Four I Follow

I love poetry - but having said that, let me also say that a lot of poetry goes over my head. I can't seem to stay with very long poems, or poems with too many painterly words like 'inchoate'. I hate the word 'inchoate' and will ditch any poem which contains it. There are poets who bang you over the head with their MFA degrees, and there are poets who just bang you over the head. Take Sylvia Plath. I heard she was brilliant but I could not approach her for years. I bought one of her books pledging to read it through - but I still haven't.


I have been attracted to the work of poets who use sound well. For me, it is as though the interlocking of sounds, their echo... is some kind of high logic, like inevitability, or an unavoidable truth.
Here are four I follow:



a small number 

So far, have managed, Not
Much.So far a few fractures, a few factions, a Few
Friends. So far, a husband, a husbandry, Nothing
Too complex, so far, followed the Simple
Instructions.Read them twice. So far, memorized three
  Moments,
Buried a couple deaths, those turning faces. So far two or
  Three
Sonnets. So far, some berrigan and Some
Keates. So far, a scanty list. So far, a dark wood. So far Anti
Thesis and then, maybe a little thesis. So far a small Number
Of emily's letters. So far, tim not dead. So far, Matt
not dead. So far, jim. So far, Love
And love, not so far. Not so love. So far, no-Hope.
So far, all face. So far scrapped and scraped, but Not
With grace. So far, not Very.
                                                           - Olena Kalytiak Davis


White Egrets 
I
Cautious of time's light and how often it will allow
the morning shadows to lengthen across the lawn
the stalking egrets to wriggle their beaks and swallow
when you, not they, or you and they, are gone;
for clattering parrots to launch their fleet at sunrise
for April to ignite the African Violet 
in the drumming world that dampens your tired eyes
behind two clouding lenses, sunrise, sunset,
the quiet ravages of diabetes.
Accept it all with level sentences
with sculpted settlement that sets each stanza;
learn how the bright lawn puts up no defenses
against the egrets stabbing questions and the night's answer.
                                                               
                                                                 - Derek Walcott


The Long Up 

You can see the
land flattening out
near the top. The
long up you've faced 
is going to stop.
Your eyes feast
on space instead 
of pitch as though
you'd been released.
The measured pace
you've kept corrupts
with fifty yards
to do - fifty
times as hard
against the blue. 

        - Kay Ryan
  

As Kingfishers Catch Fire 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

         

                                  - Gerard Manley Hopkins