"Flying" by Mary Oliver
"Sometimes,
on a plane,
you see a stranger.
He is so beautiful!
His nose
Going down in the
old Greek way,or his smile
a wild Mexican fiesta.
You want to say:
do you know how beautiful you are?
You leap up
into the aisle,
you can't let him go
until he has touched you
shyly, until you have rubbed him,
oh, lightly,
like a coin
you find on the earth somewhere
shining and unexpected and,
without thinking,
reach for. You stand there
shaken
by the strangeness,
the splash of his touch.
When he's gone
you stare like an animal into
the blinding clouds
with the snapped chain of your life,
the life you know:
the deeply affectionate earth,
the familiar landscapes
slowly turning
thousands of feet below."
I selected this poem, simply because of the way it flows, the way it is described, it's relate able, and the detail makes it easy to get lost in.
What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem, I imagine almost every beautiful stranger I have seen, the feeling you get when you see someone who posses so much beauty, and the almost emptiness you get when you realize, you'll probably never see them again.
What are your favorite lines?
"you can't let him go
until he has touched you"
"You want to say:
do you know how beautiful you are?"
do you know how beautiful you are?"
Most Shocking.
"Rape" - Adrienne Rich
"There is a cop who is both prowler and father:
he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers,
had certain ideals.
You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge,
on horseback, one hand touching his gun.
he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers,
had certain ideals.
You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge,
on horseback, one hand touching his gun.
You hardly know him but you have to get to know him:
he has access to machinery that could kill you.
He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash,
his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud
from between his unsmiling lips.
he has access to machinery that could kill you.
He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash,
his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud
from between his unsmiling lips.
And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him,
the maniac's sperm still greasing your thighs,
your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess
to him, you are guilty of the crime
of having been forced.
the maniac's sperm still greasing your thighs,
your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess
to him, you are guilty of the crime
of having been forced.
And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family
whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten,
his hand types out the details
and he wants them all
but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.
whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten,
his hand types out the details
and he wants them all
but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.
You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:
he has taken down your worst moment
on a machine and filed it in a file.
He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined;
he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.
he has taken down your worst moment
on a machine and filed it in a file.
He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined;
he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.
He has access to machinery that could get you put away;
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
your details sound like a portrait of your confessor,
will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?"
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
your details sound like a portrait of your confessor,
will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?"
Why did you select this poem for this category?
Maybe I'm a prude, or maybe it was due to lack of my exposure to different types of poetry, but while reading this, it's almost as to be experiencing rape yourself, very, very shocking.
What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
Several, one is a feeling of betrayal, but also that feeling you get, when there's someone whose aura is a bit icky, someone you know you shouldn't ever be alone with. Favorite lines?
"You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:
he has taken down your worst moment
on a machine and filed it in a file."
"but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best."
Most Emotive.
"My Mother Dreams Another Country" - Natasha Tretheway
"Already the words are changing. She is changing
from colored to negro, black stilly ears ahead. This is 1966 -she is married to a white man -
and there are more names for what grows inside her.
It is enough to worry about words like mongrel
and the infertility of mules and mulattoes
while flipping through a book of baby names.
She has come home to wait out the long months,
her room unchanged since she's been gone:
dolls winking down from every shelf all of them
white. Every day she is flanked by the rituals of superstition,
and there is a name she will learn for this too:
maternal impression -the shape, like an unknown
country, marking the back of the newborn's thigh.
For now, women tell her to clear her head, to steady her hands
or she'll gray a lock of the child's hair wherever
she worries her own, imprint somewhere the outline
of a thing she craves too much. They tell her
to stanch her cravings by eating dirt. All spring
she has sat on her hands, her fingers numb. For a while
each day, she can't feel an1'thing she touches: the arbor
out back -the landscape's green tangle; the molehill
of her own swelling. Here -outside the city limits_
cars speed by, clouds of red dust in their wake.
She breathes it in -Mississippi -then drifts toward sleep,
thinking of someplace she’s never been. Late,
Mississippi is a dark backdrop bearing down
on the windows of her room. On the TV in the corner,
the station signs off broadcasting its nightly salutation:
the waving Stars and Stripes, our national anthem."
Why did you select this poem for this category?
A better questions, perhaps would be, why wouldn't I have picked this poem? Having grown up in Alabama, myself, for about five, years, my mother being Black, and my father a white man, I could relate.
What did you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
The south, I imagine a frail woman, who isn't quite sure of what to do with herself.
What are your favorite lines?
"This is 1966 -she is married to a white man -
and there are more names for what grows inside her. It is enough to worry about words like mongrel
and the infertility of mules and mulattoes
while flipping through a book of baby names."
Most Thought - Provoking.
"Blond" - Natasha Tretheway
"Certainly it was possible - somewhere
in my parents genes the recessive traits
that might have given me a different look:
not attached earlobes or my father's green eyes,
but another hair color, gentlemen preferred,
have-more-fun blond. And with my skin color,
like a good tan - an even mix of my parents' -
I could've passed for white
When on Christmas Day I woke to find
a blond wig, a pink sequined tutu,
and a blond ballerina doll, nearly as tall as me,
I didn't know to ask, nor that it mattered,
if there'd been a brown version. This was years before
my grandmother nestled the dark baby
into our creche, years before I'd understand it
as primer for a Mississippi childhood.
Instead, I pranced around our living room
in a whirl of possibility, my parents looking on
at their suddenly strange child. In the photograph
my mother took, my father - almost
out of the frame - looks on as Joseph must have
at the miraculous birth: I'm in the foreground -
my blond wig a shining halo, a newborn likeness
to the child that chance, the long odds,
might have brought."
