Inside The Hearts' Walls

My new favorite poem.

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new
- e.e cummings

Well, we are officially on our winter break.
Christmas is coming, a new year will begin, and we all get a brand new term. Poetry club will start up again our first week back, same place as always in the Hot Shot cafe on the Albany campus at 2 on Tuesdays.
Write a poem that inspires you over this break, That calms you, That moves you, That keeps your mind moving. Share it with me! I can reblog it if you like, but if you don't, I'll just be another audience member. In case you don't know the email, it's insidetheheartswalls@gmail.com
Have a wonderful holiday season everyone! I know I will!

And here I am again, late with my post.
If we were in pre revolution France, my head would be gone by now (and so would my penchant for beautiful shoes).
But, I promise I will get better!

Change of topic!

Thanksgiving is this Thursday!
Time to joyously eat pie, be with friends and families and be thankfull for all that you have, no matter how little it could be.
And thats our prompt for this week. Thankfulness.
And with our prompt, comes a poem.
Enjoy!

Simply Lit
by Malena Morling

Often toward evening,
after another day, after
another year of days,
in the half dark on the way home
I stop at the food store
and waiting in line I begin
to wonder about people—I wonder
if they also wonder about how
strange it is that we
are here on the earth.
And how in order to live
we all must sleep.
And how we have beds for this
(unless we are without)
and entire rooms where we go
at the end of the day to collapse.
And I think how even the most
lively people are desolate
when they are alone
because they too must sleep
and sooner or later die.
We are always looking to acquire
more food for more great meals.
We have to have great meals.
Isn't it enough to be a person buying
a carton of milk? A simple
package of butter and a loaf
of whole wheat bread?
Isn't it enough to stand here
while the sweet middle-aged cashier
rings up the purchases?
I look outside,
but I can't see much out there
because now it is dark except
for a single vermilion neon sign
floating above the gas station
like a miniature temple simply lit
against the night.

Hello all!
We are now in the days of darkness approaching at 5:30 PM.
Christmas music is playing in stores,
Leaves are turning into mulch on pavement,
And turkeys are running scared. (poor turkeys!)

Poetry club is up and flourishing and always welcoming people into its warm, coffee shop covered arms.
And on that note,
This weeks prompt is hiding.
and it even comes with a poem!


November Rain
by Linda Pastan
How separate we are
under our black umbrellas—dark
planets in our own small orbits,

hiding from this wet assault
of weather as if water
would violate the skin,

as if these raised silk canopies
could protect us
from whatever is coming next—

December with its white
enamel surfaces; the numbing
silences of winter.

From above we must look
like a family of bats—
ribbed wings spread

against the rain,
swooping towards any
makeshift shelter.


Remember! Poetry club is every Tuesday from 3-4 in the Hotshot cafe! Come and bless us with your presence.

Hello everyone! These last few weeks I had been so on top of the blog, and then this week it didn't even come into my head as a thought. I hate when that happens.
Well, anyways, the poetry club has been flourishing! We seem to have a new person every week and we definitely have no shortage of talent.
Our prompt for this week is pretending.
And with pretending, a poem emerges;

Portraits
By Mark Irwin

Mother came to visit today. We
Hadn't seen each other in years. Why didn't
You call? I asked. Your windows are filthy, she said. I know,
I know. It's from the dust and rain. She stood outside.
I stood in, and we cleaned each one that way, staring into eachother's eyes,
Rubbing the white towel over our faces, rubbing
Away hours, years. This is what it was like
When you were inside me, she said. What? I asked,
Though I understood. Afterward, indoors, she smelled like snow
Melting. Holding hands we stood by the picture window,
Gazing into the December sun, watching the pines in flame.

"Only one guy and
only one fly trying to
make the guest room do" -Issa

Two hands clap and
two wings flap, sounding out
for a lout

Three minutes pass and
three grams mass landing on
a finger, tension gone

Four centimeter nest and
four seconds rest before flight
once again that night
-Eliot Kurfman

Hence: Chapter Seven,
"The Ineluctable Night".
Wildly pretentious.

-Tav

Does anyone ever feel bogged down by the pure 'have to' of it all?
The have to go to college, have to find a good degree, have to package yourself as an applicant they simply can't put down.
I just want to make crafts, make films, and do fashionable things. But, in college, doing those things doesnt really mean much. (excluding the fashion merchandising, that can be useful.)
When writing the world, when did the universe say "EVERYONE HAS TO GET A DEGREE AND SPEND THEIR LIVES CONFINED TO DEBT AND A CAREER PATH THEY PROBABLY DON'T WANT"?
I do very much believe in a higher education. But spending so much money on something you're only getting because everyone says you have to is a waste of time, money, and life.
Now, if you want to, email the poetry's club email, and tell me about your college degree, why you like it or don't, and whether you think it's useful or not. (it's insidetheheartswalls@gmail.com)
Well, rant completed. College search ongoing.
Over and out!

Have you ever read or seen haikus? Here's an example of a fantastic one! (in my opinion, at least)

Deer licking
First frost
From each other's coats

This week, find a haiku, continue writing from it, and create a poem. Some classic haiku writers: Issa, Basho, Buson.

Here is a blanket statement for you all. If anything inspires you, whether it be nature, movies, books, or whatever, I implore you to send it to our email so I can post it on here to hopefully inspire others. This picture is from Sophia Coppola's movie Marie Antionette. To me, it is one of the most beautiful pieces of art, and inspires me immensely with my Filmmaking career.
Send me what inspires you!

I'm sorry for the late post, but sometimes homework and work gets the better of me. Anyways,
This weeks prompt may be as mystifying as homework can be, but hopefully, a lot more creatively rewarding.
Walking Home

Please join us this Tuesday from 3-4 at The Hot Shot cafe!

Mira is our new communications officer.  Please continue to email your poetry to: insidetheheartswalls@gmail.com.

Our meetings are each Tuesday at 3:00 pm at the Hot Shot cafe on the Albany Campus of LBCC.

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

--------------------

The summer days are coming at last, we can't hold them back. And that means our season of poetry clubbing has come to an end. Don't forget about the book signing on Thursday at 3:00 in the atrium of North Santiam Hall. It will be the final Poetry Club event of the year.

I want to thank everyone for the prompts, the personal feelings and ideas shared, the inspirations, the encouragement.  I only wrote because you asked me to. I only promised that I would try. And in trying to write, I was forced to figure out whether or not I had anything worth saying. And I discovered that I did.

I was wrong last time. Whitney has one last prompt for us. It comes from the Mary Oliver poem above.

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

That's your prompt for next year.
That's your prompt for the rest of your life.

Thanks Whitney. You were a really good poet laureate for us.

by Turtle Shell


It takes a courageous person
to turn a train around.
The weight of sunk costs
builds a momentum quite profound.

It's a rare leader who
can turn to their followers and say:
"This course we've now been on so long
isn't the correct way."
  They won't want to believe.
  They'll rationalize and cleave.

No one wants to admit to being wrong.
But when truth confronts conviction,
then you'll see
either integrity,
or a need to be right that borders on addiction.

--------------------

This was our submission to The Commuter this week. I don't know whether or not they'll be publishing any more issues this year though, so this may well not be getting published.

Leaving Spaces

by Kay Ryan


It takes a courageous
person to leave spaces
empty. Certainly any
artist in the Middle Ages
felt this timor, and quickly
covered space over
with griffins, sea serpents,
herbs and brilliant carpets
of flowers – things pleasant
or unpleasant, no matter.
Of course they were cowards
and patronized by cowards
who liked their swards as
filled with birds as leaves.
All of them believed in
sudden edges and completely
barren patches in the mind,
and they didn’t want to
think about them all the time.

--------------------

The final week of the year is at last upon us. This won't be the final update for the blog this year, but I won't be surprised if this is the final blog-post some of the Poetry Club blog's (no doubt incredibly numerous) followers read, since there aren't going to be any more prompts after this one and I'm well aware that prompt reminders are the primary draw to this site for many of you.

Let's not beat around the bush any longer. This week's prompt comes from the poem Leaving Spaces by Kay Ryan, and it goes a little something like this: "It takes a courageous person to _________".  Like our "Grateful Word" prompt from back around Thanksgiving, you get to fill in your own blank. Hmm... that's kind of like a metaphor for life, isn't it. "You get to fill in your own blank." Or possibly a censored epithet. "Why don't you go fill in your own blank!" It's weird the places my mind wanders when I know I'm writing for a bunch of word-nerds. What was the point of this paragraph again?

"It takes a courageous person to _________"

Last one. Get to it.

by Turtle Shell


First and last
on every list
every day
is sleep.

You can kill yourself without dying
Cast your spirit into an unliving stupor
Too tired to focus, too depressed to care
Too desperate for any meager drops
of fun, or feeling,
to go to bed when you should.

Sleep deprivation
self-perpetuates.

For seven weeks
Winter term
Junior year
I was my own zombie horror flick
A stumbling, despondent parody of life

I am horrified that it took me so long to wake up.
I will never forget
I will never reprise
those dolorous delirious days.

So here is my second lesson:

First and last
on every list
every day
is sleep.

Alright, here's the second to last prompt for the year. It's not a line from a poem this time, but an instruction. Write a list of ten or eleven things you have to do tomorrow (it is suggested that the items be listed more abstractly than concretely), then pick one and write a poem about it.

Also, on June 4th from 1:00 to 4:00 PM, at Fireworks restaraunt there is going to be an Art for Hope benefit concert. We have been invited to have poets perform at the event. To do so, one would need to send a copy and or video of the poem to Abrianna Marie, the artistic director by May 28th. The link below apparently has more information.

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=102896463135671

Thursday, June 2, 3:00.  This is when the book signing will be. That's the last week of classes. Half-a-week before Finals. One week before commencement. Three weeks and two days from today. Twelve days after Judgement Day, from what I hear. Mark your calendars.

Also, a prompt:
"I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."
Whitney is keeping the poem it is from secret so that our inspirations on how to write to it will not be tainted. So don't google it until after you've written your poem!


