The Small Nouns

Happy New Year: Burning 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 18:44:00 +0000

This poem...it speaks to me. I copied it, by hand, into my little poetry notebook yesterday. And it was a struggle. Not because it was hard to use good penmanship, but rather because it stirs up so many emotions. Leaving a year behind is often celebrated. Resolutions and confetti stuffed down our throats and thrown in our faces. There is so much more to it than that.

I have a friend. Well, she's more than a friend. And she recently moved away. Far away. I came within an angstrom of giving her this as a going away present. But I chickened out. I give it to you, instead, with hopes that it finds its way to her.

Burning the Old Year

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,

lists of vegetables, partial poems.

Orange swirling flame of days,

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

only the things I didn’t do

crackle after the blazing dies.

May your burnings be bright. And what's left after the blaze be your charge into a new year.

Poetry Friday: For the Children

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 15:25:00 +0000

I must say, it's been an amazing summer. For many reasons. Chief amongst them, probably the fact that I've spent so many great moments with my children. I don't reflect too often on the metaphysical aspects of parenthood. What am I leaving them with? What will they remember? Just keep them happy, make memories, and teach them to be good people...those are my tenets, I suppose. And I'm ok with that.

Making memories with the kids--Real Madrid v. Manchester United @ Michigan Stadium

I found a poem today by Gary Oliver and it resonates on many levels, but it definitely speaks to what I'd like my children to be able to say they learned from me someday. Oliver says it better than me, so I'll get to the poem...

"For the Children"
By Gary Oliver

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

Read the rest of the poem (the ending's worth it!!!) at The Writer's Almanac. If you like it as much as I do, you'll probably find yourself reading it several times.

Glad to make a return to Poetry Friday, which today is being rounded up at A Year of Reading. Check out all the other amazing posts being shared there today.

Reflections on a Gift

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:35:00 +0000

So, for reasons too numerous to list right now, I'm making some very strong efforts toward discovering happiness in life. They're going exceptionally well but, like anything in the realm of self-improvement, only time will tell. I've got plenty of cause to feel confident, though.

One thing I'm attempting to do is bring things into my life that make me happy. Poetry has always been one of these things, so it's making a return to my life rather than a debut.

It's amazing how turning to poetry can help one navigate pretty much any emotion in existence. Whether it's coping with loss, celebrating a birth, or the happiness and joys of every day life. There's a poem out there for it all.

As I find myself excited by the possibilities that life has to offer for the first time in a long time, I want to share a poem that brought me happiness today.

"Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity"
By John Tobias

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
    (Hollowed out
    Fitted with straws
    Crammed with tobacco
    Stolen from butts
    In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization;

During that summer--
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was--
Watermelons ruled.

Thick imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;

And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

----

Does this make you happy, too? Something about the innocence and nostalgia. Or the imagery. Or the idea of preserving our youth. And it has a sweet ending, which you know I love. It also reminds me of one of my other all-time-favorites by Gary Soto.

I apologize for publishing this poem in its entirety. I try to be a responsible digital citizen when it comes to copyright. May the poetry gods absolve me of this sin.

So here's to happiness. And poetry. And life. I'll be back soon with more to share.

photo credit: Wendy Longo photography via photopin cc

The Art of Description

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 20:26:00 +0000

I'm amazed at the ways poets can describe things. And I love finding poets I've never heard of. I had a poem stashed in my email that fits both of these and I rediscovered it today.

Because I cannot remember my first kiss

by Roger Bonair-Agard

but I remember sitting alone on the brown
couch in my grandmother’s living room,
couch whose cushion covers were of velvet
and the color of dark rust, or dried blood
—and sewn by the tailor from up the block,
the same one who made me my first light blue
suit two years earlier 
             And I sat there running my hands back 
             and forth
over the short smooth hairs of the fabric
and understanding what touch meant
for the first time—not touch, the word,
as in don’t touch the hot stove or don’t
touch your grandfather’s hats but touch
like Tom Jones was singing it right then
on the television, with a magic that began
in his hips, swiveled the word and pushed
it out through his throat into some concert
hall somewhere as a two-syllabled sprite,
so that women moaned syllables back in return.

I just love the word choice and the way he describes sitting on a couch. What I thing to describe! And I have a thing for poems whose title serves as the first line. Is that weird? Ah, poetry...

Please check out the rest of this gem at Poets.org. And definitely check out the Poetry Friday round-up at Mainely Write.

photo credit: foka kytutr via photopin cc

Poetry Friday: The Kick of Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:45:00 +0000

I need to get back to blogging here. My lay-off needs to end. I think I can do it. I'll start with today.

A friend shared this quote with me as we caught up over a beer recently. It's by Kurt Vonnegut:

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

I think I'll start doing that. And start blogging here more. I begin with sharing an amazing poem that came to my inbox this morning. "Time" by Chris Martin:

Time

by Chris Martin

All that happens happens

in the hollow

mouth

open mid-vow

knowing

only song will do

what an empty cave needs

done, drone

that seeds to fill

one space and then that

space's space, what

are we made

of if

not chants.

