Archive for the ‘Poetry by Friends’ Category

The appeal of poetry about family: Poetry versus Greeting Card Verse

I remember long ago being told about the difference between poetry and greeting card verse. As a poet, you should strive to avoid greeting card verse type poems. As mature poets, that might seem like a rather juvenile bit of advice, maybe. However, I was thinking of this when I considered some poems that I wrote about or dedicated to family members – my father, or my grandparents. I was wondering, what appeal could these have for a general audience outside my family. At a recent poet reading (at St. Andrews College), Jeff Wyatt read a poem read a poem dedicated to his father. Probably no one in the audience, other than maybe 2 or 3 folks even met his father.

What does this have to do with the topic of greeting card verse? Well, in a greeting card, one might right something for a father that could be given to any father on Father’s Day, for example. Jeff’s poem and the poems that I’ve written to my father, these could not be applied to any father. Jeff’s father was a pilot, so I wonder if there was a connection there. Maybe someone listening to that poem, who had or has a father who is a pilot would connect because of that. There is something more though. I appreciated Jeff’s poem, yet my father wasn’t a pilot and I don’t know any pilots. I cannot really put into words what it was that allowed me to appreciate Jeff’s poem.

Now, let’s turn to my poems about family. My poems had to do with the dynamics of the unique relationship between my father and me, or between me and my father and my grandparents. I might have to reproduce the poems here to make my point, but maybe not. Maybe, though there are very unique aspects to the circumstances of our lives and our relationships – myself and my parents, grandparents, I think that perhaps there are universal themes here. Some themes that stand out in my poems are the ways in which a guy (I, myself) is the same or different than his father or grandparents and how that plays out in the relationship over time… What a family tries to leave behind for the next generation… how a guy learns to appreciate these things only later in life.

As a poet, we have to have faith that our listeners will be able to appreciate something within our poetry, even when it seems we are writing something that is so personal that it would have no appeal other than with our own family.

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I started watching “A Christmas Carol” tonight, the version with Patrick Stewart. It is interesting what I noticed. Scrooge makes a comment, early in the movie, long before he has his change of heart as a result of the ghosts visitations. Scrooge says of his old partner, or as if speaking to his old partner “we thrived on the idleness of others.” It reminds me of that message I heard from a conservative, a story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. The grasshopper is idle and so he isn’t as shrewd as the ant. This is an Aesop’s Fable designed to teach children about the importance of diligence and hard work and other related values. I’m not against diligence and hard work but it is interesting to prosper off the so called “idleness” of others. It’s also interesting to judge others in such a non-forgiving perfectionist way. In the fable the grasshopper went about being merry thinking winter was far off and that he’d be okay. Have we never failed to foresee possible future struggles? Who is so perfect to say that they never made that mistake? In this fable the ant have zero compassion for the grasshopper because supposedly he was working to store up for the winter.

Interestingly, it was found in a survey of children under 12 (I forget the ages of the children surveyed in this study) the reactions of the children were one of hatred, anger or other negative feelings toward the ant who was seen as cruel, mean or in other similarly negative ways. I heard that story about the ant and the grasshopper from a conservative. I don’t know what the person would have thought to learn the results of this study.

It may seem unrelated but I was touched also by the story in the poem by Jean Jones, my friend and co-editor for Word Salad, called “Tent Cities.” In the poem there is such compassion for the unfortunate and empathy that is amazing. I’ll share the poem below, again, as I did recently. The poem shows his effort to connect with and understand what it might be like to be homeless, or to live in a “tent city.” Tent Cities are popping up in the news recently as examples of poverty and the face of or reaction to homelessness in our nation of late. I was moved by the second to last lines, the comment about how we accept things like this and move on.

