Poetry Questionnaire

I got this from So Many Books – (which is one of my new favorite blogs): Fun! I grew up in a poetry-loving family – which i think is kind of a requirement if you’re Irish – so this was really fun to answer:

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was

Probably A.A. Milne … the books When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six were constants in my childhood. We read those books RAGGED. Some of it still comes back from memory.

For example:

They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.

And this one … Oh my God … I don’t know it totally by heart now but there was a time in my life when I knew the entire thing by heart. I still loved to have it read to me … but this was one of my favorites in that whole collection:

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he;
“You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don’t go down with me.”

James James
Morrison’s Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Said to herself, said she:
“I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea.”

King John
Put up a notice,
“LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON’S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN –
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!”

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he:
“You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me.”

James James
Morrison’s mother
Hasn’t been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?”

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
“M*****,” he said, said he:
“You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don’t-go-down-with-ME!”

(I LOVED the stage directions part … I LOVED that we had to whisper that part. Magical poem.)

Let’s see. What other ones. Well, the The Big Golden Book Of Poetry, 85 Childhood Favorites was also huge in the O’Malley family – I can still remember huddling up next to my dad as he read the one about Annie … in his gruff voice. We had some perennial favorites, ones we went to again and again … and I can still remember those amazing illustrations that we would just pore over, greedily. My mother still has the copy of that book – I really should get it myself. Classic poems.

We loved “Owl and the Pussycat” MADLY – and this was one of the ones we knew off by heart.

I only can do the first verse now (I just checked it online – the other 2 verses didn’t come right back – but here’s the first verse – emblazoned in my brain forever:)

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“Oh lovely Pussy! Oh Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Another one we adored from that anthology was “Raggedy Man” … and we LOVED “Little Orphan Annie” as well – this one I recall being read to us with threatenings of tickling torture at the end of each verse. I also can remember the illustration to this particular poem as well as if it were sitting in front of me right now. Scary stuff in this poem!! For example:

Once there was a little girl who always laughed and grinned
and made fun of everyone, of all her blood and kin,
and once when there was company and old folks was there,
she mocked them and she shocked them and said, she didn’t care.
And just as she turned on her heels and to go and run and hide,
there was two great big black things a standing by her side.
They snatched her through the ceiling fore she knew what shes about,
and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!

Golden Book of Poetry. A total staple to childhood reading. I believe that that was where we first heard “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” as well. Great collection – really fun.

And Mum and Dad: there was one about a candy tree??? Do you remember that? I can’t remember the name of it … but it was a long poem about candy in a tree … bah … if you can remember it, please let me know. I’d love to read that one again.

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and……..

Hm. I know I was forced to memorize a poem or 2 in the course of my education but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was. I know I took a class in Shakespeare’s sonnets in college and we had to memorize those left and right. That was one of my favorite classes EVER. Love those sonnets. I read them outloud to myself if I am particularly stressed out and jittery.

3. I read/don’t read poetry because….

I read a lot of poetry – and usually outloud – just cause I enjoy it. There’s a lot of crap poetry out there, so I’m not indiscriminate about it … you’d have to pay me to go to a poetry slam, for example, unless it was, you know, REAL poets and not just people who think speaking in some kind of rhythmic way is poetry … No. I got me some standards. Sorry. Count me in with Camille Paglia (whose book Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World’s Best Poems is essential reading for poetry lovers. I love her anyway – but I just LOVE this book in particular.) I am also open to trying new poets. If someone tells me to read a poem, and I respect the person telling me … then I will definitely check that poet out. I have been introduced to some amazing writers (James Dickey, for example, Wendell Berry) that way.

