Poetry 30: The Grand Finale

I know that those of you who are still with me (both of you) stayed awake all night last night in anxious anticipation. What will Darlene post for her final Poetry Month post? Will it be something intimately meaningful to her? Or will she go for grandeur--perhaps the greatest poem ever written? Or (please, please!) will she post another of her own original works?

Well, the suspense is over. I decided to go with two this time--one that I love and that everyone knows, and another because it is on the subject of poetry and thus a fitting end to our month.

Here's a little ditty that blew my socks off when I read it for the first time in college, because, of course, it challenges our definition of poetry--and yet, when you read it, you say, "Ah, yes, of course it's poetry." And it's just so--sweet. So here is

This is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Loyal blog readers that you are, you probably remember my allusion to this poem years ago.

And here's another, just because it's delightful and about poetry.

On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High
by D. C. Berry (anthologized in Sound and Sense and lots of other places)

Before I opened my mouth
I noticed them sitting there
as orderly as frozen fish
in a package.

Slowly water began to fill the room
though I did not notice it
till it reached
my ears

and then I heard the sounds
of fish in an aquarium

and I knew that though I had
tried to drown them
with my words that they had only opened up
like gills for them
and let me in.

Together we swam around the room
like thirty tails whacking words
till the bell rang
puncturing
a hole in the door

where we all leaked out

They went to another class
I suppose and I home

where Queen Elizabeth
my cat met me
and licked my fins
till they were hands again.

So now that we've finished our month I'm curious about you. Which of these have you liked? Have you learned anything new about poetry? Is anyone still out there? Anyone? Bueller?

Poetry 29: Rudyard Kipling

I came across this poem in a Young Adult fiction book by Louise Plummer (I think it was A Dance for Three). Besides being absolutely delighted with this poem, I am tickled that she managed to expose people who read her book for a great story to a great poem. And, by the way, I'm looking forward to studying with Louise Plummer in June at the BYU WIFYR conference, where I will take my novel--which, yes, I have been revising again.

Seal Lullaby
by Rudyard Kipling

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

Ah, would that I were such a master of rhyme and sounds. Go ahead--read it again, out loud this time. Such craft and cleverness!
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Poetry 28: Margaret Atwood

Well, I already knew she was one of the most prolific writers in English, but I didn't know until reently that she was also a poet. And an amazing one! I've been reading Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New, 1976-1986. This excerpt is

from "Five Poems for Grandmothers"
by Margaret Atwood

ii

It is not the things themselves
that are lost, but their use and handling.

The ladder first; the beach;
the storm windows, the carpets;

The dishes, washed daily
for so many years the pattern
has faded; the floor, the stairs, your own
arms and feet whose work
you thought defined you;

The hairbrush, the oil stove
with its many failures,
the apple tree and the barrels
in the cellar for the apples,
the flesh of apples; the judging
of the flesh, the recipes
in tiny brownish writing
with the names of those who passed them
from hand to hand: Gladys,
Lorna, Winnie, Jean.

If you could only have them back
or remember who they were.

You can read the entire poem(s) here.

Poetry 27: Deborah Keenan

Angela Hallstrom studied with Deborah Keenan at Hamline, where she (Angela) did her MFA. So, lucky me, one Christmas I got Keenan's Willow Room, Green Door: New and Selected Poems (Milkweed, 2007) as a gift. It contains some work from other of Keenan's collections and is a hefty, juicy little package of delightful images which, I believe, influenced one of my big spurts of writing. I was reading it while I did another "write a poem a day for a month" projects, and I see a little of her in what I produced then.

Here's an excerpt

from "The Amateur"
by Deborah Keenan

An amateur parent at twenty-one, I was in
my blue period, to match my son's eyes and
the heaviness in my heart. His infant kabuki
hands defined the air, my dreams grew unsteady
as he grew more beautiful. I charted elaborate
plans for my life without him, while he dreamt
of clowns coming through windows to scratch
his eyes, and so we painted clowns, coloring
in details of anonymous faces, red stars on
flat white cheeks, blue triangles over empty
eyes. He slept easier then, while I dreampt
of masked men pushing him through the bedroom
window after disconnecting the stereo, severing
the telephone cord.

