The contest closed Monday, August 20, 2007. Thanks to all those who entered!
We’re so close, I can feel it.
In a couple days, this site will reach the 3,000 3,500 visitors mark, which is such a lovely thought I get a little choked up. It means that people, lots of people, are still reading poetry and I am honored that many of the poems that I chose, the poems that forgotten high school teachers, unforgettable
professors, or good, lonely hours have passed into my blood…mean something to you as well.
To celebrate this auspicious occasion and on behalf of Inconnue Press, I would like to offer a free copy of 4×1, a book of poetry by Ranier Maria Rilke, Tristan Tzara, Jean-Pierre Duprey, and Habib Tengour, to anyone who sends me a poem they love and and tells me why they love it, via the comment section of this page.
I will post the poem and comment…unless the poem is not within the public domain, in which case I will post the first few lines of it and try to find a place to link to online where it is copyrighted.
For privacy reasons, don’t include your address…I will contact you for that later. And no, this is not a way to collect info for marketing (we aren’t even big enough for that to be effective).
Poem of the Month 
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Nina, thanks for adding me to your goodreads. have you really read all that Harry Potter, or is that some default setting to new users? either way, another web-friendly contribution to the writers world. here’s your poem, i’ll send you a book in two years. -e
Lucifer, originally published in The American Poetry Review, by Carol Muske
Two A.M. and we’re on Lucifer, arguing, drinking,
one of us a Believer. I say if that beautiful
light-named angel, once most loved to God,
fell, he must have kept falling into insight–
scattering his illumination, plummeting, coming apart
into a broken new diety, one that divides
as the woman’s face in darkness,
the man’s face in quick rip-slashes of light.
Starry dark: down and down She falls into her empty glass,
the night sky lights up with all He refuses to let go.
Here’s the why we love the poem, and in tangent, why Poets and Writers also put her on their summer issue cover:
Can analysis be worthwhile? Well, here’s my take. Muske is a big fan of the 3D’s. Death, Desire, and Domesticity. If she could, she’d be Satan’s lover in this poem and die a second death for him. Perhaps even Lucifer’s counterpart in the poem, Starry dark, does die a second type of love-requiting death to foreground the limited version we have of His first, as I’ll attempt to show. She gives us the uncut version, if you will, for Believers only. Non-Believers need not read on.
The poem’s ‘one of us a Believer’ is Muske, I believe. The non-Believers are akin to the Republicans who watch ‘Inconvenient Truth’ and still do not have sufficient evidence to act. Starry dark (hereon in Starry) is Muske’s doppelganger, a Believer who does have sufficient truth to act.
The poem ends with Starry’s reciprocal fall, and something of what Muske has called, “the imagination’s alchemizing of what we think of as ‘fact.'” The poem elides the initial argument it presents, truth v. biography (Lucifer’s), also an ongoing conversation the poet has broached in her two collections, ‘Sparrow’ and ‘Life after Death.’ These book titles point to what I consider to be the throughline of this poem as well: Falling and all its connotations. By changing the handed down narrative of the Devil’s fate, Muske presents the reader with both Lucifer’s newborn diety and his original–it’s a two-for-one. Starry and Satan are so to speak, dead and/or alive, since the latter’s old soul is spared by the former’s action anew.
It is almost as if something akin to the chaos theory of quantum physics holds to the poetics here: the outcome of Lucifer’s death is changed (the future act alters the past) by the fact of it having been witnessed. Someone–call her Starry, call her a Believer–observes Lucifer’s fall in the poem and like Democrats watching ‘Inconvenient Truth’, is “given and not given sufficient evidence” to believe in the Hellish fate of the world. She, Starry, actually takes on His, Lucifer’s, form once He has passed on, so that both outcomes can coexist–His and Hers, Hers and His–truth and biography. He is absolved after Death, and She can still live with ‘all that He refuses to let go.’ She, is the one who through her own action foregoes the original version of the truth of His fall (the damning fate of his soul) and makes up a new one with Her ‘starring’ as the lead role in His own biography. Muske takes the traditionally accepted narrative of Lucifer’s fall as a limited version of the story. His passing on, His ‘falling into insight’ as Muske says, is made possible by Starry’s choice to go on with her own reciprocal living in darkness, content to be occluded from his truth, even the original version of his death. His fall from grace (read Death) is in effect subverted by hers being transcendent and of this give-and-take/my darkness for your light type of reciprocity. There is a little bit of Hegel’s Lord/Bondsman domestic relationship going on here. And Muske has broken it wide open. Maybe, given the celestial ramifications of their souls, there’s even a four-for-one deal in the works. 4 x 1.
love, erez
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Hello Nina
I wanted to send you a poem for your Send Me A Poem, I’ll Send You A Book. My reply will not be as good as Erez’s, I fear.
