Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
Musings on poetry and such
I have about twenty poems in my head, speeches from Hamlet and Macbeth, a couple of the Bard’s sonnets, a few by Frost, a few Dickinsons, Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” (the first free verse poem I memorized), Joy Harjo’s “Remember,” Auden, Shelley, pieces of “Ulysses,” and various others, including a few of my own. Continue reading “Remember”
Most of the items for our poetry museum (planned opening–September 2012: stay tuned) could probably come from my house. I’ve been wandering around lately looking through old notebooks (I have way too many of them) and inside dusty suitcases and boxes and under beds and such and keep finding poetry. Go try it yourself–inside your closet, in the kitchen junk drawer, mixed with the dryer lint . . . I know you have some poetry. Continue reading “Then and Now”
Another museum display we will have besides Marginalia and Doors is one devoted to Poet Products. In fact, we will have a little store stuffed with their items. I’m thinking Emily’s Earplugs because a soul must have them to “select her own society” and for “staying at home” on Sabbath days. Continue reading “Poet Products”
Yesterday morning, I realized a lot of poems I like end with the word “life.” I even have one I wrote years ago that ends, “and hurriedly—so I wouldn’t be caught—I began to make my life.” There is an innate appeal to a poem that ends with “life.”
The big white hat has grayed in its case,
Next to 2-inch spiked spurs banned even then
And dried-up lassos and embroidered leather gloves
That would disintegrate if taken out of display.
The suitcases of death are stacked beside a saddle
With the TM logo stamped on the side.
The shiny metal cases have a few dents in them,
Perhaps one in the shape of his head,
As the case flew forward when his convertible crashed.
While the West disappeared around him,
He died on the side of the road, tossed
From a vehicle he would never learn to master.
–Shaun Perkins
We left by separate doors
Into the changed, other bodies
Of cars . . .
–from “Cherrylog Road” by James Dickey
Another display we’ll have in our museum besides the Marginalia one is one about doors and doorways in poetry.
I found an old wood door in my grandparents’ barn, and poems and musings about doors will be displayed on it. There will also be places for museum visitors to add their comments on the door.
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 