I was thinking of another message I heard years ago related to me about a message from a rather detestable person, a Rush Limbaugh – gee, I wonder if he would ever get the message of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens? He made a comment about a news story about a woman dying from the cold, a homeless woman. His point that he wanted to relate about the incident was that she chose to not come into a shelter, she chose to stay outside. I’m sure we didn’t hear the whole story. Even if we did, the message was clear. Don’t feel sympathy or concern if a person dies in the cold, or feel like you anything is wrong with anything. When this happens, it’s by choice. So, what can you do? It could never be that any city might not have enough shelter beds for everyone? Impossible, right? Or maybe the person felt unsafe going into that particular shelter because she was raped or otherwise violently assaulted in the shelter. Or any other possible explanations. Rush’s message was clear… don’t worry about things, or imagine what it is like to be out there, homeless, vulnerable, cold, this is their choice. And there is nothing you can do. Or at least no reason for you to wonder what it might be like, as Jean did in his poem. Here is his poem:

Tent Cities

by Jean Jones

I try to imagine living in a tent city, and I can’t.
I keep picturing the cold at night and in the morning but I can’t picture it.
I keep imagining what the sky would look like as it turned to dusk and darkness
how beautiful the sky would turn, from peach to orange to red but I can’t see it.
I keep thinking how it would be like with no toilets, no money, and trying to imagine
where to get food and where to go begging but I can’t conceive it
Every time a man says to me on the street, “Could you give money to a disabled vet,”
or a guy parks next to an intersection with a cardboard sign that says “Will work for food,”
I try to imagine where those guys go when it gets dark. I can’t.
I’ve been to the library when the janitor has had to clean up where a man has defecated on himself
at the library bathroom. I’ve looked for sleeping homeless men that I was told were sleeping drunk by the church
and were defecating on the church lawn. I was told to call the police if they didn’t leave when I asked them to.
I’ve tried to picture the lives of these men. I can’t.
This is taking place in our cities and counties every night, not in some third world country.
It is unbelievable and yet we accept it like finding dog shit on our shoes: we hate it, we wipe
it off our shoes by scraping our shoes on the sidewalk, and we move on.

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Here is a poem by Jean Jones that was written in response to my request for poetry relating to homelessness and poverty.

TENT CITIES BY JEAN JONES

I try to imagine living in a tent city, and I can’t.
I keep picturing the cold at night and in the morning but I can’t picture it.
I keep imagining what the sky would look like as it turned to dusk and darkness
how beautiful the sky would turn, from peach to orange to red but I can’t see it.
I keep thinking how it would be like with no toilets, no money, and trying to imagine
where to get food and where to go begging but I can’t conceive it
Every time a man says to me on the street, “Could you give money to a disabled vet,”
or a guy parks next to an intersection with a cardboard sign that says “Will work for food,”
I try to imagine where those guys go when it gets dark. I can’t.
I’ve been to the library when the janitor has had to clean up where a man has defecated on himself
at the library bathroom. I’ve looked for sleeping homeless men that I was told were sleeping drunk by the church and were defecating on the church lawn. I was told to call the police if they didn’t leave when I asked them to. I’ve tried to picture the lives of these men. I can’t.
This is taking place in our cities and counties every night, not in some third world country.
It is unbelievable and yet we accept it like finding dog shit on our shoes: we hate it, we wipe
it off our shoes by scraping our shoes on the sidewalk, and we move on.

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The following piece was submitted to me by Ronald H. Bayes of St. Andrews College. I had asked some poets to submit poetry for a Neighbor House poetry event. Neighbor House is a non-profit 501 (3) c that serves the poor and homeless in Hillsborough and northern Orange County, NC. I, Bruce Whealton, am a Board Member for Neighbor House and the Web Designer/Developer for the organization. It is an honor to have a poem by Ron Bayes for this cause.

LEFT OUT

There was a little boy in our town where there was no
Public swimming pool
And those who got to swim in hot summer
Were kids of the affluent who had backyard
Private ones.

There was a little boy,
One hot summer night
Who crawled over the fence
At one of the local motels,
Dove into the pool and drowned.

That is part of being left out.
We all have had it in our hearts
Some—but not many–day after day.
The burden of guilt is on
Each one of us who doesn’t speak

For the Left Out Others.

