Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, and as a sometime writer of poetry myself, I have been thinking about poets and poems.

This one that I remember from a lit class in college; I took so many of them, I can't remember just WHICH class it was, probably "Classic Literature"  or some such nonsense:

Stand close around, ye Stygian set,

         With Dirce in one boat conveyed!

Or Charon, seeing, may forget

         That he is old and she a shade. 

It didn't mean anything to me as a twenty-something, but NOW,  well, it resonates.  The same applies to Wallace Stevens, whose work I completely get now.  I was underwhelmed as an undergrad.  I only took the class because  1- I needed a seminar in a modern writer for my degree, 2- the teacher was supposed to be the leading expert on Stevens and 3- IT FIT INTO MY SCHEDULE!

The cool thing about poetry is that there are so many variations that most people can find a poet who speaks to them.  It's a bit like music in that way, but a lot of people are frightened of poetry, as if it is not socially acceptable to discuss poetry anymore.  I personally like William Carlos Williams, who famously turned a note to his wife into a poem.  He illustrates the everyday-ness  of poetry.  You don't have to have rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter for it to be a poem.

I live in Tujunga, where we have an actual Poet Laureate.  Today is "The Passing of the Laurels" Ceremony up at McGroarty Arts Center. It's a 3:00 pm  I always enjoy the ceremony and it should be an interesting day.

This Is Just To Say

By William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

This Is Just To Say

  by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535#sthash.G4KiTEJp.dpuf