I love that image of her infant son's "kabuki hands."

p.s. Huge congratulations to Angela for winning "Best Novel from a New Author" at the Whitney Awards this weekend!!!!!

Poetry 26: Mary Oliver

Maybe you've notice my efforts to include devotional poetry on Sundays. I'm grateful to my friend Kathy Soper for introducing me to Mary Oliver. I wanted to copy a tiny little poem called "Praying" here, but it's too tiny to take a little from. However, you can read it here! Instead, I'll give you an excerpt

from "The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist"
by Mary Oliver

I want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.

Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

I love that we can still have religious poets who are well-received and whose skill is acknowledged (well--everywhere except the University of Utah). It gives me hope that I don't have to confine myself to non-religious topics in order to be published. .

Poetry 25: Kay Ryan

Probably my favorite new discovery from this semester is Kay Ryan. I love her short poems that are so cram-packed with rhyme and other delicious sounds. Her stuff is always fresh and interesting, even though she remains impersonal. (It's funny how this semester I became attracted to poets very different from me. I think that has helped me grow.)

You can find out more about her, as well as the link that led me to this poem, here.

Turtle
by Kay Ryan

Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
She can ill afford the chances she must take
In rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
A packing-case places, and almost any slope
Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way
To something edible. With everything optimal,
She skirts the ditch which would convert
Her shell into a serving dish. She lives
Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
Will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things.

Just for the delight of it, I'd like to show you how Ryan chops up her lines so that the rhymes hide inside. Here are the first seven lines of her poem, "The Fourth Wise Man," which you can find in her collection Say Uncle.

The fourth wise man
disliked travel. If
you walk, there’s the
gravel. If you ride,
there’s the camel’s attitude.
He far preferred
to be inside in solitude.

And here they are, unbroken:

The fourth wise man disliked travel.
If you walk, there’s the gravel.
If you ride, there’s the camel’s attitude.
He far preferred to be inside in solitude.

Unpacking the lines reveals the end rhymes, the parallelism, the immense craft that has gone into each line. Ryan fits an amazing amount of rhyme and meaningful rhythm into tight spaces.

Anyway, I look forward to reading lots and lots of Ryan in the future. Oh, and she happens to be the current National Poet Laureate.

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Poetry 24: Marilyn Bushman-Carlton

A friend gave me on keeping things small, a collection by Marilyn Bushman-Carlton (Signature, 1995), and it was a happy surprise. Bushman-Carlton is a poet after my own heart, writing about small moments in family life. This is an excerpt

from "On Sunday Nights"
by Marilyn Bushman-Carlton

. . .

Earlier, he was the bishop
dozing in his seat behind the pulpit.
He didn't dance in public.

Sunday nights
. after his last meeting, just as Guy Lombardo
. animated the black and white TV
Father would come, untie
. the apron Mother wore to supervise
. our baths.

. Around the floor they'd spin,
her green eyes spicy, his hand at home
in the groove of her waist. . . .

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Poetry 23: Sharlee Mullins Glenn

Sharlee is, of course, one of my favorite people and poets. I love this one of hers because it so well describes a yearning and a conflict that most of us Segullah women have felt. I've always loved this poem and now that I read it again I am embarrassed to find out how I stole some of the images and even phrases for some of my own poems. Unwittingly, unconsciously, but stolen nonetheless. Luckily Sharlee loves me anyway. (Sharlee is a member of my writing group and an accomplished children's writer as well as poet.)



Blood and Milk
by Sharlee Mullins Glenn


I dreamed of Oxford . . .
. (spires, a thousand spires, endless lectures,
. musty halls
. a solitary self in a Bodleian expanse
. A good life my dear Wormwood. An orderly life.)

then awakened to laundry
. and things to be wiped
. countertops, noses, bottoms)

How did this happen? And when, exactly?
Time flows, it flows, it flows

and there are choices to be made:

. left or right?
. paper or plastic?
. blood or milk?

There's freedom in the bleeding;
bondage in the milk—do not be deceived.
Ah, but it's an empty freedom; a holy bondage,
A sweet and holy bondage.

Five times I chose the chains, those tender chains,
(though once will bind you just as well!)
and checked the crimson flow.
Suckled while dreaming of Trinity Term
but awakened, always awakened, to the laundry
and to that small and cherished captor at my breast.



.

Poetry 22: Mark Doty

Mark Doty is another poet I discovered in my workshop. What I've included here is less than half of it, so trot on over here and read the whole thing. It gets better and better.

(Yes, I know--my "rules" about what to copy here and what not to have become sort of gelatinous. Sorry.)

A Display of Mackerel
by Mark Doty

They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,
which divide the scales’
radiant sections

like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other
—nothing about them
of individuality. . . .

.

Poetry 21: Penny Allen

I discovered Penny Allen through Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women, published by the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-Day History at BYU, but after I fell in love with her work, especially this poem, I found her name everywhere, including hymn texts ("Let the Holy Spirit Guide") and Harvest. You can find out more about her here. I think that I should know her personally. I think she should be sending stuff to Segullah. Until I can make that happen, I will admire her from afar. And I will memorize her poetry.

Here's an excerpt of the one I chose to memorize this semester. You can read it all here (scroll down to page 4).

Blackberry
by Penny Allen

Sucking darkness into swollen lobes,
It rides the cane over in its plumpness.
She wants it. Enough to thread a careful hand
Through the thorns, etching a ragged red
Rivulet on the wrist and pricking tiny
Rubies where she wavers, until her fingers
Lightly pluck it, thumb-pad pierced by a point
In the process. . . .

. . . Yet long after her tongue
Forgets the sweet, her throbbing thumb remembers
The pain, and still hungry, into the tangle
She flinches, sighing, “Oh, Eden, Eden.”

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Poetry 20: Galway Kinnell

Galway Kinnell is one my favorites among the poets I discovered this semester. I read his collection, Strong is Your Hold, and enjoyed it quite a bit. There is poem in there about the World Trade Center tragedy that blew my socks off. But it turns out that I liked his stuff long before I ever read any of his collections. The other day I was thumbing through an old anthology I have from my college days, and I found a poem by Kinnell that I had liked so much years ago that I had folded the corner of the page down. I never noticed who wrote it before, so it's funny to me that I have now "discovered" a poet that I liked many years ago.

So here's the one from my anthology, which is all over the internet so I figure I'm OK quoting it all here.

Blackberry Eating
by Galway Kinnell

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry -- eating in late September.

Tomorrow I will feature another, very different, poem about blackberries.

Poetry 19: John Donne

It's weird to look back on the time when I first read this poem. I was a young college student, on a perpetual high: ah, the BYU campus, those mountains, the joy of learning. I really did love every class (at least for the first half of the semester). It seemed like I had no problems, had never really had any problems. And I had such a yearning for God. I remember telling Him, out of my naivete, to go ahead and "bring it on," whatever trials it would take for Him to make me fit for the kingdom. Now, on the recovery side of my hardest trial yet, I'm scared spitless at what might be brought on to make me fit for the kingdom, and I laugh at the cocky young kid who used to think she could handle anything . . .

But this poem still moves me. I know this yearning. And I daily live on the faith that somehow God will find a way to make my trials work to my benefit. Somehow. Even if I don't feel it, and can't see how I'm any better of a person having gone through them. So, today, I give you:

Batter My Heart
by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

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Poetry 18: Laure-Anne Bosselaar

The teacher of my poetry workshop, poet Kurt Brown, invited us all to a reading of a couple of visiting poets. I went, and didn't care a fig for the first poet's work. But the second poet who read, a lively woman for whom English is like her fourth or fifth language, blew me away. I didn't find out until the very end of her reading that she was Kurt's wife! He hadn't mentioned that small detail . . .

Anyway, she read this one, and I loved it. Unfortunately, it's not in the book I bought afterwards, though lots of other good things are.

If you like this excerpt (and I know you will) check out the entire poem here.

English Flavors
by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

I love to lick English the way I licked the hard
round licorice sticks the Belgian nuns gave me for six
good conduct points on Sundays after mass.

Love it when ‘plethora’, ‘indolence’, ‘damask’,
or my new word: ‘lasciviousness,’ stain my tongue,
thicken my saliva, sweet as those sticks — black

and slick with every lick it took to make daggers
out of them: sticky spikes I brandished straight up
to the ebony crucifix in the dorm, with the pride

of a child more often punished than praised.