By Ron Bayes

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IF YOU EVER BY JEAN JONES

If you ever slept on a warm bed
If you ever took a bath or shower
If you ever felt full from a meal
If you ever were warm during the night
If you ever had a bathroom to use
If you ever were glad you had food
If you ever were glad about your place
Just think about not having those things
Not just one night, not just the next night
But night after night after night after
And think about what that would do to you
How we can tolerate that is a crime
Most of us have no idea what this means

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Bear Kills Militants

By Jean Arthur Jones

For Scott Urban:

“A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.
Two other militants escaped, one of them badly wounded, after the attack in Kulgam district, south of Srinagar.
The militants had assault rifles but were taken by surprise – police found the remains of pudding they had made to eat when the bear attacked.”

This reads like one of your poems, Scott-
our AK-47 carrying friends making some pudding,
putting their guns down
and look out!
A bear attacked them,
killing 2 of them,
leaving a 3rd badly wounded.
Remember how you laughed at “The Happening”
and I took it as gospel?
Perhaps the planet itself is rising up to kill us,
tiring of our stupid attempts to eliminate one another,
all in the name of peace.
Now the bears are coming out of their caves to kill us
and with good reason now too.
We bring nothing but death,
do we not deserve it?
In time, the planet itself will rise up against us,
perhaps that is what the Mayans were talking about in 2012.
The aliens will not come back
but this planet, this earth
will wake up,
and like a dog
coming out of a bath,
will shake its fur clean
eliminating all of us fleas on this planet.
The consciousness of one will overshadown the consciousness of us all
and like a boy waking from a dream,
the earth will change direction and all hell will break loose.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8339549.stm

Bear kills militants in Kashmir
By Altaf Hussain
BBC News, Srinagar

A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say. Two other militants escaped, one of them badly wounded, after the attack in Kulgam district, south of Srinagar. The militants had assault rifles but were taken by surprise – police found the remains of pudding they had made to eat when the bear attacked.

It is thought to be the first such incident since Muslim separatists took up arms against Indian rule in 1989.

Bodies found

The militants had made their hideout in a cave which was actually the bear’s den, said police officer Farooq Ahmed. The dead have been identified as Mohammad Amin alias Qaiser, and Bashir Ahmed alias Saifullah.

News of the attack emerged when their injured comrade went to a nearby village for treatment. “Word spread in the village that Qaiser had been killed by the bear,” another police officer said. A joint party of the police and army personnel went into the forest and collected the bodies of the two militants.

Police say they also recovered two Kalashnikov assault rifles and some ammunition from the hideout.

Animal attacks

Wildlife experts say the conflict in Kashmir has actually resulted in an increase in the population of bears and leopards. Following the outbreak of the insurgency people had to hand in their weapons to police – which put a halt to poaching. As a result, there has been a greater incidence of man-animal conflict, say experts. There have been many reports of bears and leopards killing or mauling humans in different parts of the Kashmir valley in recent years. Three years ago, residents of Mandora village near the southern town of Tral, beat a black bear to death which had strayed into the village.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8339549.stm

Published: 2009/11/03 12:28:41 GMT

© BBC MMIX

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Word Salad Poetry Magazine celebrated 15 years in publication by holding an event at the Bottega in Wilmington, NC. Word Salad started in Wilmington in 1995. In this video Kevin Dublin reads a few different poems, including poems that have appeared in the most recent edition of Word Salad here.

Enjoy!

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Ok, I have the title on this one… a somewhat long title,
“Act I: I hear the Caspian is lovely this time of year:
The voice of the Oberscharfuhrer, Allgemeine SS”

Sparkcon was a big event in Raleigh, NC recently. I attended the poetry event at the Morning Star; this was the poetrySpark. The event was sponsored by the North Carolina Writers Network and Lulu.com Here is a video of Jean Jones reading another poem at poetrySpark.

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Review and Impressions:
Ryan David Miller’s Circle of the Heart and Voices of Comfort Dreams – By Bruce Whealton

I met Ryan for the first time in July of 2009 and remember talking about how writing poetry, being a poet, is not just a job, or something we do, it’s who we are and how we find meaning. I learned that Ryan is both a poet and a spoken word artist. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear or see him perform but I’d like to say that in this book one gets a great insight into the mind of a poet. It is who he is. I myself had been keeping an online journal of my own poems and thoughts and had named it “On Being a Poet and Other Existential Ideas.” So when he gave me this book, I wanted to review it because I felt an affinity and an ability to relate to someone, who like myself, explores one’s identity through one’s writing and explores greater concepts of meaning – of Being a Poet.

