Poem for the Day: October 5th, 2021

Poem [“Lana Turner has collapsed!”] by Frank O’Hara

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
lana turner has collapsed!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Poem for the Day: October 4th, 2021

For the young who want to by Marge Piercy

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

Today’s poem is taken from the collection Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy, which was published in 1982 by Alfred A. Knopf.

I love love love Marge Piercy. I was first introduced to her work as a high school junior via her poem “Barbie Doll” and since then I’ve been delighted with each new discovery. I hope you love “For the young who want to” as much as I do.

Bonus Poem: Colors passing through us by Marge Piercy

Colors passing through us by Marge Piercy

Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.

I know I usually only share one poem a day, but I’ve had a rough week and I’m sure a lot of you can probably say the same. I believe to my core that you can never have too much poetry. I believe poetry acts as a salve when the flames of a world never not on fire manage to singe us. Love and light to all of you. Walk in power.

Poem for the Day: October 2nd, 2021

Song by Muriel Rukeyser

Make and be eaten, the poet says,
Lie in the arms of nightlong fire,
To celebrate the waking, wake.
Burn in the daylong light; and praise
Even the mother unappeased,
Even the fathers of desire.

Blind go the days, but joy will see 
Agreements of music; they will wind 
The shaking of your dance; no more 
Will the ambiguous arm-waves spell 
Confusion of the blessing given. 

Only and finally declare 
Among the purest shapes of grace 
The waking of the face of fire, 
The body of waking and the skill 
To make your body such a shape 
That all the eyes of hope shall stare. 

That all the cries of fear shall know, 
Staring in their bird-pierced song; 
Lines of such penetration make 
That shall bind our loves at last. 
Then from the mountains of the lost, 
All the fantasies shall wake, 
Strong and real and speaking turn 
Wherever flickers your unreal. 

And my strong ghosts shall fade and pass 
My love start fiery as grass 
Wherever burn my fantasies, 
Wherever burn my fantasies.

April 1955

Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) paved the way for and mentored many of the twentieth-century’s greatest writers, among them Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, and Anne Sexton, just to name a few. It is indeed a shame then that her own name has all but faded into obscurity, known only by a handful of milquetoast academics and the odd literature student lucky enough to come across her verse.

In both works, we see the personal melding with the political, illuminating the human costs of state-sponsored violence.

In addition to her poetry, Rukeyser was also a noted playwright, biographer, children’s book author, and liberal political activist. One can of a surety draw a direct line between Rukeyser’s poetics of resistance and anti-war sentiment in Theory of Flight (1935) all the way to Solmaz Sharif’s Look: Poems, which was composed using language found in a Defense Department dictionary. In both works, we see the personal melding with the political, illuminating the human costs of state-sponsored violence. In both works, lived experiences make the authors both participants and viewers in conflict(s) both interpersonal and global in scale.

For Further Reading

The Paris Review: Muriel Rukeyser, Mother of Everyone by Sam Huber (May 30th, 2018)

Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive (website)

Kenyon Review: On The Book of the Dead by Muriel Rukeyser by J.L. Wall

Poem for the Day: October 1st, 2021

A Toast for Men Yun-Ch’ing by Du Fu and Florence Ayscough (Translator)

Illimitable happiness, 
But grief for our white heads. 
We love the long watches of the night, the red candle. 
It would be difficult to have too much of meeting,
Let us not be in hurry to talk of separation. 
But because the Heaven River will sink, 
We had better empty the wine-cups. 
To-morrow, at bright dawn, the world’s business will entangle us. 
We brush away our tears, 
We go—East and West.

Today’s poem was taken from Fir-flower Tablets: Poems Translated from the Chinese, which was published in 1921 by Houghton Mifflin. This collection can be read and/or downloaded for free at Project Gutenberg, a website that makes public domain works readily available to anyone with access to the Internet. Simply click on the link provided here and it will take you to the book’s page, where you can either read it in your web browser or download it for offline reading on your e-reader, tablet, or other mobile device.

Considered one of the foremost poets of the Tang Dynasty, Du Fu (712-770) was born in Henan Province to a civil servant. His mother passed away when he was still very young, so one of his aunts assisted in raising him. His initial aspiration was to become a civil servant like his father, but after failing the test he became somewhat of a drifter, traveling from place to place and writing of his experiences.

Later on, Du Fu made an official petition to the Chinese government for a position in service to the state, and was made registrar in the palace of the crown prince. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Du Fu was unable to begin his post as registrar because of the turmoil unleashed by the start of the An Lushan Rebellion, which began in 755 and continued for several years.

Personal and political turmoil no doubt colored Du Fu’s worldview, but you can also see in his poetry an appreciation of the world’s beauty pushing against the pain we suffer in our short human lives.

Once again forced to live a nomadic lifestyle, Du Fu wrote about the things he witnessed and experienced during his journeys, most of which were extremely painful. Personal and political turmoil no doubt colored Du Fu’s worldview, but you can also see in his poetry an appreciation of the world’s beauty pushing against the pain we suffer in our short human lives.

