Progress, by Robert Lee Brewer
Before we know it
the world has done it
again. Passed us by. It
is later than we thought it
should be. It
won't stop, will it?
*****
Newer Book:
This Clumsy Living
by Bob Hicok (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Speaking of time, it feels like just yesterday that I picked up this book at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan while courting my wife Tammy. It was actually a gift for Tammy, because one of our many shared interests is in the Hicok's poetry. I remember buying his The Legend of Light in college, and I've been a fan ever since. The reason I picked This Clumsy Living as my Hicok book is that I feel it combines Hicok's sense of humor and accessibility with a certain artistic risk taking, especially in "A poem with a poem in its belly." If you've been meaning to check out Hicok, this collection is a great place to start.
*****
Poems Found Online:
- Ode to Joy, by D.A. Powell from Linebreak
- Warning, by Audrey Walls from storySouth
- How to Understand Acoustics, by Dana Kroos from Mason's Road
- 5 Poems, by Ray Gonzalez from Diode
- February, by Ira Sadoff from Poets.org
Older Book:
Live or Die
by Anne Sexton (Houghton Mifflin)
Another poet Tammy and I enjoy reading is Anne Sexton. In fact, Tammy had a blog that took its title from Sexton's poem "Her Kind." Maybe the best place to start with Sexton is to grab her Selected Poems, but for sentimental reasons, I like Live or Die the most of her collections (followed closely by Transformations). Live or Die was my introduction to her writing, and I fell in love with her voice, especially in poems like "Menstruation at Forty" and "Wanting to Die." It's the kind of collection that strikes right at the heart of what Sexton was experiencing, but does so with a sophistication that's true art.
*****
Note: Links in this post to books are affiliate links. However, I do not mention these books to make a profit. They are either books I'm connected to or ones I truly love. All other links in this post are not affiliate links.
*****
Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.
*****
Check out previous Poetic Saturdays posts:
3 comments:
I like the practice of posting a poem to suit the trigger for the post itself. If one hopes some day to find a publisher for a chapbook or book of poetry, have you made the posted poem ineligible?
Certainly time (Time?) is always with us and in the past. Without total recall, we all must feel we have lost...
It feels like my three girls were born last week and now they are in college. Yikes. Life is too much like a time warp. Sounds like you are savoring the time with your kids.
A concise recognition of the speed of time. Thank you.
I think JLC made an excellent point as did Robin. Time escapes while we're busy doing other things.
I just posted something called: Time Flew or Stood Still that I wrote in 2006
Reading your poem "Progress" reminded me of it.
http://joyfuljourneytoweightmanagement.blogspot.com/ Time Flew or Stood Still - Breaking the Time Barrier
Post a Comment