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111th Virtual Poetry Circle

August 20, 2011 by

Welcome to the 111th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry. Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Brian Turner‘s collection, Here, Bullet; the title poem from page 13 as read by Turner himself, plus the text below the video:

Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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110th Virtual Poetry Circle

August 13, 2011 by

Welcome to the 110th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry. Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

In the honor of our new U.S. Poet Laureate, Philip Levine, today’s poem is one of his:

On 52nd Street

Down sat Bud, raised his hands,
the Deuces silenced, the lights
lowered, and breath gathered
for the coming storm. Then nothing,
not a single note. Outside starlight
from heaven fell unseen, a quarter-
moon, promised, was no show,
ditto the rain. Late August of '50,
NYC, the long summer of abundance
and our new war. In the mirror behind
the bar, the spirits—imitating you—
stared at themselves. At the bar
the tenor player up from Philly, shut
his eyes and whispered to no one,
"Same thing last night." Everyone
been coming all week long
to hear this. The big brown bass
sighed and slumped against
the piano, the cymbals held
their dry cheeks and stopped
chicking and chucking. You went
back to drinking and ignored
the unignorable. When the door
swung open it was Pettiford
in work clothes, midnight suit,
starched shirt, narrow black tie,
spit shined shoes, as ready
as he'd ever be. Eyebrows
raised, the Irish bartender
shook his head, so Pettiford eased
himself down at an empty table,
closed up his Herald Tribune,
and shook his head. Did the TV
come on, did the jukebox bring us
Dinah Washington, did the stars
keep their appointments, did the moon
show, quartered or full, sprinkling
its soft light down? The night's
still there, just where it was, just
where it'll always be without
its music. You're still there too
holding your breath. Bud walked out.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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109th Virtual Poetry Circle

August 6, 2011 by

Welcome to the 109th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry. Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Erika Meitner‘s (I interviewed her in 2009) Ideal Cities:

O Edinburgh (page 18)

it was night & we were always drunk
    or it was day (gray day) & I'd buy
              boxes of clementines on my way
    from school & keep them outside
my window on the sill so they'd stay
    cool -- O Edinburgh, where we'd
              mash ourselves together on that shelf
    of bed after you lined up shoes
to toss, one by one, at the heater
    on the wall -- open coils that glowed
              orange for 15-minute increments
    like a toaster, & when you'd hit
the button your shoes would thud
    like large fish tails slapping the sides
              of a boat & we rose with the wind's
    current, its November brogue, &
O Edinburgh, it spoke in tongues,
    flapped doors open & shut, howled
              until I couldn't remember exactly
    what happened in the dark except
that we curled ourselves up into
    the smallest specks until I wept
              over a horoscope & someone else's
    tattoo & I never loved you because
I was a wall of a city I had never been to

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

Filed Under: Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, virtual poetry circle Tagged With: ,

108th Virtual Poetry Circle

July 30, 2011 by

Welcome to the 108th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry. Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Paul Celan:

Fugue of Death (translated by Christopher Middleton)

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink it and drink it
we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there
A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden
	hair Margarete
he writes it and walks from the house the stars glitter he
	whistles his dogs up
he whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in
	the earth
he commands us strike up for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you in the morning at noon we drink you at
	nightfall
drink you and drink you
A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden
	hair Margarete
Your ashen hair Shulamith we are digging a grave in the
	sky it is
ample to lie there

He shouts stab deeper in earth you there and you others
	you sing and you play
he grabs at the iron in his belt and swings it and blue are
	his eyes
stab deeper your spades you there and you others play on
	for the dancing

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightfall
we drink you at noon in the mornings we drink you at
	nightfall
drink you and drink you
a man in the house your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents

He shouts play sweeter death's music death comes as a
	master from Germany
he shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you
	shall climb to the sky
then you'll have a grave in the clouds it is ample to lie
	there

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death comes as a master from
	Germany
we drink you at nightfall and morning we drink you and
	drink you
a master from Germany death comes with eyes that are
	blue
with a bullet of lead he will hit in the mark he will hit
	you
a man in the house your golden hair Margarete
he hunts us down with his dogs in the sky he gives us a
	grave
he plays with the serpents and dreams death comes as a
	master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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107th Virtual Poetry Circle

July 23, 2011 by

Welcome to the 107th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Carl Phillips:

Porcelain

As when a long forgetfulness lifts suddenly, and what
we'd forgotten—as we look at it squarely, then again
refuse to look—is our own
                                            inconsequence, yes, it was
mostly like that, sex as both an act of defacement and—
as if the two were the same thing—votive offering,
insofar as the leaves
                                     also were a kind of offering, or could
at least be said to be, as they kept falling the way leaves
do: volitionless, from different heights, and in the one direction.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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106th Virtual Poetry Circle

July 16, 2011 by

Welcome to the 106th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Amy Lowell:

Spring Day [Bath]

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.

The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.

Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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105th Virtual Poetry Circle

July 9, 2011 by

Welcome to the 105th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Michael Dickman’s Flies on page 21-3.

Emily Dickinson to the Rescue

Standing in her house today all I could think of was whether she
+++ took a shit every morning.

or ever fucked anybody
or ever fucked
herself

God’s poet
singing herself to sleep

You want these sorts of things for people

Bodies and
the earth
and

the earth inside

Instead of white
nightgowns and terrifying
letters

*

Here she comes
her hands out in front of her
like a child flying
above its bed

Her ankles and wrists held tightly between the fingers of a brightly
+++ lit parent home from a party

Flying

Her spine
flying

Singing +++++ “Here I come!”

