zumpoems

Boy, do I enjoy the act of writing! Is it about capturing thoughts in a more impermeable form than memory? Or is it about the psychological and mental benefits provided by diving deeper into one’s feelings and perspectives and articulating, whether well or poorly, those feelings and perspectives?

And I love reading. For one is exposed to another’s thoughts, feelings, and perspectives, whether it is reading an email or letter from a friend or engaging with the writing of a familiar author or a complete stranger.

I love diving into others’ WordPress blogs. All I have to do is click on the WordPress reader, and I have a selection of blogs I subscribe to or can explore blogs I have never seen before.

As a reader of poetry, I particularly enjoy exploring posts that have been tagged with “Free Verse,” “Poetry,” or “Poem.” Some are well crafted, some are wild and sprawling, but most are interesting, and many have a level of vitality that is often missing in much of the poetry in curated journals.

I could easily list a dozen WordPress poetry blogs that I enjoy visiting. Let’s just take a peek at my favorite tag: https://wordpress.com/tag/free-verse. And what do I see at the top, posted 15 minutes ago — one of my favorite blogs, Ink & rain! As I open today’s post, I first see one of those many wonderful images that appear reliably at the top of each of author Meiling Cheung‘s posts, followed by text in Chinese and English. Now I have no clue how to read Chinese, so I focus on the English column. Today’s poem is exceptional: it uses a sustained metaphor with each phase serving a specific purpose to support the author’s message. The line breaks are well handled, and the tone it sets, gentle and meditative, perfectly echoes its message. There is an overall emotional immediacy and authenticity, which further enhances the evocative and reflective nature of the work.

Besides reading WordPress poems, I visit various online poetry journals (a partial list of which is here), and so right now, let me check my email to see the latest updates.

Okay, here I have an email from Stick Figure Poetry. I click on the URL to Issue 22, and I immediately find an engaging, inventive poem: Analysis by Tim Love. And it starts off strong:

“Only opaque backings stop mirrors being windows,
and windows can be mirrors if on one side it’s bright 
as an interrogation room while the other’s in darkness.
So think of glass as your poems, and light as reason.”

Such a simple observation, but here is the vehicle for the journey this poem takes us on. No need to be bored with my commentary — just check out the poem here: https://stickfigurepoetry.com/issue-22/#analysis-love

Next, I stop at Shō Poetry Journal and discover a talented poet who has landed poems in prestigious journals like The Kenyon Review and is a winner of several prestigious prizes. Both the text of her poem and the audio are here: https://shopoetryjournal.com/xinyue-huang-occasion-1/

Here is the beginning:

“there is a hole in my chest
through which we drive our car

to the other side of the world
to see the mountains”

With the first glance of this poem, I notice a more or less generic title, no punctuation, no capitalization, regular use of stanzas, reference to a line in Chinese, “万山载雪，明月薄之，月不能光，雪皆呆白,” which I use Google Translate to give me an approximation in English, “Snow blankets the myriad peaks, and the bright moon casts its light upon them; yet the moon cannot make them shine, and the snow remains a dull, lifeless white, ” and, with the exception of the Chinese insert, the use of an accessible, straightforward vocabulary. The work effectively mixes abstractions and images, the modern and the timeless, into a beautifully evocative poem!

Then, I jump into a Wallace Stevens poem, a set of which, from his 1923 Harmonium, is conveniently provided here by The Wallace Stevens Society: https://wallacestevens.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/HARMONIUM-1923-WALLACE-STEVENS.pdf

I am not particularly fond of that overly common activity of ranking authors, composers, painters, etc. — each has their distinct voice (or voices) and strengths. Still, it is easy enough to make the case that America should consider itself proud to have been the birthplace and home of such a great poet as Wallace Stevens!

So I have a lot to keep me happy and engaged with a breadth of diversity and styles never available before the launch and development of the internet. Please join me in exploring blogs, poetry journals, and the works of revered poets at your own pace, taking your own individual, self-customized journeys.