Category Archives: Poetry

300 poets and poetry translators at a table

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Gathered at a table

William Blake and Robin Blaser have a meeting of minds over appetizers, and the rest of the vibrant, clattering table of poets fades into the background. Lucy Maud Montgomery drops her napkin and Jacob Arthur Mooney gallantly picks it up and returns it to her. Kimmy Beach and Brendan Behan plot postprandial mayhem over dessert, and convince Milton Acorn, Helen Adam, Al Purdy and Paul Quarrington to join them. Suzanne Buffam flirts with Charles Bukowski. Margaret Avison has reassuring words for Ken Babstock. Billy Collins and John Cooper Clarke swiftly find they have much in common; Warren Zevon and Jan Zwicky are less certain of that, but are cordial and collegial nonetheless.

I’ve been tweeting a #todayspoem tweet every day since December 26, 2011, inspired by this. In addition to revisiting and going deeper in my own poetry collection, #todayspoem has compelled me to go further afield in print and online, and my daily tweets have reflected both my own explorations and those sparked by other #todayspoem contributors. So, while I’m imagining what this first 300 poets I’ve tweeted would have to say to each other if I sat them at a table … I’m also imagining the new guests who will be joining them in the days, weeks and months to come.

The illustration, added with good-humoured respect for all fine poets and translators, is Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party — Illustration to the fifth chapter of Alice in Wonderland by John Tenniel. Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel (from www.victorianweb.org).

Revisiting poets on #todayspoem

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Some Trees, by John Ashbery

Well, I’m closing in on 10 months (211 poets in 288 days, to be exact) of #todayspoem. Yep, and so far, I haven’t missed a day. As I’ve mused before, did I have any idea I’d be this far along a journey through poetry when a bunch of us bookish Twitter friends had the first #todayspoem discussion back in late 2011? I knew I would commit to it, and I did. What I didn’t know was how far-ranging a journey it would be, and how much I’d learn from both my own explorations, and from the discoveries I’d make through the generosity and creativity of other #todayspoem contributors (who I hope I’ve accurately captured in this Twitter list).

As far afield as I’ve gone at times with #todayspoem, I notice from keeping track of my choices that there are poets I’ve returned to more than once. The following is a list of the poets I’ve visited and revisited for #todayspoem inspiration, with links (where available) to some of their poems that I’ve chosen, read, enjoyed and derived inspiration or solace from early in the morning.

 

Celebrating Anne Carson Every Day In August

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I’m thrilled to introduce Bookgaga blog visitors to a very special guest book reviewer. Amanda Earl is an eloquent and prolific literary supporter, and writer and artist in her own right. I suspect many of you reading this blog already know her and perhaps have met her in person at one of the many arts events in which she takes part. Amanda’s most recent poetry chapbooks and e-books are “Sex First and Then A Sandwich” (above/ground press, Ottawa, Ontario, 2012), “me, Medusa” (the red ceiling press, UK, 2012). Her poems appeared recently or are forthcoming in Rampike, fillingStation and In/Words Magazine. Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the Bywords Quarterly Journal, and the (fallen) angel of AngelHousePress. Follow her on Twitter @KikiFolle or Pinterest pinterest.com/kikifolle/. For more information, please visit amandaearl.com.

If I understand correctly, the object of Today’s Poem (#todayspoem) is to expose the general tweeting public (the Tweetosphere) to a daily dose of poetry in 140 characters or less. These poem bits are also posted by ardent poetry enthusiasts or Internet junkies, take your pick, on Pinterest, along with a photo of the author or book cover. Today’s Poem is the brainchild of Vicki Ziegler, who I know as @Bookgaga on Twitter, but haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. I am trying to lure her to the Ottawa International Writers Festival this fall for tea and book mayhem.

I began taking part in Today’s Poem this year, most likely in January. At first, I simply opened a book of poems at random and tried to find an excerpt that was compelling and brief enough to post. I had some trepidations about this exercise. What if I wasn’t representing the poet’s work properly by excerpting those 140 characters? I found I often had to exclude parts of lines to fit within the 140-character limit or I could choose to continue in another tweet, thereby breaking the line with the noise from the traffic of other tweets. But the thought of the goal of the exercise, to help people (and myself!) rediscover or discover exciting poetry, motivated me to dive in. I think this is a very creative use of Twitter, which is often just a place for narcissistic self-promotion and the repetition of sweet homilies. I commend @BookGaga for her altruism and initiative.

July 12: “Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea./Susie Asado.” Gertrude Stein

Short Talks, by Anne Carson

My most recent month-long ritual has been to post lines from the work of Anne Carson, not just her poetry, but also her translations of Greek and Latin plays, her essays and her novellas in poem form. I am fascinated by Carson’s exploration of form, the tension between formal elements and the everyday. As a former translator myself, though never a literary translator, I am interested in Carson’s take on the translation, both in the essays she writes about a single word, such as “bittersweet” and the translations themselves in the way in which they enliven and create their own new spaces, much in the way Erín Moure, another literary hero of mine, does with her translations from the Galician or invented personas.

I think of Anne Carson as a model of literary exploration, my older poetic sister. She is eclectic and daring, willing to try anything to explore the limits of her craft, and I respect that, aspire to it for my own writing. Not to mention that she didn’t have her first book published until she was 42 when Brick Books published Short Talks, probably the most treasured of her books on my shelves. While I’m past 42 by many years, Carson demonstrates that there is hope for the spineless.

Starting August 1, 2012, I posted a line from the most recent collection of her work I own, Nox. I don’t have Antigonick yet, Carson’s update of Antigone in a form similar to that of a graphic novel.

 

My poetry shelves are arranged for the most part alphabetically, and for the most part, according to the order that the work was published, but books have a tendency to unsort themselves for the avid reader. I posted lines from Carson’s work in approximately publishing order with most recent first.

August 1: “The phoenix mourns by shaping, weighing, testing, hollowing, plugging and carrying towards the light.” Nox (New Directions, 2010)

I am intrigued by Carson’s focus on the retelling of myth and the reanimation of Greek and Latin literature to present day. I wasn’t educated in the classics, alas. Carson’s writing is a way to learn about them, a way in.

I love Carson’s wit and sense of humour:

August 8, 2012: “Always planning ahead that’s me, practical as purgatory my mom used to say.” Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (Knopf, 2005)

Am astounded by the beauty of her lines, which aren’t sentimental, but visual and memorable, often with an edge:

August 12, 2012: “A fell dark pink February heaven/Was/Pulling the clouds home, balancing massacre/On the rips.” Men in the Off Hours (Knopf, 2001)

The Beauty of the Husband, by Anne Carson

August 18, 2012: “Hotel gardens at dusk are a place where the laws governing matter/get pulled inside out,/like the black keys and the white keys on Mozart’s piano.” The Beauty of the Husband (Knopf, 2001)

Carson deals with concerns such as death, anger, youth, beauty in ways that resonate and strike a universal chord.

August 23, 2012: “Youth is a dream where I go every night/and wake up with just this little jumping bunch of arteries/in my hand.” Plainwater (Knopf, 1995)

For a very good overview of Carson’s work and insightful interviews, I heartily recommend:

  • the Blaney lecture from October, 2010

I have been gratified by the responses of others on Twitter and Pinterest. Carson’s lines from Today’s Poem have been retweeted and repinned by people from all over Canada and the UK, possibly from the States too. One of the goals of this exercise for me is to spread the good word about poets whose work excites me.

August 31: “Sappho begins with a sweet apple and ends in infinite hunger.” Eros the Bittersweet (Princeton University Press, 1986)

Six months of #todayspoem

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Poets Linda Besner, Robin Blaser, Lavinia Greenlaw, Ko Un, P.K. Page and Ian Williams

… or 147 poets in 184 days (or so) …

Did I have any idea I’d be this far along a journey through poetry when a bunch of us bookish Twitter friends had the first #todayspoem discussion back in late 2011? What I did know is that I felt very committed from the outset to giving it a concerted try. I would do my best to read and share via Twitter every single day an excerpt from a poem to which I’d given some consideration and reflection. So far, so good. I was still enthusiastic when I checked in after two months, and six months in, I’m still interested, motivated, intrigued, jazzed … and have yet to miss a day.

What I didn’t know when I sent my first #todayspoem tweet on December 25, 2011 was where my poetry explorations would take me. What I also didn’t realize is how many others would be along for the adventure, and how their contributions, comments and insights would send me off on new side trips along the way.

Overall, the exercise (which has never felt like an exercise, actually) has compelled me to revisit and go deeper in my own library. It has also inspired me to go further afield in print and online, with poets with whom I was already familiar, but also very excitingly with poets old and new I was encountering for the first time.

And what of the daily poetry excerpts and selections themselves – my own and those of other #todayspoem contributors? Well, every day is a fresh intersection with where I am and how I’m feeling and what that day’s poem provokes, evinces or confirms. Not a day goes by that those simple tweets and where they lead have amused, amazed, surprised, touched, agitated, intrigued and more. Try it for yourself.

So, without (much) further ado, here is a list of the poets whose work I’ve read and incorporated in #todayspoem tweets since December 25, 2011. For each name, I’m going to link to a biography, article, interview, review or some other resource that might inspire you to go off on a few poetry side trips yourself. Thank you to the poets, publishers, #todayspoem contributors and poetry lovers in general who have filled and enriched the first six months of this venture, and are likely to help me turn this into a lifelong habit.

“How often I look back
for the moment my footprints
fade from sight

the dew undisturbed and the moss – “
Emily McGiffin, As Air from Between Dusk and Night (2012, Brick Books)

“To crow
would have been
out of place;
and besides
this rooster
wanted to be different.”
Irving Layton, The Laughing Rooster (1964, McClelland and Stewart)

“The paper’s still empty, the poem unwritten.
You would have done better to have talked to your mother.”
PK Page, How to Write a Poem from Coal and Roses (2009, Porcupines Quill)

“For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.”
Christopher Smart, from Jubilate Agno (written 1759-1763)

“Kevin Costner stayed in this hotel
Babe Ruth and Calvin Coolidge too
This is a sacred place”
August Kleinzahler, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City (2008, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

“I started spelling my name backwards,
retreating from the space a name makes.”
Rosemary Sullivan, Sisters from The Space a Name Makes (1986, Black Moss Press)

“and the wind began to blow and all the trees began to bend
and the world in its cold way started coming alive.”
John Darnielle, Woke Up New from Get Lonely (2006)

“It’s the spot where the dogs
always stop overlong, then look at me as if to say,
Explain this, please.”
Chase Twichell, The Park From Above (2012, Plume Poetry)

“And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.”
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Peace from Poems (1918)

“It was the last conversation I ever had with her.
I told her I liked baseball, to make her happy.”
Dave McGimpsey, What Was That Poem? (2011, Walrus Magazine)

“Outside there are sirens.
Someone’s been run over.
The century grinds on.”
Margaret Atwood, Secular Night from Morning in the Burned House (1995, McClelland and Stewart)

 

See also:

 

Leaping into a #todayspoem treasure every day

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What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire, by Charles Bukowski

Two months and a bit into it, the #todayspoem inspiration is still going strong. Check the hashtag any day of the week – and at any time of the day, for that matter – and you’ll see that a core of regular contributors from around the world are starting, ending or pausing in their days to savour and contemplate a good poem, and then share it with others. There are more than 70 contributors sharing their #todayspoem selections daily or periodically – I’ve captured them in a Twitter list.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m amazed every day at what #todayspoem contributors are reading and sharing. I faithfully bookmark/favourite the #todayspoem tweets and go back at every opportunity to explore the links, videos, pictures of pages taken straight from volumes, knowing that I’m going to be dazzled, amused and moved anew. I have this lovely feeling, too, that for every person sending out a thoughtful #todayspoem tweet every day or every week, there are even more people quietly reading, enjoying and reflecting on the poems we’re sending out into the ether.

I’m still experimenting with ways of archiving and showcasing all the #todayspoem selections, with links to texts and more information about the poets, poetry collections and publishers. Once I’ve got that figured out for my own selections, I’d also love to be able to find a way to aggregate all contributions in one place, if possible. Anyhow, this month, I started gathering and “pinning” my poems on Pinterest. What do you think?

A month (and a bit) of #todayspoem delights and discoveries

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a month of #todayspoem

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

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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

Excerpt:
“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_)

Excerpt:
“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

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“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

Excerpt:
“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)

Excerpt:
“it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.”

Text and video of Crossroads

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

#todayspoem, the solace and delight of contemplating and sharing a poem daily

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Little Theatres, by Erin Moure

It all started with this thoughtful and quietly ebullient reflection from writer Alan Heathcock:

A Poem A Day: Portable, Peaceful And Perfect
datelined December 26, 2011 on the NPR web site (but published around December 24th, I think …)

One daunting, harried morning, Heathcock paused to randomly draw a book of poetry from a shelf, and to just as randomly select and read a poem. Mary Oliver’s “Egrets” momentarily took him away from not enough sleep, from kids needing to get to school, from deadlines demanding to be met … and after that brief respite …

I closed the book, transformed, bolstered from the inside out.

From that day forward, each morning I read a poem.

A bunch of us book friends on Twitter – including Harvey Freedenberg, Jeanne Duperreault and Elizabeth Bastos – starting discussing the power of randomly selected and surprisingly resonant poetry to lift one’s spirits and put a new spin on the day. From that conversation, we agreed that we could all quite happily manage the New Year’s resolution of starting our day with a poem. We’d swiftly grab it from a bookshelf or online, as suited, and we would take the time to read, savour and contemplate, like a brief morning meditation. And then we’d share our choices with each other, using the #todayspoem Twitter hashtag.

Even before January 1st, several of us jumped in enthusiastically. The selections are diverse, whimsical, touching, haunting, prescient, eye-opening. Let me share a few of the tweets that have help to draw those of us who know about it (so far) into this exquisite shared experience:

@michaelmagras This poem by Octavio Paz is one of my favorites. #todayspoem http://bit.ly/cSSwQX

@Perednia From Tomas Transtromer’s Prelude: “Waking up is a parachute jump from dreams.” #todayspoem

@HarvF Ellen Bass, “Gate C22.” Very appropriate for this season of travel: http://bit.ly/hWmWty #todayspoem

@bookgaga “Regard a tree. / Who would have better seized light’s longing?” @ErinMoure from Aturuxo Calados, Little Theatres #todayspoem

I think I’m especially in love with this tweet, because it shares an image of the poem on the page:

@Materfam #todayspoem Le Train de Midi, Stephanie Bolster yfrog.com/ob7gjlij

As you can see, everyone is sharing their #todayspoem experience a little differently, with an image, a link, an excerpt, whatever fits in a tweet. Each tweet is enough to spur a moment of delight or recognition or, handily favorited in Twitter, is a lovely bookmark for future poetry explorations.

The #todayspoem experience is a dual delight. You treat yourself to an energizing moment of reflection in the morning, and then you have others’ shared #todayspoem gifts to enjoy just by going to the hashtag at any time. Care to join us?

See also:

Hooked, by Carolyn Smart

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Hooked,by Carolyn Smart

Carolyn Smart’s Hooked uses a wickedly irresistible premise: a twisted chorus of famous/infamous female figures from history and letters expounding vividly on obsession. Smart has fascinatingly curated the stories of women who made misguided and horrific choices for their objects of desire, and determinedly saw that desire through to often tragic conclusions: Myra Hindley, serial killer partner to Ian Brady (for Canadians,  the pairing is clearly Homolka-Bernardo); Unity Mitford, aristocratically born contrarian who became a confidante of Hitler; Zelda Fitzgerald, gifted, increasingly fragile spouse of F. Scott Fitzgerald; Dora Carrington, a painter associated with the Bloomsbury Group who carried a lifelong, unreciprocated passion for writer Lytton Strachey; Carson McCullers, a renowned writer who struggled with relationships, ill health and alcoholism; Jane Bowles, a talented, underrated writer who lived an unconventional and peripatetic life with husband Paul Bowles; and Elizabeth Smart, a poet whose work was overshadowed in her lifetime by the scandal of her enduring passion for poet George Barker, with whom she had and then singlehandedly raised four children.

As perversely and diversely interesting as the subject matter and cast of characters are, the voices from segment to segment in Hooked are somewhat disappointingly similar. Rhythm, cadence and pace are not so vividly distinguished as one might expect given the women’s different nationalities, social upbringings, mental states and time periods in which they lived, not to mention the varieties of types of charisma and inaccessible attractions with which each was enraptured. In some cases, there is too much admittedly clever direct quoting of sources (clear as such because it is italicized), but not enough true transmutation and alchemy to turn those sources into fresh perspectives and something of Smart’s own.

Hooked has inspired me to revisit or expand my reading on all of these figures, both in biographical and fictional realms. Less so, Hooked has impressed me with Smart’s inventiveness as a poet, but her resourcefulness with respect to exploring subject matter will still likely compel me to seek out more of her work.

Thank you to Brick Books for providing a review copy of Hooked, by Carolyn Smart.

Ossuaries, by Dionne Brand

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Ossuaries, by Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand’s Griffin Poetry Prize-winning Ossuaries is an extended verse account of the wrenching, troubled life of Yasmine, who lives constantly on the move, assuming new identities to escape activities somewhat vague in their specific intents, but decidedly explosive and violent in their outcomes. Layered over and drifted artfully around the central story are meditations on cultural and historical shifts and evolution: what disappears in the process, what changes, and what bones and remnants are left behind for future generations to unearth and decipher.

Almost 10 years later, the events of September 11th are emerging in varying forms in literature and popular culture. It seems some of the most profound renderings are sufficiently particular in detail, but not so much so that they cannot resonate more broadly, taking in other cataclysmic historical events. Such is the case with Brand’s evocations, which not only echo what happened in New York City, but Oklahoma City, London, Mumbai and other scenes of urban terrorism shattering comfortable, mundane, day-to-day life: “the stumbling shattered dress for work … the seared handbags, the cooked briefcases … it was just past nine in any city …”

An ossuary is a container, building or location meant to house human skeletal remains in their final resting places. While suggesting peace and finality on one level, perhaps mystery and portent on another if those resting places are unearthed generations later, Brand’s ossuaries feel open, unresolved, anything but peaceful. Even the lack of punctuation at the end of each ossuary segment within the long poem gives literal lack of closure to each chapter in Yasmine’s edgily peripatetic existence.

Yasmine has suppressed love and tenderness in her own life, hardened (ossified, even) her heart, glossed and silted over her own personal trail. Still, occasional traces of wistfulness in her observations (“the children mattered, or so she told herself”), or at least acknowledgement that she has held herself too harshly and rigorously (“except it was always there / struck, harder, the lack of self-forgiveness, / aluminum, metallic, artic, blinding”) seem to betray that she would like to leave a trace, have someone care. Finally, that seems to be what Ossuaries encapsulates: the traces that people leave, intentionally or unintentionally, destructively or tenderly – in the world, on each other, and in a collective impact on the environment, culture and history.

here we lie in folds, collected stones
in the museum of spectacles,
our limbs displayed, fract and soluble

Dionne Brand’s readings from her work (even her readings from others’ works, such as PK Page) are never, ever to be missed. Until her entrancing reading from this year’s Griffin Poetry Prize readings is online, immerse yourself in this reading from thirsty, from her last Griffin Poetry Prize appearance.

See also:

materfamilias reads – Review of Dionne Brand’s Ossuaries

Lookout, by John Steffler

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Lookout, by John Steffler

John Steffler’s latest collection, Lookout, is largely focused on and based in natural settings, paying tribute to nature, wrestling with both the enormity and the fragility of nature – nature unto itself and nature as it affects and is affected by human presence and interference. This is not your grandmother’s nature poetry, though – it dispenses with sanctimony and is not afraid of irreverence or even violence. Many poems in this collection sweep the reader through breathtaking transitions from rugged physicality and earthiness to emotional delicacy, frailty and ephemerality.

Former Canadian national poet laureate Steffler’s poems are not just acutely observant, but fully physically engaged. In fact, many of his poems quite literally meld body and landscape in startling, sometimes macabre, imaginative sequences.

Ironically, the most moving, central sequence in Lookout, Once, actually comes indoors to focus on a narrator’s wistful time with his ailing parents, which is simply and poignantly interspersed with memories from their youth and young adulthood.

Along with the recent past, the worries
and duties that kept her fixing and pleasing
are gone. Calmly she orders him to open
the curtains, find her slippers, fetch
her a small dish of strawberry ice cream.
He jokes that he has to serve her smartly
these days, and she answers flatly that she’s
done a lot of serving over the years. Without
apology she indulges her pleasures, and he
is doting and patient, almost equally changed.

… and later …

As I leave, she hugs me and
cries like a child. I have never
seen her like this. I say I’ll
be back in the early fall, and she
nods as she goes on sobbing, not
bothering to dry her face.

Upon that sad departure, it’s as if the same narrator immediately, cathartically leaps back into the natural world in the next sequence, Outside, as if that is where he personally and all of us can ultimately find solace.

Lookout is a worthy contender for the Griffin Poetry Prize, for which it is nominated this spring. Steffler offers a poetry clinic in his mastery of a range of voices and forms, with none of the sterility that a clinic or lessons or examples would suggest. From the rocks and elements to the creatures navigating them, Steffler’s poems are living, breathing, evocative beings.