Poem: The Wintered Soul Among Wisteria
Originally published in SP Quill Magazine as the Word Wizard Challenge Winner
One need not read her horoscope to know
this woman’s fate, and though wisteria
cascades sweet blooms of lavender like snow
outside her door, it’s still Siberia
pervading the dimensions of her mind,
for not one fickle thought or patch of moss
can thrive where bleakest shadows are enshrined.
No bittersweet, no dewdrops… only loss
surrounds her heart. She tries to reminisce,
but like a barren continent grown cold,
she can’t perceive one particle of bliss.
She’s clasping grief and cannot be consoled!
Wisteria’s perfume is in the breeze,
but in her soul remains a winter’s freeze.
© Andrea Dietrich, SP Quill Magazine
Spring 2006, Volume 10
Clearly this poem is about the death of a loved one and the grief it leaves behind for the survivor. Her struggles to continue everyday life are well documented in this piece.
Everyone feels like they’re in Siberia struggling to find their footing in a world of chaos when someone close to them dies.
‘She tries to reminisce,
but like a barren continent grown cold,
she can’t perceive one particle of bliss.’ I think everyone can relate to the previous line because your heart grows cold after such a loss. Does anyone really recover from losing a loved one? I think we just try to find a way to receive the world without those enshrined shadows and take each day as it comes.
I am sorry if this was not what you were looking for. I thought I would still give it a try.
Michelle Johnson
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[…] Posts You Send Me a Poem, I’ll Send You a BookFictionPoem of the Day: Lucifer […]
Here’s one of mine:
My old friend Zorro
Around the Courtyard of Dispaire
the stony benches stare
their stony glares I’m sitting there
belittling where I’m splitting hairs
I’m feeling numb, the cold befriends
my lonely bum, it all depends
it never ends its weary way it wends
around the Courtyard of Dispaire…
From the Chamber of Self-harmful Thoughts
where sparkling quartz
embedded feebly in the walls
like unburnt warts
uncharm, unharm, unpalm
this Schwarz child as he falls
unmanned unplanned defenceless
sequestration, liquidation
determination, defenestration
from the Chamber of Self-harmful Thoughts…
Outside the Bathroom of Disgust
I know I must, constrain my lust
regain her trust
refrain from thrusting, busting,
tunnelling through time’s carapace
hoary frosts upon my face
at last arriving at the Shop
of Emblazoned Theodolites
the Hut where mud encrusted
dust needs must entrust
outside the Bathroom of Disgust…
Beneath the Carport of Crass Jokes
all the pretty artichokes
fellate parenthetical kobolds enigmatically
conserving quasi-heretical brigadoons contemptibly
noble-browed—like the currency, folks
debased, redoubled, and mythically apportioned
heroically distortioned
amongst the willows, pillows
lurch and larch beneath the birch
unsound the oaks, the treeman trees
the spokesman speaks, the stoker stokes
beneath the Carport of Crass Jokes…
Within the Toilet of Lost Souls
uncosted re-shelved golden bowls
lie wide open but not totally free
enjoining silvercorded foetuses for tea
but never asking why in polls
or surveys nor 11-dimensioned scrolls
upon which scrawls inscribed with moving finger
whether singularities lurk or linger
within Schwarzchild’s dreadful dreary kitchens
baking suns and planets for predestined roles
within the Toilet of Lost Souls…
Down the Hallway of Tomorrow
all the tumours full of sorrow
speak the rumours, beg or borrow
Well I never, did you ever
shiver or quiver or quaver or deliver
green-hatted pipe-smoking creatures
eponymous leprechauns blameless
nameless but well-known if not despised
try this for size, unwise, her thighs
unhorsed upon my old friend Zorro
down the Hallway of Tomorrow…
Copyright © S R Schwarz 2007. All rights reserved.
Hey Nina, I too applaud the desire for poetry to be important and recognized as an art that is alive and well! Below is a poem that I wrote about another passion of mine. I hope to use my poetry to encourage people to once again have an imagination about nature and to seek out a magical connection to it. We need to teach the wonderous, fascinating joy of nature to our children..after all, how can we save what we do not first love?
