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I'm a Minnesota Girl, living in the south. I tell my friends I try not to talk and think like a Yankee, but sometimes I slip up!

Monday, April 29, 2013

One Chance to Celebrate National Poetry Month



Kelly sent me a couple of poems by email during the month.... trying to grease the skids and get me thinking about National Poetry month.   Alas, it did no good.

But just today I read the last of them and thought about taking the time to celebrate an art form that has always touched my heart.  Sat for a little while and thought about poets who have reached back in time... to those they learned from, to those poets who have touched their hearts.  Poets do get mawkish about other poets.

And so I remembered a contemporary poem that I loved, because the poetess fell in love with poetry when she read Neruda.   As did I.   So I went looking, to take the opportunity to have one last celebration of the month I ignored....one print of a poem I love.  In, it, she personifies Neruda, as though he were here with her.  Great visualization!   And here it is:



Neruda's Hat

   by Kelli Russell Agodon


On a day when weather stole every breeze,

Pablo told her he kept bits of his poems

tucked behind the band in his hat.



He opened the windows to nothing

but more heat, asked her to wander with him

down to the beach, see if their bodies

could become waves.



When they returned he placed his hat,

open to sky, in the center of the table.

She filled it with papaya, figs, searched

for scraps of poems beneath the lining.



By evening, the hat was empty

and his typewriter, full

with pages that began something about ocean,

something about fruit.



And they didn't notice the sky, full of tomorrow's

stars or the blue and white swallow

carrying paper in its beak.



They sat outside until the edge of daylight

stretched itself across a new band of morning,

the shadow of a hat washing onto the shore.

    Enjoy.   Quid

2 comments:

Kelly said...

This is wonderful and I quite like it!

I think I would have to credit Ted Kooser for teaching me to appreciate poetry. It's something I never cared much for until I discovered his. Now I have several favorite poets.

Marion said...

I love Neruda. But I had an epiphany this year that my favorite poet is me because after writing poetry for over 40 years to virtually no acclaim, I realized I deserve it, damn it! LOL!

PS: I broke down and bought "Stag's Leap" used. It was a strange, confusing book to me (I'm still not quite sure if she was elated or devastated to be blindsided by her husband's betrayal with and marriage to his coworker and I didn't care for it at all...even though I love most of Olds' poetry. I'm going to send my copy to a divorced friend and see what she thinks of it. Thank you for the offer, though, Quid. Love you! xo