I find poetry relaxing. I find it intellectually stimulating – I like to read stuff that is not necessarily EASY, I like stuff which requires me to meet it halfway. Otherwise I get bored. I love TS Eliot. I love Wallace Stevens. I love Emily Dickinson. And also: I like poetry because sometimes, like a good song lyric, it can cut so directly into the heart of the matter – that I can honestly say that I have been subtly ALTERED in my outlook of things after reading a certain poem. There are poems that I have literally hung onto during bad times in my life – almost like the Hail Mary – something to be said every day, I don’t want to say ritual – more like a meditation. I couldn’t say that about a NOVEL, although there are many books that I love, and that have deeply impacted me, or changed me. But a poem can be a life preserver. Mary Oliver’s “Blackwater Woods” has been a life preserver for me. It has given me strength when I needed it. It has helped me clear out the cobwebs or chaos in my head, when I’ve had trouble with letting something go. From the first moment I have read it it has been a deep source of … strength, self-reflection, power, intuition, inspiration … what have you … Life preserver. Auden’s “The More Loving One” has been another life preserver – I’ve written about my whole clinging to that poem after Sept. 11 … and how that and the Hail Mary were never far from my mind, in those first weeks of terror. I turn to poetry for contemplation and, at times, solace. I also just flat out enjoy it. I like language, and I like people who are into language.

4. A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is …….

“The More Loving One” is usually the one that immediately pops into my head.

But I usually have to completely discount Shakespeare’s sonnets in order to answer this question. Because otherwise he just would take over, as he has a tendency to do, at least in my world.

Other favorite poems:

Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium” and “Second Coming“. Also “Among School Children“. I would argue that those are 3 of the best poems ever written.

William Blake’s “Marriage of Heaven and Hell” is scary good. Like Chaucer good. Every line is so profound that it’s a bit overwhelming to read it all at once. But the guy was a genius. Keep up with him if you can.

And you know, I adore Christopher Smart … something about him makes me want to cry … Check out his life story. You’ll see why. Here’s a post I wrote about him and I include in that post the poem addressed to his cat Joffrey – and there’s just something divine about it. And I don’t mean “divine” as a silly adjective … I mean it in the true sense of the word. I LOVE that poem.

John Milton’s “On His Blindness” is almost too painful for me to read with any regularity – but again, I think I can call that one a life preserver. At least it has been. One of the most profound things I have ever read. Helps me to hold on. Just hold on. They also serve who only stand and waite.

5. I write/don’t write poetry, but…

I don’t write poetry. There are no “buts”.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature…..

Oops. I think I covered that up there. There’s a way that a good poet uses language and the tools of his craft – metaphor, simile, repetition – that is very specific to poetry. I find a good poem to be almost perfect in its expression of whatever it is: heartache, sunset, a flock of geese, a tulip – whatEVER. The poem can slow down … a poem can linger on one thing … and some writers do that in novels, but it is very tricky to get away with it … because you have other things like plot and character to deal with. But a poem can pierce into the entirety of life through the mere glimpse of a silvery puddle or wintry branches against a white sky … The stuff I love starts with the specific and then goes huge and universal (Mary Oliver just kills me in that way) … but it’s in the details, the tiny miniscule details. There are certain poets who actually teach me how to SEE. How to LOOK. How to go deep, always. THAT’S why I love poetry.

7. I find poetry…..

enriching. Fun. I mainly like to read it out loud.

8. The last time I heard poetry….

Live? I may be blanking on this – I don’t go out to see poets all that much – but I do remember going with my friend Kate to hear Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill read, here in New York. She writes in Gaelic – and her work needs to be translated into English (she never does the translating – she says she just can’t hear poetry in English) – and so she came to the Ireland House at NYU and read. She read in Gaelic AND in English – it was a great night, with cherry blossoms falling through the air outside the window. That was ages ago, though.

9. I think poetry is like…. (free associating here – and I must add to the question: GOOD poetry – because so much of poetry – like everything else – is terrible – and I pretty much stick to the great ones, because bad poetry is, well, so unbelievably unbearable – worse than a bad book, a bad song, a bad anything … Gimme the great ones, mkay? SO. GOOD poetry is like:)

— a dreamscape
— a brilliant insight from a good friend
— a clear cold bell ringing
— a tall glass of water
— an “A-ha!” moment
— kaleidoscope
— a widening lens on a camera
— a mirror