Edit: Okay, here's where the prompt was from.

When Death Comes


When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

by W


I know
 what happened to a dream.

It was diffused, not deferred, it was a silver dandelion
that blew away in a spider web and  sprinkled
its dream  pollen on ground and on grass and caught
in long  hair and landed in the wondering eyes of small children.

People once thought it would melt in the sunlight.
It grew into fields full of stars.
 
--------------------
 
This is this week's submission to the Commuter. Whitney's stuff is always so dreamy, isn't it?

by Turtle Shell


Where do dreams come from?
And where do they go?

It's hard work, dreaming.
More than wishing or wanting,
A dream is an intention, a belief.
Amidst the hard lessons life teaches
It's difficult to hold faith
That a distant desire can actually be had.

It's harder still to make one come true.
To dream is to sacrifice, to persist,
Inch ever forward, practicing and learning.
Keep betting on it,
Keep rolling the dice,
Keep paying the price,
Until they finally roll right.

Not every dream gets chased.
Mutually exclusive dreams will rip a person in half.
Impossible dreams must be let go, or fail.
There is a catacomb of once living dreams
Starved withered husks clutter a psyche's dusty alcoves;
Curios, nostalgics
Don't stare too long, you'll only make yourself sad.

And be warned,
Some aren't as dead as they appear.

Oh hey, here's something I probably should have linked to a couple weeks ago: It's a book!

That's right, the Words & Pictures book is available to be printed on demand and shipped to wherever things like that are able to get mailed to. But before you rush over to buy your very own copy, don't forget that Robin is buying a bunch of them in bulk to save on shipping costs and that the Poetry Club will later on this month be getting together for a book signing/selling party where they will be dispersed.

Edit: By "this month" I of course mean "next month".

by Langston Hughes


What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

--------------------

Our prompt for the week is 'what happens to a dream when it gets deferred?' I don't think we have to restrict ourselves to the list of options that Langston Hughes provided.

In other news, we're looking for LBCC Poet Laureate applicants for next year. Not 'we' the LBCC Poetry Club, precisely, but near enough. So if you know anyone who might be interested, get them in touch with someone who can help them apply (Robin probably would be best, or someone else in the English department). There's apparently a $250 per term stipened sweetening the pot for whoever is chosen to take up the mantle.

A Nathan is a name that claims the bearer is a gift from god.
As if that were more true for them than any other random clod.
While pompous parents gasconade their divine honorarium,
The apostate child conceives an autonomic planetarium.

Now to be named a Knight implies a certain measure of command,
Of horses, weapons, armor, plus a duty to the sovereign hand.
The prudent, pious, gallant man must vow to serve the polity,
And demonstrate a creed of polished gender inequality.

The baggage of a storied name is not that which I long to bear.
Though knights are fun and 'gift from god' yet has a charming ancient air.
Tav is the name that I go by and means just what I want to be,
It connotes naught and no-one else, it's wholly, solely, only me.
 
--------------------
 
I think this one is only half as long as it deserves to be, but it was hard to write and I don't feel like spending hours more coaxing words into tight verses just to make the flow feel less abrupt. Sorry if it sends you scurrying to find a dictionary, thesauruses are just a little bit too fun sometimes. And speaking of having too much fun while writing poetry, in case you didn't notice reading it through the first time, this poem has a verse structure (and implicit background music) ganked from a well-known song called The Elements by Tom Lehrer. 
 
...hee-hee, just kidding, I know it's actually originally from The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan. Though you should click here if you want to see the version of the tune that got glued to the inside of my skull in my formative years.

I attended the Cherry Blossom Picnic (Hanami) today. It was pretty neat. It was in the DAC from 11:30 to 1:30. It turns out that a hanami (or "flower viewing festival," I think) is essentially Japanese Easter: the spring celebration of life and rebirth that coincides with the blossoming of the cherry trees (which I imagine makes it kind of hard to schedule for ahead of time).

Anyway, I got to brag about my poetry a little bit to a Commuter reporter who was there, so I expect there will probably be an article about the event in next week's paper. Whether or not said article will feature any reference to me must, alas, remain to be seen.

click - click - click - clunk
then... nothing

It broke again.
An inventor peers in.
What went wrong this time?

tinkering - tinkering
adjusting - fixing
try again

click - clunk
then... nothing

An inventor peers in.
The theory is sound,
Right?

There are only so many times you can re-check the same math
and still officially be considered sane.

The theory is sound.
The flaw's in the execution.
Where is it?

tinkering - tinkering
replacing - tweaking
try again?

whirrrrr...

no smoke
no ozone
no unexpected snaps
it runs

An inventor looks on
in silent glee.

It will never again be as ugly as it is now
a hodge-podge of repurposed parts.
Rolling off assembly lines
it will be smaller
sleeker.

It will never again be as beautiful as it is now
taking its first step into the world
breathing its first whisper
pleased to finally work.
 
