In Place of Grandparents

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In Place of Grandparents


Through circumstances--an efficient, two-word
explanation--I had grandparents but knew none
of them. Two were dead before I lived; the
two living were near enough but not to be
encountered.  Like most children, I probably
could have benefited from that mild antidote
to parents--the grandparent.  In place of it,

I got some stories--what the dead ones had
been like, what filial fractures had made
the lives ones off-limits.  Narratives became
my grandparents: unusual, sure; not horrible.

I came to know of treacheries and betrayals,
primal scenes, the weather of resentment.
The stories of other people become key parts
of our own lives. That sounds something like
a grandparent might say.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Malthus Called

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Malthus Called


Malthus called today to say,
"I told you so."  Too much us,
not enough planet.  It doesn't
tale an algorithm to figure that.

I do such statistically insignificant
things as plant trees and direct
carbon dioxide their way. "This
way to the trees," I say to air.

I sealed the abode tightly
and now use those light-bulbs that
just sip electricity. None of this
will help, according to the message

left by Malthus. Theoretical doom
is no reason to give up. I called
Malthus back to tell him this, but
he was gone, back to the past.

Cardinal Newman answered
from the past instead. He asked,
"Have you tried prayer?" "Yes," I
said, "and it looks like a tree."

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

An Essay on the Principle of Population

Strange Time

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Strange Time


When I arrived at that place, words
and actions let me know I wasn't quite
what they wanted, had expected. Yes,
I'd been invited: a technicality.  I spent

some time at the party's edge. I was
following a line of exclusionary logic:
If unwanted, behave peripherally
and keep close watch on arbiters.

Later I moved toward the center,
began to perform so as to prove
they should indeed desire my presence.
You know how that sort of thing

goes. I went from ignored to resented.
Outside finally in night air alone, I told
another departing guest, "I had a
strange time in there. I'm glad I'm out."

"You're not alone," she said to
me, adding, "and by that of
course I mean you are alone.
Good night."  "Good night," I said.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Sounds Today

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Sounds Today


On the street, a man bounces a basketball.
The sound's not different from that of chopping
wood. It stops when he shoots the ball at a
hoop. The sound from this is something
like a dull bell in fog.  The man shouts--
he sounds like a seal. A car goes by

in a slow rush, air displaced largely.
The car's sound-system thumps--that
speakered pulse all of us are used to now.
The city's sounds fill in an audio backdrop.
That wood-chopping, basket-ball-on-
pavement sound continues. The man
is frenzied because the sun's out and

Winter's been so long this year. He's
furiously glad, pounds that gray pavement
with his orange, hand-held planet.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Only Dreaming

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Only Dreaming


In this wet city under gray today,
you'll sense how hard and wearily
so many people work. Could be
you'll grieve for grinding toil
demanded and surrendered. Or
maybe you won't have time to
feel much because you're working.

Later you'll get across the city
somehow as gray becomes night.
Inside where you live, you'll note
again how much you and your clothes
smell of the work you do. Now other
tasks await: to cook, to listen,
to worry, to count, to try to rest.
Only dreaming will seem effortless,
but that's dreaming, which is nothing.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Salvage Yard

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Salvage Yard

When I pass a salvage yard, everything
in it's dear  because it's something
crumpled, because it used to be
something designed and functional. Each
piece took some work to make and worked
for a while.  The yard as a whole presents
gnarled pyramids of contorted metal,
smeared rust, and broken tonnage.

I couldn't operate a salvage yard
because I'd want to keep the junk.
The yard's a tomb without a pharaoh,
an installation without a gallery. It's
a steel opera, a metal consequence,
a there. Flattened Cadillacs, pretzeled
I-beams, broken bridges, arrested
scrap: reusable, yes, bound for
a furnace hell. And beautiful--heaped
indiscriminately in mud.

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Salvage Yard Treasures of America

Two Poems By President Obama

Here is a link to two poems written by President Obama and published in 1981 in the Occidental College literary magainze:


Poems by Obama

The first one, about a father, reminds me a bit of Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz."

All Politicians Wear Makeup

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All Politicians Wear Make-Up


All politicians wear makeup because
cameras are their constituents. Actors
attempt politics because celebrity
has made them rulers of feudal
entourages. Pastors become actors
because they don't have faith that God
will fill the seats. Atheists become pastors
because they want to share the empty news.
Journalists become atheists because they
report on hell and no one seems especially
alarmed. Citizens become journalists
because journalism collapsed. Wisdom
becomes rare because so few seem
to have the patience for it. Information
replaces it.  People inhale fumes
of information, get high, gaze at their
screens, see politicians, all politicians
wearing makeup.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Cosmetics: Webster's Timeline History, 2007

