Why poetry?

Poetry (I'm learning now I've graduated) isn't something you run across often outside of the classroom. But poetry is meant for more than just Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 3:00-4:00 so here is a place to always find poems and suggestions of more places to seek them out. You can agree or disagree with my choices, but my hope is that you'll be inspired to let poetry (the poems I find or ones you find on your own) be a part of your every day.

Friday, December 30, 2011

"It would be neat if with the New Year" by Jimmy Santiago Baca

This will likely be my last poem post of 2011 so enjoy!

It would be neat if with the New Year
by Jimmy Santiago Baca

          for Miguel

It would be neat if with the New Year
I could leave my loneliness behind with the old year.
My leathery loneliness an old pair of work boots
my dog vigorously head-shakes back and forth in its jaws,
chews on for hours every day in my front yard—
rain, sun, snow, or wind
in bare feet, pondering my poem,
I’d look out my window and see that dirty pair of boots in the yard.

But my happiness depends so much on wearing those boots.

At the end of my day
while I’m in a chair listening to a Mexican corrido
I stare at my boots appreciating:
all the wrong roads we’ve taken, all the drug and whiskey houses
we’ve visited, and as the Mexican singer wails his pain,
I smile at my boots, understanding every note in his voice,
and strangers, when they see my boots rocking back and forth on my
                                                                                                    feet
keeping beat to the song, see how
my boots are scuffed, tooth-marked, worn-soled.

I keep wearing them because they fit so good
and I need them, especially when I love so hard,
where I go up those boulder strewn trails,
where flowers crack rocks in their defiant love for the light.

Found at:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179715

Thursday, December 29, 2011

"Burning the Old Year" by Naomi Shihab Nye

With the 2012 just a few days away, I thought this would be a good time to share this beautifully written, thought provoking poem. Hopefully it inspires some past year reflection. Enjoy!

Burning the Old Year
By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178317

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Ring Lardner Typescript with Holograph Note by Fitzgerald


Fitzgerald replied-
You combed Third Avenue last year
For some small gift that was not too dear
—Like a candy cane or a worn out truss—
 To give to a loving friend like us
You’d found gold eggs for such wealthy hicks
 As the Edsell Fords and the Pittsburgh Fricks
The Andy Mellons, the Teddy Shonts
The Coleman T. and Pierre duPonts
But not one gift to brighten our hoem
—So I’m sending you back your God damn poem.

(F. Scott Fitzgerald Poems, p. 140)

Found at: http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/facts/10/lardner_christmas_poem.html