August 2, 2018
Poets’ Roundtable
Another excellent meeting. We missed MaryGrace. And we welcomed Steph.
Here is a link to Grammarly:
It is a spell and grammar checking application that I use a lot. There seemed to be some interest in it. Read my notes below so that you know some of what to expect.
Here is a link to Grammarly:
It is a spell and grammar checking application that I use a lot. There seemed to be some interest in it. Read my notes below so that you know some of what to expect.
Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com/native/windows
You will probably have to create a Grammarly account online and keep in mind that the editing occurs online. I make sure to delete everything I check when I'm done. Otherwise, I use the program a lot and find it excellent. I first save the original version that I want to check, then copy it and paste it into Grammarly. Then, after running Grammarly, I delete the original selected text and copy and paste the Grammarly corrected text back into the original document. (It's a lot easier than it sounds.) You will lose some formatting but the spell and grammar checks are worth it. Additionally, I often run my word processor spell check just to see if there is anything it catches.
Welcome
Welcome to all and thanks for being here on this warm, summer day. As for me I no longer spend summer days thinking long, long thoughts, as the poet said:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." That’s by Longfellow and the entire poem may be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44640/my-lost-youth.
Although we’re not at that youthful stage, from what I see I can safely say we haven’t passed our sell-by date yet.
News and Jabber
Those breathlessly awaiting my next book will have to take a breath. I am revising it from the third person singular to the first person singular. This means I have to change not only nearly every personal pronoun but all of their attached verb tenses. I have good tools for this but it is still time-consuming and precipitates quite a few attendant revisions to surrounding words, line breaks, page breaks, pagination, table of contents entries, page numbers and so on. Hopefully, early September.
I reprint this link. Ted Kooser is finding some delightful American poetry here. I don’t know how often he posts to this but it’s worth checking out, again.
Here is Dru's poem for this meeting:
if the ocean would just settle down
i could dive in and lose these hounds
that tail me at every turn
i’ve found them persistant
i must be the top of their wish list
a bloodlust i have discerned
way high up in the branches
i’ve slightly increased my chances
if i can befriend the winds
to calm the squalls
and ease my fall
and be free yet again
but if i am to hit my mark
what of the sharks
who must certainly live below
it seems each environment
has its own tyrant fit
to end all that i know
so sharks or hounds
either way, i’ve found
that i can never be set free
that is unless
i no longer want to guess
just what is eternity
it was that day
the first saturday in may
i decided to make the leap
their barks disappeared
as my arc persevered
and i left the shaking tree
the sharks weren't there
but i did not care
for time was out of stock
despite my pleas
i saw the water recede
as i landed on the rocks
so now years on
if you close in upon
the tree on jumpers cliff
and its early in may
you can hear the hounds bay
ending with a thud of a stiff
Poet’s Word powers home past Crystal Ocean to win the King George
You can read the entire write-up here: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/28/poets-word-powers-home-to-win-king-george
The Current Assignment
If the group is again large and productive we will change our reading format just a little. First, I’ll talk less. Second, we’ll pass copies around at the beginning. I would also like to try two readings, the first by the poet with the rest of us closing our eyes, the second by the person next to the poet, all eyes open to the manuscript.
Do we need a timekeeper?
The Next Assignment
The assignment for next time is a formal exercise. Write a poem in three-line stanzas, the last two of which rhyme. Any length, any topic although I was thinking of poems about horses earlier due to the story about Poet's Word winning the recent race in England.
Here is an example from Anne Sexton:
And One For My Dame by Anne Sexton
A born salesman,
my father made all his dough
by selling wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo.
A born talker,
he could sell one hundred wet-down bales
of that white stuff. He could clock the miles and the sales
and make it pay.
At home each sentence he would utter
had first pleased the buyer who'd paid him off in butter.
Each word
had been tried over and over, at any rate,
on the man who was sold by the man who filled my plate.
My father hovered
over the Yorkshire pudding and the beef:
a peddler, a hawker, a merchant and an Indian chief.
Roosevelt! Willkie! and war!
How suddenly gauche I was
with my old-maid heart and my funny teenage applause.
Each night at home
my father was in love with maps
while the radio fought its battles with Nazis and Japs.
