No, precious reader, you are not forgotten. As my seniors are preparing for graduation and my juniors are turning the corner as the new school year approacheth, everything seems to be caving in on the school front. June’s just a ridiculous month with ridiculous deadlines and ridiculously little time to post on a ridiculously nondescript blog.

I have however been reading and playing around with a lot more poetry than previous months this past year. The most recent Dean Young collection is flooring me and I’m ever so slowly going through Mr. Berryman’s Dream Songs. I read a couple everyday – though I feel hopelessly lost sometimes I anticipate actually finishing this book. This has lead me to an interesting thought about poetry, poets, and how we go about picking our “favorites.” In my more impressionable undergrad years, it wouldn’t take much for me to jump on board various (overly canonized) authors – one poem that struck the right chord was often enough to do it. I can think specifically of one Bob Kaufman, one T. S. Eliot, and one Elizabeth Bishop. And while I still admire all of the aforementioned poets today, there’s only one that’d still be relegated to “favorite,” these days (not so fast, Eliot!).

Perhaps not being as focused on academic minutiae and not bogged down with as much journalistic riff raff as I’ve been the past few years, I’ve been playing around with form a bit more. I’ve been on a pantoum kick of late. The structure is playful (google it yourself!). I’m not particularly proud of these poems – the content is like what? and the meter is a bit off (I’ve been shooting for nice, clean octameter). Yes, I am fully aware of the weak slant rhyme in the second poem- just leave it, will ya? However, maybe this will be a place to occasionally put up new work for the hell o’ it? Eh.

Pantoum 1
We dip in time like rocket ships
Uninhibited in zero gravity
Energy pulsing fingertips
Awaiting the new news delivery

Uninhibited in zero gravity
We now link limbs in synchronicity
Awaiting the new news delivery
Rubbing shins under one’s humidity

We now link limbs in synchronicity
Nudged shoulders, jostled arms, lost grip
Rubbing shins under one’s humidity
Stumble off course find a new trip

Nudged shoulders, jostled arms, lost grip
Energy pulsing fingertips
Stumble off course find a new trip
We dip in time like rocket ships.

Pantoum for five books
The jazz we sing is savory
Unclothed unseen in your Iran
Ras and yams electricity
Shut eyes dried nose lost in Sudan

Unclothed unseen in your Iran
We dance in journals fraught with fear
Shut eyes dried nose lost in Sudan
Trujillo’s reign for us to smear

We dance in journals fraught with fear
Quixote in his windmill dreams
Trujillo’s reign for us to smear
Uncouth in mouth and all too free

Quixote in his windmill dreams
Ras and yams electricity
Uncouth in mouth and all too free
The jazz we sing is savory