Today’s poem is “…And Three Hundred and Sixty-Six in Leap Year” by Ogden Nash.
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 3c: Portrait Poem
All’s still,
as a head cocks
scanning debris:
wires jut from under a futon
and loveseat, from under
the front and side
of a particleboard armoire ,
the sides askew,
hollow corpses of clothing
lie newly
laundered, an empty Jif jar
biding its time
until the spirit lands upon
a fat body longing
for the fridge.
Perhaps then,
throwing off an old blanket,
tripping bare feet
over soiled jeans,
he will stop,
look back
and spot the waste of a day,
of a life, the computers
bleeding. What shock
could finally alter
his lost mind,
entice him to face
this disheveled carpet,
raise his hand
to lift the husks of oranges, dripping.
–
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 3a: An Invitation to Wolves
Today’s poem is “The Party to Which Wolves are Invited” by Thalias Moss
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 2c: Again to Her Bosom
Who bears our tales, pining
in their illegible lines,
in black composition books
asleep in attics, or at
the feet of beds, in boxes
and chests hid in our closets?
How many sheets, how many
reams of stories lie dormant,
our shoddy masterpieces
piled on-point and off-rhyme,
once ripe grapes on dying vines?
How many raisins crinkling
in the sun never to rise,
our old schemes squoze, the subjects
of their last sittings grown old?
How many odd, off kilter
lustings live inside these tombs
or in chapbook tomes, never
again to be picked up, soaked up
or coddled? What schemes can we
devise to let these silly
opuses rise, tell the tale
we’ve been carrying along
in flutes of celebration
or bagpipes that whine beneath
our breath, below our dress skirts
and ties? Or simply, do we
let the earth take them again
to her bosom, make them mulch
and fodder and loam, remix
them with rain, with new rhythm,
with a dash of thawing spring
and sunshine, let new stalks rise?
–
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 2A
Today’s poem is “A Fan Letter” by Amy Gerstler from Crown of Weeds (Penguin Poets)
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 1c: Obsessions in Half-Light
Street beacons twisting
their turn down the road
home
nights when the long moon,
and its cold shadows
crawl
across eves, where stars
are obscured by dim
clouds.
We cling, like children
to flashing taillights,
red
in front of us, spots
backliting billboards,
neon
adverts on the square
face of commercial
space.
Being left barren
in this half-lit age,
old,
I can’t remember
the sun, nor his face,
cease
chasing follow-spots
through the long forest
home.
–
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 1b: Nouns and Verbs (and sometimes adjectives)
Nouns and verbs (and sometimes adjectives) are a measure of density in a poem.
The scoring system:
tangible nouns = 5 points
active verbs = 3 points
enhancing adjectives = 1
all other words = 0
/ divided by the total number of words
2.0 being the goal.
Nouns and verbs (and sometimes adjectives) are a peg on which to turn, like the embankment on a race track. A sunday drive versus wild ride.
If you fail to think
about the turns they must make
and give them a hand
you may send your reader
careening
off
a steep cliff
Use Nouns and verbs (and sometimes adjectives) to make a conscious choice about what you are choosing to do to your reader.
Finally, nouns and verbs (and sometimes adjectives) are the foundation on which you end your poem?
Noun – solid, like a rock
Verb – the ear of the reading chiming
Adjective – leaves you breathless
Think about the words you are using and what role they play, cut out the filler, consider your turns (roller coaster versus sunday drive) and know how you want to end the poem, what is the foundation.
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
Episode 1A
Today’s poem is “After Work” by Richard Jones from The Blessing (Copper Canyon Press)
email: PoetryPoemPome@mac.com
phone: 70 425 Poems