FYI, Laure-Ann was a famous TV personality, under another name, in Belgium years ago.

Poetry 17: Tennyson

Continuing the theme of poems my children have memorized, today I give you "The Eagle." A few years ago I had this great idea to get my kids to memorize more poetry. The strategy was that I would announce to them that I wanted to memorize a poem, and ask for their help. Then I would constantly repeat it--in the car, over dinner, etc. Hopefully, the result would be that they'd pick it up themselves.

And it worked! They all learned it. Of course, they forgot it soon after (although one of them re-learned it once when I bribed him to recite it for an Enrichment I was speaking at--$5). And then I failed to follow up with another poem. Ah, well. Still, they have this one buried somewhere inside, and once in a while I'll recite it again for them, and I think they get a warm feeling of familiarity when they hear it.

The Eagle
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbold he falls.

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Poetry 16: Ogden Nash

This one's for A, my oldest, who memorized parts of Isabel this week. It was easy, because he really already knew it. I have been reading it to my kids for years. We have the best collection of poetry for kids, called Sing a Song of Popcorn. It was a baby gift from a friend in Berkeley who was a librarian. (Could there be a better baby gift?) Anyway, it feels fantastic to read such cleverly-rhymed and rhythmic poetry to children. Reading with my kids has been my favorite part of parenting.

Adventures of Isabel
by Ogden Nash

Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

Once in a night as black as pitch
Isabel met a wicked old witch.
The witch's face was cross and wrinkled,
The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled.
Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,
I'll turn you into an ugly toad!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry,
She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.

Isabel met a hideous giant,
Isabel continued self reliant.
The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,
He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.
Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,
I'll grind your bones to make my bread.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She nibbled the zwieback that she always fed off,
And when it was gone, she cut the giant's head off.

Isabel met a troublesome doctor,
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.
The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills
And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.
The doctor said unto Isabel,
Swallow this, it will make you well.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.

How fantastic is the rhyming of "rancor" and "drank her," or "horrid" and "forehead"??? My favorite line: "The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled." Delightful.
.

Poetry 15: Amy Lemmon

I don't know anything about Amy Lemmon. I discovered her because my teacher tossed me a book and said, "Here, you'll like this." And I do. (If you'd like to check it out, you can buy it here.)

This poem was nominated for a Pushcart prize. I feel like I'm OK printing it all because it appears here. And you can read Amy's blog here. I hope you're able to appreciate how cool the format is for this particular subject. (Sorry, I didn't need to point out the obvious to YOU astute readers, right?)

As most of you know, I have a dear friend who went through this experience herself. Needless to say, this poem, and several others in the book, speak especially well to her.

I apologize for the periods. I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to keep columns, or tabs, or even a table in a blogger document and nothing worked. (Anyone want to teach me?) So I've used periods to keep her spacing right. Ignore them. The real poem appears in three neat columns.

Karyotype
by Amy Lemmon

What would ...........it look like,
I wondered, ..........this map
of gene particles ....counted
and crossed? .........As we waited,
I imagined ...........a tidy grid
of lines .............and numbers,
stark spirals ........in red-green-blue,
anything but .........these tiny worms
photographed, ........magnified and ordered
in pairs except ......for the infamous
twenty-first: ........the error,
the glitch, ..........the wrench
in your infant .......clockwork. Striped
and annelidic, .......the chromosomes
weren’t even .........yours, just
a picture ............of someone
else’s, someone ......else’s child
who also had .........too much,
too many worms. ......picture
the other parents ....seeing these
squirming ..............for the first time ....squinting hard
like we do now. ......You’re here.
What do we ...........make of it?
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Poetry 14: Me!