Except when he hid
in his bedroom on a three-day drunk,
he typed out complex itineraries, packed his trunk,
his matched luggage
and pocketed a confirmed reservation,
his heart already pushing over the red routes of the nation.
I sit at my desk
each night with no place to go,
opening thee wrinkled maps of Milwaukee and Buffalo,
the whole U.S.,
its cemeteries, its arbitrary time zones,
through routes like small veins, capitals like small stones.
He died on the road,
his heart pushed from neck to back,
his white hanky signaling from the window of the Cadillac.
My husband,
as blue-eyed as a picture book, sells wool:
boxes of card waste, laps and rovings he can pull
to the thread
and say Leicester, Rambouillet, Merino,
a half-blood, it's greasy and thick, yellow as old snow.
And when you drive off, my darling,
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! It's one for my dame,
your sample cases branded with my father's name,
your itinerary open,
its tolls ticking and greedy,
its highways built up like new loves, raw and speedy.
Here is an example from Anne Sexton:
And One For My Dame by Anne Sexton
A born salesman,
my father made all his dough
by selling wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo.
A born talker,
he could sell one hundred wet-down bales
of that white stuff. He could clock the miles and the sales
and make it pay.
At home each sentence he would utter
had first pleased the buyer who'd paid him off in butter.
Each word
had been tried over and over, at any rate,
on the man who was sold by the man who filled my plate.
My father hovered
over the Yorkshire pudding and the beef:
a peddler, a hawker, a merchant and an Indian chief.
Roosevelt! Willkie! and war!
How suddenly gauche I was
with my old-maid heart and my funny teenage applause.
Each night at home
my father was in love with maps
while the radio fought its battles with Nazis and Japs.
Except when he hid
in his bedroom on a three-day drunk,
he typed out complex itineraries, packed his trunk,
his matched luggage
and pocketed a confirmed reservation,
his heart already pushing over the red routes of the nation.
I sit at my desk
each night with no place to go,
opening thee wrinkled maps of Milwaukee and Buffalo,
the whole U.S.,
its cemeteries, its arbitrary time zones,
through routes like small veins, capitals like small stones.
He died on the road,
his heart pushed from neck to back,
his white hanky signaling from the window of the Cadillac.
My husband,
as blue-eyed as a picture book, sells wool:
boxes of card waste, laps and rovings he can pull
to the thread
and say Leicester, Rambouillet, Merino,
a half-blood, it's greasy and thick, yellow as old snow.
And when you drive off, my darling,
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! It's one for my dame,
your sample cases branded with my father's name,
your itinerary open,
its tolls ticking and greedy,
its highways built up like new loves, raw and speedy.
The Next Meeting
August 16, 2018
Other Jabber
Anne Sexton
Jeffrey Skinner
re The Company of Heaven, not only is the poem good, but read the book as a work in toto and you'll find that it is a work of integrated parts.
re The Company of Heaven, not only is the poem good, but read the book as a work in toto and you'll find that it is a work of integrated parts.
A turn in the weather >>>
ReplyDeleteAccording to the First Selectman
Fairfield is as strong as ever.
Isn’t it a truth to gather
That our town is as strong as ever,
Given that the populace’s cry
Is that taxes are much too high,
And that the ruckus in local bars
Is among teens who get together
Over Trump and his latest, hot tater!
So let us not tarry too, too long
For we always have the song
To uplift our spirit over a bong.
“Smoke a little smoke.”
G.
Reade Longfellow's poem:
ReplyDeleteReply:
A boy’s will is short and varied.
His thoughts are often shallow
And more often all too varied to act upon
A boy’s thoughts come, often, like drizzle,
But some are deep and actionable,
Like a heavy rainfall, sometimes overwhelming,
But often, quite refreshing.
g
3 sets — 9 lines
ReplyDelete2nd & 3rd lines rhyme
Notes on a brief experiment:
I felt my elbow itch,
Scratched it till it twitched,
And let it bleed down to my wrist.
I licked the blood from my wrist
And in a gist,
I could not resist
Licked the blood with my tongue.
It tasted like the mouthpiece of a bong,
But, I might have gotten it all wrong.
-30-
The moon in a cradle rock
The sun in a tannish gauze
A radio on pause.
Let the weather turn
The wind blows, ever slow,
Until it whispers like a torch on low.
