre-winter/locking, leaves not quite ready to embrace winter.
—–
Another of my favorite ways to hear poetry is Garrison Keillor’s wonderful writers almanac (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/) on PBS at 9am and podcasted on iTunes, etc. It’s something I often listen to on my first break at work, and an amazing 5 minute podcast. One of the ones that blew me away on that show is “Gas” from one of my favorite poets, Charles Bukowski.
Gas
by Charles Bukowski
my grandmother had a serious gas
problem.
we only saw her on Sunday.
she’d sit down to dinner
and she’d have gas.
she was very heavy,
80 years old.
wore this large glass brooch,
that’s what you noticed most
in addition to the gas.
she’d let it go just as food was being served.
she’d let it go loud in bursts
spaced about a minute apart.
she’d let it go
4 or 5 times
as we reached for the potatoes
poured the gravy
cut into the meat.nobody ever said anything;
especially me.
I was 6 years old.
only my grandmother spoke.
after 4 or 5 blasts
she would say in an offhand way,
“I will bury you all!”I didn’t much like that:
first farting
then saying that.it happened every Sunday.
she was my father’s mother.
every Sunday it was death and gas
and mashed potatoes and gravy
and that big glass brooch.those Sunday dinners would
always end with apple pie and
ice cream
and a big argument
about something or other,
my grandmother finally running out the door
and taking the red train back to
Pasadena
the place stinking for an hour
and my father walking about
fanning a newspaper in the air and
saying, “it’s all that damned sauerkraut
she eats!”
Makes me laugh and happy. .. especially with the voice of Garrison Keillor … Here is that podcast from September 26, 2010. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/09/26
What is your experience reading poetry?
