The Best American Poetry

The Seventh Night . . .

Sonnet: Grandfather mauled to death by pit bulls (by Mitch Sisskind)

"Grandfather mauled to death by pit bulls."

                -- News item, December 2008

 

Hey, what the hell you think

You're doing there, you pit bulls?

Cut out that mauling, damn it!

You heard me! Scram, I said!

On the other hand, 'tis no matter.

My life so ungeverschmutzed: prostate

Trouble, gall bladder, fungal toenail.

Pit bulls! Good work, boys!

 

I attended the University of Chicago.

Leo Strauss was my teacher. To his

Grad students he confided his fear of

Schwartzers, but swore us to silence.

 

Thought I was an old coot, didn't you?
But I know the world. You can have it.

 

Sleepy kitten video! (four million views)

Now Winter Nights Enlarge [by Thomas Campion]

This poem comes to us courtesy of Kathy Ossip:

Now Winter Nights Enlarge

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o’erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

-- Thomas Campion

Roman Holidays [by Moira Egan]

Merry merry!!

The Sixth Night

-- sdh

"Clown" [by Elaine Equi]

Clown

It was an exciting thing
for a guy like him to become a clown overnight.
For a while, he was quite a success.
You wouldn’t believe how many people saw him.
Only he didn’t know any games
or funny things to say.
He would just show up at kids’ parties
looking weird
and sit there.

– Elaine Equi

The Late Great Eartha Kitt

The wonderful Eartha Kitt sings to Nat King Cole's piano, from the 1958 movie, St. Louis Blues. You can see why Orson Welles once called her "the most exciting woman alive."

Saying Goodbye to a Good Friend (by Laura Orem)

“Her Grave”

by Mary Oliver

 She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.

She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin

from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile –

and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her

                    cunning elbows,

and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming

                    perfect arch of her neck.

***

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.

We did not think of music,

but anyway, it began to rain

slowly.

***

Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce.

 Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.

 My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash

of happiness as she barged

through the pitch pines swiping my face with her

wild, slightly mossy tongue.

***

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?

He is wiser than that, I think.

 

A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds

think it is all their own music?

 

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you

do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the

trees, or the leaves that pertain to them.

 

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill

think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment

of her long slumber?

 

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the

smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know

almost nothing.

 

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think

the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace

of his own making?

 

***

She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or

wait for me, or be somewhere.

 

Now she is buried under the pines.

 

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and

not to be angry.

 

Through the trees there is the sound of wind, palavering.

 

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste

of the infallible energies?

 

How strong was her dark body!

How apt her grave place!

How beautiful her unshakeable sleep.

***

Finally,

the slick mountains of love break

over us.

from New and Selected Poems, Beacon, 2005

Holly Orem 1997-2008

Congratulations Gerald Greland, Winner of the Inaugural Ode Contest

Last month, we announced our third Best American Poetry Poem Challenge, for which poets were invited to write an inaugural ode.  We received many strong poems and thank all of the poets who took time to compose a poem and enter it here.  Our winning poem "This is the Dream," comes to us from Gerald Greland of Bronxville, NY.   Of Greland's poem our judge Mark Strand writes, "The overall elegance of "This Is a Dream," its formal grace, the subtlety of its argument, seemed to me exceptional and certainly worthy of first place."   Congratulations, Gerald, and thank you.

This Is the Dream

At the creation of the new, there is always
a myth of division – day from night, light
from dark, dawn delivering from the threat
of shadows disrupting rest. True exchange

would turn away from the “from” of malaise
or discontent toward an “and” of hope to unite
this fractured land. We must form anew, forget
what we have feared, honor the entire range

of our American experience. Integrity lays
in a whole greater than its parts: one bright
blazing union forging ahead without regret
or rancor. Today, let us move past estrange-

ment and distrust. We hold within us new ways
of seeing each other, working as one to ignite
a reaction across this great nation, again to set
our spacious skies shining by this sea of change.

          -- by Gerald Greland

Line from a poem in the Best American Poetry 2008: From “Threshing” by Louise Glück: “This is the dream.”

You can hear Greland read his winning poem and David Lehman read R.S. Gwynn's "An Inaugural Prayer" on Boston's WBUR radio here: Download Hereandnow_1225  Or follow this link.

Burned by Madoff, part two (by Mitch Sisskind)

Life goes on and so does finance! It's Christmas day and  the middle of Chanukah, but money takes no holidays. So here's part two of our talk with Scrooge McDuck about the Bernard Madoff affair. (Feh, feh! "Beets should grow in his belly!")

MS: There was a long article in the New York Times entitled, "In Madoff scandal, Jews feel an acute sense of betrayal."
Scrooge McDuck: Yeah, that's a big load of horse shit. I'll admit there have been times in my life when my faith has wavered, but never again. This Madoff incident is a supreme metaphysical gift. Once and for all, it has really made me believe in G-d.

