THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS
Vol. 7, No. 5   An Online Chapter of Missouri State Poetry Society    May  2008

                                                                                                                                                                                                      (c) FreeFoto.com                         
IMAGINATION UNLOOSED

 
When you see the picture above, what poet and poem immediately come to mind?  If you said William Wordsworth and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," you agree with me on the answers.  If you did not come up with any answers, don't feel poverty-stricken.  I think Wordsworth's poem is the only one I know about clouds.  Tell me if you know another cloud poem.  I know a cartoon strip in Peanuts where Charlie Brown and Linus discussed pictures the clouds made, and I am sure my sister who is two years older than I made me play this game.  In fact, that game came to my mind when I saw the cloud pictured above.  Next I thought of writing poetry as a process where we make something else from what we see, taste, touch, hear, or smell.  We let our imaginations run free.  A cloud in the sky looks like what?  Tell me what this cloud looks like to you.  Write your answer down.  I will print your answers next month.  Then look at my answer at the bottom of this page.  Tell me if you see what I see.  I came away from cloud-gazing with a strong desire to read Wordsworth's poem again.  Now I realize that the poem is more about daffodils than clouds, but here it is for you:  http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww260.html -- Tom Padgett

 

CONTENTS:

Past Issue Next
       
Poems by Members
         
Workshop

Missouri State Poetry Society



Summer Contest

Spare Mule Online

National Federation of State Poetry Societies
 
Strophes Online
 

 
POETRY IN THE NEWS

John Asbery's latest collection of poems was reviewed in an April issue of the New York Times Book Review.  The reviewer, Langdon Hammer, attempts to help readers understand the work of this extremely difficult poet.  Read parts of the review here.

A new collection of the poetry of Robert Creeley was reviewed in February in the New York Times Book Review.  Get the highlights of the review here.

The annual report of the Poetry Foundation in its first year online [see www.poetryfoundation.org] reveals the sort of content the website features: items from Poetry journal, an archive of 6000 poems all freely downloadable, a poetry newspaper with reviews of poetry events and podcasts, even a poetry best-seller list.  Read more about this report here.   

Joel Brouwer in his review of Robert Pinsky's new collection, Gulf Music, derides the readers who state contemporary poetry is "about as approachable as an alligator with mommy."  Brouwer sets out in this review, "The Civic Poet," New  York Times Book Review, 3 February 2008. pp. 14-15, to prove Pinsky is one of  "a number of skilled American contemporaries [who] write books of general appeal that sell thousands of copies."  According to Brouwer, Pinsky, three-term poet laureate, also has this unique distinction: "No other living American poet . . . has done so much to put poetry in the public eye."  His seventh collection, Gulf Music, may be "his most valuable contribution yet."  The poet "decides to remember and what to remember," Pinsky has written.  The gulf is the distance between one poet's memories and those of other persons.  The music is the physical sounds a poet makes in common with the physical sounds of other persons to overcome that distance.  A poem is both an idea and its sounds.  Pinsky chooses free verse but regular sound patterns to communicate his ideas to readers, states Brouwer.

The first volume of a two-volume biography of Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound: Poet I: The Young Genius 1885-1920, was published in England in November and in the U.S. in December by Oxford University Press.  The author, A. David Moody, is generally accepted as one of the most highly regarded authorities on Pound and his friend T. S. Eliot, founders of modernism in poetry in English.   For the most part, the book has garnered praise, sometimes even when the subject does not, which reminds me of a letter to the editor in the February 2008 issue of Poetry by James Matthew Wilson commenting on Pound: "The poet and critic was simply not as good as he pretended to be. . . . But even the name 'Pound' still captures my imagination; with many others, I perpetuate his centrality to modern poetry despite knowing full well it is mostly an empty center" (p. 443).

Click Back on your toolbar to return here after finishing a news item.
 

HAVE YOU VISITED THE WORKSHOP LATELY?
Click Workshop and do some of the lessons there.
If you have an idea for a new lesson, send it along. 

HAVE YOU READ YOUR ONLINE NEWSLETTERS?
Read Spare Mule Online and Strophes Online available by clicking the underlined titles.

HAVE YOU ENTERED A MSPS CONTEST RECENTLY?
Our state president is encouraging us to enter the MSPS Summer Contest.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE BULLETIN BOARD LATELY? 
Visit our MSPS Bulletin Board for news of events and contests in our area.
 
