no one was there

Well, I know I didn't write about any poems that I read yesterday but I figured I already broke my cardinal rule concerning the amount of poems from each poet I would read. I also started this whole thing off on the wrong foot by starting in the middle of the month and not planning ahead. Planning is what begins and ends this crazy, muddled up world we live in right? I hope I learned my lesson about preparedness last year when I tried to tend a community garden plot but did little to no advanced scheduling or research and ended the harvest with a paltry yield.

I have come to understand this as a very important month. A month that holds two of my brothers' birthdays, my other brother's college graduation, and a two-fer appreciation month. Not only is it National Poetry Month (the muse behind my poetry writings) it is also Jazz Appreciation Month. So in the spirit of both these I shall regale you with an unsolicited, impromptu poem on the subject of jazz.

gather and push from this side to the back
buckle and jive so full
so much so
capacity's sound jolted to the not yet arrived

Well that is all I could muster. I hope both poetry and jazz feel appreciated. For my part I tried my darnedest.

brandon

"a member of the cloud"

I am so irreconcilably hasty as far as "classic" poets go and looking askance at them as opposed to absorbing them entirely and often. I just read an Emily Dickinson poem from a collection called Love Poems published by Peter Pauper Press in some undisclosed year. I know the poems were probably public domain when the book was put out but there is still a short forward I assume they would have wanted to copyright. Oh, well. I applaud their spirit of giving. I am not sure if the editors of this tiny volume added titles to the poems or if Emily herself initially intended the titles they appear here with. The one I read is called "Renunciation." It was was sort of long in comparison to most Dickinson I have read and with much, much more vague imagery. I read it thinking of her subject being love because of the name of the collection but I think she is talking about so many things in the various stanzas and sections of this poem that it is either a misnomer to have it included here or the editor included it as way to project an expansive view of love through Dickinson's not-so-much-a-love-poem.

You know what? I knew I was going to do this. I read eight Emily Dickinson poems that were not clearly marked as separate poems all as one large, unbelievably wonderful poem. The order of these must have been selected very carefully. It works so perfectly. She has the same sort of contentment throughout the eight poems and reoccurring themes of suffering saviors, divine gifts, royalty, turmoil over what to do with the grace of earthly love and company. All of it works so well. So the link to "Renunciation" is in fact only the part of the poem that was originally named that by Dickinson. I am trying to find the rest of the parts now.

Here they are: (and read them in this order too)

Of all the souls that stand create

That I did always love

Doubt me, my dim companion! (There are two versions of this one out there. I don't know if she wrote two editions of it or if one is not genuine. I like this one better either way. It is the one from my book)

Come slowly, Eden! (This one is really racy)

God permits industrious angels

He put the belt around my life

God gave a loaf to every bird

Maybe tomorrow I will copy and paste all of those on here into one large, glorious poem. I swear read them all together in that order. It was meant to be. I feel a tad sheepish for not noticing the tiny ferns marked the end of each poem. But in the end I stumbled upon something far greater than I bargained for. As an whole poem she has such a poignant way of coming to terms with her state in regards to herself, her God, her community, her lover, nature, and daily incidentals. Very moving and very sad she didn't write them as one piece to begin with.

brandon

The first even though midway through

I decided I was not too ambitious but I was merely impractical. I came up with this project too late (sort of). I have sixteen days left of April, National Poetry Month, so I have to read 1.875 poems a day in order to have 30 poems read, one for each day of the month, but the end. I read two yesterday:

"Emaciate Buddha" by Brett Eugene Ralph from Black Sabbatical

and

"Wind Camp" by Joanna Rawson from Unrest

I was pleased with myself for choosing two contemporary poets to begin with. I really thought I was just going to go the easy route and only read "the classics." I found these on Ron Hogan's literature blog Beatrice. I highly recommend you read his blog. He is a writer but what's more is he is a very active impresario of literary arts in New York. In all narcissistic honesty, I would like to be the Ron Hogan of Omaha. I just don't read enough. I am not involved in the literary circles I wish to be.

Frequently I do searches for writing and reading groups around Omaha and I am also dismayed and tickled by the ones that I find. There are abundant middle-aged to elderly women who write and read droll romance and romantic sci-fi. Interesting, but certainly not what I am looking for.

I was pleased to see that Jeffery Koterba, Omaha World Herald cartoonist and recent author of a pretty good memoir (and a jazz musician to boot), was mentioned in a Washington Post article about tourette's.

Oh, and the poems were pretty good. I liked wind camp better. It reminded me of a poem an old classmate of mine wrote in college in which he pondered a tree that seemed to be alive and personified by the enormous amount of black birds rattling around in its branches. He was delighted by the birds but Rawson took a little more offense to the natural activity of these little guys. Her's seems to fit with the Hitchcockian paranoia birds engender or the Poe-esque madness that comes by giving a little too much control of one's peace to incessant bird banter.

And the Ralph poem reminds me of a poet I used to be in monthly reading group with. He was bald too. This was when I lived in Cincinnati and the guy read this one poem nearly every month about him sitting next to the Ohio river and perceiving himself to be a circle on the ground and attaining a zen sort of "okayness" with his state. I was never sure if it was the state of Ohio, the state trying to write poems for a living, or a more cerebral sort of thing. Anyway, Ralph's poem conjured that up for me.

I like the poem but I am trying to figure out why we scarcely see the guy this poem is talking about. Is it that we won't see him? Is he actually invisible? Because if he is displayed like the second stanza makes it sound like he is it seems as though he would be a bit of a spectacle. But, I have a feeling he embodies that seemingly unattainable spiritual emptiness/wholeness that most say they desire but won't commit to. Or perhaps the guy is just a self-made martyr. Either way it is an intriguing picture.

brandon

I don't want to write about writing. I want to write.

There must be more going on in Omaha literature-wise than I am aware of. It makes me queasy that I am not more aware of these things. Oh, and it's National Poetry Month. Hey, I will read a poem a day this month. Sounds like nothing but anything that even smacks of consistency is a very some something when it comes to my routine. A severe lack of poetry has invaded my life since college. I have a bit of catching up to do today. I have 12 poems to read today. And by golly, I am not going to limit myself to tiny Shakespearean sonnets (although I read a few a couple months ago and was bowled over with how moving I found them) but I am going to take on Prufrock scaled masterpieces. I might even delve into an epic poem here or there. I will chronologue my efforts and I will be back in business. For the first time in months I have that twinge of excitement I so easily allowed to vaporize. Oh and I think each poem will have to be from a different poet. Yeah, that makes the most sense. I'll do that.

to speak of

No songs yet. But that's not what this is all about. Well, I mean, it is but it's all supposed to be an inspiration to achieve and achieve. Not merely aurally and melodically. I'm writing a story about a young man who loses his wife to death, a very sad way to go. I feel that completing this piece of short fiction will be a crowning achievement for myself. I have "finished" stories before. But upon a recent revisit to these I realized I was quite careless with my satisfaction with my work. Quite careless. I wish not the same fate for any songs I might compose. Oh, compose! I probably didn't mean to use that word. My stuff is more castles in the air and composure for my scoliotic posturing.

Here's an off-the-cuff poem:

and the ropes



always understated the ropes
hold the trapeze artist
hold the man with the muscles dragging the bus
and the lady to the tracks
always understated and always under pressure

such tension
in the twines and strands
who am i to think i am so threadbare

letting the boat from its mooring is the most polite thing to do



peace
brandon pierce geary