Our Library book club has a “sort-a” December tradition of reading aloud a favorite poem or two. In the past I have read a Lady Gregory, plus several by Louis Jenkins, Mary Oliver and Yeats. This year I am at a loss, having covered many favorites.
So far, these are the books I have pulled off the shelf…
Galway Kinnell’s Body Rags, Mortal Acts Mortal Words, Selected Poems
Lawrence Durrell’s Selected Poems
Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems
Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf: A New Verse Translation
Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Robert Bly
Robert Bly’s Four Ramages
Olav Hauge’s Trusting Your Life to Water and Eternity translated by Robert Bly
Tomas Tranströmer’s 20 Poems translated by Robert Bly
Robert Bly’s My Sentence Was A Thousand Years of Joy
A Julius Berg Baumann poem from his Fra Vidderne translated by Josh Preston
I can’t find my book of collected Yeats poems. Or the ever-so-old copy of D.H. Lawrence poems. But perhaps I have enough to sort through – though I’m afraid we might be limited to only one or two.
My favorite Rilke poem?
I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.
Or Robert Bly’s The Dark Autumn Nights…?
I love the tiny Bly book, Four Ramages, with illustrations & graphics by Barbara LaRue King.
Okay, my decision has been made…I’m going for all three Bly poems!
(plus the other 3 Ramages)
Who (or what) are your favorite poets (or poems)?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Rhyme Baboons,
W.H. Auden
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CP Cavafy, his Ithica poem, Heaney’s Beowulf. I will think of more later.
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Ithaca! Good grief!
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Alas, Renee, I think you mean Ithaka.
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Most of my favorite poems are in books that didn’t make the trip to Port Huron. Or even the trip to Happy Valley.
One I love is Bill Holm’s Wedding Poem for Schele and Phil. I have some personal history with that poem, but it is too complicated for this venue.
I like Sharon Olds, too.
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of course, Bill Holm, though I must admit I don’t have a copy of his poems, just his essays.
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poets
ee cummings
bill holm
billy collins
mara admintz scrupe
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I forgot to mention my friend, Greg Opstad, who is also an excellent poet. He divides his time and writing between Cloquet and New Mexico. His collection is “Lake Country.” Another Duluth poet I enjoy is Connie Wanek. When Robert was doing readings in Moose Lake, he invited her to join him at least once. She was a delight.
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Oh, and Bart Sutter, Duluth’s first poet laureate. Many fine poems, but the funny ones are my favorite…for example, “The Third Use of the Penis” (and the day one of my male co-workers asked “What are the first two?”)
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My earlier comment about not having books was not clear. What I meant was that I used to have poetry books and now do not. There were many poets in those books (especially Garrison’s Good Poems books) that I loved, but I rarely paid much attention to the name of the poets. And just to save others the frustration, if you Google “Good Poems” or “Writer’s Almanac” now you hit the MPR firewall separating themselves from GK.
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#3 WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Wild Swans at Coole
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
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Words cannot express how glad I am to “see” you again, NorthShorer. Welcome back and I hope this is the beginning of a pattern.
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Ditto.
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#2 EMILY DICKINSON
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
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Of course, Emily Dickinson, how could I forget?
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sorry that one fits so well. hope someday it will not
good to see you again clyde. welcome welcome
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#1 ROBERT FROST
RELUCTANCE
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
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One of the poems I ran across whilst looking for the right poem was one by Galway Kinnell about talking to Robert Frost…it was too long, however…and something about Frost talking too much or being tired of talking.
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has that always been a favorite or is it now positioned such with the years feeling like a trees whose growing season has passed?
love the yeats…
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Woo hoo! Welcome, Clyde!
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Clyde!!! Welcome back. I can’t speak for others here, but I think of you often. Great to hear from you again!
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What Steve said.
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Me Too (without a hashtag)
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What’s a hashtag?
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Are you asking this seriously, BiR?
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Thanks.
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OT: I just came across the funniest cooking video ever.
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Pretty funny, thanks, Steve.