Sun slumping up

the stucco, cat chewing

her tail clean, nimbi

darkening the fallen

leaves leatherlike, I make

voice, voice, voice, voices

like a fist

on thinking's door

a fistula

wrapping abstraction

and binding it to what, morning

sickness, the lathed light

now flying through branches

made sinister

by season, a crook

in the amygdala's grey

ministry and all

I see is a circling murder

above the antenna

that replaced the weathervane.

Read the rest of the poem here. And check out the Poetry Friday roundup at Anastasia's poetry blog.

Poetry Friday: There's an App For That

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

Confession time: I just got my first smartphone. Welcome to the 21st Century, right? Yes, it was about time. And yes, it didn't take me long to realize how very, very sweet having a smartphone is. Definitely embarrassed to admit how much I love it.

One of the first apps I downloaded was from The Poetry Foundation, a great app with two "wheels" to "spin". The wheels are marked with categories: humor, joy, compassion, youth, etc. The wheels match up to create a list of poems that match the combination: Poems about Humor and Youth, Love and Joy, etc. Brilliant!

You can also search for poems by poet, poem title, subject, and mood. AND you can star your favorites for future reference. Also brilliant. If you're a smartphone user and a poetry lover, you've got to get this. Oh, and did I mention that it's free!?!? Again...brilliant.

With the app, I've found some gems that I probably wouldn't have discovered otherwise. Like this one:

Poem for Haruko

By June Jordan

I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain

or happiness

like candles lighting the entire soft lace

of the air

around the full length of your hair/a shower

organized by God

in brown and auburn

undulations luminous like particles

of flame

But now I do

retrieve an afternoon of apricots

and water interspersed with cigarettes

and sand and rocks

we walked across:

How easily you held

my hand

beside the low tide

of the world

Read the rest of the poem here, or find it on the app you just downloaded! Does it make

you as happy as it makes me that the ending of it contains the phrase: "infinite

tergiversations?"

Check out how to get the Poetry Foundation Mobile app for your smartphone or tablet by clicking here.

And be sure to check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup at No Water River, a pretty nifty blog that I'm going to have to start following.

Poetry Friday: From the Hip

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:42:00 +0000

Sometimes, you need a plan. You've gotta think about things before you do them. Figure out what to do first, next, and last. Obsess over the details. Try to get it all right. Set yourself up to ensure success. Whether it's a lesson you're teaching, a vacation you're planning, or figuring out how to ask somebody out. Sometimes you need a plan.

And then there's those other times. The times when you just have to go for it and say "forget about a plan."

I'd love to be more like the latter, but I have to admit that it's the former that tends to describe my M.O. most of the time.

What's my point? Not sure. But today I'm picking the first poem I see to share with you. Rebellious, I know. But you have to start somewhere.

So here's the first one I found when I did some poetry hunting today, and it's by a poet I'm not all familiar with beyond the name, Willa Cather.

L'Envoi

by Willa Cather

Where are the loves that we have loved before
When once we are alone, and shut the door ?
No matter whose the arms that held me fast,
The arms of Darkness hold me at the last.
No matter down what primrose path I tend,
I kiss the lips of Silence in the end.
No matter on what heart I found delight,
I come again unto the breast of Night.
No matter when or how love did befall,
'Tis Loneliness that loves me best of all,
And in the end she claims me, and I know
That she will stay, though all the rest may go.

Read the rest of this poem here. Not the most uplifting choice, but it's beautifully written, and that brings me joy. I wonder how long it took to write it. How much planning and thought went into it? How many drafts? Does great poetry ever come from the hip? Maybe in the early stages, when the idea first forms? Maybe someday I'll figure it out. Until then, be sure to enjoy the rest of the Poetry Friday offerings courtesy of today's host Read, Write, Howl.

Poetry Friday: A Poet to Know--Maureen N. McLane

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:34:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but when I discover a new poet, I get so excited. By "new," of course, I mean new to me. It's just so fun to read a great poem and then dig into a little internet searching to find another and another of their gems. And then maybe dial up the library or bookstore to request anything and everything they've published.

Here's someone I found today, Maureen McLane. I just had to share some of her stuff in honor of the first Poetry Friday of my mostest favorite month, November.

Check out this beauty:

Populating Heaven
by Maureen N. McLane

If we belonged to the dead, if we had our own Egyptian culture of care— the amulets of home entombed for solace everywhere— would we then have found a better way to cast beyond the merely given earth? If you want to follow me you'd better leave your plaid suitcase and makeup kit behind. I hope you won't mind the narrow corridor; the air in the chamber's thinned out. In this dark I think my life's an old hinge creaking in silence. Open the door and you'll see the creatures I imagined while you were waiting: the green-eyed dog upright on his throne, the winged lion, the woman whose third eye brightens the room.

