Today I find myself in the unusual position of having to pick a favorite poem and feeling utterly lost. At the beginning of the month Tony and I were invited to read at Salt Lake City's National Poetry Month celebration. It's scheduled for Weds. April 27, 7:00 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Public Library. Today's to-do list indicates it's time to pick a poem and begin reading it out loud.
For some reason I can't do it. My go-to poems are Ginsberg's Kaddish and cummings' pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Kaddish is too long. And today I am dissatisfied with cummings' sassy ending. It reminds me of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I've turned to my old loves: to Brodsky, to Akhmatova, and Yevtushenko. Perhaps it's the flat gray day, but nothing I read created a spark, not even when I sang a couple of Dickinson poems to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas. Or perhaps it's the fire raging deep within that's sucking the air out of anything I read right now. Maybe I need some new, young loves. Whatever it is, I am poemless.
Got a recommendation for me?
House.
2 years ago
4 comments:
Thanks for posting about the National Poetry Month celebration in SLC. I'll try to make it for that!
I have a ton of good poems to recommend, but don't have my "favorites" file with me. Here's one I do like, not sure how it would be read aloud, but for what it's worth: Don Marquis' "the lesson of the moth".
Tawni,
So fantastic! I may chose this one to read. It resonates with me right now on so many levels. So many.
Here's a link for those who want to check it out.
http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/moth.html
cgw
I really love and return to the American classics. I loved it when Thea was learning and reciting Longfellow, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Some other favorite poems include: Robert Frost, "Deliverance," Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," and "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," and Elizabeth Bishop, "The Moth-man," and "Down at the Fish House."
I like Marianne Moore's poem about her cat, Peter.
With today, Friday, April 22, being Earth Day, you might choose a poem that speaks about the environment. William Stafford's work comes to mind; particularly his series of poems called the Methow River poems. Robert Bly is another good one for environment themes.
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