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Linda Sue Grimes's BlogPosted by Linda Sue Grimes A Poem for Thanksgiving: By Ella Wheeler Wilcox Wilcox’s poem reminds us of the rut we can get into living our busy lives. It shows how we fail to notice all the wonderful things in life that we should treasure—even those that cause sorrow, we should be grateful for: “But he who has the faith and strength / To thank his God for sorrow / Has found a joy without alloy / To gladden every morrow.” Here is the first stanza of “Thanksgiving”: We walk on starry fields of white And do not see the daisies; For blessings common in our sight We rarely offer praises. We sigh for some supreme delight To crown our lives with splendor, And quite ignore our daily store Of pleasures sweet and tender. To read the rest of the poem, please visit “Thanksgiving.” Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The following articles are the most recent feature articles for Poetry. Two of them have earned the Editor’s Choice Award: Gwynn's Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins R. S. Gwynn's poem conflates the Snow White fable, the seven deadly sins, biblical allusion, and a stereotype of Catholic sensibility to dramatize an unholy marriage. Yogananda's "'Tis All Unknown" The speaker in Yogananda's "'Tis All Unknown" likens the dawning of day to the unfolding of rosebud petals, hinting at the beauty of the opening of human consciousness. Sonnet 87 begins a sequence in which the speaker/poet addresses his Muse, again bemoaning the fact that she sometimes seems to abandon him. In Sylvia Plath's "Mirror," the speaker is a mirror that becomes a lake to report the aging process of a woman. This piece is one of the best poems of the 20th century. Editor’s Choice Award: Sylvia Plath's "Metaphors" portrays a unique vision of a character obsessed with body image, specifically, the character is preoccupied with her pregnant body. Sir Philip Sidney's "Sonnet 79" "Astrophil" comes from the Greek for "star" and "love"; therefore, the lover in this sonnet sequence is a "starlover"; "Stella," his love object, is Latin for "star." Former poet laureate Rita Dove offers a unique three-pronged expression of the mind and vision of an adolescent girl in her "Adolescence" poems. Editor’s Choice Award: The theme dramatized in Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" is the contrast between the joyous notes of a bird and the despair of the human listener. Thank you for visiting. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes If poets were held to anything near the standard of physicians, far less doggerel would be polluting the world. I have written such an oath using the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath. Here is a sampling, the first two parts of the Oath:
For the other five please see To Aspiring Poets: A Hippocratic Oath Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Historically, the Republican Party ihas been the party of civil rights. The GOP first championed abolition of slavery and then the rights of emancipated slaves after the civil war, and it also advocated for women's suffrage. Conversely, the Democrat Party fought bitterly against both rights for slaves and their descendents and against rights for women, including the right to vote. For more, please see "Women and the Republican Party" Posted by Linda Sue Grimes
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: “I've always loved shop talk, with its wonderful language of tools and techniques. This poem by D. Nurkse of Brooklyn, New York, is a perfect example. I especially like the use of the verb, lap, in line seven, because that's exactly the sound a four-inch wall brush makes.”
The Poem
The first four lines:
Sadness of just-painted rooms.
We clean our tools
meticulously, as if currying horses:
the little nervous sash brush
to be combed and primped
To read the rest of this verse, Column 179 .
Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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” ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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 . Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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 was a keen observer of her environment, dramatizing her reactions in poems. Her sense of melancholy informs her observations of light on winter afternoons. 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. 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. 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 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. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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 . Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The following articles discuss poems that offer a variety of moods and subjects: Frost's speaker in "The Oven Bird" explores the same mystery that presents itself in the little eight-line poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay." In this poem, Dickinson personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring. 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. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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: "In ‘The Moose,’ a poem much too long to print here, the late Elizabeth Bishop was able to show a community being created from a group of strangers on a bus who come in contact with a moose on the highway. They watch it together and become one. Here Robert Bly of Minnesota assembles a similar community, around an eclipse. Notice how the experience happens to ‘we,’ the group, not just to ‘me,’ the poet.” The Poem This poem is an American (or innovative) sonnet. It has no traditional rime scheme nor meter. It is essentially prose in sonnet form; nevertheless, it proffers three quatrains and a couplet as it tries to imitate the Elizabethan sonnet stanzaic form. Shakespeare, however, will get no competition from this versifier. Here is the first quatrain of “Seeing the Eclipse in Maine”: It started about noon. On top of Mount Batte, We were all exclaiming. Someone had a cardboard And a pin, and we all cried out when the sun Appeared in tiny form on the notebook cover. Please visit American Life in Poetry for the rest of this verse Column 165. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes On 17 July 2008, James Billington, Librarian of Congress, announced the appointment of California poet, Kay Ryan, to the U. S. Poet Laureateship for the coming year. She will begin her duties in September. From the Library of Congress Web site: “Ryan was born in 1945 in San Jose, Calif., and grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. Her father was an oil well driller and sometime-prospector. She received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1971, Ryan has lived in Marin County.” For more about Kay Ryan, please see “Kay Ryan: New Poet Laureate.” Posted by Linda Sue Grimes My articles here at Suite Poetry are written with the student in mind as well as general readers who are seeking some direction in appreciating poems. So any article here is a potential helper for those frustrated students. In addition to my Suite articles, I maintain a Web site titled Classic Poetry: for students who hate poetry!, which is aimed deliberately at the target on the poetry dummy’s head. You might want to start by reading my article, “How to Read a Poem,” and then you might take my 8-lesson course in “Understanding Poetry.” I hope you find my sites helpful, and I wish you all the best in your study of poetry. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes What is a Snark? Probably a portmanteau for “snake” and “shark.” Here’s how Carroll explains the concept: “ . . . take the two words ‘fuming’ and ‘furious.’ Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards ‘fuming,’ you will say ‘fuming-furious’; if they turn, by even a hair’s breadth, towards ‘furious,’ you will say ‘furious-fuming’; but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say frumious.’” Actually, I would say, ‘fumrious.” Placing the “r” before the “u,” makes it more difficult to establish the two words that are being conflated. It is easier to pronounce if you make it “frumious.” But then maybe Carroll wanted to make it more difficult. The Poem The poem is long with a Preface and eight “fits.” It has a skillfully composed rime scheme and meter and narrates a perfectly sensible tale is a perfectly nonsensical manner. In other words, this is Carroll at his nonsensical best. It has been studied and critiqued unmercifully by scholars, critics, and other people with too much time on their hands. The following lines serve as a choral repetition for the poem: They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway-share; They charmed it with smiles and soap. To read Carroll’s poem, which is accompanied by the drawings of Henry Holiday, please see ”The Hunting of the Snark.” Posted by Linda Sue Grimes When jazz singer, Rene Marie, was invited to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the state of the city address in Denver on July 1, 2008, she accepted the invitation, agreeing to sing the national anthem. But she did not sing “The Star-Spangled Banner”; instead, she sang James Weldon Johnson’s 1899 poem/hymn titled “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Also, instead singing the Johnson hymn with its original melody, which was very beautifully written by his brother, she put the hymn’s words to the melody of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is an outstanding, inspiring poem. It is sad that a jazz singer has chosen to denigrate the hymn, along with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” by her duplicity. For an analysis of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” please