Poetry
- Editor’s Choice Awards
- Bad Poet Man
- Kooser’s Column 172
- Kooser’s Column 167
- Poetry and Clarity
- Kooser’s Column 146
- Emily Dickinson
- Kooser’s Column 166
- Kooser’s Column 171
- Summer Poems
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Poetry is celebrating its fourth Editor’s Choice Award.
In October 2007, Suite101.com initiated an award to recognize the work of Suite writers; it is called the Editor’s Choice Award. Section editors select one article per section each week and place a check mark on the article. The identifying check mark remains with article wherever it is listed.
Poetry Earns its Fourth Award
In August, the Poetry site at Suite101.com received its fourth Editor’s Choice Award for “Simic's 'The Partial Explanation'.“
The following articles have also been fortunate enough to be recognized by the Editor’s Choice Award:
Jul 26, 2008 “Walt Whitman's 'Passage to India'“
Feb 20, 2008 “Jamison's 'The Negro Soldiers'”
Oct 15, 2007 “October Poet: Sylvia Plath”
*****
Poetry Earns its Fourth Award
In August, the Poetry site at Suite101.com received its fourth Editor’s Choice Award for “Simic's 'The Partial Explanation'.“
The following articles have also been fortunate enough to be recognized by the Editor’s Choice Award:
Jul 26, 2008 “Walt Whitman's 'Passage to India'“
Feb 20, 2008 “Jamison's 'The Negro Soldiers'”
Oct 15, 2007 “October Poet: Sylvia Plath”
*****
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
In some circles, all it takes to maintain a reputation as a poet is to be a communist. Such is it with the overexposed Pablo Neruda.
Stephen Schwartz, in the Weekly Standard, offers a useful overview of the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Schwartz writes, "Readers in the United States seem destined to have Neruda thrust upon them every few years, much as the cicadas return to whine and roar up and down the East Coast."
Neruda was a plagiarist who lifted from Rabindranath Tagore. Schwartz accurately describes the flawed poets this way: "Pablo Neruda was a bad writer and a bad man. His main public is located not in the Spanish-speaking nations but in the Anglo-European countries, and his reputation derives almost entirely from the iconic place he once occupied in politics--which is to say, he's 'the greatest poet of the twentieth century' because he was a Stalinist at exactly the right moment, and not because of his poetry, which is doggerel."
Please see "July Poet - Pablo Neruda: 'To be men! That is the Stalinist law!'" for an analysis of one of his poems that is never held up for adulation.
Neruda was a plagiarist who lifted from Rabindranath Tagore. Schwartz accurately describes the flawed poets this way: "Pablo Neruda was a bad writer and a bad man. His main public is located not in the Spanish-speaking nations but in the Anglo-European countries, and his reputation derives almost entirely from the iconic place he once occupied in politics--which is to say, he's 'the greatest poet of the twentieth century' because he was a Stalinist at exactly the right moment, and not because of his poetry, which is doggerel."
Please see "July Poet - Pablo Neruda: 'To be men! That is the Stalinist law!'" for an analysis of one of his poems that is never held up for adulation.
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Kooser’s column features Colorado poet Veronica Patterson, “Marry Me’.”
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser introduces the poem: “I don't often talk about poetic forms in this column, thinking that most of my readers aren't interested in how the clock works and would rather be given the time. But the following poem by Veronica Patterson of Colorado has a subtitle referring to a form, the senryu, and I thought it might be helpful to mention that the senryu is a Japanese form similar to haiku but dealing with people rather than nature. There; enough said. Now you can forget the form and enjoy the poem, which is a beautiful sketch of a marriage.”
The Poem
The following is the first of the senryu sequence:
when I come late to bed
I move your leg flung over my side--
that warm gate
Please visit American Life in Poetry for the rest of this verse Column 172 .
Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser introduces the poem: “I don't often talk about poetic forms in this column, thinking that most of my readers aren't interested in how the clock works and would rather be given the time. But the following poem by Veronica Patterson of Colorado has a subtitle referring to a form, the senryu, and I thought it might be helpful to mention that the senryu is a Japanese form similar to haiku but dealing with people rather than nature. There; enough said. Now you can forget the form and enjoy the poem, which is a beautiful sketch of a marriage.”
