"Not Merely Because of the Unknown That Was Stalking Toward Them [If she lays out two spoons]" by Jenny Boully

So not a myth poem but one that uses a familiar story as the frame. Same idea of as the myth poem (if you've been following along). Plus, Boully is a poet who's worth checking out if you've never read her before. Go to http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20361 to hear her reading and also find some more Boully poems that are part of the same series. Enjoy!

Not Merely Because of the Unknown That Was Stalking Toward Them [If she lays out two spoons]
by Jenny Boully

If she lays out two spoons (two real spoons) and two forks (two real forks), will he come then to take part in a meal that is wholly imaginary? The food was never real, the food was never really real and so to send them to bed without, to send them to bed without a meal, hardly meant anything.

These things may fit inside a thimble: a pinch of salt, a few drops of water, the tip of a woman's ring finger. I will give you a thimble, says Wendy. I will give you a thimble so that you will know the weight of my heart. A thimble may protect against pricks, pin pricks, needle pricks, Tinkerpricks, but not hooks, never hooks. When he stabs his hook into you, you will see that his eyes are the blue of forget-me-nots—but that is Hook and not Peter—Peter who will forget you, whose eyes are the color of vague memories, the color not of sky, but of the semblance of sky, the color of brittle-mindedness, of corpse dressings, of forgetting.

"Mythology" by Marilyn Hacker

I can't believe I was posting poetry with a mythology theme and almost forgot this poem by Marilyn Hacker! Thank goodness that embarrassment was avoided...

Mythology
by Marilyn Hacker

Penelope as a garçon manqué
weaves sonnets on a barstool among sailors,
tapping her iambs out on the brass rail. Ours
is not the high-school text. Persephone
a.k.a. Télémaque-who-tagged-along,
sleeps off her lunch on an Italian train
headed for Paris, while Ulysse-Maman
plugs into the Shirelles singing her song
(“What Does a Girl Do?”). What does a girl do
but walk across the world, her kid in tow,
stopping at stations on the way, with friends
to tie her to the mast when she gets too
close to the edge? And when the voyage ends,
what does a girl do? Girl, that’s up to you.

"Ophelia's Technicolor G-String: An Urban Mythology" by Susan B. Anthony Somers-Willett

You'll have to forgive me for moving abruptly from Auden to something much more contemporary, but I've been dying to post this poem. Conveniently it fits in with my mythology theme for the week. But here's something to think about- while very different, in both the Auden poem and this poem (and in most all poems alluding to a myth), the poet counts on and depends highly on a reader's outside knowledge that she/he already has. This collaborative effort enables the poet to manipulate a familiar story or myth because the framework and assumpitons are already there. These myth poems are fun because they force you to think about your role as a reader.

A few questions to get started- How does your previous ideas of Ophelia inform your reading of the poem? What if it wasn't Ophelia? Would the idea of three inch heels and a technicolor g-string then be as striking? If you don't have a clue who she is, who Hamlet is, then what is lost? Okay. That's enough questions for now...

Ophelia's Technicolor G-String: An Urban Mythology
by Susan B. Anthony Somers-Willett

The air tonight is thick as curry;
like every night this summer I could cut it
with my wine glass, spray it with mace.
Over and over it would heal together
like a wound, follow my click and pace of heels
down Conti Street, St. Ann, Bourbon.

Oh Hamlet, if you could see me now
as I pump and swagger across that stage, cape dripping to the floor,
me in three-inch heels and a technicolor G-string—
you would not wish me in a convent.
They've made me a queen here, married me off
to a quarter bag and a pint of gin.

The old men tend bark and splatter, rabid
at each table. I think they stay up all night
just to spite the moon. They bring their diseased
mouths to the French Market in the morning,
sell Creole tomatoes to tourists who don't know
what they are. Each bald head shines plump and red.

It seems like so long ago that I modeled
for those legs outside of Big Daddy's—
the ones over the door that swing in, out, in, out—
the sculptor made me painted as Mardi Gras.
I thought you might recognize them if you ever passed
with the boys, parading from Abbey to Tavern,
or think them royal feet in need of slippers.

Someday I expect to find you here,
sitting at the table between the first and second rows,
fingering bones or something worse.
And in the end you will throw me a columbine,
light me a Marlboro and take me to a 24-7 where
jukebox light quivers, makes us as thin as ghosts.

But for now, I will dance for the fat man
who sits in your place and sweats his love for me at 3 a.m.,
because only he knows I am Horatio in drag.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179687

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by W.H. Auden

In keeping with the mythology theme for this week, I've choosen one of my favorite poems by W.H. Auden. It's a beautiful and haunting poem and one I recommed you read outloud for full effect. Also, while there are many essays analyzing the poem, Musee des Beaux Arts has a good concise description of the poem and accompanying art by Breughel to get you started.


"Fall of Icarus" by Breughel


Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Found at: http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm

"Persophone, Falling" by Rita Dove

I've decided that the end of January I'll look at poems that use a figure or story from mythology. This incorporates a huge amount of poetry so perhaps this themed poetry search will follow us into February, but we'll worry about that later. To get us started we have an interesting poem by a former Poet Laureate...

Persephone, Falling
by Rita Dove

One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful
flowers, one unlike all the others! She pulled,
stooped to pull harder—
when, sprung out of the earth
on his glittering terrible
carriage, he claimed his due.
It is finished. No one heard her.
No one! She had strayed from the herd.

(Remember: go straight to school.
This is important, stop fooling around!
Don't answer to strangers. Stick
with your playmates. Keep your eyes down.)
This is how easily the pit
opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground.