Extra-Time

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Extra-Time

I know there's no next time, each time
being one time and one life, one life.
So the thing is to work up an extra-time:
one as-if, a single could-be, or a solitary
the-way-it-was.  Walk in summer
up to that old barn with its baked,
rough-milled, untreated boards that
smell so great and watch black
carpenter-bees fly into, out of, holes
that just fit their bodies, and feel the body,
yours, taut, and look and breathe
that one time as someone puts a glass jar
over a bee-hole, and the next bee out
knocks itself silly against glass but
recovers, and a Ford that isn't old
passes by--sound of radio from an open
window, sound of a busted, snarling
muffler.  And there, see, are tall green
weeds and sweet-pea vines. In comes
fresh air, just as easy as that, and in
your right front pocket is a folding
knife with traces of trout-guts on
its blade, fine dust, a small
piece of quartz, and coins--
the currency of this extra-time,
this one-time borrowed back.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom


The Carpenter Bee

President of the EU Writes Haiku

Herman Van Rompuy, from Belgium, is the President of the European Union, and he's just published a collection of haiku.

Here is a link to an article from Reuters online about Van Rompuy and the book.

New Book On Creative Writing

British writer and professor Graeme Harper has just published a new book about creative writing, aptly titled On Creative Writing.  A link:


On Creative Writing

Rae Armantrout Wins 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Here is a link to an article about Rae Armantrout's having won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in poetry:

Pulitzer

And a link to the book:


Versed (Wesleyan Poetry)

Recommended Writer: Wendy Perriam

Not long ago I read a novel by Wendy Perriam, Coupling.  It's terrific--one of those relatively rare fine novels about contemporary romance, sex, and love.  The book reminded me of D.H. Lawrence's writing--with the crucial addition of subtlety, and with the addition of a more complex understanding of how people behave.  There is more than a little humor as well, and the protagonist is someone you're glad to follow through a narrative.  In a sense Perriam takes the venerable sub-genre of "novel of manners" and applies it deftly to our times.

Perriam is a British author of 14 novels and several short-story collections:  She's also a professor.

Here is a link to her site:

Wendy Perriam

And here is a link to an article about her, her writing, a short story collection, and her experience with an awful personal loss:

Article on Perriam

And a link to Coupling (although there is a paperback edition as well):

Coupling

A Writer of Parables

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A Writer of Parables


Once there was a writer of parables
who aimed to treat his readers'
maladies with narrative caplets
of wisdom. Almost no one read
his parables, for almost no one
read, and those who did read
had many reading choices. The few
who read his parables didn't know
the parables were meant instructively
to heal. They liked the parables,
however, because they were short
and crisp like chopped stalks
of celery. There was the parable
of the blind fashion-photographer;
of the return of the responsible
daughter; of the man who would play
only a rented harp; and so on.
Finally the writer of parables wrote
himself into a parable. He dissolved
into a little bit of his own home-made
wisdom and entered the bloodstream
of culture, completely absorbed.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

New Book By Robert Sheppard

Here is a link to a new book by British poet Robert Sheppard, Warrant Error.

New Book By Stephen Bess

Here's a link to a new book by Stephen Bess, Liquid Lunch: Blues-Inspired Poems; Bess lives in Washington D.C.

Barker's Sonnet to His Mother

When I began to study poetry as an undergraduate, one of the first poems I encountered was George Barker's sonnet, "To My Mother."  Here 'tis:


To My Mother

by George Barker

Most near, most dear, most loved, and most far,
Under the huge window where I often found her
Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter,
Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand,
Irresistible as Rabelais but most tender for
The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her,—
She is a procession no one can follow after
But be like a little dog following a brass band.

She will not glance up at the bomber or condescend
To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar,
But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain
Whom only faith can move, and so I send
O all her faith and all my love to tell her
That she will move from mourning into morning.

Among My Favorites: Philip Larkin

British poet and librarian Philip Larkin's work is among my favorite.  He possessed a distinctive lyric gift, a sometimes droll, sometimes bleak view of modern life, the city, urban isolation, and a considerable sense of humor.  Probably his most famous poem is "This Be The Verse," which can probably be found online (I haven't looked).  As with Dickinson, it's difficult to pick favorites, but "High Windows" and "Home Is So Sad" certainly stand out.  The best thing to do is to rummage through is collected poems, though.  A link to that book:


Collected Poems, by Philip Larkin

And a link to the Philip Larkin Society::

http://www.philiplarkin.com/

Among My Favorites: Alan Dugan

Alan Dugan (1923-2003) remains one of my favorite poets.  His work earned him a Yale Younger Poet award and a Pulitzer Prize.  His poems tend to be quick and terse--bursts of direct first-person utterance; they're very smart but also accessible.  One of my favorites by him is "Love Song: I and Thou," which in part concerns trying to build a new house.  There is also a poem about an new bridge that is actually an old bridge.

Dugan titled his books simply Poems, Poems 2, Poems 3, and so on--up to 7, which is a collected poems edition.

A link to more information about Dugan.

Among My Favorites: James Cervantes

. . . And in another National Poetry Month episode of "Among My Favorites," I'll note  that James Cervantes, professor and poet, is among my favorites.  Here is a link to his site, which includes some terrific poems:

James Cervantes

And here is a link to a book:

Temporary Meaning: Poems, by James Cerantes