Two more poets

Charles O. Hartman:

Honeydew

As the poem paces down Main Street
on its way to the sparkling harbor
it knows to notice tints on the pigeons' backs
but "tends to forget" the man heaped on the stoop.
The better the poem knows its business
the smaller its business needs to be.
Its shoes are tied, its jacket buttoned up;
its pockets are sewn shut. The man wonders
if the poem has any money, but the poem
has no money, is proud of not having any money,
of having only the sun to make gold of the sidewalk
and glamour the water in the harbor awaiting it.
A hole the size let's say of a honeydew
passes completely through its chest.


Parent's Pantoum~Carolyn Kizer

for Maxine Kumin

Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses

More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.

They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
The beg us to be dignified like them

As they ignore our pleas to brighten up.
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention
Then we won't try to be dignified like them
Nor they to be so gently patronizing.

Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention.
Don't they know that we're supposed to be the stars?
Instead they are so gently patronizing.
It makes us feel like children--second-childish?

Perhaps we're too accustomed to be stars.
The famous flowers glowing in the garden,
So now we pout like children. Second-childish?
Quaint fragments of forgotten history?

Our daughters stroll together in the garden,
Chatting of news we've chosen to ignore,
Pausing to toss us morsels of their history,
Not questions to which only we know answers.

Eyes closed to news we've chosen to ignore,
We'd rather excavate old memories,
Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors.
Why do they never listen to our stories?

Because they hate to excavate old memories
They don't believe our stories have an end.
They don't ask questions because they dread the answers.
They don't see that we've become their mirrors,

We offspring of our enormous children.


I'm not normally a fan of questions within poetry--too ponderous, or too nudge-nudge, or too shruggy--but Kizer does a fine job here (though some are better than others--"why don't they brighten up," or "don't they know we're supposed to be the stars" are both effective, IMO). Both are a bit imploring, and the question mark adds to this feel.

Hartman does here what I've seen done well in a few instances--taking the "idea" of a poem, and walking it about somewhere unexpected. The idea of poetry living and interacting is one I reckon I will not tire of, even if said 'poem' is up to no good.

Your assignment: Take a poem somewhere, as Hartman does. Think boldly--try putting the poem in truly improbable places, and see what that spawns. And maybe stick a question in there--while I may shrink at a question mark, this does not mean it is not a useful tool that cannot be employed to great effect in a poem.

Dani