You can read the rest here. It's written in such clear language. And it says so much.

And this next one appealed to me in the same way. I'm in a new position at my school as an instructional coach this year, so I'm out of the classroom...hardest part about this? Not getting to teach poetry. I would love to teach this poem and have students write their own "What I'm Looking For" poem:

What I'm Looking For
by Maureen N. McLane

What I'm looking for is an unmarked door we'll walk through and there: whatever we'd wished for beyond the door. What I'm looking for is a golden bowl carefully repaired a complete world sealed along cracked lines. What I'm looking for may not be there. What you're looking for may or may not be me.

The rest of this poem is here.

If you like these two and you enjoy a good love poem (and even though I say I am not a love poem fan, poems like this one make me change my mind) you will really like "Syntax."

Thanks for enjoying the poetry of Maureen N. McLane with me. Be sure to check out the rest of the Poetry Friday lineup today at Mainely Write (best blog title ever???).

Poetry Friday: Good Poems for Hard Times

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:52:00 +0000

I don't blog too much about my personal life. First of all, it's personal. Secondly, it's not all that interesting! I will say that I've been juggling a lot of work lately, including a new job, a book manuscript that's due in 2 months, and some big presentations that are coming up. It's been pretty stressful. Reading poetry is something that calms me, but I haven't made the time to do so during these hectic and anxiety-ridden early-autumn days.

I decided to remedy this situation today, so I downloaded a pretty fantastic book that I really need to tell you about. It's called Good Poems For Hard Times. It's an anthology that was edited by Garrison Keilor. I don't know much about Keilor outside of A Prairie Home Companion. And even that isn't something I'm very familiar with. But Keilor is, without a doubt, a poetry lover, and wow, can he pick a good poem (it's an aptly titled collection). Just look at what he has to say about poetry in the book's introduction...

"Poetry is about driving the nail into the pine, killing the chicken, mowing grass, putting luggage into the car, gratitude for food, the laughter of a little girl, about our common life."

And...

"American poetry is the truest journalism we have. What your life can be, lived bravely and independently, you can discover in poetry...Nobody will ever speak to you as straightforwardly as poetry does. Nobody."

And...

"Poetry is a necessity as simple as the need to be touched and similarly a need that is hard to enunciate."

So I turned to GPFHT the other day while riding the bus to work. I got through a total of one poem--and not because it was no good but rather because it was so good I had to keep reading and re-reading it. It was the very first poem in the book and it's called "Break of Day" by Galway Kinnell. Take a look:

Break of Day

He turns the light on, lights
the cigarette, goes out on the porch,
chainsaws a block of green wood down the grain,
chucks the pieces into the box stove,
pours in kerosene, tosses in the match
he has set fire to the next cigarette with,
stands back while the creosote-lined, sheet-
metal rust-lengths shudder but just barely
manage to direct the cawhoosh in the stove—
which sucks in ash motes through gaps
at the bottom and glares out fire blaze
through overburn-cracks at the top—

What a perfectly captured moment. And I'm an instant fan of any poem that has the word creosote in it. You can read the rest of the poem here.

What a great day for a Poetry Friday roundup, which is hosted today at Teacher Dance. Be sure to check it out!

Poetry Friday: Persona Poems

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:39:00 +0000

Persona Poems, poems written from the point of view of another person or an inanimate object, are one of my favorite types of poems for students to write. It's exciting and challenging to push them to "get inside the head" of someone else. It's also an excellent way to integrate poetry writing into your reading class (write a poem from a character's perspective) or social studies (write a poem from a historical figure's point of view).

I think it's also challenging to have students write as if they were an object. One of my most successful assignments came to me when I noticed someone's hat on the roof of our school. Students wrote poems in the hat's voice that told the story of how in the world it got up there. Good fun and yet another example of how poetry can bring the oft-neglected aspect of PLAY into the classroom.

One thing that's helpful to have when assigning poetry writing assignments is mentor poems, poems written by others (be it published/famous poets or other students) that can serve as models and inspiration.

There are plenty of mentor persona poems out there, but today I found a good one while looking for some poems by one of my favorite poets, Nikki Giovanni:

Quilts
by Nikki Giovanni

(for Sally Sellers) Like a fading piece of cloth I am a failure No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able To hold the hot and cold I wish for those first days When just woven I could keep water From seeping through Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave Dazzled the sunlight with my Reflection

Read the rest of the poem at Poets.org. I love how the poet makes me feel (I know this isn't eloquently stated, but it's true) like a quilt. And this is definitely going to be one of the mentor poems I use when teaching persona poems in the future.

Please check out the Poetry Friday roundup, which today is being hosted at Paper Tigers.

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qusic/2455881183/

Poetry Friday: I Love Poetry 180

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:23:00 +0000

Last time I posted, I wrote about how much I love Ted Kooser's site, American Life in Poetry. I thought I'd share another of my favorite poetry resources today, Poetry 180.

Poetry 180 is a project started by Billy Collins and the Library of Congress as a way of providing one poem each day for high school students and teachers. You can sign up to have the poems delivered to you via RSS or email.

Here's one from the collection that I really like:

After Us

Connie Wanek

I don't know if we're in the beginning
or in the final stage.
-- Tomas Tranströmer

Rain is falling through the roof.
And all that prospered under the sun,
the books that opened in the morning
and closed at night, and all day
turned their pages to the light;

the sketches of boats and strong forearms
and clever faces, and of fields
and barns, and of a bowl of eggs,
and lying across the piano
the silver stick of a flute; everything

invented and imagined,
everything whispered and sung,
all silenced by cold rain.

You can read the rest of the poem here. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you enjoy the Poetry Friday round-up, which is hosted today at No Water River.

Poetry Friday: One of My Favorite Poetry Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 19:33:00 +0000

Do you have someone in your life who not only shares poems with you and who never EVER shares one that isn't absolutely brilliant? How they do it, I'm not sure. But I'm lucky enough to have poet laureate Ted Kooser to do just that for me.

Now, Ted and I aren't friends per se. But I do have an RSS subscription to his site, American Life in Poetry. So we're practically BFFs. And Mr. Kooser is one of those kinds of friends...every poem he shares (one per week) is pure gold. I highly recommend subscribing to his site.

Here's some evidence to support my opinion:

The Word That Is a Prayer

By Ellery Akers

One thing you know when you say it:

all over the earth people are saying it with you;

a child blurting it out as the seizures take her,

a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital.

What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin:

at a street light, a man in a wool cap,

yarn unraveling across his face, knocks at the window;

he says, Please.

By the time you hear what he’s saying,

the light changes, the cab pulls away,

and you don’t go back, though you know

someone just prayed to you the way you pray.

Please: a word so short

it could get lost in the air

Read the rest here.

You MUST also read this one, which I featured here previously.

Night Dive

By Peggy Shumaker

Plankton rise toward the full moon

spread thin on Wakaya’s surface.

Manta rays’ great curls of jaw

scoop backward somersaults of ocean

in through painted caves of their mouths, out

through sliced gills. Red sea fans

pulse. The leopard shark

lounges on a smooth ramp of sand,

skin jeweled with small hangers-on.

Pyramid fish point the way to the surface.

Read the rest of this poem here.

And be sure to check out the Poetry Friday roundup, hosted today at Write. Sketch. Repeat.

Poetry Friday: A.R. Ammons

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 14:12:00 +0000

Is there a greater gift than a book of poetry? A friend and colleague of mine made a special trip to my school earlier this month to deliver a book of poems by A.R. Ammons. He even wrote an inscription and highlighted his favorites! That's how poetry lovers give gifts.

So I've been sort of slowly soaking myself in Ammons's work. He's not a poet I was really familiar with beyond recognizing his name. But I'm definitely a fan.

My favorite so far is called "Staking Claim." But, I can't find a copy online that I'm authorized to use. So instead I bring you the beginning portion of a long but elegant poem called "Corsons Inlet:"

Corsons Inlet

BY A. R. AMMONS

I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning

to the sea,

then turned right along

the surf

rounded a naked headland

and returned

along the inlet shore:

it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,

crisp in the running sand,

some breakthroughs of sun

but after a bit

continuous overcast:

the walk liberating, I was released from forms,

from the perpendiculars,

straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds

of thought

into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends

of sight:

I allow myself eddies of meaning:

yield to a direction of significance

running

like a stream through the geography of my work:

you can find

in my sayings

swerves of action

like the inlet’s cutting edge

Explore the rest of this beauty at the Poetry Foundation. And be sure to check out the Poetry Friday

roundup at Poetry for Children.

photo credit: Beaulawrence via photo pin cc

Poetry Friday: Birthday Poems

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:37:00 +0000

I set out this morning to find a poem about birthdays to share with my wife, whose birthday is today. It turned out to be more difficult than I thought.

When it comes to good birthday poems, it seems there have been a lot of them written from parent, to child. These don't suit the occasion at all, really.

There are also many poems that reference a specific age--15, 64, etc. These were a little too specific for my tastes.

There are also several birthday poems out there that are pretty good...but kind of dark. Yea, that won't do for me.

I did find this gem about birthdays by Stanley Kunitz, though. I like it a lot, but it might not make a good "gift:"

Passing Through

BY STANLEY KUNITZ

—on my seventy-ninth birthday

Nobody in the widow’s household

ever celebrated anniversaries.

In the secrecy of my room

I would not admit I cared

that my friends were given parties.

Before I left town for school

my birthday went up in smoke

in a fire at City Hall that gutted

the Department of Vital Statistics.

If it weren’t for a census report

of a five-year-old White Male

sharing my mother’s address

at the Green Street tenement in Worcester

I’d have no documentary proof

that I exist. You are the first,

my dear, to bully me

into these festive occasions.

Read the rest at the Poetry Foundation.

