Okay, so in September we’re going on what will be affectionately called the ME WITH YOU book tour/grandparent time/visit every historical piece of dirt on the East Coast trip and there will be a Wednesday through Friday that we’ll be in Boston.

On Thursday morning of that week, I’ll hop down to Barrington, RI for a reading and book signing with illustrator Christopher Denise. And we’ll both be in Boston for a signing at Wellesley Booksmith on Friday of that week.

SO, on Thursday afternoon, we could either head back to Boston to visit some historical dirt, or we could drive two hours over to Amherst to visit the Eric Carle Museum and then head back to Boston later that afternoon.

Going to the Museum would mean less historical dirt in Boston. What is your opinion?

I’m going to jump in with an original poem today, which I was only going to do on the weekends, but our days are all mixed up anyway with the wondering of what day it is today, considering the days off from school this week.

I try new forms sometimes and thought this villanelle about death and longing appropriate to share for Good Friday.

Echoes

I trace the echoes on your face,
burned by love and word,
of brighter days and softer place.

and lay my soul in soft embrace,
my paradise deferred.
I trace the echoes on your face
of brighter days and softer place.

—Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

Well, now. This is going to be different. Today’s Poetry Conversation guests are my eight-year old son and my five year-old daughter. Okay, so probably not what you were expecting. But due to circumstances beyond our control, we were in a bind. And a conversation about poetry makes a wonderful ending to a bit of a fidgety day.

Today’s poem is:

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.

Okay, so to tell you the truth, I finished reading it and the five-year old jumped up and shrugged and said, “I don’t even know what is haunches.”

Uh-oh. Down one conversationalist.

But the eight-year old hung in there and really found this poem fascinating. He said, "Do you think he (the author) said like cat’s feet because you can’t hear little cat feet and you can’t hear the fog?"

Dingdingding, with no prompting from me. Easy enough for an eight year old.

I asked him what else about cats might remind us of fog. He read the poem again. He thought. He laughed when the dog burped into the silence. And then he said, "You know how cats just sit there and stare? And then they go off and stare at something else and you don’t even know why? That’s kind of like the clouds when they’re really low. It creeps in while you’re asleep and by the time you get out of school, it’s gone."

This is true, especially where we live in our city.

So the eight-year old decided we could write our own version since we have a dog and not a cat. This is what he came up with:

Happiness comes
on little dog’s feet.

It bounces in slobbering
over your heart and face
on clicky-clack feet
and doesn’t stop till bedtime.

And I thought that was a perfect Poetry Conversation.

I’m late today, but here I am. Okay, so I said I wouldn’t be discussing poetry with the usual suspects, and I’m only bending the rule today, not breaking it. Today’s Poetry Conversation is with Katy Duffield, critique partner and precious friend of mine, but believe it or not, someone I don’t usually discuss poetry with.
Katy, though, is getting a college degree and has been reading more poetry than she ever has. AND she is the gal who turned me on to Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry. Had I ever read it? I don’t remember. But when Katy raved about it last year, I checked it out. (And when I was planning these Poetry Conversations, I did have to go back and confirm that it was Bishop that Katy had raved about!)

So here’s the deal. The first Bishop poem I ever read reminded me of my Papa, my mama’s daddy. Oh, Papa. He was rough around the edges, and he cussed, and he was quite a character. And then he had a stroke, and he softened, and was sentimental and sweet and I like to think he’d even have liked for me to read this Bishop poem to him.

You see, before Papa retired he ran a gas station. I remember going by his gas station, though I’m not sure if it was while he was still working there or if it was afterward when he stopped by to shoot the breeze with his friends. If I’m not mixing my memories, I remember getting a coke and some peanuts (and the peanuts always went *into* the bottle of coke) and hanging out while Papa and his cronies chewed the fat. So, when I read Bishop’s "Filling Station", it was all Papa, all the way through.

Here’s a taste:

Filling Station

by Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!
–this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Read the rest here. (Oh, please do. It’s worth it.)

So when I sent this one to Katy, she immediately bit:

Oh! Isn’t that just what you love to hear? The kind of writing that gets one excited about poetry?

