Rethink.

Happy New Year everyone. I don’t think I have resolutions myself, but I probably should take stock of what I thought last year and where I’ve come. The poem commentaries are never explicitly personal. One will never find “I got dumped for the same reason the speaker articulates” or anything close to that. But taken together, they are a log of what’s been on my mind and what themes need to be developed more in my thinking.

So here’s a list of the poems covered in 2010 in chronological order. I only covered 47 poems last year. (Guess that’s a resolution already – write more on poetry). And while I’m proud of nearly everything I write, I do know that some of the best commentary wasn’t produced last year. See Derek Walcott’s “Europa” (a discussion of logos and mythos in Plato) and John Keats’ “To Autumn” for a sample of that. Without further ado:

• “The Always Song,” Amy King – she speaks powerfully through images; it is an honor to think through her work.
• “Spring is the Period,” Emily Dickinson
• “Painting a Room,” Katia Kapovich – includes an extended rant about our situation today that is more personal
• “Be Mine the Doom,” Emily Dickinson
• “Break,” Dorianne Laux – one of the most beautiful poems I’ve ever read
• “Apology for Her,” Emily Dickinson – awesome. Dickinson’s “apology” is the product of a superior intellect. I’ll just leave it at that.
• “Mars Being Red,” Marvin Bell – a love poem. I know, I almost forget they exist too.
• “Beads,” Alice Shapiro – Shapiro is very talented with words. This poem just rolls off the tongue.
• “State of a Nation,” Amy King
• “Banish Air from Air,” Emily Dickinson
• “To own the Art within the Soul,” Emily Dickinson
• “There is a finished feeling,” Emily Dickinson
• “Absence disembodies – so does Death,” Emily Dickinson
• “Escaping backward to perceive,” Emily Dickinson
• “Each second is the last,” Emily Dickinson
• “When I have seen the Sun emerge,” Emily Dickinson
• “We outgrow love, like other things,” Emily Dickinson
• “A Cloud withdrew from the Sky,” Emily Dickinson
• “I hide myself within my flower,” Emily Dickinson – a poem that accompanied a flower as gift
• “Experience is the Angled Road,” Emily Dickinson
• “Love – is that later thing than Death,” Emily Dickinson
• “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins – a very well-constructed poem that gives a whimsical impression
• “Impossibility, like Wine,” Emily Dickinson
• “To the Choirmaster,” Paul Hoover – contemplative, even by the standards of the poems listed here
• “Fairer through Fading, as the Day,” Emily Dickinson
• “Tour,” Carol Snow – might be the best reading of a poem I’ve ever done
• “Kyrie,” Tomas Tranströmer
• “The Blue Bowl,” Jane Kenyon – origins and justice, covered literally
• “It is an honorable Thought,” Emily Dickinson
• “A Man I Knew,” Margaret Levine – the most appropriate response to the perceived uselessness of the liberal arts
• “Reading Hamlet,” Anna Akhmatova
• “As Frost is best conceived,” Emily Dickinson
• “The Cold Heaven,” William Butler Yeats – Yeats’ poetic vision never ceases to amaze
• “Bards of Passion and of Mirth,” John Keats – Keats’ thought has a maturity that can’t quite be labeled genius: it is rarer than genius
• “A Man may make a Remark,” Emily Dickinson
• “God’s Promises,” Paul Hoover – a moral statement oddly missing from circles where one would expect it.
• “The Present,” Dana Gioia – trust doesn’t just happen, especially not in our world
• “A Door just opened on a street,” Emily Dickinson
• “Terms,” Philip Booth – hope I got the “terms” in this poem right
• “The Geese,” Jane Mead – a powerful, interesting meditation on where self-reflection usually takes us
• “Rests at Night,” Emily Dickinson
• “Litany,” Rebecca Lindenberg
• “A Thought went up my mind today,” Emily Dickinson
• “The Red Wheelbarrow,” William Carlos Williams – I remember seeing this in high school and going “what”
• “Complete Destruction,” William Carlos Williams
• “The Fall of Rome,” W.H. Auden – I really should write on Auden more. His ear is outstanding, and makes a lot of decent poetry sound so much shoddier
• “A Song for Simeon,” T.S. Eliot – no comment necessary

Next post will be January 5th or later: much to do, much to do.