Community Poetry Journal

I'm not sure if this was written with the intention of being a poem, but I found it in an Instagram post about poetry (and traced it back to a New York Times article, here - it's the second story. Please note that a lot of the other stories featured in the article are not super appropriate!) and I thought it was so poignant and bittersweet. It's part of a collection called "Tiny Love Stories" that are all under 100 words, and this particular one is A Bookmark Near the End by Julia Nicole Camp.

He loves history. He wanted to write a biography of John Quincy Adams. I, shamefully, knew almost nothing about John Quincy Adams, so I went online and bought every biography of him I could find. One day, he called me, claiming that we wouldn’t work out long term. He said he loved me but that we had different interests. “What does love mean to you?” I said. “That’s an impossible question,” he replied. I, however, find love to be quite simple. Love is the stack of biographies on my nightstand with a bookmark near the end.

I'm doing summer school English at the moment (hip hip hooray) and one activity my teacher had us do was something she called "Goldilocks Poetry" - find a poem we found too easy, a poem we found too hard, and a poem we found just right. And of course, explain why each one was easy/hard/perfect. I thought I'd share with you all my "just right" poem! It's called Thing You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha.

I felt like this poem was just right because, for one thing, I was completely captivated the whole time - and for another, it made me rethink the way I look at ears and sounds. To me, if a poem introduces you to a totally new image combo or idea or perspective, then you know it's done its job right.

(tw: mention of bombs in second stanza)

i

When you open my ear, touch it
gently.
My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.
Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium
when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness.

You may encounter songs in Arabic,
poems in English I recite to myself,
or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.

When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.
Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.

ii

The drone’s buzzing sound,
the roar of an F-16,
the screams of bombs falling on houses,
on fields, and on bodies,
of rockets flying away—
rid my small ear canal of them all.

Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.
Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up.
Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours,
my doctor, day and night.

I absolutely LOVE this poem! I love how it has this voice and this vibrant hope and how the poet, Christina Im, has used colourful and vibrant imagery to display that hopefulness and contentment!





source: http://www.nostroviatowriting.com/2020- ... ntest.html

My sister recently shared this poem with me "Valentine for Ernest Mann" by Naomi Shihab Nye. source

Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

I really enjoy this take on just what poetry "is". This line is probably my favorite from the poem, "What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them." ... it's just interesting to consider how someone might live to find more poetry. Also reminds me a little bit of a poem I wrote 2 years ago for NaPo poetry in plain sight which is also about finding poetry in the unexpected but ordinary.

Have you tried to write a poem about "what" poetry is? It seems like a fairly common poetic topic for a poet to consider and write about. What were your thoughts about the poem?

Another one from H.D.'s Sea Garden.

THE GIFT

Instead of pearls—a wrought clasp—
a bracelet—will you accept this?

You know the script—
you will start, wonder:
what is left, what phrase
after last night? This:

The world is yet unspoiled for you,
you wait, expectant—
you are like the children
who haunt your own steps
for chance bits—a comb
that may have slipped,
a gold tassel, unravelled,
plucked from your scarf,
twirled by your slight fingers
into the street—
a flower dropped.

Do not think me unaware,
I who have snatched at you
as the street-child clutched
at the seed-pearls you spilt
that hot day
when your necklace snapped.

Do not dream that I speak
as one defrauded of delight,
sick, shaken by each heart-beat
or paralyzed, stretched at length,
who gasps:
these ripe pears
are bitter to the taste,
this spiced wine, poison, corrupt.
I cannot walk—
who would walk?
Life is a scavenger's pit—I escape—
I only, rejecting it,
lying here on this couch.

Your garden sloped to the beach,
myrtle overran the paths,
honey and amber flecked each leaf,
the citron-lily head—
one among many—
weighed there, over-sweet.

The myrrh-hyacinth
spread across low slopes,
violets streaked black ridges
through the grass.

The house, too, was like this,
over painted, over lovely—
the world is like this.

Sleepless nights,
I remember the initiates,
their gesture, their calm glance.
I have heard how in rapt thought,
in vision, they speak
with another race,
more beautiful, more intense than this.
I could laugh—
more beautiful, more intense?

