How bunches of us bookish sorts on Twitter decided to start our day with some poetic inspiration – and share it with each other – is described here. You can always quickly tap into what we’re most recently sharing and discussing by simply checking out the #todayspoem hashtag on Twitter. You can check the hashtag and see new contributions at just about any moment of the day or night, as contributors are posting an astonishingly diverse and eclectic range of poetry selections around the clock and from around the world.
I’m amazed every day at what #todayspoem contributors share. I don’t have time to read them all on the spot, but I faithfully bookmark/favourite them in Twitter, and go back at every opportunity, knowing that I’m going to learn something new, be entertained, be moved, be surprised … and it’s all those great moments that keep the day rolling along, truth be told.
I’ve kept track of my own #todayspoem selections so far and just wanted to share them, just for fun and perhaps for enticement to more of you to follow and maybe join in. At very least, stop by, read and enjoy. If you’re tempted to pull a book of poetry off the shelf (even a virtual shelf, such as the great poetry resources online at sites such as The Scottish Poetry Library, The Academy of American Poets and the Griffin Poetry Prize, amongst others) and inspired to share what you’ve found, just add the #todayspoem tag to your tweet and a network of poetry lovers will get to enjoy it.
My #todayspoem selections so far …
December 25, 2011
Lorne Daniel (@LorneDaniel)
Dog on Ice, from Drawing Back to Take a Running Jump
Weedmark Publishing
December 26, 2011
Robert Graves
The Cottage
“Now somehow it’s come to me
To light the fire and hold the key”
December 27, 2011
Roo Borson
The Garden, from Short Journey Upriver Toward Oishida
McClelland and Stewart (@McClellandBooks)
“Eye of the lake
half-closed with ice.
Ducks at one end, sleeping.”
December 28, 2011
Charles Wright
Little Landscape, from Scar Tissue
Farrar Straus and Giroux (@FSG_Books)
“To lighten the language up, or to dark it back down
Becomes the blade edge we totter on.”
December 29, 2011
Derek Mahon
Homage to Gaia, from Life on Earth
Gallery Press (@TheGalleryPress)
“Coleridge kept an Aeolian
harp like a harmonica
lodged in an open window
to catch the slightest flicker”
December 30, 2011
Sina Queyras (@lemonhound)
Solitary, from Expressway
Coach House Books (@CoachHouseBooks)
“Cellphone at her ear. She is calling home,
Calling the past, calling out for anyone
To hear.
December 31, 2011
Erin Moure (@ErinMoure)
Aturuxo Calados, from Little Theatres
House of Anansi Press (@HouseofAnansi)
“Regard a tree.
Who would have better seized light’s longing?”
January 1, 2012
Sylvia Legris
Agitated Sky Etiology, from Nerve Squall
Coach House Books (@CoachHouseBooks)
“Clouds a flummox of fluster. Flux. Ice miasma. (Second nature
a temperate climate preceding storm.)”
January 2, 2012
Charles Bukowski
time, from what matters most is how well you walk through the fire
Ecco (@EccoBooks)
“satisfied now
I’m glad someone stole my last watch
it was so difficult to read
satisfied now
I’ve got a new one”
January 3, 2012
Kevin Connolly
Plenty, from Revolver
House of Anansi Press (@HouseofAnansi)
“The sky, lit up like a question or
an applause meter, is beautiful
like everything else today”
January 4, 2012
Margaret Atwood (@MargaretAtwood)
Miss July Grows Older, from Morning in the Burned House
McClelland and Stewart (@McClellandBooks)
“How much longer can I get away
with being so fucking cute?
Not much longer.”
January 5, 2012
Michael Crummey
Your Soul, Your Soul, Your Soul, from Hard Light
Brick Books (@BrickBooks)
“Uncle Lewis Crummey was the shortest man in Western Bay, five foot nothing and every inch of that was temper”
January 6, 2012
Lisa Robertson
Wooden Houses, from Magenta Soul Whip
Coach House Books (@CoachHouseBooks)
“And you are a rare modern painting in the grand salon
And you are a wall of earth.”
January 7, 2012
David McFadden
Strange Language, from Why Are You So Sad?
Insomniac Press (@InsomniacPress)
“Language is a breakwater causing the blind
Waves of the mind suddenly to halt
And explode.”
January 8, 2012
Chris Chambers
Canada Day 1997, from Wild Mouse
Pedlar Press
“I had a dream last night the whole country was a line
A single road with even rows of houses on each side”
January 9, 2012
Michael Ondaatje
The Story, from Handwriting
McClelland and Stewart (@McClellandBooks)
“For his first forty days a child
is given dreams of previous lives.”
January 10, 2012
Rosemary Sullivan
Sisters, from The Space a Name Makes
Black Moss Press
“I started spelling my name backwards,
retreating from the space a name makes.”
