Poetry Friday: She is Dead to Us, inspired by Elizabeth Bishop

Happy April, and Happy National Poetry Month!  I've decided that the best way to celebrate is to lose.

Yup. Lose your fears about poetry. Lose your way exploring new poets.  Lose your heart to words.

In that spirit, this month's challenge is to write a poem inspired by a line from Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." It is a stunning villanelle about loss, and you must read it whole, if you haven't.

I can't compete with Bishop, but I did love using her poem as a launching pad for creating something new. I chose this line:

 "I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,"

Then I played (just a bit) with the order, so that "lovely ones" refers to not cities, but people.








She is dead to us

Lovely ones, I lost two cities,
and vaster, six branches of
the family tree, all the sewers
beneath, and yet—not the one day
you proposed we flee

lovely ones. I lost three bones,
and vaster, a splintered
windshield, and the courage
beneath, and yet—not the one day
you proposed we flee

lovely ones. I lost sixty dollars
and vaster, every photograph pinned
to a page, and my taste for milk
and yet—not the one day
you proposed we flee

lovely ones. I lost all reason,
and vaster, why one doesn’t do that,
and mile after mile of what if, what if,
where do we go now, and yet—not you,
that one day. You proposed. We flee.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)


My Poetry Sisters are each taking a different line from Bishop's poem. See what they've created here:

Liz
Laura
Trica
Kelly
Tanita

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Amy at The Poem Farm. 

Poetry Friday: Lost Poems

Well, this is cool. The Library of Congress has put out a web guide to finding lost poems.

While some of the first suggestions are obvious (Google!) and likely to provide instant results, I had fun reading down to the more specialized tactics, such as posting to message boards like Poetry Archives: Lost Poetry Quotations. And I can't wait to see what the British-staffed The Poetry Library has to offer---impeccable service, I hope.

Also, there's a section at the bottom of the web guide as to what to do if you've lost track of a poem submitted and published to a contest anthology. Apparently, contest poems are archived with the International Library of Poetry, and the Library of Congress is tired---wretched weary, if truth be told----of being confused with it.

Don't miss the lost novels section either. Children's literature is specifically addressed.

But back to poetry. I was going to post one of my favorite poems, One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, but I see that our PF hostess today posted about it last month. (What fascinates me about that poem is that it devastates me each time I read it. I know it, I know it, I know it. And yet I read it, again.)

So today, I'm pointing you to Liz's post about lost things instead.

And asking you: have you ever lost a poem? I did once.

Poetry Friday is hosted by Charlotte's Library.

Poetry Friday: The Filling Station

Yesterday, I carried Elizabeth Bishop's Filling Station around in my pocket. I also pasted a copy of it into my Poetry Scrapbook.

What do I love most about this poem? The combination of a slightly shocked voice---"Oh, but it is dirty!"---"disturbing"---"saucy and greasy"---with precise, unusual word choices--- "grease-impregnated wickerwork" and "hirsute begonia." Yes, I looked that up.

And the ending! Just when you think the narrator is being snooty, and far too amused at this "oil permeated" scene, the whole poem turns in on itself, asking what place beauty and care have in a world of "black translucency," and who is tending to us in our darkest hours. Bishop even pokes fun at herself (I think) as a "high-strung automobile."

What keeps you going? What is fuel? Do you think about who "waters the plant, or oils it, maybe"?


The Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil soaked, oil permeated
to a disturbing over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite throughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Read the rest here.

For another perspective, here's a very short essay from the Poetry Foundation Blog by A.E. Stallings, who disliked The Filling Station for years.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by The Well-Read Child. And Jules at 7-Impossible Things Before Breakfast has made some sense out of the Poetry Seven's free--flowing process talk about the Crown of Sonnets that we unveiled last week. Go read.