Poetry Blitz, Fourteen.

This post is the fourteenth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz. Read more about it here.

Fog

by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

L. Stacks

Image: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Thirteen.

This post is the thirteenth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz. Read more about it here.

Riddle

By Kate Light

[From Drunken Boat 7, Spring 2005]

You say you won’t go out tonight

but you will, I’m certain;

your eyes will light

as mine go out, your curtain

part, and all the dark illuminate…

You’ll slip out through the narrow door

and down and down

the cobbled street, your step as sure

as if you’d always known the town,

to go to places I have been

with you but will not go again.

How can this be? Can it be fair…?

There is no “fair”-- just you wind

wayward the medieval street,

so lured by everything, and blind…

And who can know whom you might meet

as you go, seeking your own kind?

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Twelve.

This post is the twelfth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz. Read more about it here.

If You are Lucky in this Life

By Cameron Penny, 4th grade student

[Found in an interview with poet John Rybicki]

A window will appear between two armies on a battlefield. Instead of

seeing their enemies in the window, they see themselves as children.

They stop fighting and go home and sleep. When they wake up, the

land is well again.

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Eleven.

This post is the eleventh installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz. Read about it here.

Introduction to Poetry

By Billy Collins

[From The Apple That Astonished Paris]

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Ten.

This post is the tenth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz. Read about it here.

Poem in Which I, and Only I, Get What I Deserve Michael Meyerhofer
[Found in Another Chicago Magazine #49]


A student with manga-blue eyes
submits a poem about her father's hands
and their ability, when closed,


to chip more than teeth. I remember
four years of boxing lessons,
the reason I stayed late


and pressed iron bars against the ceiling,
the nunchakus I practiced
to the trill of imaginary pan flutes


after another female friend told me
what so-and-so had done
and I shuttered from the weight of it all.


I give her the number for counseling.
Then, in a poor attempt
to lighten the mood, ask her


if she wants me to go kick his ass.
She looks me up and down.
Says: I'm pretty sure he could take you.


L. Stacks


Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Nine.

Tonight's edition of book ends' National Poetry Month poetry blitz (read more about it here) is an extra-special edition for two reasons. First, because I am going to post a poem written by none other than yours truly, the very poem that is mentioned in this post--as requested by a faithful reader of mine. Second, tonight's post is special because today is an important day... the 5 year anniversary of the day T & I started dating. And the poem that I am posting just happens to be about him. So, happy anniversary, T!

Rain, Snow, and Other Weather

by Lauren Stacks

[Found in Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25]

I'm like the weather, never really can predict

when this rain cloud's gonna

burst; when it's the high or it's

the low, when you might need a light jacket.

Sometimes I'm the slush that sticks

to the bottom of your work pants,

but I can easily be the melting snowflakes

clinging to your long lashes.

I know that some people like:

sunny and seventy-five,

sunny and seventy-five,

sunny and seventy-five,

but you take me as I am and never

forget to pack an umbrella.

(c) Lauren Stacks

photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Eight.

This post is the eighth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz. Read about it here.

The Language of the Couple

By Heather Sellers

[From the collection, The Boys I Borrow, originally published in Smartish Pace]

The tiniest anything in the sweet whole world

Is named new, just you two know bike is Pony,

Boy is Rug, van is Pookatron, husband, The Pook.

An adorable adoring dictionary feeds you two

You have your names for each other engraved

In your wedding rings, you have names for a chair

The bed, the way you lean back when he holds you.

You name the compost pile, you name the dogs

Over and over and over with new and ever sicklier

Goopier names. Oh Bowser, oh Cutie. Oh Pookadoo.

No more named things the sons protest, it’s just

Jake, stop, stop with The Bug, the June, Junie June Bug

Everything doesn’t have to Be

Named. They repeat.

Whatever.

The Less Said

The Better.

But it does. Everything does have to be named.

Naming’s the knitting love does to keep you

Snug, it’s the country you make

The place you live in. Its language is a two people

Fluency. The extra names gild a thing, a boy, a heart—

The more names the more loved. The more

Loved the more worth, the more you want it.

And so we continue

To summon the bicycle, the car, the garbage

Can, the boys, the hounds, the dishes, the heart

By the love names, the wings Words have when they are

Just yours and his, tongue of two of one of you.

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Seven.

This post is the seventh installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

Reasons Not To Have a Daughter

by Twilight Greenaway

[From Ninth Letter Vol 5, Issue 1]

She’ll shed like a dove,

molt and scrap and reassess

herself in patches like crops

gridding land from above.

She will be all sandal strap

and knee. Snaps and clips and hair

in mouth. Fabric sliced right off

then yearned precisely for.

If you’re any good at all,

she will radiate contentment,

accept recipes and underwear

long after she needs either.

She will also one day know

how small your life is

when set against the debt

you’ve kept at bay

to the bank and the world.

For a place you’ve carved:

a stubborn floor, a bird, a girl.

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Six.