Her legs pumping
her heart
out

*

Heaven is everywhere
but there’s still
the world

The world is Cancer House Fires and Brain Death here in America

But I love the world

Emily Dickinson
to the rescue

I used to think we were bread
gentle work and water
We’re not

But we’re still beautiful

Killing each other as much as we can
beneath the
pines

The pines
that are somebody’s
masterpiece

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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104th Virtual Poetry Circle

July 2, 2011 by


Welcome to the 104th Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Carl Adamshick’s Curses and Wishes, which I hope to review soon, on page 9.

Home

You had been gone a few days.
The place went looking for you,

unaware you were returning.

I remained lonely in the evening
when the moon broadcasted

silence through the dust.

My love was once
a faint blue tear
of thin glass glowing
in my chest.

Now my love is you.

It must be three in the afternoon
and I am trying to sleep
on your side of the bed.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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103rd Virtual Poetry Circle

June 25, 2011 by

Welcome to the 103rd Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Somewhere Over the Pachyderm Rainbow:  Living in an Elephant-Controlled 2010 Election Diorama by Jennifer C. Wolfe, which I reviewed earlier this month:

Recipe for Tea Party Iced Tea (page 36)

1 part frenzy, 1 part hatred,
1 part smugness, 1 part self righteousness,
1 part holier-than-thou arrogance, 1 part skewed eccentricity,
1 part lockstep agenda, 1 part self-aggrandized delusion,
1 part active hostility, 1 part non corroborated facts.
Add in believed-as-true conjecture,
Mixed with outright lies.
Stir liquid contents vigorously,
Until total frenetic vindictiveness has been achieved.

Serve well chilled with plentiful amounts of polarizing ice.

Serving size:
All who surrender their thoughts to the manipulation of close-minded,
Fanatical zealots imagining themselves as colonial-garbed super heroes.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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102nd Virtual Poetry Circle

June 18, 2011 by

Welcome to the 102nd Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

From Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong, which I reviewed earlier this week.

Because I Would Not Admit (page 67-9)

+++++And his dark secret love
+++++Does thy life destroy. (William Blake)

Because I would not admit
that I had nurtured
an enemy within my breast–

a lover who wanted to gnaw
my secret rose,
a lover who wanted to press me
between the covers of a book,
then burn it,
a lover-usurper who wanted
to take my soul–

I nearly died,
running my car upon rocks
like a badly steered sloop,
crashing into trees
like a hurricane gale,
burning my arms in ovens
(when I thought I was only
baking bread) . . . .

To admit the betrayal
was worse than
the fact of betrayal–
for I loved him
as leaves love sun,
turning my face to him,
turning my hips, my womb
to be filled with a dream
of children, a dream of books
& babies sprouting like leaves
from a spring tree,
a dream of trees that leaked blood
instead of sap . . . .

The dream’s the thing–
the dream we die for,
turning our faces to the sun,
eyes closed, never seeing it has
gone out:
dead star, it blazes coldly
over a dead planet
while we bask in its afterglow,
now remembered in the mind.

He was fond
of stars & telescopes;
fond of machines, fond
of building the most complex
contraptions
to scale the clouds.
But Icarus flies
near the sun with waxen wings,
& does not think of gears
or motors.

Trees rise up at him
as he falls; the earth
rushes to meet him
like a lover
raising her writhing hips;
the wings weep their waxy tears
& fall apart;
the sun is hot
on his face.
But even as he falls
he is in ecstasy;
his sun has not
gone out.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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101st Virtual Poetry Circle

June 11, 2011 by

Welcome to the 101st Virtual Poetry Circle!

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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from The Decadent Lovely by Amy Pence, which I reviewed earlier this month:

Life’s Dry Crushed Scorpion (page 25)

Had been there for some time, flattened
among the dust and fur, the cast-off
little girl toys under my daughter’s bed.
Had once reddened its claws to polish,
once wandered fractious and solitary —
red to signal the foxes, a trail
of bright delicious strawberries,
the red a slicked on waxy lipstick.
Stained red for every month
it will bleed its silent rust, will needle
her slender spine, will catch
her unawares in the hood she’s wandering
in. If she’d known it was there, she said,
she would have been afraid.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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100th Virtual Poetry Circle

June 4, 2011 by

Welcome to the 100th Virtual Poetry Circle!

It’s hard to believe that there have been 100 meetings of the virtual poetry circle and my wonderful readers are still commenting on poems and taking a shot in the dark about what they mean.  Congrats to you all!

Stay tuned for the big giveaway on June 12 to celebrate 100 VPCs and my 4-year blogiversary.

Now, onto this week’s Virtual Poetry Circle.  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.

Also, sign up for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Reading Challenge because its simple; you only need to read 1 book of poetry.  Please contribute to the growing list of 2011 Indie Lit Award Poetry Suggestions, visit the stops on the National Poetry Month Blog Tour from April.

Today’s poem is from Horoscopes of the Dead by Billy Collins, which I reviewed earlier this week.

Revision (page 84-5)

When I finally pulled onto the shoulder
of a long country road

after driving a few hundred miles
without stopping or even blinking,

I sat there long enough to count
twenty-four cows in a wide, sloping pasture.

Nothing about the scene asked to be changed,
things being just what they were,

and there was even a green hill
looming solidly in the background.

Still, I felt the urge
to find a pencil and edit one of them out,

that swaybacked one standing
in the shade in a far corner of the field.

I was too young then to see
that she was staring into the great mystery

just as intently as her sisters,
her gorgeous, brown and white, philosophic sisters.

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. It’s never too late to join the discussion.

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