Poetry

“recast in our image”: Lisel Mueller’s “Things”

/ Carolyn O / 8 Comments

Mueller_ThingsI like naming things; maybe you do, too. I have a velvet chair named Daisy (it was my friend’s chair first; when she was young it was orange, but now it’s faded to a golden yellow), and once we had fish named Dunder, Mifflin, Don Draper, Giles, and Admiral Ackbar.

Lisel Mueller’s poem “Things” points out the ways in which, over time, we’ve named parts of objects after ourselves. It reminds me a bit of Heather McHugh’s poem “Etymological Dirge” in the way it offers us a new way to think about words we use every day.

What’s your favorite poem about an everyday object?

“clouds arranged like asphodel”: Janet McNally’s “Maggie Says There’s No Such Thing as Winter”

/ Carolyn O / 2 Comments

Janet McNally_Maggie SaysJanet McNally’s “Maggie Says There’s No Such Thing as Winter” is a gorgeous gem of a poem, tender and clear-eyed.

The speaker sits with Maggie in summer, under the shade of a tree, as Maggie strings blue stones together; Maggie has memory trouble (the language suggests she may have been in a coma), and has difficulty processing the speaker’s gentle descriptive reminder of the way seasons change, a change enacted in the poem itself, which begins with an invocation of winter (something I’m sure Ms. McNally, who teaches at Canisius College in Buffalo, knows a bit about) and then travels into summer and beyond.

This is a rather colorless description, I’m afraid, of a very fine poem. Here are my favorite lines:

She forgets that sometimes things don’t stay
where you leave them, that the sky fades

to white even before snow begins
to fall.

What’s your favorite poem about winter?

In Brief: Poetry and Picard

/ Carolyn O / 6 Comments

Dear Readers,

I hope you’ll forgive this departure from our regularly scheduled programming for two brief notes.

First, my first published poem is online to be read or listened to (that’s me reading in a very sleepy voice that I hope comes across as appropriately serious and poetic). It’s about Catherine of Aragon, whom I’ve always found fascinating and rather tragic, in the way that sixteenth-century son-less Spanish princesses can be.

ClementineNext:

Some weeks ago I mentioned that I’m writing an advice column called Dear Clementine; you can read the first column, called “The Other Picard,” here. It involves both babies and Star Trek. And please do send questions to dearclementinepostscript [at] gmail [dot] com.

And that’s the news from here. What are you up to, Dear Readers?

“All glam-glow, all twinkle and gold”: Tracy K. Smith’s “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” (RIP David Bowie)

/ Carolyn O / 2 Comments

Tracy K. Smith-Bowie

Since David Bowie has left us for what I’m guessing must be some sort of starsplitting transcendent plane, it’s only appropriate this week to feature Tracy K. Smith’s gorgeous and evocative “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” from her appropriately titled collection Life on Mars. 

The poem has been making the rounds this week—justifiably so—because it hones in on the multi-persona man as a way to consider the big questions about time, space, death, and belief. In the poem, Bowie is both an otherworldly immortal figure and one of us—just immeasurably cooler (literally, in part two of the poem). I pretty much want to quote the whole poem right now, so please read it. 

Bowie was an avid reader, and if you’re craving more bookish Bowie goodness, head over to BookRiot to check out their list (from summer 2015) of all things books and Bowie.

Turns out I can’t resist quoting the poem:

 

And how many lives

Before take-off, before we find ourselves

Beyond ourselves, all glam-glow, all twinkle and gold?

 

Safe travels, Starman.

bowie-reading

“Light larking”: Floyd Skloot’s “Handspun”

/ Carolyn O / 3 Comments

About a year ago, I wrote a quick post about poems related to knitting, an activity I find myself frantically trying to finish most holiday seasons (this year I made three scarves, four cowls, four headbands, and I still owe my son a pair of slippers). I much prefer knitting in a more leisurely fashion, and I love seeing the complex projects skilled knitters (I am not among this number) produce—delicate lace, shawls worked with intarsia so that they look like tapestries, that sort of thing. Most of the best projects I see are made with gorgeous wool, to which I am sensitive if not downright allergic, and some are even made with handspun varieties.

Spinning is an art I’ll never practice, but I do love reading about it. And if you’re ever out in Colorado, the Denver Art Museum features a whole floor devoted to textile arts; when I visited a volunteer was demonstrating how she spins wool into yarn at home. It was absolutely fascinating, and I recommend popping by if you’re able.

Floyd Skloot Handspun quoteWhich brings me to the poem of the week, Floyd Skloot’s “Handspun,” which was featured in this week’s American Life in Poetry series, curated by Ted Kooser (I highly recommend signing up for the weekly email; Mr. Kooser chooses brief, relatable poems, which are paired with his pithy introductions). In this poem, the speaker watches his wife as she begins yarn for a “summer sweater,” one meant to be worn in summer and one that captures in its colors some of summer’s light.

I like the sensory detail of this poem (it features sound and texture and imagery), and I like the way circularity is subtly emphasized: the swivel chair, the spinning wheel, the sun, the woman “ringed” by yarn—all suggesting the act of spinning itself.  The “swollen river” too might be considered  circular, or at least circulating in nature.

But my favorite line is “Light larking between wind and current / will be in this sweater.” What a verb. What a linebreak.

By the way, if you were wondering why the poet’s last name sounds familiar, it might be because he’s the father of Rebecca Skloot, author of the mega-successful The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (which apparently everyone except me has read).

