There will probably be a few more along these lines:

funny limericks
iambic pentameter
free form and sonnet

sometimes poets’ words
are sewn together, just so,
leave the threads intact.

Why? Why keeping time
with some long dashes instead
of commas holy?

Sometimes it’s about
Sometimes it’s about the words
sometimes about space.

Peeked into the forums last night see what was happening as this second course began. There had been a building wave of growing energy via email and twitter and the number of people signed up kept growing and growing. There were “leaked” images of the first week’s reading list. There were advance video files. These people are high energy, I thought.

So I went last night as the gates opened. I posted my brief bio. I noted that most people weren’t posting anonymously. I listened to some of the recorded versions of the poems. It’s convenient to be listening and to read along. I already had my dickinson and whitman books ready with little fluorescent tabs poking out at me.

Then today I listened to the discussion of the teacher and others about the first Emily Dickinson poem, I dwell in Possibility. I stopped part way through and listened to it again before going back to the discussion. The teacher gave each person around the table a word or two from the poem and they threw out what each individual word meant and talked about it some more.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the screen, I was gritting my teeth. When I’d first read this poem I had the sense of this moment of being in an enclosed yard, or that sense of being in a room within a woods. Emily often gives me that sense of being poised on a moment. Yet here were all these people talking about “what does DOOR mean” “cedars? did you know they’re the tallest tree in lebanon?”

I did not put my head down on the table but I wanted to. I think I had a little of this feeling for fantasy/scifi (really? garden of eden again?) but every.single.word? Why dashes rather than [something else]

So, tonight, I’m taking the second night off, although I did read a bit of the forums and I did post something about more literal interpretations and that there are many possible interpretations, eh?

Sometimes the sky is just the wonderful overarching wonderful blue sky.

The light is too bright
leaving nothing to a chance
so I close my eyes.

and for Kristin:

Dost thou write poems?
Iambic pentameter?
Or succinct haiku?

I found what I was looking for, right where it should have been for a change! This stuff is all online too, for Modern & Contemporary American Poetry.

Tonight I was trying not to watch the apparently teen-aged weather guy – weird up-do hair and a suit that didn’t look like he owned it… and as I tried not to stare at him and since I couldn’t begin to listen to him I stared at the weird weather map behind him.

There, right in the middle was:

You, Kapuskasing,
middle of the weather map.
Your town caught my eye.

why wouldn’t I want to go there?