 
-Turtle Shell

First, I found the Commuter's website's article about the Words and Pictures reading:
words-and-pictures-fill-south-santiam-hall

Second, the Words and Pictures book is coming along much faster than I had originally expected. In fact there are tentative plans in the works to order a couple of dozen or so books and throw a book-signing party sometime before the end of the term. More on that as it gets worked out.

Third, the Cherry Blossom Picnic (Hanami) is this Friday.  I still don't know what that means. The poetry club has submitted at least a handful of haiku and tanka for the event (not that I know what they're going to be used for). As for the precise time and place, I don't know that either; though word on the street has it that it'll be in the courtyard around lunch-time-ish. (Failing that, check the DAC.)

Fourth, oh yeah, we have a new prompt too! It's not a specific phrase this time, though. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use the meaning of your name in a poem. What does your name mean? And why should we care? Make us care. Or make us apathetic. Whatever, it's your poem (and your name), write it however you like.

Do I really hate to love?
Do I really love to hate?

- C. Upton
 
--------------------
 
I send the Commuter lovely poems.

I just got an email giving more detail regarding the deadline for the haiku we're writing. Megan Rivas, the organizer of the event (I think) says:

I would love for poetry to be submitted by Friday,
April 22nd to the DAC CC: Megan Rivas or electronically at this email
megan.rivas.8457@mail.linnbenton.edu
This submission is for US to print it. If poets would like to submit AFTER
this date, it will have to be printed on their own.

There have been a couple more Commuter articles about us lately. Last week they published a piece called You Could Be Next Year's Poet Laureate.  Which is a brief article about the current Poet Laureate and the Poetry Club.

This week's issue has an article about the Words and Pictures reading, but it doesn't appear to be online yet. Hopefully I'll remember to look for it again in a few days and post a link if I find it. If you're on campus (and not reading this from deep in the future) you could just grab a paper copy to see it for yourself.

For various reasons last week's two prompts have been extended for another week. I hear that the deadline for the Haiku/Tankas is April 29, which is when the event that they are being written for is going to occur. But since we'd all like to hear what you come up with in the club it'd be great if you have something to share on the 26th.

Going around in a circle, reading pages from Howl today was an interesting and amusingly awkward way to scare away potential new Poetry Club members (of which we had, like, five in attendance).

There's going to be a Cherry Blossom Picnic (Hanami) hosted by the DAC on April 29, 2011. I don't know what that means, but the LBCC Poetry Club has agreed to write Tanka and/or Haikus for the event. So our first prompt is to write one or more tanka and/or haiku, the subject being I guess: earthquake/tsunami/radiation/relief, or thereabouts.

Our second, more normal prompt is from a poem by Ted Kooser which follows.


The Early Bird

Still dark, and raining hard
on a cold May morning

and yet the early bird
is out there chirping,

chirping its sweet-sour
wooden-pulley notes,

pleased, it would seem,
to be given work,

hauling the heavy pucket of dawn

up from the darkness,
note over note,

and letting us drink.

--------------------

The prompt specifically is: "pleased, it would seem, to be given work".

By W

Blackberry brambles
Such uncomfortable places.
Prickly, stickled, webbing in wings
Not letting them out.

To be picked is just another
Way of saying chosen.
There remains in all hearts
A honey drunk awe of it.

You who hibernate coolness,
Your day shall come.
So still for it, wait for it
To rest is, after all, one of many ways to praise.

Someday—yes—
        It
              Will
                      Find
                            You.

That growing warmth of ripened grace
When you know in each wondering burst
Of your body that your time has come

At last.
 
--------------------
 
This poem is our submission to the Commuter this week.

by Turtle Shell

"Look at this, this brilliant kid
Made a masterwork, our genius did."
A perfect grade, brings pride galore.
You hunger now, you want some more.
An endless mission, bring home the A's
To hear you're smart, the greatest praise.

"But wait, what's this, did you get a B?
Sit down, let's talk, I want you to see
A B isn't terrible, this imperfect letter
I think we both know though, that you can do better."
So that's how it is, those words that now weighed
Only dullards could be content, with an imperfect grade.

Do or do not, there is no "try"
Become risk-averse, become failure-shy!
The easiest path, is the only one to take
Be careful, do it right, never risk a mistake!
A mistake's an indictment, a proof of stupidity
But you NEED to be smart, an ego's cupidity.

Studies have shown, that when praising a child
Praising mere talent, only leaves them beguiled.
Being proud of what they are, but not how they act
Encourages stagnation, is motivationally cracked.
"You're so smart" sounds nice, but it's such a dangerous phrase
One message to avoid, among the hundred ways to praise.

The prompt for next week is: "one of the hundred ways to praise".  Supposedly from something I don't currently have a copy of, written by Oregon's Poet Laureate, Paulann Peterson.

We also have a tentative preliminary prompt for the week after next (sorry Whitney, this is what happens when you're out sick).  We will be (celebrating? commemorating? evangelizing?) reading/performing on the subject of the free speech movement in the Hotshot at 3 as usual on April 19.  More focused attention may be given to the topics of: 1) the responsibility associated with the right of free speech, and 2) the importance of acting as well as speaking.

