Favorite contemporary poets?

[uranderson]

Hi uranderson, I used to read her poems a lot but there is one in particular I am trying to find. I can't clearly recall the lines to it or even the first line. If I saw it I would know it. I have to think more about it. If I come up with one line maybe could you help me find it online or suggest the first line so I can locate it? I will get back to you later, if I think of it. NO - I am not going senile yet - just 'brain overload!'

I haven't read everything, she's got a LOT of books, but what I have I will remember, maybe.

Can you recall what is was about?

[libernaut]

well played on the mention of jeff tweedy and wilco, the new album, SKY BLUE SKY is out, lyrics and music are both beautiful. A ghost is born is a classic.

[quasimodo1]

If there is something to desire, there will be something to regret. If there is something to regret, there will be something to recall. If there is something to recall, there was nothing to regret. If there was nothing to regret, there was nothing to desire. excerpt from "Four Poems" by Vera Pavlova/ the New Yorker, July 30, 2007

[quasimodo1]

(Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein)
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind. ...First stanza of poem by Shel Silverstein

[Janine]

I haven't read everything, she's got a LOT of books, but what I have I will remember, maybe.

Can you recall what is was about?

Thanks uranderson,
Ok, now don't laugh - this is really vague. I just recall it has something to do with a fortress (metaphorically) or camped outside your boundries - reminds me of the song by Sting - 'Fortress around Your Heart' - not even sure those are the right words to the song, but fortress and heart are in the song somewhere....haha -- I can hear you howling now with laughter...talk about losing ones mind... .


It just came to me that the poem might be in the book "Freeing of the Dust". I used to have that book but somewho lost it.

[Janine]

I can't believe it - I found the poem online:

Ways of Conquest by Denise Levertov

You invaded my country by accident,
not knowing you had crossed the border.
Vines that grew there touched you.
You ran past them,
shaking raindrops off the leaves - you or the wind.
It was toward the hills you ran,
inland -

I invaded your country with all my
'passionate intensity',
pontoons and parachutes of my blindness.
But living now in the suburbs of the capital
incognito,
my will to take the heart of the city
has dwindled. I love
its unsuspecting life,
its adolescents who come to tell me their dreams in the dusty park
among the rocks and benches,
I the stranger who will listen.
I love
the wild herons who return each year to the marshy outskirts.
What I invaded has
invaded me.

By my search, I have no idea why I was directed to this person's blog, but I am so thankful to find the poem at long last. It is one of my all-time favorites! It just speaks to me, especially the very first time I read it, being in certain circumstances.

[quasimodo1]

the children are healthy
the children are rosy . . .
they sleep without crying
they are very smart
each day they grow
you would hardly know them.

The opening poems in the book have the feel of creation myths, retold from woman's point of view, with revisionist metaphors:

A woman invented fire and called it the wheel
Was it because the sun is round
I saw the round sun bleeding to sky
And fire rolls across the field
from forest to treetop
It leaps like a bike with a wild boy riding it.

Grace Paley (1922-2007) writer of prose and poetry (much of her work concerning women) died Wensday, August 22, 2007...the short fragments above from her collected poetry and a lengthy obituary from the NYTimes. A life and work worth looking into.

[quasimodo1]

http://select.nytimes.com/search/res...A10894DF404482 ......Sorry about this dead link...will re-post another

[AuntShecky]

Do they have to be still alive? If not, and if they're considered contemporary because they're still taught in
schools -- or the good ones anyway, then -- Auden, Roethke, James Merrill, William Carlos Williams, and Langston Hughes. Hughes is deceptively simple; there are layers upon layers of meaning in just a couple of lines.
Among those "contemporary" poets who still walk the earth: Ferlinghetti, Billy Collins, Miller Williams, Donald Justice, Sharon Olds. Miller Williams, by the bye, is the father of the dynamic folksinger, Lucinda Williams. See? Ya learn something new every day.
Auntie

[uranderson]

Hey Janine, glad you found it, I wouldn't have been able to help. I don't remember that one. I read a lot by her, but it's been a while and most I didn't read more than once. I remember going over Evening Train quite a few times though, and the poems of her's in the Naked Poetry anthology were some of the first that I can say I really loved, some I tried to memorize. Weren't you the one who recommended that book in another thread? I read that so much it fell apart, that's where I found Roethke's Meditation at Oyster River, which I've been imitating ever since , also Rexroth's translations of those Chinese poets (Tu Fu is one I think) are awesome. Especially Written on the Wall at Cheng's Hermitage, where the guy is living alone, tames the local deer and "needs nothing". Great stuff.

[AuntShecky]

It must've been provincialism in that I forgot to include the contemporary Irish poets, notably Seamus Heaney
and Paul Muldoon.

