Poetry Pairing: Let's Go For a Swim

Ploughshares' Spring 2012 issue is a stunner. From Jamie Quatro's story "Sinkhole" to Andrew Meredith's nonfiction "The Removers" and I can't leave out Mary Jo Bang's poem "Practice for Being Empty," this whole issue is a fire giving life to a tired campsite.

Lauren Groff's essay "Swimming: A Plan B Essay" is a brilliantly written piece comparing the process and passion of a swimmer with that of a writer. Groff writes, "Full immersion, of course, is the highest level of anything." If this essay doesn't inspire one to write, I don't know what else can. I hope you are as moved by it as I am. This one's going on my office bulletin board.

Bob Hicock's poem "Learning to Swim" came to mind when reading Groff's essay. Learning to swim is finding one's salvation, no matter how you look at it.

Is there anything else you'd pair either of these pieces with? What do you think is the most compelling part of Groff's essay?

Poetry Pairing: Travel

I'll be visiting Steepletop, Edna St. Vincent Millay's home, soon, and thought a pairing with her poem "Travel" would be appropriate for this week.

"Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take
No matter where it's going."

Where is your train taking you? Mine is on it's way here:

View of the Berkshires by jbcurio via Flickr

I'll close with a piece by Jonah Lehrer on the "secret tonic of creativity" and "Why we travel."

I'll be on a blog break through June. Wishing everyone happiness wherever your travels take you!

Poetry Pairing: To the Angelbeast and a Song

This week's poetry pairing comes to us from Peter Birckhead (a favorite Tweeter of mine who always brings a fresh perspective on things), who shared the below video of a song by Arthur Russell as a pairing to Eduardo C. Corral's poem "To the Angelbeast."

Thank you, Peter, for this exquisite pairing!

From Corral's poem: "All that glitters isn't music...Am I not your animal?"

Anything else you'd pair with this?

And I know I was only going to do the poetry pairings for National Poetry Month, but I've enjoyed it too much to stop. That being said, if you have a pairing you'd like to feature, please let me know, as I am always open for guest bloggers.

Smile, Andrea

Poetry Pairing: Technology and Conversation

Image via Randy Pertiet - Flickr

I'm fascinated by this article from The New York Times: "The Flight from Conversation" by Sherry Turkle about how technology has affected the ways we communicate with each other and what it means for the future of our relationships. Turkle concludes with, "So I say, look up, look at one another, and let's start the conversation." I've been fortunate to have a few of these face-to-face conversations this week and the power of the spoken word versus text amazes me. I have a greater appreciation for those who are willing to forgo a text conversation for an actual phone call lately too.

A few days after reading this article, I happened upon Anna Moschovakis' poem "ninth: a conversation between Annabot and the Human Machine on the subject of overpowering emotion."

From the poem:

ANNABOT: I cannot feel your hand.

HUMAN MACHINE: I cannot feel your heart.

--

I am going to work on doing more of the above going forward.

Anything else you can think to pair with these?

AND don't forget today's Poem in Your Pocket Day! I've got "Advice from La Llorona" by Deborah A. Miranda in mine. What's in yours?

Poetry Pairing: Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe is the first poet I discovered during my elementary school years. I purchased a small book of his poems from the Scholastic book fair held in the library and fell in love, most especially with "Annabel Lee." Who wouldn't want to be loved "with a love that was more than love"? (Oh, I now feel sorry for all my pre-teen and teen loves!) All these years later, this poem still enchants me.

I recently downloaded Stevie Nicks' new album "In Your Dreams" and after the first song I was hooked. After hearing "Annabel Lee" in the lucky number 7 slot, I fell hard. Perfect voice to sing this haunting tale. Listen for yourself:

I was even more thrilled to come across Yusef Komunyakaa's essay on his first love, this very poem by Edgar Allan Poe. He writes: "At nine years old, I knew next to nothing about this kind of love, although I had been lightly touched by an element of it in the blues that drifted out of the radios in our kitchen and living room. To know this great longing through words made me tremble inside my skin, and I believe it helped me traverse some new territory in my imagination."

What poem or story was your first love?

Poetry Pairing: The Library as Home

It's National Library Week, so what better way to celebrate libraries and National Poetry Month than with another poetry pairing? And like last week, there's an added bonus.

The New York Public Library put together a powerful video starring a few of it's loyal patrons answering the question: "Where Do You Call Home?"

This video made me think of Charles Simic's poem "In the Library." A few lines from it:

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.

And for the added bonus, you can read Simic's moving essay for The New York Review of Books: "A Country Without Libraries."

How do you feel about your local library? 

Poetry Pairing: The "&"

Ampersand by roseandsigil via Flickr

While reading Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay, I was struck by the use of the & in place of "and" and even more struck when I came upon her poem employing it as its title. I've searched for this poem online to no avail and wish I could share the whole poem with you here, but hopefully this snippet will satisfy:

but even more
giving, you remind us
of the heart & how
the heart would
rather die thank keep
its two dark arms
all to himself;
his life, like our lives,
depends on what is at his side.

In an interview with The Rumpus, Girmay is asked about her use of ampersands in her writing and responds:

"I love the muscle of the "&"-- a muscular shape, a mustache, too. Kind of infinity. But not. A highway...
(read more by clicking on the interview above)

All this led me back to a story that intrigued me a few months back: Poets & Ampersands in Poets&Writers' January/February 2012 issue.


This has evolved from a pairing but I think it makes for an interesting subject! Do you use the "&" in your writing? Why or why not? And what are your thoughts on its use?

And please, feel free to add your own pairing to this!