I settled on a poem called "Crossroads" by Joyce Sutphen. It references "middle age," which doesn't apply to my wife, but I like what it's trying to say, so I think I'll share it with her...and you!

Crossroads
by Joyce Sutphen

The second half of my life will be black to the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, knowing at least two languages and who my friends are. I will dress for the occasion, and my hair shall be whatever color I please. Everyone will go on celebrating the old birthday, counting the years as usual, but I will count myself new from this inception, this imprint of my own desire. The second half of my life will be swift, past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder, asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road. The second half of my life will be wide-eyed, fingers shifting through fine sands, arms loose at my sides, wandering feet. There will be new dreams every night, and the drapes will never be closed. I will toss my string of keys into a deep well and old letters into the grate.

Read the rest here.

Today's Poetry Roundup location, at the time of this posting, is difficult to determine. Check with Julie Larios, who posted that she's looking into it. See you next week!

Poetry Friday: A Poet to Know--Heather McHugh

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 19:58:00 +0000

Ok, so you probably already know Heather McHugh. If you don't, though, don't feel bad. Neither did I until a few years ago. Ok, so I knew nothing about poetry until a few years ago. But that is neither here nor there.

Last week, I wrote about Elise Paschen and shared some of her amazing work. I came across a poem by Heather McHugh that I really liked, and I thought, "I should do the same thing for her." So now, I bring you "Glass House:"

Glass House
by Heather McHugh

Everything obeyed our laws and we just went on self-improving till a window gave us pause and there the outside world was, moving. Five apartment blocks swept by, the trees and ironwork and headstones of the next town's cemetery. Auto lots. Golf courses. Rest homes. Blue-green fields and perishable vistas wars had underscored in red were sweeping past

Read the rest of the poem here. Gosh, how I love a poem with a good ending. Make sure you click through, it's totally worth it. And I just love the word "nonplussed." I think I will start using it more.

If you thought that was good, wait until you read "Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun:"

Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun
by Heather McHugh

A book is a suicide postponed. --Cioran Too volatile, am I? too voluble? too much a word-person? I blame the soup: I'm a primordially stirred person. Two pronouns and a vehicle was Icarus with wings. The apparatus of his selves made an ab- surd person. The sound I make is sympathy's: sad dogs are tied afar. But howling I become an ever more un- heard person. I need a hundred more of you to make a likelihood. The mirror's not convincing-- that at-best in- ferred person.

Check out the rest of this poem here. If you're not familiar with the ghazal poetic form (I wasn't until...well, you know), click here. And that one's ending might have been better than "Glass House's," don't you think? "McHugh, you'll be the death of me." The poet talking to herself (or her offspring???). Nice move, McHugh. Halfway to the third person" (a.k.a. the second person) is really, really smart (for lack of a better word), too. Wow! Love those poems.

Here are 2 more you'll like:

Heck, she's so good, just go to the Poetry Foundation and read all that she has there!

This week's Poetry Friday is hosted by Violet Nesdody HERE. Be sure to check it out.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25228175@N08/4803700847/

Poetry Friday: A Poet to Love--Elise Paschen

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 22:53:00 +0000

Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago

Four Poetry Fridays in a row...after such a long hiatus, I'd say that's pretty good. Today I was going to share a short poem I found and adored. It was so good that I couldn't help but start searching for other poems by the poet. Here's the first bit of the first one I found, "Division Street" by Elise Paschen.

Division Street
by Elise Paschen

". . . Prayer book and Mother, shot themselves last Sunday." Gwendolyn Brooks The spire of Holy Name Cathedral rose like a prayer above Chicago Avenue. I thumbed a leather-bound book in catechism class, recited the Hail Mary. Fire and devils blazed at night. The nuns told my mother I had a calling.

Read the rest of the poem here at Poets.org.

You really have to love a short poem. I've written before about how fascinating I find them. Brevity is not a strength of mine, so I'm awestruck when a poet can weave magic using a few short lines.

But I digress...I was so enamored with this poem that I absolutely had to find more by Elise Paschen. Here's a bit from one that tells sort of a heart-wrenching and uncomfortable story, it's called "Voir Dire:"

When he phoned the next morning from another state,

saying that, after our dance,

after my exit, in full view of the guests,

the waiters at long tables

of open bars, she lunged at him, tearing his tux,

his dress shirt, scratching his chest,

drawing blood with her nails, demanding a response:

"Why can't you love only me?"

You can read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.

Finally, I'll share two more, that you can click these links to read. They're worth it...

Be sure to check out the Poetry Friday roundup over at On the Way to Somewhere, a new member of the Poetry Friday host club.

Poetry Friday: School is in the Air

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Our friends among us who are educators are heading back to school soon. During the next five weeks or so, teachers and students will be starting another school year. For me, it will be the start of my 12th full year of teaching. (Although this year for the first time I'm working as an instructional coach, so I'm teaching teachers so to speak.)

