Literature – Page 14

NPM: Carolyn Kizer

For those who don’t know, a pantoum is a poem composed in quatrains in which the second and fourth lines are repeated as the first and third lines of the following quatrain. For other confusing forms, see the villanelle and the terzanelle.

This isn’t a perfect example of a pantoum, but it is a lovely poem about the wonderment parents feel about their children when the children who once adored their parents grow up to patronize them.

Parent’s Pantoum

Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses

More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.

They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group–why don’t they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them

As they ignore our pleas to brighten up.
Someday perhaps we’ll capture their attention
Then we won’t try to be dignified like them
Nor they to be so gently patronizing.

Someday perhaps we’ll capture their attention.
Don’t they know that we’re supposed to be the stars?
Instead they are so gently patronizing.
It makes us feel like children–second-childish?

Perhaps we’re too accustomed to be stars.
The famous flowers glowing in the garden,
So now we pout like children. Second-childish?
Quaint fragments of forgotten history?

Our daughters stroll together in the garden,
Chatting of news we’ve chosen to ignore,
Pausing to toss us morsels of their history,
Not questions to which only we know answers.

Eyes closed to news we’ve chosen to ignore,
We’d rather excavate old memories,
Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors.
Why do they never listen to our stories?

Because they hate to excavate old memories
They don’t believe our stories have an end.
They don’t ask questions because they dread the answers.
They don’t see that we’ve become their mirrors,

We offspring of our enormous children.

Read it again and again. This one is amazing.

I need National Poetry Month to end soon. Very soon. I am far too excited about it and I have a million other things to do than locate my favorite poems.

Stupid Book Thingie

I was really hoping that no one would pass me this game, but since someone (who shall remain nameless) did, I feel an obligation to complete it. This would be so much easier with music, I must say. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book I didn’t like.

In the interest of killing this little game, I’m morphing it.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I’m on fire; I’m burning; I don’t care what book I am. What’s most important is what we’re listening to: Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, of course.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I had a huge crush on King Alobar from Jitterbug Perfume, but that probably has everything to do with the psychadelic sex scenes in Tom Robbins’ books.

When I was younger I had a mad crush on Chris Cornell. And Jim Morrison. To my parents’ dismay, I plastered my walls with pictures of them (and Courtney Love, pre-plastic surgery).

The last book you bought is?
I can’t remember the last book I bought since I’ve been given so many. However, the last CDs I bought were Madvillain’s Madvillainy and the newest Reverend Horton Heat, Revival (not so good). Again, I have far more CDs given to me than I buy.

What are you currently reading?
A little bit of everything. On my nightstand sits Teaching as a Subversive Activity and Will in the World. Both were given to me by others. In my Skully bag, the bag I fill up when I go a-walkin’, is The Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutierrez, and How the Dead Live by Will Self.

However, the most important item in my walking bag is the mp3 player. What am I listening to? Biz Markie, Peaches, Das EFX (“They Want EFX” also doubles as my cell phone ringer), Sister Nancy, Slick Rick, Belle and Sebastian, and Donovan. You have to have a good variety depending on your walkin’ mood, whether you’re getting whooped at by college boys, splashed by passing cars, or doing what I generally do, scoping out other people’s flowers (and perhaps picking them).

Five books you would take to a deserted island:
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie;
Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Cafe, an anthology of contemporary slam poetry;
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson, introduced to me by Dr. B. in a gender lit course;
Derrick Jensen’s Culture of Make Believe, because even though I ripped on him, he is still a wonderful writer;
and a blank journal I could keep with the pen I snuck onto the island.

Music that would make it onto a desert island with me would be a slew of homemade CDs and my solar powered, shoulder-sittin’ jambox. I have no loyalties, only songs I love shamelessly.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Dr. B., whose answers will be about knitting books, Queen Kim of Twins and Procrastination, and Mr. Capanzzi, who I haven’t heard from in awhile.

NPM: Lucille Clifton

It’s a late night here working on the final touches of my you-will-love-poetry-dammit unit designed for tenth graders. The oolong tea isn’t holding me up any longer. And my back hurts.