Katy goes on:

This is Just to Say

By William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

Read the rest here.

Oh, we’ve read this one before so many times. A poem of apology for the ages. But I don’t think my friend Grace had read it before. Grace is 17 years old and the daughter of my friend, Jo. Every time I read a book I think Grace or her sister Margaret will like, I pass it forward to them. And Grace was kind enough to take part in my Poetry Month fun.

This was Grace’s response to WCW’s "This is Just to Say":

Hooray for poetry you can relate to, that’s what I say! Perhaps this isn’t true for all poets, but when I write poetry I’m hoping to tap into a truth, a universal emotion or truth, that others will relate to, or will say, "YES! That’s it! But I’ve never thought about it that way…"

This is what Grace had to say about poetry in general, and apologies specifically:

But guess what, dear readers? I convinced her to write one anyway. 🙂 Here is Grace’s own true-to-life, current version of WCW’s "This is Just to Say". Can you relate?

I have eaten
the last of the Häagen-Dazs ice cream
that was in
the freezer

and which
you were probably
saving
for your midnight snack.

Forgive me
it was heavenly

so caramel-ly
and so cold.

—Grace Bailey, inspired by WCW

HA! Now, Grace, that made ME laugh out loud. 🙂

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Tomorrow I start back up my month of Poetry Conversations but for today the sun is shining and the birds are singing and though we’re headed into Autumn here in Brazil, spring is in the air. Get outside and enjoy the poetry of Spring! Here’s an original poem to inspire you:

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Air Show

A gathering of sparrows

            swift

       in each

            flit

                   and

            dive,

chase,

            arrive,

then chase again

bumping cross open sky,

a

            free-

     for-

                 all

wing-powered air show

<!–
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:”Cambria Math”;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:10.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
–>

—Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

I’ll take a break each weekend from my Poetry Conversations and try to share an original poem.

Today’s is a bit of silliness for your Saturday, part of a WIP tentatively titled ALL IN THE FAMILY. Imagine the typical family get-together when something spider-ish goes oh-so-wrong:

Spider on the Loose

Aunt Alma’s on the table
My spider’s on the loose
My mom’s not pouring gravy
My dad’s not carving goose

Aunt Alma’s on the table
She’s pitching quite a fit
How will we eat our meal unless
she gets down off of it?

“Oh my, oh dear, I’ll faint I fear,
if you don’t find him soon.”
Aunt Alma’s on the table and
she says she’s gonna swoon.

Aunt Alma’s on the table
It’s time to fill our plates
Search all the nooks and crannies
While everybody waits

I’ve scanned each spot, the food is hot
I’ll find him when I’m able
Can’t we just have dinner with
Aunt Alma on the table?

—Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

Sometime in the last year three different things happened. Our dog (Camo) died. I read Daniel Groves’ poem "A Dog’s Life". And I got back in touch with my high school friend, Lucy, via the wonders of Facebook. Lucy and I went to high school together for two years until I was transferred to another school and I remembered her as smart and funny, and a sincere and loyal friend. There was this party we went to once . . . well, we’ll just leave that in the past.

"A Dog’s Life" is such a clever but most-heartbreaking poem. Apostrophe Cast had this to say about Groves’ poetry:

A Dog’s Life

By Daniel Groves

A stay of execution: one last day,
your day, old Everydog, then, as they say,
or as we say (a new trick to avoid
finalities implicit in destroyed),
you have to be put down, orput to sleep—
the very dog who, once, would fight to keep
from putting down, despite our shouts, a shoe

Read the rest here.

Lucy was a journalist in Atlanta for 10 years. She’s no stranger to words so I hoped she’d be game to join me in my Poetry Month madness. And she was! Her interaction with me over "A Dog’s Life" demonstrates some tips for all of us in how to read poetry. Here, I’ll let Lucy tell it:

your day, old Everydog, then, as they say,

or as we say (a new trick to avoid

finalities implicit in destroyed),

you have to be put down, or put to sleep—

I had to read it again, and then it was only when I read it the third time, out loud, that I found more of the richness. And I came away enjoying it even more. Finally, the resignation and sadness rang through, the finality and also the author’s struggle to almost create his own sort of "stay" from feeling the finality of losing his friend.