And lastly, save the date: April 22.  I forget why.

My forebears, they were tall.
So very tall were they all.
Picking fruit in the Fall.
Yet rarely playing basketball.

by Turtle Shell
--------------------
 
This was this week's submission to the Commuter, and was written to this week's "Ancestry" or "Who am I?" prompt.

After far too long being too busy with other things, we finally have a regular weekly poetry prompt again. The prompt itself for next week is "Who am I?" (And why do I have the sudden urge to listen to Les Mis?) Some ideas that were bandied about today as to how someone might want to trim that massive question into something manageable, were to focus on ancestry, or inheritance, or legacy, or perhaps to find a descriptive metaphor with which to approximate oneself.

Also, Wednesday, April 13 is the Words & Pictures reception and readings from 12 to 1 in the South Santiam Hall (SSH) gallery. This is the exhibit of all those photos we were frantically writing poems for last term. Be there or be a total failure to the poetry club and in life (and also your mother probably never loved you)!

The waters came
and they kept coming
covering the landscape
the farms
the houses
the cars
the people.
And the world wept.

--------------------

This was by Ruth and was also the poem sent to the Commuter this week.

Have a happy Final's Week everybody! The Poetry Club will be taking two weeks off, meeting next on Tuesday, March 29, in the first week of spring term. The prompt for writing for that meeting is no prompt at all, just write on whatever topic strikes your fancy.

In other news, the Choir Concert was last night (pics here), and four of our poets read their works to the sold out auditorium (500 or so people; the fire-mashal's certificate by the door certified a capacity of 524, but I spotted a couple rows of mostly empty seats over in the crappy corner where the piano would have blocked people's view of half the stage). The so honored poets were John, Teagan, Whitney, and Tav (in that order (chronologically, not in that order in the picture below)).

Next week the poetry club is meeting in the DAC rather than the Hotshot Cafe. Much as how last week we met in the DAC to read poems "in the tradition" of Black History Month, I guess this month is Women's History Month and so we'll be reading poetry in honor of women.

What's more, on Thursday, March 10, four of our poets will be reading their work at the Winter Concert (7:30 at the Russell Tripp Performance Center).  Namely: John Haddenm, Teagan Lochner, Whitney Smith, and Tav Knight.  So good luck to them.

Emotions so great, burning passions withheld. No escape.
Attempting in vain, try, explain. To open our souls, agape.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Impossible
Words, with no meaning. Myself fully expressed? Dreaming.
Poetry

An outlet, spirits breathing. Easy? Absurd, demeaning.
I sit and I write. Pure gold? Ehh, worthless. No purpose, meaning.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Improbable
Minds, simple third parties translating. Souls free? Ha! Still waiting.
Poetry

Poets are weird, strange, looney bin. From society, divided, Berlin.
No, I disagree, poets live among the ranks, mothers, warriors, Akin.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Impossible? No, I refuse to give in.
Us who try, fruitlessly, to send our souls from our depths, apprehend.
Poetry

Beauty, we do not create. Release it from confines, we elate.
Lurking in all of us, a poet. Find him! Too masculine? Oh Ego. Deflate.
To write what one feels, senses, loves. Impossible still? No, Articulate.
Within your heart, sleeps ample love. But your soul’s in chains. Rise above.
Poetry


by John
--------------------

The poem I'm sending to the Commuter this week. I hope it's not too long (they say they'd prefer no more than 120-130 words, this one's 172).

Hello all,

The deadline for the "Words and Pictures" photo/poem exhibit poetry submissions is Tuesday, March 1 before noon.

Here are the guidelines for submission:

1) Send me a word doc of your poem(s). Include 1) your name, 2) the title of your poem and 3) the photographer's initials and photo title (e.g. RB Confluence).

2) Attend our poetry club meeting on Tuesday, March 1 in the Hot Shot Cafe and bring a hard copy of your poems for submission so that we can read through our collection together and make final decisions on which poems to forward to Rich Bergeman.

If you're not able to attend, please please let me know asap. Also, it's essential that you send me your poem submissions by Monday afternoon, preferably right now so that I can be certain I can open and work with your documents.

3) Over the last month, several of you have passed poetry my way. Thank you! But please know that I'm starting from scratch here now as we go forward with our final submissions. Disregard anything you've sent me before. Start fresh.

Finally, I'd really appreciate hearing back from each one of you asap. Please let me know 1) if you plan to attend Tuesday's meeting and 2) how many poems you will be submitting.

Thanks so much for acting on this request. And thanks so much for your poetry and your passion!!!

Robin
Robin.Havenick@linnbenton.edu

I haven't been getting very many poetry submissions of late (probably due to all of our highly urgent projects, hopefully this will change in a week or two), so today I'm posting a couple of poems mostly unrelated to any actual "Club" activity.

Immediately below is something I rescued out of my ineptly-long-ignored spam-box, sent to me almost a month ago by a friend of the LBCC Poetry Club as a sort-of response to the waterfall painting poem posted several weeks back.  A bit further down is a cold-weather wish offered up by some random student.


