April is Poetry Month

Donna Kerr and I, Eliza Wingate, will be posted poetry most days in April. We are both out of town this week, but here is the first poems.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 1, 2010
CONRAD AIKEN
from sonnet sequence, FROM AND IN THE HUMAN HEART
"Green, green, and green again…"
Green, green, and green again, and greener still,
spring towards summer bends the immortal bow,
and northward breaks the wave of daffodil,
and northward breaks the wave of summer’s snow:
green, green, and green again, and greener yet,
wide as this forest is, which counts its leaves,
wide as this kingdom, in a green sea set,
which round its shores perpetual blossom weaves –
green, green, and green again, and green once more,
the season finds its term – then greenest, even,
when frost at twilight on the leaf lies hoar,
and one cold star shines bright in greenest heaven:
but love, like music, keeps no seasons ever;
like music, too, once known is known forever.

Ukiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 2, 2010
ROBERT BLY
from the New Yorker

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

No one grumbles among the oyster clans;
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

Sorry to have missed so many days: Imagine too much to do and not enough time for poetry--urghhh





Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 23, 2009
Paper, Scissors, Stone
by Tom Wayman
An executive's salary for working with paper
beats the wage in a metal shop operating shears
which beats what a gardener earns arranging stone.

But the pay for a surgeon's use of scissors
is larger than that of a heavy equipment driver removing stone
which in turn beats a secretary's cheque for handling paper.

And, a geologist's hours with stone
nets more than a teacher's with paper
and definitely beats someone's time in a garment factory with scissors.

In addition: to manufacture paper
you need stone to extract metal to fabricate scissors
to cut the product to size.
To make scissors you must have paper to write out the specs
and a whetstone to sharpen the new edges.
Creating gravel, you require the scissor-blades of the crusher
and lots of order forms and invoices at the office.

Thus I believe there is a connection
between things
and not at all like the hierarchy of winners
of a child's game.
When a man starts insisting
he should be paid more than me
because he's more important to the task at hand,
I keep seeing how the whole process collapses
if almost any one of us is missing.
When a woman claims she deserves more money
because she went to school longer,
I remember the taxes I paid to support her education.
Should she benefit twice?
Then there's the guy who demands extra
because he has so much seniority
and understands his work so well
he has ceased to care, does as little as possible,
or refuses to master the latest techniques
the new-hires are required to know.
Even if he's helpful and somehow still curious
after his many years—

Without a machine to precisely measure
how much sweat we each provide
or a contraption hooked up to electrodes in the brain
to record the amount we think,
my getting less than him
and more than her
makes no sense to me.
Surely whatever we do at the job
for our eight hours—as long as it contributes—
has to be worth the same.

And if anyone mentions
this is a nice idea but isn't possible,
consider what we have now:
everybody dissatisfied, continually grumbling and disputing.
No, I'm afraid it's the wage system that doesn't function
except it goes on
and will
until we set to work to stop it

with paper, with scissors, and with stone.



Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
VISITATION
Jabez W. Churchill
I smell a hearth
long cool from use,
a draft
between the unstained sky
and still pungent dark.
The smoke of many fires
condensed,
frozen on the stones like stars.
Too strong
for only memory to sustain.
Whose presence may announce
I will not know
until the shadow
and its anguish pass.
Until the pictures flow.

April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 8, 2009

Sweet Voices

C.P. Cavafy

Those voices are the sweeter which have fallen
forever silent, mournfully
resounding only in the heart that sorrows.

In dreams the melancholic voices come,
timorous and humble,
and bring before our feeble memory

the precious dead, whom the cold cold earth
conceals; for whom the mirthful
daybreak never shines, nor springtimes blossom.

Melodious voices sigh; and in the soul
our life’s first poetry
sounds – like music, in the night, that’s far away.