Perhaps that other life
is contrast always to this.
I reason:
I have lived as they
in their inmost rites—
they endure the tense nerves
through the moment of ritual.
I endure from moment to moment—
days pass all alike,
tortured, intense.

This I forgot last night:
you must not be blamed,
it is not your fault;
as a child, a flower—any flower
tore my breast—
meadow-chicory, a common grass-tip,
a leaf shadow, a flower tint
unexpected on a winter-branch.

I reason:
another life holds what this lacks,
a sea, unmoving, quiet—
not forcing our strength
to rise to it, beat on beat—
stretch of sand,
no garden beyond, strangling
with its myrrh-lilies—
a hill, not set with black violets
but stones, stones, bare rocks,
dwarf-trees, twisted, no beauty
to distract—to crowd
madness upon madness.

Only a still place
and perhaps some outer horror
some hideousness to stamp beauty,
a mark—no changing it now—
on our hearts.

I send no string of pearls,
no bracelet—accept this.

What sticks out to me about this poem is the desire to escape, and the sense of topsy-turvy-ness. A speaker sick of beauty? It's more likely than you'd think. The speaker finds that the addressee doesn't believe them or take their thoughts as they come. The speaker insists "Do not dream that I speak / as one defrauded of delight,". Their distaste for the worldly beauty is 'real', so to speak/.

My favourite parts:

You know the script—
you will start, wonder:
what is left, what phrase
after last night? This:

Do not think me unaware,
I who have snatched at you
as the street-child clutched

The house, too, was like this,
over painted, over lovely—
the world is like this.

another life holds what this lacks,
a sea, unmoving, quiet—
. . .
but stones, stones, bare rocks,
dwarf-trees, twisted, no beauty
to distract—to crowd
madness upon madness.

I also really like the repetition of "I reason" and the use of the colon. It's somewhat ironic, but also fitting. In a poem depicting the maddening beauty and irrationality of the outside world, the speaker keeps 'reasoning', trying to separate themself from it.

Feel free to share your favourite lines, if you had any, in the replies.

Ira Will Not Be Attending the Meeting
BY JORDAN DAVIS
When working on a small scale
He is practicing a gesture.
So much of life is practicing gestures.
So much of living is evaluating
Those around you for signs of damage.

Now it is night, morning’s a blink away.
Sleep is sometimes thought of
As an avalanche of repair gnomes
That attends your pit stop.
Would that we were sleeping now!

Viable alternatives will be reviled
Until the point of no return is passed.
The only reasonable course of action
Is to look for sizeable flotsam,
Redo the resume, learn a martial art.

Source: Poetry (December 2009) via Poetry Foundation

This one makes me think of offices (I have never worked in an office before) and the way people look through the rearview mirror of someone who never drives out of their home. It makes me think of messages in bottles we can't touch, and how everything, including poetry, reduces to work if you think about it long and hard enough.

I had this one saved in my emails since January, and just thought it'd be nice to share. I remember really being able to imagine a mountain and the feeling of breeze rushing against my face when I first read this. I also find its message about the weight of choices really profound.

Choices
BY TESS GALLAGHER

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.

The poet dedicated this poem to someone called Drago Štambuk. The source of the poem is here.

Another H.D. poem, this time from her collection Sea Garden, which you can find on Project Gutenberg.

PURSUIT
What do I care
that the stream is trampled,
the sand on the stream-bank
still holds the print of your foot:
the heel is cut deep.
I see another mark
on the grass ridge of the bank—
it points toward the wood-path.
I have lost the third
in the packed earth.

But here
a wild-hyacinth stalk is snapped:
the purple buds—half ripe—
show deep purple
where your heel pressed.

A patch of flowering grass,
low, trailing—
you brushed this:
the green stems show yellow-green
where you lifted—turned the earth-side
to the light:
this and a dead leaf-spine,
split across,
show where you passed.

You were swift, swift!
here the forest ledge slopes—
rain has furrowed the roots.
Your hand caught at this;
the root snapped under your weight.