[quasimodo1]

Usually new Irish poets wouldn't merit a headline in a major newspaper but this woman deserves one. She isn't really new, but has determined to maintain privacy and a low profile, except when she publishes poetry and then all bets are off. I can't think of a more talented poet that transcends more standards then she knows. One of her latest collections is called "On Ballycastle Beach" and I havn't purchased a better collection in years. The legalities prevent me from posting her work, even in part. She can be found here...http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/McGuckian.html ...My sister, who normally never reads poetry went out and bought this book as soon as I sent her a sample. But, I rant on. quasimodo1

[Janine]

Hey Janine, glad you found it, I wouldn't have been able to help. I don't remember that one. I read a lot by her, but it's been a while and most I didn't read more than once. I remember going over Evening Train quite a few times though, and the poems of her's in the Naked Poetry anthology were some of the first that I can say I really loved, some I tried to memorize. Weren't you the one who recommended that book in another thread? I read that so much it fell apart, that's where I found Roethke's Meditation at Oyster River, which I've been imitating ever since , also Rexroth's translations of those Chinese poets (Tu Fu is one I think) are awesome. Especially Written on the Wall at Cheng's Hermitage, where the guy is living alone, tames the local deer and "needs nothing". Great stuff.

Hi uranderson, you are back. I was hoping you would resurface and see that I found my poem. It was quite by accident I came across it and luck because what I had written in search is not even in the poem literally. I knew it immediately. I wish I knew which book it came from, just surmissing on my part that it might be in "Freeing of the Dust" - I think I foolishly gave that book to some guy years ago...what we won't do for love!

Yes, I was the one suggesting "Naked Poetry" some posts back; I had it when I went to Philadelphia College of Art in the 70's. It was part of our poetry course and I really liked that book, although I probably did not explore it as extensively as you have. I must have dragged it around with me at college, because my cover has long since fallen off mine, too. I found the book recently in the basement and brought it back upstairs. It is a good collection. One of my professors had a few poems in it - forget his name now - but will recall it if I review the book; so of course, he chose this book for us to study. I will check out the poems you mention here. I bet they are really good ones.

My anthology of Shakespeare volume meet a similiar fate - I dragged that to classes, also. It is the most worn of my entire set of classic novels I inherited from my father. It is in sad condition now so I installed a cover over the real one that is ready to fall off. Well, books are to read, aren't they and a book that is worn shows one gave it loving attention.
Did you like the poem I posted? It always struck me in some deep symbolic
way.

How funny, I was cruising around the net and I thought I remembered my professor's name so I put it into search, nothing came up but when I put Berg poetry in it came up with a site and some info on the author/poet. Here is is:

Stephen Berg

Born August 2, 1934, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, poet and educator Stephen Berg attended the University of Pennsylvania, Boston University, and the University of Indiana, prior to receiving a B.A. from the State University of Iowa in 1959. Since 1963 Stephen Berg has served on the faculty of Temple University in Philadelphia, as well as the Philadelphia College of Art.

Berg's poems were first published in Berg-Goodman-Mezey by New Ventures Press in 1957. Naked Poetry: Recent American Poetry in Open Forms (1969), Berg's widely acclaimed anthology which he edited with Robert Mezey, includes work by Philip Levine and is discussed in some of the letters in this collection. He has also served as co-editor of the American Poetry Review. New Selected Poems was published by Copper Canyon Press in 1992.

Wow, I guess you can find nearly everything if you just look online!

[uranderson]

Hey Janine, you studied with Stephen Berg? I've only browsed his poems but now I have a reason to look more closely.

That's really cool. He was one of the editors too? It really is one of the finest poetry anthologies in existence in my opinion. Were you in an MFA program or something? I was lucky enough to get a couple courses with Carolyn Forche at George Mason several years ago. Have you read her? She reminds me a lot of Levertov. The Country Between Us is her classic. I can provide links to some of my favorites if you haven't.

I did like that Levertov poem, it's typical of her, multiple layers of meaning (implied in part by line breaks, like the line "I love" which seems almost like a meaningful declarative statement in its own right), and skilled use of metaphor.

Possibly what I like most about her is her turning away from abstractions, analyses, and other forms of codified or rigid thought/behavior and moving toward a more organic, animalistic (in the best sense of the word) way of approaching life, love and art. This major theme in her work is represented well by this poem, I think the second half is in part a statement of that shifting worldview (sorry, it's not the best explanation of what I mean, but it's late and I'm groggy )

Of course it's not that simple, her best poems are strong enough to resist that kind of simplistic, "A" means "B", explanation, instead suggesting alternate possibilities of meaning with successive readings. Similar to the way life is, I guess.

[quasimodo1]

DIVING INTO THE WRECK
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

(excerpt from "Diving into the Wreck")