poems

Evening Poetry, May 11

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This poem can be found in the March 2019 edition of Poetry Magazine.

Maybe my most important identity is being a son

by Raymond Antrobus

my mother

asking how

to open a tab

on her laptop,

to email a photo,

calling to ask–

can you change

the lightbulb

at the top of the stairs?

my mother

spending hours

helping me find

a doctor’s form,

a hearing aid battery,

anything

misplaced, my mother

who keeps leaving

her keys in the doors

or on the walls,

who keeps saying

I might have to change

the locks, mother

of self-sufficiency,

of beads and trolleys,

of handlebars,

short-tempered

spiteful mother,

mother of resistance,

licorice and seaweed

on the table,

lonely mother,

mother needs-no-man,

mother deserves my cooking,

deserves a long sleep,

a cuppa tea, a garden

of lavender mothers,

all her heads up,

mother’s tooth

falls out, mother

dyes her hair,

don’t say graying

say sea salt

and cream, remedy,

immortal mother.

You can find the poetry of Raymond Antrobus in the collection To Sweeten Bitter.

Evening Poetry, May 10

KimLeave a comment

Homage (for Mary Oliver)

by David Whyte

So simple

so clear,

so here.

Like a cat

pawing

the air

or the whip

crack

sound

of a dog

snapping

at a fly.

Always

toward

the end,

the way

we are never

quite

prepared

to find

the beautiful

sense

of hidden

pleasurable

and complete

surprise

in the poem

until

reading

the

very

last line,

but which

is

the one

you

remember

and

that stays

with you

day after day

when you do.

You can find this poem and more in David Whyte’s collection The Bell and the Blackbird.

Nocturnal (Book Review)

KimLeave a comment

This is a very short review of a new poetry collection by Wilder Poetry.

Nocturnal was the first poetry collection from Wilder Poetry that I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. It is an achingly beautiful work of art. The emotional intensity of the poems are juxtaposed with calming black and white watercolor-type imagery of the moon in its phases, birds, trees, and other nature-related things.

The poetic themes seem to be centered around the poet’s identity and the euphoria, misery and pain of love in its highs and lows. Her voice sounds quite youthful and should appeal to readers in their teens and twenties. Readers of the poetry of Atticus should enjoy this collection very much! Grandparents, this would be a great gift for a teen or twenty something book-loving grandchild.

Here are a couple of poems:

how to handle me with care:

forgive;

then show me how

to do the same.

I will hold the colour gold

in my hands and show you

how beautiful this life can be

even when your eyes have forgotten

how to see the light.

the sun will always find its way back to you,

just like me.

I received a free e-galley through Net Galley, but all opinions are strictly my own.

Evening Poetry, May 8

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My Mother

by Jane Kenyon

My mother comes back from a trip downtown to the dime

store. She has brought me a surprise. It is still in her purse.

She is wearing her red shoes with straps across the in-

step. They fasten with small white buttons, like the eyes

of fish.

She brings back zippers and spools of thread, yellow and

green, for her work, which always takes her far away, even

though she works upstairs, in the room next to mine.

She is wearing her blue plaid full-skirted dress with the

large collar, her hair fastened up off her neck. She looks

pretty. She always dresses up when she goes downtown.

Now she opens her straw purse, which looks like a small

suitcase. She hands me a new toy: a wooden paddle with

a red rubber ball attached to it by an elastic string. Some-

times when she goes downtown, I think she will not come back.

You can find this poem and more in Otherwise: New & Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon.

Evening Poetry, May 6

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The Book of a Monastic Life: I,2

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I’ve been circling for thousands of years

and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

You can find this poem and more in Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.

Evening Poetry, May 5

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How to Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry


Make a place to sit down.   
Sit down. Be quiet.   
You must depend upon   
affection, reading, knowledge,   
skill—more of each   
than you have—inspiration,   
work, growing older, patience,   
for patience joins time   
to eternity. Any readers   
who like your poems,   
doubt their judgment.   

Breathe with unconditional breath   
the unconditioned air.   
Shun electric wire.   
Communicate slowly. Live   
a three-dimensioned life;   
stay away from screens.   
Stay away from anything   
that obscures the place it is in.   
There are no unsacred places;   
there are only sacred places   
and desecrated places.   

Accept what comes from silence.   
Make the best you can of it.   
Of the little words that come   
out of the silence, like prayers   
prayed back to the one who prays,   
make a poem that does not disturb   
the silence from which it came.

You can find this poem at the Poetry Foundation and in the collection Given: Poems.

Evening Poetry, May 4

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Happiness

by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
                     It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

You can find this poem at the Poetry Foundation and in the collection Otherwise.

Evening Poetry, May 3

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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

You can find this poem and more in this collection.


Evening Poetry, May 1

KimLeave a comment

I’ve decided to continue with a poem each evening simply because I wish to share the power and beauty of poetry with whomever visits this blog.

Now I Become Myself

by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It’s taken

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people’s faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,

“Hurry, you will be dead before–“

(What? Before you reach the morning?

Or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper

Is my hand; the shadow of a word

As thought shapes the shaper

Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place

From wish to action, word to silence,

My work, my love, my time, my face

Gathered into one intense

Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit

Fertile, detached, and always spent,

Falls but does not exhaust the root,

So all the poem is, can give,

Grows in me to become the song,

Made so and rooted so by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move.

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

You can find this poem in Collected Poems.

Evening Poetry, April 30

KimLeave a comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, and Mary Oliver, our beloved national poet who passed away in January, I will be posting one of her poems each evening in April. I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of Sarah Clarkson and read a poem on Instagram Live in the evenings as well…Follow me on Instagram to tune in.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the praises and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

This poem can be found in the collection Dream Work.