Poetry Friday: Happy Birthday, Mr. Heaney

It was Seamus Heaney's birthday on April 13th, and I'm going to copy and paste here a blog post that I put up last year for Poetry Friday. Heaney is one of my favorite poets - his work manages to be both personal and political. How does he balance those two impulses, those two very different (maybe not so different - time to rethink that) purposes? Here's my Happy Birthday post from last year:

Happy Birthday, Seamus Heaney!

Seamus Heaney...

It's Seamus Heaney's birthday today. I once got to share a ham sandwich and a pint with this wonderful poet. He joined half dozen students (me among them) at the College Inn Pub when he was in Seattle for a reading at the University  of Washington. It was quite a long time ago, but I remember everything about it. The man was absolutely beautiful - relaxed, funny, generous-hearted, talented beyond belief - and that shock of white hair! And that Irish lilt! He didn't disappoint, that's for sure. 

Here's a poem of his that I love:

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

                              - Seamus Heaney
                                 from The Spirit Level

And click here to hear the man himself, reading it.  

You'll see what I mean about that Irish lilt.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Heaney!

Irene Latham is hosting Poetry Friday today - head over to her blog to see what other people have posted. And don't forget to keep track of her Progressive Poem 2013 - 30 different poets adding a line a day through National Poetry Month. Here's the list - click on the most recent date and you'll see how it's grown.

...and Seamus Heaney.

James Merrill

James Merrill....

I have nothing to say about this poem except *sigh.*I wish I could write like this.

Cloud Country

by James Merrill

How like a marriage is the season of clouds.
The winds at night are festive and constellations
Like stars in a kaleidoscope dissolve
And meet in astounding images of order.
How like a wedding and how like travelers
Through alchemies of a healing atmosphere
We whirl with hounds on leashes and lean birds.
As though the air, being magician, pulled
Birds from a sleeve of cloud, birds drop
To warm grass dented by a smile asleep.
Long odysseys of sunlight at this hour
Salute the gaze that of all weariness
Remains unwearied, and the air turns young
Like reddening light in a corridor of pines.
The landscape where we lie is creased with light
As a painting one might have folded and put away
And never wished to study until now.
How like a marriage, how like voyagers
We come upon this season of right clouds,
Valors of altitude, white harbors, hills
Supple and green, these actions of the sun.


[First published in The Kenyon Review, Summer 1947, Vol. IX, No. 3 ]

 

...and James Merrill

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted today by Diane Mayr over at Random Noodling. Head there to see what other people have posted.And don't forget to follow Irene Latham's Progressive Poem over the entire month of April. Here's a link to the list of poets, day by day - click on the most recent to see the progress.
 

My Turn! The 2013 Progressive Poem

It's April 8th! 

My turn to add a line to Irene Latham's Progressive Poem 2013

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[Click on the poet name below to see how the poem grows day-by-day through April]

So far, seven  Kidlitosphere poets have posted their contributions to the growing poem.You can find my first post about this on Friday, March 29th.

Here is my thought-process as a contributor:

I've watched as the poem opened with a possibility (when you listen to your footsteps) and moved quickly into dreamier metaphorical territory (words become music), then got rhythmic with a clever line by Matt (rapping and tapping feet/fingers.)

In Line 4, what feels almost like a new stanza equates the pen to a dancer, with the fifth line adding types of dances, and the exuberant sixth line picking up on and continuing the rhythm Matt introduced in Line 3. I'm not quite sure where the dancers have gone, though.That word "love" worries me - love is always a loaded cannon, it makes a lot of noise if named, and I get a little weird with big emotions in a poem.

My line is coming soon, and I can feel the urge which comes over me (when things get dreamy) to put the brakes on and bring the poem back to the real world.Wind whispering, maybe, but to what? To water? I will try to resist the urge to darken it up because, after all, it's spring, why not save the dark lines for winter and go for something cheerful? a little voice inside says, "Love is quite nice in the springtime, Julie." But I don't know if I can do dreamy.

My line is coming soon. What will Line 7 do?

