falling for a scoundrel

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There is a poetry class at the Main Library every second Wednesday of the month. Each class is dedicated to a specific poet whose work we dissect. Then, a challenge is given to write a poem that reflects the poet, either through rhyme scheme, theme, philosophy. We read our challenge poems the next month. Last month was kind of a freebee month (due to the holidays), because the challenge was simply to pick any fictional character you relate to and write a poem about them and somehow you. Poets being poets, there is always a lot of poetic license going on and people often stray pretty far from the assignment – for example two people picked people who weren’t fictional. We had Snoopy, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Anne Frank, Pablo Neruda, Spock and Princess Leia. I wrote about Princess Leia. This month we studied Marvin Bell, who is best known for his “Dead Man” poems. Some people don’t get them. They see the interesting ideas and the intriguing images and poetic phrases in the poems, but cannot see how they relate as a complete poem. At first, I thought the Dead Man might be literal, someone who had passed on, yet was present in everything in everyday life – kind of like my dad. My dad is present in my workshop. His hands guide mine as I use my tools. His words echo through my thoughts as I work. In other “Dead Man” poems, it seemed more like the dead man was someone who was alive but not living, perhaps depressed and going through the motions. When my husband was depressed, I would refer to him as Dead Max. His lived, but his eyes were dead. I loved his other poems, too. There is one for his wife I found particularly poignant, “To Dorothy,” and another which seemed to say exactly how I felt, “The Mulberry and Self.” Isn’t it funny how there is something you know, but never thought to describe, and once some poet does it you say, “Yes, that’s exactly it. I would have said it exactly that way myself,” even though you wouldn’t and didn’t? For next month, we need to select an everyday object and write about how we learn a lesson from it. I usually ponder for the first two weeks, then write the poem. For the last two weeks, I viciously hack and slash at it until nothing is left but the essence. It seems to be my “voice” – blunt and to the point.

Tonight’s tea tag says, “Be proud of who you are.”