"Dear love, I am that girl."

I actually used parts of this poem for my undergraduate graduation invitations. Seriously. I love it that much.

The Black Art
by Anne Sexton

A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as if machines and galleons
and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.
Dear love, you are that man.

Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hats,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry,
the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over
to eat up all the weird abundance.


(Poetry Month!)
--J

Way Ahead of Her Time.

(short lines, slant rhymes, use of the dash...I have two copies of her complete collection--be sure to look for the one that retains HER own use of punctuation, a lot of the reprints use old, incorrect edits of her work)

(listed as poem 917)

Love — is anterior to Life —

Posterior — to Death —

Initial of Creation, and

The Exponent of Earth —

EMILY DICKINSON

(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)

(Poetry Month!)

~~J

"wishing for the present tense--"

Another poem introducted to me by one of those creative, beautiful people I'm surrounded by (Melissa, if you're nasty).

A Noun Sentence
by Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Fady Joudah

A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love ... a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.
My flower green like the phoenix. My heart exceeding
my need, hesitant between two doors:
entry a joke, and exit
a labyrinth. Where is my shadow—my guide amid
the crowdedness on the road to judgment day? And I
as an ancient stone of two dark colors in the city wall,
chestnut and black, a protruding insensitivity
toward my visitors and the interpretation of shadows. Wishing
for the present tense a foothold for walking behind me
or ahead of me, barefoot. Where
is my second road to the staircase of expanse? Where
is futility? Where is the road to the road?
And where are we, the marching on the footpath of the present
tense, where are we? Our talk a predicate
and a subject before the sea, and the elusive foam
of speech the dots on the letters,
wishing for the present tense a foothold.

(Poetry Month!)
~~J

"--the longing that begins, and begins..."

I'm surround by a whole bushel of creative, beautiful people. And one of them made me aware of the following poem last month. Thanks Elizabeth!

"Onset"
by Kim Addonizio

Watching that frenzy of insects above the bush of white flowers,
bush I see everywhere on hill after hill, all I can think of
is how terrifying spring is, in its tireless, mindless replications.
Everywhere emergence: seed case, chrysalis, uterus, endless manufacturing.
And the wrapped stacks of Styrofoam cups in the grocery, lately
I can’t stand them, the shelves of canned beans and soups, freezers
of identical dinners; then the snowflake-diamond-snowflake of the rug
beneath my chair, rows of books turning their backs,
even my two feet, how they mirror each other oppresses me,
the way they fit so perfectly together, how I can nestle one big toe into the other
like little continents that have drifted; my God the unity of everything,
my hands and eyes, yours; doesn’t that frighten you sometimes, remembering
the pleasure of nakedness in fresh sheets, all the lovers there before you,
beside you, crowding you out? And the scouring griefs,
don’t look at them all or they’ll kill you, you can barely encompass your own;
I’m saying I know all about you, whoever you are, it’s spring
and it’s starting again, the longing that begins, and begins, and begins.


(Poetry Month!)
~~J

April is POETRY Month!

GOALS (from the Academy of American Poets):*Highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets*Introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry Bring poets and poetry to the public in immediate and innovative ways *Make poetry a more important part of the school curriculum*Increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media *Encourage increased publication, distribution, and sales of poetry books *Increase public and private philanthropic support for poets and poetry

How are YOU celebrating? I'm going to do so by posting snippets from my favorite poems/poets. And I figured it would be best to start with one of American's most "infamous" poems--written by Allen Gingsberg in 1955. Although I consider myself a lover and student of poetry, I didn't fall in love with this one until I saw the recent movie.

From the first part of "Howl"

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
.....
who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space
through images juxtaposed, and trapped the
archangel of the soul between 2 visual images
and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun
and dash of consciousness together jumping
with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna
Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human
prose and stand before you speechless and intel-
ligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet con-
fessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm
of thought in his naked and endless head,
the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown,
yet putting down here what might be left to say
in time come after death,
and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in
the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the
suffering of America's naked mind for love into
an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone
cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered
out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand
years. (Allen Ginsberg)

So begins April.

~~J