Poetry
I love poetry. I don't necessarily sit down and read big chunks of it, but when I need it, I can open a book or find a poem online and then I feel better. The first poems I ever remember really wanting to learn and love were Robert Service. My dad used to read the "biggies" like "The Creation of Sam Magee" and "The Shooting of Dan McGrew." In 4th or 5th grade my friend Lara and I performed the humorous poem "Bessie's Boil" at the forensics competition (and won first place!). I also memorized his poem "My Madonna" after my dad read it to me and I could tell he liked it. I didn't understand it for a long time, but I remember it to this day. I also remember the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones filled with poems about color, and the poem tale of Winkin, Blinkin and Nod.
In middle school we had an odd teacher and he read us "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock." It made no sense and was just weird but I remember the words, "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?/I will wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach./ I have heard the mermaids singing each to each / I do not think they sing to me."
When I got to college and got to really study that poem, I absolutely loved it. I read it over and over and focused on the specific images: to measure out one's life in coffee spoons, arms in the lamplight downed with light brown hair, yellow smoke that rubs its back upon the windowpanes. Although I like TS Eliot and have read - and taught - a lot of his poems, I think this is still my favorite.
I've gone through my phases where the poems I read were Gary Snyder - "Axe Handles," "Pine Tree Tops," "Riprap." When my mom moved to the Oregon Coast, I remembered his poem "Manzanita" and felt the connections of word and place and beauty and people. And then I lucked into magical poems like "The General" by Carolyn Forché and "The Orchard" by Gretel Erlich. My sister read "Sonnet 116" at my wedding, and sometimes I pull Dorothy Parker poems just to keep it real.
I don't know that my kids search out poetry and seek to bathe in it. Maybe some day they will. I hope so, because I can't imagine seeing the world with the lenses of language and imagery created through poetry. As Ed Abbey once said, "Poetry -even bad poetry - may be our final hope."
In middle school we had an odd teacher and he read us "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock." It made no sense and was just weird but I remember the words, "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?/I will wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach./ I have heard the mermaids singing each to each / I do not think they sing to me."
When I got to college and got to really study that poem, I absolutely loved it. I read it over and over and focused on the specific images: to measure out one's life in coffee spoons, arms in the lamplight downed with light brown hair, yellow smoke that rubs its back upon the windowpanes. Although I like TS Eliot and have read - and taught - a lot of his poems, I think this is still my favorite.
I've gone through my phases where the poems I read were Gary Snyder - "Axe Handles," "Pine Tree Tops," "Riprap." When my mom moved to the Oregon Coast, I remembered his poem "Manzanita" and felt the connections of word and place and beauty and people. And then I lucked into magical poems like "The General" by Carolyn Forché and "The Orchard" by Gretel Erlich. My sister read "Sonnet 116" at my wedding, and sometimes I pull Dorothy Parker poems just to keep it real.
I don't know that my kids search out poetry and seek to bathe in it. Maybe some day they will. I hope so, because I can't imagine seeing the world with the lenses of language and imagery created through poetry. As Ed Abbey once said, "Poetry -even bad poetry - may be our final hope."
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