Poems;
The Want Bone by Robert Pinsky; the most beautiful collection of words I have ever read. Because I live so close to the shore, I can’t help but think back to June to the Josh Ritter concert in Boston. Mr. Pinsky was invited to read this poem to “Edge of the World”, and before I knew it, I was trying to hide my watery eyes and swollen cheeks. What I felt cannot be explicated into words. Read it aloud to yourself. Then find a close friend/boyfriend/girlfriend/family member and read it to them, explaining why you care about them so much. I can guarantee that both of you have a hard time from restraining your emotions. For fans of: Sunday brunch, the sea, passionate relationships with people/things/ideas/life.
Summer Morning by Charles Simnic; why I love waking up in the morning (sometimes). When I lay in my bed before my alarm goes off, I try to think of why this day will be better than yesterday. I remember the low-lights of the day before and I replay the situations in my head. Ask more questions in class, I remind myself, just impress people with your different opinions. This is probably not healthy, to dwell on the past and not remember the future (oh thank you Stephen Hawking for that one). But some mornings, when I let my sheets slid off my legs and I stretch my back, releasing my spinal cord and letting my neck swing in any direction, opening my chest to the window, I come back to this. I remember the quiet elegance of thin summer sheets, the excitement of the unplanned day ahead of me. When you dread mornings and getting out of bed, read this. Feel alive, for me. For fans of: iced tea, Norah Jones, anthologies of all sorts.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats; Reading this restores my faith in true people. It reminds me that I should not (and do not) need to have a lot of material items to make my companion happy, but if I could, I would give them the most beautiful piece that the heavens would offer. Naturally, I would be fearful that this person would mar this thing that has been created for them, but I think as humans we have to let breakdown that wall for someone. We need to trust in something, or someone, beautiful. When we love, I mean truly love, we give everything, heart, soul, mind, body, you name it, it’s laid out in our hands for him or her to see. This oneness, vulnerability even, is more intricate than Yeats’s tapestry but it’s as simple as the poem’s form and structure. For fans of: Ludovico Einaudi, postcards, simplicity.
Lost by David Wagoner; “Here is now. Embrace it. Learn to love this earth. Live to become knowledgable of earth’s intricacies. Let nature find you, embrace you, hug you, smother you with her delicacy but rigidness. You will not learn to love yourself if you don’t learn to appreciate what’s around you.” Those are the notes I have at the bottom of the page. I had a kinda/sorta revelation when I read this. I wanted to experience everything, touch everything, feel everything. It’s okay to be lost, the narrator tells me, because it’s in that moment that you have to give everything to become yourself. No one else will view this world like you or me, and it’s up to us to share our interpretations. I’m not saying that these interpretations will ultimately define something, because I don’t think we can, but it will help us to grow and to allow our ideas to flourish. As my man Ted Leo sings, “If you believe in something beautiful, then get up and be it”. For fans of: trail mix, Walden, patchuli.
The Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein; Not all poetry has to be about life or some captured moment that you want to bottle up in some tiny glass thing and keep in your pocket. No. It can be funny, it can make you want to LOLerskate in a ROFLcopter. At 6 years old, Shel was my the guy. I remember this being a poem I had my dad read to me again and again because I thought the word “swallered” was hysterical. He would always say it with the strangest inflection that would make me laugh and giggle for a long while. Now that I read it again, it isn’t all that funny, but it’s the first poem that I was able to share with someone and continue to reference. I guess I realized that I shouldn’t take myself too seriously or ever get a pet boa constrictor. For fans of: exotic animals, Steve Irwin, little poems that you won’t find in a Hallmark card
