100 Poems

This is an assignment for class. I read 100 poems and shall list them here, and I shall discuss 10 of them in greater detail.

1. Carolyn Kizer: "Parent's Pantoum"
2. Lynne McMahon: "Carpe Diem"
3. Billy Collins: "Introduction to Poetry"
4. Gwendolyn Brooks: "We Real Cool"
5. Beth Bachmann: "Colorization"
6. Timothy Liu: "In Hot Pursuit"
7. Peter Meinke: "Atomic Pantoum"
8. Ellen Doré Watson: "Ghazal"
9. Wesli Court: "The Obsession"
10. Dylan Thomas: "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
11. Sharon Olds: "Visiting My Mother's College"
12. David Lehman: "Abecedarius:
13. Diane Wakoski: "Sestina to the Common Glass of Beer: I Do Not Drink Beer"
14. John Yau: "Chinese Villanelle"
15. Gevorg Emin: "The Question Mark"
16. Robert Lowell: "Reading Myself"
17. Elizabeth Bishop: "Brazil, January 1, 1502"
18. Robert Hayden: "Night, Death, Mississippi"
19. Sylvia Plath: "Daddy"
20. Mark Strand: "Where Are the Waters of Childhood?"
21. Theodore Roethke: "In a Dark Time"
22. John Berryman: "The Moon and the Night and the Men"
23. Randall Jarrell: "Cinderella"
24. Robert Penn Warren: "Birth of Love"
25. Charles Olson: "The Kingfishers"
26. Adrienne Rich: "For an Album"
27. J.V. Cunnigham: "To My Wife"
28. Jean Garrigue: "Cracked Looking Glass"
29. May Swenson: "Teleology"
30. Robert Duncan: "Styx"
31. William Meredith: "The Illiterate"
32. Howard Nemerov: "Writing"
33. Richard Wilbur: "Mind"
34. Mona Van Duyn: "Homework"
35. Howard Moss: "Ménage à Trois"
36. James Dickey: "The Heaven of Animals"
37. Anthony Hecht: "A Hill"
38. James Schuyler: "Shimmer"
39. Denise Levertov: "Seeing for a Moment"
40. Richard Hugo: "Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg"
41. Edgar Bowers: "Amor Vincit Omnia"
42. Carolyn Kizer: "A Muse of Water"
43. Donald Justice: "The Evening of the Mind"
44. Frank O'Hara: "Why I Am Not a Painter"
45. David Wagoner: "The Best Slow Dancer"
46. Robert Creeley: "The Rescue"
47. Allen Ginsberg: "My Sad Self" to Frank O'Hara 
48. W.D. Snodgrass: "A Locked House"
49. James Merrill: "A Renewal"
50. W.S. Merwin: "Some Last Questions"
51. A.R. Ammons: "Reflective"
52. John Ashbery: Glauzunoviana"
53. James Wright: "A Blessing"
54. Galway Kinnell: "The Vow"
55. Anne Sexton: "The Room of My Life"
56. Philip Levine: "Rain Downriver"
57. Irving Feldman: "The Dream"
58. John Hollander: "The Night Mirror"
59. Richard Howard: At the Monument to Pierre Louÿs"
60. Gary Snyder: "I Went into the Maverick Bar"
61. Charles Wright: "Clear Night"
62. Audre Lorde: "Movement Song"
63. Mary Oliver: "Hawk"
64. Jay Wright: "The Homecoming Singer"
65. C.K. Williams: "Alzheimer's: The Wife"
66. Charles Simic: "Watermelons"
67. Michael S. Harper: "Nightmare Begins Responsibility"
68. Frank Bidart: "Happy Birthday"
69. Robert Pinsky: "Poem About People"
70. Robert Hass: "Heroic Simile"
71. Amy Clampitt: "Beach Glass"
72. Dave Smith: "Lake Drummond Dream"
73. Marilyn Hacker: "Nights of 1964-66: The Old Reliable"
74. William Matthews: "107th & Amsterdam"
75. Sharon Olds: "The Glass"
76. Louise Glück: "The Garden"
77. Sandra McPherson: "The Microscope in Winter"
78. Michael Palmer: "H"
79. Ellen Bryant Voigt: "Winter Field"
80. Kay Ryan: "A Cat/A Future"
81. Yusef Komunyakaa: "Facing It"
82. Heather McHugh: "Auto"
83. Edward Hirsch: "A Short Lexicon of Torture in the Eighties"
84. Jorie Graham: "San Sepolcro"
85. Robert Frost: "The Road Not Taken"
86. Rita Dove: "Canary"
87. Mark Doty: "Door to the River"
88. Gjertrud Schnackenberg: "Supernatural Love"
89. Henri Cole: "Peonies"
90. Li-Young Lee: "One Heart"
91. Carl Phillips: "Revision"
92. Shel Silverstein: "Invitation"
93. Emily Dickinson: "I Heard a Fly Buzz -- When I Died"
94. Langston Hughes: "Quiet Girl"
95. Maya Angelou: "Phenomenal Woman"
96. James Schuyler: "Sunday"
97. Derek Walcott: "Dark August"
98. Herman Hesse: "On a Journey"
99. Octavio Paz: "Between Going and Staying the Day Wavers"
100. Wislawa Szymborska: "Some Like Poetry"