Gravity
by Danny Earl Simmons

It is the exact same gravity
that mercilessly drags
the Niagara into a rumbling
sockdolager of a natural wonder
as puckishly pulls the pacifier
from my baby boy’s drowsy lips
the second we drift into sleep.
I liked gravity better on the honeymoon.

I cursed the snow
from the curved out well
of an ancient fir
having just landed
in the one tiny place
lacking enough snow
to cushion my fall

Angel of Harlem
ran through my head
while a ticklish thread of blood
ran down the back of it

How will this shade of red
look on my scarf?

And what’s Bono doing here
floating among all of these stars?

But survival has a way
of changing our outlook
and since a few years have passed
I want the heavens to open up
and send us the mother
of all snow days


~ J. D. Mackenzie
 
--------------------
 
A poem sent in by an LBCC student in the spirit of our winter weather.

Hey everyone, for those of you submitting a poem that you wish to read at the upcoming concert, those are due NOW.  Or potentially tomorrow would be acceptable as well.  In any case, send them ASAP to James Reddan, reddanj@linnbenton.edu

Slightly less, but still pretty urgent: Picture poems are due in less than a week. The deadline is Tuesday, March 1st, but at this point Robin would like you to send them to her as soon as possible as well. Send them to robin.havenick@linnbenton.edu as an attached Word document, formatted the way you want them to appear, presumably.

You lived so much of your life without telling anyone,
until one day when you couldn’t keep it in any longer,
and then your world turned upside down.
Oh well. Right side up is highly over-rated.

By rk

--------------------

Another poem on the "We live so much of our lives without telling anyone" prompt.  This one was also the club's submission to the Commuter this week.

I entered this world questioning, and wanting to know,
and met a bright auric fog, with a warm golden glow.
Each radiant dot a new thought, a new place to begin?
So much to absorb, I leapt, and dove in.

Now I wonder, 'who am I, to think myself so good,
if that's all I've been taught, and ever understood?'
When there's light all around, from the sky and the sea,
how can I tell, if any light, comes from me?

It floors me that Newton, so great among all those who search,
wrote that what wonders HE saw, was only thanks to the perch,
he found on the shoulders, of those giants before.
If that's so then, could any of us claim even a little bit more?

Could I write half as well, without all the great authors I've read?
Could I sing any songs, without others' songs in my head?
The light all around me, that dazzles and warms,
I see now, I think, its source and its forms.

A billion dim dots, make an awestriking whole,
each person not yet forgotten, beams rays on my soul.
Even those deep in the past, and lost to antiquity,
their lights still refract, in an anonymous ubiquity.

It seems a culture is built, a speck at a time,
added to through the ages, by lights of minds much like mine.
Philosophy and science, technology and art,
everything advances, by piece and by part.

And so it must be, that in our every endeavor,
the great things that we make, we make working together.
Thus all ambitions I plan, and any craft I might try,
like everyone else, I'll be aided, by the billion lights in the sky.

By Turtle Shell

--------------------

This is one of the poems written for submission to perhaps be read during the choir concert. Whether or not it will be one of the ones chosen has not yet been decided.

     *    Choir concert
               o    Feb 22: Deadline for poetry submissions
               o    March 10: Choir concert


     *    Unity Celebration / Black History Month
                o    February 22 @ 3:00: DAC please bring favorite poems in the
                      tradition, ones that celebrate our united "diversity", or any voice
                      that needs to be heard.
     *    Poetry/Photo Exhibition
                o    http://www.flickr.com/photos/59025797@N05/sets/72157625832662421/
                o    Now till Feb 22: select three photos from the above and write your
                      poems in response (no longer than 25 lines please).
                o    Now till Mar 1: because we won't have meeting opportunities to
                      gather and read the poems we're writing, please share them with
                      Robin by sending them as attached word docs:
                      robin.havenick@linnbenton.edu
                o    March 1: submission deadline and final group selection of the 15
                      poems for the exhibit

Next Tuesday's meeting will be in NSH-209 again.  Once again we have no prompt, but those who intend to submit a poem for reading at the choir concert should bring them to this meeting. Everyone else should probably be working on their picture-prompt poems.

Based on a nearly completely undemocratic decision-making process, I sent Things I've Learned From a Waterfall Painting as the Poetry Club's submission to the Commuter for the week.  You remember this poem, right?:

http://insidetheheartswalls.blogspot.com/2011/02/things-ive-learned-from-waterfall.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59025797@N05/sets/72157625832662421/

We need to let Robin know our choices by Monday. Pick the three (or more) that you think you could write a poem on, and then send your choices in. If you don't know how to get in touch with Robin, send your choices to me and I'll pass them along.

The actual poems for these pictures apparently don't need to be written until March 1, although this is the only new prompt we have this week.

The club today voted to send Dan Simmon's poem as our submission to the Commuter this week.


Can You Tell?

by Danny Earl Simmons

I could tell you
but you
might have to kill
me
if I told you

I am one
flinch
after another
flinch
all day long

Why do I squint?