Eating Poetry This Month

Mark Strand - Eating Poetry by poetic touch

Happy National Poetry Month! Not only are flowers revealing themselves and trees beginning to bid with new life, but poetry is blooming too! I hope you'll be eating poetry with me this month as well.

A few ideas for celebrating:

The Found Poetry Review started The Found Poetry Project and made poetry kits for distribution this month. You can either try to find some in your city or you can make your own and get them out into your community! Five of them are going out in El Paso!

Robert Lee Brewer's Poem-A-Day challenge kicked off yesterday. I participated in this last year and found his writing prompts really helped to get the creativity flowing. My advice: Just write, write, write. Use May to go back and revise. Just get the thoughts down on paper (or into the computer)!

Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo site with daily prompts is another great challenge as well. I am still trying to decide between the two and don't want to overwhelm myself with both. A friend of mine made a good suggestion: choose one prompt a day from either challenge and write all the prompts down for later.

30 Ways to Celebrate via Poets.org

Randall Weiss shares his 10 National Poetry Month Activity suggestions. My favorite is #11.

There are also lots of people holding contests on their blogs for poetry book giveaways this month. Jessie Carty is one you should definitely check out. I've read two of her chapbooks now and really enjoy her work.

It's never too late to give away a book yourself either!

I'm going to do a poetry pairing each Thursday on the blog for April. Stay tuned. I'm excited.

Enjoy April! Andrea

P.S. If you have any other ideas for National Poetry Month, please share with us!

One With Others Pairing

I've been fortunate enough to join a poetry group via a few friends on Twitter. In two short months, I've read poetry collections that have buried themselves in my soul. C. D. Wright's One With Others is a what the writer herself defines as a "hybrid form." Wright artfully and gracefully weaves news reports, interviews, stories, and personal experience into a collection that breathes the history of her mentor, V, and the Civil Rights movement in Arkansas. I don't know that I will ever read a book that will move me more than this one. In the video below she talks a little about One With Others and reads a few of my favorite passages:

In arriving at the section in the book detailing the students walking to the all-white school and bravely linking arms together while singing "Like A Tree Planted by the Water," I stopped to google the song because I couldn't recall ever hearing it. After listening to the video below, I sat in silence with an aching yet hopeful heart. There are so many things we never learn in history class, and I am forever grateful for C. D. Wright and her poetry that articulates "the cruel radiance of what is."




What is the most important book you feel you've read in your life and why did it touch you as it did?

A Moment to Believe In and Other Good Finds Sunday

The Purple-Leaf Plums are blooming in my backyard

I've selected Anne Sexton's "The Expatriates" as the poem for this week. "...it was a moment/ to clutch at for a moment/so that you may believe in it..."

Other good finds from this week:

Librotraficante is smuggling banned books back into Arizona in the coming weeks

It's Women's History Month! How are you celebrating? Here's a poetry pairing for it!

I want to go for a ride with Terrance Hayes - fabulous poetry article! 

The back story for my poem "Flying Ant" is now up on Rose & Thorn Journal's blog

A lovely music video to inspire you: "Did Skies Divide" by Leora Caylor

What has inspired you? What are you looking forward to this week?

Poem Share and Other Good Finds Sunday/Monday

The poem I've selected for this week is Francisco X. Alarcón's "To Those Who Have Lost Everything" and I'm pairing it with the article below.

"Artists React to Mexico's Drug War With Music and Poetry" by Betty Arcos in NPR. Growing up and now again living in a border city, I feel the issues discussed in this article touch upon a familiar reality: violence on the border remains a mute point in today's media. I'm with Lili Downs in hoping "No evil can last a hundred years."

I posted Perpetual Follies' 2012 Pushcart Prize Rankings last week. Here is an article in Luna Park from Travis Kurowski that offers a different perspective: "Is Something Missing from the Pushcart Prize?" What are your thoughts?

Diane Lockward guides us in deciphering when a poem is ready to send out into the world. When do you feel your writing is ready to submit?

If you read anything this week, please read this touching story about stories "passing back through the heart" by Natalia Sylvester on her blog: "The Difference Between Recording and Remembering."

Come across any good reading this past week? What's on your desk for this week?

Wishing you a week full of wonder, Andrea

Poem Share and Other Good Finds Sunday

The poem I've selected for the week is "Poppies" by Jennifer Grotz. I came across the link to this poem along with a nice introduction by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Paris Review. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. My favorite lines in the poem are:

when the moths perch on the white walls,
tiny as a fingernail to large as a Gerbera daisyand take turns agitating around the light.


What does this poem say to you? Any favorite lines?

Other good finds of note this week are:

Today is Elvis Presley's birthday! Happy birthday, Elvis! Are You Lonesome Tonight?  I'll keep you company. ;)

I'm a big fan of The New York Times' "Poetry Pairing" series. This week Jill Alexander Essbaum's poem "Precipice" is paired with a philosophy blog and a painting about time. Is there anything else you can think to pair with it?

A friend of mine, Jill Klein, has a lovely poem out in the new issue of Grey Sparrow: "My Breasts are A-okay." I love the sound in this poem!

Goodreads is holding a 2012 Reading Challenge. How many books will you pledge to read this year? I'm shooting for 64.

A funny comic for the week shared by Richard Fenwick via his Twitter account: Chicken Poetry by Doug Savage

How does your week look? Wishing you an inspiring one!

What Would Your Snapshot Be?

I'm a fan of The New York Time's "Poetry Pairing" series. This past week, Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" was paired up with reader-submitted photographs as a "visual time capsule" of sorts. A creative and admirable pairing, I think.

What photo would you offer for this pairing?

Mine is a photograph of my Godchild Penelope creating her "mini-art" over the weekend. For me, she is a perfect pairing of hope and art in many senses of both words.