MS: What a strange thing to say!
Scrooge McDuck: Well, let me put it differently. It's made me believe in intelligent design. You see, the whole Madoff thing could not possibly have happened by accident. It's just too fantastic. Consider the name "J. Ezra Merkin." This was one of Madoff's chief money conduits, the man who got Madoff the endowment funds from Yeshiva University. No ordinary human could have come up with the name "J. Ezra Merkin." 

MS: Isn't a "merkin" a pubic hair wig?
Scrooge McDuck: Exactly. Only G-d could think of that name. Or if not G-d, then some hyperintelligent, supremely creative life form sitting at a computer terminal somewhere in the tenth dimension playing games with us. Isaac Singer once compared G-d to a writer of pulp novels, "page turners," and now I see that this is not just a metaphor. It's literally true! If you want to know G-d, don't waste your time with Gershom Scholem or Martin Buber or any other eggheads. You've got to read Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele. You've got to deeply understand "The Other Side of Midnight," by Sidney Sheldon. Above all -- and I'm hardly the first to say this -- you've got to study "The Godfather," both the book and the first two movies. And also the Bible itself, of course.

MS: You're saying "The Godfather" reveals the secrets of life?
Scrooge McDuck: I'm saying it reveals the mind of God, and the Madoff scandal does the same thing. But we'll have to stop now. For me, speaking of these matters brings an on an irresistible urge for Torah study. There will be more time for Madoff later.

MS: "More Time for Madoff" would be a good name for a television show.
Scrooge McDuck: It's playing right now in the Upper Worlds!

 

Merry Christmas!!

Hey Rachel (by Paul Muldoon)

Hey Rachel
if that’s your name
how come the daily special
is always the same?
Even a lousy anchovy
can vary its game
an egg over easy
has something it overcame
Hey Rachel
if that’s your name

Hey Rachel
if that’s your name
the light under your bushel
is dying of shame
even a soda fountain
can express an aim
an awful pie counter
can make a counterclaim
against my plaintive songs of love
through the diner where you cook
can’t you take off your food handler’s glove
at least while you cock a snook
at my calling out from beyond the soda fountain
at my calling out from behind the mountain?

Hey Rachel
if that’s your name
must you always stand vigil
in the kitchen doorframe?
even this infernal
fan can take some blame
a stinking back burner
can cherish a flame
Hey Rachel
if that’s your name

-- Paul Muldoon

Fourth Night - At the Lehman Center

-- sdh

The Inaugural Ode Contest: And the Winner Is . . .

But first, the runners up. Last month, we announced The Third Annual Best American Poetry Poem Challenge, for which poets were invited to write an inaugural ode, suitable for reading aloud on January 20, 2009. It had to consist of sixteen lines broken into four quatrains, rhyme scheme optional. Furthermore, the ode had to include one line lifted from a poem in The Best American Poetry 2008 or from the book's foreword or introduction, and also include at least three of the following words: honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power.   Poet Mark Strand selected the winner and runners up.

Yesterday, we announced third place winners Valentina Gnup and Michael Schiavo.  Read their poems here and here.

Now we are pleased to announce the second place poem.

An Inaugural Prayer comes to us from R. S. Gwynn of Beaumont, Texas.  Thank you, R.S. and congratulations!

An Inaugural Prayer

Lord, Whom we may not mention
By name, Great Undefined,
Lend us one dimension
Of Thine awful mind.

The words will come--faith, power,
Integrity, and change--
To be bartered in this hour,
And may those words estrange

Us from our friends and neighbors
In long-drawn arguments
Till the fruits of our labors
Ripen to common sense.

Let no vote be decided
Save when we disagree.
A nation undivided
Never can be free.

                    -- by R. S. Gwynn

(The first four words of line 5 are taken from R. T. Smith's "Pentecost"; the second word of line 13 is line 6 of Charles Bernstein's "Ku(na)hay," and the first word of line 15 is line 19 of the same poem.)

what the hecht i'll post the links [Jennifer Michael Hecht]

Poetry Brothel Video

Al Jazeera Papacy fracas

Al Jazeera and the Poetry Brothel within a week or so, a frame from this poet's life [by Jennifer Michael Hecht]

Bleaders and Celebrants,

I come to praise the year, not to bury it.  What a wack bag of tricks this passing year was, a scatter of events as cracked as a cubist.  Great lows, great highs (yes we can), and great contradictioned collisions.  Of the last, a local case in point:

I decided a few years back that I'd say what I think and feel, if I can, even should it cause me some trouble.  It isn't that I am unusually radical in any direction, but that I hold so many directions that especially in this age of branding, I confuse my audience.  A person who varies their actions along with their interests makes the shopper nervous.  I myself remember, as late as grad school, being a bit rattled when I saw in the learned astronomer's Also By This Author included in the list some oddfellows: poetry or a cookbook.  What the?  In a phrase we all learn from our Indo-American friends: "What is he playing at?"  I was even then a poet/historian but it still made me twitch.  Well, children like their food unmixed.

I have a poem in my new unpublished that is called Please Use This Against Me, where I note that "future me" might be offered fruit or office and be tempted to join the bad machine and how can I stop her?  By telling you my fellow knees and Miss. Dee Meenors.  My sins on a platter.  But I tell em slant.  Still, it's a good idea, right?  So I'm already sunk and can do what I want.

Still, Imagine being on video, on the web, in two different news spots within two weeks, (no, not news videos that many of you likely normally watch) one on Al Jazeera's Riz Khan show, I'm arguing with a priest about the Vatican's recent condemnation of all contraception and stem cell stuff, etc.; and the other on Agence France Presse (AFP) being "The Professor" at the Poetry Brothel (the production of Stephanie Berger and Nick Adamski, graduates of the New School MFA) (there will be another Poetry Brothel soon, in January I think -- I'll let people know here and on Facebook yes, Friend me, I'll click you in).  

I mean really!  I'm not linking to these things because the latter one makes me blush and the former one, while I'm pleased with my own performance, the priest I am arguing with speaks so slowly and repeats himself a lot so it is dullsville. 

Anyway, you get the idea without moving visuals.  

So there you have it.  Against the slogan of our fine military, I believe we should Be All That You Can't Be.  

Heh, heh.  I think I'm almost there.

And you, my ethereal friends?  Are you too many things, and feel it's to your own good?  Despite the nervousness it causes in others?  I bet you do.  Because you rock.  I can tell from here.

Happy holidays!

A Poetic Geometry of the Holidays (by Jenny Factor)

What is it about the circle that suggests itself as a poem form for a sacred season? 

I'm thinking here of a beautiful Christmas "garland" by Marilyn Hacker, called "A Christmas Crown." It begins, "Son of the dark solstice descends the tree/into the winter city" and ends six sonnets later with "The children sing/below our gossip. Roast and fruit and wine/and smoke mix in the air near dinnertime./The guests file foodward while the darkening/sun of the dark solstice descends the tree."

Long ago last spring, when the season was all shoots and ladders, poetry correspondent Mitch Sisskind posted a Poetic Term of the Day. He instructed us that Serpentine Verses are poems comprised of lines that begin and end with the same word. BAP leader extraordinaire, David Lehman, then demonstrated with a serpentine verse of his own in the Comments section. Such poetry circles make little loops out of each line; links in a chain disconnected from each subsequent link. Mirror poems, by contrast, are one bigger Circle: their end words repeat in reverse order, iterating themselves on the way in and the way out. 

So here in the Spirit of the Circle is a modified depiction of both these poetic shapes by long-dead genius, George Herbert. His "A Wreath" turns the serpentine line progressive, connecting each chunk of chain to the one that follows, and finally clasping it around with a complete mirror. Here it goes:

A Wreath
A wreathed garland of deserved praise,
Of praise deserved, unto thee I give,
I give to thee, who knowest all my ways,
My crooked winding ways, wherein I live,
Wherein I die, not live: for life is straight,
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee,
To thee, who art more far above deceit
Then deceit seems above simplicity.
Give me simplicity, that I may live,
So live and like, that I may know they ways,
Know them and practice them: then shall I give
For this poor wreath, give thee a crown of praise.

So, Writers, as we shoot and ladder forward into 2009, here's my wish for you all: a season that circles as it climbs, that mirrors only the best. As the short days fade, Writers write: write and bloom.

-J.F.

Merry Christmas from 1898 (by Laura Orem)

A holiday film from 1898 by G.A.Smith - pretty impressive lighting and special effects for the 19th century!

"Season's Greetings" [by Ron Padgett]

Season’s Greetings

                                      i.m. Philip Whalen

The holidays are said
to give one a chance
to get in touch with others
but what held back that chance
the rest of the year?
What it means is
that the holidays are a time
when we should behave
like other people, as if
in junior high school,
jury duty, or the Army,
whereas what Philip Whalen
wanted was to take a holiday
from holidays, and then
he wavered, beautifully.

-- Ron Padgett

from Jacket #32 (feature edited by Elaine Equi)

You're quite the ladies' man: how did you do it, Van?

RIP Van Johnson (1916-2008)

FS:
You're quite the ladies man.
Just how'd you do it, Van?
It can't all be publicity.

VJ:
The boys at Metro call it "Personality."
Say Frank, you're awfully thin,
Just how did you begin
To set the style in the swoon industry?

FS:
I did it with my famished. . . personality.
I know it's not my place to make this crack,
But I hear tell that Gable's back.

VJ:
Frankie, here's a bromo.

FS:
Why?

VJ:
A. . . Como.

FS & VJ:
We're thankful to the flocks
Who wear the bobby sox
For without them we both must agree:
We never would have made it with our personality.