48th Virtual Poetry Circle

Welcome to the 48th Virtual Poetry Circle. I’m sure you have been bombarded with Book Expo America and Book Blogger Convention posts all week.  I hope that you’ve visited the Virtual Poetry Circle while I was away, though I’ll be playing catch-up this weekend. 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. Today, we are visiting a contemporary poet Tony Hoagland:

I Have News For You There are people who do not see a broken playground swing as a symbol of ruined childhood and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process. There are people who don’t walk past an empty swimming pool and think about past pleasures unrecoverable and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians. I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings do not send their sinuous feeder roots deep into the potting soil of others’ emotional lives as if they were greedy six-year-olds sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw; and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality. Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon? There are some people, unlike me and you, who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as unattainable as that moon; thus, they do not later have to waste more time defaming the object of their former ardor. Or consequently run and crucify themselves in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha. I have news for you— there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room and open a window to let the sweet breeze in and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.

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.