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42nd Virtual Poetry Circle

Are you ready for the 42nd Virtual Poetry Circle this week?  I hope you are because we’re continuing the celebration of National Poetry Month.

If you missed my earlier announcement (don’t worry, it’s a sticky post), you can check out the 2010 National Poetry Month Blog Tour details here.

Today, we’re going to visit with a contemporary poet.

From Bruce Weigl’s Song of Napalm (page 47):

Breakdown

With sleep that is barely under the surface
it begins, a twisting sleep as if a wire
were inside you and tried at night
to straighten your body.
Or it’s like a twitch
through your nerves as you sleep
so you tear the sheet from the bed
to try to stop the pounding spine.
A lousy, worthless
sleep of strangers with guns,
children trapped in the alley,
the teenage soldiers glancing back
over their soldiers
the moment before
they squeeze the trigger.

I am going to stay here as long as I can.
I am going to sit in the garden as if nothing has happened
and let the buried azaleas have their way.

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s books suggested. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Let me know your thoughts, ideas, feelings, impressions. Let’s have a great discussion…pick a line, pick an image, pick a sentence.

I’ve you missed the other Virtual Poetry Circles, check them out here. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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Please also stop by today’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour stop at the bookworm.

Comments

  1. The line “as if a wire/ were inside you and tried at night/ to straighten your body” really got to me, too. In this poem it’s metaphorical, but after knee surgery I’ve felt something of the same thing. It makes me feel a little of what it must feel like to have that come from the brain, rather than the body itself.
    .-= Jeanne´s last blog ..Trivial Pursuit for Book-Lovers =-.

  2. Song of Napalm is one of my favorite poetry collections. I love these lines:

    “With sleep that is barely under the surface
    it begins, a twisting sleep as if a wire
    were inside you and tried at night
    to straighten your body.”

    It reminds of the times my mom told me about the nightmares my father had after the war, and how the war never leaves them, especially not in their sleep.
    .-= Anna´s last blog ..Review: Your Ten Favorite Words by Reb Livingston =-.