Billy Collins

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

Must read

Everyone should read this. Again and again and again.


The Totality of Causes: Li-Young Lee and Tina Chang in Conversation


An excerpt from the conversation:

"I've been thinking about something for a long time, and I keep noticing that most human speech—if not all human speech—is made with the outgoing breath. This is the strange thing about presence and absence. When we breath in, our bodies are filled with nutrients and nourishment. Our blood is filled with oxygen, our skin gets flush; our bones get harder—they get compacted. Our muscles get toned and we feel very present when we're breathing in. The problem is, that when we're breathing in, we can't speak. So presence and silence have something to do with each other. 

 

The minute we start breathing out, we can talk; speech is made with the outgoing, exhaled breath. The problem that is poses, though, is that as we exhale, nutrients are leaving our bodies; our bones get softer, our muscles get flaccid, our skin starts to loosen. You could think of that as the dying breath. So as we breath out, we have less and less presence.

When we make verbal meaning, we use the dying breath. In fact, the more I say, the more my meaning is disclosed. Meaning grows in opposite ratio to presence or vitality. That's a weird thing. I don't know why God made us that way. 

It's a kind of paradigm for life, right? As we die, the meaning of our life gets disclosed. Maybe the paradigm for living is encoded or embedded in speech itself, and every time we speak we're enacting on a small-scale, microcosmic level the bigger scale of our lives. So that the less vitality we have, the more the meaning of our lives get disclosed."

Birds and Nests

I woke up this morning, my chest feeling heavy. It’s funny. I have carried this weight around for a while and though I have gotten quite used to it, sometimes I feel the weight as if it were new. As if, it were pressing down upon me to remind me in case I ever forget.

Let’s call this weight a bird. A big beautiful bird. A bird who meets other birds, squabbles with other birds, falls in love with other birds but you know, never quite sees me as a bird. I suppose I am this bird’s nest. Last night, this bird felt its own weight and seemed to be asking me why would I put up with this weight? Why don’t I shoo it away?

Why don’t I shoo this bird away?

I suppose it's because I am this bird’s nest. Where will it go if I shooed it away? 

It's weird how this started as a poem and then just wouldn't go anywhere I liked it to go. So I guess that's why it stays here instead of Tiny dancer. On an aside, I wonder if it's time to change the name of my poetry blog. Something like.. "Tiny Dances No More" or "Tiny Would Rather Sing" or "Tiny Would Like the World to Believe She Is Tiny Even Though She Is Not". I guess the last one is too long. Oh well. 

I suppose it's strange to have a randomly personal post come up in the middle. Not that I haven't posted my rants or allowed glimpses into my life in a more direct fashion, before. I haven't done it in a while. I guess I'm being obscure enough to satisfy myself and keep you wondering. Ha.

Li-Young Lee

Black Petal

I never claimed night fathered me.
that was my dead brother talking in his sleep. 
I keep him under my pillow, a dear wish

that colors my laughing and crying.

I never said the wind, remembering nothing,
leaves so many rooms unaccounted for, 
continual farewell must ransom
the unmistakable fragrance
our human days afford.

It was my brother, little candle in the pulpit,
reading out loud to all of earth
from the book of night.

He died too young to learn his name.
Now he answers to Vacant Boat,
Burning Wing, My Black Petal.


Ask him who his mother is. He'll declare the birds
have eaten the path home, but each of us
joins night's ongoing story
wherever night overtakes him,
the heart astonished to find belonging
and thanks answering thanks. 


Ask if he's hungry or thirsty,
he'll say he's the bread come to pass
and draw you a map
to the twelve secret hips of honey.

Does someone want to know the way to spring?
He'll remind you

the flower was never meant to survive
the fruit's triumph.

He says an apple's most secret cargo
is the enduring odor of a human childhood,
our mother's linen pressed and stored, our father's voice

walking through the rooms.

He says he's forgiven our sister
for playing dead and making him cry
those afternoons we were left alone in the house.

And when clocks frighten me with their long hair,

and when I spy the wind's numerous hands
in the orchard unfastening
first the petals from the buds,
then the perfume from the flesh,

my dead brother ministers to me. His voice
weighs nothing
but the far years between

stars in their massive dying,

and I grow quiet hearing
how many of both of our tomorrows
lie waiting inside it to be born.

Because you're still asking me that question.

I wish I could say enough about Joss Whedon. One day I'm going to write a piece deserving enough of him but right now, I think you should watch this video. Also, this is in protest of the new 'Buffy' movie. No Joss in a Buffy movie. Really? How wrong is that? This my protest. Joss, I love you.

e. e. cummings

 I carry your heart

I carry your heart with me(I carry it in
my heart)I am never without it(anywhere
I go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)I want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)

Edwin Morgan

Strawberries

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates
laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air

in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates