Poetry 2022 Edition 3 (and Last)

Yearly Poetry Goal:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #5 by Nikki Giovanni, Harper Perennial 2009, 109 pages

A Fish Out of Water

.

.

And now I sit

On the beach

Listening to the waves

Crash over the rocks

.

And wish

I had seen

The end of this story

At the beginning

Instead of

At the end

These poems are playful and have energy, even the less upbeat ones, and the downright somber ones. SO MANY of these poems included food, but I didn’t find a pie mention. Going with a 3 slice review rating.

---

Advertisement

Poetry 2022 Edition 2

Poetry Goal 2022:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #3 by Jacqueline Woodson, Puffin Books 2016, 366 pages

“Nothing in the world is like this-
a bright white page with
pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil
the soft hush of it
moving finally
one day
into letters.”

“I am not gifted. When I read, the words twist
twirl across the page.
When they settle, it is too late.
The class has already moved on.

I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them
then blow gently,
watch them float
right out of my hands.”

“Even the silence
has a story to tell you.
Just listen. Listen.”

This has been the longest collection of poetry I have read yet; spanning March to August. I loved every page, every poem, every thought expressed. Five slice of pie and YES! It had pie. (but the new goodreads layout has hidden my updates so I don’t know the page nor full passage. Also, sad to say, I no longer have the book – did I misplace it? give it to a friend? sell it to the Half Price Books so I can buy more books? I can’t recall.)

---

Collection #4 by Grace Paley, Farrar,Straus and Giroux 2008, 83 pages

On OCCASION

I forget the names of my friends

and the names of the flowers in

my garden . . . my friends remind me

Grace . . . it’s us . . . the flowers just

stand there stunned by the sun

I very much enjoyed this collection. She’s smart and sharp, even as she describes blanks in her mind and her memory. It’s about living, living through what you have to but not necessarily being happy about it. Rather, determined.

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Poetry 2022 Edition 1

Poetry Goal 2022:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #1 by Elisabeth Barrett Browning, Bard Books Avon Hearst ~1950, 96 pages

XX

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sate alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, . . but, link by link,
Went counting all my chains, as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand . . . why, thus I drink
Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.

(Annoyed and afraid. Afraid to utilize my Goodreads Librarian status to update this edition and I’m not sure why… I probably should. Please feel free to shoot me a vote of confidence to update the publisher/date/add illustrator/estimate of date published blahblahblah…)

Anyway, I didn’t find many of these sonnets romantic. Mostly confusing or boring. I just don’t have an appreciation for this “story”. What I really want to know is what exactly did EBB suffer from and what exactly did she and her love enjoy once they escaped Papa’s overbearing captivity! Did she thrive in Italy? I am missing some key details and am probably just nosy for juicy gossip. Oooops.

I enjoyed the first few lines of her most famous one, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” but mostly these bits were obscure and non-impressive. Sorry not sorry. Probably makes me a heathen or something.

Still. I’m glad to have read these. No pie, three stars.

---

Collection #2 by Rachel Long, Tin House 2021, 79 pages

Black Princess! Black Princess!

…
We’re keen to avoid any awkward questions,
should they arise, about how a yogi single mother
could afford to send her daughter to a good school.
But, all verified, she’s through!
Now, we must comb through your hair.
Just joking! We’ve attended training on that issue.

.
.
.

I found many of these poems confounding? if that isn’t too strong a word. But I appreciate the sense that she really owns these poems. I sense a delight, no hesitancy, some attitude and spark.

.

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Poetry 2021 Edition 4

Poetry Goal 2021:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #6 by Maggie Smith, Tupelo Press 2017, 100 pages

From the blurb at goodreads.com: Poems written out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by the poet watching her own children trying to read the world like a book they’ve just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot.

 Past

 What is the past?

We need a word for everything before,

See how my saying this is already there, and there

for good ̶ no fishing it out of that deep water,

the deepest there is. The past is a tide that drags out

but won’t return to shore: even your question has been

carried off. Look, you can see it floating.

(only the first half of the poem, get the book to read the rest.)

Four slices of pie.

---

Collection #7 by Rita Dove, WW Norton 1999, 96 pages

from the poem on page 76

“The situation is intolerable”

Hush, now. Assay

the terrain: all around us dark

and the perimeter in flames,

but the stars—

tiny, missionary stars—

on high, serene, studding

the inky brow of heaven.

. . .

Our situation is intolerable, but what’s worse

is to sit here and do nothing.

O yes. O mercy on our souls.

I found these poems accessible and confident, powerful. Five slices of pie.

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

 

Poetry 2021 Edition 3

Poetry Goal 2021:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #5 by Veronica Golos, Story Line Press 2003, 75 pages

From the blurb at goodreads.com: These mystical lyrics retell the biblical story of Ha’gar.

 

(no sample…)

 

So, sadly, I had a review typed and ready and the WordPress Block Scheme ate it. I couldn’t find it, so I am assuming that is what happened.

I gave this collection 3 stars at first and I don’t recall how I came to that rating; I can assume that my appreciation was from a distance, that I didn’t quite connect though I do think I can admire the passion and raw emotion – THAT is what I recall. I also think it had more than just the Old Testament references but parallel’s a Civil War era story.

I gave the book away thinking I had saved a snippet already. So I leave it blank here.

 

---

Collection #6 by Jeanne Griggs, Broadstone Books 2021, 56 pages

Note on a postcard of the Santa Monica Pier

We emerge blinking, holding our coats,

into the warmth and exhaust of the

LA freeway, cars queued up to the horizon,

everyone waiting a turn, anxious

for the sight of oranges ripening,

sun setting on the sea, colors we could

only imagine in gray Ohio February.

…

From the postcard Jeanne sent me promoting her collection (I was totally thrilled to receive! and ordered the book straight away!!)

Link is here to addendum page of what was inspired LOL

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

 

Poetry 2021 Edition 2

Poetry Goal 2021:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #3 by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, Alice James Books 2009, 61 pages

from William

…

And when you 

open the storm door

to let him in,

he will step onto the mat,

and bow his head a little,

and cry like a man.

 p.36

This collection was a gut punch. She wrote this as a tribute and honor of her daughter, a way to deal with her grief when her daughter was murdered by her boyfriend. Devastating.

---

---

Collection #4 ♦ by Lia Purpura, Penguin Poets 2015, 86 pages

It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful

Chosen

It could’ve been

an everyday

brown-and-cream

sparrow, or grackle

with oily rainbow wings

but so near my eye,

its robe, its sash,

its fire, flare, gash —

it’s visiting me.

Hard to think

otherwise.

P.77

I really enjoyed this collection. It was postcard-worthy! short and poignant. Gave me new lens to view and think about things.

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Poetry 2021 Edition 1

Poetry Goal 2021:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection # 1 A Village Life by Louise Glück; Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2009, 72 pages

Burning Leaves

. . .

How fast it all goes, how fast the smoke clears.

And where the pile of leaves was,

an emptiness that suddenly seems vast.

+ .  .  .

My thoughts: Something so evocative and fierce yet somber, almost resigned. Life expectations from youth on. Humans survive, but do they truly live?

Fives slices of pie. No pie mentioned.

Collection # 2 A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing by DaMaris B. Hill, Bloomsbury Publishing 2019, 172 pages

Study the Master (an echo poem for Ms. Clifton)

i do as you say,

study the masters.

i glean close.

your handiwork of words,

the discipline you command.

All that is huge and hinged with hope

are pressed into me.

.

+ .  .  .

 

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Books and Pie aka Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Poetry 2020 Edition 9

Poetry Goal 2020:  to read a poem* every day.

 

Collection # 17 Night by Etel Adnan, Nightboat Books 2016, 53 pages

. . .

My own disappearance

followed a cloud

that found me

sitting in a garden.

 

Tunnels reproduce the patterns of arteries.

There’s a worm in the heart

that’s feeding on its allowance.

+ .  .  .

 

 

Collection # 18 The Thin Wall by Martha Rhodes, University of Pittsburgh Press 2017, 56 pages

no title

My job is to extract your soul and usher it 
along to where today we find, north of north,
a strip of sand wide as wide, a branch of river,
leaf deep. Nothing surrounds or meets us here.
My pleasure—your contentment, your acceptance
of eternity, here—that I have chosen right by you.

 

 

 

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Books and Pie aka Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Poetry 2020 Edition 8

Poetry Goal 2020:  to read a poem* every day.

 

Collection # 15 Dark Testament by Pauli Murray, LiveRight Publishing 2018 (orig 1970), 100 pages

Words

. . .

 

We are spendthrift with words,

we squander them,

toss them like pennies in the air — arrogant words,

angry words, cruel words, comradely words,

shy words tiptoeing from mouth to ear.

 

But the slowly wrought words

of love and the thunderous words

of heartbreak — these we hoard.”

 

 

 

Collection # 16 3 New York Poets: Charles North & Tony Towle & Paul Violi edited by Andrew McCarron, Station Hill 2015, 302 pages

. . .

You see,

most of us do not use our backs properly,

they float unused in the body’s sea,

retreat like flights of steps into the earth,

or mount like birds and hurtle through space

in a universe of

misuse —

 

+ .  .  .   (Tony Towle’s Autobiography)

OK, so this collection is…  interesting. And very WHITE. And white MALE. huh.  And it read like that. I really must admit, in some ways, most ways, I just didn’t get it.  Some of the poetry was cool; some fun word play, thought-provoking imagery, etc and blahblahblah? But the descriptions of the interviews attempting to connect the poet’s lives to their head games to the work to their art?  Fell flat to me. I suppose that is my disconnect with Andrew McCarron. Kudos to him and it’s not necessarily an uninteresting project but I must admit, I’m not the best audience for this.

I spent most of my time when reading the poems wishing for a cool postcard to write that snippet to send to a friend. Postcard Poetry!

This round goes to Murray. 

And me for really enjoying my poetry project!

 

 

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Books and Pie aka Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Poetry 2020 Edition 7

Poetry Goal 2020:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection # 13 Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals by Patricia Lockwood, Penguin Books 2014, 66 pages

List of Cross-Dressing Soldiers

. . .

Someone thought long and hard how to best

make my brother blend into the sand. He came

back and he was heaped up himself like a dune,

he was twice the size of me, his sight glittered

deeper in the family head he hid among himself,

and slid, and stormed, and looked the same

as the next one, and was hot and gold and some-

where else.

+ .  .  .

Five slices of pie

Collection # 14 The Trouble with Poetry  by Billy Collins, Random House Trade Paperback Edition 2007 (orig 2005), 91 pages

The Trouble with Poetry
.
.
.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise lide a feather in the wind.

Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry.

I wasn’t as fond of this collection like the first one I experienced but that’s OK.

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

PI MENTIONED!  “Later, genius became someone who could take a sliver of chalk and square pi a hundred places out beyond the decimal point.”

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

Copyright © 2007-2020. Care’s Books and Pie aka Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.