What a poem-packed day! Here’s a piece that I’ve been beginning to (finally) love, Dvorak’s 9th, or the New World Symphony, which I offer to you as a soundtrack as you parse through the multitudes today. This title comes from TKS’ “My God, It’s Full of Stars”, as much else in my brain does. Something to start us off:

“Sometimes”, Mary Oliver

Well, so this is a wonderful poem as a whole, but I was thinking of it for a while today for the fifth part:
Two or three times in my life I discovered love. / Each time it seemed to solve everything. / Each time it solved a great many things / but not everything. / Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and / thoroughly, solved everything.
I struggle to disentangle myself from this sentiment. It doesn’t seem super healthy, at least not very independent. But still, I struggle to shake it. The fourth verse is also quite good.

“Never mention…”, Sandra Cisneros

This is a fun little poem. To it, I have to say: Remember the Alamo!

“Sea Glass”, Carl Phillips

I really like the second half of this poem, but I don’t have the energy to type it up and couldn’t find a link. Here are a few lines, actually the second half of the poem I guess:
All along, it was true: timing really is everything. I’ve loved this life. If it’s one thing to have missed the constellations for the stars themselves, it’s another, entirely, to have never looked up. Some mistakes, given time, don’t seem mistakes–I’m counting on that; others, though, perhaps a little bit still worth being sorry for, lose force, we forget them mostly, or we say we have and, almost, we surprise ourselves, even–we mean what we say: It’s cold here. It’s dark. Follow me.
This also reminds me of a poem from Brooke Horvath’s At Times collection, which I’m currently reading, called “Lake Glass” and about how the narrator would find the glass and then re-hide it for his little sister to find more easily, how he is writing this poem as if another of those pieces of lake glass, and this wonderful last line: There is nothing so common it cannot save you.

“OBIT”, Victoria Chang

I mean, fuck me. Read the cover. Read. I liked the tears one. I found the teeth one a little gross but still, good.

“You up?”, Rachelle Toarmino

Thank god I found this one, I was scared I wouldn’t, but I did, and how good. So many good lines, when I’m with you I also forget about the internet, the way I become movement inside your hands is my first language, and so on. How modern.

“The Discovery of the World”, Clarice Lispector

This is a longer piece, which I haven’t read yet but which looks to be good, but I liked this little excerpt:
There were two people with whom I had such a strong connection that I ceased to exist, while still continuing to be. How can I explain that? We would gaze into each other’s eyes and say nothing, and I was the other person and the other person was me.
Relatable, and leaves me wondering how I shall act in such situations having read this and all the other stuff of this past year. Also reminds me of some excerpt I read from Call Me By Your Name.

“markers”, Jay Hopler

Not going to type this poem out, but it’s on death again, of course, and I thought this line funny:
or why not steal a toilet & chisel it to one-up keats’s final whine: here lies one whose name was writ in shit
Like, come on.

“As Light”, Devin Kelly

I love this poem so much. Anyhow, I thought of it today when I came out of the cold and just stood warming myself in the sun for several minutes. Light. And how wonderful, how wonderful, how wonderful.

“meditation on folklore: a coda”, Jay Hopler

Again, no poem here, but nice.

“In a Field, at Sunset”, Carl Phillips

I really really like this poem. I guess I’m finding myself with Carl Phillips often these days. Reminds me of the this is water theme. the rhyme between lost and most, how good. How good. I drew a little grass and liney sunset for this one.

“Duck & Groundcover”, Jay Hopler

I thought this one was really well done, so I’ve taken to reproduce it. Read! This feels like some sort of a masterpiece to me.

Here, I began searching through all of the poems I’d saved to my instagram, looking for a poem which Brooke Horvath’s “Robbing the Dead” reminded me of, the one with the indentation of a loved one still in the bed, where grief fills the room, emptiness threatens to swallow the narrator up, cannot breathe, which I still cannot find and am rather frustrated about. I have such a clear picture of the poem instance rendered in my mind and I can’t believe that I didn’t save it and that all of my keywords do not yield anything on google. It vaguely reminds me of Chelsea Dingman’s “Memento Mori” and I often confused the two. If you know what I’m talking about, please do inform me. Anyhow, the following are poems I came up with instead of the one I really wanted.

“The Old Fuel”, Emily Berry

baby it’s hard work; cranking out oodles of love like an old spaghetti machine.

“Planet”, Catherine Pierce

I’m trying to come down soft today. I’m trying to see this place even as I’m walking through it.

“Object Permanence”, Nicole Sealey

O, how I’ll miss you when we’re dead; beholden to heat; O, how we entertain the angels with our brief animation, and so on. Good stuff.

“Love In The Time Of Pandemic”, Ashley Jones

So I couldn’t actually find a link for this and it’s quite long, but this last line has been with me for quite some time:
a chill always makes way for a grateful warmth
Anyhow, how good, this poem reminds me of Rachel, I sent it to her, she didn’t want it, I don’t think I shall ever send her another poem or at least not for a long while. Which is sad. But oh well. I wrote this in one of the previous days too, on attachment, where it belongs, because I’m filling them all in today. Anyhow, I found this decent blog post from Brown that makes use of the poem at hand a bit.

“Offering”, Albert Garcia

I saw this and realized how strongly this stems from Mary Oliver’s “I Don’t Want to Live a Small Life” or so I think. I wonder if other people think and see this.

“Cold”, Ellen Bass

This is so good.

And again, saw a Bukowski quote, thinking about what everything costs a person. What every ounce of compassion or goodness took. Stemming from DFW and Infinite Jest.

“Love Poem”, Tishani Doshi

I mean, I think she’s a great poet but I always despise this poem when I read it. The sentiment of why not begin now, in the middle of beautiful peace and content, yes, let’s tear now since we shall tear at some point anyway. And I mean, despising something is always a form of projection and yes I am projecting. Antonia mentioned that perhaps this part is more about insecurity and I can see that version too, I guess.

“Imagining Defeat”, David Berman

This is really very good as well. It’s funny that that’s all I keep on having to say today. I mean, perhaps hence the poem I wrote which is coming up.

“Where does such tenderness come from?”, Marina Tsvetaeva

This reminds me in part of Kristine and this summer, because really, where did such tenderness come from?, especially when it is withdrawn so quickly and without cause. The head on chest part reminds me of the only poem of hers Rachel ever shared with me. I won’t get into that.

Anyhow, I leave off here, unsatisfied because I couldn’t find that one damn poem that’s on the cusp of my ‘campus. Bleh. For shame. I shall marinate in this and hopefully produce it at some point soon. This happened recently and I rediscovered Franz Wright’s “The Poem” and the love letter from a tree and all that good stuff.

“Instantiation”, James Bowden

To end, a poem writ amidst this all. Perhaps this is the theme of today beside the title. Some synthesis, as most are. I really ought to pick Lispector up again, so much poetry there. I’m now thinking that maybe I’ll do an independent reading with a professor in the fall on Lispector, perhaps Agua Viva and Near to the Wild Heart and/or others, which, exciting! It is 3:03 AM and I am about to open the papers mentioned herein.