I can almost follow the note
where it touched this slender tree
and the next answered—
and the next.

And you climbed yet further!
you stopped by the dwarf-cornel—
whirled on your heels,
doubled on your track.

This is clear—
you fell on the downward slope,
you dragged a bruised thigh—you limped—
you clutched this larch.

Did your head, bent back,
search further—
clear through the green leaf-moss
of the larch branches?

Did you clutch,
stammer with short breath and gasp:
wood-daemons grant life—
give life—I am almost lost.

For some wood-daemon
has lightened your steps.
I can find no trace of you
in the larch-cones and the underbrush.

This poem made me feel the single-minded drive of the speaker to find the person, concept, or whoever they are addressing. I imagined it was a person, at least, who was being chased by some hostile creatures a while back, and now is being tracked by the speaker. It's interesting to me because it's a poem that reads almost like an action scene, but also has a quality of timelessness that I associate with poems. The nature scene feels like it occurs in a capsule and this capsule could be found anywhere. And the strong verbs like "trampled" and the speaker's intense voice from the beginning with "What do I care" also conveys emotions that I think go beyond time and space. c:

Sea Rose
BY H. D.
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,

more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem—
you are caught in the drift.

Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.

Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?

From <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48188/sea-rose>

Even though this poem is about a 'sea rose', I found myself imagining a rose frozen in ice or crystallised on my first reading. The image of the rose being "harsh" and "hardened" really influenced what I had in my mind. I also really like how the first stanza builds up here.

One of my favorite poems is the poem "Charity" by James Truslow Adams. I don't know why I like it so much. It guess it just strikes a heart string in me.

There is so much good in the worst of us,
and so much bad in the best of us,
that it ill behooves any of us
to find fault with the rest of us.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/james_truslow_adams_393633

'The mushroom is the elf of plants' is an interesting poem. To me it seems both playful, but with a hint of ambivalence in the last stanza where the mushroom is described as an "outcast" of nature. The version I'm quoting here is the public domain old edition of Emily Dickinson's poems.

THE MUSHROOM.

The mushroom is the elf of plants,
At evening it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot

As if it tarried always;
And yet its whole career
Is shorter than a snake's delay,
And fleeter than a tare.

'T is vegetation's juggler,
The germ of alibi;
Doth like a bubble antedate,
And like a bubble hie.

I feel as if the grass were pleased
To have it intermit;
The surreptitious scion
Of summer's circumspect.

Had nature any outcast face,
Could she a son contemn,
Had nature an Iscariot,
That mushroom, — it is him.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12242/1 ... _of_plants

There is also a different version that preserves more of Dickinson's original formatting choices I'd encourage you to read on Poetry Foundation here.

I personally associate this poem more with its playful vibe. The idea of elves and mushrooms to me as a modern reader make me think of fantasy novels and children's books. But the Biblical reference in the last stanza makes me think the intended meaning could have been more serious/ philosophical/ theological (?) than that. The middle stanzas make me think of gardeners, though, and less of the 'fairytale-like' idea of elves and mushroom houses.

Questions if you want~

Spoiler

1. Comparing the Gutenberg edition and the version on Poetry Foundation: do you think the difference of word choice in the last stanza, 'Iscariot' vs 'Apostate', gives each version a different meaning?

2. The version of Poetry Foundation retains Dickinson's original capitalization habits. What sort of effect do these have on your reading? How does this compare to the Gutenberg version?

3. What do you think is the speaker's relationship to the mushroom?

Today in the Poetry Readers club we discussed @AlyTheBookworm's Reunion, a music-inspired poem that melds together the otherworldly and the familiar.

I believe there has only ever been one cold, moon-bright night,
And it knows nothing of time or memory or the featherweight of human years.
I believe that, beneath its canopy, we gaze at the same black skies,
That little one- that wild-haired sprite with firefly eyes- and me.

