Posts Tagged ‘poetry’

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?

So begins a poem in Mary Oliver’s New And Selected Poems, volume 1, one  that ends with the determined line,

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

This sense of energy and resolve permeates Oliver’s work. It took me until I was in my late twenties to realize that poetry could be read for pleasure – it’s not all the dry, flowery stuff we studied in school (sorry, English teachers!) Mary Oliver was one of the first poets I really loved; she might be your new favorite, too.

If you’re new to the contemporary poetry scene, a good place to start is Billy Collins’ (Poet Laureate, 2001 – 2003) Poetry 180, a collection of poems about everything from Alzheimer’s to bagels  to an ode to Barbie’s Ferrari. Sad, romantic, funny, desperate – there’s a poem for every emotion. Try dipping into it a poem or two at a time, and before long I suspect you’ll find that more and more of them speak to you.

For poetry that showcases a diverse slice of humanity, Poetry Speaks: who I am  (edited by Elise Paschen) and Cool Salsa: bilingual poems on growing up Latino in the United States (edited by Lori M. Carlson) both do the job with unapologetic verve.

God made you brown, mi’ja
color bronce, beautiful/strong,
reminding you of the goodness
de tu mamá, de tus abuelas
y tus antepasados.

But to many of us, say “poetry” and the first thing we think of is the romance of love poems. For a modern take on the ode to love, try Dizzie in Your Eyes: poems about love by Pat Mora.

We watch other couples
and feel happy that now we belong
to the world of twos.