A Tribute to Poets

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Last week, you read my Bananagram poem. It was supposed to be a warmup for this week’s poem, but I went to the beach instead, where seagulls gave me the stink-eye from every direction.

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I got home and couldn't ignore the pile of books I'd pulled from my shelf — after several days of moving them from the couch to the side table to the dining table.
I’m a big fan of chance, serendipity, coincidence, and astrology. I’ve assembled poems out of email subjects, bananagrams, magazines, and magnet poetry. In that vein, I thought I would steal a line or a few words from many of my favorite authors and fashion them into a new poem.
There are purposely no greatest hits here, just randomly chosen lines that grabbed me. Something beautifully surprising, like when you ask a question of the universe and open a bible, or draw a card from a tarot deck, to find an answer. I mean no copyright infringement with this exercise, more a tribute, a bit of fun, and perhaps to pique your curiosity enough for you to spend some time with these incredible minds.
I opened The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor and nearly lost my afternoon. There is nothing I can steal there because she is so uniquely devastatingly her own. I read Good Country People and put the book aside for fear of getting sucked into another sucker punch of a story, another glimpse at perfection, almost reached, being shoved into the mud of humanity. Do not trifle with O'Connor. It would be an afternoon well spent.

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I tucked Raymond Carver in near the bottom of my pile, certain of more devastation. I wonder if he and Flannery O’Connor would have been friends, or maybe, vicious writing partners one-upping each other in their awe at life, matched only by their belief in its cruelty. I opened his book to this: “I towel down your back, your hips, / with my undershirt. / Time is a mountain lion.” (from Woman Bathing, a 15 line poem without a single wasted word.) How can he be this good? Not fair.
As I worked through my pile, more than once, I got lost in a poem or cried out at the impossibility of ever creating some combination of words so perfectly as they had. For example, “Your absence distributed itself / like an invitation,” from The Wake by Rita Dove. Well, I wish I had written that and it’s so good I can’t even bring myself to steal it. And maybe trying to borrow anything at all from Rumi points at my insanity.
I quickly had to make a rule, no first or last lines. Everyone should know, those are a writer’s best, the ones they are most proud of. This makes using anything from Basho, the great haiku writer, almost ridiculous. My awe — disrespect?— can only stretch the bounds of decency so far. These writers are like aunts and uncles and godparents to me. They lift me up and they kick my butt. They give me heights to aspire to.

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I ran out of moxie before I could mine e.e. cummings, M.F.K. Fisher, Kwame Alexander, or Kaveh Akbar. I couldn’t bear to desecrate Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, or Joni Mitchell, all favorites. I need three lifetimes just to read. The great tragedy of it is that I’m compelled to write and add more to the universe’s reading pile. That makes me even more grateful to those of you spending precious minutes with me when you could be reading someone truly brilliant. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

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For now, my sacrilegious Franken-poem that I assembled like a delicious Dagwood sandwich:
A dreamer of houses sees them everywhere
waves like words, all broken
and you did not even know enough
to be sorry, and there comes no summer
to the like of you and me
they advised me over and over
until I’d forgot myself, stitching in and out
you will be broken open by death
the shadow was something unseen
diffused through my body like salt
riding the sky like a drop of oil on water
yet the day’s not long enough
tell them your hope.
Sources:
A dreamer of houses sees them everywhere - Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Waves like words, all broken - William Carlos Williams, The Descent of Winter
And you did not even know enough to be sorry - Mary Oliver, The Leaf and The Cloud
Diffused through my body like salt - Ellen Bass, Sleeping in My Mother’s Bed
They advised me over and over, until I’d forgot myself - Pablo Neruda, Precious Stone
And there comes no summer to the like of you and me - Edna St. Vincent Millay, Three Songs of Shattering
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners - T.S. Eliot, A Song for Simeon
Moon riding the sky like a drop of oil on water - Rita Dove, Hully Gully
You will be broken open by death - Rumi, These Branching Moments, 15
Stitching in and out. Tell them your hope - Susan Stewart, Zero
The shadow was something unseen - Raymond Carver, Seeds
Yet the day’s not long enough - Basho, Narrow Road to The Interior, selected haiku
All words belong to the authors, copyrights to the copyright owners.