 


AMERICAN LIFE IN POETRY

Ted Kooser, former U. S. Poet Laureate, in response to an interviewer for National Public Radio, stated that his "project" as laureate was to establish a weekly column featuring contemporary American poems supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska.  This column appears in online publications (such as Thirty-Seven Cents) as well as hard-copy newspapers.  Poets are asked to contact their local newspapers to inform them that such a column is available free to them and to relieve the editor by explaining that all of the poems that will appear week by week are accessible, not obscure, poems. 

American Life in Poetry: Column 157
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
2004-2006
From your school days you may remember A. E. Housman's poem that begins, "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/ Is hung with bloom along the bough." Here's a look at a blossoming cherry, done 120 years later, on site among the famous cherry trees of Washington, by D.C. poet Judith Harris.

IN YOUR ABSENCE  

Not yet summer,
but unseasonable heat
pries open the cherry tree.

It stands there stupefied,
in its sham, pink frills,
dense with early blooming.

Then, as afternoon cools
into more furtive winds,
I look up to see
a blizzard of petals
rushing the sky.

It is only April.
I can't stop my own life
from hurrying by.
The moon, already pacing.


American Life in Poetry: Column 159
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
2004-2006

Bad news all too often arrives with a ringing telephone, all too early in the morning. But sometimes it comes with less emphasis, by regular mail. Here Allan Peterson of Florida gets at the feelings of receiving bad news by letter, not by directly stating how he feels but by suddenly noticing the world that surrounds the moment when that news arrives.

THE INEVITABLE

To have that letter arrive
was like the mist that took a meadow
and revealed hundreds
of small webs once invisible
The inevitable often
stands by plainly but unnoticed
till it hands you a letter
that says death and you notice
the weed field had been
readying its many damp handkerchiefs
all along

 		 American Life in Poetry: Column 158
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
2004-2006

 Putting bed pillows onto the grass to freshen, it's a pretty humble subject for a poem, but look how Kentucky poet, Frank Steele, deftly uses a sun-warmed pillow to bring back the comfort and security of childhood.

PART OF A LEGACY

I take pillows outdoors to sun them
as my mother did. "Keeps bedding fresh,"
she said. It was April then, too--
buttercups fluffing their frail sails,
one striped bee humming grudges, a crinkle
of jonquils. Weeds reclaimed bare ground.
All of these leaked somehow
into the pillows, looking odd where they
simmered all day, the size of hams, out of place
on grass. And at night I could feel
some part of my mother still with me
in the warmth of my face as I dreamed
baseball and honeysuckle, sleeping
on sunlight.


American Life in Poetry: Column 160
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
2004-2006
I've mentioned how important close observation is in composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet, Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with suggestion. The poem closes with the car door shutting, and we readers are shut out of what will happen, though we can guess.

THREE TEENAGE GIRLS: 1956

Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and black Capri 
      pants
And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their chins
Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing,
Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain,
The closest to the road with her left thumb stuck out
Not looking at the cars going past.

Every Friday night to the dance, and wet or dry
They get where they're going, walk two miles or get a ride,
And now the two-door 1950 Dodge, dark green
Darkening as evening falls, stops, they nudge
Each other, peer in, shrug, two scramble into the back seat,
And the third, the boldest, famous
For twice running away from home, slides in front with the man
Who reaches across her body and pulls the door shut.


POET OF THE MONTH: JOHN ASBERY
For the Academy of American Poets page, which includes 9 Asbery poems, see http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/238

For the John Asbery home page with 8 poems, see http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/ashbery/

For critical comments on some Asbery poems, visit http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ashbery/ashbery.htm


POEMS BY MEMBERS

SING OF OZARK MOUNTAIN SPRING
Diane Auser Stefan

I ride the roads
        up, down, hugging close
        the low mountains.

My small car
        can fly on these roads
        but why would I want to . . .

I’d miss the colors--
        redbud blooming,
        white dogwood blossoming
                 in spring forests
        rusty cedars and
        bluest of skies.

I’d miss the imagining--
        picturing horse-drawn wagons,
        fiddle music floating on the air,
        wood smoke wisping from cabins.

I’d miss the beauty of the Ozarks
        singing its spring song.


