Archive for the 'Poetry' Category

Love Poems and Love Poets

Published on April 23, 2012 in Author Blog, Poetry, writer blog and Writing for healing.

4 Comments

There could never be enough love in the world. At the same time there can never be enough love poems. The writing and reading of love poetry feels good for the poet and good for the reader. For the poet, it is a way to get in touch with your deepest feelings and sensibilities. It is a way to get down to your real emotional truth, whether you are writing it out of love, loss or despair.

Everyone can write love poems as a way of rejoicing and healing and I have my own share accumulated on the pages of my journals.

For me the first line of a poem sets the mood, stage and tone for the rest of the poem. First lines are often what we remember and also the lines that inspire us to read on.

Here are some first lines from some of my favorite love poems:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Love one another, but make not a bond of love” – Khalil Gibran
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” – William Shakespeare
“Wild nights – wild nights” – Emily Dickinson
“I am not yours, not lost in you” Sara Teasdale
“What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest” – Rumi
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep” – W.B. Yeats
“In silence the heart raves” – Robert Penn Warren
“Lay your sleeping head, my love” – W.H. Auden
“How many years I must have yearned for someone’s lips against mine” – Stephen Dunn
“Love has taken away my practices and filled me with poetry”- Rumi

When people ask who my favorite poet is, I smile and say, “it is the poet I am reading at the time.” Lately, I have been reading a lot of Neruda, so he is my favorite now I can claim him to be my favorite. Most of my readers know that he has written many, many love poems. In most of the translated collections I have, English is on the right page, and Spanish is on the left. I wish I understood Spanish so I can read in both languages.

Here is one of my favorites:

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Poetry and Medicine

Published on April 16, 2012 in Aging, Alternative Medicine, Author Blog, National Poetry Month, Poetry, writer blog, writing and Writing for healing.

1 Comment

In honor of National Poetry Month, I would like to talk about the link between physicians and poetry. During the course of history there have been many physicians who practiced medicine and were poets. William Carlos Williams is typically the doctor who comes to mind as someone who wrote poems between patients on the prescription pad he kept in his pocket. One of my favorite quotations of his is: “It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.”

Other physician-poets include John Keats, Chekhov, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. In my view, the connection is quite clear. Poets tend to be in touch with their deepest emotions and the best physicians are those who are also able to tap into the deepest part of the psyche. In other words, they have the innate ability to connect emotionally with themselves and their patients. Taking this one step further we can use the analogy of the rhythm of a poem being a metaphor for the rhythm of a breath and/or a heartbeat.

Poetry has been incorporated into a number of medical school programs, including Yale and Harvard Schools of Medicine. In a recent article in the New York Times called, “The Doctor as Poet,” (December 1, 2011), by Pauline Chen, M.D. explains how poetry can help physicians empathize and understand what a patient is going through. This can be done by both the reading and writing of poetry. Dr. Rafeael Campo of Harvard Medial school, who is also an award-winning poet, talks about Marilyn Hacker’s “Cancer Winter” which helps her colleagues understand a patient receiving a cancer diagnosis.

In his fabulous book, the Call of Stories, writer and physician Robert Coles, talks about how over the centuries poets who became ill were also inspired to share their experience through poetry. He says, “It prompted them to look not only inward but also backward and forward–to ask the most important and searching questions about life’s meaning.” Coles is an advocate of all narratives and in his book he accentuates the power of poetry and how he admires poets and the merging of poetry and medicine. “Like patients,” he says, “poets are probably holding on for dear life to some words.”

Here is one of William Carlos Williams’ poems, most probably inspired by one of his patients:

Complaint

They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one golden needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion.

Happy National Poetry Month !

Published on April 2, 2012 in Author Blog, National Poetry Month, Poetry, writer blog, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

0 Comments

April is National Poetry month, which has been in existence since 1996. In honor of the month-long celebration, I would like to mention my new collection of poems released this month, LISTENING TO AFRICA (Antrim House).

