Category: poetics

“The Robin World Series” (poem) (mine).

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The Robin World Series

 

What if this evening on the porch

I witnessed the Robin World Series

in which all Robins in the world

surrounding my home split into two teams

with mascots named after berries and seeds

and played each other in order to win

not only the bushiest and best-hidden nest

but also a cup crafted from the cap

of an acorn brimming with nectar

collected by hummingbirds?

And what if in the ninth inning

the Robins boycotted the whole event

because it had gotten too long and too late

and their children were starving at home?

 

Landscapes (little farmy poem) (mine).

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Landscapes

Last year I met garlic scapes

and I loved them on impact

and incorrectly called them snapes

for almost a year. Then I learned

their name and learned their twisting

goose-necked beauty and cut them

thinly into dishes. Now they grow

in rows outside our kitchen

and they grow in rows at the farm

where I work in the kitchen

and they’re filling the crisper drawer

and they’re all over our salads

and they’re harvested in baskets

and they’re not a food to sustain a nation

or even a main meal ingredient

but they’re one of our first little harvests

and for that I am grateful.

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(Photo by my partner & co-farmer & longtime love Misha, whose blog is titled Microcosmic DreamSCAPES. Coincidence? I think yes.)

(For more of Misha’s farm photos, click here.)

(We are Free Verse Farm!)

Love & violence & beauty in The New Yorker (poem) (Jericho Brown).

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How many amazing poets have you met? How many people have you met that have hypnotized you–literally hypnotized, the world swimming away–by reading one of their poems? Jericho Brown is an amazing poet and a skilled teacher and also an elegant creature. I took some workshops with him, and he came to a birthday party of mine once, and I wrote him a poem about his favorite color, orange, after he came to speak in one of my classes. I hope he liked it. He was in the New Yorker recently, and that, my friends, is a victory. For The New Yorker. And for all of us who know him. And for all of us who get to read The New Yorker because our mothers-in-laws give us their finished issues. The end.

 

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Jokepoem on a Monday (mine).

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This Book Is Not Available In Hawaii

 

“The OY! of Cooking” sold so well

in my imagination (the book

that taught readers how to cope

with ugly kitchen mishaps)

that I’ve faux-written a second

cookbook, a self-help cookbook

available in the self-help section

for your browsing convenience.

It’s titled “Regrets and Vinaigrettes”

and it’s on sale for a limited time only

in various independently-owned bookshops

in the contiguous United States.

 

“Eggs and a Song” (poem out loud) (mine!).

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Eggs and a Song

The chickens are just heading in

through their chicken-sized door

 

as I challenge spring in the car,

tires hugged in mud in the bend

 

where the fast-driving neighbor

does his fast-driving damages

 

of ruts in the road. I am not yet

thirty and wearing the remains

 

of red lipstick as I walk through

the door of my home. My man’s

 

on the floor with his toes to the sky

in a stretch and the teapot is still

 

breathing steam. Imagining other

couples is like imagining history:

 

I can’t do it at all without the help

of a movie. In the film of my days,

 

my man is healing himself

with patience and I am healing

 

my self with something like hope.

On a bad day I can’t even fight

 

off my rooster; on most days

I’m pocketing eggs with a song.

 

“Mingus at the Showplace” (poem) (William Matthews).

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william matthews poems

 

To think that I was alive when this was written. To think that Mingus was alive. And William Matthews, too. Happy National Poetry Month; may your day be filled with the digestion of experience!

 

(Poem scanned from “The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine,” edited by Don Share and Christian Wiman.)

“Armpit Chapbooks” (poem out loud!).

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Armpit Chapbooks (click to listen)

 

Some people didn’t even want to be poets

but their moms were poets or they know famous poets

so they get really published. I’m not jealous

I’m just observing. I have really big hair

which I’m proud of and impresses even me

and I’m the one it grows on. Now in the first comment

about poets I’m not impressed with not trying

and in my second comment about hair growth

I’m quite taken with what happens with no effort.

I guess what I’m learning about myself is

it’s easier to grow hair than get rid of jealousy.

But probably everyone knew that already so

what’s the point of poems anyway,

hair is better.