Ukiah Library, Poem of the Day, National Poetry Month

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

April 7th

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 7, 2009

April Prayer

Stuart Kestenbaum

Just before the green begins there is the hint of green
a blush of color, and the red buds thicken
the ends of the maple’s branches and everything
is poised before the start of a new world,
which is really the same world
just moving forward from bud
to flower to blossom to fruit
to harvest to sweet sleep, and the roots
await the next signal, every signal
every call a miracle and the switchboard
is lighting up and the operators are
standing by in the pledge drive we’ve
all been listening to: Go make the call.

Eliza's Choice

Eating Poetry
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

-- Mark Strand

April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

For Saturday April 4th

Three Dog Neighborhood
Chosen by Eliza (Why I will always have a Rottweiler)

By Daniel Barth

Pretty Straightforward this one,
About my friend Pete and his wife Susan.
They bought an old house in Denver
Down on the Platte River.
Shortly thereafter their tv got stolen.
They bought a dog, a good-sized dog,
To keep an eye on things.
But it didn't help, they were burgled again.
This time the investigating officer said:
"You live in a three dog neighborhood."
"Huh?" said Pete (not in a good mood)
"One for the front yard, one for the back yard,
One for the house," explained the cop--
Three dog neigborhood,"
"Yeah right," said Pete, "Now I'm hip."



Donna's Choice
Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 4, 2009

Anniversary: One Fine Day
by Walter McDonald

Who would sit through a plot as preposterous as ours,
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,

Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.

When I saw the lucky devil I hated – only your date,
but I didn’t know – he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies –
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.

April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

April 2nd

Donna's Choice

Meditation on Ruin
by Jay Hopler

It's not the lost lover that brings us to ruin, or the barroom brawl,
or the con game gone bad, or the beating
Taken in the alleyway. But the lost car keys,
The broken shoelace,
The overcharge at the gas pump
Which we broach wihout comment - these are the things that
eat away at life, these constant vibrations
In the web of the unremarkable.

The death of a father - the death of the mother -
The sudden loss shocks the living flesh alive! But the broken
pair of glasses,
The tear in the trousers,
These begin an ache behind the eyes.
And it's this ache to which we will ourselves
Oblivious. We are oblivious. Then, one morning - there's a
crack in the water glass - we wake to find ourselves undone.

Eliza's choice

Your grief for what you've lost holds a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expand
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.


Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)

April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

Poems chosen by Eliza Wingate, Ukiah Library & Donna Kerr, Willits Library

April 1st
From Eliza

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973)

Funeral Blues (Song IX / from Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



From Donna

SURPRISED BY JOY

Surprised by joy -impatient as the wind
I turned to share the transport - Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind -
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? - That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn,
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

We won!!!

Thank you -- Books on Tape
I went to the California Library Association Conference
in San Jose and we won 5 new Books on CD
Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson
Gardens of Water by Alan Drew
The Longest Trip Home by John Grogan
Called out of Darkness: a spiritual confession by Anne Rice
Ghost at Work by Carolyn Hart

They should be cataloged and available for check out soon.

April is Poetry Month

In memory of Dori Anderson
1938-2008

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

April is Poetry Month--Celebrate with us!

Donna Kerr, Branch Manager at the Willits Library and Eliza Wingate, Reference at the Ukiah Library have a joyful time each day in April that the Libraries are open, presenting you with poems, online or there will be take outs at each branch.

April 1st

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 1, 2008

Celebrating APRIL FOOL’S DAY with Lewis Carroll

JABBERWOCKY

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought –

So rested he by the Tumtum tre,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in he wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Ukiah celebrates National Poetry Month

Eating Poetry
Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
i have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand,
when I get on my knees and lick her hand.
She screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

A Child, A Dog & A Good Book returns to the Ukiah Library

Therapy Dog Tia

Therapy Dog Tia has returned from her summer travels and will be waiting for children to come and read to her on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays, starting October 10, 2007. Reading to dogs has been shown to encourage reading and to promote better reading skills. Children who are too young or too shy to read are encouraged to come and Tia's person, Loretta or Librarian, Eliza will read to them.

A Child, A Dog & A Good Book
Ukiah Library, Children's Room
2nd & 4th Wednesdays
3:30 p.m.