Day Fourteen - In Praise of My Bed by Meredith Holmes

IN PRAISE OF MY BED

At last I can be with you!

The grinding hours

since I left your side!

The labor of being fully human,

working my opposable thumb,

talking, and walking upright.

Now I have unclasped,

unzipped, stepped out of.

Husked, soft, a be-er only,

I do nothing, but point

my bare feet into your

clean smoothness

feel your quiet strength

the whole length of my body.

I close my eyes, hear myself

moan, so grateful to be held this way.

---Meredith Holmes

In Praise of My Bed by Meredith Holmes

Meredith Holmes gives us a praise poem in the tradition of Pablo Neruda's odes to common things. Like Neruda, Holmes delights in a simple, yet essential act: sleeping. But not just any slumber will do; Holmes wants her own bed and she wants it now! I can sympathize with her. This is one of my own busier seasons of the professional year where I'm traveling around the country and often longing for my own bed, as well as the friends and loved ones that can't travel with me from city to city. And to make my connection to this poem even stronger, I would put clean, crisp, sheets on my bed at the top of my list of favorite things in the world. There is a certain comfort that I feel nowhere else when I'm tucked into those fresh sheets of my own bed, laying back for a snooze and hoping for memorable dreams to last beyond my first few moments of wakefulness in the morning. Ben Franklin would tell us that "Fatigue is the best pillow" and this might be true, but like Meredith Holmes I still want my own pillow and my own bed.

There is an underlying dark humor to Holmes' poem. She pokes fun at herself from the very beginning, noting that "At least I can be with you!" in reference to her bed. It's humorous, but it's also quite dark and reveals an undertone of lonely sadness. Still, the humor is far more distinct early in the poem than this darkness. Holmes exaggerates the stresses of being human, such as "working my opposable thumb, / talking, and walking upright." After facing these challenges, Holmes has the reward of her bed. First, before seizing her reward she must perform that time honored tradition of the undressing, or in her case "unclasped, / unzipped, stepped out of." And now she can settle into that cloud-like apparatus that knows exactly how she likes it. Likes sleep, that is :). The poem ends with the same dark humor that it began with. Holmes pauses in her moment of sheer joy to "close my eyes, hear myself / moan, so grateful to be held this way." Her bed just might be better than any other companion, or she doesn't have a companion so the bed is taking his/her place. Either way, Holmes has constructed a poem that praises, describes, builds, and pays off, similarly to the way a good bed can. I can feel the bed Holmes melts into like a pad of butter on a warm scoop of mashed potatoes and I can hear her gentle moan because I've had it tumble slowly from my own mouth before.

Day Thirteen - Juke Box Love Song by Langston Hughes

JUKE BOX LOVE SONG

I could take the Harlem night

and wrap around you,

Take the neon lights and make a crown,

Take the Lenox Avenue buses,

Taxis, subways,

And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem's heartbeat,

Make a drumbeat,

Put it on a record, let it whirl,

And while we listen to it play,

Dance with you till day—

Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

---Langston Hughes

Juke Box Love Song by Langston Hughes

In Juke Box Love Song, Langston Hughes skillfully crafts a poem that showcases his love of a woman and his love of their home. It's difficult, but do-able to write a love poem to a person. It's also a challenge, but possible to write a love poem to a place. Figuring one challenge wasn't enough for him, Langston Hughes combined the two focuses and wrote himself a love poem that glorifies his beloved Harlem and his beloved woman at the same time. The poem is so organic in it's construction and flow that it probably seems like it was easy to write, but that would be the genius of Langston Hughes.

From the beginning, Hughes intertwines his woman and his city, proclaiming "I could take the Harlem night / and wrap around you." There is a slightly odd attraction about this image of Hughes clothing his love in Harlem, but the weird factor decreases as other parts of Harlem join the mix. "Take the neon lights and make a crown, / Take the Lenox Avenue buses, / Taxis, subways, / And for your love song tone their rumble down." She, like Harlem, is glowing in neon, and her song is a low "rumble" that has power, but prefers smoothness. At this point, Hughes introduces himself into the poem, not to create a love triangle, but instead to provide the perfect compliment. Listening to "Harlem's heartbeat," Hughes takes it to "make a drumbeat, / Put it on a record, let it whirl." Using Harlem as their soundtrack, and dare I say aphrodisiac, Hughes tells his beloved that he will "Dance with you till day— / Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl." I could read this poem a hundred times and I think it would be a fifty fifty split as to who this love poem is addressed to. Harlem is just as prominent as the girl in this poem, so prominent that the two are inherently linked in Hughes' mind.