see: “June Poet - James Weldon Johnson: Lift Every Voice and Sing ” Posted by Linda Sue Grimes When Pablo Neruda, the Chilean Nobel Laureate, published his first collection of verse, titled Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, he put his borrowings of the Bengali Poet Rabindranath Tagore on display. While many of the poems demonstrate their debt to Tagore’s poems, Neruda’s number 16 is a total rip-off of Tagore’s #30 from The Gardener. In his memoirs, Neruda claims that he had told his friend, Joaquin Cifuentes Sepveda, that he had considered putting a disclaimer with the poem, saying that it was a “paraphrase,” but Sepveda discouraged him, saying Neruda would be accused of plagiarism. Sepveda’s advice was flawed. After Neruda’s “paraphrase” was discovered to be perilously close to the Tagore poem, in the next edition the poem carried the explanation, “This poem is a paraphrase of the 30th poem in Rabindranath Tagore's The Gardener.” While this disclaimer might give the act legal cover, it in no way diminishes the fact that Neruda plagiarized Tagore. Pablo Neruda is July’s featured poet: July Poet – Pablo Neruda: ‘To be men! That is the Stalinist law!’ Posted by Linda Sue Grimes 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: "None of us can fix the past. Mistakes we've made can burden us for many years, delivering their pain to the present as if they had happened just yesterday. In the following poem we join with Ruth Stone in revisiting a hurried decision, and we empathize with the intense regret of being unable to take that decision back, or any other decision, for that matter.” The Poem Is the speaker of the poem perhaps a bit of drama queen? Here are the first four line of “Another Feeling”: Once you saw a drove of young pigs crossing the highway. One of them pulling his body by the front feet, the hind legs dragging flat. To read the entire poem, please visit American Life in Poetry Column 4. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Part of the quandary is that a chap named William Shakespeare and De Vere were contemporaries. William Shakespeare, an actor, he lived from April 26, 1564, until April 23, 1616; De Vere from April 12, 1550 until June 24, 1604. The main challenge to William’s actually having written the works attributed to him is that he lacked both the education and experience to account for the learning and depth of understanding portrayed in the sonnets and dramatized in the plays, while the opposite is true for De Vere. Episodes from the plays have been found to be part of De Vere’s life experience. The truth may never be fully known, and scholars and critics continue to argue on either side. Here is an analysis of a De Vere sonnet, “De Vere’s Love Poem.” Also, I continue to analyze the Shakespeare sonnets, of which I have complete the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 73, 96, 116, 126, 130, 138 Posted by Linda Sue Grimes About Sam Green’s poem, Kooser writes: “I've lived all my life on the plains, where no body of water is more than a few feet deep, and even at that shallow depth I'm afraid of it. Here Sam Green, who lives on an island north of Seattle, takes us down into some really deep, dark water.” For a sample of the opening stanza of “Night Dive”: Down here, no light but what we carry with us. Everywhere we point our hands we scrawl color: bulging eyes, spines, teeth or clinging tentacles. At negative buoyancy, when heavy hands seem to grasp & pull us down, we let them, To read the rest of Green’s poem, please go to American Life in Poetry: Column 170. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The Mahabharata is thought to be the longest epic poem ever written. The Bhagavad Gita is an important part of that extended epic, and the Gita is often extolled as the “Hindu Bible.” With Paramahansa Yogananda’s two-volume set of the translation of the Gita titled God Talks to Arjuna, the world experienced for the first time a detailed explication of the poetry of the Gita. Then in 2007, Self-Realization Fellowship issued Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. This important condensation serves as a useful summary and introduction to Yogananda’s classic work titled God Talks to Arjuna. Posted by Linda Sue Grimes People love apocalyptic declamations that seem profound and prophetic. Whenever there is a crisis in the world (and the world is never without a crisis!), folks like to point to a well-known poem and say yes that describes how things are today. An example of this phenomenon can be seen in the many articles and books written with titles of lines from this Yeats poem. If you google “Things fall apart”+”New York Times,” you’ll get close to 40,000 sites. W. B. Yeats was a great poet and a deep thinker. He constructed a work that he called A Vision, which, in fact, is nothing more than his own statement on poetics. It is a dense work but fundamentally flawed. Yeats often misconstrued concepts to the point of turning them on their head—a topic about which I began writing with my doctoral dissertation and which I will continue to address. However, I am focusing here only on one technical issue with the poem. This issue is a minor one in comparison to the philosophy on which it is based, but still, it is important that the reader is aware of this problem: the conflation of the bearer and the born in the last two lines of the poem: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Because, to my knowledge, the absurdity of these lines has never been discussed, I have written two articles explaining the problem: Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Structured in thirteen unrimed couplets, the poem dramatizes the uniqueness that each child contributes to the household. The following are the first four: 1 Of course you invited them in: faces painted like trick-or-treaters, carrying pointy spears. 2 The youngest clutched his goat, the tallest her stack of bowls, and you had rooms to spare. 3 They fill the house with song and drums; they show you the dance for morning, the dance 4 for evening, the dance for mowing the lawn. They yank the dust covers off your heart. The line, “They yank the dust covers off your heart,” fairly springs off the page. Sandra Beasley is a poet whose career is worth following. To read the rest of the poem, as well as to hear it read, please visit, “The Native are Restless.” NB: I have placed numbers between the couplets to separate them on the blog page. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The most successful poetry textbook ever written is Laurence Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. Professor Perrine died before the book reached its ninth edition; his successor, Professor Thomas Arp, renamed the text Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. The text is now in its twelfth edition and continues to be selected for its clarity and depth in poetry instruction. Laurence Perrine used the spelling “rime” throughout his influential textbook; he was interested in accuracy. Origin of the Term “Rhyme” The term, “rime,” in Old English was “hrim”; in Middle English, it had become “rime” and remained so until the 19th century, when English printers misguidedly started spelling it “rhyme.” The error was encouraged by Samuel Johnson, who mistook the term as a derivative of the Greek “rhythmos.” Shakespeare and Coleridge In Shakespeare’s sonnets, the spelling is always “rime”; the sonnets were written two centuries before the error. The famous poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Rime, Not Rhyme I prefer the spelling “rime” for two reasons: I am not comfortable perpetuating an error. And a rule of poetry, indeed all writing, requires brevity in language use: never use a long word, when a short one will do, and never use two words when one will do. The spelling, “rime,” is one letter fewer than the bulky, erroneous “rhyme.” It is unfortunate that an error has taken hold of a perfectly good word and changed it for so many generations of readers, writers, printers, publishers, and editors. Today, the forms “rime” and “rhyme” are considered interchangeable by many editors, while most prefer and even insist on “rhyme.” Some readers even believe that the term “rime” is actually incorrect except when referring to a type of ice. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Kooser comments on the poem as he introduces it: “A poem need not go on at great length to accomplish the work of conveying something meaningful to its readers. In the following poem by the late Marnie Walsh, just a few words, written as if they'd been recorded in exactly the manner in which they'd been spoken, tell us not only about the missing woman in the red high heels, but a little something about the speaker as well.” The first four lines: we all went to town one day went to a store bought you new shoes red high heels To finishing reading the poem, please visit Kooser’s fine Web site at American Life in Poetry: Column 3. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes An Excited Heart Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Heart’s Journey” consists of two quatrains, each with the rime scheme of ABAB. The speaker has met a person who has aroused him deeply. After touching the person’s face, it seemed to the speaker that “Drifts of blossom flushed and fell.” The face blushed with excitement then quickly dissipated. He admits that he does not know the person well. In the second stanza, the speaker offers a fascinating description of his deep emotional reaction to this person’s “joy”: the person motivated “Chime on chime from bell on bell / In the cloisters of my heart.” The speaker’s heart was still and quiet until this person aroused it, and it grew excited. Commentary Except for the last two lines, the poem remains rather bland, and while those final lines are interesting, the two stanzas taken together do little more than repeat the theme that the speaker became excited by someone he recently met. **** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Levi Stahl, who is the publicist for the University of Chicago Press, explains that the poet’s ideas should go into the poet’s notebook, which “can be many things: a quiet rehearsal space, a commonplace book, a tinderbox, an ongoing conversation with one’s peers and influences.” Even more importantly, clarifies Stahl, these valuable notebooks behave as “an ally in the fight against time’s inevitable losses.” The poet’s notebook is the gold standard and repository for holding “the fleeting impressions that help the poet eventually attempt to put the world into words.” It sounds so simple: keeping a notebook for ideas is a hedge against memory loss associated with time’s passing. Maybe everyone could put such a tool to use, whether a poet, publicist, or grave-digger. Everybody suffers memory loss. Everybody is under the spell of the passage of time. Good ideas can, thus, help everyone. To read Levi Stahl’s entire article, please visit The Five-Minute Muse. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Nebraska poet Ted Kooser introduces the poem with the following comment: “Many of us have felt helpless when we've tried to assist friends who are dealing with the deaths of loved ones. Here the Kentucky poet and publisher, Jonathan Greene, conveys that feeling of inadequacy in a single sentence. The brevity of the poem reflects the measured and halting speech of people attempting to offer words of condolence.” The first four lines: As Death often sidelines us it is good to contribute For the whole poem, please see American Life in Poetry: Column 2. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Former U. S. Poet Laureate (2004-2006) Ted Kooser introduces the poem: “How often have you wondered what might be going on inside a child's head? They can be so much more free and playful with their imaginations than adults, and are so good at keeping those flights of fancy secret and mysterious, that even if we were told what they were thinking we might not be able to make much sense of it. Here Ellen Bass, of Santa Cruz, California, tells us of one such experience.” Here’s a sampling: For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend's house. At the dinner table To read the rest of the poem, please go to American Life in Poetry: Column 164. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes This Idea Defies All Reason Can an article about potted plants mean cookbooks are colorful picture books? Can a song about spring mean fall is harvest time? Can the painting of Mona Lisa mean the fall of Icarus was a sad event? Can Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, mean horses make the landscape more beautiful? Of course not. So how is it that a poem can mean anything you want it to? If this claim were accurate, there would no need for more than one poem. If a poem can mean anything, then you can want it to mean something different each time you read it. Hughes and Owen, the Same? Langston Hughes’ poem, “Harlem: A Dream Deferred,” dramatizes through rhetorical questions the possible effects of having to postpone one’s aspirations, but what if you want it to dramatize a soldier's reaction to mustard gas during World War I? You would be claiming that Hughes’ poem is the same as Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est.” Lazy Thinkers Misunderstanding poems may begin in high school as some teachers abdicate the responsibility of teaching how poetry works, allowing students to believe anything they wish about the meaning of a poem. It is much easier to let student believe what they want to believe than to challenge them and guide them to learn to think and reason based on actual evidence. Unfortunately, this kind of lazy thinking does not apply only to the study of poetry, but I leave that problem to others. If you are one of those unfortunates who believes that poetry can mean anything you want it to mean, please take my free course in eight lessons on Understanding Poetry. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes About the poem, Kooser remarks: “I have always enjoyed poems that celebrate the small pleasures of life. Here Max Mendelsohn, age 12, of Weston, Massachusetts, tells us of the joy he finds in playing with marbles. Here’s a teaser: I love the sound of marbles scattered on the worn wooden floor, like children running away in a game of hide-and-seek. I love the sight of white marbles . . . The Success of Small Pleasures The 12-year-old pulls it off. The poem is surprisingly refreshing. Of course, it is not terribly profound, but what can one expect in profundity from one so young? As Kooser says, “celebrat[ing] the small pleasures of life” is enjoyable. And it is interesting as well as informative to see what a pre-adolescent boy finds worth celebrating. The success of the poem results in no small part from the fact that the young poet is not straining too much to sound mature. The last line is a little wobbly, but overall, the poem is enjoyable. To read the entire poem, please go to American Life in Poetry: Column 163. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The former poet laureate’s recent column features Massachusetts poet, Richard Hoffman’s “Summer Job.” Kooser introduces the poem with the following comment: “Though at the time it may not occur to us to call it "mentoring," there's likely to be a good deal of that sort of thing going on, wanted or unwanted, whenever a young person works for someone older. Richard Hoffman of Massachusetts does a good job of portraying one of those teaching moments in this poem.” A sampling from the poem: "The trouble with intellectuals," Manny, my boss, once told me, "is that they don't know nothing till they can explain it to themselves. A guy like that," he said, "he gets to middle age--and by the way, he gets there late . . . To read the entire poem, please visit Column 162 at American Life in Poetry. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Kooser comments about the poem: “I may be a little sappy, but I think that almost everyone is doing the best he or she can, despite all sorts of obstacles. This poem by Jonathan Holden introduces us to a young car salesman, who is trying hard, perhaps too hard. Holden is the past poet laureate of Kansas and poet in residence at Kansas State University in Manhattan.” The following lines are a sample from the poem “Car Showroom”: Day after day, along with his placid automobiles, that well-groomed sallow young man had been waiting for me, as in the cheerful, unchanging weather of a billboard . . . To read the entire poem, please go to American Life in Poetry: Column 161. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The question was, “Of the following, which poem by Emily Dickinson do you most admire?” With the choices as follows: “A Bird came down the Walk,” “I heard a Fly buzz,” “Because I could not stop for Death,” “I taste a liquor never brewed,” and “Success is counted sweetest.” Big Winner The big winner is “Because I could not stop for Death,” which received 75% of the votes. Runners-up were “I heard a Fly buzz” and “Success is counted sweetest”—each equally splitting the remaining 25%. I was surprised that one of Dickinson’s death poems would receive the most votes; it is, however, a magnificent poem that does inspire because of its emphasis on “immortality.” This poem is widely anthologized and therefore probably quite recognizable. Getting Acquainted with Poems All of the poems are wonderful, and if you wish to become better acquainted with them, please check out the following articles right here at Suite Poetry:
This is the last poll. The feature will soon be discontinued. Thanks to all who have participated. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Kooser most recent column features Steve Orlen’s “Three Teenage Girls: 1956.” Orlen is a poet from Arizona. About the poem, former poet laureate Kooser comments: “I've mentioned how important close observation is in composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet, Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with suggestion. The poem closes with the car door shutting, and we readers are shut out of what will happen, though we can guess.” I wish Kooser had told us his guesses. To sample the poem, please consider the following lines: Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and black Capri pants And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their chins Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing, Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain The first thing I wonder about: why are three teenage girls dressed exactly alike? It strains the credibility of the poet’s observation, unless later in the poem we learn why. To read the entire poem, please go to American Life in Poetry: Column 160. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Celebrating Poetry Month Remember to carry your favorite poem in your pocket and at opportune times, haul it out, and read it to family members, friends, co-workers at the water fountain. Lunchtime would be a great time to enlighten your buddies with poems. Have fun exchanging poems and thoughts about them. I recommend you carry several poems; you never know what kind of extended interest you might elicit. Reading and Polling Another way to celebrate poetry, of course, is to read about poetry right here at Poetry on the Suite. Plus, become even more active by taking the current poll, located just below the blog on the homepage. For more info about this happy day in April National Poetry Month, please see Poem in Your Pocket Day: Celebrating Poetry. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Kooser most recent column features Frank Steele’s “Part of a Legacy.” Here is what Kooser has to say in his introductory comment about Steele’s poem: “Putting bed pillows onto the grass to freshen, it's a pretty humble subject for a poem, but look how Kentucky poet, Frank Steele, deftly uses a sun-warmed pillow to bring back the comfort and security of childhood.” And here is a teaser from the poem: I take pillows outdoors to sun them as my mother did. "Keeps bedding fresh," she said. It was April then, too— buttercups fluffing their frail sails, one striped bee humming grudges, a crinkle To finish reading the poem, please visit Column 158 at American Life in Poetry. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The Academy of American Poets is offering a simple way to celebrate April—National Poetry Month. The group’s Web site encourages you to select your favorite poem, make a copy of it, and carry it in your pocket. On April 17, at appropriate times, they suggest you take out the poem and read it to family, friends, or co-workers. The organization also encourages poetry lovers to start your projects. On their Web site, they explain: “In this age of mechanical and digital reproduction, it's easy to carry a poem, share a poem, or start your own PIYP day event.” They list ideas to help get you started:
For more innovative strategies, see Academy of American Poets. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes To learn all there is to know about National Poetry Month, please visit the site where it all began: National Poetry Month at Poets.org. Features include the history of National Poetry Month, This Year's Programs, National Event s and Celebrations. You can even order posters that celebrate poetry. Every month is poetry month here at Suite Poetry. So please visit often, and thank you for all of your visits in the past. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes About the poem, Kooser observes, “From your school days you may remember A. E. Housman's poem that begins, ‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now / Is hung with bloom along the bough.’ Here's a look at a blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet Judith Harris.” The following is a sample to whet your appetite. To read the entire poem, please see American Life in Poetry: Column 157. In Your Absence Not yet summer, but unseasonable heat pries open the cherry tree. It stands there stupefied, in its sham, pink frills, dense with early blooming. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes The Emily Dickinson Favorite Poem poll seeks to determine the favorite Dickinson poem of Poetry site readers. Choices The following poems are offered: “A Bird came down the Walk,” “I heard a Fly buzz,” “Because I could not stop for Death,” “I taste a liquor never brewed,” and “Success is counted sweetest.” Please participate in the Dickinson poll, located just below the blog on the Poetry homepage. After the poll closes, I will offer an evaluation and commentary about the results. Thank you for visiting Poetry and for participating in the poll. ***** Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Ted Kooser was the U. S. poet laureate from 2004 to 2006. His first column, which began his series called American Life in Poetry, features a dour look at a married couple. Here is Kooser’s introductory comment about the poem: "We all know that the manner in which people behave toward one another can tell us a lot about their private lives. In this amusing poem by David Allan Evans, Poet Laureate of South Dakota, we learn something about a marriage by being shown a couple as they take on an ordinary household task.” Kooser calls it “amusing,” but is it really? Neighbors They live alone together, she with her wide hind and bird face, he with his hung belly and crewcut. To read the entire poem, please visit American Life in Poetry Column 1.  |
