Gerald Stern Video Blog

I really enjoyed watching Gerald Stern recite his poems "Lillies" and "She Was a Dove" on the youtube video. It took me a couple of times watching it to get a better understanding of what he was trying to show through his poems.
For me "Lillies" was a little hard to understand at first. This poem was about an experience he had while in traffic one day. This poem also shows what a great inspiration he was to people throughout his life. The way he wrote this poem mde it really easy for you to picture it, like you were there with him. I found it extremely touching how one of his students jumped out of their car just to tell him how much he had impacted their life. Since he was not expecting that to happen and it caught him off guard, I found his response quite comical.
For me "She Was a Dove" was deffinitely a much easier poem to understand more quickly. In this poem he is describing a woman that he loves. This poem was deffinitely much more intimate. In this poem, I feel he is trying to show us that you need to carefully make all the decisions and choices in your life. He is also showing that you should always appreciate those that you love.

Poetry Reading at the Village Bookstore in RVC

On Friday December 4th I attended my first poetry reading at the Village Bookshop in Rockville Centre. It started at 7:30 p.m. When I walked in they were passing around the book for the open read. The book was called "Winter Retreat, Wintry Treat". They had chairs set up in the middle of the book shop. There were twenty four chairs and one love seat. Pretty much everyone knew each other and they new who were the people who were attending for the first time. Everyone was extremely friendly. The poetry read was hosted by Mary Healey. Mary Healey announced that the featured poet would be Kaeti Wigeland. Kaeti Wigeland is a photographer, a folk singer and song writer, and she even home schooled her two sons. Next there was an announcement that Vito from the sopranos will be having a book signing and reading on December 12th.

Kaeti Wigeland was then introduced by her son Jordy. Kaeti then said that she had made an Emily which was about the thoughts she had through the fall. The first poem that she read was "Tinted Hues", which was about the changing of seasons. The second poem that she read was "Touch Tender Leaf", which was about the leaves sinking into the earth and sleeping. The third poem she read was "Haunted Couplets", which was about things that made her think of Halloween, like shapes in the fog, scattering clouds and spiders. The fourth poem she read was "Wild Birds Are Winging", which was a poem about nature. The fifth poem she read was "Winter Retreat", which was a narrative poem about Thanksgiving. The sixth poem she read was "What is missing", which was about the snow and the coldness in the winter. The seventh poem that she read was "You Can Fall Forever", which was about winter nights. The eighth poem that she read was "Many Faces", which was about winter solstice. The ninth poem that she read was "Shining Part", which was about fire and the lighting of candles. The tenth poem that she read was "Wintry Treat", which was about new fashion trends, like dressing sparkly for parties.

Then at around 8:15, they had Open Mic. This is when people from the audience were able to go up and read their own poems to everyone else. The first person to read was Dennis. His peoms were called "Holiday Party Sunday" and "Mannor Inn". Then Jean came up and read to us "12 O'clock". Then Vicky came up and read her poems "Skirting Issues", which was about pleather. Then she read "Thomad Undoubting", which was about the Bronx. Her last poem was "Southern Comfort", which was a poem about Florida. Keith came up anmd read his poems "The Hug" and a poem that he wrote for children called "The Atomic Wedggy". Then Kaeti's son Jordy came up and read two of his poems about Christmas. Then Matt came up and read his poems "Writers Block", "Voices" and "Love Poem". The last person to come up was Sandra. She read her poems "Composition", "Possessions" and "They Came To The Park".

Then Kaeti Wigeland came back up and read "Kids Poems" and then finally she read "Last Lines", which was a poem that she made, bu taking all the last lines of all the poems that she read tonight.

"Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt" by Jorie Graham

The poem "Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt" by Jorie Graham contains such vivid descriptions of certain paintings. As I was reading the poem, in my head I could actually picture what the paintings must look like. Jorie Graham does such a great job in reacting to what she is looking at in such a detailed way. This made me want to see which paintings inspired Jorie Graham to write this poem. One of my classmates pointed out the website http://www.iklimt,com/work.html . This website was extremely helpful because they gave you a little bit of information about each of the paintings. On this website there are many different pieces of Gustav Klimt's artwork. Two of the paintings that I believed inspired Jorie Grahams poem are "Beeches" and "The Bride". I believe that she is referring to "Beeches" because one of the lines in her poem states "crossing this yellow beech forest" which could very well be describing this painting. The line "rendered in graphic, pornographic, detail--something like a scream between her legs" made me think it was referring to the painting of "The Bride". I noticed that many of Gustav Klimt's paintings contained different nude women. It was definitely a re-occuring theme in his artwork. There was also a lot of paintings referring to life and death. I also read on the website that he started painting a lot of life and death after the death of his son. I believe that Jorie Graham's poem directly reflects many of the pieces of art on this website, especially "Beeches" and "The Bride". All of Klint's paintings were very in debt and very interesting, just like Graham's poem.

"One Train May Hide Another" by Kenneth Koch

"One Train May Hide Another" by Kenneth Koch is actually read aloud by Kenneth Koch himself on http://poets.org/viewmedia.phb/prmMID/15592. This poem like many other poems this week, was extremely confusing and hard to understand at first. After listening to it many times and reading it for myself, I think I have finally realized what Kenneth Koch is trying to get across to his readers. Kenneth Koch actually reads the poem very slowly, with many pauses, giving you time to react and sink in what he is trying to say. This way of reading the poem actually helped me understand the poem quicker then I thought it would. Ironically, I believe that the way he reads the poem slowly, shows what the poem is supposed to mean as well. I think he is trying to say that we should live life slowly, and get everything you can out of it. The way he reads the poem actually allows you to get everything out of it that he is trying to tell you through his poem. You need to take life slow, and let everything sink in, which is not normally how people take life on. Most people don't take their time when dealing with problems, people or different situations. Throughout his poem, Kenneth Koch repeats the verse "One may hide another" numerous times. This is showing us the readers that we should take on everything slowly because you never know what is coming next. Many different situations overshadow each other. In the end I really enjoyed this poem and it even got me thinking about how I handle different situations in my own life. I think Kenneth Koch has a great writing style that actually gets through to people. This is a very important piece of wisdom that Kenneth Koch teaches us through his work.

Welcome

Hi, everyone. My name is Melissa. I am taking ENG 265 because I am majoring in English and this was the only english class I have yet to take. This is a poetry class and poetry is not my favorite part of english. So I hope to learn how to fully understand it, hopefully that will help me enjoy it more.

-Melissa