When a Poetic Moment Just Hits You
Ripped off (or, euphemistically, inspired by) from Ken's "When a Musical Moment Just Hits You," here's "When a Poetic Moment Just Hits You."
So we have styles of poetry that we like, we have poets that we like, we have poems that we like... but when you really get down to it sometimes there are really just little particular moments that just hit you and fill you up with all the meaning and beauty and joy that comes from good poetry. Sometimes it's just one word, a particular line break, a sound, a few lines, a turn of phrase, an image, or whatever that really gets inside you and makes the incredibleness of poetry really just fill you up with joy. This post is dedicated to all who would like to share and post their own favorite moments that just make you go "ahhhh" or "yesss!" or however you respond. I'll get it started with posting a few of my own favorite moments and then please join in and post your own favorites! :)
"a chipped crystal doorknob-- a solid polyhedron" -Michelle Cliff, "Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise"
"dozens of bleak/ white frame houses stuck/ like oyster shells/ on a hill of rock" -Robert Lowell, "Water" (The fluid "l's" against the "k" sound matches the perfect image)
"A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders" -Lowell again, "For the Union Dead" (It probably has even more of an effect within the context of the poem, since every word dedicates itself to the whole. But as seamlessly as this fits in, it's always a surprise.)
"That the Science of Cartography Is Limited --and not simply by the fact that this shading of/ forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam,/ the gloom of cypresses/ is what I wish to prove." -Eavan Boland, "That the Science of Cartography Is Limited" (mostly because I'm a sucker for anything that refers to maps, but this is a beautiful opening)
"In sixth grade Mrs. Walker/ slapped the back of my head/ and made me stand in the corner/ for not knowing the difference/ between persimmon and precision./ How to choose// persimmons. This is precision." -Li-Young Lee, "Persimmons"
"After August and mango trees decked out in all their little moons" -Aimé Césaire, "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land"
So we have styles of poetry that we like, we have poets that we like, we have poems that we like... but when you really get down to it sometimes there are really just little particular moments that just hit you and fill you up with all the meaning and beauty and joy that comes from good poetry. Sometimes it's just one word, a particular line break, a sound, a few lines, a turn of phrase, an image, or whatever that really gets inside you and makes the incredibleness of poetry really just fill you up with joy. This post is dedicated to all who would like to share and post their own favorite moments that just make you go "ahhhh" or "yesss!" or however you respond. I'll get it started with posting a few of my own favorite moments and then please join in and post your own favorites! :)
"a chipped crystal doorknob-- a solid polyhedron" -Michelle Cliff, "Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise"
"dozens of bleak/ white frame houses stuck/ like oyster shells/ on a hill of rock" -Robert Lowell, "Water" (The fluid "l's" against the "k" sound matches the perfect image)
"A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders" -Lowell again, "For the Union Dead" (It probably has even more of an effect within the context of the poem, since every word dedicates itself to the whole. But as seamlessly as this fits in, it's always a surprise.)
"That the Science of Cartography Is Limited --and not simply by the fact that this shading of/ forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam,/ the gloom of cypresses/ is what I wish to prove." -Eavan Boland, "That the Science of Cartography Is Limited" (mostly because I'm a sucker for anything that refers to maps, but this is a beautiful opening)
"In sixth grade Mrs. Walker/ slapped the back of my head/ and made me stand in the corner/ for not knowing the difference/ between persimmon and precision./ How to choose// persimmons. This is precision." -Li-Young Lee, "Persimmons"
"After August and mango trees decked out in all their little moons" -Aimé Césaire, "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land"
posted by B. Ryan | 11/03/2006 07:55:00 AM
3 Comments:
You know who my favorite poet is...
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be Blind--
Emily Dickinson, "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant"
I know exactly what you mean by those "moments." I just wish I could post musical ones.
Bridget, what a wonderful but hard question!
And now, each night I count the stars./ And each night I get the same number./ And when the will not come to be counted,/ I count the holes they leave.
-amiri baraka
"Intellectual disgrace
stares from every human face.
And the seas of pity lie
locked and frozen in each eye."
"In Memory of WB Yeats," WH Auden
that's the one that's been running through my head all day, we should play this game daily!
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