Day Twelve - Poem In My Pocket

*For some reason Blogger has been non-functional over the last few days when I've tried to post to the blog. I'm not sure what the root of the problem is, but rest assured I'll continue to try to find ways to post daily for the rest of the month. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

There are plenty of great features on the Academy of American Poets webpage. I often lose an hour or five when I wander over to their page. I guess that's what happens when you immerse yourself in a community of like-minded poetry lovers. Speaking of loving poetry and the Academy of American Poets, one of the current National Poetry Month features on their webpage is for the Poem In Your Pocket Day (April 14).

Here's the website: http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

So the question to ask yourself is which poem would you carry in your pocket? Hmmm, let me think about that one...

Day Eleven - Video of Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye

Here's another installment in the movies I've been making of favorite poems that I've previously featured on this blog. Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye naturally lends itself to this visual media format with all of its distinct images. My one regret is that some of the photos are grainy, while others are of fantastic quality, providing an uneven feel to the images. Still, I urge you to check this movie out and let me know what you think!

Day ten - inspiration and truths

In the world of literature, and poetry in particular, inspiration is omnipresent. The best bits of inspiration are grounded in a truth that aches with reality. These following three quotations fit the bill and are some of the more humbling and simultaneously uplifting ideas about poetry. I have them tacked above my desk and sometimes I find myself lost in the challenges they present.

"Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting." --- Robert Frost

"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking." --- William Butler Yeats

"A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times." --- Randall Jarrell

Day Nine - Poetry Trivia

So here's a little break from the tough questions, enthralling poems, and entertaining movies. One of my current favorite time-wasters is the website Sporcle (www.sporcle.com). Do I recommend it? Yes...well, only if you have ample time to spend taking quizzes on a variety of subjects ranging from Jersey Shore Cast Members to Countries of the World. With that in mind, here are links to a few of the poetry based quizzes on Sporcle. The gauntlet has been dropped, the challenge has been laid before you, try them if you dare!

http://www.sporcle.com/games/kcostell/There_once_was_a_man_from_where

http://www.sporcle.com/games/XCBoss/poems

http://www.sporcle.com/games/joyberg/poetrylines1

http://www.sporcle.com/games/pembersep/poets

Day Eight - Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward by Gwendolyn Brooks

SPEECH TO THE YOUNG, SPEECH TO THE PROGRESS-TOWARD

Say to them,

say to the down-keepers,

the sun-slappers,

the self-soilers,

the harmony-hushers,

“Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night .”

You will be right.

For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.

Live not for the-end-of-the-song.

Live in the along.

---Gwendolyn Brooks

Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward by Gwendolyn Brooks

Ms. Brooks was one of those rare poets who you could count on for equal parts style and substance. This unusual, yet highly palatable balance made her poetry easy on the ears and challenging to the mind. Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward is just one of those poems. Like some of her other poems, most notably We Real Cool, Brooks establishes a cadence in this poem that propels it forward. This driving rhythm doesn’t come at the cost of a theme. Brooks implores herself to stir the complacent and misguided youth by speaking to the “down-keepers,” “sun-slappers,” “self-soilers,” and “harmony-hushers,” and delivering a firm, yet hopeful message. It doesn’t matter if you are set on oppressing others or you oppress yourself with your laziness, Brooks has words for you. She wants you to know that “even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.” Change is coming, whether you like it or not. She knows the change is coming and this is why she “will be right.” In this instance, her vision of what is to come is “the hard home-run,” it is the winning play, but even if she does not win or hear the message in the final notes of her favorite song, Brooks is not content with settling for a courtside seat to her own life. Like Gwendolyn Brooks, we should all strive to “live in the along.”