This book was inspired by a family trip to Africa in 2008. It was my first, but probably not my last trip to Africa, and in more ways than one, it was a life-changing experience. We were there for three weeks and visited Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

During my travels, I typically keep a journal, and this trip was no exception. By the end of the safari, I had accumulated 62 pages of typed text, which also included an array of poems. After returning home, I transformed some text into poems and thus the birth of a new poetry collection.

First I would like to share some tidbits about the African continent that I learned before our departure:
• Africa is the second largest and second most populated continent.
• Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas.
• The climate ranges from tropical to sub arctic.
• The northern part is mainly dessert; central and southern areas consist of savannas and very dense jungles or rainforests.
• Animals found in Africa consist of both herbivores (deer, antelope, giraffes, buffalo) and carnivores (lions, cheetah, hyenas) and omnivores.
• Africa is one of the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continents mainly because of tropical diseases, corrupt governments and international trade regimes.
• There are more than 1000 languages spoken in Africa.

Here is information from the back cover of LISTENING TO AFRICA:

In her quest for health of mind and body, Diana Raab travels to the heart of Africa with her family, experiencing the beauty of another world and the distress but also the delight and dignity of those, both human and animal, living in difficult conditions. She has recorded her observations in Listening to Africa, a collection of poems welcomed gratefully by early readers.
Susan Wooldridge, the author of poemcrazy: freeing your life with words, has written that “Diana M. Raab makes a pilgrimage from the ‘familiar neon of home’ in America to Africa, bringing her family, her passion and her pen. Her moving words carry us with her in narrative poems replete with vision, humor and irony. In her inner and outer journey, the poet transforms fear and sadness into beauty and love as her heart opens ‘in this place which will remind you of your reason for living.’

And finally, a sample poem:

48-Hour Travel

Should you decide
to take a safari here

you might want to consider
packing some meager comforts of home,

even though they will do little
to protect you from

its haunting newness.
But still, take a two-day supply of patience,

ear plugs, sleeping pills, a few good books,
a thick journal and a pound of prevention,

the comprehensive pill bag
with compartments for each ail.

If you plan on foreign intimacy,
don’t rely on public bathrooms

to supply your protection—
be prepared with your own custom size.

For game rides, snatch volumes
of insect repellant and sunscreen

and a wrinkled ribbed hat,
to shield your neck

from the last blow
of the jungle’s sunset.
____________________________

You can order the book from the publisher, http://antrimhousebooks.com/raab.html

OR

from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Listening-Africa-Diana-M-Raab/dp/1936482185

In either case if you email me I would be happy to send you a personalized book plate.

Happy reading!
Diana

Congratulations to the New U.S. Poet Laureate !

Published on August 15, 2011 in Philip Levine, Poet Laureate and Poetry.

2 Comments

Last Wednesday, 83-year old Philip Levine, the Pulitzer Prize winner, was named the nation’s 18th poet laureate. His term will be for one year and will begin in October 2011.

When Levine received this very high honor he said, “I want to bring poetry to people who have no idea how relevant poetry is to their lives.” He also plans to bring some lesser-known poets into the forefront. My readers and me are certainly happy to hear this!
Many of Levine’s poems describe Detroit, where he was born, raised and where he also worked in the factories. Most of his poetry depicts the day-to-day life of America’s working class.

The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C selects the U.S. poet laureate. He receives an annual stipend of $35,000 and his duties are primarily ceremonial.
Levine succeeds poet W.S. Merwin. Other former poet laureates include: Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Ted Kooser, Louise Gluck, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, among others.

Here is one of his many famous poems:

AN ABANDONNED FACTORY IN DETROIT

The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,
An iron authority against the snow,
And this grey monument to common sense
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands,
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.