ALPHABET POEM
Pat Laster

 A  ll alone in the
 B  ig house a-
 C  ross the street,
 D  welt the
E  ffervescent,
F  lamboyant Doctor
 G  reengrave.
 H  ow this
 I  llustrious gentleman kept his
J  ealousy hidden from his
 K  indred for so
 L  ong is a puzzlement to the
 M  ind of man.
 N  evertheless, because the
O  peration to remove a
P  ellet from his gullet –
 Q  ueer as it may seem –
R  esulted in his green color, he was
 S  tung by unkind remarks of small
 T  ykes who passed him on the street. He
 U  sually became depressed and ended up
 V  isiting his friends on
 W  ard
 X,  off the
 Y  ellow Room, at the
Z  oological Gardens
 

GATED
Gwen Eisenmann

They're retired now, free,
to live in a warm gated community.
Acres and miles of level land,
some forested, planned
with lagoons and golf courses
manicured, outlined
with head-high hedges
along highways intersected
with streets of houses
all built from a choice
of three designs.
Attached garages hold cars
and golf carts.

Dogs on leashes
lead owners along streets
with grassy borders,
no sidewalks.
When a dog squats,
owner -- hand encased
in plastic bag --
picks up deposit to carry home
for disposal.
Choice of type of plastic bag is optional.

If driving, don't forget your pass card.
Some residents do not have cards,
slip in at night
to inhabit the lagoons.
Gates do not stop them;
alligators cannot read.
 

FATHERS AND SONS
Laurence W. Thomas

We found the way of fathers and sons
sharing laughter and punishments
ignoring primal causes, one's

reasons for having children since
fathers' iniquities are not borne by sons.
Our time together after daily stints

at work and school was spent in lessons
showing each other our differences
and similarities. We shared vacations

with the family during summer months
still finding time alone for men's
activities like fishing, sailing, jaunts

through fields or woods while building bonds
of a friendship that has lasted since
we found the way of fathers and sons.
 

COUNTING FOES
Henrietta Romman

Let the Angels count my foes,
before I thrust my praises!

Anger, sadness, fear and need
present their states and cases.
Throw them under Jesus' feet
to crush them, wipe their places.

Let the Angels count my foes!


BEE
Heather Lewis

I was once afraid of bumblebees,
One tiny buzz caused to me to hide.
But now I watch and wait to see them,
They are a happy sight for me.
Bees comfort me and make me smile,
They remind me of my Bee,
Who had to leave but left behind

Memories:
-The black and yellow rain boots she wore-
-Notes we wrote on choir music-
-My favorite purple scarf-
-Dark eyes encircled by exotic makeup-
-Random Bee entries in my journal-
-Her blonde hair streaked with darker shades-
-Sharing two favorite drinks at Starbucks-
-That fuzzy black hat she loved.

And even though my Bee is gone,
Pieces of her remain with me:
Pictures, letters, and moments we shared;
Little things to remind me of her,
But nothing brings to mind her face
Quite like a little black and yellow bumblebee.
 

UNTITLED
Steven Penticuff

Poetry, the primary color
of yellow, blue, and red.  
 

FOOL THE WORLD, FOOL THE SOUL
 "[A]nd there he squandered his estate with loose living."
John 15:13b
Renee Johnson

The road
(opens wide; she’s breathing her own air)
The cash
(takes her far—but not far enough)
The night
(veils her face, and she dwells there with masked demons)
The drink
(drowns the voice, hides the faces)
The sex
(makes her feel safe for a moment, but the loneliness always creeps in)
The boys
(buy her drinks, let her come up, smile, then leave; but
she leaves first)
The streets
(are her runway; she’s always going somewhere, never getting anywhere )
The game
(continues on. She plays so well, but she is fooling only herself)

REVIEW
David Gregg

The dog received
His review today
A recap of recent
Canine performance
A reflection on
His setbacks and feats
Between bowls of food
And occasional treats

He did well on barking
Not too bad on growl
A bit weak on listening
But exceptional growl
There will be no raise
We’ve no penny to spare
But given his effort
An extension is fair



 

 
I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SPORTS
Tania Gray

I can’t decode the daily sports headlines—
“Queen of the Boys Club”—who is she
and why’d she muscle in a man’s domain?
And “Rams stay mum on fate of second draft”—
since when did sheep talk at the corner pub?
and “Royals drop two to extend streak”—
did Philip and Elizabeth let go
a favored horse or two? And “Late runs save
St. Louis”-- who ran by—did Louis and Clark’s
Missouri dash decide the city’s fate?
Now here’s a headline I can clearly get—
“Ceiling tiles crash swimming practice.”
Oh yes! I see the tragedy, the chunks
falling, knocking divers off the board,
and interrupting laps, congesting lanes,
enraging coaches, scaring tender youths.
If I were the sports page editor,
I’d rewrite every story they mess up.
I’d stop the goofy riddles, cutesy puns,
I’d shake them out of la-la land and drag
them back to solid prose. I’d pitch the truth.