I am from space
I am from the between of things
jobs(I am)jobs
girlfriends(I am)girlfriends
apartments(I am)apartments
doctors(I am)doctors
rocks(I am)and hard places

I need
to tell
someone
I need
a gun.

So much of our lives we spend with
an internal monologue our only company
grinding at the loneliness inside.
But don't worry, it's not just you.
This is how everyone feels sometimes.

So you're not alone those hours every day,
when you're so very alone
and nobody cares.
We do care. We all know what it's like,
feeling lonely. We're just busy,
worrying about our own loneliness, just like you.

We're each all too familiar
with the dark pit of despair.
It'd be easy enough to climb out of,
if only someone out there, would lend you a hand up;
which they'd surely do,
if they'd ever just see you there in it.

Nobody's ever interested in you,
physically or intellectually,
it's what you want more than anything
what we all do,
but you're just another cog to them,
one more human obstacle
to be dealt with or avoided.

When you are stabbed again and again,
by the frustration and pain,
despair and hate,
We all know how that feels.

We all know the fantasies that bloom,
your mind shying away from the dangerously possible,
sliding to the bigger ideas, the better catharsis.
Dream of rending the planet,
ripping the whole thing to shreds with your hands,
tearing civilization till it pops at the seams,
smooshing all the little bits that fall off,
crushing everyone and everything,
and bringing an end to the worthless world that has no time or patience
for someone like you, and your pathetic loneliness.

The loathing and rage
shrieking and screaming inside
while outside you're ever more civil, more quiet and numb.
madness and chaos,
venom and bile,
fiery and fury,
fatigue, and exhaustion.

Don't worry, it isn't just you.
I feel that way too sometimes. We all do.
Even if you never tell anyone,
We all still understand.

By Turtle Shell

--------------------

One of 2-1-11's "We live so much of our lives without telling anyone." poems.

Ages go and history flows
ever repeating and growing.
Common mores get wound up and disdain,
then relax, relearn to empathize
with a lyrical writer's life passion.

Could any sanity have expected,
predicted, or dreamed,
that in two-point-five thousand years
your ardor would not be forgotten?

Yet still in the heaps
of a library's deeps
a peruser will find
a sweetbitter mind,

How could writing so ancient
and yet so fervent be?
Neglected, eponymized Sappho,
would you have selected me?

By Turtle Shell

--------------------

One of 1-25-11's "selecting a reader" poems.

What if my reader couldn't read at all?
Someone less fortunate than you and I.
Whether they be a he or a she, it doesn't matter to me.
They'd look at the canvas that holds my thoughts.
They (my words) would be open to interpretation,
After all my reader can't read.
They'd be words of inspiration, an answer to prayer.
They'd be conversation on a rainy day.
They'd be the idea of 'nothing is impossible'.
And so my reader, the he or she, they'd learn to read.
And they'd find my poem was exactly what they need.

By Erin Merrell

--------------------

One of 1-25-11's "selecting a reader" poems.  This one was sent to The Commuter for publication.

Telephone Repairman
by Joseph Millar


All morning in the February light
he has been mending cable,
splicing the pairs of wires together
according to their colors,
white-blue to white-blue
violet-slate to violet-slate,
in the warehouse attic by the river.

When he is finished
the messages will flow along the line:
thank you for the gift,
please come to the baptism,
the bill is now past due :
voices that flicker and gleam back and forth
across the tracer-colored wires.

We live so much of our lives
without telling anyone,
going out before dawn,
working all day by ourselves,
shaking our heads in silence
at the news on the radio.
He thinks of the many signals
flying in the air around him
the syllables fluttering,
saying please love me,
from continent to continent
over the curve of the earth.

-------------------------

The prompt for next week is: "We live so much of our lives without telling anyone".

Also, at next week's club meeting we will be viewing photos taken by students in the photography department (I think), and we will each get to choose one to write a poem on. After the club's loyal members show up to take their pick next Tuesday, I'll try to post the pictures or links to them online so that everyone else can pick at our scraps perhaps choose one to write about as well.

This was just submitted by a friend of the LBCC Poetry Club. A bit early, but hey, why not?

Selecting A Reader

She is as naked as I am
and passionate
about show don't tell.

For club members who wish to read a poem at the upcoming (Thursday, March 10, 2011 @ 7:30PM) choir concert, the due date for submission of your work is Tuesday, February 22.  Remember, we want one to one-and-a-half minutes long, and language suitable for general audiences.


I feel a little weird that the singers get have to sing songs written by others, but we poets are expected get to use our own original work at this event. It is of course a great honor and privilege, but I'm worrying about whether or not I'll be capable of writing anything worthy of reciting to a potentially sold-out auditorium. If I were allowed to just memorize and perform Annabel Lee (for example) I would at least know that I had material to share that's worthy of such attention. But will anything I've written or will write be worthy to take up the time of such a crowd? Oh well. It might be. I've still got time to work on it.

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Ted Kooser

-------------------------

The prompt for 1-25-11's club meeting is "selecting a reader".  If you could have exactly one person read your poetry, who would it be?

by Turtle Shell


In studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness
I'm wondering if grins
are interludes and only this.
I amble past people
a hedge 'round my soul,
brambles that creep 'till
I've edged down a hole.