Beyond, through broken windows one can see
Where the great presses paused between their strokes
And thus remain, in air suspended, caught
In the sure margin of eternity.
The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes
Which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought,

And estimates the loss of human power,
Experienced and slow, the loss of years,
The gradual decay of dignity.
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour;
Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears
Which might have served to grind their eulogy.

National Poetry Month – Molly Peacock: A Glimpse

Published on April 25, 2011 in Author Blog, Memoir and Poetry.

2 Comments

Happy Last Week of National Poetry Month

I would like to finish up my posts this month with the esteemed MOLLY PEACOCK:

Molly Peacock is an award-winning, esteemed poet and memoirist who was born in Buffalo, New York. She attended Harpur College in Binghamton and Johns Hopkins. She lives with her husband, Michael Groden, a James Joyce scholar in Toronto, Canada. She teaches in Spalding University’s Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program. I met Molly while working on my MFA there and she is now a dear friend. I have been honored to have her participate on some of my panels at AWP. She is intelligent, vibrant and has a wonderful sense of humor.

Molly’s poems have been published in numerous literary magazines including, the New Yorker, the Paris Review and the Times Literary Supplement, to name a few. She has held many prestigious positions, including President of the Poetry Society of America. In this capacity she began “Poetry in Motion,” a program that installs poetry placards on public transportation in cities across the country.

In case that resume is not a long enough, Molly is also an actress and has performed in a one-woman staged monologue in poems, “The Shimmering Verge,” shown in theaters across The United States and Canada.

Molly has published six books of poetry and three nonfiction books, Paradise, Piece By Piece and How To Read A Poem And Start A Poetry Circle. Her most recent book, just released this month, is an amazing biography called, The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72.

To give a fair glimpse of Molly, I would like to honor both her poetry and most recent biography. Here is one of my favorite Molly Peacock poem:

Altruism
by Molly Peacock

What if we got outside ourselves and there
really was an outside out there, not just
our insides turned inside out? What if there
really were a you beyond me, not just
the waves off my own fire, like those waves off
the backyard grill you can see the next yard through,
though not well — just enough to know that off
to the right belongs to someone else, not you.
What if, when we said I love you, there were
a you to love as there is a yard beyond
to walk past the grill and get to? To endure
the endless walk through the self, knowing through a bond
that has no basis (for ourselves are all we know)
is altruism: not giving, but coming to know
someone is there through the wavy vision
of the self’s heat, love become a decision.

I don’t know where to begin discussing Molly’s latest book, The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72. It is one of the most powerful and compelling books I have read in a very long time. As someone who has always been fascinated by muses and role models, I was particularly drawn to the subject matter and Molly’s poetic flair made this book extremely captivating and poignant.

Molly believes that we are on the continual search for role models, which is one of the many reasons she was drawn to Mrs. Delany. When she finally discovered Mrs. Delany, she was immediately drawn to her, even though they never met. Molly became familiar with Mrs. Delany’s work twenty years before she wrote the book. As she unfolds Mrs. Delany’s life and her masterful paper cuts, she noticed many similar mosaics and parallels to her own life. Aside from the story sharing the similarities in these two women’s lives, the book is crafted as a memoir and biography, weaving in Molly’s life as poet coupled with her wise philosophies about life.

There is much wisdom throughout this book. Molly spoke about her life as a poet and how it helped her navigate some rough waters of her youth. “Poetry,” she said, “tamed me from the outside in.” The book is printed on glossy paper with amazing photographs of Mrs. Delany’s art, preventing any writing in the book’s margins, as is my normal practice. Instead I took copious notes in my journal. Here are some tidbits to share:

• “Compliments aren’t superficial—they are the foundation of recognition of who we are in life.”

• “You might not be able to draw a conclusion from what overwhelms you, but if you describe it, you will come to know it. And when you come to know it, you are less afraid of it. And when you are no longer afraid, you have balance. And when you have balance, you have the poise that is control.”

