Slowly Getting The Poem Back In

I've been dead. Getting back to life, slowly, and finding blogs I want to link to, photos I want to share, snatches of poems I want to listen to and lift out. First steps:


1. Found a great great visual art blog: Accidental Mysteries: and today's post is "Poultry In Motion" -- great poem bird pun. Here. I won't plagiarize the photos, but do go look. My favorite ones are the face out of toilet paper tubes, and the Newspaper Blackout Poems. Here's one of them. Make sure you click on it to enlarge and read.



2. I've had some little poem publishing success. The 2009 issue of The Sand Hill Review has two of my poems, one of which is technically in four part. 'The Wife' (which I already need to revise) and 'Concussion Sonnets'. Am currently thinking about Depression Sonnets. And Anxiety Sonnets. I'm grateful to Janice for asking for my work. I don't get "out" much any more these days.

3. I also had a line of mine accepted into Nils Peterson's project: Santa Clara County: A Family Album 2009. Nils is the poet laureate of Santa Clara County and he invited poets (like me and you) to submit short lines, which he wove into a single ode to the valley. It was fun, and even though I got my entry in late, I got it in! You can read the poem here. My line is, 'with my wet laundry, I startle a doe.'

That's enough -- two days worth of posts. Whew. I'm reading Suite Francaise (thanks to Ray for the suggestion) and just finished Wind in the Willows again, although I'm not sure I ever read the whole thing before. What a dreamy book. My husband's favorite children's book.

The Ovaries Are Superior

My friend Kathy makes beautiful photos of her beautiful garden. Actually, she's my friend Alice's sister, but I claim friendship in beauty. She also has excellent captions for her photos, many of which would be poem titles if I had the time. For example: the ovaries are superior.

Gutter Poetry & Flowers in the Street & Amy Lowell

So, I can't tell if this is a real poetic genre or not. I should try writing a gutter poem to find out. In the mean time, read about my gutters on my remodel blog. I'm too tired to do much else right now.

Here's a nice photo, though, of flowers doing their best springtime thing -- growing up through the cracks.

While searching for poems about gutters and flowers in street cracks, I found a lot of interesting things by Amy Lowell. She didn't write a poem specifically about this topic (that I can find) but I did find this great poem 'Winter's Turning' that describes buildings shooting up through the streets like flowers. For some reason, some of her books are digitized in Google Books, so you can read the poem for yourself there, or here:

Winter's Turning

Snow is still on the ground,
But there is a golden brightness in the air.
Across the river,
Blue,
Blue,
Sweeping widely under the arches
Of many bridges,
Is a spire and a dome,
Clear as though ringed with ice-flakes,
Golden, and pink, and jocund.
On a near-by steeple,
A golden weather-cock flashes smartly,
His open beak "Cock-a-doodle-dooing"
Straight at the ear of Heaven.
A tall apartment house,
Crocus-colored,
Thrusts up from the street
Like a new-sprung flower.
Another street is edged and patterend
With the bloom of bricks,
Houses and houses of rose-red bricks,
Every window a-glitter.
The city is a parterre,
Blowing and glowing,
Alight with the wind,
Washed over with gold and mercury.
Let us throw up our hats,
For we are past the age of balls
And have none handy.
Let us take hold of hands,
And race along the sidewalks,
And dodge the traffic in crowded streets.
Let us whir with the golden spoke-wheels
Of the sun.
For to-morrow Winter drops into the waste-basket,
And the calendar calls it March.

Even though I found this poem while looking for flowers and streets, the image of 'we' who are 'past the age of balls' really breaks my heart. That we would be us, my love and I.

Silicon Valley Poet Laureate?

Who knew? I live here, and I didn't know.

Nils Peterson is the grand old poet of San Jose, that's true, but I'm not sure his old orchard slow poems are representative of the nasty snatch and squeal I think of when I think of Silicon Valley. Still, who am I to tell?

Poetry Center San Jose has a good range of information on him and his work.

A very cool thing he is doing is having a contest of 13-syllable poetry lines, which he will assemble into a word collage. I heard him on the radio describing how this is like an elegy -- interesting poetic form to use for a up-and-coming valley. See my comment above about his old-timer's view.

Santa Clara County recently chose its first-ever poet laureate. Nils Peterson was named to the honorary post, and one of the first things he's done is to put together an unusual competition. He wants county residents to submit a single poetic line about life in the Valley. One hundred lines will be chosen for a special 'word collage.' We take a peek at some of the early submissions. [If you're a Santa Clara Valley resident, you can submit your own line of poetry. Email your 9-13 syllable line to poet.laureate@ceo.sccgov.org or by mail to Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, Office of Public Affairs, County of Santa Clara, 70 West Hedding St., 11th Floor East Wing, San Jose, CA 95110.]

A nine to thirteen syllable line? Here's mine.

With my wet laundry, I startle a doe.

My Mother's Day Poem

Still Life for Mother's Day

Who's making pancakes, I wake

to their call, not really, I've been long

awake. There's no wrapping

paper, get out of my way. You’ve
gone out to buy the steak, then bring

back lavender, pink, white sweet

peas, so many they don't fit

in the vase. I asked for something

smaller, quiet, something like a song
for my heart, but today's treat
is they -- one by one -- leave me.
Lozenges for my wounded lips,
oil for the bitten teat. Sunday
regular with laundry on the line
and my babies fighting
in the kitchen over their place
in the deep hole they have dug through
me with you. It should be they,
but on Mother’s Day, you
flip the hot cakes in the pan,
slip your hand into my shirt,
ask me still love. I do.

The photos are from my son's birthday, but you get the picture.

Espaliered Pear Trees

Kathy, a gardener who's blog I follow, uses some great words to describe her garden and her hard work. I had to look up "espaliered" -- always the right thing to do when you are a serious poet.

According to North Carolina State University: Espalier (ess-PAL-yer) is the practice of controlling plant growth so that it grows relatively flat against a structure such as a wall, fence, or trellis. In the 17th Century, espalier originally referred to the frame or trellis on which the plant was trained. Today, espalier refers to both the plant and the horticultural technique of actually training the plant. Espaliered plants can be used to create a focal point and as a form of art. In an area where space is limited or where a plant is needed to accent a large blank wall an espaliered plant can be an outstanding landscape feature. A mature espalier plant will catch the eye of almost any visitor to your home.

I have not written a poem about this phenomenon, but I will. In the meantime, pictures.

Poetry Chair

Good for you, Albert!

A chair made of poetry books, happy in the hills and sunshine of Marin's hills and wind. (Click the photo to read the article.)

I have some books I could have donated, had I known you were in need. Shall we make an entire dining room set??