Poetry Friday: Finding (and keeping) Poetry

Y & O i U h C a O t M e P y L o E u T f E o M r E i t

I found this poem written on the inside of a gazebo. It was one of those fake "welcoming" structures rigged up at the entrance to a large subdivision. No graffiti on the outside---the kids were smarter than that. But inside! Score!

Anyhow, it made me think about all the places you can stash poetry. This is one way I collect it:




I like copying some poems out by hand. (That one in the picture is Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens.) Others, I cut out of the newspaper or photocopy or type up, and then I paste the poem onto a blank page. Like a poetry scrapbook.

Once, after a move, I was unpacking my books and found my scrapbook with several pages "filed" in the back, where I hadn't had time to paste them in. (As you see in the picture, I'm still behind!) I pulled out the pages and read one of the typed poems, which was nine stanzas long. Wow! It was gutsy, and achingly complicated and sad, and funny too. Then I got to the end and saw my name.

Yes, really. I had written it. I even found the notes in my own handwriting that I had taken as this poem hit me up the side of the head, and ambushed me right in the middle of a writer's conference breakout session. (It was an illustrator's talk. I blame the artist. Entirely.)

So, obviously, I should write my poems on bigger things that are harder to misplace. Like gazebos. Here are the first two stanzas:

I.
The boat is sinking. He knows.
The varnish moves over the surface,
Circles radiating from the can,
As he holds the edge of his wooden canvas,
The boat that is sinking. He knows
She is large, thick,
As he paints her,
In one day, into the varnish.

II.
She can’t eat while she is being painted.
He can’t paint while she is eating.
“Paint me eating,” she says. “Paint me
With juice in my hair. Paint my body
While my lips move.” “You look different
When you eat,” he says. “Your colors shift.
I’ll wait.” She hides a sunflower seed between
Her thighs. He flicks it away.
She turns her left arm green to spite him. He uncaps the paint
Thinner. She gathers saliva beneath her tongue.
He holds still: his brush, a knife;
His breath collapsing.


Poetry Friday is hosted this week by HipWriterMama.