So I told you I had an assignment to imitate a poem I liked. I chose the poem by Lance Larsen that I shared with you yesterday. So here's my imitation:

Cowed by Chicago
by Darlene Young

So why did the pizza-delivery boy choose our credit-card number to steal?
Was it because we asked for substitutions in the spaghetti meal-deal,

dithered over the extra charge for cheese on garlic bread in a city where people
toss bills nonchalantly at taxi drivers? Was our small-town green so obvious,

the way we’d holed up in our room rather than risk those strange, dark streets?
Did “sucker” appear in smoky letters on our tender-sprout foreheads as we

scrabbled for a pen to sign the receipt? A four-hour flight had reduced us to animal
needs (food, bath, bed), blurred our minds so that his paper shuffling seemed

a benign symptom of our bleary fatigue. Sign here, he said, looking past us,
perhaps already planning the big purchase at the porn store we’d later find

on the credit card bill—-perhaps the same store that had scared us into
staying in our room in the first place. Ah, to prove him right in our naivete.
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Poetry 13: Lance Larsen

Lance is someone I hope to study with when (if!) I do an MFA at BYU. I'm including this poem because it's the one I chose to "imitate" for my assignment. But I think I'll include another of Lance's a little later this month because, although I think this poem is delightful, I don't think it's representative of Lance's amazing ability.

I hate not being able to reproduce the whole thing. But, alas, I am trying to be honest in all my dealings (and not violate copyright laws). So here are some excerpts

from "Outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art"
by Lance Larsen

So why did the pretzel vendor tender me a discount?
Was it because I asked how much before

fishing out my wallet? . . .

Or did he pity me, my salt-and-pepper tweed
more retro Idaho than retro Soho?

. . . Buck fifty, he said,
looking straight at my shaggy moustache,

a twin of his only redder. Then to the next guy,
Two dollars. Ah, to be chosen by a ruddy pretzel man.

OK, I feel terrible about this. Because I've only left out about two stanzas, and it's such a tight, perfect little poem. Nevertheless, there it shall stand. If you're dying to read it all, check out his book, In All Their Animal Brilliance, which is a fantastic book and worth owning.

Poetry 12: John Updike

Happy Easter! I love Easter, love the whole thought of it. Hope, springtime, renewal, re-birth, repentance, hope, hope!

I'm grateful to the people on AML-List (Linda Kimball, I think, was the one who mentioned it originally) who brought this poem to my attention. I'm not a fan of Updike's fiction, and I hadn't known he was a poet until someone shared this. You can read it in its entirety here.

from Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

. . .
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

. . .
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Rumor has it that Updike wrote this for an Easter poetry challenge at his church when he was just 21.

I have varying testimonies of many things, but I am sure, sure of an afterlife. I am so grateful for the Resurrection.

Poetry 11: Jeffrey Harrison

As a follow-up to yesterday's poem, here is a poem written in obvious imitation of Smart's poem. I found it in a little book called Conversation Pieces: Poems that Talk to Each Other, edited by my current teacher Kurt Brown, that is a collection of poems that people wrote in imitation or response to other poems. Kurt gave his class a similar assignment, and I'll be posting my own attempt at this kind of "flattery" next week.

Arrival
after Christopher Smart
by Jeffrey Harrison

I will consider my son William,
who came into the world two weeks early, as if he couldn't wait;
who was carried on a river that gushed from his mother;
who was purple with matted black hair;
who announced his arrival not by crying but by peeing, with the umbilical cord still attached;
who looked all around with wide slate-blue eyes and smacked his lips as if to taste the world;
. . .
whose deep sobs from the back of his throat bring tears to my own eyes;
who likes to be carried in a pouched sling;
who thinks he is a marsupial;
. . .
whose eyes flutter, whose nostrils dilate, and whose mouth twitches into strange grimaces and smiles as he dreams;
who is full of the living spirit which causes his body to wiggle and squirm;
who stretches his arms and arches his back and you can feel his great strength;
who lies with the soles of his feet together, as if praying with his feet;
who is a blessing upon our household and upon the world;
who doesn't know where the world ends and he begins;
who is himself the world;
who has a sweet smell.

It's enough to make you baby-hungry, isn't it? Wait, Dad, that was just a joke. A JOKE, Dad. Calm down!
.

Poetry 10: Christopher Smart

Today's poem is for cat-lovers. And for a little extra zing, here is my fatcat (yes, that's one word) Pippin, presiding over the proceedings. (And if you make it clear to the end, there's a little treat for you.)