“In Search of Faeries”
Merry Mill rises higher on the hill,
disappears behind a curtain of green.
Woody arms and fingers inter-lace
curling pointy welcomes,
drawing us in.
Terabithia awaits.
Fireflies light the way down the
fern-kissed path where
tagless, costless dreams
hang on secret trees. The fruits
wrinkle your tongue if
you eat them before the
faeries come.
I know they are hiding
beneath the mushrooms,
tall and wide, lush
sacred umbrellas.
This time we will see them.
Come with me.
Hi there, Nina!
Here’s a poem that I wrote a couple of months ago. It’s called “Love me like you never loved before”.
The presence of you
keeps me up in the night.
I don’t know what to do
when you’re out of my sight.
My life is a bore.
I long for your touch.
I can tell you for sure
that I want you so much.
Love me like you
never loved before.
Come with me.
It’s easy to see
that we both need that thing
like a bird with one wing.
We could fly
and time would pass by.
As we reach for the shore,
I will want you much more.
Love me like you
never loved before.
Skin on skin,
the fire within,
your body is mine,
your look is divine.
The night is still young,
with your name on my tongue,
though nothing me harms,
I will die in your arms.
Love me like you
never loved before.
————————–
And why?
When you can’t have the one that you want, the dream might keep you from going under. And if your dream finally comes true, then there is nothing left to fear. That’s what this poem is about and I would like to share it with millions of dreamers.
Håkan Tendell
Hello, Nina. 🙂 I’m happy to have discovered your blog. Yes, poetry is still alive but sometimes it takes people like you to help foster it. So, thank you for this thing you started. 🙂 I’m a teacher and this 2-part poem was inspired by 3 students of mine who supported me and acted as my wise counsels during a particularly difficult school year. The second poem is about their graduation and the hope of continuing friendship.
Beloved Three
I.
I feel six pairs of eyes
Lurking and gazing out
From three heedful heads
With flowing black locks
Three graceful fingers
Wagging a warning
With three tongues a-ready
To go clucking amok
Six clever feet
Tapping rhythms of caution
A trio in minor
Singing inquiring refrains
I have six arms to hug me
Six hands to hold
Three beautiful angels,
Guardians so bold
Vigilant daughters
Of word and of sound
Their love, a light around me
Their devotion abounds
I still often wonder why
They have chosen me to love
I have three beautiful angels here on Earth
To help the ones above
(Mar 18, 2006)
II.
Hush, my Heart, subside this beating
Fast flim-flamming rhythmic flow
My beloved three tonight are beaming
There they go
And how they go
This night, their lives as pupils gleaning
Vicarious knowledge from tomes long past
Parroted endlessly by tongues unceasing
Will cease at last
Cease at long last
Giddy Pride, swells, overflowing
As each angel mine on petalled stage tread
A hand to the devil, graciously hinting
Of lives ahead
Grand lives ahead
Stop, my Tears, subside thy gath’ring
Tomorrow awaits though Night is over
Outside this hallowed hall, continuing
A Dance Quartet
Forever and ever
(Mar 26, 2006)
Why
Being a teacher is such a challenge and, often, it’s the students who make the job worthwhile. The end of that schoolyear was bittersweet because we were all leaving: me, to work elsewhere; and them, to go on with their studies. This poem is for those three girls and all my students, my reason for teaching, who cared.
I’m so excited to share a poem with my lovely new friend Nina. I wrote it, so you shouldn’t have any copyright problems;-)
Breathing, Becoming
Remembering, I am
gold
and green
folding fields
long
subtle
silver hills
round
azure
pond and sky
I stray
grazing
glorious
grass. Sway
drifting
effortless
cloud
Remember, I am
cow
like sun
massive, stubborn
breath
like breeze
warm, growing
heart
like grass
alive, golden
I stall
breathing
becoming
ripe. Fall
passing
remember
I am
Why is it one of my favorites? I guess it’s because it makes my heart feel bigger than my chest.
– Michael Lamanna
Cyberspace stole my spacing . . . enjoy anyway.
hey waz up i love to write poems nd read dem dey r like my life
Hi!,
These poems are so touching and deep. They mean so much. I want to post my own but I know that can’t. They show depression and as I long to wonder the canopies of heaven, I know that my time will come one day. But for now, I must concentrate on keeping my feelings on paper and not putting them in the worthy knots of a noose.
Wonderful work Nina
Keep On