“Who are your favorite poets?”
Ethel Winslow, the Editor-in-Chief of The Weekly View, put that question to me during a conversation about National Poetry Month. As is likely, lately, my memory seized up, but I managed to squeeze out Randall Jarrell. Ethel immediately cited “Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner” as one of Jarrell’s poems, a poem to which I had been introduced in the early 1980s. When the conversation touched on a Theodore Roethke poem I loved — “I Knew A Woman” — she suggested that I read Roethke’s “Child on Top of a Greenhouse.” I also remembered “Naming Of Parts,” the first of Henry Reed’s six-poem series, “Lessons Of The War.”
In a recent conversation, a good friend reminded me of our mutual admiration of former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins. I learned of Collins when I was in St. Louis Missouri, listening to a National Public Radio program; I later found that Nancy Mahanes had met the poet. In subsequent years, Nancy graced me with her autographed copy of Collins’ “The Art of Drowning.” I had shared with her my love of the poem “A Blessing” by James Wright, and how my English professor at Indiana University Southeast had read the poem to me. Nancy, ever curious about how life comes to be, found that the poet Robert Bly was Wright’s companion in the poem, where he wrote that the “two Indian ponies … / come gladly out of the willows / To welcome my friend and me.”
In 2015, I went to a reading of his poems by Dan Carpenter and was pleased to get his autograph on his book, “The Art He’d Sell for Love.” In January 2017, I wrote a column titled “The Effect of the Poem” where I cited a poem by Leigh Hunt and my spontaneous recital of it to the pharmacist who was filling my prescription. My second bride knows Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay;” she memorized it after hearing it the 1983 movie, “The Outsiders.” She also remembers a poem I wrote, called “Baptist Sunday Morning: Hot.” Poetry runs through the veins of my life.
Towards the end of 2011, Ethel wrote a series of resolutions for the coming year. The most notable — for me — was “Resolution Number 8: Write more poems.” Although an important component of my life, I have neglected the crafting of poems. My sister once commented on my daily April poetry offerings on a social networking site and asked that I write a poem for her, asking that I use a song by Prince as the basis for it. I wrote for her, “Sometimes, A Poem In April.” On that site, I recently posted a picture of me and my son together on a pool table, taking aim. I headlined the post, “The pool players, (with apologies to Gwendolyn Brooks.)” My neighbor immediately responded to the post with a video of Gwendolyn Brooks reading the poem I referred to: “We Real Cool: The Pool Players. Seven At The Golden Shovel.” I love it when an oblique reference results in a response that recognizes the source.
Hello April, my old friend; I’m going to bring you poetry again. Just as Dylan Thomas wrote, I will practice my craft, “Not for ambition or bread …” my sullen art for the lovers, “… their arms / Round the griefs of the ages …” even should they neither pay me praise, nor wages. And should you question my reference to a Paul Simon song, Mr. Simon is listed in the same anthology as many of the other poets cited here.
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