 

ACCEPTANCE
Dewell H. Byrd

Why do you furrow
little crow’s feet
around your
mind’s eye
in futile attempts

to understand me
through your reflections
of yesterday
mirrored into tomorrow?

Must we strain
to touch the twain
and miss forever
the joy of now?

I do not ask
for understanding . . .
just the near impossible:
acceptance.
 

ON HOLD AT A RED LIGHT
Pat Durmon

There’s nothing more
urgent than

getting out of the way

of an eighteen-wheeler
or getting your heart

broken for the Second Coming
before the radiant light

turns an insane green.


THIS MAKES NO CENTS
Valerie Esker

Free verse?
Verse which never tries to rhyme,
or any poem that never earns a dime.
 

THERE IS A DAY
Jean Even

We are happy, o happy joyful talk,
Talking in regards to things about to be,
Though it sounds like a wonderful dream,
It’s not a dream, it is God’s plans for you and me.
There is a day in new Jerusalem
Where we will worship God in all his glory.
Later one by one we will listen
To all the disciples of old tell their story.
God’s people will no longer be known as Jews
Neither will the Gentiles be known as goy.
Forever, we’ll be known as saints
Living in harmony full of God’s great love and joy.
 

THE WORK OF TREES
Harding Stedler

Trees are standing
on their heads
in morning sun,
probing the depths
for oil and ore.
They are nature's
drilling rigs.

We will no longer
depend on foreign oil
once geysers
of liquid black
begin spewing
above the water's waves.

Crews are waiting to cap
the hidden wells
and transport
the molten crude
to refineries
along the coast,
then thumb their noses
at the OPEC zealots.


LIMERICK
Jennifer Smith

I know, I'm bad.
It makes me very sad.
My desk is buried, oh, woe is me!
Stress can crush creativity.
So this is the poem you'll wish I had.


GIRL ON THE BUS
Martha Thomas

I sit.
Out the window–I’m staring.
Hills, cows, here and there a farmhouse;
but my mind’s eye is exploring a different world.
In the depths of loneliness–I’m drowning.
Would someone, please, acknowledge me?
Down, down–I’m falling.
Reaching out, yet sitting still.
I chat with them all–I’m smiling.
They don’t know me.
In ignorance–they’re sitting.
How long will it last?
How many days until there is nothing left?
No reason to breathe?
No one holding me back . . .
 

AFTERTHOUGHT
Nicole Heeren

Little brown squirrel—
gathers acorns
and stuffs its face full,
brings food back to its babies
to provide for its family,
sees a shadow across the street,
and its curiosity gives it pause
and sends it across the black road
to retrieve the unknown.
Screech.
Little brown squirrel—
now a little brown blob,
failed to make it to the other side,
never saw what the world had in store for it.
Little brown squirrel—
you should have looked before you leapt.


HIS MOTHER TONGUE
Tom Padgett

Two scholars in a recent book
attest that Shakespeare was
inventor of some 1500 words.
Their proof is that his plays
used words not seen before
in print. I say their case is weak.

When Mother tasted milk gone sour,
she wrinkled up her face and spat,
"That's strong as akky fortus."
I heard these words only at home,
and though I may be first
to use them in a poem,
I did not create them.
For years I thought my mother did.

Then someplace I read
a Roman soldier in Britain
(44 B.C.) tasted sulfur water
from a hot bubbling spring,
wrinkled up his face, and spat,
"That's strong as aqua fortis,"
which probably he learned
second hand--at home in Rome.

I learned it second hand,
my mother learned it second hand,
the soldier learned it second hand--
none of us saw it in print.
I think the scholars should
consider Shakespeare's mother.
She must have had a vocabulary
of 1500 words--all unprinted.
 
 My Cloud:  In my cloud I see Sneaky, a white laboratory rat, who is peeking out from behind a gauze curtain. What do you see in your cloud?
 


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