January 11, 2012
Elaine Equi
The Foreign Legion, from Ripple Effect
Coffee House Press (@Coffee_House_)
“It’s pleasant
to wake
to a camel’s nuzzling
even on the run.”
January 12, 2012
John Cooper Clarke
(I Married A) Monster from Outer Space
“We walked out – tentacle in hand
You could sense that the earthlings would not understand”
Text of (I Married A) Monster from Outer Space
January 13, 2012
Anne Carson
Nox
New Directions (@NewDirections)
“Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light.”
January 14, 2012
Dunya Mikhail (translated by Elizabeth Winslow)
Non-Military Statements, from The War Works Hard New Directions (@NewDirections)
“I drew a door
to sit behind, ready
to open the door
as soon as you arrive.”
January 15, 2012
John Steffler
The Grey Islands
Brick Books (@BrickBooks)
“and always the background pull
an aching magnet inside you:
home.
sweet lives, sweet
bodies against you.”
January 16, 2012
Lorna Crozier
Paul, from A Saving Grace
McClelland and Stewart (@McClellandBooks)
“I walked through town
my blouse buttoned wrong
and didn’t know it
till Philip undid the buttons
did them up again
Lorna Crozier’s A Saving Grace takes the voice of Mrs Bentley from Sinclair Ross’ As For Me and My House.
January 17, 2012
David Harsent
Marriage, from Selected Poems 1969-2005
Faber and Faber (@FaberBooks)
“Come up from the salt and I’ll give you back the sun
flourish by flourish, just as it was, green into gold.”
January 18, 2012
John B. Lee
The Day I wrote My First Poem, from The Beatles Landed Laughing in New York
Black Moss Press
“I tasted the rain, it tasted of dust, wet dust.
I felt the snow freeze hot
on my face.”
January 19, 2012
John Glenday (@JohnGlenday)
Stranger, from Grain
Picador (@PicadorBooks)
“Just for today, if I were to pass myself in the street
I wouldn’t even raise my hat, or say hello.”
January 20, 2012
Valerie Rouzeau (translated by Susan Wicks)
Cold Spring in Winter
Arc Publications (@ArcPoetry)
Mirror just let me see is this my head?
But aren’t I grimacing, a new line too a bar across my forehead? Miroir dis-moi voir c’est ma tête?
N’ai je pas une grimace, une nouvelle ligne aussi à me barrer le front ?
Valérie Rouzeau
January 21, 2012
Sina Queyras (@lemonhound)
Acceptable Dissociations, from Expressway
Coach House Books (@CoachHouseBooks)
“This poem resembles urban sprawl. This poem resembles the freedom to charge a fee. The fee occurs in the gaps.”
January 22, 2012
Dean Young
Self Search, from Primitive Mentor
University of Pittsburgh Press (@UPittPress)
“Some days
you crash about raving how ignored you are
then why the hell don’t people let you alone”
January 23, 2012
Lorne Daniel (@LorneDaniel)
East to West, from Drawing Back to Take a Running Jump
Weedmark Publishing
Excerpt:
“We fly against the grain
wash ourselves clean
as wind and water clear”
January 24, 2012
AF Moritz
Place, from The Sentinel
House of Anansi Press (@HouseofAnansi)
“What if I’d never met my love and passed her
now on this sidewalk – would I have the power
to know her …”
January 25, 2012
Ann Scowcroft
Phantom, from The Truth of Houses
Brick Books (@BrickBooks)
“This is good-bye.
This is your first step forward.
This is your blood rattling with the new.”
January 26, 2012
Leslie Greentree (@LeslieGreentree)
if I was a gate, from go-go dancing for Elvis
Frontenac House (@FrontenacHouse)
“now I’m laughing aloud
fiercely proud of the naked apertures
racing across my kitchen
like a banner”
January 27, 2012
Kate Hall
Suspended in the Space of Reason: A Short Thesis, from The Certainty Dream
Coach House Books (@CoachHouseBooks)
“The ground is still the same
ground I paid for but the house is not in the same spot.”
Image of text of Suspended in the Space of Reason: A Short Thesis
January 28, 2012
Michael Ondaatje
Driving with Dominic in the Southern Province We See Hints of the Circus, from Handwriting
McClelland and Stewart (@McClellandBooks)
“Children in the trees,
one falling
into the grip of another”
Text of Driving with Dominic in the Southern Province We See Hints of the Circus
January 29, 2012
Charles Bukowski
beaujolais jadot, from the night torn mad with footsteps
Black Sparrow Press
“the dogs of Belgium feel bad
on certain winter afternoons
as
the sweep of things goes
this way and that.”
January 30, 2012
Louise Gluck
Crossroads, from A Village Life
Farrar Straus and Giroux (@FSG_Books)
“it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.”
January 31, 2012
Gwendolyn MacEwan
Invocations, from The Broken Ark a book of beasts
Oberon Press
Excerpt:
“In this zoo are beasts which
like some truths, are far too true”
Image of text of Invocations
Image of illustration accompanying text of Invocations