Back to school time is always a mix of pleasure and pain. Pain when I think about all the things on my to-do list that didn't get done (I will fix you soon, storm door!) and pleasure regarding the excitement of a fresh start--new students, new goals, new ideas, etc.

So today's poem goes out to all the educators out there. It's a poem with school as the setting, but it's definitely about more than just school.

Handwriting Analysis

by Katrina Vandenberg

On the first day of fourth grade, Mrs. Hunter
collected our penmanship samples to save

until June; by then, she said, we'd write
in the handwriting we would have all our lives.

Though she probably read that in a book
on child development, I was so excited

I could hardly stand it. In nine months
my adult self would be born, she would

send me a letter; in the ways she swooped,
careened, and crossed her t's, I could

read everything I would need to know.
We were writing ourselves into the future.

Read the rest of the poem here. I think it would be a great poem to read with students. I'm curious about what they would think. And about what you think!

Next week I'll try for four Poetry Fridays in a row. I think I can do it! Until then, you should check out this week's Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted at a blog that's new to me and that's definitely worth a subscription, Life is Better With Books.

A Poetry Mixtape: Poems From Outer Space

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:28:00 +0000

I just love a poem that gets into my head. Maybe I'm the only one that happens to? I don't know.

What I do know is that lately, when Gotye or Carly Rae Jepsen isn't stuck in my head, it's been this poem:

Mars Poetica
by Wyn Cooper

Imagine you're on Mars, looking at earth, a swirl of colors in the distance. Tell us what you miss most, or least. Let your feelings rise to the surface. Skim that surface with a tiny net. Now you're getting the hang of it. Tell us your story slantwise, streetwise, in the disguise of an astronaut in his suit.

Read the rest of the poem HERE.

I just love the title's play on "Ars Poetica," and other subtleties such as the narration. Who's talking? Aliens? Cylons?

I also like the idea of telling a story "slantwise..." how does one do that exactly?

And the ending...the ending is tremendous: "how words mean things / we didn't know we knew." You're compelled to pause and think about that for a bit, and that's just beautiful. I would definitely enjoy teaching and discussing this poem with students, wouldn't you?

If you're like me when you read this, you get to wondering if there are any other poems out there about outer space. Well, you're in luck! I decided to make a little Poetry Mix Tape for you:

Ok, so some of those aren't exactly about outer space, especially the last few. But they have a celestial tilt to them, at least.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Please be sure to check out the amazing things happening at the Poetry Friday Roundup, being hosted today HERE.

Poetry Friday: Ending the Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:18:00 +0000

I've had every intention of posting more often. I apologize, dear readers. Obligations with my teaching job and my side gig as CEO of a small educational consulting start-up have been more demanding than expected.

But I return today with a renewed commitment to at the very least participating in a few Poetry Fridays each month. I've been collecting poems with the plan of blogging about them...so today I want to share a few that stood out.

The first is one that I'm sure I've shared before, by one of my absolute most favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye. It's called "Famous," and I read it at the end-of-year ceremony for my fifth graders, who finished elementary school last month. I think it was fitting for the occasion.

FamousBy Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

Read the rest of the poem here at Poetry Out Loud. It's nothing short of brilliant.

To make up for my absence, here are two more poems I discovered. The first would be great for classroom use...the descriptions are incredibly vivid. The second...it's one of those I'm not sure why I like it. But I do. A lot.

To The Field Of Scotch Broom That Will Be Buried By The New Wing Of The Mall
by Lucia Perillo

Half costume jewel, half parasite, you stood swaying to the music of cash registers in the distance while a helicopter chewed the linings of the clouds above the clear-cuts. And I forgave the pollen count while cabbage moths teased up my hair before your flowers fell apart when they turned into seeds. How resigned you were to your oblivion, unlistening to the cumuli as they swept past. And soon those gusts will mill you, when the backhoe comes to dredge your roots, but that is not what most impends, as the chopper descends to the hospital roof so that somebody's heart can be massaged back into its old habits.

Read the rest here at Poets.org.

Saw You There
by Ander Monson

"Carrie says I should make my connections into a poem." —Dennis Etzel Jr. Sawed you there, through you there, girl whom I name Carrie, shine of sun on bonnet-handle at that Walgreens on 28th. A Friday night. It looked like you came straight from fighting something that looked like lightning. You were all scorched up. Tired look but with a residue of glow, not in the family way, as they used to say, and as I still do, since I venerate the old, but filled to the heart with stars. Looking light years away, the way you operated that Redbox: how can a girl seem so far from Earth while at a Redbox?

Read the rest here at Poets.org.

I hope you enjoyed these three gems. I hope to be back next Friday with more.

Be sure to check out the other Poetry Friday posts at today's host, Jone at Check it Out.

Poetry Friday: Looking to the Past

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:36:00 +0000

I tend to turn towards modern poetry a lot in my teaching and reading. I thoroughly enjoy contemporary poetry and all that it has to offer. Collins, Merwin, Shihab Nye, and so many other of my favorites write such beautiful and inspiring poems...there is never a shortage to choose from, both as a teacher and reader. I have to stop myself sometimes and remember to look to the past.

