I told yesterday that these Poetry Conversations could just as easily be titled Poetry Connections, because it has allowed me to connect personally with people over poetry. The chance to see how differently (or similarly) someone else’s takeaway is from a certain poem is a gift. It’s the "oh, we see that the same way" or "oh, I never thought about it that way" that hits you right at heart level. It’s like being in elementary school all over again and making a new friend because you both like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Or because you like ham and cheese and she likes pb&j and so you always switch when your mom sends the wrong one.)

And so today I’ve had the chance to deepen a friendship with a smart, expressive 9 year old, Laura. Laura is the daughter of one of my best friends (who is also a writer, so it’s not hard for me to imagine why Laura is so expressive). Our conversation over Hoberman’s "Mayfly" made me wish I could chat with Laura more often.

MAYFLY

by Mary Ann Hoberman

Think how fast a year flies by
A month flies by
A week flies by
Think how fast a day flies by
A Mayfly’s life lasts but a day

Read the rest here.

Laura said she likes to read romantic and pretty poems but that she thought it was really cool that the poem was about a bug. She said people don’t normally write about bugs because they might be scared of them.

Laura loved this part below because it was "pretty and quiet":

A Mayfly flies a single day
The daylight dies and darkness grows
A single day
How fast it flies
A Mayfly’s life
How fast it goes

Laura said the poem made her feel "silent, watching the scenery go by, like [she] was in a car, feeling hopeful for a new day, when a new Mayfly is born…"

Be still my beating heart! "Silent, watching the scenery go by…" Isn’t that a lovely way to express how poetry can make you feel? Like you’re watching the scenery and yet part of it at the same time?

Laura was kind enough to share an original poem of her own with me and gave me permission to share it with you.

Movement

by Laura (Lastnamehere)

Up or down,
side to side,
back and forth,
It’s all
movement.

Laura, you’ve moved your way right into our hearts! Thank you for sharing your thoughts about "Mayfly" and your own beautiful poem about movement.

Today’s Poetry Conversation took place with Margaret. I’ve known Margaret since she was a baby, and she said she’d be happy to discuss Naomi Shihab Nye’s "Famous" with me.

Famous

by Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

Read the rest here.

Margaret read the poem silently twice and then out loud once. She giggled at the parts she thought were funny (which just shows how much more natural insight she had into the poem than I did. I didn’t laugh at all!) And then we discussed.

Margaret said the poem made her think of all the things she takes for granted. The things that function as they’re supposed to but that we don’t pay attention to.

She laughed in two spots. She thought the part that says the loud voice is famous to the silence was funny because of the implication that the silence is all-knowing and didn’t need the loud voice to tell it anything in the first place. And she thought the part about the boots being more famous than the dress shoes was funny because it turns upside down what we normally think about fame.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

I have to admit when I reread the poem, I laughed with that part too. How funny. And clever. AND TRUE!

Margaret said she feels like the poem is saying that the speaker wants to be famous for the simple things, not for accomplishing big things but for fulfilling her purpose. And Margaret said that the writer was made for poetry, so she wants her poetry to connect with people, just like the boot connects with the earth.

WOW. Isn’t that some great insight for a 14 year-old? And guess what? I convinced Margaret to write her own ending for this poem using Nye’s words as a guide. Look at what wonderfulness she came up with (and see if you catch a bit of Margaret’s own humor that made me laugh out loud):

I want to be famous to my parents

Who rejoice at my smiling face,

fighting brothers and sisters at babysitting jobs,

Famous as the one brings peace, and chocolate.

I want to be famous in the way the sun is famous,

Or a kiss, not because it did anything extravagant,

But because its love is constant.

And that, my friends, was a lovely Poetry Conversation to be a part of.

OH NO! I’m done for today. (I’m not sure I ever promised to post every single day of poetry month, but if I did, I was already done for!) So no Poetry Conversation today. Instead:

A stretch
A yawn
A bed

Tomorrow will be better!

Because I’m caught up in life and this is the poetry conversation I’m having in my head. I’m feeling like a loser on some things, the things I’m letting slide…but perhaps not *all* of the important things. So today’s poetry conversation is with myself!

Losers

by Carl Sandburg

IF I should pass the tomb of Jonah
I would stop there and sit for awhile;
Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark
And came out alive after all.

If I pass the burial spot of Nero
I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!”—
I who have fiddled in a world on fire,
I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.

I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too.
I want to shake his ghost-hand and say,
“Neither of us died very early, did we?”

And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar—
When I arrive there I shall tell the wind:
“You ate grass; I have eaten crow—
Who is better off now or next year?”

Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James,
There too I could sit down and stop for awhile.
I think I could tell their headstones:
“God, let me remember all good losers.”

I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads
In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods,
Walking into the drumfires, calling his men,
“Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?

Inspired to post this by susanwrites earthworm haiku (though I wrote it a year ago, maybe?):

Ode to the Earthworm

O eater of earth
Compacter of food
You fashion a poem from soil
swallowing the best bits whole.
You combine and arrange them,
a digestion of words,
oozing richness from inside
and leaving your world better
than you found it.

–Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

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;}