It's National Poetry Month! Yay! My grand scheme last year for posting favorite poems fell through quickly and mightily. I am not so foolish to make more silly promises this time around.
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen
National Poetry month is one of those celebrations acknowledged only by poets, poet nerds, and a handful of eager high school English teachers. Many people dislike poetry after forcefully learning "Ode on Grecian Urn" and some flowery Blake they never understand, or cast it in the drawer of things 'too high-brow for me.' (Full confession: I love Blake AND 'Grecian Urn'. Yes, I'm a poetry nerd) I want to read to these people the simple beauty of Whitman, the joy of Silverstein, the stark bluntness of Akhmatova. But you can't win them all. As long as there are creative people writing poetry, and grateful people reading it, we will end up alright.
For me, poetry is an escape to a world where rhythm and meter rule thoughts. Even dark words of war and sorrow open beacons of light on a drab reality. I like my declarations of love and wonder and sadness to exist somewhere between word and song. Paint my life in flowing rhythm of verse!
I am, of course, markedly jealous of those writers capable great poetry, Covetous of their mastery of language. My pathetic attempts are plentiful, and heroically mediocre at the bet of times. Even as the editor of the high school lit magazine I could never get beyond bland. It has, admittedly, been a long time since I wrote any verse. I don't know if my cluttered mind can sit still long enough anymore. It takes time, and patience.
The poster for National Poetry Month 2011 is in striking contrast to last year's graphic explosion. Instead the colors are more muted and font simple. The main content is from A work by Elizabeth Bishop, which makes me both happy and proud. Bishop is a Vassar graduate (Class of 1934) and one of our more famous Alumna. And though Vassar is not my alma mater, I sill feel a sense of pride and ownership here. I grew up in the shadows of its brick buildings, often playing and learning on the campus. I had never heard of, nor read, anything by Bishop before coming to work at Vassar. This is not very odd since I knew very little of American poetry at all. Here we have an art installation of benched inscribed with snippets of her work that line a winding path. Since learning of her I have read some of her poetry, though none of her prose. I enjoy her work. Her style is clean and flowing, but direct. I love that she described the places she traveled to, taking us there with her not just visually but emotionally. Though to the point, I feel like there is still a between the lines to read. It feels classic and contemporary all at once. I still no very little about her life, but at the moment I am satisfied with a sitting down occasionally with an anthology and learning about her through her writing.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of her life, and she was our Poet Laureate at one point,so the quote on the poster is not random. It just so happens that it coincides with Vassar's sesquicentennial celebrations. I am sure that the administration is very proud. I would like to take the opportunity to share some Bishop here.
The MapLand lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to life the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?
Teh shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.
Labrador's yellow, where the moony Eskimo
has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,
under a glass as if they were expected to blossom,
or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish.
The names of seashore towns run out to the sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
--the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.
These peninsulas take the water between the thumb and finger
like women feeling for the smoothness of yard-goods.
Mapped water are more quiet that the land is,
lending the land their waves' own confirmation:
and Norway's hare runs south in agitation,
profiles investigate the sea, where land is.
Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
--What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.
~ from North and South, 1946
LINKS:
Elizabeth Bishop @ poets.org
Elizabeth Bishop wiki
National Poetry Month
