Take a Poem, Leave a Poem II

It's time for another Take a Poem, Leave a Poem segment on the blog. To show you how it works, my first Take a Poem, Leave a Poem post is below:


I've been inspired by the "take a penny, leave a penny" jar at the local deli. 

Poems in the jar today:

"Arf" by Jack Myers
Naomi Shihab Nye reading her found poem "One Boy Told Me"
"Con el dolor de la mortal herida" or "Love Opened a Mortal Wound" by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, translated by Jaime Manrique and Joan Larkin
"In Praise of Noise" by James Arthur
"A Coin-Operated Railroad" by Mary Biddinger 

Please take at least one, and please leave a story or a poem in it's place in the comments section.

Happy reading! Andrea

Parting with a Book

A few months ago, I began writing a found poem after each poetry collection I read. It started with Anne Sexton's Transformations and moved on to Naomi Shihab Nye's Transfer along with Jane Hirshfield's Come, Thief. I try to capture my favorite moments within each book and weave them into something for myself and further reflection. It's become my way of letting go of the book, a sweet parting of ways for now.

Currently, I'm on the last chapter of Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. I'm thinking about extending my found poem tradition to fiction books too.

What are you reading right now and what do you do once you've finished with a book?

Y Después (And Then)

Lately, I find myself thinking in poetry. Or rather, the things I want to say are in poems I've read. Yes, I want them to speak for me.

Yesterday, I wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words. I know all the words that have come before have been wrong. So, I figured these particular lines I had read would make it a little more clear. But I can't find them. I've scoured all my books and journals, but these few lines seem to want to remain hidden, out of my grasp.

These come close at least:

Y Después, A Cento

To You, 

Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep
on the runway.  The world

is in a delay. The labyrinths 

that time creates disappear. Always
you were given one too many, one
too few. What almost happens, doesn't.

What might be lost, you'll lose. 

We find out the heart only by dismantling what

the heart knows. We must unlearn
the constellations to see the stars. 

The sky is the only store
worth shopping in for anything
as long as a life. If the moon
smiled, she would resemble you.

You leave the same impression

of something beautiful, but annihilating.

Your absence has gone through me

like thread through a needle. Everything
I do is stitched with its color.

I wish I had the power of not looking
back. Not the power of having a wish
granted, but the power to look at my wish
and see behind it.

Love, Me



Sources:
"April Snow" by Matthew Zapruder
"Y Después" (And Then) by Federico García Lorca translated by Ralph Angel
"Three-Legged Blues" by Jane Hirshfield
"Tear it Down" by Jack Myers
"Rebellion against the North Side" by Naomi Shihab Nye
"The Rival" by Sylvia Plath
"Separation" by W.S. Merwin
"One Last Wish" by Jack Myers

We Love the Ones that Won't Open Most

So, the years go by and we find a few doors and windows.
Some are always open, some were never open.
Because we are crazy and stubborn,
we love the ones that won't open most.
     - from "Able to Say It" by Naomi Shihab Nye

These four lines have been haunting me for days...

Carrying #Poetry

I was searching through YouTube this morning in hopes of finding a clip of Naomi Shihab Nye reading from her recent book Transfer.  No luck there, but I happened upon another clip of her talking about inspiration and carrying poetry with you.

Nye carries a note about Philip Levine's thoughts about the muse and William Stafford's poem "The Sky."

Do you carry a poem with you?

Poetry you wish you'd written

Today, I'm daydreaming about poetry I wish I'd written seeing as I'm having a little difficulty writing it lately.  Wherever I am/I am what is missing.  I keep hearing this in my head and know Mark Strand's "Keeping Things Whole" goes first on this list.

...The secret life 
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you...
Stephen Dunn's "A Secret Life" was given to me as a little cutout for my pocket by Jack Myers.  This one is a close second to Strand's.

If I took the time to sit and work on a list, I doubt I'd ever leave the chair.  While you're thinking of the poetry you wish you'd written, I'll leave you with words from another I wish I'd written, "The Words Under the Words" by Naomi Shihab Nye:

Answer, if you hear the words under the words
otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,
difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.