Poetry

[Padraig]

An extraordinary and very moving poem. I'm ashamed to say I'd not heard of this poet. Thank you for posting.

Nor I, Bella. Thanks to the Observer and Kate Kellaway. Marie Stowe is another 'find'.
I'm glad you too liked Stories by Julia Copus.

[Bella Kemp]

Thanks for this Padraig, but I've googled Marie Stowe and can find no trace of a poet. is this how her name is spelt?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for this Padraig, but I've googled Marie Stowe and can find no trace of a poet. is this how her name is spelt?

Julia Copus says that her poem is "after Marie Howe", which results in:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marie-howe

[Bella Kemp]

Ah thanks!

[johncorrigan]

Julia Copus says that her poem is "after Marie Howe", which results in:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marie-howe

Thanks ferney. I had never heard of Marie Howe but found this strangely compelling.


What the Angels Left

At first, the scissors seemed perfectly harmless.
They lay on the kitchen table in the blue light.

Then I began to notice them all over the house,
at night in the pantry, or filling up bowls in the cellar

where there should have been apples. They appeared under rugs,
lumpy places where one would usually settle before the fire,

or suddenly shining in the sink at the bottom of soupy water.
Once, I found a pair in the garden, stuck in turned dirt

among the new bulbs, and one night, under my pillow,
I felt something like a cool long tooth and pulled them out

to lie next to me in the dark. Soon after that I began
to collect them, filling boxes, old shopping bags,

every suitcase I owned. I grew slightly uncomfortable
when company came. What if someone noticed them

when looking for forks or replacing dried dishes? I longed
to throw them out, but how could I get rid of something

that felt oddly like grace? It occurred to me finally
that I was meant to use them, and I resisted a growing compulsion

to cut my hair, although in moments of great distraction,
I thought it was my eyes they wanted, or my soft belly

—exhausted, in winter, I laid them out on the lawn.
The snow fell quite as usual, without any apparent hesitation

or discomfort. In spring, as expected, they were gone.
In their place, a slight metallic smell, and the dear muddy earth.

Marie Howe

[Padraig]

Thanks for this Padraig, but I've googled Marie Stowe and can find no trace of a poet. is this how her name is spelt?

Sorry Bella. I should have gone to Specsavers. But, I think that Marie Howe is an interesting 'find' too.

[Bella Kemp]

She certainly is.

[johncorrigan]

Happiness in Cornwall

His wife died and he grew old
between the graveyard and his
front door. Walked with a gait.
Shoulders bent. He let his clothes
go, and his long hair turned white.
His children found him somebody.
A big middle-aged woman with
heavy shoes who knew how to
mop, wax, dust, shop, carry in
firewood. Who could live
in a room at the back of the house.
Prepare meals. And slowly,
slowly bring the old man around
to listen to her read poetry
in the evenings in front of
the fire. Tennyson, Browning,
Shakespeare, Drinkwater. Men
whose names take up space
on the page. She was the butler,
cook, housekeeper. And after
a time, oh, no one knows or cares
when, they began to dress up
on Sundays and stroll through town.
She with her arm through his.
Smiling. He proud and happy
and with his hand on hers.
No one denied them
or tried to diminish this
in any way. Happiness is
a rare thing! Evenings he
listened to poetry, poetry, poetry
in front of the fire.
Couldn’t get enough of that life.

Raymond Carver

[Bella Kemp]

Thanks johncorrigan for reminding us that Carver was not only a great short story writer but a fine poet (although I can't be alone in thinking that Drinkwater stands a little oddly following Browning, Tennyson, Shakespeare - probably my ignorance to blame). Here's another of his poems that never fails to move me:
Happiness
So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.

I think if they could, they would take
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.

They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

[johncorrigan]

Thanks johncorrigan for reminding us that Carver was not only a great short story writer but a fine poet (although I can't be alone in thinking that Drinkwater stands a little oddly following Browning, Tennyson, Shakespeare - probably my ignorance to blame). Here's another of his poems that never fails to move me:

Carver creates such amazing images, and you are there watching out of his window, usually from his desk. Funnily enough, Bella, I was looking for 'Happiness' today when I came across 'Happiness in Cornwall'.

My Crow

A crow flew into the tree outside my window.
It was not Ted Hughes’s crow, or Galway’s crow.
Or Frost’s, Pasternak’s, or Lorca’s crow.
Or one of Homer’s crows, stuffed with gore,
after the battle. This was just a crow.
That never fit in anywhere in its life,
or did anything worth mentioning.
It sat there on the branch for a few minutes.
Then picked up and flew beautifully
out of my life.

Raymond Carver

[Bella Kemp]

Thanks John. Isn't he incredible? How does he make what seems like ordinary chat into the most profound poetry? It's the Art in being Artless.

[johncorrigan]

Thanks John. Isn't he incredible? How does he make what seems like ordinary chat into the most profound poetry? It's the Art in being Artless.

Agreed! Actually, Bella, I first discovered him as a poet. It was only later that I discovered he wrote short stories. I think I posted it before, but this was the first poem I read by Carver.

My Daughter and Apple Pie

She serves me a piece of it a few minutes
out of the oven. A little steam rises
from the slits on top. Sugar and spice -
cinnamon - burned into the crust.
But she's wearing these dark glasses
in the kitchen at ten o'clock
in the morning - everything nice -
as she watches me break off
a piece, bring it to my mouth,
and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen,
in winter. I fork the pie in
and tell myself to stay out of it.
She says she loves him. No way
could it be worse.

Raymond Carver

[Padraig]

Thanks John and Bella for those Carver poems, which I have enjoyed reading all over again. They reminded me that I also enjoyed another American poet around the same time, and I have dug one up just for you!

Nightclub

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;

smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

Billy Collins from The Art of Drowning 1995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCEl4FGVR7I

[johncorrigan]

Heading to the Hebrides at the weekend for a couple of weeks, thinking of favourite places, and ended up recalling this piece from Norman MacCaig.

Two men at once

In the Culag Bar a fiddler is playing
fast-rippling tunes with easy dexterity.

How do I know? I’m in Edinburgh.

On the pier, sun-scorched tourists
hang their bellies over improbable shorts.

How do I know? I’m in Edinburgh.

In the Veyatie burn a man
hooks a trout. It starts rampaging.

And I’m in Edinburgh.

Or so I say. How easy to be
two men at once.

One smiling and drinking coffee
in Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.

The other cutting the pack of memories
and turning up ace after ace after ace.

Norman MacCaig

[Bella Kemp]

Thanks John and Bella for those Carver poems, which I have enjoyed reading all over again. They reminded me that I also enjoyed another American poet around the same time, and I have dug one up just for you!

Nightclub

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;

smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

Billy Collins from The Art of Drowning 1995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCEl4FGVR7I

Thank you! - and apologies that I have only just noticed this. It is a very fine poem by a poet unknown to me.