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These days when I’m at work I only have either my little pad or my phone for the Trail. And this is way too big of a topic for me for voice recognition. So I’ll check in when I get home and can type to my heart’s content.
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I am not going to have anything to contribute today so I’ll go OT.
A bit of a rough trip to Golden Valley yesterday. I didn’t have any trouble, just slower than normal and some snow covered roads. And some people going 40 MPH and some going 70 MPH. Lots of evidence of former accidents and even a couple still in process of being resolved.
Today I got the snow machines hung up and wouldn’t you know it, my DMX dip switch calculator is trying to fool me. Evidently I can’t be trusted to follow simple directions. now I’m waiting for the band to finish rehearsal so I can go look again.
Who remembers what I dip shit is? I mean Dip Switch? (Favorite joke with an Uncle. Us both stumbling over the words and getting the giggles over the dip switches).
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As is obvious from the responses, picking just one favorite poet or poem is impossible for most baboons. I’m no exception. I share the appreciation of many of the poets mentioned above and many others, too. I’m offering this poem by Maxine Kumin in honor of all the gardeners in this group.
WOODCHUCKS by MAXINE KUMIN
Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right.
The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange
was featured as merciful, quick at the bone
and the case we had against them was airtight,
both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone,
but they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.
Next morning they turned up again, no worse
for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes
and state-store Scotch, all of us up to scratch.
They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course
and then took over the vegetable patch
nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots.
The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling
to the feel of the .22, the bullets’ neat noses.
I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace
puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing,
now drew a bead on the little woodchuck’s face.
He died down in the everbearing roses.
Ten minutes later I dropped the mother.She
flipflopped in the air and fell, her needle teeth
still hooked in a leaf of early Swiss chard.
Another baby next.O one-two-three
the murderer inside me rose up hard,
the hawkeye killer came on stage forthwith.
There’s one chuck left. Old wily fellow, he keeps
me cocked and ready day after day after day.
All night I hunt his humped-up form.I dream
I sight along the barrel in my sleep.
If only they’d all consented to die unseen
gassed underground the quiet Nazi way.
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I remember woodchucks. I understand.
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I would Like this, but it kinda seems like it would be endorsing violence against baby animals.
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I love how she so gradually justifies the escalation of violence. The last two lines slay me, just turns the whole thing political.
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Me, too, PJ – a lot of my favorite poets are already mentioned – Collins, Oliver, Frost, Cummings… So I’ll relate one from the same Barbara McAfee I mentioned yesterday.
On Being a Carrot in God’s Garden
You can be sure the hand will pull you from the ground.
You can be sure.
No matter how longlingly the earth presses against you,
No matter how sweet the mineral sips at the tips of your roots,
No matter how comfortable your somnolent, unchanging days,
When you are ripe, you will be taken.
In this slumbering time,
in this tiny, dark cradle,
you cannot imagine sky
or the clouds who splatter the surface above,
or even the green lace of your own intricate leaves.
When the hand comes,
may your flesh be sweet in surrender.
When the soil falls away from your snapping roots,
may you slide easy into the light.
When you lie naked in the basket,
may the hand rub the last soil from your skin
and carry you — singing and fresh —
straight to the mouth of God.
© Barbara McAfee
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When I was a junior in high school, my favorite teacher formed a small band of us who went around to elementary schools and read poetry. We called ourselves Poetry Circus. This was one of my favorites:
The One That Got Away (by Gary Miranda)
Man, you got a bird where your brain
should be, he says, talking to me.
I say: Perhaps you’d like to exp]ain
that figure of speech for the whole class.
He says: A bird, man, a bird–thass
one o’ them things with wings what flies
around. You, you jes sits on your ass,
but your brain it flies around, goes
flap an’ flap–like this. He shows
me then with his arms, doing flap-an-flaps
between the aisles like a trained crow’s
bad imitation of a little black
boy flying. Then he flaps to the back
of the room and out the door, free:
free of the class, that doesn’t crack a smile;
free of the teacher, who sits
on his ass, a bird where his brain should be.
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My favorite poem to read to children is Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley.
Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,–
An’ when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wuzn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an’ roundabout:–
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’ one, an’ all her blood-an’-kin;
An’ wunst, when they was ‘company,’ an’ ole folks wuz there,
She mocked ’em an’ shocked ’em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
An’ little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,–
You better mind yer parunts, an’ yer teachurs fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
James Whitcomb Riley
Oh, just reminds me I also read a lot of A A Milne to the kids…
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What a great idea. Having kids discover the magic of poetry before some English professor in college tortures the daylights out of it.
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Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Edna St Vincent Millay, Carl Sandberg, Billy Collins, Joyce Sutphen, Jack Ridl, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Dickenson, Li Po, Whitman. Guess for me poets are like Lay’s Potato Chips – can’t have just one!
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Joyce Sutphen (Minnesota Poet Laureate) is the mother of a good friend of my younger daughter. They became friends at work, as adults, so I have not met Joyce, but I’m “that close”.
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The Gift (by Frederick Smock)
The blueberry season has ended.
Soon it will be time for pumpkins
to arrive at the market stalls.
It is all a gift, no?
And the giver unknown.
The less you want
the more bounteous the world becomes,
when you pass that tipping point.
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Jarring Honey (by Nick Norwood)
Decanting from bucket to pot,
jug to jar, air bubbles suspend
themselves in galaxies:
sucrose solar systems, each
glinting orb a perfect
pearl reflecting light.
The little giants are first
to rise, stately as moons,
toward the surface. They
catch and form a necklace
at the throat, or continue
upward, guickening in that
last few millimeters to bob
in silence on the top, collect
in planetary clusters,
molecular models. Super-
novas erupting in their own
sweet time. Later, a day
or more, even the tiniest
have risen. Some will remain
like distant nebulas, faint
milky pockets of deep space
abuzz with stars humming
with some new kind of being.
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And from a poet close to my heart:
Rubber Gloves & Onions (written in college)
here we are again. Saturday night
& he watches me chop onions,
while stirring tomato sauce,
non-commitally.
releasing that sweet pungent juice;
the tearful smell stings.
salty raindrops down my face onto
onion-soaked fingers.
“ah, my kingdom for rubber gloves.”
he laughs.
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I did warn you all….
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Happy to be warned.
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Feel free to spring such wonderful little surprises on me, anytime, no warning needed.
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A silence slipping around like death,
Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath;
One group of trees, lean, naked and cold,
Inking their cress ‘gainst a sky green-gold;
One path that knows where the corn flowers were;
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;
And over it softly leaning down,
One star that I loved ere the fields went brown.
– Angelina Weld Grimké
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The title, which I meant to include, is <A Winter Twilight.
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Lovely
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What a marvelous treat, these unfamiliar little gems. Thanks everyone for serving them up without reservation or apology. Such unexpected flights of fancy on a gloomy, cold day.
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Oh, yes.
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Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! parting is such
sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
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God Says Yes to Me
– by Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
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dr suess
bob dylan
shel silverstein
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How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes
If you have to dry the dishes
(Such an awful boring chore)
If you have to dry the dishes
(‘Stead of going to the store)
If you have to dry the dishes
And you drop one on the floor
Maybe they won’t let you
Dry the dishes anymore
– Shel Silverstein
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Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out by Silverstein…frequently quoted to myself…early on the LGMS I heard a musical version but somehow it disappeared. Anyone else remember it?
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Yes, and the Slithergadee comes out of the sea…
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The more it snows (Tiddely pom),
The more it goes (Tiddely pom),
The more it goes (Tiddely pom),
On snowing.
And nobody knows (Tiddely pom),
How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),
How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),
Are growing.
Winnie the Pooh
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Thanks for the AA Milne, BIR,…inspired me to search out my copy of Now We Are Six…and found it! And my Yeats. So. Change of plan: Wheezles and Sneezles by Milne, Wandering Aengus by Yeats plus “He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace” and maybe “Down by the Sally Gardens” if my friend Mary will bring her harp to play along. It came down to the ones I enjoyed out loud the most. Thanks, every one for a delightful read on Tuesday….and always.
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The Mason Williams Reading Matter
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