Verseful

Lake Gatun (Verseful 15) -Shyanne Figueroa Bennett Glimmering membrane of water split when she enters. Sinks to clay floor. Sand. Shell. sedimenting to form a woman dark as lake floor. Dark as they created. In debris of dynamic heads. Silver men glisten unsewn and woven into her being broken, hollowed to carry remnants of souls strewn in man-made waters. What can be made from nothing? The question hooks to her neck. Her curl hair gills for breath. Iridescent scales shed from slender sinewy form as her intricate jawbones mechanize for an open -- unprecedented speech for she who was carved out of isthmus intended for silence.

Nothing much. Just wishing that you have a happy new year :).

A New Dress by Ruth Dallas I don't want a new dress, I said. My mother plucked from her mouth ninety-nine pins. I suppose there are plenty, she said, girls of ten Who would be glad to have a new dress. Snip-snip. Snip-snip. The cold scissors Ate quickly as white rabbit round my arm. She won't speak to me if I have a new dress! My feet rattled on the kitchen floor. How can I fit you if you won't stand still? My tears made a map of Australia On the sofa cushion; from the hot center My friend's eyes flashed, fierce as embers. She would not speak to me, perhaps never again. She would paralyze me with one piercing look. I'd rather have my friend than a new dress! My mother wouldn't understand, my grownup mother Whose grasshopper thimble winked at the sun And whose laughter was made by small waves Rearranging seashells on Australia's shore.

A Night in a World Heather McHugh I wouldn't have known if I didn't stay home where the big dipper rises from, time and again: one mountain ash. And I wouldn't have thought without traveling out how huge that dipper was, how small that tree.

Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem Mathew Olzmann Here's what I've got, the reasons why our marriage might work: Because you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol, gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming. You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents of what you packed were written inside the boxes. Because you think swans are overrated. Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence. Because you underline everything you read, and circle the things you think are important, and put stars next to the things you think I should think are important, and write notes in the margins about all the people you're mad at and my name almost never appears there. Because you make that pork recipe you found in the Frida Kahlo Cookbook. Because when you read that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed over the windows, you still believe someone outside can see you. And one day five summers ago, when you couldn't put gas in your car, when your fridge was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments— there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, which you paid for with your last damn dime because you once overheard me say that I liked it.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

We will have to slow down the pace of this project. So, a few announcements regarding that and some food for thought.

I Died for Beauty Emily Dickinson I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth,--the two are one; We brethren are," he said. And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms. Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.

When Death Comes Mary Oliver When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world

Life Charlotte Bronte LIFE, believe, is not a dream So dark as sages say; Oft a little morning rain Foretells a pleasant day. Sometimes there are clouds of gloom, But these are transient all; If the shower will make the roses bloom, O why lament its fall? Rapidly, merrily, Life's sunny hours flit by, Gratefully, cheerily, Enjoy them as they fly! What though Death at times steps in And calls our best away? What though sorrow seems to win, O'er hope, a heavy sway? Yet, hope again elastic springs, Unconquered, though she fell; Still buoyant are her golden wings, Still strong to bear us well. Manfully, fearlessly, The day of trial bear, For gloriously, victoriously, Can courage quell despair!

Time I'm Not Here Graham Foust All day on all my days, the lives I am not to process wash in; anxieties lullaby on and quite like to be gotten among; but now-- and now-- one old, abundant flower just screws up the room.

A Plain Life William Henry Davies No idle gold-- since this fine sun, my friend, Is no mean miser, but doth freely spend. No precious stones-- since these green mornings show, Without a charge, their pearls, wherever I go. No lifeless books-- since birds with their sweet tongues Will read aloud to me their happier songs. No painted scenes-- since clouds can change their skies A hundred times a day to please my eyes. No headstrong wine-- since when I drink, the spring Into my eager ears will softly sing. No surplus clothes-- since every single beast Can teach me to be happy with the least.

Wild Geese Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

No Classes! by Ella Wheeler Wilcox No classes here! Why, that is idle talk. The village beau sneers at the country boor; The importuning mendicants who walk Our cities' streets despise the parish poor. The daily toiler at some noisy loom Holds back her garments from the kitchen aid. Meanwhile the latter leans upon her broom, Unconscious of the bow the laundress made. The grocer's daughter eyes the farmer's lass With haughty glances; and the lawyer's wife Would pay no visits to the trading class, If policy were not her creed in life. The merchant's son nods coldly at the clerk; The proud possessor of a pedigree Ignores the youth whose father rose by work; The title-seeking maiden scorns all three. The aristocracy of blood looks down Upon the “nouveau riche”; and in disdain, The lovers of the intellectual frown On both, and worship at the shrine of brain. “No classes here,” the clergyman has said; “We are one family.” Yet see his rage And horror when his favorite son would wed Some pure and pretty player on the stage. It is the vain but natural way Of vaunting our weak selves, our pride, our worth! Not till the long delayed millennial day Shall we behold “no classes” on God's earth.

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich-- yes richer, than a king-- And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

My Words to You by Jean Valentine My words to you are stitches in scarf I don't want to finish maybe it will come to be a blanket to hold you here. love not gone anywhere

Smelling the Wind by Audre Lorde Rushing headlong into new silence your face dips on my horizon the name of a cherished dream riding my anchor one sweet season to cast off on another voyage No reckoning allowed save the marvelous arithmetics of distance

I want to use this episode to set the tone for how discussions about poetry, about the verses of our lives, should ensue in this space. This introduction is merely an example of how I traced the contours of a poem's feelings.