Another birthday book recommendation.
The first: An Exaltation of Forms by Finch and Varnes recommended. The
flaws errors in fact and some essays which are too lean.
Second: The Discovery of Poetry by Mayes highly recommended. Put it next
to The Poet's Companion and Hirsch's How to Read a Poem. Part of your basic
library.
Third: Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin,
Northeastern University Press, 2000 (paper). Run to not walk to wherever
you buy books and get this one. You will not be sorry. Your will reread
it. You will find yourself quoting it. You may go to an open mic and read
it instead of your own. A simple moving story with enough drama to be
interesting, but no so much it is a prison movie. The author, a one time
Berkeley radical changes during the story as she moves from ordinary teacher
to part of the establishment.
The downside - there are not enough full poems. There are fragments from
many, but at 200 pages, perhaps they could have added 10 to 15 more to
include more full works.
The first poem.
Metamorphosis
Hostility
like a garden
grows
rising up
out of the grave in my heart
where I've buried the man
I used to be.
By Elmo, Judith's "tour guide" to the prison, the inmate which most
influenced Judith.
Drop whatever you are doing and order it.
Gary
Melody for April and Gar finds at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html
The Wild/Eliot Hyperpoem at: http://wildhyper.homestead.com/front.html
Poets for Peace. ˇPoemas sí, balas no!
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