Poets.org provides me with a poem each day, delivered straight to my inbox (you should sign up, too), and while a lot of the poems they choose seem to be intended to provide exposure to late 20th and 21st century poems, every so often, they mix in poems from older greats such as Whitman, Dickinson, Donne, and Shelley.

A couple of weeks ago, they delivered a poem from the 19th century by someone I don't think I realized wrote poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson. I really got into the transcendentalists as a high school student and read a lot of Whitman and Thoreau and Emerson...but none of his poems, I guess. Here's one I really enjoy:

Water
By Ralph Waldo Emerson

The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.

Short and simple. I like it a lot. Poetry Friday is being hosted by Laura Salas at Writing the World For Kids. Please be sure to check it out.

Poetry Friday: The Joys of Poetry 180

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:03:00 +0000

Are you familiar with Poetry 180? It's a program designed to help integrate poetry into the daily lives of high school students. Founded by poet Billy Collins during his tenure as poet laureate, it offers up an incredibly enjoyable poem every day for all 180 days of the school year.

If you explore the Poetry 180 site, you're bound to find a gem that you haven't read before. Better yet, you can subscribe and have each day's poem delivered directly to you. A collection of the 180 poems has been published as a book and it was so successful they published a second collection, too.

Poetry 180 is one of my favorite sources for discovering new poems. Once you start exploring it, you'll have trouble stopping. Check out Poem #36, which was delivered to me earlier this week:

The Printer's Error

Aaron Fogel

Fellow compositors
and pressworkers!

I, Chief Printer
Frank Steinman,
having worked fifty-
seven years at my trade,
and served five years
as president
of the Holliston
Printer's Council,
being of sound mind
though near death,
leave this testimonial
concerning the nature
of printers' errors.

First: I hold that all books
and all printed
matter have
errors, obvious or no,
and that these are their
most significant moments,
not to be tampered with
by the vanity and folly
of ignorant, academic
textual editors.
Second: I hold that there are
three types of errors, in ascending
order of importance:
One: chance errors
of the printer's trembling hand
not to be corrected incautiously
by foolish professors
and other such rabble
because trembling is part
of divine creation itself.

Read the rest of the poem here. I think it's a brilliant piece, don't you? There's a lot there for students to sink their teeth into. I hope you find some time to explore Poetry 180. Let me know what you think.

Poetry Friday, my favorite day of the week, features a round-up of bloggers which this week is hosted by the awesome Diane at Random Noodling. If you liked this post, you'll love the collection of posts featured there. You'll also want to be sure to subscribe to this blog via email in the handy sidebar widget or via RSS.

Poetry Friday: Poetry Mix Tape for Autumn 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:47:00 +0000

It has been quite some time since I put together a Poetry Mix Tape. Since autumn is in full swing here in Michigan, I thought it would make for the perfect topic. I mixed some poems on autumn for you last year, but I think I like these even more. I hope you like them, too:

Theme in Yellow by Carl Sandburg
Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
October by Bobbi Katz
Fall, Leaves, Fall by Emily Bronte
After Apple Picking by Robert Frost
Late Autumn Wasp by James Hoch

And perhaps my new favorite poem about Autumn by Juhan Liiv...

"Leaves Fell"

A gust roused the waves,
leaves blew into the water,
the waves were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

It was good for my heart,
there my feelings were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

You can read the rest of the poem here. The ending is good. Really good. And while the mood of the poem is kind of down, I like it for the complexity that's hidden there. The repetition and the imagery. I like it a lot.

If you like it, too, let me know. And if you like poetry, you'll love Poetry Friday, which today is being hosted at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Jama's also sharing some autumn poetry today (and one delicious-looking photo of a doughnut). So be sure to check it out!

Poetry Friday: Poet Laureate Philip Levine

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:36:00 +0000

Time is a tricky thing. It seems like W.S. Merwin was just named U.S. poet laureate a few days ago. But apparently his term in that position is nearly over. While The Small Nouns was on hiatus this summer, Philip Levine was named to the post. In typical fashion, Mr. Levine's response to his appointment included this nugget: "If you take it too seriously, you're an idiot."

His career is quite accomplished. He has published over 20 books and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. I'm particularly fond of his poems because of Mr. Levine's roots--he was born and raised in Detroit, the city I grew up not far from and in which I currently work. He has written about Detroit often and, in my opinion, some of his poems reflect an urban "grittiness," that definitely resonates with Detroiters.

So while I'm a few months late to the party, I want to showcase a few of Philip Levine's poems here for my weekly Poetry Friday post. I start with one about a Detroit landmark:

Belle Isle, 1949
By Philip Levine

We stripped in the first warm spring night

and ran down into the Detroit River

to baptize ourselves in the brine

of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles,

melted snow. I remember going under

hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl

I'd never seen before, and the cries

our breath made caught at the same time

on the cold, and rising through the layers

of darkness into the final moonless atmosphere

that was this world, the girl breaking

the surface after me and swimming out

on the starless waters towards the lights

of Jefferson Ave. and the stacks

of the old stove factory unwinking.

