Poets picking poets

 

When I asked a group of poets about their favorite poets, I started by naming those who meant the most to me:

Mary Oliver, who keenly observed and wrote about the intricacies of nature (human and otherwise), got me back to writing poems after years away!

Wendell Berry, whom I had the privilege of meeting, inspired and challenged me with his poems about basics and community.

After struggling in high school to understand T.S. Eliot, I devoured his amazing comparisons and exquisite phrases, wrought, no doubt, by time and insightful observation.

Other favorites include the wry humor of Billy Collins, down-to-earth haiku of Richard Wright, powerful reflections and assessments of Langston Hughes, and, oh, too many poets to name, for many were my teachers-in-print.

Then, a group of poets shared their favorites, such as Emily Brontë, whose work I’d never read but wanted to after hearing the poet’s reason for choosing her: “The way she sees the world in such a unique and almost haunting way makes her writing stand out for me. I feel very inspired reading her poetry.”

Another poet didn’t give reasons for the choices, but provided specific titles: Wislawa Szymborska, “Four in the Morning,” Yusef Komunyakaa, “Ode to the Maggot,” and Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art.”

Yet another said, “Of course, the great Pablo Neruda. Soft heart for Galway Kinnell as well,” but most of the poets merely listed their favorites, each of whom is worth looking up online and reading a poem or two. To ease your research, just copy and paste each name of interest into your browser’s Search box.  

Allen Ginsberg

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Anna Akhmatova

Czeslaw Milosz

Denise Levertov

Dylan Thomas

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Emily Dickinson

Francis Thompson

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

John Keats

John Donne

John Milton

Khalil Gibran

Lord Byron

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Robert Browning

Robert Frost

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

William Blake

William Stafford

William Wordsworth

Walt Whitman

I’ve omitted some of the favorites because of space and also because I wasn’t familiar enough with their poems to recommend them here, but I hope you’ll add your favorite poet(s) in the Comments section below.

 

Posted by Mary Harwell Sayler, who would be ecstatic for you to buy numerous gift copies of A Gathering of Poems!

 

 

 

 

Found Poems and the Bible

 

A Found Poem can be found anywhere an arrangement of words or interesting thoughts pop out at you. Some poets scramble and reassemble lines from a magazine ad, a speech, an article, or a favorite book. Since my favorite book is the Bible, I often find Found Poems there, and this week they reflect next Sunday’s readings.

To explain, many church denominations use the same Lectionary each week with readings from the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament), a Psalm, an Epistle (letter) from the New Testament, and a Gospel. Our multi-denominational church does this too, and when I saw the readings for the first Sunday in October, I thought, “Wow! I found poems in each of those scriptures: Psalm 137, Lamentations, 2 Timothy 1, and Luke 17. So, to give you examples and encourage your poetic findings, here they are!

Harps On The Willows
based on Psalm 137

By Babylon's waters,
we sat down & wept.
By Babylon's rivers,
we lingered.
Remembering Zion,
we hung up our harps.
We hung weeping harps
on the willows.
We flung our lyres onto
the poplars.

  May peace come to us.
  May songs come to us.
  May God come to us.

  Shalom, Zion. 

"Give us a song!"
our tormentors sang.
"Sing us your songs
of Zion."
But how shall we sing
with our lives out of tune?
As we mourn,
shall we croon over Zion?
Shall we sing the Lord's song
out of Zion?

  May peace come to us.
  May songs come to us.
  May God come to us.

  Shalom, Zion.

Jerusalem!
May we never forget!
May we never forget God's city.
If we do not recall,
surely God's wrath will fall
over every song sung
not of Zion.
Shalom will not rest
outside Zion.

  May peace come to us.
  May songs come to us.
  Oh, God!  Come to us!

  Shalom!  Zion!

from my book A Gathering of Poems

…

Found in the prophet Jeremiah’s
entire Book of Lamentations

I.

Lonely sits the city
once full of citizens.
Bitterly she weeps
in the silence of night.
Even the roads to her
mourn softly. The
priests groan. Young
girls grieve. The city’s
enemies prosper.

Precious things filled
the past. She took no
thought for the future.