1. "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins. This poem, I actually am now in love with it because it shows exactly how I used to be, and still am with poetry, however, I am learning to get better at reading them, but still. Anyway, I especially love the last two stanzas: "But all they want to do/ is tie the poem to a chair with rope/ and torture a confession out of it./ They begin beating it with a hose/ to find out what it really means." Oh, yes, I still do this. I want poems to tell me what they are trying to say, and never enjoy the subtleties of what they are trying to whisper to us. It makes me wonder if he has ever taught a high school English class because it seems he really understands what is going on in our minds at that time. I like how he tries to show us how to read a poem, and, yet, his poem is very brusque and straight to the point, but that could just be his style.
2. "Atomic Pantoum" by Peter Meinke. Having looked at the form before reading this, I was really surprised. I thought the whole A, B, C, D, thing meant that the poem was rhyming, but it was actually repeating those lines, and you would think that the poem wouldn't be interesting because it repeated certain lines, but it was actually the repetition that made the poem interesting because that line could mean something completely different in a different stanza. Also, the poem was really interesting, too, it wasn't just the rhyme, I could really see how the repetition really affected the poem, and one of the much repeated lines was "in a chain reaction" and it almost makes me want to cry how truthful and saddening that line is, especially in this poem.
3. "Reading Myself" by Robert Lowell. I find this poem very interesting, although, having read it three times already, I'm still not sure I quite understand it, but that's okay. What I do understand is that he is saying, is he is never finished with his writing. He metaphors his job to that of a bee, and asks is the bee ever finished working, as even when it does make it's required amount of honey, a bear can come along and take it, or destroy it. It causes me to think that even when we think we've done our best work ever, we can still create something that is even better, and should we stop just because we think we've made our best?
4.  "To My Wife" by J.V. Cunningham. I like this poem because it shows how their loved changed as they grew older. It shows that no love remains the same. It's like how many people say now, that the couple's are out of their "honeymoon phase" and that's when people either weather through the troubles or get a divorce. It seems to me, that these two went through the honeymoon stage, and learned to love each other in different ways as they grew older. 
5.  "Writing" by Howard Nemerov. I like this one, and not just because my ambition is to become a writer. I like how he uses different things as writing, such as the ice skater's trail in ice is a history of where the skater has been and what he or she has done. He also remarks on the how we, ourselves, have left our own writings on the earth. For example, we create buildings that reflect of our times, and the slow disappearance of oil and gas from our earth as we use it to fill up our cars, also is a writing of what we have done.
6. "Mind" by Richard Wilbur. I love the metaphor for the mind: a bat. However, to me, it makes perfect sense. Without our five senses, or even if we lost one or two of those senses, our mind would be worthless because we wouldn't be able to make out what we are saying and be able to tell of their sensations in other ways. So without our senses, we would be similar to a bat that couldn't hear. Also, the last two lines are very humorous. "That in the very happiest intellection/ A graceful error may correct the cave."
7. "Ménage à Trois" by Howard Moss. This is a delightful poem about him and two other people letting people who are around them, but don't know them think what they like. He and the other two people have absolutely no sexual relationship to the other, and he even says they do not get along. However, they are the sensation, and people speculate who is sleeping with whom? They keep them guessing. His roommates play along with they're speculation, though, having a squabble outside the door. I found it very amusing. 
8. "Why I Am Not a Painter" by Frank O'Hara. This is another amusing piece or literature, or at least it is to me. In the second stanza, O'Hara tells us about his friends problems with poetry with Sardines. At first he says that he needs the image there, and then later he says that the sardines were too much, and just left the letters. Why it is amusing, though is the third stanza. O'Hara says that when he thinks of the color orange, he write a line about orange, and then has a whole page, and says that there should be so much more, not oranges, but words, and then when he is finished, he realizes that he doesn't even mention an orange, and has twelve poems that he calls Oranges. Just as his friends calls his painting Sardines. 
9. "Reflective" by A.R. Ammons. This poem doesn't have very many words, but it's like a direct hit. It basically says that we all have weeds in ourselves, and why do we judge someone for something that is in all of us?
10. "The Dream" by Irving Feldman. This poem deeply resonates within me because I have been guilty of doing the same thing. It starts off about how he has a dream where someone he loved comes back, and yet, he tells them why couldn't they wait one more day, and then leads into saying how many people ask the same thing of Messiah. He remarks how our "little pleasures so deeply wished./ that Heaven's coming has to seem bad luck". I have to admit that I have thought the very same, how my little pleasure's, like finishing a book series, has caused me to not wish for the Messiah's return. 

