"Briefly It Enters, and Biefly Speaks" by Jane Kenyon

I hope you’ve enjoyed National Poetry Month as much as I have this year. I love this poem and feel like it's a good one to end with. I'll give you a hint (like every other poem this month, this one's a poem about poetry, too). This will be the last Poetry Month post, but don’t be sad (I know your heart is weeping) because May’s theme will be really, really exciting! I promise. I just need to figure out what it will be…

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks
by Jane Kenyon

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills. . . .

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden. . . .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge. . . .

I am the heart contracted by joy. . .
the longest hair, white
before the rest. . . .

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow. . . .

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name. . . .

Found at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15916

"These Poems, She Said" by Robert Bringhurst

I'm mildly obsessed with this poem right now so I’ll resist the temptation to say too much and let you decide how you feel on your own. Though I will say this is one of those poems that really, really wants to be read out loud. Please be a kind reader and indulge its wishes.

These Poems, She Said
by Robert Bringhurst

These poems, these poems,

these poems, she said, are poems

with no love in them. These are the poems of a man   

who would leave his wife and child because   

they made noise in his study. These are the poems   

of a man who would murder his mother to claim   

the inheritance. These are the poems of a man   

like Plato, she said, meaning something I did not   

comprehend but which nevertheless

offended me. These are the poems of a man

who would rather sleep with himself than with women,   

she said. These are the poems of a man

with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket’s   

hands, woven of water and logic

and hunger, with no strand of love in them. These   

poems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeant   

as elm leaves, which if they love love only   

the wide blue sky and the air and the idea

of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said,   

and not a beginning. Love means love

of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing.   

These poems, she said....

                                       You are, he said,

beautiful.

                That is not love, she said rightly.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178483

"The Education of a Poet" by Leslie Monsour

“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

We haven’t looked at a structured or obviously rhyming poem in awhile and since it’s still National Poetry Month I think it’s a good time to look at what I call in very technical terms, "a poemy poem." A "poemy poem" is what when you were in middle school you thought all poems were like. Then in high school you discover poems don’t have to always rhyme or count syllables and you never look back. It’s easy to get caught up in the freedom of what poetry can also be that it’s easy to ignore or even write off as elementary the poems that stick with tradition. So today in honor of Poetry Month (though it’s not what I usually gravitate towards) we look at a syllabic piece (fixed syllables per line) that reminds that it takes more than just line breaks. It’s deliberate language that transforms everyday words into a poem.

The Education of a Poet
by Leslie Monsour

Her pencil poised, she's ready to create,
Then listens to her mind's perverse debate
On whether what she does serves any use;
And that is all she needs for an excuse
To spend all afternoon and half the night
Enjoying poems other people write.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178169

"American Poetry" by Louis Simpson

It’s the last week of National Poetry Month!! We continue with our theme of poets writing about poetry with a piece by Louis Simpson. This short poem is one of my favorites and a good way to ease into Monday. Enjoy!

American Poetry
by Louis Simpson

Whatever it is, it must have
A stomach that can digest
Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems.

Like the shark it contains a shoe.
It must swim for miles through the desert
Uttering cries that are almost human.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/240770

"What is Poetry?" by Carl Sandburg

"Cockroaches: Ars Poetica" by Chad Davidson

While we haven’t formally labeled our theme for this month, it’s worth noting the proper term for poems about poetry is “Ars Poetica.” Now not all of my National Poetry Month posts have fit the bill but let’s talk about it anyway… If you want a proper explanation, by all means, Google it, ask a friend, ask the person next to you on the bus. But the nutshell version of an Ars Poetica is a poem that examines the nature of poetry. It’s a poem turning in on itself and asking where it comes from and why it exists. Ars Poeticas have a nice long history because poets being the pensive, introspective people they are usually at some point compelled to write one. Granted, just because everyone writes them means doesn’t mean every one is good so I’ve chosen one of my favorites. The imagery is rich, the content is revealing, and the metaphor might not apply to you poets of love poems and sunshine but it certainly gives you something to think about. Enjoy!

Cockroaches: Ars Poetica
by Chad Davidson

They know that death is merely of the body
not the species, know that their putrid chitin
is always memorable. We call them ugly
with their blackened exoskeletons,
their wall-crawlings as we paw at them.
Extreme adaptability, we say.
And where there’s one there’s probably a million
more who lie and laugh in cracks close by.
At first they seem so pitiful and base
feeding on what we leave behind. Content
to watch us watching them, their hidden grace
is endless procreation: it keeps them constant,
believing they’ll live to read our requiem
with the godlike eyes we used to look at them.

Found at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/17125

"A New Poet" by Linda Pastan

Last night at Jesse Auditorium on MU’s campus Dr. Maya Angelou said, “It’s imperative we have poetry because poetry reminds you there was someone before you. It reminds you we are all human and no one can be more human than you.”

Not every poet is for you. Not every poem means or will mean something to you, but if you don’t listen to me, listen to Maya Angelou and believe that the most important thing you might do today is find a poem that does.

A New Poet
by Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

Found at: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/090.html

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

Because I am thrilled beyond words that I’m lucky enough to have the opportunity to hear Dr. Maya Angelou speak tonight at the MU campus, I feel compelled to break our Poetry Month theme for just this post and share one of her amazing poems…

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175742

"Merely a Poet" by Edwin Torres

Oh please, please read this poem out loud! You know you want to. And while you're at it, pretty please vote in the new poll about your favorite poet. I'll keep it up till the end of Poetry Month and I would love to know what you think.

