NOV/DEC 2020 in poetry
Jan. 3rd, 2021 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
latespringThis is a brief sum up of the poems I liked from poets.org’s poem-a-day emails, that turned out to be not so brief.
Quick disclaimer that I’m not trying to rank or assign value to these poems at all, this is entirely my taste and what hit me in the moment I read them. (It’s something I’ve thought about before--reading something in the right moment. Whether it’s mood or time of day or location, it’s interesting to think how some part of our response to a work is not related to the work at all. I read a lot of these early in the morning, or stressed, or half asleep. Which is to say if I reread some of the poems I didn’t list here now as opposed to then, I bet they’d read differently.) I don’t have any serious background in poetry or poetry criticism either.
Anyway! This will be divided up in two-month chunks. Also, some poems from Poetry Foundation’s “Poem of the Day” emails are here. I still haven’t read all of the poems Poetry Foundation selected last year. (Their emails don’t format well on my phone, which has stopped me from reading a good chunk of them, I’ll get to it eventually. Though they’ve stopped emailing me in 2021 so maybe this will be a nonissue in the future.)
If there were some lines that particularly stood out to me, I've included them here.
An Old Woman’s Painting by Lynn Emanuel
Pockets by Michael Torres
We crossed each other on the street. Both of us
nodded and kept on moving toward the sidewalk.
So many years collapsing into each other,
I thought.
Someone has changed the sign
in front of the store. But if I say Market Spot
today, the homie points to where we watched
the cashier jump the counter and snatch Martin
into the air, splicing it with sugar.
Becoming a Ghost by Tanaya Winder
Ask me if I’ve ever had to use
bottle caps as breadcrumbs to help
my brother find his way back home.
He never could tell the taste between
a scar and its wounding, an angel or demon.
So Many Constellations by Paul Celan
Dear New Blood by Mark Turcotte
Distracted from COVID-19, Attention Shifts to MIA Maiden from Land O’Lakes Butter Box by Tiffany Midge
Lie by Janet McAdams
Dance Practice by Ishmael Angaluuk Hope
Voice
clear as a loon's call,
tender
as the warm center of the lagoon where dreams come to surface.
from “Sonnets from the Cherokee” by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
Real Estate by Richard Siken
These things are complicated, says the Talmud. When he died, I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t get a death certificate. These things are complicated, says the Health Department.
Rust Honey by Zach Savich
I knew for years the archaic term for refrain—
the part of the song you carry—
is burden. It carries you. Refrain, also, as in
hold back.
Altitude by Lola Ridge
and anger
but a little silence
sinking into the great silence.
Revery by Fenton Johnson
Family Solo by Eric Ekstrand
heaven’s rolled, impersonal blue,
America is Loving Me to Death by Michael Kleber-Diggs
Reunion by Mo H. Saidi
Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō Colleps
I am water, only because you are the ocean.
Marshlands by Emily Pauline Johnson
November for Beginners by Rita Dove
Snow would be the easy
way out—that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
Amphibious by Aimee Suzara
Can you plunge your hand into the sea
and bring up a fish?
Can you split one into two thousand pieces
so that every mouth is filled?
Can you perform such the miracles
you describe in your holy book?
Quick disclaimer that I’m not trying to rank or assign value to these poems at all, this is entirely my taste and what hit me in the moment I read them. (It’s something I’ve thought about before--reading something in the right moment. Whether it’s mood or time of day or location, it’s interesting to think how some part of our response to a work is not related to the work at all. I read a lot of these early in the morning, or stressed, or half asleep. Which is to say if I reread some of the poems I didn’t list here now as opposed to then, I bet they’d read differently.) I don’t have any serious background in poetry or poetry criticism either.
Anyway! This will be divided up in two-month chunks. Also, some poems from Poetry Foundation’s “Poem of the Day” emails are here. I still haven’t read all of the poems Poetry Foundation selected last year. (Their emails don’t format well on my phone, which has stopped me from reading a good chunk of them, I’ll get to it eventually. Though they’ve stopped emailing me in 2021 so maybe this will be a nonissue in the future.)
If there were some lines that particularly stood out to me, I've included them here.
An Old Woman’s Painting by Lynn Emanuel
Pockets by Michael Torres
We crossed each other on the street. Both of us
nodded and kept on moving toward the sidewalk.
So many years collapsing into each other,
I thought.
Someone has changed the sign
in front of the store. But if I say Market Spot
today, the homie points to where we watched
the cashier jump the counter and snatch Martin
into the air, splicing it with sugar.
Becoming a Ghost by Tanaya Winder
Ask me if I’ve ever had to use
bottle caps as breadcrumbs to help
my brother find his way back home.
He never could tell the taste between
a scar and its wounding, an angel or demon.
So Many Constellations by Paul Celan
Dear New Blood by Mark Turcotte
Distracted from COVID-19, Attention Shifts to MIA Maiden from Land O’Lakes Butter Box by Tiffany Midge
Lie by Janet McAdams
Dance Practice by Ishmael Angaluuk Hope
Voice
clear as a loon's call,
tender
as the warm center of the lagoon where dreams come to surface.
from “Sonnets from the Cherokee” by Ruth Muskrat Bronson
Real Estate by Richard Siken
These things are complicated, says the Talmud. When he died, I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t get a death certificate. These things are complicated, says the Health Department.
Rust Honey by Zach Savich
I knew for years the archaic term for refrain—
the part of the song you carry—
is burden. It carries you. Refrain, also, as in
hold back.
Altitude by Lola Ridge
and anger
but a little silence
sinking into the great silence.
Revery by Fenton Johnson
Family Solo by Eric Ekstrand
heaven’s rolled, impersonal blue,
America is Loving Me to Death by Michael Kleber-Diggs
Reunion by Mo H. Saidi
Kissing the Opelu by Donovan Kūhiō Colleps
I am water, only because you are the ocean.
Marshlands by Emily Pauline Johnson
November for Beginners by Rita Dove
Snow would be the easy
way out—that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
Amphibious by Aimee Suzara
Can you plunge your hand into the sea
and bring up a fish?
Can you split one into two thousand pieces
so that every mouth is filled?
Can you perform such the miracles
you describe in your holy book?