National Poetry Month 2019

April is National Poetry Month and what best way to celebrate it than to read and feed my soul with gut-punching, heart-wrenching, tear-inducing, soul-crushing poetry books. May it be contemporary or not, I am here to read any poetry book I can get my hands on! I know last year I promised to post some recommendations and reviews of poetry books as well, but never really came around to actually doing it, I blame the jitters I have while waiting for the Bar Exam results, for that I am truly sorry. So yes, despite my busy schedule, I will devote some of my time posting for National Poetry Month, and you bet I’m going to stick with it this time! I was consistent the previous years doing something for National Poetry Month, be it be posting my fave poems a day, or writing one, I always make sure I do something related to poetry. You can call it an annual tradition. A huge chunk of me loving books is because of poetry. Poetry books are the first books I ever collected, it is still my life goal to have a huge shelf filled with every kind of poetry book. I am mad serious about it, and though the past year this passion may have dimmed a little, I am back to rekindle that fire. I even dreamed of writing a poetry book someday, but that topic would be for another time. For now I’ll savor other people’s poems, and maybe I could find the courage to write mine someday.

I will be posting mini reviews, along with my favorite poem from each book I will finish. You can also check my bookstagram @nerdytalksbookblog for regular updates on the book I am reading and my initial thoughts about each of them. As of this writing I already have read and made mini reviews on 6 poetry books, all of it contemporary ones. So excited to continue with this little project for the whole month of April. Let me know if you want to join me and maybe we can share our favorite poetry books to each other! Or better yet, recommend me your favorite poetry book and I’ll see if I could squeeze it in this April!

Would love to hear if you have little projects like mine for this month!

National Poetry Month 2017 has come to an end.

It has been a great month for poetry. I couldn’t be anymore happier to share one poem per day for the whole month of April with you guys. It has been truly amazing, I vow to do this every year, care to join me? My deepest gratitude to everyone who took time to read each poem I posted. Each poem was specifically handpicked by yours truly and I think these are amazing ones. Let’s spread the love for written words. Our love for poetry shouldn’t end here, instead let this be the beginning of our endeavor to the beautiful world of poetry! Until next time you guys!

Atlantis by Mark Doty | Poem No. 30 (NPM2017)

Atlantis

by Mark Doty

I’ve been having these

awful dreams, each a little different,

though the core’s the same –

we’re walking in a field,

Wally and Arden and I, a stretch of grass

with a highway running beside it,

or a path in the woods that opens

onto a road. Everything’s fine,

then the dog sprints ahead of us,

excited; we’re calling but

he’s racing down a scent and doesn’t hear us,

and that’s when he goes

onto the highway. I don’t want to describe it.

Sometimes it’s brutal and over,

and others he’s struck and takes off

so we don’t know where he is

or how bad. This wakes me

every night now, and I stay awake;

I’m afraid if I sleep I’ll go back

into the dream. It’s been six months,

almost exactly, since the doctor wrote

not even a real word

but an acronym, a vacant

four-letter cipher

that draws meanings into itself,

reconstitutes the world.

We tried to say it was just

a word; we tried to admit

it had power and thus to nullify it

by means of our acknowledgement.

I know the current wisdom:

bright hope, the power of wishing you’re well.

He’s just so tired, though nothing

shows in any tests, Nothing,

the doctor says, detectable;

the doctor doesn’t hear what I do,

that trickling, steadily rising nothing

that makes him sleep all day,

vanish into fever’s tranced afternoons,

and I swear sometimes

when I put my head to his chest

I can hear the virus humming

like a refrigerator.

Which is what makes me think

you can take your positive attitude

and go straight to hell.

We don’t have a future,

we have a dog.

      Who is he?

Soul without speech,

sheer, tireless faith,

he is that-which-goes-forward,

black muzzle, black paws

scouting what’s ahead;

he is where we’ll be hit first,

he’s the part of us

that’s going to get it.

I’m hardly awake on our morning walk

– always just me and Arden now –

and sometimes I am still

in the thrall of the dream,

which is why, when he took a step onto Commercial

before I’d looked both ways,

I screamed his name and grabbed his collar.

And there I was on my knees,

both arms around his neck

and nothing coming,

and when I looked into that bewildered face

I realised I didn’t know what it was

I was shouting at,

I didn’t know who I was trying to protect.’

The Point by Kate Tempest |Poem No. 29 (NPM2017)

The Point

by Kate Tempest

The days, the days they break to fade.
What fills them I’ll forget.
Every touch and smell and taste.
This sun, about to set

can never last. It breaks my heart.
Each joy feels like a threat:
Although there’s beauty everywhere,
its shadow is regret.

Still, something in the coming dusk
whispers not to fret.
Don’t matter that we’ll lose today.
It’s not tomorrow yet.

A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe | Poem No. 28 (NPM2017)

A Dream within a Dream

By Edgar Allan Poe

 

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow –
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand –
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep – while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

 

Words by Edward Thomas | Poem No. 27 (NPM2017)

 

Words

by Edward Thomas

Out of us all
That make rhymes,
Will you choose
Sometimes –
As the winds use
A crack in a wall
Or a drain,
Their joy or their pain
To whistle through –
Choose me,
You English words?