Who knew we’d be reunited by a full moon, a rain of falling stars,
And a favorite, tinny recording from the 80s, song of la luna,
Song of the snow-faced mother cradling gray-eyed son, his body white as ermine,
Shedding diamond tears from their night-colored eyes,
The infant’s wailing like sweet music to our ears, so tragically, deliciously alive.

Chill creeps into our pink faces, turns us porous and timeless and grey as moon-rock,
As stardust pools in our irises, clinging to our hair, soft as the mother’s whispering hush:
“Calladito, calladito.”
Who knew something so soft could sting so sharp?

The child-sprite is falling up now, into that cold black sky, her dead fingers grasping mine,
She pulls me after, and together we are wind-tossed, flying air.
We shed our winter coats and breathe ice,
Ghostly delight on her smiling face, echoing the thrum of my heart,
That core of warmth sustained,
Only by the soaring chords that carry us both atop their crest.

Moons wane, songs end, and infants grow into men and women,
Too tall and too heavy to ever again float off the face of the Earth.
But in her arms I dance and embrace the frozen sky,
Until the stars set and time resumes,
Locking her away in fifteen years ago,
To wait for the return of our cold, moon-bright night.

We talked about some points brought up by the author herself, @AlyTheBookworm, including who the figures in the poem are and how they are related to one another. Did you notice the four figures? (The speaker, the sprite, the mother and son all factor into the narrative of this fascinating poem!) Besides this, the personifications of the natural world also shine through in the piece and help set the tone and atmosphere.

@Seirre also pointed out that nearly all the lines in this poem ended with punctuation (i.e. there was little or no enjambment) and this led to a discussion about enjambment vs end-stopped lines. Some thought that enjambment creates a sense of breathlessness or restlessness, for example as we've seen in Mary Oliver's White-Eyes. Meanwhile, the end-stopped lines seem to create a steady rhythm, capturing a moment frozen in time.

Now that you've made it to the bottom of the post, why not answer @Seirre's personality quiz based on images from the poem?
Is your aesthetic best described as...
a)...the featherweight of human years
b)...wild-haired sprite with firefly eyes
c)...a favorite, tinny recording from the 80s
d)...so tragically, deliciously alive
e) or another image of your choosing from the poem?

Also feel free to share any thoughts you had in the comments!

Was reading some editions of Poetry Magazine and thought this poem was really interesting. It's "line dance for an american textbook" by Keith S. Wilson. link You'll have to click the link to read - but the poem is written sort of in the form of sentence diagramming / note-taking and I've been puzzling through it. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

Questions if you want em ~
1. initial impressions?
2. how did you go about reading this?
3. any interpretations?
4. would you ever write a poem in this form? does it add / confuse / distract?

Fog
BY CARL SANDBURG
The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Source: Poetry Foundation

A short one this time, to mix things up! I think what drew me to this poem is the impression I had that this could both be 'realistic', as in the "cat feet" are an image showing how tentatively and lightly the fog is moving, but also you could take a more fantastical route and imagine a big grey cloud with little orange legs. :3

This December's Poetry Discussion covered a wintry poem myself and other YWS-ers love: White-Eyes by Mary Oliver.



Source and text version here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetry ... white-eyes

(Note: image used to preserve formatting)

As a group, we found that the fun sound devices like the assonance in where/wind/white and the mix of realistic and fantasy-like imagery stood out the most (especially the words with dashes, like "pine-crown"!). @Spearmint also caught the detail of the interesting diamond-like shape of the stanzas that kind of resemble bird wings.

The bird in this poem seems to be the focal point of interpretation. @InuYosha spotted that it seems to be "drifting away" from the reader's grasp, becoming more otherworldly as the poem goes on. Could it refer to something spiritual or divine, as @alliyah suggested? Could it depict the majesty of nature, being able to command clouds at will? Either way, the contrasts and connections between the bird's more earthly, coarser images like "shoves and bushes" and the more fantastical ones like "glittering beak" make this a super interesting piece.

I'm eager to see thoughts on this from anyone in this club and beyond.

Also, just for fun:
Which funky image from this poem are you?
1. "wind-bird",
2. "big, round music",
3. "glittering beak", or
4. "some unimaginable bird"