I have been flagging poems I like from The Pushcart Book of Poetry, and am now halfway through the anthology. It is excellent. Here is my list so far: Continue Reading “Shortlist from the Pushcart Book of Poetry (Part I)”
Like last year, I have selected one post from each month in the previous year as a means of reflection.
January: The Third Year
Each January brings an opportunity for my wife and I to reflect on the birth and death of our son, and on just how far we have come in learning to re-embrace hope.
February: Poem in The Long-Islander
February was a dark month, as the economy began to take its toll. A glimmer of light came with the news that this poem had been published, on the other side of the country, beneath Walt Whitman’s gaze.
March: Mark Doty: Phoenix Aflame
I discovered solace in the remarkable work of the poet Mark Doty, whose collection Fire to Fire continues to inspire and astonish me.
April: Defining Great Poetry
A young marketing executive from Singapore wrote to me to ask what makes great poetry great.
One of the surprises of completing my MFA was discovering an appreciation for the poems of John Ashbery.
June: Pacific University MFA Commencement Student Speech
I was selected by the faculty, on the basis of my “contribution to the program” to give the student speech at my MFA commencement. It was a glorious day.
July: Interview with Scottish Poet Andrew Philip
I had the great pleasure of meeting Andrew Philip through the blogosphere, and interviewing him about his outstanding debut collection of poems as part of Salt Publishing’s innovative Cyclone Book Tour.
August: Generativity and Letting Go
We marked another milestone in recovering from grief when we finally gave away the baby items originally intended for our son.
September: The Blessings of Complicated Grief
The anniversary of the birth and death of a poet-friend’s son prompted this meditation on the blessings that can come from the deep self-examination profound grief can instigate.
October: The Bear
A remarkable visitor came, all too briefly, into our neighborhood, and met a tragic end. I wrote a poem about the experience, and our next-door neighbor placed an enduring metal sculpture in the tree the bear occupied right across our street.
November: The Death of Loftiness in Poetry
I conducted a quick, fun poll about poetry book titles, and came to some surprising conclusions about what people from different backgrounds think poetry “ought” to be.
December: Enlightened America
I had the pleasure of flying to Boston with Val to see two dear friends get married, and to meet their new baby daughter–the first baby I held in my arms since our son passed away.
It has been an incredible year–full of poetry, hardship, and the renewal of hope. I wish you and yours peace and prosperity in the year to come.
“What did you think, that joy / was some slight thing?”
It is now a matter of public record that my company recently laid off 40% of staff. But numbers do not do justice to the sense of loss. Today I rifled through comments written in our software source code management system by ex-members of my programming team. Sprinkled among the technical remarks were little witticisms and the occasional wry geek joke, artifacts of camaraderie among the ash.
I have been cauterizing the wounds of loss with poems–more reading than writing lately, and catch-as-catch-can. I could not have willed my way toward a better book in this challenging time than Mark Doty’s Fire to Fire. Doty captures the fierce and sometimes terrible beauty of life with musical phrasing, stanzaic integrity, and the courage to look and look, deeper and deeper, into the human world. It is from loss that these poems are written, but their trajectory is towards awe–the hope that springs from amazement, the amazement that springs from deep observation, the deep observation that settles in the ashes of loss.
Doty’s carefully-measured stanzas seem to propel his poems like an engine–which is, after all, a series of well-timed explosions. Each little engine links together to drive us into the depths of the poem–be it the shell of a turtle, the smoky glitz of a cross-dressing bar, or the heart of a man care-taking his dying love. Doty is not afraid to hold with the poem until it opens up, frequently busting the page barrier in little epics that never feel watery, or strain to make a point. It is an inner fire he seeks in each poem, heating up line by line and phrase by phrase–his technique a poetic kiln. Thank you, Mark Doty, for firing your ovens, and plying your craft–producing stunning reminders of the beauty that can rise from flame.
Robert Peake's poems have appeared in Iota, North American Review, Rattle, and others.