For my Cat Jeoffry

by Christopher Smart

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore-paws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually – Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is affraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly,

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

P. S. Did you read the whole thing? Then check out some fantastic poetry by the Jolly Porter here.

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Poetry 9: Carol Lynn Pearson

I imagine I'm not the only born-n-raised Mormon for whom poetry meant only one of two things growing up: oft-quoted instructional poems from Gen. Conference and sac. meeting ("'Twas battered and worn, the old violin . . . ") or Carol Lynn Pearson. At least I had a mother who helped me see that Pearson was the good stuff. We owned, and read, all of her books--and no other books of poetry ever appeared in the house. I'm not complaining because I did (and still do) always enjoy her work.

In college, I had a professor who pointed out how simplistic (and, possibly, unpoetic) her work is, but I don't care. I love it. There's no doubt that it has influenced me as a poet and as a thinker, and for that I'm grateful.


(Also, I think it's only admirable that an LDS poet writing LDS stuff would be well-enough known to merit a full lecture in an English class, whether or not the teacher is saying nice things about it. The fact that she was published enough, and known enough, among our poetry-disliking and poetry-suspicious community is no small thing.)

Here's a poem that I got her personal permission to reprint in its entirety for a blog at Segullah, so I'm obnoxiously assuming that she probably wouldn't mind my posting it here as well.

Drama in Two Acts
by Carol Lynn Pearson

I dim
I dim
I do not doubt
If someone blew–
I would go out.

I did not.
I must be brighter than I thought.

I'm seeing today that it has a little Dickenson flavor to it. ("I'm nobody. Who are you?") Good stuff.

You can check out that link to Segullah to see why I love this poem in particular.
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Poetry 8: Claudia Emerson

I discovered Emerson through her book Late Wife (Louisiana State University Press, 2005), which I very much enjoyed. I was particularly drawn to this poem because I suffer from classic migraines ("classic" meaning the ones that come with the aura and other weird symptoms such as a numb hand). Her whole poem describes a migraine so expertly; if you get migraines, definitely look up this poem. I'll include a little from the beginning, the middle, and the end here.

from Migraine: Aura and Aftermath
by Claudia Emerson

First, part of the world disappears. Something
is missing from everything: the cat's eye,
ear, the left side of its face; . . .

. . . My arm
goes numb, my leg. Though I have felt the cold air
of this disappearance before, each time the aura
deceives me to believe reality itself
has failed . . .

. . . Then, in the relieved
wake of the day that follows it, I will
find my hand, count my fingers, and beginning
to see again, will recognize myself
restored to the evening of a righted room.

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Poetry 7: Laura Hamblin

Laura Hamblin's book, The Eyes of a Flounder, was published by Signature in 2005. I don't know whether she is local, but she definitely has an LDS background and interacts with LDS people and culture. Some of her poems are not comfortable reading, but all are fascinating and rich. The poem I've taken this excerpt from, "To Baptize," talks about her frustration with a church that says that an 8-year-old is in need of baptism. Probably I don't need to tell you, my loyal blog audience, that I don't share her opinions here. Still, I think it's an extremely interesting poem.

from "To Baptize"
by Laura Hamblin

They want to baptize my son,
take his slight body,
immerse him in the wetness
of water, make him stainless,
wash him from sins
he did not commit, sins
that belong to no one.
They want to stand him
in the water, have him
shudder and pimple,
soak his paleness
in a pool of solvent,
dilute him into a true person,
bleach him to the dry
white of dead sailor's bones.

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Poetry 6: Eliot

You know how there are certain songs, probably from when you were a teenager, that when you hear the first notes of the song a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity washes over you, almost like you were climbing back into those years, or back into a warm, safe place?

I feel that way about "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Just hearing those first words, "Let us go then, you and I" starts some kind of chemical reaction in my brain. It's definitely a milestone in my own development as a lover of poetry. Although I can't claim to being able to fully appreciate this poem, there are lines and images in it that I adore, and that haunt me still. "A pair of ragged claws," "asserted by a simple pin" "and do I dare disturb the universe?" "in the room where women come and go" "that is not what I meant at all . . ." Amazing, amazing stuff.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T. S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin? . . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

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Poetry 5: Gerard Manley Hopkins

I still remember where I was sitting when this poem blew me away (in Dr. Cracroft's 251 class). Because, for one thing, it is just so fun to read aloud! But also because it spoke to me in many ways. (For one thing, I myself am not catch-y0ur-eye beautiful. But this poem told me that maybe there is beauty in me, too--and maybe someone would see it someday.) Not being quick at memorizing, I don't memorize poetry often, but I memorized this one a couple of years ago just to have it with me always.

