Category Archives: Poetry

This Poem I Love

The Fish
by Elizabeth Bishop

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
—if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

—from The Complete Poems, 1927-1979

Happy Bean, Crowned with Poetry

I came across this poem and thought it would make a lovely accompaniment to the walks we’ve been taking along the little wooded path that fringes our neighborhood. Lots of oaks and beeches there (and maples, hickories, and dogwoods, too, but they aren’t in the poem) and lately our walks have been of the leaf-crunching-and-collecting sort. I thought Beanie especially would like the poem, and as I began to recite it to her, on a whim I changed “Mary” to her name. She beamed like I’d given her the moon. That was yesterday, and she has asked for “her” poem approximately once every waking hour since then. So I guess it’s a hit.

When Mary goes walking,
The autumn winds blow;
The poplars they curtsey,
The larches bend low.
The oaks and the beeches
Their gold they fling down
To make her a carpet,
To make her a crown.

—Patrick R. Chalmers

Here are some links to more autumn-themed poetry:

DLTK’s Holiday Activities
Greenway

Because It Is November, and I Can Relate

TO A MOUSE ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH
November, 1785, by Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Th need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell—
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no the lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Whirled

Good Friday, 1613: Riding Westward
by John Donne

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motions, lose their owne,
And being, by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:
Pleasure or businesses so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstools crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once, pierc’d with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his appare’l, rag’d, and torne?
If on these things I durst not looke, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus
Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They’are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,
O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.

Today, Some Trees

Beaverstump_5
Jane and I went on a “Tree Walk” at our favorite local nature center on Sunday afternoon. A botanist and a natural historian, a wonderful husband-and-wife team, led us through a quiet wood, identifying trees and waxing eloquent about turtles sunning themselves on a log. Jane took some great pictures. This one, portraying a beaver’s handiwork, is my favorite.


And this one reminded me of a John Ashbery poem.

Floatingtrees2_2

Some Trees
by John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

A Tiger in Algebra?

Maybe not, but there is a Snark there. I was reading Lewis Carroll’s poem, “The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits,” to the girls, when suddenly Jane leapt to her feet and dashed out of the room. This is a fairly common occurrence. She is a visual learner, and when she has made a connection, her urge is to SHOW it.

She hurtled back to the breakfast table bearing her (and this is going to sound like a joke, but I’m quite serious) beloved Jacobs Algebra book. I have to explain about Jacobs Algebra. For years I’ve been hearing on the homeschooling lists that Harold Jacobs’s mathematics textbooks are “living books” in the Charlotte Mason sense, books written by a man passionate about his subject matter, whose zest for the subject comes through loud and clear in his writing.

Curious as to how a math textbook could convey passion and zest, I checked one of Jacobs’s books out of the library. I can’t testify as to what exactly makes that book “live” because I never got hold of it long enough. Jane whisked it away from me and pored over it for the entire six weeks the library allowed us to keep it. I kid you not. During those weeks, it became de rigeur for our nice, peaceful bedtime-prayer time to be shattered by Important and Fascinating Math Discoveries Jane Forgot to Mention Earlier.

“Mom! I forgot to show you this logarithm chart I made today! See, there was an example in Mathematics-a-Human-Endeavor….” (Apparently this book is too dignified to suffer truncation of its name. It was always the full title, breathlessly hyphenated or earnestly run together: Mathematicsahumanendeavor.)

Eventually the precious book had to go back to the library. Calamity! Despair! This was shortly before Christmas, and consolation arrived to soothe bereft Jane. Mathematicsahumanendeavor’s sequel: Elementary Algebra, its very title poetic in its simplicity. O joy! O rapture! O bewildered but accomodating parents!

And so Jacobs Algebra became Jane’s distraction-from-chores book of choice. Which explains, I guess, her abrupt departure from the table during my riveting (or so I thought) recitation of “The Hunting of the Snark.” The Snark was in Algebra, and Jane had to show us. What do you know, there it was! It’s because of the Butcher, of course.

From “Fit the Fifth: The Beaver’s Lesson”:

So engrossed was the Butcher, he heeded them not,
As he wrote with a pen in each hand,
And explained all the while in a popular style
Which the Beaver could well understand.

“Taking Three as the subject to reason about—
A convenient number to state—
We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

“The result we proceed to divide, as you see,
By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two:
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be
Exactly and perfectly true.

“The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain—
But much yet remains to be said.

It does indeed. But the rest of the poem remained unsaid that morning. Jacobs Algebra had entered the building and taken center stage. Poor Lewis Carroll; how can he compete with a masterwork of living mathematics?

I would gladly explain—had you but the time and I but the brain.

Three Ways to Get More Poetry into Your Day

If you read this blog regularly, you probably know I’ve got a passion for poetry. Actually, I talk about it a lot less here than I could if I gave myself free rein. Maybe when I finish up this (overdue) novel I’m working on, I’ll loosen the reins for a while…we’ll see.

But for now, I’ll keep it brief. Three suggestions:

• Get a copy of Favorite Poems Old and New, edited by Helen Ferris. This excellent anthology is arranged thematically, so it’s easy to find a perfect poem to fit your day. There’s a happy mix of serious classics and whimsical children’s verse. My pal Sarah just scored a copy at our local library sale for $1.50—lucky woman! I keep our copy beside the kitchen table for our breakfast poetry readings.

• Look for books in the Poetry for Young People series. I mentioned the Emily Dickinson edition the other day. We have several of these lovely books, because Scott gives the kids one book for every holiday. This series has been a consistent hit. The William Butler Yeats edition is breathtaking. The volumes are picture-book-sized, with lovely art and brief, helpful glosses on the poems.

• Sign up to receive PoemHunter’s “Poem of the Day.” This free email service sends a poem to your mailbox every morning. In the past week I’ve enjoyed poems by James Whitcomb Riley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, my beloved Robert Burns, and—what lovely timing (see previous post)—Henry David Thoreau.

The More it Snows, Tiddly-Pom

Over breakfast this morning, while the girls ate frozen blueberries in their hot oatmeal (they always beg me not to stir in the berries—they like them cold and crunchy, ugh), I read half a dozen poems about snow and winter from our battered, treasured copy of Helen Ferris’s Favorite Poems Old and New. Shakespeare’s owl called out his merry tu-whit, tu-whoo, oblivious to the discomfort of poor red-nosed Marian and cold-fingered Dick. Robert Frost’s pony shook his harness bells inquisitively in the frozen woods—but I suspect that poem’s tone of quiet contemplation was lost on the girls, since their daddy interrupted my reading to recite it in Monty Python fashion, booming and overblown. They’ll be surprised, one day, to discover it’s a serious poem instead of the kind that makes you choke on your frozen blueberries.

Later we laughed over a poem Rose pretended to “read” out of a dictionary when she was not quite three years old:

Slip on ice?
No! No!
Me know what, me know what—
Me go eat my lunch.

I came across this little gem the other day in my file of funny kid stories, along with its prequel, Rose’s first joke.

Me: What kind of cereal do you want today?
Rose: Snow Flakes!

Obviously she has her father’s sense of humor.