remember the sound of your voice
reading my poem to the class
here something happens
poetry is making something happen
don’t be content with just words
make them leap off the page
____________________________
dVerse prompt to write about or to a favorite poet. I visited Madison, Minnesota a few weeks ago and went to the little house where Robert Bly wrote and it contains much of his library.
To My Dear Robinson Jeffers,
When the fog rolls and the horn sounds
I will think of the stones you carried
up the hill on Carmel Point
to set a foundation for Tor House
You kept going higher and higher
until you met the hawk
the world expanding around you
your small window with a view of the Pacific
I want life and death to come as naturally
I want to thank you for placing stone
upon stone in such a way it formed
narrow pathway to the highest point
__________________________________________
Yes, my dear,
“Against the outcrop boulders of a
raised beach
We built our house when I and my
love were young.
Here long ago . . .
. . . all that we saw or heard
was beautiful.” Robinson Jeffers
___________________
NaPoWriMo prompt on letter to a favorite historical figure and response by that person. One of my favorite poets. I visited his house and Tor House in Carmel one day while road tripping. Original take on this experience written in 2016.
I wheeled my red wheelbarrow
filled with poppy and lupine
past three horses pasturing
past the wind-warped madronas
past the heron and the wren
________________
NaPoWriMo prompt on the poets who have had an impact on our poetry writing. These are images from three of my favorite poets—
Line 1. William Carlos Williams
Line 2-3. Robinson Jeffers
Line 4-5. Theodore Roethke
a dream came
there is power
in a name—
in the naming of a thing
Small stack of books not yet read. Their titles draw me in.
Virgil, the poet who died of a fever; poet to emperors and Rome.
His poetry of the land, Georgics. Kenneth Rexroth translations
of Japanese poetry, one hundred of them. The Grandview Hotel
poets from Peoria, Illinois, write together about the weather,
changing of seasons, bluffs and bridges. My friend hands me another
for the stack. She knows my heart. “You can borrow this if you take
really good care, no coffee stains.” It is the Peoria writers’ work in
letterpress, fine paper, portfolioed, each piece a work of art.
I am afraid to open it. A delicate thread creates a closure on the front.
It is the opening. Are my hands clean enough? I ask myself.
I imagine myself enmeshed in reading each line, those words
embedded into the paper, an art of poetry. A drop of blood falls
from my nose and I am horrified. How can this happen? How
can I tell my friend that a spot of blood is there. I could hide it,
hope she never goes back to the page where the stain was spilled.
I could remove the blighted piece and hope she does not miss it.
My remorse that I could not write this, could not design this, could
not print this. My drop of blood the revealer of my lust and
inadequacy. I bleed for more than what I am.
I will ride the sunrise into the day
Watch the colors fade to gray
Through mountains both near
And far away
______________
Day Five prompt using a poem from another language. Albanian poet Xhevahir Spahiu poem My Travels and a photo I just took at Craggy Wash in Arizona.
Sometimes I want to use small words
and make them important Mary Oliver
listen to the everyday cadence
birds calling you’re a thief
you’re a thief don’t believe them
Robert Bly’s Raven Hiding in a Shoe
“Ravens at night hide in an old woman’s shoe
A four-year old speaks some ancient language
We have lived our own death a thousand times.”
look at the people going somewhere
that is a common factor
that and death from Kenneth Fearing’s Dirge
“And wow he died as wow he lived,
going whop to the office and blooie home to sleep and
biff got married and bam had children and oof got fired
zowie did he live and zowie did he die”
study other poets
you can find your own voice hearing the voice of others
Pablo Neruda XXVIII
“My poem happened
for you, for nobody,
for everyone.”
“Sucedio mi poema
para tu, para Nadine,
para todos.”
translate someone even if you do not know the language
you will learn as you go
Basho translated by Robert Hass
“A bee
staggers out
of the peony”
go out of the country and write in your native language
while surrounded by another language
it gives new perspective on your own words
helps you choose your words and disrupts
your cultural bias
go into a poem with all your senses
immerse yourself
Ishmael Reed
“this poem is the reader & the
reader this poem”
I remember reading Lorca in the rain
“amethyst of yesterday and breeze of this moment,
I want to forget them!”
I remember sorrow in knowing of his death
“. . . waiting in the algae or in the chair, their night,
I want to forget them!”
I remember Lorca yet I want to forget
NaPoWriMo prompt on remembering
from The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca – Useless Song
I went to the wordshop
so I could get a dime
I had to get a dime
so I could make a rhyme
After searching without stop
I found it on a line
I used it once I used it twice
I used it all the time
The scholars and the critics
said that was just a crime
Then E.E. Cummings came along
and couldn’t find the line
This is not about drugs
April 3, 2016
To My Dear Robinson Jeffers,
When the fog rolls and the horn sounds
I will think of the stones you carried
up the hill on Carmel Point
to set a foundation for Tor House
You kept going higher and higher
until you met the hawk
the world expanding around you
your small window with a view of the Pacific
I want life and death to come as naturally
I want to thank you for placing stone
upon stone in such a way it formed
narrow pathway to the highest point
———————
NaPoWriMo prompt to write a fan letter. Mine is to
thank Robinson Jeffers for building Tor House and
Hawk Tower back in the early years of the 20th century.
“Against the outcrop boulders of a
raised beach
We built our house when I and my
love were young.
Here long ago . . .
. . . all that we saw or heard
was beautiful.” Robinson Jeffers
wordshophop 