The Poem
The following is the first of the senryu sequence:
when I come late to bed
I move your leg flung over my side--
that warm gate
Please visit American Life in Poetry for the rest of this verse Column 172 .
Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Kooser’s Column features Sharmila Voorakkara’s “For the Tattooed Man.”
Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser introduces the poem: “Among young people, tattoos are all the rage and, someday, dermatologists will grow rich as kings removing them from a lot of middle-aged people who have grown embarrassed by their colorful skins. I really like this poem by Sharmila Voorakkara of Ohio.”
The Poem
The first five lines:
Because she broke your heart, Shannon's a badge—
a seven-letter skidmark that scars up
across your chest, a flare of indelible script.
Between Death or Glory, and Mama, she rages,
scales the trellis of your rib cage
To read the rest: Column 167.
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser introduces the poem: “Among young people, tattoos are all the rage and, someday, dermatologists will grow rich as kings removing them from a lot of middle-aged people who have grown embarrassed by their colorful skins. I really like this poem by Sharmila Voorakkara of Ohio.”
The Poem
The first five lines:
Because she broke your heart, Shannon's a badge—
a seven-letter skidmark that scars up
across your chest, a flare of indelible script.
Between Death or Glory, and Mama, she rages,
scales the trellis of your rib cage
To read the rest: Column 167.
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Clarity is crucial in poetry; so are honesty, integrity, and purpose, if writing is to achieve a measure of spirituality.
While writing, I feel engaged in a purpose that is beyond myself. On the other hand, I have always felt that the real reason I write is to find out about myself, that is, to find out what I think and to organize my thinking, and theoretically it should not matter if a larger purpose be present, especially the larger purpose of eventually communicating with other people.
Writing as a Spiritual Act
The act of writing becomes a spiritual act when the writer is engaged in self-discovery for clarity of thought and purpose. Communication is ultimately the goal of any writing.
Without clarity, honesty, and integrity, writing serves no purpose. The spirituality of a clear, well-wrought poem is one of life’s true pleasures; the joy of understanding and recognition offers depth and breadth to the spiritual search.
Clarity is essential in all writing, if the transcendent voice is to be well displayed. Writers, especially poets, must always strive for the discourse that speaks in as clear a voice as possible, since spiritual things can be communicated only through metaphor and symbol.
Clarity in PoetryClarity is especially crucial in poetry. It is true that poetry does require a special reading, but real, skillfully crafted poems are worth the extra care one takes to comprehend the heartfelt experiences portrayed by practiced poets.
The field of modern writing, especially modern poetry, is littered with weeds of confusion, apathy, inaccuracy, and even fraud. The reader must seek out clarity with vigilance, constantly asking himself, “is this poem clearly communicating or merely obfuscating?” It is wise to avoid to latter as a waste of time and effort.
Writing as a Spiritual Act
The act of writing becomes a spiritual act when the writer is engaged in self-discovery for clarity of thought and purpose. Communication is ultimately the goal of any writing.
Without clarity, honesty, and integrity, writing serves no purpose. The spirituality of a clear, well-wrought poem is one of life’s true pleasures; the joy of understanding and recognition offers depth and breadth to the spiritual search.
Clarity is essential in all writing, if the transcendent voice is to be well displayed. Writers, especially poets, must always strive for the discourse that speaks in as clear a voice as possible, since spiritual things can be communicated only through metaphor and symbol.
Clarity in PoetryClarity is especially crucial in poetry. It is true that poetry does require a special reading, but real, skillfully crafted poems are worth the extra care one takes to comprehend the heartfelt experiences portrayed by practiced poets.
The field of modern writing, especially modern poetry, is littered with weeds of confusion, apathy, inaccuracy, and even fraud. The reader must seek out clarity with vigilance, constantly asking himself, “is this poem clearly communicating or merely obfuscating?” It is wise to avoid to latter as a waste of time and effort.
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Kooser’s Column features Marvin Bell’s “Veterans of the Seventies.”
Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser introduces the poem: “Post-traumatic stress disorder is a new name for "shell shock," a term once applied only to military veterans. Here the poet Marvin Bell describes a group of these emotionally damaged soldiers, gathered together for breakfast. I'd guess that just about everybody who reads this column has known one or two men like these.”