Did you catch that? "It was only when I read it the third time, OUT LOUD, that I found more of the richness." How many times has that been true with me, too, when I read poetry! And oh my, I didn’t even catch that the author’s struggle to create his own sort of "stay", trying to hold on a bit to his friend through the writing of this poem. That’s rich, isn’t it?

Lucy went on:

I think my favorite lines:

My God, tomorrow’s ride . . . Well, here we are,

right now. You stare at me and wag your tail.

It’s that feeling that he’s trying to live "in the now", as they say, as savor the last little bit of time left. Yet, he can’t escape the eventuality of death.

Ahh. Thank you so much, Lucy, for sharing your thoughts with me about "A Dog’s Life."

Lucy said she doesn’t read poetry consistently but that she owns a first edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s "The Harp Weaver and other Poems" that she bought at a book fair in high school. She called it "one of [her] little treasures."

Isn’t that lovely?

I have the best friends. Seriously. That they would indulge my love for poetry and be willing for me to send them a poem to discuss, well, isn’t that just a mark of a good friend? Especially if it’s not something we tend to discuss in our day-to-day lives.

Here in Brazil, my friend Jo B. is my go-to girl for encouragement and perspective. We enjoy each others’ company and have a comfortable friendship where neither of us feel like we have to have all the right answers.

One of our favorite topics (within the context of the drama of our lives) is hope, where it comes from, how we hold onto it, how we can help one another find it. An obvious choice would have been Emily Dickinson’s Hope is the Thing with Feathers. But I chose De Produndis because I wanted a poem that really captured this distant yet present nature of hope we seem to struggle in life.

De Profundis

by Christina Rossetti

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

Jo’s initial response was, "I feel so stupid talking about stars, the moon and feelings….. I love concrete things, that I can touch and feel." ( I really wanted to edit out the "stupid" from Jo’s sentence. She’s anything but. She is intelligent and vibrant and clever and sincere. I didn’t change it because I really wanted you to get her honest initial feeling about the poem.)

She went on to say:

"But I have been and am touched at times by nature that’s close, like a loud, terrible thunder storm that I can hear and see but am inside my apartment, safe; or a rough ocean, so big, scary, powerful, that you can stand close to but are safe. They don’t leave me unsettled or scared – I feel comfortable with my weakness, humbled in their presence, like everything is under someone’s control."

And all I could say in response to that was, "WOW."

About this verse:

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

Jo had this to say:

"I can relate – as it regards to hope. I often find myself as a result of difficult circumstances in my life or the life of those I love, feeling so far away from hope, life, meaning, etc. (God). I feel so alone and I feel that if I reach out, like Rossetti mentioned, talking to someone, asking for help, I’ll just be disappointed because how can anyone really understand what is going on with me, who really cares? Like her, reaching out in the last stanza – I would be disappointed because that alone "reaching" to the unreachable isn’t going to give you anything."

I think Jo gets exactly what Rossetti was getting at. Hope seems unreachable, out there floating in the heavens and we just catch at it. It’s hard to hold on to.

Jo echoes this in her last statement to me:

"

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

The fact is that I can relate to Christina in that the light/hope doesn’t stay long with me, most everything around me reminds me that I am insignificant and one in billions, easily overwhelmed."

My personal favorite verse is:

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.

Isn’t that "round monotonous of change" quite an image? For me, Rossetti seems to be saying, "I can’t even grasp the lowest of the heavens, the part that remains on its same course around me. It’s beyond me. And I wouldn’t even want to if I could. It’s too monotonous. I want the sun’s far-flailing train." For me it’s clear that Rossetti believes her hope lies elsewhere, in the one who built heaven "so far" and set earth "so remote." And yet she just catches at it.

So perhaps our feelings about hope are much like our feelings about poetry. Most of us feel like we just catch at its meaning, grasping pieces of its truth.

And I think that’s enough.