April 30, 2011
May
So long, National Poetry Month. Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
April 29, 2011
Litany
Don't know which version I like better. Good poem and good readings. "Litany" by Billy Collins.
Video 1. The master reads it.
Video 2. A very, very young fan reads it.
April 21, 2011
O
O The Oprah Magazine focused on poetry for its April issue. Some lines culled from different articles that weren't part of the featured poetry:
You'll detect a woodsy bouquet
of jasmine, rose, and oak moss,
the way a great poem can move you.
There is always hope —
always tomorrow.
Sometimes I think
being the village idiot helps,
the way a great poem can move you.
As delicate as can be
without ink soaking through.
You'll detect a woodsy bouquet
of jasmine, rose, and oak moss,
the way a great poem can move you.
There is always hope —
always tomorrow.
Sometimes I think
being the village idiot helps,
the way a great poem can move you.
As delicate as can be
without ink soaking through.
Labels:
April,
delicate,
idiot,
ink,
jasmine,
Jill McKeever,
journals,
O List,
oak moss,
Oprah,
Oprah magazine,
Oprah Winfrey,
poem,
rose,
Tasia Malakasis
April 19, 2011
Pulitzer
And this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry is Kay Ryan. Here's a brief but good interview. Her brevity and skills at rhyme are to be admired. Wall Street Journal: Kay Ryan AND an example of her work: "Bait Goat."
Conversation
His talk was like
a curtain of easy rain
between me and the trees,
the light and the shadows on the road.
— Alice Munro, "Lying Under the Apple Tree"
(memoir essay from The New Yorker, 2002)
a curtain of easy rain
between me and the trees,
the light and the shadows on the road.
— Alice Munro, "Lying Under the Apple Tree"
(memoir essay from The New Yorker, 2002)
Labels:
Alice Munro,
curtain,
light,
new yorker,
rain,
road,
shadows,
talk
April 15, 2011
Apocalypse
Everybody is waiting
for the end to come,
but what if
it already passed us by?
What if the final joke
of Judgment Day
was that it had
already come and gone
and we were none the wiser?
Apocalypse arrives quietly.
— Jonathan Nolan, "Memento Mori"
(inspiration for film "Memento")
for the end to come,
but what if
it already passed us by?
What if the final joke
of Judgment Day
was that it had
already come and gone
and we were none the wiser?
Apocalypse arrives quietly.
— Jonathan Nolan, "Memento Mori"
(inspiration for film "Memento")
April 13, 2011
Sensitive
Matt Groening of "The Simpsons" fame also has the amusing "Life in Hell" comic strip, which has included a guide to being a sensitive poet.
April 11, 2011
Oath
For nerdy kids like myself, perhaps one of the first "poems" we memorized was Green Lantern's oath. An English professor mentions that this came up in one of his classes: In brightest day, in blackest night ...
April 10, 2011
Gray
April 9, 2011
Doggie
Poems don't have to be that complicated either. Here's a video clip of two Hollywood icons, Jimmy Stewart and Johnny Carson. Stewart reads a simple poem he wrote about his dog, and it's a poem and a reading I'll always remember (especially since I'm a "dog person"). "YouTube: A Dog Named Beau"
April 8, 2011
Leftover
With the window covered
in plastic sheeting,
he felt as if he were
inside a plastic container,
like a leftover,
peering into the tallow
fog of the world.
— Lorrie Moore, "Debarking"
(New Yorker short story)
in plastic sheeting,
he felt as if he were
inside a plastic container,
like a leftover,
peering into the tallow
fog of the world.
— Lorrie Moore, "Debarking"
(New Yorker short story)
Labels:
fog,
leftover,
Lorrie Moore,
new yorker,
plastic,
window
April 7, 2011
Refraction
She was a prism
though which
sadness
could be
divided
into its
infinite
spectrum.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, "Everything Is Illuminated"
though which
sadness
could be
divided
into its
infinite
spectrum.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, "Everything Is Illuminated"
April 6, 2011
April 5, 2011
Villainy
As Atlanta writer Collin Kelley shows, you never know what you might find in a poem. In this instance, a treasured comic book (whose cover I also recalled fondly) that makes other connections. Here's the link to the original publication of "Secret Origins of the Super-Villains" at the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.
April 4, 2011
Prayer
Prayer.
No. You did not pray for things.
Prayers,
like Franklin's key on a kite,
attracted the lightning,
burned at your mind and soul.
— Robert Stone, "Bay of Souls"
No. You did not pray for things.
Prayers,
like Franklin's key on a kite,
attracted the lightning,
burned at your mind and soul.
— Robert Stone, "Bay of Souls"
April 3, 2011
Decisions
"Tell him yes,"
she said.
"Even if you are
dying of fear,
even if you
are sorry later,
because whatever you do,
you will be sorry
all the rest of your life
if you say no."
— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"
(translated by Edith Grossman)
she said.
"Even if you are
dying of fear,
even if you
are sorry later,
because whatever you do,
you will be sorry
all the rest of your life
if you say no."
— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"
(translated by Edith Grossman)
April 2, 2011
Apocalypse
The landscape had
a kind of clear
daylight darkness
about it that struck
her as apocalyptic.
— Stephen King, "Desperation"
a kind of clear
daylight darkness
about it that struck
her as apocalyptic.
— Stephen King, "Desperation"
April 1, 2011
National Poetry Month 2011
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