I found myself drawn initially to the second chapter, Circle of the Heart. In this chapter, or one might call it a book within the book, Ryan explores his recovery from loss and the mistakes he made. It’s about a woman he loved and lost – she is referred to as Lady. I was amazed at his wisdom, insights and experience, in the reading of this. I could hardly believe this had come from a writer barely 23. I could relate poignantly and profoundly. I know what it is like to experience such passionate longing and mourning for something beautiful, and someone we love and a life that was shared. Here I found I could relate and that is often what we seek when we write and when we read what others have written. We want to know that we are not alone that someone else has felt the same things. Ryan has the courage to open up and share all this with his readers, his most personal and passionate feelings – his dreams and longing. I’m sure there are many others out there who have felt this same way.

When I say that Ryan shares his dreams, I don’t mean that in just a vague and superficial fashion. I mean he shares specific dreams and the material within the dreams. In Circle of the Heart, you’ll read about dream encounters with Lady, his lost love. It was all very powerful emotionally and I found myself highlighting areas where I could return and know that someone else had experienced the same things I do experience and had the courage to put it down in writing and share it with me. Like myself, I think Ryan’s poetry and writing here is reminiscent of the “Confessional” poets. It takes a great deal of courage, and willingness to be vulnerable, to share such personal emotional matters. I’m glad he did, though, for it helped me know that I wasn’t alone with certain experiences of my own.

I want to add that what you find in this book is not just poetry but some very insightful journal entries. As a poet, and online blogger ( the blog is the 21st centuries electronic journal form), I’ve been writing and publishing for many years, almost as long as Ryan’s been alive. I mean it’s interesting to learn from someone much younger. One of the exciting things about reading this book is the ideas it gave me, things I had not really thought of doing. Maybe I wasn’t sure anyone would want to read personal journals about my life. However, in reading Ryan’s journal entries throughout, I found myself equally drawn to these journal entries about his life. I’ve wondered often about what the poet was thinking when he or she wrote a poem… what inspired the poem…. what was it about… This is what Ryan offers. It’s fascinating and it’s what more poets should do. Ryan does it well; he doesn’t over analyze the poems or explain everything – he makes it clear that the reading of each poem will be unique for each reader, unique to when the poem is read. As Ryan says in his ending, and I’m interpreting, poems evolve, like ideas.

So, read this book for insights and to learn, whether you’re young or old, a new poet or a long time poet, or just someone who enjoys the written and spoken word.

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When I read Jean’s poem, “Thoughts on Death,” I was thinking of some of the same ideas that I’ve had and expressed in poems. For example, I wrote a poem called “When I learned that my cousin committed suicide.” In that poem, which is available here on the blog: http://wsmagazine.net/words/2009/03/22/when-i-heard-my-cousin-created-suicide-revision/
let me quote a passage:

"Having not gone there,
having never seen death personally,
it always has seemed to me,
to be like
an illusion…
something not real or possible.

Perhaps this way of thinking,
denying the reality and existence of death,
is just a coping mechanism that I use,
for dealing with the unspeakable.

I’ve turned to horror stories
not because of some curiosity about death
but because in doing so,
I could keep it in the realm of the fictional."

Then in the poem, “Letter to the Angel of Death,” which is available here: http://wsmagazine.net/words/2009/06/05/letter-to-the-angel-of-death-poem-by-bruce-whealton/ I say the following:

"To the Angel of Death:

I’ve
always
feared
you;
so
much so
that
I thought
I
could write
you
out of existence"

And in my poem, “Genealogy,” which is about a trip I took to a Church Cemetery, while tracing my family roots, I wrote “but there is no such thing as death.” That poem is here: http://wsmagazine.net/words/2009/01/02/genealogy-published-in-simple-vows-anthology/

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