Poem for the Day: September 30th, 2021

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by E.E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Today’s poem is taken from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, which was edited by George J. Firmage and was released in 1991 by Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Poem for the Day: September 29th, 2021

Suppose the Function Is Praise by Cate Lycurgus

When doctors have given their final shot
or volleys rocket insomniac dark, without thought, lift
your hands. In strobing raids, at pepper spray, with cheek
to asphalt, at fault or not, go on, lift your hands. And stand
though gravel erodes to sea, don’t grovel or stop
as the chopper kicks sand, or knife unleashes shock
and flow—unaided, blood rises—so lift your hands,
given this heart’s un-assisted pump, no matter the lack
of water to quench a jigsaw of dirt, the belly distended—lift
your hands at the child unplanned who you cannot nurse,
then at the curse of also-ran and lift your hands, when
the only man you’ll ever love has a son with someone else.
Or a husband no longer knows the name of the one
you raised together: now, raise a glass instead.
This is occasion for champagne, for all the aspirin
a body can take, for the glint of a chemical sunset’s blaze,
and licking high-fructose glaze off those same fingers, just—
lift them now in don’t shoot please, in fluid go, to save my feet,
at mile sixty when gas burns clean and you’ve made it
past your dead-end streets, with a single album
of soul on repeat—lift your hands, at the great unknown,
the bank account’s mawing O—however infinitesimal
the means become or waist will cinch—infinite—
the ways to lift our hands, to coax them overhead—
                                                   limitless, our approach.

I love how cinematic and visceral Lycurgus’s language is in this poem. You can feel the still-warm asphalt pressed against a cheek. Your eyes instinctively blink against the harsh fluorescence of the strobe lights. You can taste the bittersweet sting of the well-deserved glass of champagne.

After I first discovered her work, I was sad to see that Cate Lycurgus has not yet released a full collection of her poetry, at least as far as my research can ascertain. For me, that means she’s got a willing buyer for whenever that day comes.

Cate Lycurgus’s poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2020, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Boston Review, and The Rumpus, among other publications. She lives south of San Francisco, California where she teaches professional writing.

Quote for the Day: September 29th, 2021

For the women I come from do not run with the wolves. They lead the pack.
Aija Mayrock, Dear Girl

Poem for the Day: September 28th, 2021

*When My Brother Was an Aztec* by Natalie Diaz

No More Cake Here by Natalie Diaz

When my brother died
I worried there wasn’t enough time
to deliver the one hundred invitations
I’d scribbled while on the phone with the mortuary:
Because of the short notice no need to rsvp.
Unfortunately the firemen couldn’t come.
(I had hoped they’d give free rides on the truck.)
They did agree to drive by the house once
with the lights on— It was a party after all.

I put Mom and Dad in charge of balloons,
let them blow as many years of my brother’s name,
jails, twenty-dollar bills, midnight phone calls,
fistfights, and er visits as they could let go of.
The scarlet balloons zigzagged along the ceiling
like they’d been filled with helium. Mom blew up
so many that she fell asleep. She slept for ten years—
she missed the whole party.

My brothers and sisters were giddy, shredding
his stained T-shirts and raggedy pants, throwing them up
into the air like confetti.

When the clowns came in a few balloons slipped out
the front door. They seemed to know where
they were going and shrank to a fistful of red grins
at the end of our cul-de-sac. The clowns played toy bugles
until the air was scented with rotten raspberries.
They pulled scarves from Mom’s ear—she slept through it.
I baked my brother’s favorite cake (chocolate, white frosting).
When I counted there were ninety-nine of us in the kitchen.
We all stuck our fingers in the mixing bowl.

A few stray dogs came to the window.
I heard their stomachs and mouths growling
over the mariachi band playing in the bathroom.
(There was no room in the hallway because of the magician.)
The mariachis complained about the bathtub acoustics.
I told the dogs, No more cake here, and shut the window.
The fire truck came by with the sirens on. The dogs ran away.
I sliced the cake into ninety-nine pieces.

I wrapped all the electronic equipment in the house,
taped pink bows and glittery ribbons to them—
remote controls, the Polaroid, stereo, Shop-Vac,
even the motor to Dad’s work truck—everything
my brother had taken apart and put back together
doing his crystal meth tricks—he’d always been
a magician of sorts.

Two mutants came to the door.
One looked almost human. They wanted
to know if my brother had willed them the pots
and pans and spoons stacked in his basement bedroom.
They said they missed my brother’s cooking and did we
have any cake. No more cake here, I told them.
Well, what’s in the piñata? they asked. I told them
God was and they ran into the desert, barefoot.
I gave Dad his slice and put Mom’s in the freezer.
I brought up the pots and pans and spoons
(really, my brother was a horrible cook), banged them
together like a New Year’s Day celebration.

My brother finally showed up asking why
he hadn’t been invited and who baked the cake.
He told me I shouldn’t smile, that this whole party was shit
because I’d imagined it all. The worst part he said was
he was still alive. The worst part he said was
he wasn’t even dead. I think he’s right, but maybe
the worst part is that I’m still imagining the party, maybe
the worst part is that I can still taste the cake.

Note: While I have endeavored to ensure this poem was formatted on this page as the author originally intended, there may be slight differences between what is displayed here and what appears in a physical format.

Natalie Diaz is a Latina and Mojave poet and is enrolled as a member of the Gila Indian Community. She currently lives in Arizona and is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University. She is the author of two poetry collections, When My Brother Was an Aztec and Postcolonial Love Poem, which was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Poem for the Day: September 27th, 2021

From the Taiwan Cypress in Alishan by Jennifer Huang

it’s true
they say
we can’t help
family

sometimes they walk
after dusk searching
in fear
half of us have disappeared
our fragrance is that of god
we wail for the lost
axed down for profit
their knives scratch our surface
beneath our shadows
for something we
dissipate and become

Today’s poem originally appeared in the May 2021 issue of Poetry. In addition to their writing, Huang is also the Independent Publicist at The Shipman Agency. Their debut collection, Return Flight: Poems, is due to be released on January 18th, 2022 by Milkweed Editions.

Update: I had some issues getting today’s poem to format in the way the author originally intended, so I am including a screenshot below of the way the text is supposed to appear on screen. It is taken from the Poetry Foundation’s website.