The Paper Garden has already received stellar reviews. For example, the Washington Post deftly states on the book jacket, “Whatever the subject, rich music follows the tap of Molly Peacock’s baton.” I could not agree more.

National Poetry Month: Yusef Komunyakaa : A Glimpse

Published on April 18, 2011 in Author Blog, Musings, National Poetry Month, Poetry, writer blog and writing.

0 Comments

Happy Third Week of National Poetry Month

Yusef Komunyakaa

(1947 – present)

“I am the space my body believes in.”
Yusef Komunyakaa

If you have heard a poet read live, you have a deeper affinity for their work and I was fortunate to hear Komunyakaa read when I was in graduate school at Spalding University back in 2002. His reading moved me beyond words. His soft yet powerful deep voice is one which still resonates with me.

Komunyakaa grew up in Louisiana and served as an information specialist and saw active combat in Vietnam from 1968-1970. He served. He received the Bronze Star for his military services and also worked for a military paper as a journalist.

In 1973, Komunyakaa began writing poetry at the age of twenty-six during his undergraduate work at the University of Colorado. His first recognition as a poet was in 1984 for his book, Copacetic which fused jazz rhythms and syncopation with hip colloquialism. He used this technique in combination with poetic imagery. He edited several anthologies with Sascha Feinstein which were primarily devoted to “jazz poetry.” Jazz poetry, poetry about Vietnam and poems about his father is what he is most known for.

In 1994, Komunyakaa was recipient of the Kings Tufts Poetry Award for his very powerful poetry collection, Neon Vernacular. Presently, Komunyakaa teaches at New York University.

Here is one of my many favorite poems of his:

My Father’s Love Letters

On Fridays he’d open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams’ “Polka Dots & Moonbeams”
Never made the swelling go down.
His carpenter’s apron always bulged
With old nails, a claw hammer
Looped at his side & extension cords
Coiled around his feet.
Words rolled from under the pressure
Of my ballpoint: Love,
Baby, Honey, Please.
We sat in the quiet brutality
Of voltage meters & pipe threaders,
Lost between sentences . . .
The gleam of a five-pound wedge
On the concrete floor
Pulled a sunset
Through the doorway of his toolshed.
I wondered if she laughed
& held them over a gas burner.
My father could only sign
His name, but he’d look at blueprints
& say how many bricks
Formed each wall. This man,
Who stole roses & hyacinth
For his yard, would stand there
With eyes closed & fists balled,
Laboring over a simple word, almost
Redeemed by what he tried to say.

National Poetry Month – Anne Sexton : A Glimpse

Published on April 11, 2011 in Author Blog, National Poetry Month, New York Times, Poetry and writer blog.

1 Comment

Happy Second Week of National Poetry Month –

AND

Congratulations to PAUL WILLIS the new Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, CA !!

“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”
~ Anne Sexton

(1928-1974)

Anne Sexton was born in Anne Gray Harvey, Massachusetts. She had a privileged childhood in a house staffed by servants, but admitted that she spent a lonely childhood. She was most known for her confessional verse, although she resented being called a confessional poet. She claimed that her poems told stories and admitted to telling lies in her verse. At the age of twenty-eight she had a nervous breakdown, signs of anxiety, and attempted to take her life. Her doctor at the time encouraged her to write poetry as a way of healing. “Don’t kill yourself,” he told her, “Your poems might mean something to someone else someday.” She supported the idea and said that writing poetry kept her alive and helped her understand herself and the world around her. Writing poetry grounded her and gave her a sense of stability. Like Sylvia Plath, she studied with Robert Lowell.

Her book, Transformations, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, which the New York Times described as a “funny, mad, witty, frightening, charming and haunting book.” Kurt Vonnegut wrote the book’s foreword. Sexton was a popular poet in the 1960s and 1970s when readers of poetry wanted relevance and immediacy and liked to hear poets read live. Her writing is straight-forward and reminds me of the poetry of Billy Collins in that it is quite accessible. Much of the appeal is her use of forceful imagery. Typically she wrote about serious subjects such as family life, sex, isolation, despair, abortion, addiction, depression, mental breakdowns and suicide. Unfortunately, she was hospitalized on numerous occasions for these breakdowns and suicidal thoughts.