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)

With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.

(Don't know what's with the little accent marks--they were there on the website I got this from.)

Poetry 4: Frank O'Hara

Happy General Conference Day! I always have a sense of anticipation on Gen. Conf. day, as if I'm about to open a fortune cookie. What will they say today? Who will be the new apostle?

Continuing the fortune cookie theme, here is the first part of "Lines For the Fortune Cookies" by Frank O'Hara, which you can read in its entirety here.

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you—even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU—there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.

Special thanks to my friend Mark Brown, who introduced me to O'Hara, and who has written some great one-line poems (and printed them on cards--so fun to read!) that I enjoy just as much.

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Poetry 3: Sharon Olds

Thanks to Tyler for recognizing my poem about being with my dying mother. Thinking about that again reminded me of Sharon Olds's spine-chilling poems about her own mother's death. Here's an excerpt from "Last Hour," which you can find in her collection One Secret Thing (which is, by the way, a very difficult book to read, with death and abuse as common themes).

. . . Her body would breathe her,
crackle and hearth-snap of mucus, and then
she would not breathe. Sometimes it seemed
it was not my mother, as if she'd bene changelinged
with a being more suited to the labor than she,
a creature plainer and calmer, and yet
saturated with the yearning of my mother.
Palm around the infant crown of her
scalp where her heart fierce beat, palm to her
tiny shoulder, I held even with her,
and then she began to go more quickly,
to draw ahead, then she was still and her
tongue, spotted with manna spots,
lifted, and a gasp was made in her mouth,
as if forced in, then quiet. Then another
sigh, as if of relief, and then
peace. This went on for a while . . .

Amazing description of a body's last moments.

Poetry 2: Billy Collins

I adore Billy Collins because he makes me laugh. Here's an excerpt from "The Lanyard," in The Trouble With Poetry, in which Collins talks about how cool we think it is when me make a craft at scout camp or wherever and then present it proudly to our mothers. He contrasts all of the things his mother did for him with the present he gave her. This is an excerpt from the middle of the poem:

. . .

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
. . .

Hey, thanks to Angela for finding the link to the entire poem. Click on the title above and you can read it all.

National Poetry Month!

Yes, it is.

And in celebration, I will try to share some poetry with you this month. Since I don't know or understand copyright rules for the internet, I don't dare share a whole poem with you (unless it's mine), so I'll just give you some juicy tidbits.

Tonight I discovered Tony Hoagland, who read at the Salt Lake City library. I really like his stuff! So I, uh, accidentally bought his book (Donkey Gospel) after the reading. And cracked it open to the middle, where his poem, "Here in Berkeley" caught my eye. Because I lived in Berkeley, and because I have been trying to write a poem about Berkeley for years. (I've made lists and lists of all the amazing, colorful details, the cultural contrasts you get walking down the street--but haven't been able to formulate a satisfying poem yet.) Well, now I think I won't bother, because this poem is so great. Here's how it starts:

from "Here in Berkeley"
by Tony Hoagland

the jogger with the Rastafarian sweats
runs past the mechanic reading Marx on lunch break
with a sprout sandwich for a bookmark
as the sunlight through a bottle of Perrier
wobbles little rainbows on his knee.

On the corner, someone wearing I Ching earrings
is talking about personal space,
how she just can't take it anymore
the way that Marcia's codependency
defeats her own empowerment.
"The whole seminar is out of whack," she says,
slapping a bouquet of daisies on her knee.

Close your eyes,
swing a baguette horizontally,
you'll hit someone with a Ph.D.
in sensitivity . . .

Anyway, as is always the case with poetry, showing you just a part of it is a shame, like showing you only a corner of a painting. Still, that little taste is enough to give me shivers--yes, Berkeley.