I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:

Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew –
As our hills are, old –
Worn new
Again and again:
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.

Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales,
Whose nightingales
Have no wings –
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire,
And the villages there –
From the names, and the things
No less.
Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb,
Or stand perchance
In ecstasy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do.

Silver Moon by Jackie Kay |Poem No. 26 (NPM2017)

Silver Moon

by Jackie Kay

 

Your names, old records, Court and Spark, Dark Side of the Moon,

A shop window welcome; open hands, new friends.
A wintery evening, nights drawing in. Warm glow:
Sisterwrite,  Compendium, Silver Moon.

How you grew up reading nights to dawn.
Books you found only here, the then unknowns:
Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Cade Bambara;
The Bluest Eye held up a haunting mirror, Pecola Breedlove.

Switched lights on; eyes wide open – Sula, Corregidora
You read and read with wonder: We Are Everywhere:
Writings About Lesbian Parents! Or A Raisin in the Sun.
Voices from Women’s Liberation, Maya, Djuna, Zora,

The Spinster and Her Enemies! Or Lucille Clifton.
And by the silvery light of the bookshop you grew up
By the open door, standing alone, together,
Other readers as engrossed, browsing, basking –

The blessed benevolence, the sweet, sweet ambience
Of independent bookshops, remember Thins!
Look how you still love their names: Voltaire and Rousseau,
Grassroots, books gathering and honing your years:

Black and white striped spines, tiny irons, Viragos, Shebas,
The distinct spiral on the cover of your old The Bell Jar
Your skin’s pages; your heart’s ink, your brain’s Word Power:
Jamaica Kincaid, Bessie Head, Claribel Alegría

Don’t let them turn the lights out, dears.
Keep them safe, New Beacons, shining stars,
Look how you’ve aged with your beloved books, dear hearts.
Keep coming in, keep the bookshop door ajar.

Hiding in Plain Sight by Denise Riley | Poem No. 25 (NPM2017)

Hiding in Plain Sight

by  Denise Riley

I try to find you, yet you are not here.

I’ve studied absence, fought to fill it in –

courage comes easier with a grasp of why.

A secret’s camouflaged when unconcealed.

I chose to not see/saw the thing too near?

Absence turns thicker, muscled by its strain.

A moon in daylight, whitest blue on blue,

surprises briefly, to appear surreal

until it slips to rights. I couldn’t spot

the obvious – obviam, in the way; plain

sight goes blind through chasing clarity.

I looked for you, so couldn’t see you gone.

I sensed your not-there in its burning life.

I listened out to feel its silence beat.

It does not speak with any human mouth

Stargazing by Glyn Maxwell | Poem No. 24 (NPM2017)

Stargazing

by Glyn Maxwell

The night is fine and dry. It falls and spreads
the cold sky with a million opposites
that, for a moment, seem like a million souls
and soon, none, and then, for what seems a long time,
one. Then of course it spins. What is better to do
than string out over the infinite dead spaces
the ancient beasts and spearmen of the human
mind, and, if not the real ones, new ones?

But, try making them clear to one you love –
whoever is standing by you is one you love
when pinioned by the stars – you will find it quite
impossible, but like her more for thinking
she sees that constellation.

After the wave of pain, you will turn to her
and, in an instant, change the universe
to a sky you were glad you came outside to see.
This is the act of all the descended gods
of every age and creed: to weary of all
that never ends, to take a human hand,
and go back into the house.

How To Destroy Yourself by BJ Rosalind | Poem No. 21 (NPM2017)

How to Destroy Yourself
by BJ Rosalind

Step one. Be delirious over treacherous memories. Find any face in a sea of millions and replace it with his. Use this one as a target to release your arrow of imagination.

Step two. Take 5 steps closer and retreat one foot backward when you realize the distance might be too close for you liking. Straighten your arm perfectly and grip the bow tight. Hold on to the faith that all your imagination is indeed reality.

Step three. Release your arrow, forget reality. Let it melt like raindrops sliding down your car window. Think of him and hold your target’s hand, take one step closer and wrap yourself around his warmth. Breathe his smell, listen to his thundering heartbeats, make yourself vulnerable. It’s him. It’s your old him.

Step four. Cling to him like the after droplets hang off the tips of your hair. Gush about how cute that kitten you saw in the pet shop when you cross the streets with him. Laugh about the looks you receive from people with him. He’s real, isn’t he? He’s not just figment of your imagination.

Step five. Tell yourself you’ve fallen in love again with your new companion every time you see a mirror. Now, believe it. This is the calm before the storms, do not prepare your sails or any lifeboats to bring you home safe.

Step six. He will confront you and doubt you. There are cracks in the mirror now. Convince him that you are very much so in love with him – that you’ve never used him even if that on itself falls dead on your own ears. You can’t bear to see him go, can you? You love him. You do. You do. You do. You-

Step seven. Let him leave. He deserves someone better, remember? You were never meant to live a fairy tale life. Look at your hands and see how everything you touch decays in a matter odd seconds, if not months. Write a post-it to yourself about how you damaged the boy with crystal clear eyes and Cheshire cat smile, trying to redeem yourself but only falling head first once again.

–

Check out Fragmented Bliss where this poem can be found over at Amazon and Book Depository.