Whitman for Wednesday

I really love this poem. I love the language of it. I love the juxtposition of the earth-bound astronomy professor, tied to his proofs and figures and diagrams and lecture room and audience, and the quiet of the stars, offering the more perfect education.

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. --Walt Whitman

National Poetry Month 2010

In the spirit of my favorite time of year, I'm going to try again with this blog. For more information on National Poetry Month, visit this site. And now, a poem:

Hydrangea

From the bottom of the garden, enthroned in his earthenware pot,
the hydrangea god surveys his minions—
lavender agapanthuses bowing starburst heads,
red bignonia calyxes trumpeting his fame,
oleander leaves whispering of his misdeeds.
The central path leads straight to him. Behind,
a stained mirror and mossy wall back up his power.
Thousands of crinkled, tiny, white ideas occur to him
with frilled and overlapping edges. No one else
deploys such Byzantine metaphysics. No one
can read his mind. Only he remembers
the children's secret fort by the cypress tree
among fraught weeds, rusted buckets, and dumped ash,
and how lost the grown-ups sounded, calling, as night came.

--By Rosanna Warren

Halloween Poems

In case you were planning to have a dramatic reading at your Halloween party this year, here are some poems for the occasion!

For the record, I love "Goblin Market"...

Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells."
--John Keats, To Autumn

Ooh, Pretty!

Here's something else for you to check out: http://www.heyoscarwilde.com/

It's a collection of work from various artists, depicting their favorite author or literary character. There are some great pictures.

I particularly enjoyed these:

Shel Silverstein by Katie Cook


Lady Macbeth by Steve Pugh

Juliet by Kei Acedera

Enjoy!

Check This Out

An article from Slate Magazine, written by Robert Pinsky, former US Poet Laureate, on a George Herbert poem: http://www.slate.com/id/2226655/?from=rss

Enjoy!

"I shall have some peace..."

In May, my family had the opportunity to travel to Grass Valley in Northern California for a family reunion. Grass Valley is a beautiful little gem of a town, retaining much of its mining town charm, nestled among the towering Redwoods and dramatic scenery of Northern California. Our cousin's home sits on 5 acres of that scenery and is a stunning combination of cultivated and wild landscaping. It was remarkably beautiful. During our first night there, I sat on small bench in front of a huge honeysuckle bush (it smelled heavenly!). I was sort of unconsciously aware of a low humming coming from behind me, but it wasn't until there was a lull in the conversation that I realized I was hearing bees. Honeybees looking for pollen in the honeysuckle behind me. I immediately thought of Yeats' poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and understood what he meant by a "bee-loud glade". I sat with the words of this poem running through my head, listening to the bees, and watching twilight fall. I was more contented than I had been in a long time.

Life is difficult, especially when things are hustle-bustle and the pace becomes frantic. I believe we all need a place to escape to, even if only for a few moments, and even if only in our minds. Yeats went to Innisfree, and now I can go to that honeysuckle bush, limned in twilight, and listen to the bees.

"Lake Isle of Innisfree"

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

--W.B. Yeats (1893)