Found at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19856

"For the White poets who would be Indian" by Wendy Rose

Maybe your brain needs a break this weekend so save this poem for Monday. It's one that deserves a little thought. If you're really looking for some way to pass the time (like I am) then take a few minutes to look up what others have to say about the poem. There's some interesting and thoughtful criticism around this poem and poet. And remember- you don't need an excuse like class to justify learning more about what you're reading...

"For the White poets who would be Indian" by Wendy Rose

just once
just long enough
to snap up the words
fish-hooked from
our tongues.
You think of us now
when you kneel
on the earth,
turn holy
in a temporary tourism
of our souls.

With words
you paint your faces,
chew your doeskin,
touch breast to tree
as if sharing a mother
were all it takes,
could bring instant and primal
knowledge.
You think of us only
when your voices
want for roots,
when you have sat back
on your heels and
become
primitive.

You finish your poem
and go back.

Found at: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rose/online.htm

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?' by Emily Dickinson

This poem by Dickinson is one of my favorite poems. When I was eight I found this poem in a book of my grandfather's and memorized it. When I returned from school after our Thanksgiving vacation to California, I had memorized it and recited it in front of the class. I guess my obsession with Emily Dickinson started early...

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!

Why this Blog exists...

Once a sworn (and very vocal) loather of poetry, I now find myself a self appointed advocate of the form. As a recent graduate with my B.F.A. in Creative Writing, I almost changed my major when I found out I was enrolled in a poetry workshop. I complained the whole time. I somehow enrolled in another class, ended up as poetry editor for the campus literary magazine, and made a habit of posting poems to Facebook every day (and lots of other evidence that I indeed do not hate poetry)… So I had stop myself when I said for the hundredth time, “I appreciate poetry and the people who read a write it, but it’s not for me. I hate poetry…” because I realized it wasn’t true. And it wasn’t that poetry had changed but the way I was reading it had. It wasn’t about analyzing poems anymore like frogs on a dissecting table. Once I could see the poem, not just as something to be prodded at until I found the heart, but read and enjoyed… I actually started to enjoy it, too. So the point of this blog is not to shove poetry down your throat (though I may joke about that sometimes). And it's certainly not to say there isn't a time and place for pulling apart a poem for closer inspection. The point is to present some poems in a different light and maybe you too will (one a poem at a time) change the way you feel and a make just a little time for poetry in your day.

"Dancers Exercising" by Amy Clampitt

I found this poem on poetryoutloud.org which is a great poetry recourse. And I'm obsessed with the first sentence of this poem. This is a poem which begs to be read out loud, hence it being found on poetryoutloud.org. So don't disappoint the poem. Read it out loud...

"Dancers Exercising" by Amy Clampitt

Frame within frame, the evolving conversation
is dancelike, as though two could play
at improvising snowflakes’
six-feather-vaned evanescence,
no two ever alike. All process
and no arrival: the happier we are,
the less there is for memory to take hold of,
or—memory being so largely a predilection
for the exceptional—come to a halt
in front of. But finding, one evening
on a street not quite familiar,
inside a gated
November-sodden garden, a building
of uncertain provenance,
peering into whose vestibule we were
arrested—a frame within a frame,
a lozenge of impeccable clarity—
by the reflection, no, not
of our two selves, but of
dancers exercising in a mirror,
at the center
of that clarity, what we saw
was not stillness
but movement: the perfection
of memory consisting, it would seem,
in the never-to-be-completed.
We saw them mirroring themselves,
never guessing the vestibule
that defined them, frame within frame,
contained two other mirrors.

Found at: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=179051

"Selecting a Reader" by Ted Kooser

"Selecting a Reader" by Ted Kooser

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Found at: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/053.html

"Snow Day" by Billy Collins

Because I move somewhere new and the snow follows me all the way from Colorado...

"Snow Day" by Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children's School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with -- some will be delighted to hear --

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and -- clap your hands -- the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

Found at: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Billy-Collins/1758

"Messy Room" by Shel Silverstein

Today's poem is "Messy Room" because for me unpacking after a move means dumping everything out of the boxes and bags on to the floor only to realize 1. I didn't really need 1/2 of it, 2. I have nowhere to put it away at the moment and 3. That I'm exhausted from 2 days of driving and rather eat lunch than put blouses on hangers anyway...

"Messy Room" by Shel Silverstein

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

"Keeping Things Whole" by Mark Strand

Because I have moving on my mind...


"Keeping Things Whole" by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177001

"River Moons" by Carl Sandburg

Instead of packing like I should for my move in 3 days, I'm searching for interesting things to read. I ran across this poem by Carl Sandburg and just loved it. Perhaps you'll find something in it, too. Enjoy!

"River Moons" by Carl Sandburg

THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face,
The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head.
I saw them last night, a cradle moon, two horns of a moon, such an early hopeful moon, such a child’s moon for all young hearts to make a picture of.
The river—I remember this like a picture—the river was the upper twist of a written question mark.
I know now it takes many many years to write a river, a twist of water asking a question.
And white stars moved when the moon moved, and one red star kept burning, and the Big Dipper was almost overhead.

Found at: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/carl_sandburg/poems/2757.html

"On Last Lines" by Suzanne Buffam

Because the new year is for sticking to self inflicted resolutions, I resolve to at least once a week post a poem. In turn I think everyone should resolve to at least once a week read a poem, but last I heard I don't think I'm allowed to make resolutions for other people. Still, I'll try to subtly help you along by sharing some poems I find the most interesting and the places I love to look for them.

I'm assuming that most people are still recovering from the holidays so today's poem is short. Not simple, but at only 3 lines, it's a quick read. Enjoy!

"On Last Lines" by Suzanne Buffam

The last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it.

Found at-- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=239576