Solitude is having the time and space to work on your project until you get it juuuuuust right.
Loneliness is wishing you had someone to show what a good job you did.

Solitude is being in a place where you could strip naked and no one but you would care.
Loneliness is wishing someone cared.

I've been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness
a bit too much lately.
I wish I could stop.

White Towels


I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,
telling the story of my life
to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.
I carry them through the house
as though they were my children
asleep in my arms.

-Richard Jones

--------------------

This is our prompt for next week, January 18, 2011. Specifically:

"I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,"

Surprise Surprise


Rumble and tremor and then,
The concrete city falls.
A population over a million... decimated,
Ten percent die under broken, crushing walls.

Isn't ground supposed to be solid?
Shouldn't home be a safe place to go?
Can you trust the ground again, or buildings,
When they've killed people you know?

We don't like to be surprised like this,
And so internalize the fear and pain and worse,
Awaiting the next one, expectation lays within,
A hard and heavy curse.

Was that shaking just now real,
Or was it only in my mind?
You keep a glass of water by your bed,
To know if you need to rush outside.

Many have trouble sleeping,
Some refuse to go inside.
But when Earth itself tries to kill us,
Where can we possibly hide?

If I ever left Corvallis


If I ever left you,
‘  I would never be the same,
   I would never quite recover,
   I might somehow lose my name.
   I could not forget your colors--
   Your soft and sporty gray,
    Or those cheesy chunky snowflakes,
    You bring out each Christmas Day,
    Or that pink you say is salmon,
    Or that gold you say is brown,
    You’re my gold and salmon heartbreak,
    I just can’t let you down.
    So many scents are my reminders,
    Of all the things we were,’
    Although when I try to bring to mind,
    They smudge and smooch and blur.
     The rubber tired pavement,
     The sweet fresh scent of lawn,
     The occasional whiff of sultry smoke,
      Oh, I’ll miss you when I’m gone!
       If I ever left you,
       I would never quite forget,
      The way you act on game day,
      Like you owe the crowds a debt.
       The rush the roar the shouting,
       Your orange and black and pride,
        I always groaned hrmmph outwardly,
        But I was proud of you inside,
        For all you are you’re not yet,
        But someday you’ll become,
        And grow and change and change and grow
        And somehow still seem young,
        So if ever again I hear that song,
        That one night became ours,
        When the old man with the violin,
        Played underneath the stars,
        If I hear that song some someday hour,
        On an old forgotten stair,
        Or an old forgotten park bench,
        It will haul me back right there,
        To all our times at schools and dances,
        And rainy old busstops,
        Or our red umbrella moments,
        On the way to coffee shops,
‘       But now that I am leaving you
        To help me dull the pain,
       I  pulled out  my friends sound advice,
        Saved for penniless days or rain
       That sometimes yeah you fall in love,
        Then go your separate ways,
   It hurts and aches but snap it heals,
    And you start fresh again one day.
   Yet maybe now even as I write this
     I finally see the light,
    Because I think inside,  wise as she was,,
    My friend must not be right ,
   So maybe instead I‘ll tell her so,
    That this isn’t what you thought,
     You made it sound so easy,
     But love is simply not….

         or…..
                     at least

                                    not when you’re in love with

                                                       a
                                                                    whole

                                                                                         entire

                                                                                                town.

(you’re my ebony orange darling and I just can’t let you down.)

"What will you do when you become a top executive in a large company?" my textbook asks me, deadpan.

The topic is Business Ethics.
The question is not entirely facetious,
And the presumption is enormous.

When I become a top executive in a large company...
Is that who I'll be?
Is that who I am?
I should know the answer to this, if anyone should.

Should I dream up an exciting future for myself,
Call it a goal, and in so doing, in that instant,
Resign myself to the sacrifice of all other conflicting dreams?

Am I arrogant enough to call my goals expectations?
No. I've made that mistake before.

So, who will I be? Who will I become?
Sometimes I have to be okay with the answer,
'I don't know.'

--------------------------

By Turtle Shell

Our prompt for January 11's meeting is: "What happens next is a complete surprise"

Apparently it's from a famous poem that we're not allowed to know about yet. So write your poem before you google the prompt, lest your inspiration be tainted.

Edit: Okay, here's the poem:

--------------------

Lola Haskins - Dearborn North Apartments

Chicago, Illinois

Rows of rectangles rise, set into brick.
And in every rectangle, there is a lamp.
Why should there be a lamp in every window?
Because in all this wide city, there is not
enough light. Because the young in the world
are crazy for light and the old are afraid
it will leave them. Because whoever you are,
if you come home late but it looks like noon,
you won't tense at the click as you walk in
which is probably after all only the heat
coming on, or the floorboards settling.
So when you fling your coat to its peg in
the hall, and kick off your heels, and unzip
your black velvet at that odd vee'd angle as if
someone were twisting your arm from behind,
then reach inside the closet for a hanger,
just to the dark left where the dresses live,
what happens next is a complete surprise.