Read the rest of this poem here. It's worth it. I just love the imagery. Here's another, the title poem of his Pulitzer Prize winning book:

The Simple Truth
by Philip Levine

I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.
Then I walked through the dried fields
on the edge of town. In middle June the light
hung on in the dark furrows at my feet,
and in the mountain oaks overhead the birds
were gathering for the night, the jays and mockers
squawking back and forth, the finches still darting
into the dusty light. The woman who sold me
the potatoes was from Poland; she was someone
out of my childhood in a pink spangled sweater and sunglasses
praising the perfection of all her fruits and vegetables
at the road-side stand and urging me to taste
even the pale, raw sweet corn trucked all the way,
she swore, from New Jersey. "Eat, eat" she said,
"Even if you don't I'll say you did."
Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.

Read the ending of this poem here. His poems, in my opinion, have a similar voice, but each stands out on its own as unique somehow. Also, they all seem to have really good endings. The last few lines of "The Simple Truth" contains this amazing line: "Can you taste what I'm saying?"

Here's the ending of "He Would Never Use One Word When None Would Do:"

Fact is, silence is the perfect water:
unlike rain it falls from no clouds
to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes,
to give heart to the thin blades of grass
fighting through the concrete for even air
dirtied by our endless stream of words.

I love that. The rest of the poem can be read here.

I hope Philip Levine's poetry appeals to you as much as it does to me. I can see how it might not, but if it doesn't, give it another chance. You might change your mind!

Poetry Friday is hosted at fomagrams today. Please get over there and check it out!

Poetry Friday: Fill in the Blanks

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:03:00 +0000

I recently attended the TEDxDetroit conference and got filled up with a day's worth of motivation and great advice. I think the event was aimed mainly at entrepreneurs, but there was a good deal of stuff that had implications in education.

One of the tidbits was provided by improv comedienne and self proclaimed "Idea Goddess," Hailey Zureich. She proposed that in order to be successful, you must "articulate your reality." In other words, say it out loud...this will help make it so. She offered this as an explanation: "Every day, when you wake up, you make the decision of whether you're going to have an 'oh sh** day' or a 'hot sh** day.'" Making that decision, articulating your reality, saying it out loud...this goes a long way towards making it happen.

I found this to be fairly insightful. And it somehow brought to mind a poem by Lou Lipsitz that I came across a while back:

"Have a _____ Day"
by Lou Lipsitz

Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.
Have (however unlikely) a life-changing day.
Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.
Have a confused day thinking about fate.

Have a day of wholes.
Have a day of poorly marked,
unrecognizable wholes you
cannot fathom.
Have a ferocious day, a bleak
unbearable day. Have a
riotously unproductive day;
a grim jaw-clenched, Clint Eastwood vengeful
law enforcement day.
Have a day of raging, hair-yanking
jealousy and meanness. Have a day
of almost grasping
how whole you are; a finely tuned,
empty day.

Have a nice day of walking and circling;
a day of stalking and hunting,
of planting strange seeds and wandering in the woods.
Have a day of endearing nonsense,
of hopelessly combing your hair,
a day of yielding, of swallowing
hard, breathing more deeply,
a day of fondness for beetles
and macabre spectacles, or irreverence
about anything you want, of just
sitting and wondering.

You can read the rest of "Have a ___ Day" here. (Try reading it out loud, it makes this one even better.) I hope you're able to fill in your own blanks today. I hope today is the kind of day you want it to be. I hope you say it and make it so.

I also hope you check out the Poetry Friday round up at Great Kid Books. There's SO much great poetry to read about today. Enjoy!

Poetry Friday: Poetry Goes Mainstream?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Curran) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:45:00 +0000

(A day late on this post, but that's okay!)

Recently discovered in my mailbox:

Included among the coupons, you'll find "gems" such as this:

a pick-me-up perk

how about another cup?

two o'clock delight

and this:

fresh breath on a brush

mint polish for your choppers

make your momma proud

Some questions come to mind:

If the #2 retailer in the world is using poetry to sell Tide, Dasani, and Hefty, does that mean poetry has gone mainstream?

Will the average junk mail recipient really "get" what it's all about?

Are there some ancient Japanese poets rolling over in their graves as they see their beautiful form, written to celebrate the beauty of nature, hijacked to sell trash bags? (I checked the back of the booklet for an apology to Issa or Basho, but found none.)

I guess I don't know the answer. I don't know whether to find it cute or to be cynical about it. I don't know if I should be happy that Target has essentially tricked possibly millions of non-poetry readers into reading poetry.

I'll let you be the judge. Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment.

The awesome blog Picture Book of the Day hosted the Poetry Friday roundup yesterday. It's not too late to check it out!