One of my recent Netflix picks was Bright Star, the biopic about the poet John Keats and his lady love Fanny Brawne. I thought it was lovely–sad at the end, of course, but also unabashedly romantic. I could now present to you a poem by Keats, but that would be too obvious. Instead, here\’s one about the poet. Keats by Christopher Howell When Keats, at last beyond the curtain of love’s distraction, lay dying in his room on the Piazza di Spagna, the melody of the Bernini Fountain “filling him like flowers,” he held his breath...
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Poem of the Week
Have you ever before encountered a poem with a camel in it? I hadn’t. Man and Camel by Mark Strand On the eve of my fortieth birthday I sat on the porch having a smoke when out of the blue a man and a camel happened by. Neither uttered a sound at first, but as they drifted up the street and out of town the two of them began to sing. Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— the words were indistinct and the tune too ornamental to recall. Into the desert they went...
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One of my all-time favorites. The Summer Day by Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean– the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down– who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don\’t know...
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Billy Collins is one of my very favorite poets. His writing is accessible and readable, and I appreciate those things, along with his wit and good humor and insight. Litany by Billy Collins You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine . . . Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker and the marsh birds suddenly in flight. However, you are...
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Hi (virtual) friends, I’m sorry for my recent absence, but not TOO sorry– I’ve been in sunny California, and it is marvelous. Mountains, oceans, cool breezes, lots of good food… it’s been wonderfully vacation-y. And yet, I am still making time to share this gorgeous poem with you. It is by W.S. Merwin, who was just named the new U.S. Poet Laureate, a job the Library of Congress describes as ““the nation’s official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans.” Merwin currently lives atop a dormant volcano in Maui; it’s unclear whether he will relocate to...
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A friend suggested this week’s poetry pick, telling me that a) it is her favorite and b) she has it memorized. So did I! Said friend also offered me homemade baked goods today, so obviously I would have been obliged to post her favorite poem even if I did not also like it. Which I do. Point being, if anyone else would like to share a poem with the many, many readers of V&V, please note that I take well to bribery, especially when it involves food. If Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when...
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You Reading This, Be Ready Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts? When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found; carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading this or...
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It’s gray and rainy and chilly in DC today, the kind of day that calls for the following lunch: a hot cup of lentil soup, a few wheat crackers, and some seasonal springtime poetry. That’s what I’m having, anyway. This poem is one of my all-time favorites, and it appears in Tony Hoagland’s excellent and often quite funny collection What Narcissism Means to Me. A Color of the Sky by Tony Hoagland Windy today and I feel less than brilliant, driving over the hills from work. There are the dark parts on the road when you pass...
Continue reading...New Ways to Hate on Glenn Beck
Continuing on my poetry theme, I wanted to share this delightful recent discovery. As the friend who forwarded the website wrote, “poems, jewish stuff, making fun of glenn beck…I assume you were already aware?” I was not! According to their email blast, “Jewish Funds for Justice staged the Internet’s first “Twitterstorm” last week, flooding Glenn Beck’s Twitter account with some 3,000 haiku – Tweeted one by one, minute by minute – in support of social justice.” This was in response to Bleck’s (that was originally a typo, but on second thought seems apropos) tirade on churches that...
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