2001 Different Hours: Poems, by Stephen Dunn
Zero Hour
It was the hour of simply nothing,
not a single desire in my western heart,
and no ancient system
of breathing and postures,
no big idea justifying what I felt.
There was even an absence of despair.
“Anything goes,” I said to myself.
All the clocks were high. Above them,
hundreds of stars flickering if, if, if.
Everywhere in the universe, it seemed,
some next thing was gathering itself.
I started to feel something,
but it was nothing more than a moment
passing into another, or was it less
eloquent than that, purely muscular,
some meaningless twitch?
I’d let someone else make it rhyme.
Commentary- Humility over the immensity of the unknown. Let go, let God. And the moment just happened without trying. Everything is okay. Usually we have to intentionally make this happen, and hopefully we’ll get something out of it.
I liked Dunn’s poems, but I guess my taste is for the bold, dramatic, vivid, brilliant. But then again, this reminds me to relax and find the poetry in life’s quieter contemplations.
My opinion: 6/10
2002 Practical Gods, by Carl Dennis
Eurydice
If the dead could speak, I’d entreat you
Not to blame yourself for losing me near the exit.
I was gone before you turned to glimpse me.
Your hope I would follow you into the light—
That was only a poet’s faith in the power of music.
I followed as far as the law of Hell allowed me
And then turned back to my dark home.
For us to live together, you’d have to descend
Again to the place that chills the heart of the living.
I wouldn’t want you to lie awake beside me
Straining to look on the bright side,
Spinning out plan after plan full of adventure.
I wouldn’t want you to wait with patience
For my reply, to assume my lengthening silence
A thoughtful prologue. The hours would grow into years
While you dreamed up a song about our ascent
Meant for the ears of friends on our arrival.
I wouldn’t want to hear it dwindle and fade
As the truth gradually came into focus
And you slowly deferred to a great power.
Who would you be then? No one I know,
Not the man who thought his music enlarged creation.
If I could speak, child of the sun,
I’d assure you I’m still your wife.
That’s why I want you to stay as long as you can
Just as you are, the mistaken
Hopeful man I married.
Commentary- “Eurydice was a character in Greek mythology and the wife of Orpheus whom Orpheus tried to bring back from the dead with his enchanting music” (Wikipedia). Eurydice is the narrator contemplating the what ifs and regrets and sorrow and possibilities still in her mind. Interesting. Like a journal entry. Not a particularly powerful poem, but eloquently worded.
His other poems are similar in style (no rhymes, almost prose) and interesting topics for him to meditate on.
My opinion: 7/10
2003 Moy Sand and Gravel, by Paul Muldoon
One Last Draw of the Pipe
Heard a piece of Roscommon folklore the other night. At some village or other, they lay pipes full of tobacco on the graves of the new buried in case they may like a draw of the pipe. A wild American indian kind of buisness [sic] it seems.
--A letter from W. B. Yeats to Douglas Hyde, October 1889
Even though it happened as long ago as the late fifties, I could still draw
you a picture of the place. A little draw
through which we were helping a neighbor draw
green hay when we would suddenly draw
level with a freshly dug hole. He must have been torn between one last
draw
of the pipe and hurriedly trying to draw
a veil of thatch and pine boughs over the hole before having to withdraw,
that ghost who may even now draw
a bead on me. On the day Sitting Bull was shot, his old trick pony (once
such a draw
in Buffalo Bill's circus because he was given to dance
attendance
when he heard a volley of shots) would automatically draw
himself up and raise one hoof.
Even now I hear it coming down. I hear it coming down on my yew-bough
roof.
Commentary- I like to think that every time the word draw is said, the narrator is taking a hit of his pipe. Love how the different meanings of the word draw is skillfully used, perfectly balanced, and helps draw the poem forward. Love the formatting of the poem…very unique. In this poem, you’re listening to a story of some days long ago, but you get drawn into the scene, until it crashes at the end when something happens. A bit of an abstract painting, which I love.
Great collection of poetry. Great artist of words.
My opinion: 10/10
2004 Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, by Franz Wright
Walden
Sunlight and silence stood at a bend in the path suddenly;
wind moved, once, over the dark water
and I was back.
Far from the world of appearances,
the world of “gain and mirth.”
So soon
there will be nobody
here going on
about death
and pain and change. No one here!
Spoking hallways of pines where the owl, eyes wide open, dreams—
there is a power that wants me to live, I don’t know why.
Then I saw again
the turtle
like a massive haunted head
lumbering after the egg laying toward
the water and vanishing
into the water, slowly
soaring
in that element half underworld, half sky.
There is a power that wants me to love.
Commentary- Stunning poem. Just love it. And love his other poems as well. This is what turns me on about poetry—the deeper, heavy meaning conveyed creatively through images. And it’s done with simplicity here, showing remarkable skill. This is a poet; someone speaking his mind in beautiful language. Let’s acknowledge that there is a darkness here, an experience at a place known for finding God in nature—Walden Pond. He was taken over dark water and is back. Where did he go? To the depth of his soul? Is he going to die soon? Does he want to? How does he feel that a higher power wants him to love, and how capable does he feel? Interesting that that’s where the poem ends, after that thought. He is aware of the nature around him, and it seems to speak to him, as it did H.D. Thoreau, but differently. He’s very aware of himself, as is the owl. So as the poem ends, what is he going to do?
My opinion: 10/10
2005 Delights and Shadows, by Ted Kooser
After Years
Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer’s retina
as he stood in the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.
Commentary- Kooser, one of the greats. I pause partway through one of his poems and take in a line I just read, wishing I could be that good, and continue, wanting to share my awe with others. I mean, look at this poem. The years of existence of all these things he mentions, it’s all a matter of perspective, all a matter of what one cares about, all a matter of meaning. What are we connecting with? Are we fulfilling our purpose before we’re gone?
My opinion: 10/10 Stunning.
2006 Late Wife, by Claudia Emerson
Migraine: Aura and Aftermath
First, part of the world disappears. Something
is missing from everything: the cat’s eye,
ear, the left side of its face; two fingers
from my right hand; the words from the end
of a sentence. The absence is at first
more absolute then whatever darkness
I imagine the blind perceive. Perfect,
without color or motion, nothing replaces
what is gone. The senses do not contradict. My arm
goes numb, my leg. Though I have felt the cold air
of this disappearance before, each time the aura
deceives me to believe reality itself
has failed. I fear this more than what it warns
because I cannot remember I will survive it.
The other half of me will shine all night,
defined by the eclipse.
Then, in the relieved
wake of the day that follows it, I will
find my hand, count my fingers, and beginning
to see again, will recognize myself
restored to the evening of a righted room.
Commentary- Great poet. I love that she writes a poem about a migraine. And so well done. She turns it into her questioning this sense-based reality and perceptions. She fades from what is immediately around her, and from what is important—her hand she writes poetry with. Absence itself becomes more real than the act of disappearance. Imagine that. Her sense of survival gets buried, as if it were part of what disappears, which begs the question: was survival itself ever real, or just some animalistic programming? She’s eventually in her righted room; security, comfort, illusion. That’s my take on this.
My opinion: 9/10
2007 Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey