30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 25
April 25, 2013
Here is what passes for my Day 25 poem:
Not feeling very poetic today,
The tank approaching empty.
I’ll jot some lines here anyway,
In hopes to replenish the plenty.
–Scott Edward Anderson
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 24
April 24, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 24:
Doubt is a privilege
Of the faithful,
I always say.
I have doubts
About almost everything
–except you.
You are the one
Person to whom
I could give my whole
Heart and never want
It back. Or, rather,
Always know where
To find it.
–Scott Edward Anderson
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 23
April 23, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 23:
We never met a reality
We couldn’t lick.
We’ve turned dreams
Into reality, turned
Reality inside-out,
And found poetry
In places both usual
And extraordinary.
Scott Edward Anderson
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 22
April 22, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 22, Earth Day:
Monday morning
After a glorious
weekend in Brooklyn.
The magnolia waves,
Birds sing, greet the day,
And the bed sways
With our embrace.
Time to celebrate
Our Mother Earth.
–Scott Edward Anderson
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 21
April 21, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 21:
I want you to feel the way you do
When you’re with me, even when
We’re apart: beautiful, whole, sexy,
Smart, grounded — a rock star.
You should always feel that way,
Because it is who you are
Not just how I see you.
“Bind me as a seal upon your heart,
A sign upon your arm…” writes Solomon.
That seal and sign,
Should not be a “brand,”
But a celebration of you,
Your beauty, your wholeness,
And how full of love you are.
–Scott Edward Anderson
Don Share’s poetry resume reads like something from another era, when men and women of letters were perhaps more common.
Not the tenure-track kind of poet one finds in universities, but the sort that is actively engaged in poetry – as an editor, as a translator, a critic, and as a writer – on a daily basis. He was poetry editor of Harvard Review, the Partisan Review, and a senior editor of Poetry magazine.
He’s published three books of his own poems, translated Seneca and Miguel Hernandez, and compiled two books of verse by the great Basil Bunting, as well as co-editing The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of “Poetry” Magazine.
Share’s own poems are pithy, witty, and verbally gymnastic. Occasionally he takes a pun or a rhyme a little too far until it snaps back or more likely turns inside out. He’s fascinated by words and how they transform each other in the music of varying line length and tone.
And he is always aware, as poet Tom Sleigh writes in a blurb for Wishbone, Share’s latest collection, “of how daily life refuses to cohere into a consoling pattern is beautifully mirrored by his conviction that language itself signals a fall from grace and unity and emotional wholeness.”
The title poem, “Wishbone,” Share said in an interview, “is in the voice of a dying cat, and from his perspective, human beings are in charge, making godlike decisions in the face of which he feels powerless, though this is a tough cat and he suffers no loss of nobility or character even at the very end of it all. Needless to say, a cat can’t talk; I wanted to give one language for a short spell so he could speak his piece. A bit of tragicomic relief, you might say.”
Here is Don Share’s poem “Wishbone”:
I have a bone to pick
with whoever runs this joint.
I don’t much like
being stuck out in the rain
just to feed on the occasional
vole or baby rabbit
and these wet weed-salads
confound my intestines.
A cat can’t throw himself
into the Des Plaines River,
not even in the luscious fall.
I get yelled at in human
language every single day
for things I can’t begin
to comprehend, let alone change.
But I go on cleaning myself –
why shouldn’t I? –
and so I think I smell sweet,
even though I suspect otherwise.
I wouldn’t harm a fly normally,
but why doesn’t anybody
take care of me? How am I
supposed to know that it’s Easter,
that I’m not allowed to die
in my own bed, and that neither prong
of this wishbone is meant for me?
–Don Share
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 20
April 20, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 20:
Nightmares end.
Last night’s surreal
Scenes stopped abruptly
Segued into pages
From “The Song of Songs,”
And my love sleeping
In my arms again.
Morning comes with the hush
Of a spring rain, a chill breeze,
And robins and starlings
Vying for attention.
I pull my love closer.
Her head on my chest,
Her dreams in my heart.
–Scott Edward Anderson
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 19
April 19, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 19.
I wrote it in the midst of all the chaos and reports coming from Boston, trying to keep up my spirits and the challenge made to myself for National Poetry Month. And to prove terror can’t trump poetry.
I have no words.
I just stare, listening
To the news and don’t
Even know how to ask
Why?
Where is the poetry
In words like manhunt,
Lockdown, shelter-in-place order?
Where is the poetry
In controlled explosion,
on-going situation
person-of-interest?
Where is the poetry
In a world where terror
Takes hold and bites?
It’s in the eyes of my love
And our hands clasped,
Finally reunited and safe
Together, after too long apart
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 18
April 18, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 18 of National Poetry Month, which is also “Poem in Your Pocket Day”:
Is that a poem in your pocket
Or are you just happy to be
Alive and kicking in the teeth
Of the cruel world just by
Your very existence?
The world needs poetry
If only to make sense
Of the senseless, put words
To what can’t be explained,
And say the unsayable.
Me? I carry my poem
Wherever I go and bring
It out to give it to you.
–Scott Edward Anderson
30 Poems for National Poetry Month: Day 17
April 17, 2013
Here is my poem for Day 17:
It is tough to be strong
In the face of another
Senseless act of violence,
The lives and limbs lost
To someone with evil
In their hearts–
Whether jihadist or jerk-off.
Yet we must, we have to be
In order for decency and love
To triumph.
We think our love
Is only between two people,
But in fact it’s a beacon
For humanity that shines,
“Love conquers all things…”
–Scott Edward Anderson
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