Characters and Blogs: How I Learn From Them

Right now, I'm sick. My eyes are really tired, and the screen is looking blurry. Of course, the sickness added into the fact that I read a really, hmm, not sad, per se, but painful, I suppose, book. It's called The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I read it for English 416 class, aka, literature for young adults (which I'm really loving, I love young adult books!), anyway, so I was bawling my eyes out. Well, okay, I wasn't that extreme, but I must admit some small sobs did escape me, so I'm glad I was alone at the time. Now, just so you know, I don't cry during every book or at every sappy scene, I'm a bit of a cynic, but you'll just have to trust me on that.

Anyway, so this book is about Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah in the bible. At first, her life doesn't seem so terrible, despite the fact that they don't have any indoor plumbing, or an actual house for that matter, but that's not what the author focused on anyway. This story is about Dinah, whose voice goes unheard in the Bible. There was one act of violence in her life, a huge act of violence, and her life is changed forever. Her story is so painful, it's sad. This is what has me crying in about the last fifty pages. Her life has had so many painful things, and she dies happy. No, no, that's not right. I suppose I have to tell you a little about Dinah, herself. Dinah is the daughter of four different mothers, and she gains something from each one. She heard stories about their lives since she was born that she isn't even sure if her first memories are her own.

You would think that a girl like her would have some personality problems, or wouldn't have her own voice in this story with four different mothers and multitudes of brothers, but her voice is soothing, and she recalls each memory with the emotion that each deserve. The love that is shown within the family before the violent act is soothing and calm. Like being wrapped in your mother's arms, which is what I suppose the author wanted you to feel. Then the violent act and all the things that go wrong in her life after it happens. It's so painful because you, the reader, know, that this was something that is plausible, but because we see the outcome of the whole thing we find it so stupid because by the time that violent act happens, we already feel like we are a part of Dinah, and we only want what's best for her, but that's not how it goes and humans are greedy.

So, after this violent act things happen to Dinah that are painful on multitudes of different levels. We feel her pain and her sadness at each thing, yet she doesn't let the pain get to her. She doesn't put on fake bubbliness and pretend nothing bad never happens, no, she faces it by letting it move through her, recognizing it, and learning from what happens and begins to make her own happiness. This doesn't happen all at once, rather it takes her until she's too old to bear children to get through it completely, and find happiness. In the last fifty pages, it seems like all the things that made her unhappy or sad or angry come back, but she doesn't take revenge, neither does she make everything seem happy and like nothing bad ever happens. She lived through it, she knows what happened, and she understands how it happens, and she's willing to let things go and make the best of what she has. I don't know what it is, but the last fifty pages are so painful and insightful and somewhat sad.

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that this story affects the way you look at things, and maybe not just things, but people. Everyone has their bad things, but seeing Dinah growing up, and wishing for things, and not get everything she wants, and yet ending up happy is something that I believe everyone should learn. Not getting everything you want isn't bad, and it can change you for the better. I'm sure if the violent act hadn't happened Dinah would have gotten everything she wanted, but she might not have been as happy or as peaceful as she'd been with the life she had gotten.

Anyway, this story has just stuck with me even though it's been hours since I finished it, and I've done a bunch of things since reading it, but I don't believe it'll be leaving my thoughts for a while (especially since I have a paper due on it next week).

I suppose I wanted to go from writing about my learnings in the book to something I'm learning right now from the blog posts I've read this past week, however, I got sidetracked.

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately that talk about your passions, and figuring out what your passions are, and etcetera. From what I've learned, passions aren't something that comes with you when you are born, you have to create your own passions. I realized that the only thing I'm passionate about is reading. It's something I've mastered, almost. I don't know how you would determine when someone is a master of reading, how you would measure that, but I consider loving to read and willingness to read even when there are other things to do (like watch TV, which I actually don't watch that much anymore, except for House. I just love his character.). I think I've been trying to find other passions since eleventh grade when one of my English teachers asked me if I could write about something other than books, please? It struck a chord because books were my love, my joy. If anyone said anything badly about my books, I would begin to see them in a different light. Sadly, my mother had once made a mention that I should sell some of my books that I don't read so often, and I was completely shocked. Which I couldn't figure out why until a week later when I realized that I thought my mother knew how much they meant to me, and that just mentioning of getting rid of a few showed that she really didn't understand my passion, completely. She liked a good book, too, and so did my father, just not as much as I did.

So, anyway, around that time I began to think of what else I was good at, but I couldn't think of anything, really, and I was one of those people who figured it would come to me sooner or later. However, it wasn't until last year that I looked back to when I was younger and loved to draw, and then I started to draw a lot more. I realized that while I had thought I was okay, and I was, I mean, you could tell I was drawing a person, but I joined an online community of drawers, and realized I wasn't even half as good as some people my age were, and I began to draw a lot more seriously. I think that drawing could become a passion, if I continue practicing.

It also wasn't until last semester when I had absolutely not English classes that I realized I wanted to write. When I was younger I had a bunch of start up novels that were spur of the moment things, but because I never really got into them, and would only write when I had a great idea, I stopped putting my ideas down and only wrote when I had to. During the summer last year, I had an idea that while I may not be able to complete a novel, I could at least try a short story, which I used to think were ridiculous. How could it be a good story if it was short? I used to wonder. However, I really liked it. I wrote two during the summer during times of inspiration. One, I actually edited, but I think that it deserves some more editing since I took my English 204 class, and one is a really, really rough draft. Like drawing, I think writing will become a passion if I begin to write more often.

I think I just need to go to bed earlier, and not procrastinate my homework, so I can get up in the morning and write for 20 minutes a day (and, you know, fit in exercising into that plan, too.). I just need to learn to work harder and with more focus on my homework during the day so I won't have to worry about it later in the day. And so I don't get sick from stressing out about three papers in one week (of course, it didn't help standing outside for an hour in 40 degree weather in a light jacket.).

I'm happy, though. I'm realizing that I need to make some changes and that the only way to do that is to be the change I want to see. It helps living with someone as hard of a worker as the lady I'm living with. She asks me, "How's the homework going?" and things of that sort, so I feel guilty when I'm not doing my homework and surfing the net. I admire her very much, especially when she goes to bed later than me, and wakes up before me, I wish to be more like her, and Dinah, but not quite like them. I like my quirkiness.