’T’is time for morning prayers
And for the watch up in the tower
To chant the hour..
-30-
I am the parrot in the cage
Who, in my old age,
Was charged to parrot the hour
The sun has set!
It is time for my lady to drop the net
So I can sleep with a big toe on my beak.
It is my secret!
That is why it is so neat
that I stay hid in my cloistered retreat.
Gerard Coulombe, 3:00 p.m.
P.S. I may have lied to set you up. G.
I wrote the poem as directed
ReplyDeleteSaved and closed my computer
And, just to check, I had no sooner
Re-opened the Apple Computer
And looked for the double rhyme,
I could see that there had been a crime,
For no lines or reasons at bedtime
Could prove that I had written
What had been so easily shriven.
Plainly, I had lost my poem.
Faithfully, your humble fumbler.
Avenging angels
ReplyDeleteFelix was my father’s name.
He was much like a cat
Who slept after munching on a rat.
That he slept a lot
Was not entirely his fault
For he had been taught
To work his magic
First, as an actor,
And then as a laborer.
In his roles
He always played the elder,
The one, main character.
As an actor
He had a reputation
For authentic representation
Of characters in difficult roles,
In marriage, however
He was only as clever as his character
Which was that of a reliable
Employee with a quick finger
Who was fast at the stop trigger.
His reliability factor
Laster for over forty years.
His reward was mother’s tears.
When I was old enough
To understand mother’s concern
It was too late for him to learn
That his duty was to his wife,
As she understood her role.
And not to him and the tole
That the second shift
Took on their relationship
And the pledge of a partnership.
And as dad grew old on the job
Mom grew all the more bitter
In her daily prayer.
Whishing all of this hard work
Could stop for the two had been driven
Apart, as if both has been shaken
By a god beyond their ken
And would forever pay the punishment
Of old fashioned chastisement.
My parents had to have loved us
If not each other for each worked
Much, all of their lives, like Turks
In the market
Of good and bad work
For the prize given to a good Turk.
© G. Coulombe, 8-6-18
Fairfield, Connecticut
gcoulombe92@gmail.com
For breakfast,
ReplyDeleteI have a bowl of cereal with fresh fruit--
Not just any cereal; it must have dried fruit.
For lunch
I decide on toast, bathe in peanut butter
With sides of fruit, apple, and fluffernutters
For dinner,
I eat what I like
From my wife’s menu
As long as it’s not chicken from Purdue.
G. (C) 8-10-18
A simple matter of viespoint
ReplyDeleteAs to the notion that anyone can write poetry
Just look at the beautiful cards
Which quickly become discards
When read by the recipient,
his wife or her spouse.
Either will determine it sent by a louse,
For there is something
Very much inappropriate
When a louse hides behind a mouse.
In search of the real Columbus
ReplyDeleteI read a daily newspaper.
First, I search the obits
It’s like finding the moon in its orbit.
On some Caribbean islands,
The names of the dead
Are almost always read
On the radio
Like the breaking news of the day
Is in the U.S. A.
I, for one would rather hear
The name of a friend announced
And correctly pronounced.
As my name certainly would be,
Gerardo Columb, say,
Or, in some other way,
As if I were Columbus’s
Descendant--
one who is repentant,
Because he’s no Saint,
No matter all the planted crosses
And the banner glosses.
-30-
8-14-18--G
3, 3. 3. 9, 2. 1
ReplyDeleteRose The Bum
His sack of newspapers
Hung from over his head on his left shoulder
The weight of it had him lean over
Rosy wore a dirty-old, newsboy cap,
The brim up, in a slightly comical fashion
The curls of his bun was worn by tradition
His face was permanently screwed
In typical old newsboy fashion
He hawked his news as repetition.
He started from the newsboy pickup room
Where he got his daily bundle to hawk
Around monument square in the city-hall block.
In repetitive rhyming shouts he cried out,
“GET your JOUNAL! “EEER….! JOURN”L! EER!”
Trailing him were wee boys, Rose cried, “EAR!”
Adults all around, attorney and blarney boys
Turned around, some tried shooing them!
As kids they were like frightful heathens.
Rose the Bum made the major papers himself,
Much later when he was accused of murder.
But it weren’t he who was the killer.
G. after J. Skinner