Line 7, it turns out, begins a new stanza. It's sweet and floaty, too - dreams and whispers. So now I have to choose -  push the poem back into the real world (can we get those dancers back, can we take the poem outside for some fresh air, forget words on paper and forget about metaphors that are self-referential to what we do when we write?) or should I try stay with the idea of words whispering?  I can feel the normal panic and pressure of trying to find the poem's proper direction, only I can't go back and revise as I do constantly (as I compose) to make everything line up with my own choices! That's what the roller coaster ride is all about - letting go. Right?

I'm still hoping the rhythms of Lines 3 and 6 can be maintained at the proper intervals. But letting go, letting go.  Hmmmm. A shortish line is needed now, no rhyme at this point (though could there be an internal rhyme? I do love rhyme....) What to do?? Well, since I'm not the Lone Poet here and here are a lot of lines to come, lots of poets to add twists and turns, I'm going to relax. Forget wind whispering. Forget  about taking the poem outside. Just bring back the "dancers" - the words -  and leave it as wide open as I can for the imagination of tomorrow's poet.

Okay, here's my contribution.  I'm diving in to the dance:


When you listen to your footsteps
the words become music and            
the rhythm that you're rapping gets your fingers tapping, too.
Your pen starts dancing across the page 
a private pirouette, a solitary samba until
smiling, you're beguiling as your love comes shining through.

Pause a moment in your dreaming, hear the whispers
of the words, one dancer to another, saying

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 Take it away, Carrie, for Line 9! Here is the line-up of contributors and dates:

April

1  Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

2  Joy Acey

3  Matt Forrest Esenwine

4  Jone MacCulloch

5  Doraine Bennett

6  Gayle Krause

7  Janet Fagal

8  Julie Larios

9  Carrie Finison

10  Linda Baie

11  Margaret Simon

12  Linda Kulp

13  Catherine Johnson

14  Heidi Mordhorst

15  Mary Lee Hahn

16  Liz Steinglass

17  Renee LaTulippe

18  Penny Klostermann

19  Irene Latham

20  Buffy Silverman

21  Tabatha Yeatts

22  Laura Shovan

23  Joanna Marple

24  Katya Czaja

25  Diane Mayr

26  Robyn Hood Black

27  Ruth Hersey

28  Laura Purdie Salas

29  Denise Mortensen

30  April Halprin Wayland

2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem

I hope you will join me along with 29 other Kidlitosphere friends who are participating this year in Irene Latham's Progressive Poem Project. Each April day, in honor of National Poetry Month, invited poets will add one line a day beginning on April 1st. No one knows where the poem will go, so the twists and turns come as each poet adds his or her take on the direction it's already going. At any point, a stanza may break, or a line may be enjambed, leaving it up to the next poet to decide how to finish the thought. It's a roller coaster ride, or (as Irene's logo for the project shows) a lovely wall being built brick by brick. Something tells me that 30 bricklayers might make for a crazy wall, and there might be extra mortar in places or a lack of mortar in others - but that's all part of the fun. For me, it's hardest to follow a line with abstractions in it - I think poetry does best when it looks at those abstractions indirectly. "Show, don't tell" applies to poetry along with fiction - and staring too directly at an abstraction or a sentiment is the telling side of things. I like poetry that comes at things sideways. As Archibald MacLeish famously said, "For all the history of grief / An empty doorway and a maple leaf." Get too sentimental, and you get abstract - and abstractions can take all the breath away from a poem. That's my approach, anyway. With a poem written by many people, there are many ideas of what is best for a poem, so hang onto your hat, the roller coaster ride is about to begin!

My day to add a line is April 8th and I'm looking forward to it.

You can click on dates below to see how the poem is progressing. I will also add the growing poem to my Poetry Friday posts this month. 

Here we go, with the first line, second line, etc.

When you listen to your footsteps       (Amy, 4/1)
the words become music and              (Joy 4/2)
the rhythm that you're rapping gets your fingers tapping, too.     (Matt, 4/3)
Your pen starts dancing across the page  (Jone, 4/4)
a private pirouette, a solitary samba until   (Dori, 4/5)
smiling, you're beguiling as your love comes shining through. (Gayle, 4/6)

Pause a moment in your dreaming, hear the whispers (Janet, 4/7)

