Marge Piercy — Because

I have loved the works of Marge Piercy for as long as I can remember, carrying The Moon is Always Female like a security blanket to comfort me in times of stress. Do yourself a favor and read her work. You can thank me later.

In the meantime, send me the name of your favorite poet by April 20 — and you may be chosen to receive a copy of my favorite book by my favorite poet. I'll select one submitter at random, and it could be you!

For the Young Who Want To

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

by Marge Piercy

courtesy poemhunter.com

Desire, Indeed

Desire

The slim, suntanned legs

of the woman in front of me in the checkout line

fill me with yearning

to provide her with health insurance

and a sporty little car with personalized plates.

The way her dark hair

falls straight to her slender waist

makes me ache

to pay for a washer/dryer combo

and yearly ski trips to Aspen, not to mention

her weekly visits to the spa

and nail salon.

And the delicate rise of her breasts

under her thin blouse

kindles my desire

to purchase a blue minivan with a car seat,

and soon another car seat, and eventually

piano lessons and braces

for two teenage girls who will hate me.

Finally, her full, pouting lips

make me long to take out a second mortgage

in order to put both kids through college

at first- or second-tier institutions,

then cover their wedding expenses

and help out financially with the grandchildren

as generously as possible before I die

and leave them everything.

But now the cashier rings her up

and she walks out of my life forever,

leaving me alone

with my beer and toilet paper and frozen pizzas.

by George Bilgere

Courtesy of The Writer's Almanac

Get Ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day

Poem in Your Pocket Day is April 29. Are you ready?

Here's one to get you started (and you can check out her book Pocket Poems to see an entire book of fun, sometimes goofy, often profound poems for your pockets).

Pocket Poem

With a poem in your pocket

and

a pocket in your pants

you can rock with new rhythms.

You can skip.

You can dance.

And wherever you go,

and whatever you do,

that poem in your pocket is going there, too.

You cuold misplace your homework.

You could lose your left show.

But that poem in your pocket will be part of you.

And nothing can take it.

And nothing can break it.

That poem in your pocket

becomes

part of...

YOU!

by Bobbi Katz

Haiku — You Can Do It!

It's as easy as five, seven, five.

A haiku is a three-line poem that totals 17 syllables:

five syllables in the first line

seven syllables in the second line

five syllables in the third line.

It's actually kind of fun. In fact, one of my favorite books is written in haiku:

There on the back steps,

The eyes of a hungry dog.

Will she shut the door?

With a face and a rhyme scheme like that, who can resist?

How about I sweeten the deal?  If you send me your haiku by 11:30 pm April 17, I will give you a poetry book. I'll even publish your haiku. So go for it! The glory and the poetry can be yours.

Poetry in Dialect by Riley

A Home-Made Fairy Tale

Bud, come here to your uncle a spell,
And I'll tell you something you mustn't tell--
For it's a secret and shore-'nuf true,
And maybe I oughtn't to tell it to you--!
But out in the garden, under the shade
Of the apple-trees, where we romped and played
Till the moon was up, and you thought I'd gone
Fast asleep--, That was all put on!
For I was a-watchin' something queer
Goin' on there in the grass, my dear--!
'Way down deep in it, there I see
A little dude-Fairy who winked at me,
And snapped his fingers, and laughed as low
And fine as the whine of a mus-kee-to!
I kept still-- watchin' him closer-- and
I noticed a little guitar in his hand,
Which he leant 'ginst a little dead bee-- and laid
His cigarette down on a clean grass-blade,
And then climbed up on the shell of a snail--
Carefully dusting his swallowtail--
And pulling up, by a waxed web-thread,
This little guitar, you remember. I said!
And there he trinkled and trilled a tune--,
'My Love, so Fair, Tans in the Moon!'
Till presently, out of the clover-top
He seemed to be singing to, came k'pop!
The purtiest, daintiest Fairy face
In all this world, or any place!
Then the little ser'nader waved his hand,
As much as to say, 'We'll excuse you!' and
I heard, as I squinted my eyelids to,
A kiss like the drip of a drop of dew!

by James Whitcomb Riley

With thanks to Stacy McKnight, whose Facebook wall has been a boon for National Poetry Month!

Sylvia's Draft of 'Stings'

Sylvia Plath is amazing, even in draft form.

Here is the poem in its final state:

Stings

Bare-handed, I hand the combs.
The man in white smiles, bare-handed,
Our cheesecloth gauntlets neat and sweet,
The throats of our wrists brave lilies.
He and I

Have a thousand clean cells between us,
Eight combs of yellow cups,
And the hive itself a teacup,
White with pink flowers on it,
With excessive love I enameled it

Thinking 'Sweetness, sweetness.'
Brood cells gray as the fossils of shells
Terrify me, they seem so old.
What am I buying, wormy mahogany?
Is there any queen at all in it?

If there is, she is old,
Her wings torn shawls, her long body
Rubbed of its plush ----
Poor and bare and unqueenly and even shameful.
I stand in a column

Of winged, unmiraculous women,
Honey-drudgers.
I am no drudge
Though for years I have eaten dust
And dried plates with my dense hair.

And seen my strangeness evaporate,
Blue dew from dangerous skin.
Will they hate me,
These women who only scurry,
Whose news is the open cherry, the open clover?

It is almost over.
I am in control.
Here is my honey-machine,
It will work without thinking,
Opening, in spring, like an industrious virgin

To scour the creaming crests
As the moon, for its ivory powders, scours the sea.
A third person is watching.
He has nothing to do with the bee-seller or with me.
Now he is gone

In eight great bounds, a great scapegoat.
Here is his slipper, here is another,
And here the square of white linen
He wore instead of a hat.
He was sweet,

The sweat of his efforts a rain
Tugging the world to fruit.
The bees found him out,
Molding onto his lips like lies,
Complicating his features.

They thought death was worth it, but I
Have a self to recover, a queen.
Is she dead, is she sleeping?
Where has she been,
With her lion-red body, her wings of glass?

Now she is flying
More terrible than she ever was, red
Scar in the sky, red comet
Over the engine that killed her ----
The mausoleum, the wax house.

Courtesy American Poems 

Custer, and a Video on Devices

Poetry is fun. Watch this and learn!

And now, a poem:

Custer

He is a hard one to write a poem about. Like Napolean.

Hannibal. Genghis Khan. Already so large in history. To do it
right, I have to sit down with him. At a place of his own
choosing. Probably a steakhouse. We take a table in a corner.
But people still recognize him, come up and slap him on the
back, say how much they enjoyed studying about him in school
and ask for his autograph. After he eats, he leans back and
lights up a cigar and asks me what I want to know. Notebook in
hand, I suggest that we start with the Little Big Horn and work
our way back. But I realize I have offended him. That he
would rather take it the other way around. So he rants on
about the Civil War, the way west, the loyalty of good soldiers
and now and then twists his long yellow hair with his fingers.
But when he gets to the part about Sitting Bull, about Crazy
Horse, he develops a twitch above his right eye, raises his
finger for the waiter, excuses himself and goes to the restroom
while I sit there along the bluffs with the entire Sioux nation,
awaiting his return.

by David Shumate

From High Water Mark. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.

Courtesy The Writer's Almanac