Poetry

Ahhh, poetry! Delicious writing. These are some favorites, Collins for his wonderful subject matter and wonderful imagery, cummings for his sheer imagination and buck-the-system attitude, Raab for approaching metaphysical topics with confidence and gusto. Lovely, lovely poetry.

The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins -- "But if something does flash before your eyes/as you go under, it will probably be a fish,a quick blur of curved silver darting away,/having nothing to do with your life or your death./The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all/as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,/leaving behind what you have already forgotten,/the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds."

Nine Horses by Billy Collins -- Go read everything Collins has written.

Questions about Angels by Billy Collins -- Excellent. Love the title poem. LOVE IT.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins -- Brilliant collection of old and new poems.

The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins -- I repeat: go read everything Collins has written. Why are you still at your computer?

Selected Poems by e.e. cummings -- The king of avant-garde. I remember discovering cummings ... 11th grade creative writing class ... the bottom of a handout had only the beginning of a cummings poem, but I was so intrigued that I looked it up in the school library later on: "electric fur." And I was hooked. Check this out:

we are for each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

The Singer Trilogy by Calvin Miller -- Fabulous, brilliant writing. Although I have some theological scrupples with this mythic re-telling of the New Testament, it is a book you MUST read as a literature-loving Christian. BRILLIANT, I SAY.

The Probable World by Lawrence Raab -- I love this guy.

What We Don't Know About Each Other by Lawrence Raab -- I still remember Kimmi Lambright showing me this old library book she'd gotten for free or cheap. I liked it so much I bought my own copy and more of Raab's work too!

I was afraid,
she tells him. And in the morning
I also knew it was you, but I just
answered the phone
the way anyone
answers a phone when it starts to ring,
not thinking you have a choice.

The Green Earth by Luci Shaw -- You want Christian poetry that's not too cheesy or watered-down? Try Shaw on for size. Check this out:

Mary's Song
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so light it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Jackie says: I'm sold. :-)

Listen to the Green by Luci Shaw -- Ditto kiddo.