Some biographers claim that Sexton was sexually abused as a child and that her parents were hostile to her which lead to many of her psychological issues later in life. Sexton was friends with Maxine Kumin and the two critiqued one another’s poetry until Sexton’s death. They also wrote four children’s books together.

Here is one of my favorite poems by Anne Sexton:

Courage

by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
comver your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you’ll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you’ll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

Poets, National Poetry Month and Keeping Journals

Published on April 4, 2011 in Journaling, Journals, Leaves of Grass, Matt Miller, National Poetry Month, Notebooks and Poetry.

3 Comments

Happy National Poetry Month! Each Monday during the month of April I will discuss some of my favorite poets, a mix of men, women, Americans and Canadians, and particularly those who have used journals.

“Agonies are one of the changes of garments,
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I
myself become the wounded person,
My hurt turns upon me as I lean on a cane
and observe.”
~ Walt Whitman

It has been said that many poets use journals to craft the early drafts of their poems and literary icons, such as Walt Whitman, are no exception. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born on Long Island, New York to parents who supposedly had Quaker beliefs. He lived in Brooklyn where he worked as a newspaperman and printer. He was also a volunteer during the civil war. Whitman’s major work was Leaves of Grass (1855) and he’s been called the ‘father of free verse.’ He was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, using both in his own writing. At the time of its publication, Leaves of Grass was controversial, in part because of its overt sexuality. Whitman has been described as either homosexual or bisexual.

Some months back I wrote about the book, Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass by Matt Miller where Miller brilliantly discusses the creative story behind Whitman.

There is no doubt that regardless of the type of poems poets write, it is a reflection of who they are and Whitman deftly says this, “Understand that you can have in your writing no qualities which you do not honestly entertain in yourself. Understand that you cannot keep out of your writing the indication of the evil or shallowness you entertain in yourself. if you love to have a servant stand behind your chair at dinner, it will appear in your writing—or if you possess a vile opinion of women, or if you grudge anything, or doubt immortality—these will appear by what you leave unsaid more than by what you say. There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe, by which you can have in your writing what you do not possess in yourself. “(Journal entry, 1855-56).

Whitman’s notebooks informed his work but up until a year before Leaves of Grass was published he had no idea that he would be a poet. During that time he filled about 1854 notebooks which were written in both poetry and prose. The subjects he wrote were diverse and included astronomy, religion, linguistics, the natural world, the opera and New York. Walt Whitman has been described as a person who was intoxicated with life. His work habits reflected his interest in writing directly from living impulses or reactions to his immediate perceptions. Whitman pioneered the creative technique more commonly known as collage which has been traced back to Picasso and Braque. In this technique he pasted together fragments of text in his notebooks and manuscript drafts to form various sequences.

Here’s one of my favorites from Leaves of Grass:

To A Stranger

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, 

You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a
dream,) 

I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, 

All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, 

You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only, 

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my
beard, breast, hands, in return, 

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, 

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, 

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Poetry as Medicine

Published on December 13, 2010 in Author Blog, Billy Collins, General Information, Health, Health and Wellness, Journaling, Poetry, Spalding University, writer blog, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

2 Comments

“Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost…as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” ~ Mary Oliver

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding the healing power of writing and reading poetry. Once again, I was reminded of this in a newly-released book called, Saved By A Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, by Kim Rosen. In her books, Rosen claims that a poem can be powerful medicine not only for the mind but for the body and soul as well. She has learned by heart more than a hundred poems, which she carries inside of her as teachers, healers and guides.

