Poetry Monday: Eileen Myles' School of Fish

I’ve been participating in an Eileen Myles poetry discussion group (kind of an offshoot from the marvellous ModPo course which I, um, might have mentioned a few times) in which we read and discuss one poem every few days (sometimes every day).  I’ve enjoyed every poem we’ve discussed, and if you haven’t heard of Eileen Myles, who has suddenly become something of a poetic superstar, I have to recommend her to you.  So far my favourite is the title poem from Myles’ School of Fish (Black Sparrow Books, 1997), a poem which was recently featured in the series Transparent, in which Cherry Jones plays a character loosely based on Myles. There’s something so liquid and rich about this poem - the way it explores homelessness in such a personal and even subtle way, while also going deep into notions of the self and belonging (without leaving out her dog).  Here’s the last part of it:

the deeper and deeper we go and the harder
it is to turn the key and eventually we
go and it is very very dark
we just get used to the light
but the blues and the greys and the feelings
of lostness, it's like home, it's like family.

The entire poem can be found here: http://awp.diaart.org/poetry/96_97/myles.html
or you can listen to Myles’ own rather intimate reading here: http://www.eileenmyles.com/mp3s/Myles-Eileen_07_School-of-Fish_Close-Listening_3-24-09.mp3

(and yes I know it’s Tuesday, but it might still be Monday where you are...or when you get here)

Poetry Monday: Poetry for the New Year: Lorine Niedecker (again)

Not long ago I did an interview with the poet Jennifer Compton at the Newcastle Poetry Prize ceremony.  During our pre-interview conversation (and during the interview too), we discussed how poetry “removes the poison” from life’s most painful moments.  This continues to be true for me, both as a writer of poetry and as reader.  I lost my mother rather suddenly around this time last year, and though it never stops hurting - I don’t expect the pain to ever dull - the shared understandings that poetry creates - a sense of beauty from the senseless ugliness of death - does indeed remove the poison.  This beautiful little new years poem from Lorine Niedecker demonstrates this perfectly:  https://twitter.com/LorineNiedecker/status/509355006118858752

I highly recommend that you click the link and read it. It won’t take you long.  The poem’s brevity is breathtaking. Niedecker writes in her distinctively succinct way (each word packed tight and resonating with multiple meanings) of loss, love, and new starts - the way the loss of a parent is brought home with milestones like new years day, and the way a parental voice continues to ’speak’ through the seeds they’ve planted; through the turning of years and this permanent and ongoing dialogue between parent and child.  I particularly love the last two words, separated in a way my computing skills probably can’t convey (hence the link) and left open for the reader to interpret: the word “spoke” functioning as both noun and verb, uniting past, present and future.

I’ve been participating in a discussion forum on Lorine Niedecker and Emily Dickinson run by the Kelly Writers House, and the poem was presented today by Al Filreis, who is wonderfully curating and driving (or encouraging - Filreis is always Socratic in his approach) these close readings. Coming across a poem like this, in the midst of my ongoing, private grief, is like slowly walking beside the trees on new years day with Niedecker, sharing this beauty and this pain.  There is no poison here.