national poetry month

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Celebrating National Poetry Month with Ted Kooser and Winslow Homer

April 7, 2010 in poetry, Uncategorized by Kim | 10 comments

From “Four Civil War Paintings by Winslow Homer” by Ted Kooser

4.  THE VETERAN IN A NEW FIELD

A lone man scything wheat

His back is turned to us, his white shirt

the brightest thing in the painting.

Old trousers, leather army suspenders.

Before him the red wheat bends,

the sky is cloudless, smokeless, and blue.

Where he has passed, the hot stalks spread

in streaks, like a shell exploding, but that is

behind him.  With stiff, bony shoulders

he mows his way into the colors of summer.

I love this painting.  For me it is the essence of painting and maybe even America.  So simple at first glance, just a man in a field and yet the more time I stare at it, the more it says.  The weapons are cast aside, the Civil War is over and there is an aura of peace about the scene.  Yet, the scythe  reminds me of the grim reaper and the way is it just mowing down the stalks causes me to wonder about the machine guns that just decimated the soldiers and mowed them down as it was turned from side to side.  Homer specifically tells us this is a new field, that the death and destruction is behind the soldier giving the viewer a sense of hope.

In approximately 60 words, Ted Kooser eloquently relays more than I blathered on about in the entire previous paragraph.  That is what I love about poetry, to concise relay thoughts and meaning.  I’m a Kooser groupie and to find that he was written about one of my favorite American paintings was cause for celebration during National Poetry Month.

Here are some avenues for you to discover poetry meaningful to you this  month:

  • Sign up to receive a poem-a-day during National Poetry Month
  • My favorite poets are Ted Kooser and Mary Oliver and my favorite poetry collection is Good Poems edited by Garrison Keillor
  • Personally, I generally like poetry better aloud than reading it.  Diesel, a Bookstore is posted a poetry reading everyday this month on Chatter, the bookstore blog.  Here’s the link to the archeive and here’s an example
  • Another source for listening to poetry is to sign up for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, he gives a bit of literary history each day and ends the podcast with a poem.  It is by far my favorite podcast.
  • For the Angeleno art lovers, “The Veteran in a New Field” is visiting LACMA until May 23rd, drop by to see it before it returns to the Met.
  • New addition: Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit (one of my favorite blogs) is organizing a National Poetry Month blog tour, it’s a great chance to discover several different poets.
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Poetry Matters

April 3, 2009 in book review, childrens, poetry by Kim | 1 comment

poetry_mattersApril is National Poetry Month

As I’ve said before, my plan is to read a poem a day the last third of the year.  But since April is National Poetry Month, I signed up with poets.org for a poem a day delivered via e-mail.  I’m going to stash them for later this year, but I’ll be peeking too.

To be honest, my desire to like poetry generally exceeds my actual enjoyment of it.  I always felt I was missing something.  Two events helped, first I read to my children Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky poems.  We all loved and understood the poems.  Second, I attended a writing conference in Idyllwild the same time Ted Kooser was leading a poetry conference.  I spent every night under the stars listening to poets.   Even if I didn’t understand the poem, I was bathed in the beauty of the rhythm and language.

Poetry Matters, my favorite guide to writing poetry for kids and the adults, like me, who want simple poetry instruction

I picked up a copy of Poetry Matters by Ralph Fletcher at Once Upon a Story last month.  It’s a book written to explain writing poetry to children.  Mr. Fletcher specifically states that it isn’t designed to help people understand poetry.  Well, I’m not a child and I’m not going to write poetry, so why did I buy it and read it?  First, I picked a kids book because it was written at my level of poetry knowledge and because my daughter writes poetry (one of her poems published this spring), so we’ll get double reading from one purchase.

Most importantly, I found I understood music better after learning the piano and art better once I learned a few drawing techniques.  People have explained to me a triple axle, triple flip and all kinds of ice skating jumps, but since I’ve never tried them (and never will), they really all look the same.  After reading Poetry Matters I have a better feel of what a poet is trying to achieve. 

I learned about the three pillars of poetry.  Emotion, poems speaking the unspeakable concisely.  Image, describing a scene, hopefully with a twist or surprise.  Music, infusing a poem with rhythm, beat and playing with language.  Mr. Fletcher has several chapters on crafting the poem:  the use of white space, when to break a line, the shape of the poem.  He gives brief explanations (even better, clear explanations) of various poetry terms, but his emphasis is on encouraging people to write poetry.  He encourages free verse so the poet doesn’t become frustrated over rhyming the words, although he also gives insights to different types of rhyming. 

My daughter will particularly enjoy the last chapter describing ways to make poems public.  My favorite is throwing a BYOP Party.  Every guest brings a poem to read, either one written or found.  Hmmm, that may be my next birthday party. 

Jump into poetry month, sign up for a poem a day and maybe even try writing one yourself.

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