Tag: life

Musings

Identification or How To Tell If You are Dead

ROMPoetry

760px_Southworth__Hawes_First_etherized_operation_2I enjoy old books about the craft of poetry. My favorite, which I refer to often, is The Winged Horse by Joseph Auslander and Frank Ernest Hill from 1927. I have recently been reading The Order of Poetry, a 1961 text by David Silver.

In these old texts about poetry’s craft, I like the unequivocal language, the arrogance of intent: We are writing about the most important thing in the world, the dedication to specific words within a poem, the love of . . . a pervasive yet maligned art.

Silver just gave me a new way of explaining the difference between metaphor and simile (it seems so trite, so inadequate just to say that one is direct and one uses “like” or “as”—it’s like a kindergarten definition, isn’t it?). First Silver is highfalutin: “The differences between metaphor and simile are in grammatical procedure, in the degree of demand on the reader’s imagination, and in psychological effect, but not in kind.” Hmmmm. But he gets clearer: Continue reading “Identification or How To Tell If You are Dead” →

Poems

Skateboard Blues

ROMPoetry

lukewyandotte 001He cracked his skateboard in half doing a slide yesterday.
Though it didn’t work, “It was cool” and it made him grin.
Today he stalks the street, angling the lawnmower
Ahead of him, searching for quick cash to buy
Another deck, a more expensive one, righteous
With amped weight capacity, one that won’t snap
In two on a slide. I have maybe sixty-seven cents
In my purse, though yesterday I charged two pairs
Of boots at Penney’s. He stops a block away Continue reading “Skateboard Blues” →

Musings

Survival Through Poetry

ROMPoetry

41QhzljbyQL._SY346_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_I am normally about a decade behind on reading books, but my lovely sister Kelly who keeps me supplied with downloaded audio books has kept me somewhat current this time. Last month I finished listening to/reading Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars, which came out in 2012. It’s the kind of novel that poets love and one that takes a bit of a poet’s mentality to perhaps fully appreciate.

Please don’t let that turn you off, you non-poetry people out there (hey, what are you doing on my site, by the way?).

The story is compelling, the characters people you want to know, the setting futuristic (sort of), and . . . there’s a dog named Jasper, a blue heeler who will win over every reader’s heart. (Scroll down on this page to see the dog that inspired him.) Continue reading “Survival Through Poetry” →

Musings

Not Meaning

ROMPoetry

Oaks-CW 021The public radio show State of the ReUnion will be at our museum this Friday, Aug. 17, to interview me and others as part of a community story about Tulsa and surrounding areas. Since this show is not in our local NPR station line-up, I had not listened to it, but on the show’s website, you can hear all of its shows, plus see photos from the interviews.

 I wonder what I will say . . .

 I wonder where my poetry will be . . .

 I wonder what the other people they interview will say . . .

 I wonder where their poetry will be . . . Continue reading “Not Meaning” →