Look, Lord, and see
how worthless she’s
become, and no one
comforts her.

II.

The Lord has done this!
God has destroyed her
without mercy. Her
prophets see no visions.

People! Cry aloud to God!
Pour our your hearts like
water. Lift up your hands
for the children, who
faint from hunger.

III.

I am the one who sees
this affliction. In the
dark, I sit without light.
Chains weigh me down.
A wall holds back my
prayers. My soul has
found no peace. Yet

Hope returns as I call
to mind the steadfast
love of the Lord, Whose
mercies never cease.
They are new every
morning. Great is Your
faithfulness. Therefore,
I will still hope in You.

How good to wait in
silence for salvation
from the Lord as I turn
the other cheek to the
Smiter. Let us test and
examine our ways,
and return to God. Let
us lift up our hearts and
our hands to Heaven.
When I call to the Lord,
He says, “Do not fear!” 

IV.

In vain we watched for
help from a nation who
could not save us.

V.

Now we must buy wood
for warmth. We must
buy water to quench our
thirst. Music has ceased,
but God orchestrates
everything! Restore us,
O Lord! Restore us, and
we shall be restored.

… 

Haiku from 2 Timothy 1:7

God does not give us
a spirit of fear, but love,
power, and sound mind.

...

Mastering Servants

prose poem from Luke 17:7-10

“If your servants do only as you ask and nothing more…”
Do we praise them profusely? 

Picture the people we hired – dragging themselves in,
wearily sweating and reeking of dirt and sheep after
plowing a field or keeping watch over the flock. Do we
hop up to wash their feet or cook their dinner and serve
them while they rest? No way! Instead, we might say,
“Hey, get my dinner, then get your own.” So when
we only do as God commands, and the Lord Himself
gets up to welcome us and wash our feet and give us
rest, it might be best to say, “Oh, Lord, I am not worthy
of such attention and affection! I’ve merely done the 
minimum required to keep my job.”

…

Haiku humor based on Luke 17:6

I’ll be more likely
to tell that mountain to move
than find faith to climb!

…

Hopefully, my examples encourage you to search the Bible for Found Poems and maybe find more than that! As you look through scripture, especially notice verses that speak to you and your readers today.

May blessings and poetry abound!

 

Mary Harwell Sayler

 

Metonymy: A Colorful Way of Saying Something

 

Poetry has always spoken in figurative language as the Bible and early manuscripts show, usually by way of metaphor (this IS that) or simile (this is LIKE that), but metonymy also speaks figuratively (opposite of literally.)

Every region has its own way of adding color to conversation.  If you grew up in the Southern U.S.A., as I did, you probably heard people talk in metonymy, which uses a word or two to replace something else.

For examples:

breeze – easy to do

collar – priest (noun) or (verb) arrest a suspect

crown – reigning king or queen (noun) or (verb) whack someone over the head

dish – deliciously good-looking woman

dough – money (unless you’re a baker)

foxy – sensually attractive person

frog – obstruction in throat

glitch – not working as smoothly as hoped

hot rod – super speedy automobile

hunk – good-looking, well-built man

lines – dialogue in a script, parts of a poem, or a pleasing shape

lip – sass, backtalk

nailed it – successfully accomplished

peachy – all is well – or pretending to be

pedal to the metal – go fast!

ride – car or other vehicle taking somebody somewhere

slice – wedge of pizza

star – actor whose work shines

suit – business person suitably attired

tub of lard – an insensitive, unkind slur for a very overweight person (Avoid these!)

tube – TV (or maybe an MRI machine that feels like a thermos.)

windows to the soul – eyes

Similar to metonymy is synecdoche, which uses part of something to refer to the whole thing. For instance, wheels as a synecdoche represents the whole vehicle or car.  

Teens and young adults often create synecdoche or metonymy as their private code with imaginative variations according to the locale. With that in mind, you see why the successful use of metonymy works in a poem or other manuscript mainly if your targeted readers understand that particular word or phrase.

This potential glitch in comprehension makes it trickier to come up with your own new ways of saying something. Even so, the context can make your meaning clear. So, invent. Have fun. Make up new words and phrases – just because you can!

 

Mary HarwellSayler