How about some poetry during National Poetry Month?
This coming Saturday, April 29, the wonderful local Word Seed organization is hosting an event at one of the state's "hidden gem" locations -- the Paterson Museum (2 Market St., near the Great Falls). I've posted the flyer here; the free event starts at 5 p.m.
The program will pay tribute to poets no longer with us from the Silk City's past, including Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams.
Last weekend I visited to see the Poetry Month exhibit there and had the whole museum to myself for a few minutes.
I also stopped by the Museum of Modern Art during lunch hour earlier this week in New York and stumbled across the Dial-a-Poem exhibit there.
Of course, I had to dial 917-994-8949. (And you can too!)
I heard a poem by Frank O’Hara (who died in 1966), then John Cage (who died in 1992), then Bill Berkson (who died in 2016). I was afraid to call again and find out who would die next.
Actually, the MOMA exhibit dates back to 1968, when John Giorno began delivering instant poetry through a free telephone hotline in New York City. So everything on the hotline dates back 55 years or so.
As far as new poetry is concerned... from someone still alive... which would be me, for now... I've been following through on my resolution to write weekly prompted poems this year.
Here are three recent original poems. The first, writing about my hometown; and the second and third poems with the prompts in the titles.
I'm also excited about two upcoming prompted poems, but I'll wait until after Saturday to finish those. I'd like some input first from the ghosts of Allen and William.
---------
How to Write the Great New Milford NJ Poem
Before your start, you must accept
You are invisible.
You live in the suburbs.
People walk dogs past your house,
In front of your white picket fence.
Sometimes they stop and peer
Into your dining room window,
Pointing in your direction,
As if they’ve seen a ghost.
They don’t know you can see them.
You do not participate in Little League baseball,
Or Junior League football.
Your children left home long ago.
The town pool has closed without warning.
Its parking lot, empty; its grounds, overgrown.
Your family used to swim there.
The Burger King is still open.
Decades ago, the borough attorney
Protested the “Home of the Whopper” sign
Because he said it insulted Italian Americans.
Your children used to eat there.
Begin now by offering a prayer to Bertha Reetz
At her abandoned stone in the French Burial Ground.
Remain calm when you hear gunshots
From the range behind the Recycling Center.
The police are shooting blanks, scattering the deer
In your town’s only remaining sliver of woods
Along the Hackensack River.
Gather the scraps of your neighbors’ families:
Sticky, dirt-crusted Dairy Queen napkins and cups
Littering the curbside along River Road.
Cross the street to the garbage can
At the bus stop outside Canterbury Village.
Use extreme caution. You are invisible to traffic.
You return home alone.
You start to write a poem.
---------
Poetic Words Children Need to Learn
Salt-water taffy…
in cardboard boxes
Salt-water taffy, the color of swirling rainbows
Salt-water taffy that you can only buy on the boardwalk at the Shore
Salt-water taffy that sticks to your teeth and gums
Salt-water taffy that your mother loves
Years later, your mother will grow old,
And you will ask her for memories of when you were young.
She will tell you instead she doesn’t want to think of the past
Because it only makes her sad.
She doesn’t remember the salt-water taffy.
Salt-water taffy used to be her favorite.
You need to know that about my mother.
She didn’t always have sad memories.
She knew salt-water taffy wasn’t good for us,
but she loved the taste.
The improbable, magnificent sweetness,
now missing from our lives.
---------
Consider the Inequity in How Lives Were Impacted by the Pandemic
Prompt: Write a poem in 2023 contemplating what challenges persist in the aftermath…
I can’t write this poem
Because three years have passed
For all of us, equally,
Including you.
The only constant in life
Is time’s erosion of inequity…
The numbering of our days.
The defenseless of our nights.
Alive or dead.
In 2020, I counted bathtub Marys
Adorning suburban lawns
During socially distant walks.
In 2023, I still dream of you,
As I might forever.
I have counted every hair on your head.
No comments:
Post a Comment