The Poem
Bell’s poem reads like prose broken into poetic-looking lines, one of the major traits of modern poets who are more dabblers than craftsmen.
The first five lines:
His army jacket bore the white rectangle
of one who has torn off his name. He sat mute
at the round table where the trip-wire veterans
ate breakfast. They were foxhole buddies
who went stateside without leaving the war.
To read the rest of this verse, Column 146 .
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser introduces the poem: “Post-traumatic stress disorder is a new name for "shell shock," a term once applied only to military veterans. Here the poet Marvin Bell describes a group of these emotionally damaged soldiers, gathered together for breakfast. I'd guess that just about everybody who reads this column has known one or two men like these.”
The Poem
Bell’s poem reads like prose broken into poetic-looking lines, one of the major traits of modern poets who are more dabblers than craftsmen.
The first five lines:
His army jacket bore the white rectangle
of one who has torn off his name. He sat mute
at the round table where the trip-wire veterans
ate breakfast. They were foxhole buddies
who went stateside without leaving the war.
To read the rest of this verse, Column 146 .
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Emily Dickinson always provides her readers with something substantial to chew on. Any poem, any time will delight. She is deep, she is clear, she is always there.
The following articles demonstrate the wide variety of moods of the “Nun of Amherst”:
Dickinson's “The Only News I Know”
Poem number 827 in Johnson's The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson offers a glimpse of the poet's satisfying daily existence.
Dickinson’s Spiritual Intoxication
The poem "I taste a liquor never brewed" portrays the speaker's spiritual intoxication through an extended metaphor likening her soul drunkenness to alcohol inebriation.
Dickinson's Slant of Light
Dickinson was a keen observer of her environment, dramatizing her reactions in poems. Her sense of melancholy informs her observations of light on winter afternoons.
Looking Back from Eternity
Emily Dickinson, in her poem of cosmic drama, portrays Death as a gentleman carriage driver, for whom she ceases her leisure as well as her work.
"A Bird came down the Walk"
This poem is one of Dickinson's many fun poems loaded with clever plays on words, making a keen observation that serves to remind the reader of images stored in memory.
The Nun of Amherst
Emily Dickinson's life resembled that of a monastic. She lived a quiet life of contemplation, and she filled her poems with flowers, birds, divinity, and immortality.
Dickinson's “The Only News I Know”
Poem number 827 in Johnson's The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson offers a glimpse of the poet's satisfying daily existence.
Dickinson’s Spiritual Intoxication
The poem "I taste a liquor never brewed" portrays the speaker's spiritual intoxication through an extended metaphor likening her soul drunkenness to alcohol inebriation.
Dickinson's Slant of Light
Dickinson was a keen observer of her environment, dramatizing her reactions in poems. Her sense of melancholy informs her observations of light on winter afternoons.
Looking Back from Eternity
Emily Dickinson, in her poem of cosmic drama, portrays Death as a gentleman carriage driver, for whom she ceases her leisure as well as her work.
"A Bird came down the Walk"
This poem is one of Dickinson's many fun poems loaded with clever plays on words, making a keen observation that serves to remind the reader of images stored in memory.
The Nun of Amherst
Emily Dickinson's life resembled that of a monastic. She lived a quiet life of contemplation, and she filled her poems with flowers, birds, divinity, and immortality.
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Kooser’s Column features R. S. Gwynn’s “Fried Beauty,” a take-off of “Pied Beauty” by Father Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser comments and introduces the poem: “Texas poet R. S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch. Here he picks up on Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet "Pied Beauty," which many of you will remember from school, and offers us a picnic instead of a sermon. I hope you enjoy the feast!”
The Poem
Hopkins' "Pied Beauty" is not a traditional sonnet, but a special sonnet form that Hopkins invented and named the "curtal sonnet." It is a shortened version the original Italian sonnet.
Before reading Gwynn’s take-off of Father Hopkins’ poem, please read the original, “Pied Beauty.”
The first four lines from Gwynn’s “Fried Beauty”:
Glory be to God for breaded things—
Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings
For the rest of this verse, see Column 166 at American Life in Poetry.
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
Kooser comments and introduces the poem: “Texas poet R. S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch. Here he picks up on Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet "Pied Beauty," which many of you will remember from school, and offers us a picnic instead of a sermon. I hope you enjoy the feast!”
The Poem
Hopkins' "Pied Beauty" is not a traditional sonnet, but a special sonnet form that Hopkins invented and named the "curtal sonnet." It is a shortened version the original Italian sonnet.
Before reading Gwynn’s take-off of Father Hopkins’ poem, please read the original, “Pied Beauty.”
The first four lines from Gwynn’s “Fried Beauty”:
Glory be to God for breaded things—
Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings
For the rest of this verse, see Column 166 at American Life in Poetry.
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
Kooser’s Column 171 features “Planting the Sand Cherry” by Iowa poet, Ann Struthers.
Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
About the poem, the former poet laureate writes: “Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when they're engaged in activities close to the work of the earliest humans: telling stories around a fire, taking care of children, hunting, making clothes. Here an Iowan, Ann Struthers, speaks of one of those original tasks, digging in the dirt.”
The Poem
A sampling, the first five lines:
Today I planted the sand cherry with red leaves—
and hope that I can go on digging in this yard,
pruning the grape vine, twisting the silver lace
on its trellis, the one that bloomed
just before the frost flowered over all the garden.
For the rest of the poem, American Life in Poetry: Column 171 .
While serving as the U. S. Poet Laureate 2004 to 2006, Nebraska poet Ted Kooser launched his series of weekly columns called American Life in Poetry. These columns are offered free to newspapers to dramatize the value and just plain fun of poetry and to demonstrate how poetry enhances life in America.
Kooser’s Commentary
About the poem, the former poet laureate writes: “Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when they're engaged in activities close to the work of the earliest humans: telling stories around a fire, taking care of children, hunting, making clothes. Here an Iowan, Ann Struthers, speaks of one of those original tasks, digging in the dirt.”
The Poem
A sampling, the first five lines:
Today I planted the sand cherry with red leaves—
and hope that I can go on digging in this yard,
pruning the grape vine, twisting the silver lace
on its trellis, the one that bloomed
just before the frost flowered over all the garden.
For the rest of the poem, American Life in Poetry: Column 171 .
Posted by
Linda Sue Grimes
Linda Sue Grimes
What do poets write about in summer? From swimming holes to birds to death, poets take the summer season as a useful backdrop to deliver their dramas.
The following articles discuss poems that offer a variety of moods and subjects:
Frost’s ‘The Oven Bird’
Frost's speaker in "The Oven Bird" explores the same mystery that presents itself in the little eight-line poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
Dickinson’s Summer
In this poem, Dickinson personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring.
Whittier’s ‘The Barefoot Boy’
John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Barefoot Boy" is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill"; both dramatize memories of boyhood. Whittier offers a special nod to summer.
“Riley’s 'The Old Swimmin’-Hole': Nostalgia and Summer”
Nostalgia and summer seem to be soul mates. James Whitcomb Riley's "The Old Swimmin'-Hole" is a delightful example of a man recalling his boyhood in summer.
“Amy Lowell’s ‘Penumbra’: An After Death Presence”
Unlike the nostalgic looking back into the past of Whittier and Riley, Amy Lowell's poem, "Penumbra," looks into the future after the speaker's death.
Frost’s ‘The Oven Bird’
Frost's speaker in "The Oven Bird" explores the same mystery that presents itself in the little eight-line poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
Dickinson’s Summer
In this poem, Dickinson personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring.
Whittier’s ‘The Barefoot Boy’
John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Barefoot Boy" is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill"; both dramatize memories of boyhood. Whittier offers a special nod to summer.
“Riley’s 'The Old Swimmin’-Hole': Nostalgia and Summer”
Nostalgia and summer seem to be soul mates. James Whitcomb Riley's "The Old Swimmin'-Hole" is a delightful example of a man recalling his boyhood in summer.
“Amy Lowell’s ‘Penumbra’: An After Death Presence”
Unlike the nostalgic looking back into the past of Whittier and Riley, Amy Lowell's poem, "Penumbra," looks into the future after the speaker's death.
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