This post is the sixth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

if you like my poems let them

by e.e. cummings

(found at americanpoems.com)

if you like my poems let them

walk in the evening, a little behind you

then people will say

"Along this road I saw a princess pass

on her way to meet her lover(it was

toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Five.

This post is the fifth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

The Gift

by Sean Lause

[from Beloit Poetry Journal]

The day my mother dropped a net

of oranges on the kitchen table

and the net broke and oranges

rolled and we snatched them,

my brother and I,

peeled back the skin and bit deep

to make the juice explode with our laughter,

and my father spun one orange in his palm

and said quietly, “This was Christmas, 1938,”

said it without bitterness or anger,

just observing his life

from far away, this tiny world

cupped in one palm,

I learned I had no way

to comprehend an orange.

L. Stacks

Image: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Four.

This post is the fifth installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

Married Life

by Jeannine Hall Gailey
from Ninth Letter (Vol 5, Issue 2)

You sing in your sleep, he told her.
He rubs her stomach counter-clockwise.

Everyone says I’m lucky she says

to have you.

She washes his hair with lemon and chamomile
to make it more golden.

He chops vegetables on a wooden tablet he made himself.
She thinks she ought to be better with her hands.

You make my life easier she tells him.
I curse like a sailor since I met you he says.

Buyer’s remorse? An empty cradle,

a woman sharper and shorter-haired than he’d married.

They break things made with care,

watch a pair of otters in the river

twisting and grooming and biting.

They look like they’re trying to drown each other.

What do I sing? She asks him.

I don’t know. I don’t understand the words.

Snatches of song like you’re underwater.

Sometimes it sounds like you’re laughing.

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Three.

This is the third installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

Found

by Ron Koertge

[Appeared in Iodine Poetry Journal, reprinted in Best American Poetry 2006]

My wife waits for a caterpillar

to crawl onto her palm so she

can carry it out of the street

and into the green subdivision

of a tree.

Yesterday she coaxed a spider

into a juicier corner. The day

before she hazed a snail

in a half circle so he wouldn't

have to crawl all the way

around the world and be 2,000

years late for dinner.

I want her to hurry up and pay

attention to me or go where I

want to go until I remember

the night she found me wet

and limping, felt for a collar

and tags, then put me in

the truck where it was warm.

Without her, I wouldn't

be standing here in these

snazzy alligator shoes.

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, Two.

This post is the second installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

Three Weddings in October

by Kathleen McGookey

[From Whatever Shines (White Pine Press, 2001)]

How do you give up your names so easily,

like old coats, like bright shells?

Gone like Saturdays near Lake Michigan, heat

and jumping dogs, collapsing tents and pines.

Lost just this year: Wilkins, Winslow, Burris,

while deejay spins and calls, "Ladies and gents,

for their very first dance, Mr. and Mrs. ..."

And when the light hits your shiny cheeks,

when you gather your uncontrollable dress,

why should I blame you? The hall table

is piled with gifts; all we can do is raise

rented champagne flutes and wish you well.

But your satin and daisy bouquet stains

me; it bounces near me, it lands near my name.

L. Stacks

Photo: weheartit

Poetry Blitz, One.

This post is the first installation of book ends'

National Poetry Month poetry blitz! Read about it here.

The Poet with His Face in His Hands

by Mary Oliver

[Appeared in The New Yorker, reprinted in Best American Poetry 2006]

You want to cry aloud for your

mistakes. But to tell the truth the world

doesn't need anymore of that sound.

So if you're going to do it and can't

stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't

hold it in, at least go by yourself across

the forty fields and the forty dark inclines

of rocks and water to the place where

the falls are flinging out their white sheets

like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that

jubilation and water fun and you can

stand there, under it, and roar all you

want and nothing will be disturbed; you can

drip with despair all afternoon and still,

on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched

by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,

puffing out its spotted breast, will sing

of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.

L. Stacks

Image: weheartit

National Poetry Month!

Again this year, I will celebrate National Poetry Month in Chicago. This means that as I walk down the sidewalks without my winter coat and breathe in the springlike air, I don't really see the effects of National Poetry Month. No one can be seen wearing berets, carrying bongos. I don't hear an overabundance of metaphors. To put it simply: I am disappointed.

At Hope College, where I received my undergraduate degree, NPM is starts with a bang--or, a blitz. As a combined April Fool's Day/NPM event, students wake up on April 1st to find the campus sprinkled with poems: taped on doors, windows, sidewalk squares, or tied to trees and bikes. Little elves have been hard at work all night long to make sure that even non-English majors at Hope College can experience Billy Collins or Walt Whitman or even their fellow students' poetry. Janitors have contacted English professors, telling them that they sat around during their lunch breaks reading the print-outs, keeping them tucked next to their mops and buckets.

So, what will follow over the next month will be a (small) poetry blitz of my own. Enjoy, and I only wish you could have stumbled upon these treasures hanging from a tree or maybe in your mailbox.

L. Stacks

(Note: this post is a repeat of a post from a year ago, but in order to explain my intentions, I decided to repost it. Why try to say it again, when I already explained it best?)