Show&Tell: Poetry

My hobby is poetry, although I'm still not sure if I will be writing specifically about the Geraldine Dodge Poetry or about chapbooks. Here are a few poetic trinkets:

Giving Depth to the Secular

To me, Billy Collins is king of taking something ordinary and metamorphosing it into something meaningful. In the majority of his poems, he is in a secular setting talking about ordinary, every day items--windows, rooms, cigarettes, food, hats, etc., but he ends up either discussing significant topics like death or transporting you to heaven. I believe it was Billy Collins who said that you cannot sit down to write a poem about love, or you will write a terrible love poem--you need a way in. His way in is through ordinary objects. For example, he uses a hat to talk about the death of his father in his poem "The Death of the Hat". I have a huge crush on Billy--I feel like we are on a first name basis given that I met him twice (and by met, I mean stood in line nervously awaiting his signature struggling to think of something clever or witty to say and completely failing miserably). I must say for all my supposed charm, I seem to flounder around poets and writers. I actually stalked Mark Dohty and his partner during lunch at the Dodge festival for Dohty's autograph (my first one ever). I think the restraining order ends this year.

This poem is one of my Billy favorites:

This Much I Do Remember 

It was after dinner.

You were talking to me across the table

about something or other,

a greyhound you had seen that day

or a song you liked,

and I was looking past you

over your bare shoulder

at the three oranges lying

on the kitchen counter

next to the small electric bean grinder,

which was also orange,

and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.

All of which converged

into a random still life,

so fastened together by the hasp of color,

and so fixed behind the animated

foreground of your

talking and smiling,

gesturing and pouring wine,

and the camber of you shoulders

that I could feel it being painted within me,

brushed on the wall of my skull,

while the tone of your voice

lifted and fell in its flight,

and the three oranges

remained fixed on the counter

the way that stars are said

to be fixed in the universe.

Then all of the moments of the past

began to line up behind that moment

and all of the moments to come

assembled in front of it in a long row,

giving me reason to believe

that this was a moment I had rescued

from millions that rush out of sight

into a darkness behind the eyes.

Even after I have forgotten what year it is,

my middle name,

and the meaning of money,

I will still carry in my pocket

the small coin of that moment,

minted in the kingdom

that we pace through every day.

- Billy Collins

Billy Collins at The Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival, 2008

Meet the Queen

If Billy is king, Lucille Clifton is queen. Clifton's poems are extremely accessible with their simple word choice, short length, and lack of adornment, but don't let that fool you--they are rich with meaning. She writes primarily about her family. Like Randy Jackson shamelessly dropping Mariah Carey's name on American Idol, I will drop that Lucille Clifton held my goddaughter although I was not there to witness it. Even though Clifton lived in Columbia, my neck of the woods, and was extremely approachable, I was too shy to ask her for her autograph at Dodge. Sadly, Clifton passed away in 2010. Below is one of my favorite poems that gives voice to something seemingly ordinary--a bottle of syrup:

aunt jemima

white folks say i remind them

of home       i who have been homeless

all my life except for their

kitchen cabinets

i who have made the best

of everything

pancakes      batter for chicken

my life

the shelf on which i sit

between the flour and cornmeal

is thick with dreams

oh how i long for

my own syrup

rich as blood

my true nephews      my nieces

my kitchen      my family

my home

Lucille Clifton at The Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival, 2008