The Poetry Org

Poet of the Day: Frank Bidart

Frank Bidart has a way with dramatic monologue poems, unlike any other poet that I’m aware of. In fact, James Franco has made a short film based on his poem, “Herbert White.” Not sure where I can see this piece, but I’d love to, if anyone has suggestions on where to find it.

Two poems I’ve picked for you today are some of Bidart’s quintessential pieces, and though they’re a little long, both are fantastic reads. The first poem is the aforementioned “Herbert White,” about a psychopathic child-killer and necrophiliac. The second poem is called “Ellen West” and is about a woman with anorexia. Both poems are grave insights into human nature. Enjoy.

Poet of the Day: Mary Oliver

I’m not sure why Santa Barbara bookstores seem to only carry a lot of Mary Oliver and little to none of every other contemporary poet, but it seems that shelves here bear her works with some sort of favoritism. It’s interesting. But then again, Oliver is an interesting poet.

Mary Oliver is a very private poet, still living in Massachusetts after the death of her partner. I’ve always found her poetry to be private as well. Like the stars tell her secrets that they tell no one else.

Two poems I’ve picked for you today are Breakage and Gethsemane (printed below).

Gethsemane by Mary Oliver

The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,
maybe,
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.

(Source: carabiner.stpaulqc.org)

Poet of the Day: Randall Jarrell

Randall Jarrell, what a man. Looks happy here, doesn’t he? His death is still a mystery to most. While being treated for suicide, he went for a walk and was run over by a car. Some believe it was accidental, most people don’t.

Jarrell’s poetry, like Robert Pinsky’s, is one of the few examples I can find of a poet critic who could walk the walk. His poetry is beautiful and heartbreaking and 45 years later, still timeless.

Two poems I have for you today is “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” and “90 North” (listed below), where the poet tells us that what often times we think is wisdom, is really just pain.

90 North by Randall Jarrell

At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe’s impossible sides
I sailed all night—till at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.

There in the childish night my companions lay frozen,
The stiff furs knocked at my starveling throat,
And I gave my great sigh: the flakes came huddling,
Were they really my end? In the darkness I turned to my rest.

—Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
At the North Pole …
          And now what? Why, go back.

Turn as I please, my step is to the south.
The world—my world spins on this final point
Of cold and wretchedness: all lines, all winds
End in this whirlpool I at last discover.

And it is meaningless. In the child’s bed
After the night’s voyage, in that warm world
Where people work and suffer for the end
That crowns the pain—in that Cloud-Cuckoo-Land

I reached my North and it had meaning.
Here at the actual pole of my existence,
Where all that I have done is meaningless,
Where I die or live by accident alone—

Where, living or dying, I am still alone;
Here where North, the night, the berg of death
Crowd me out of the ignorant darkness,
I see at last that all the knowledge

I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

(Source: cs.berkeley.edu)

Poet of the Day: Bob Hicok

When I first heard of Bob Hicok, he was a poet friend of Marcus Cafagna’s, who was my professor. Since then, Bob is no longer a die cast molder. Bob no longer owns a business. Since then, Bob has published so much that it’s easier naming the journals he hasn’t been in as opposed to the ones he has. Bob has manuscripts of poetry piling up on his desk, literally. This is a guy, it’s rumored, that writes a poem a day. He’s the Rivers Cuomo of the poetry world.

Marcus once got a book that I had of Hicok’s signed. It read, “Zach, you have better things to do than read this book.” My answer is still, “I doubt it.”

Two poems that I’ve picked for you today are “In the loop” and “Her my body.”

Poet of the Day: Reetika Vazirani

By almost every account, Reetika Vazirani was a poet who was just getting started. I still remember where I was on July 17, 2003, the day after she took the life of her son and then herself. I was working an internship at a concrete company in Springfield, Missouri. I read the news. I believe it was a Thursday. They boy’s father had been Yusef Komunyakaa.

To be honest with you, I had never read her work up to that point. Still haven’t read a lot of it. But I understood the suicide. Back then. I probably still remember the day it all happened because of that reason. I can’t believe it has already been seven years.

Two poems I picked for you today by the late Vazirani are “Two Cities” and “Going to See the Taj Mahal,” both viewable below.

Two Cities by Reetika Vazirani

That 4 a.m. I lay
back on the living room
couch, seeing as it was
still night. At 5 a.m.
Elle’s light in Unit B
upstairs came on, and she
sailed down the wooden steps
and drove off to bake bread
until two. Then I thought
of you doing to me
those things you described on
the phone. I in utter
surprise kept asking, Would
you really? Yes, you would.
But you had not phoned me
this morning, though it flew
anyway: I heard you
patiently interrogate.
At first I didn’t know
what to do.

      Six years later
this was better for all
the time taken out, gone
were the unimportant
miles between our cities,
even better than on
the phone or in person,
though it was without doubt
only you in your absence.
Then the sun rose, wiping
away this entanglement,
as I shake creases out
of the sheets and fold them
like a note I will send
to tell you how things are
going, pretty much the
same and good on this end.

Going to See the Taj Mahal by Reetika Vazirani

When we set out on the train to Agra
I thought, What an old palace we are going to see,
        it’s an old grave.
I was tired when we reached the station and you hired a taxi
to take us to the steps of the Taj Mahal;
you couldn’t even wait until morning,
said it was something to take in by moonlight,
white marble against black sky is a great sight in moonlight
        you said
(marble just cleaned for a holiday).
And there beyond our driver’s wheel I saw the domes—
the large dome and the four surrounding domes.
The silhouette stood out so clearly that for a moment
I forgot this fact in the midst of the splendor
(the long stretch of grass leading up to the site):
the Empress Mumtaz, she bore fourteen heirs for Shah Jahan—
absurd to forget Mumtaz at her marble grave,
marble banded with prophecy and verse.

But what did I know of the Empress except this tomb?
So I pictured her this way:
she was not a beauty, nor especially devout
(always slow to cover her head).
On Thursdays when the open market came past the red
        stone quarry,
she dressed as her handmaid
and took a poor cloth sack into town
where she bartered for beads women wore on ordinary days;
and secretly with cheap dyes she’d paint herself into the wild
        casual beauty of youth
(the kohl inexpertly applied but alluring).
Then she gave her sack away or left it on the road
should someone find it hoarded in her suite—
the Empress buying this five-and-dime garbage!
And she imagined her life without the constant royal curfew.
There were places she couldn’t go—there were even daily
        attractions at the well,
attractions too scandalous to list.

If only the Emperor’s architects knew her!—
to free them from the illusions which inspired the tomb,
to free them from the wished-for glamour of a Mumtaz.

(Source: nathanielturner.com)