April

1  Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

2  Joy Acey

3  Matt Forrest Esenwine

4  Jone MacCulloch

5  Doraine Bennett

6  Gayle Krause

7  Janet Fagal

8  Julie Larios

9  Carrie Finison

10  Linda Baie

11  Margaret Simon

12  Linda Kulp

13  Catherine Johnson

14  Heidi Mordhorst

15  Mary Lee Hahn

16  Liz Steinglass

17  Renee LaTulippe

18  Penny Klostermann

19  Irene Latham

20  Buffy Silverman

21  Tabatha Yeatts

22  Laura Shovan

23  Joanna Marple

24  Katya Czaja

25  Diane Mayr

26  Robyn Hood Black

27  Ruth Hersey

28  Laura Purdie Salas

29  Denise Mortensen

30  April Halprin Wayland

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading. Head over there to see what other people have posted. And wow, it's April - a lot is happening for National Poetry Month!

Poetry Friday: The Games Have Begun!!

Round One of the 2nd Annual March Madness competition (a thrilling, maddening, intoxicating poetry-under-pressure playoff) is underway at Ed DeCaria's THINK KID THINK. How he manages to organize and keep up with the avalanche of  work involved (this first round = 64 poems from 64 poets!) just boggles the mind. He designed the competition, posted the brackets, posted overviews and a calendar, assigned us all our Round One words (no, we can't just write anything we want - we have assigned words, with different levels of difficulty.) Tomorrow? New words, new poems.  For a good explanation of how it all works, click here. Ed, thanks!

What makes it a competition?  Readers get to vote for their favorites! (Don't hesitate - voting ends on a staggered basis throughout the day today.)

Here's my approach to the contest: If, as a poet, you enter the Madness feeling anxious, terrified and/or cutthroat, it's probably not too pleasant. But if you enter for the delight of it (it's amazing to see what people can come up with quickly) then it's a lot of fun. 64 poets at play!

My assigned word for Round One? "Diphthongs."

English Vowel Sounds (those with two separate symbols in one box are gliding vowels, aka diphthongs.....as in #20 - "how")

Yes, DIPHTHONGS! (I thought that was bad - someone got "anthropomorphization" and someone else got "necrotize.") My word turned out to be the perfect challenge - I had a ball coming up with something kids might enjoy (and I might, too.) Bottom line: Win or lose, I have a new poem I like.

Click here to read it (I've also pasted it in below) and also read its rival, a poem by Victoria Warneck (assigned word: "dazzle) yesterday.

And click here for "the scoreboard" - a list of links to all Round One pairings, divided into Flight One (vote by early afternoon today - Friday) and Flight Two (vote by 7:30 tonight.) You can vote easily at each link.

I know that by the time you read this, there might not be much time left to vote. But if you miss the Round One deadlines you can still vote in all the other rounds - they'll come fast and furious in the next few days (which is why we say "poetry under pressure"!) so be looking for new scoreboards and poems posted overnight at Think Kid Think.

Many regular Poetry Friday poets are part of the competition - check out poems by Laura Purdie Salas, Renee LaTulippe, Mary Lee Hahn (whose poem sent me down for the count in Round Three of last year's Madness!), April Halprin Wayland, Amy Vanderwater, Heidi Mordhorst, Robyn Hood Black, Greg Pincus, Katya Szaja, Linda Baie, Laura Shovan, susan Taylor Brown and Charles Waters - all of them have poems up in the First Round. Special shout-outs to Vermont College of Fine Arts students and alums Anna Boll, Callie Miller and Jim Hill. Go, Team VCFA!

Take a few minutes to vote for your favorites!

Here's what I submitted for Round One:

Hound Dog’s Lament


I’m the Duke of Diphthongs – I know that it sounds nuts,
but when I howl the vowels glide around, unlike a normal mutt’s.
I howwww-owwww-owwwl my head off. I never bark, I mourn.
I have to play my diphthongs just like Louis Armstrong played his horn.
A dachshund is no Blues Man – his song consists of yips.
But I’m a hound, my sound is true
to how-owwwwww-OWWWWWWWWWW a diphthong dips.


[Ed. Note: Alas, my poem did not prevail! Hound dog, I still love you, but I am out of the running, so I'm going to kick back and enjoy the show for the rest of the tournament.Have fun, poets!] 

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The Poetry Friday round-up today is being hosted by Jone at Check It Out. Head over there to see what other people have posted.