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National Poetry Month
Well, it is almost over, but April is National Poetry Month. I mostly read fiction (and mostly SFF with the occasional mystery and romance) and manga, but I decided to branch out a bit this month and read some poetry. So here's what I've been reading:
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
Change Sings by Amanda Gorman
I've been re-reading Measured Extravagance by Peg Duthie (one of my fandom friends, you know who you are! ^_^) "Practicing Jump Shots with William Shakespeare" is still my favorite poem in this collection, and I also love the stubborn spider in "Wearing Persistence" who keeps weaving her web on the porch no matter how many times it gets broken.
And I have re-read my all-time favorite poem "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which I discovered years ago through the young adult novel Goldengrove by Jill Paton Walsh, which took its inspiration from the poem ("Margaret are you grieving/Over Goldengrove unleaving"). The poem is poignant, with the falling leaves becoming a symbol for our own mortality, but I think my love for it is also tied up in my love for the book, poignant in its own way though the heartbreak comes from the loss of childhood innocence rather than death.
I am also reminded that young me loved a book called The Poetry of Rock that I found in my middle school library. It is, as you might expect, a collection of rock song lyrics analyzed as poetry. I haven't read it in years, but I remember being enthralled by the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row," and while I don't remember all of the lyrics offhand, for some reason I can still recite this verse by heart:
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row
I don't think I fully understood the meaning behind the song, but the imagery was so vivid that it stuck in my head. It occurs to me now that it might be something to nominate for a future Yuletide--there's certainly lots of great potential worldbuilding in there!
Sadly, both Goldengrove and The Poetry of Rock seem to be out of print, but I think I can still get them from the library or buy used on Amazon. I kind of feel like revisiting those old favorites now.
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
Change Sings by Amanda Gorman
I've been re-reading Measured Extravagance by Peg Duthie (one of my fandom friends, you know who you are! ^_^) "Practicing Jump Shots with William Shakespeare" is still my favorite poem in this collection, and I also love the stubborn spider in "Wearing Persistence" who keeps weaving her web on the porch no matter how many times it gets broken.
And I have re-read my all-time favorite poem "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which I discovered years ago through the young adult novel Goldengrove by Jill Paton Walsh, which took its inspiration from the poem ("Margaret are you grieving/Over Goldengrove unleaving"). The poem is poignant, with the falling leaves becoming a symbol for our own mortality, but I think my love for it is also tied up in my love for the book, poignant in its own way though the heartbreak comes from the loss of childhood innocence rather than death.
I am also reminded that young me loved a book called The Poetry of Rock that I found in my middle school library. It is, as you might expect, a collection of rock song lyrics analyzed as poetry. I haven't read it in years, but I remember being enthralled by the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row," and while I don't remember all of the lyrics offhand, for some reason I can still recite this verse by heart:
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row
I don't think I fully understood the meaning behind the song, but the imagery was so vivid that it stuck in my head. It occurs to me now that it might be something to nominate for a future Yuletide--there's certainly lots of great potential worldbuilding in there!
Sadly, both Goldengrove and The Poetry of Rock seem to be out of print, but I think I can still get them from the library or buy used on Amazon. I kind of feel like revisiting those old favorites now.
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