Do you have a favorite poem about one of your hobbies?

 

Happy New Year (with News!)

/ Carolyn O / 4 Comments

Happy New Year, Dear Readers!

As you might have noticed, after three years (happy birthday, dear blog) I’ve finally updated the look of the site a bit, though the posting schedule remains the same.

I’m not a resolution-maker, but this year I hope to read and write more than I did last year, and to more to bring poetry, in particular, to a wider readership.

Speaking of writing, you’ll soon be able to read my new advice column, Dear Clementine, on a new site called The Postscript. In order to dole out advice, however, I need someone to ask for it, so please do send your questions personal, profession, parental, or otherwise to: dearclementinepostscript[at]gmail[dot]com.

And while I’m engaged in shameless self-promotion: I’ve redone my professional website, which you can find at carolynoliver.net. It includes a very serious picture of me. Also other information.

What are your plans, reading and otherwise, for 2016?

2016

Some Questions and Comments Regarding Poetry

/ Carolyn O / 13 Comments

Dear Readers,

I was going to try to sum up my year in poetry reading in a rather long post with lots of quotations and best lines, but it’s been rather an eventful week around here (capped off by my husband’s grandmother’s near-miraculous recovery from severe hypothermia), and so I will be brief.

Comments and Questions:

  1. Reading poetry is a delight that I wish were more widespread.
  2. Fellow book bloggers: The vast majority of blog posts are about fiction and nonfiction, not poetry (mine included, if we’re talking about reviews and not the poem-of-the-week posts). Why is that? What would make reading poetry—say, five collections a year if you typically read about 75-125 books a year—appealing to you?
  3. Where do you, dear readers, read about poetry? Or, when you pick up a book of poems, what’s the impetus behind the choice?
  4. If you would like to read more poetry and you’re a regular around here, what can I do, or do better, to help?

And for the new year, I recommend a poem (of course): the suitably titled “New Year’s Poem” by the late Canadian poet Margaret Avison. It’s jeweled with lovely images, and the description of the party puts me in mind of a winter version of Mrs. Dalloway’s (eventually, everything comes back to Mrs. Dalloway).

Happy New Year, Dear Readers!

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

/ Carolyn O / 6 Comments

IMG_5629After three years, the stars have aligned so that Christmas Eve and the poem of the week fall on the same day, and so a bit early (or roughly on time for European readers—hello there, European readers!):

A Visit from St. Nicholas

by Clement Clarke Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

 

Merry Christmas, Dear Readers! Wishing you peace, joy, and happy reading this week and in the new year.

“The snowsoft sift of the diatoms”: W. D. Snodgrass’s “Monet: Les Nymphéas'”

/ Carolyn O / 3 Comments

Close upOver the Thanksgiving holiday, we traveled to Cleveland to visit my family, and while we were there, we were lucky enough to see (thanks to my parents), a wonderful exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art called “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse,” which explores the way the garden has influenced and appeared in art.

The showstopper of the exhibit is a very large (three panels brought together from three different museums) Monet painting of water lilies (the left panel is owned by the CMA; here’s a link). I’m used to seeing Monet’s  water lily paintings (he made over 200) on notecards and fridge magnets and postcards, but to see one on such a grand scale was thrilling. I couldn’t stop smiling, actually.

Here’s a W. D. Snodgrass poem, “Monet: ‘Les Nymphéas'” about Monet’s water lilies (les nymphéas in French) that in language evokes the dreamy quality of the paintings. I love the sounds of this poem, like these lines:

The snowsoft sift of the diatoms, like selves
Downdrifting age upon age through milky oceans;
    O slow downdrifting of the atoms;

Swoon. Have I ever mentioned that ‘o’ is my favorite letter? Some of the reason why is in this poem.

Also, is it just me, or is there something vaguely Miltonic about the images and the play with language here?

Readers, what’s your favorite ekphrastic poem? Also, seen any art lately?

“The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, / All found their comfort in the holy place”: Emma Lazarus’s “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport”

/ Carolyn O / 6 Comments

New_colossusI was poking about, looking for a Chanukah poem to feature in honor of the holiday (and Happy Chanukah, Dear Readers), when I came across a poem that speaks a bit to the holiday itself, but even more to our present moment. Please bear with me as I come around to the poem.

A personage who shall not be named (like the J.K. Rowling villain he seems so desperate to emulate) is voicing repulsive xenophobia, indifferent to the plight of thousands upon thousands of people fleeing violence and seeking no more than what most Americans take for granted: the right to live freely in peace, to pursue happiness. This person, and any who claim to be interested in the Founding Fathers, would do well to recall George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, assuring them—often persecuted in other lands for their religion—of their welcome in America. Herewith, an excerpt:

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

[…]

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington [emphasis mine]

It was the synagogue of this very congregation, the oldest synagogue still standing in America, that inspired Emma Lazarus to write “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport,” a lovely poem that muses on the plight of exiles and the comforts of shared devotion, and should recall to us all—believers and non-believers alike—the great privilege of living in a country in which freedom of religion is enshrined in law, and the great wisdom, the necessary humanity, of embracing people of goodwill of all faiths, or none at all.

If the name Emma Lazarus sounds familiar, it’s because she’s also the poet whose verses famously adorned a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

Light and not darkness upon our paths, friends.

 

To donate to the UNCHR, the UN Refugee Agency, click here. 

To donate to UNICEF, click here. 

To donate to Save the Children, click here.