Why did you select this poem for this category?
I selected this, because I can also personally relate, I've always wondered, about what it would have been like if I was born with lighter features. I always say I envy other bi-racial girls, who end with green eyes, and lighter hair, I didn't get that. It's something that crosses my mind, it's something to think about.
What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
I mainly feel, a sense of familiarity, my father was blonde, green eyes, same as hers, I have to wonder, why didn't I get those features?
What are your favorite lines?
"but another hair color, gentlemen preferred,
have-more-fun blond. And with my skin color,
like a good tan - an even mix of my parents' -
I could've passed for white"
Most Humorous.
"Same In Blues" - Langston Hughes
"I said to my baby,
Baby, take it slow.
I can't, she said, I can't!
I got to go!
There's a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.
Lulu said to Leonard,
I want a diamond ring.
Leonard said to Lulu,
You won't get a goddamn thing!
A certain
amount of nothing
in a dream deferred.
Daddy, daddy, daddy,
All I want is you.
You can have me baby—
but my lovin' days is through.
A certain
amount of impotence
in a dream deferred.
Three parties
On my party line—
But that third party,
Lord, ain't mine!
There's liable
to be confusion
in a dream deferred.
From river to river,
Uptown and down,
There's liable to be confusion
when a dream gets kicked around."
Baby, take it slow.
I can't, she said, I can't!
I got to go!
There's a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.
Lulu said to Leonard,
I want a diamond ring.
Leonard said to Lulu,
You won't get a goddamn thing!
A certain
amount of nothing
in a dream deferred.
Daddy, daddy, daddy,
All I want is you.
You can have me baby—
but my lovin' days is through.
A certain
amount of impotence
in a dream deferred.
Three parties
On my party line—
But that third party,
Lord, ain't mine!
There's liable
to be confusion
in a dream deferred.
From river to river,
Uptown and down,
There's liable to be confusion
when a dream gets kicked around."
Why did you select this poem for this category?
The main reason s most likely the fact that I have a weird sense of humor.
What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
An old man, who is tired of his wife, who run a few renegades.
What are your favorite lines?
"Lulu said to Leonard,
I want a diamond ring.Leonard said to Lulu,
You won't get a goddamn thing!"
Most Inspiring.
"No Images" - Waring Cuney
"She does not know
her beauty,
she thinks her brown body
has no glory.
If she could dance
naked
under palm trees
and see her image in the river,
she would know.
But there are no palm trees
on the street,
and dish water gives back
no images."
Why did you select this poem for this category?
I selected this poem, because I feel like it's something every woman should know, a lot of people I know, talk about how ugly they are, and have no sense of their true beauty.
What did you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
While reading this poem, I felt empowered, every woman has their own amount of beauty.
What are your favorite lines?
"She does not know
her beauty,
she thinks her brown body
has no glory"
Most Interesting Stylistically.
"Ghosts" - Mary Oliver
"1
Have you noticed?
2
Where so many millions of powerful bawling beasts
lay down on the earth and died
it's hard to tell now
what's bone, and what merely
was once...
4
...In the book of the earth it is written:
nothing can die.
In the book of the Sioux it is written:'
they have gone away into the earth to hide.
nothing will coax them out again
but the people dancing...
6
...Have you noticed? how the rain
falls soft as the fall
of moccasins. Have you noticed?..
...the packs of yellow-eyed wolves that are also
have you noticed? gone now.
7
...in a dream
I watched while, secretly
and with the tenderness of any caring woman,
a cow gave birth
to a red calf...
...in the fragrant grass
in the wild domains
of the prairie spring, and I asked them,
in my dream I knelt down and asked them
to make room for me."
Why did you select this poem for this category?
I find the topic and the way this poem is written very interesting.
What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
Years of disintegrated fossils underneath the Earth's surface
What are your favorite lines?
"Where so many millions of powerful bawling beasts
lay down on the earth and died
it's hard to tell now
what's bone, and what merely
was once..."
Most Musical.
"Venus's Quilt" - Ruth Forman
"You need to be loved
I would do it
be the one to open you like a pomegranate
take your fruit between my teeth and tongue
and shine every seed
rub you between my palms till the heat come
and the numbness goes away
reach into your hair
weed memories that don't belong
and lay you out a welcome mat
for all sunshine
there is water in your eyes I want to travel
there is babies to be born yet shoes to be sewn
if I could I would quilt you into my life
so you could lay just left of my mother just east of my father north of my sister into my friend
I am Venus without a lover
fingers with soft nails and need to touch
I might ask you to swim in my memory
I might ask you to make your own
we could sit and watch them like slides
how many woman should I be for you to be loved
how many men
for you to feel safe
how many daughters for you to feel pride
and sons to be forever
I will be them all
Barrettes and butterflies, tube sox and elbows
first drink of water last toothpaste
I will be your uncle's hand
I will be your aunt's kitchen
I will be your sunset in the morning
I am Venus
cluster of grapes in your mouth and wine coming
we are whispers in the length of the dark
we are cuffs in the folds of the universe
I can button your safe
I can hold you forever
so long as you give me your cloth"
Why did you select this poem for this category?
I selected this poem, because it seems to flow like a song.
What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
The feeling, and wanting to be everything and everyone for somebody.
What are your favorite lines?
"reach into your hair
weed memories that don't belong
and lay you out a welcome mat
for all sunshine
there is water in your eyes I want to travel
there is babies to be born yet shoes to be sewn "
"Barrettes and butterflies, tube sox and elbows
first drink of water last toothpaste
I will be your uncle's hand
I will be your aunt's kitchen
I will be your sunset in the morning
I am Venus"