Ms. Clifton, however, may be my saving grace.

wishes for sons

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn’t believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

Amen.

Clifton’s mean sense of humor (or is it justice?) always brings me back from the dead.

NPM: Nikki Giovanni

My favorite poem, as requested by the house poet:

Balances

in life
one is always
balancing

like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers

or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence
or the funky honkie down the street

and lately i’ve been wondering
if you’re trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night
and do things alone together

and i’ve begun
(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you

Like all of my favorite poems, this poem has a distinct shift from the general to the specific. With the line beginning and lately i’ve been wondering, we’re suddenly taken from a comical view of manipulation to a real balancing act, one of longing and loss — to be cliché, the balance of knowing one is better off having loved and lost than never having loved at all. Real cliché.

What is your favorite poem? Feel free to leave it in its entirety in the comments.

Poets: A Request

I’m working on my unit plan on poetry and have run into a writing wall. I’m drawing blanks on post-Reconstruction American poets and need some examples of poets who are usable in a public high school. Not to mention compelling enough to use in a high school.

Funny that I can come up with tons for the blog, but not for school. Wonderful.

Any and all suggestions are welcome. The sooner the better.

NPM: Sylvia Plath

It should be a requirement of all angsty adolescent girls to read and adore Sylvia Plath. Like I did. I wrote lines from her poems all over my notebooks and school things: “like the cat I have nine times to die”

“Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well. / I do it so it feels like hell. / I do it so it feels real.”

“Out of the ash /I rise with my red hair /And I eat men like air.”

I forget sometimes how poignant Plath is, having permanently associated her with my teen years. I wonder what her last book of poetry would have looked like had her estranged widower, Ted Hughes, not destroyed it.

Lady Lazarus

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it–

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?–

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot–
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart–
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash–
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there–

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

See more at PlathOnline, built and maintained by Emily of Strangechord.

NPM: Christina Rossetti

Although I prefer the moralistic mysticism of Christina Rossetti’s The Goblin Market, this one seems most appropriate. This one is for Dad.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

NPM: Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie is one of my favorite authors. His book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” is one of the only books I’ve read that has made me cry openly in public. Heart-wrecking, wrenching sobs. Yes it was embarrassing, but totally worth it.

This poem, “Reservation Love Song,” makes one think of simple love, family, and tradition. But more.

I can meet you
in Springdale buy you beer
& take you home
in my one-eyed Ford

I can pay your rent
on HUD house get you free
food from the BIA
get your teeth fixed at IHS

I can buy you alcohol
& not drink it all
while you’re away I won’t fuck
any of your cousins

if I don’t get too drunk
I can bring old blankets
to sleep with in winter
they smell like grandmother

hands digging up roots
they have powerful magic
we can sleep good
we can sleep warm

Known in part for his social commentary, Alexie does wonderful justice to the expression of individual empowerment in the face of disempowerment. There appears to be a lack of masculine power in this courtship, and from a romantic angle, this poem seems to be the lover’s answer to the beloved’s “reservation.”

NPM: Kim Addonizio

I love this poem like I love Edie in Desperate Housewives (and yes, I love Desperate Housewives). It’s everything a woman isn’t supposed to be: direct, demanding, and not a sexual object, but a sensual subject. Add a wee bit of bitter vulnerability, covered by pride. Damn good poem.

I doubt this is the answer Freud was expecting, but hell, at least he asked.

“What Do Women Want?” by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

Amen.

NPM: Gwendolyn Brooks

I’m bored with politics. Perhaps it’s papaphobia.

Today’s poet (since I’m apparently following National Poetry Month) is Gwendolyn Brooks, best known for her bluesy poem often featured in high school text books, “We Real Cool.”

I love “The Bean Eaters” because of its quiet tone and use of subtle detail.

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

There’s something desperately somber about this picture, an elderly couple going about the day-to-day monotony surrounded by trinkets of better times past. I’ve always been excited about growing old (strange, enit?) gathering stories and gems of wisdom throughout my life. But this poem reminds that it isn’t always pleasant and, oftentimes, lonely.