Merely a Poet
by Edwin Torres

THAT ONE, is a poet for all poets
AH, then I would suppose
to be an edwin for all edwins
OH, then there is only one of you
you are being one for
AH, I am one of me
but one is too many for all
OH, then how can this one be for all
when that one is truly for truly’s sake
Which one?
It isn’t a which or a what but a be
HMMPF, an ending for all endings
UMMPF, to be a poet for poets
is a mere suppose
BLECHH, you covered suppose in an earlier poem
YUCHH, but no one heard it
ARGH, they say a poem is heard when it is written
ERGH, then I have heard my entire life
as it happens
HOOOPHA, a mere one, an entire suppose,
this has been . . .
WAIT, are you implying an ending?
AHA, a being
OHO, now there is a poem
OOOOH, an ending
AHHHH, where there are so many to choose from

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/239716

New look

For Poetry Month, "A Little Poetry" felt like dressing up. Blog face lifts can be good or bad. For those of you who have visited before, don't like what you see now? Or maybe you can't find what you need anymore. Let me know and I'll try my best to make it better :)

"Poetry" by Don Paterson

Why this poem? Why so many poems about poetry? Because it's National Poetry Month and because this is a poetry blog. That's why.

Poetry
by Don Paterson

In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps
one spark of the planet's early fires
trapped forever in its net of ice,
it's not love's later heat that poetry holds,
but the atom of the love that drew it forth
from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love
begins to smoulder, the poet hears his voice
suddenly forced, like a bar-room singer's -- boastful
with his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;
but if it yields a steadier light, he knows
the pure verse, when it finally comes, will sound
like a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the water
sings of nothing, not your name, not mine.

Found at: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/027.html

"The Poet" by Tom Wayman

Despite the world feeling like it's falling to pieces (or at least the government), National Poetry Month continues without a pause. Our search for poets writing about poetry (reading it, writing it, and everything in-between ) never rests. I post this poem today for anyone who is or knows a poet…

The Poet
by Tom Wayman

Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions

Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs
Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.
Cannot tell a story from a picture
Cannot recognize visual absurdities

Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
Has difficulty retaining such things as
addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
May recognize a word one day and not the next

Found at: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/015.html

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins

"Let Me Count the Waves" by Sandra Beasley

Well, for my Poetry Month search I was looking for poems about poetry and this one certainly fits the bill. Ha! (once you read the poem you’ll understand how lame a pun that is…) Anyway, this poem is a fun way to get your brain moving on this Monday morning. I think what I love most about it is how it unfolds in its complexity and pulls you deeper into the poem without you realizing it until the end. But read it and see what you think…


Let Me Count the Waves
by Sandra Beasley

We must not look for poetry in poems.
—Donald Revell

You must not skirt the issue wearing skirts.
You must not duck the bullet using ducks.
You must not face the music with your face.
Headbutting, don’t use your head. Or your butt.
You must not use a house to build a home,
and never look for poetry in poems.

In fact, inject giraffes into your poems.
Let loose the circus monkeys in their skirts.
Explain the nest of wood is not a home
at all, but a blind for shooting wild ducks.
Grab the shotgun by its metrical butt;
aim at your Muse’s quacking, Pringled face.

It’s good we’re talking like this, face to face.
There should be more headbutting over poems.
Citing an 80s brand has its cost but
honors the teenage me, always in skirts,
showing my sister how to Be the Duck
with a potato-chip beak. Take me home,

Mr. Revell. Or make yourself at home
in my postbellum, Reconstruction face—
my gray eyes, my rebel ears, all my ducks
in the row of a defeated mouth. Poems
were once civil. But war has torn my skirts
off at the first ruffle, baring my butt

or as termed in verse, my luminous butt.
Whitman once made a hospital his home.
Emily built a prison of her skirts.
Tigers roamed the sad veldt of Stevens’s face.
That was the old landscape. All the new poems
map the two dimensions of cartoon ducks.

We’re young and green. We’re braces of mallards,
not barrels of fish. Shoot if you must but
Donald, we’re with you. Trying to save poems,
we settle and frame their ramshackle homes.
What is form? Turning art to artifice,
trading pelts for a more durable skirt.

Even urban ducklings deserve a home.
Make way. In the modern: Make way, Buttface.
A poem is coming through, lifting her skirt.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=236984

"A Poet's Poem" by Brenda Shaughnessy

Yesterday at work I wished someone "Happy National Poetry Month!" and they asked if that was an April Fools joke. Oh, I'm so happy you all know that Poetry Month is no joking matter. But since it's the weekend and while celebrating poetry may be no joke, it's not all serious either so today we move forward with our month's theme (poems about poetry) and look at somewhat humorously at the frustrations of writing a poem...

A Poet’s Poem
by Brenda Shaughnessy

If it takes me all day,
I will get the word freshened out of this poem.

I put it in the first line, then moved it to the second,
and now it won’t come out.

It’s stuck. I’m so frustrated,
so I went out to my little porch all covered in snow

and watched the icicles drip, as I smoked
a cigarette.

Finally I reached up and broke a big, clear spike
off the roof with my bare hand.

And used it to write a word in the snow.
I wrote the word snow.

I can’t stand myself.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182964

"Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand

HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!!! Even though you should read poetry all year long, Poetry Month is a great time to really celebrate poetry. I hope you take this month as an excuse to revisit some of your favorite poets or find some new ones. I love poetry month (though I'm sure that as a keeper of a poetry blog, that doesn't surprise you) and making time to look at back at some of my favorites like "Eating Poetry". Even though I’ve read it a million times, I get such a kick out of this poem by Mark Strand and it seems like the perfect way to get Poetry Month started. Oh, and just so you know, our theme for the month of April will be poems about poetry. Poems about writing it, reading it, loving it, hating it, eating it…

Eating Poetry
By Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Found at: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=237702