Rosen was recently interviewed by Alison Luterman in the Sun Magazine (December 2010) and I found it fascinating. She discussed the public’s sensibility about poetry and many of her ideas resonated with me in the sense that many are threatened or afraid of poetry. Part of her motivation for compiling her recent collection was to wake Americans up to the power of poetry as a way to enrich our lives. She talks about poetry as a lantern that shines in dark places within us and refers to poems as powerful medicine for personal transformation.

“To me a good poem is like a sacred mind-altering substance: you take it into your system, and it carries you beyond your ordinary ways of understanding,” she says. “Like a shaman’s drum, the best of a poem can literally entrain the rhythms of your body: your heartbeat, your breath, even your brain waves, altering consciousness.”

Perie Longo, PhD, MFT, Santa Barbara’s former Poet Laureate, who held several board positions for the National Association for Poetry Therapy also wrote a wonderful article on the subject called, “Healing Effects of Poetry.” Longo says that “the focus of poetry for healing is connection to the individual for self-expression and growth, whereas the focus of poetry as art is the poem itself. But both use the same tools and techniques; the end product is often the same.” Longo teaches poetry for healing and in her classes has many tips to help spark the writing process. She suggests to her class to begin with the phrase, “I have the right…”The article is filled with lots of useful information.

http://www.allthingshealing.com/Psychotherapy/Healing-Effects-of-Poetry/6350

As a teen, I wrote poetry inspired by reading the works of Rod McKuen, but really did not return to the genre until my 40s while raising children and feeling some strong emotions pertaining to child-rearing and life in general. What really inspired me to begin again was attending a reading by Billy Collins in 2002 during my MFA in Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. I realized how accessible and funny narrative poetry could be. I laughed and cried listening to Billy read. I went home that night and wrote my first poem about how men love watching women park because they think we don’t know how to drive.

Since then I have incorporated writing poetry into my journaling classes. The holiday season is a wonderful time to bring poetry into your life to help cope with the stresses that accompany it. Try it and I bet you will like itTry it you will like it!

Forgetfulness

Published on February 15, 2010 in Billy Collins, Forgetfulness, Memory, Musings, Notebooks, Poetry, Spalding University and writing. Tags: , , , , .

3 Comments

I wrote this blog in honor of my cousin, Jed’s 55th birthday. (Happy Birthday, Jed!)

Most of my favorite poems are found on the pages of Billy Collins’s poetry collections. So many of his sentiments and images resonate with me. If I had to chose one poem to share, it would be, “Forgetfulness.” The main reason is that this poem inspired me to rediscover the poet in me who had been dormant since childhood.

This is how it happened. It was 2003 or 2004, and I was in the charter class of Spalding University’s low-residency program, working on my MFA. Our class was invited to a Billy Collins reading at a neighboring university. It was just after Billy completed his term as Poet Laureate of the United States. The university auditorium was packed and Billy read many poignant poems, including “Forgetfulness.”

I vividly remember chuckling to myself throughout his entire reading. It was just about the time of my fiftieth birthday and I was beginning to forget more than I remembered. Billy received a lot of laughs during his reading, but with an audience filled with baby boomers, I think he got the most chuckles while reading this poem. If you have ever heard Billy read, you understand his talent and dry voice. In his poem, “Forgetfulness,” he incorporates his classic teasing technique told in a conversational and accessible manner. His imaging is extremely clever and it continues to resonate with me this many years after that first discovery.

I rarely will choose to spend the time to stand in line for an author signings, but after Billy’s reading, I purchased all his books piled all the way up to my chin and decided to wait for his signature on each one.  I didn’t care how long it took me to reach the front of the line. I knew that his reading would launch the new poet in me and I wanted to avail myself of the opportunity to read the poems of a giant.

You can hear him read on u-tube or you can read it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEPJh14mcU

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go

followed obediently by the title, the plot,

the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel

which suddenly becomes one you have never read,

never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor

decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,

to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye

and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,

and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,

the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,

it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,

not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river

whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those

who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night

to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.

No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted

out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.