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Yoga Poem #8
Ill, I've had to be away from yoga.
It's like it's something over there now:
miles away. Hey, yoga! Ironically,
yoga's here. It's my body. Nothing
mystical about that, just fact. Yoga
is one's body doing yoga.
So when I yearn for yoga,
I'm really yearning for my body,
which is here, which is odd.
I'm yearning for my body to
behave in a certain way. After
I get well, I'm going to take my body,
which is yoga, to yoga.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Jim Holt on Memorizing Poetry
I just ran across a piece by Jim Holt (from April 2009) in the NY TIMES about memorizing poetry:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/books/review/Holt-t.html
It is indeed nice to have at least a few poems up there in the noggin. (Now I have to investigate the etymology of noggin.) If you're stuck in line or in a waiting-room, for instance, it's nice to withdraw to the pantry and take a poem off the shelf.
Aside from childrens' rhymes, "Stopping By Woods . . ." (by Frost, of course) was the first poem I memorized. We were asked to memorize it in the third grade, back when Frost was something of THE national poet. It's actually a bit of a tricky poem because of that wonderful interlocking rhyme-scheme, although I didn't notice that til later. I think I liked the poem in part because there we were at 4,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Images about snow, the woods, and the dark--and even horses--were familiar to us. Frost's choice simply to repeat a line at the end is one of those simple but perfect moves that helps make a good poem great. It "seals" the poem, it reinforces a sense of weary duty, and it just sounds great, like a blues refrain.
Anyway, thanks to Mr. Holt for the essay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/books/review/Holt-t.html
It is indeed nice to have at least a few poems up there in the noggin. (Now I have to investigate the etymology of noggin.) If you're stuck in line or in a waiting-room, for instance, it's nice to withdraw to the pantry and take a poem off the shelf.
Aside from childrens' rhymes, "Stopping By Woods . . ." (by Frost, of course) was the first poem I memorized. We were asked to memorize it in the third grade, back when Frost was something of THE national poet. It's actually a bit of a tricky poem because of that wonderful interlocking rhyme-scheme, although I didn't notice that til later. I think I liked the poem in part because there we were at 4,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Images about snow, the woods, and the dark--and even horses--were familiar to us. Frost's choice simply to repeat a line at the end is one of those simple but perfect moves that helps make a good poem great. It "seals" the poem, it reinforces a sense of weary duty, and it just sounds great, like a blues refrain.
Anyway, thanks to Mr. Holt for the essay.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Know/Don't Know
*
&
*
&
Know/Don't Know
I know
pretty much what you know
but I
also don't know anything like
you know
about the specific secret flow
of your
life--the essential realities of what you
and only
you can know. So here we are, same frame
of references
but different essences.
How do
you do? You may say how
you do
but also cannot come close to
saying how
and what you do, how precisely it is to
be you,
to me. Still we must proceed with introductions.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
&
*
&
Know/Don't Know
I know
pretty much what you know
but I
also don't know anything like
you know
about the specific secret flow
of your
life--the essential realities of what you
and only
you can know. So here we are, same frame
of references
but different essences.
How do
you do? You may say how
you do
but also cannot come close to
saying how
and what you do, how precisely it is to
be you,
to me. Still we must proceed with introductions.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Yoga Poem #7
^
()
/
{
Yoga Poem #7
Among the willows
beside
the creek I am a
boulder.
Yoga Creek flows.
Willows,
full of its water,
flex.
They bow, stretch.
Hey,
the boulder participates
in
its own way. Its
molecules
expand, contract.
(Sigh).
The boulder's mat
envies
the willows' mats,
but
the boulder is
fine
with being a rock among
willows.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
()
/
{
Yoga Poem #7
Among the willows
beside
the creek I am a
boulder.
Yoga Creek flows.
Willows,
full of its water,
flex.
They bow, stretch.
Hey,
the boulder participates
in
its own way. Its
molecules
expand, contract.
(Sigh).
The boulder's mat
envies
the willows' mats,
but
the boulder is
fine
with being a rock among
willows.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Just Ray
(
)
(
)
We'd Say That's Just Ray
He built up a furniture-store in Sacramento,
made enough to have a summer Sierra home.
This was back when families owned such stores,
before meta-corporations rolled over them
with container-shipments, volume, capital, etc.
Ray's employees embezzled. The business
collapsed. A proud man defeated. Nobody
doesn't lose. We're told differently ("you can
be whatever you want") because it's good for
business. Yep, Ray was his name. A good man
as far as we could tell, our ages ranging from 6 to
15. We had to furnish a tree fort, and one of us,
not me, put a garter snake down Ray's daughter's
shirt one summer when she was climbing up.
Laurel was her name. Tough. She told her
mother to shut up. This was before the thieves
wrecked Ray. If he were alive today,
he'd say something sober and true about success.
We'd probably humor him and say, after he'd left,
"Oh, that's just Ray."
Copyright 2011 Ostrom
)
(
)
We'd Say That's Just Ray
He built up a furniture-store in Sacramento,
made enough to have a summer Sierra home.
This was back when families owned such stores,
before meta-corporations rolled over them
with container-shipments, volume, capital, etc.
Ray's employees embezzled. The business
collapsed. A proud man defeated. Nobody
doesn't lose. We're told differently ("you can
be whatever you want") because it's good for
business. Yep, Ray was his name. A good man
as far as we could tell, our ages ranging from 6 to
15. We had to furnish a tree fort, and one of us,
not me, put a garter snake down Ray's daughter's
shirt one summer when she was climbing up.
Laurel was her name. Tough. She told her
mother to shut up. This was before the thieves
wrecked Ray. If he were alive today,
he'd say something sober and true about success.
We'd probably humor him and say, after he'd left,
"Oh, that's just Ray."
Copyright 2011 Ostrom
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments in books are a genre unto itself, with sub-genres like the academic-book kind, the poetry-boo kind, even the textbook kind. Some are a bit grudging, as if the author hates thanking anybody. Some are expansive, even excessive--the author as darned excited. You can bet that the spouse and the agent (if the author has either or both) get thanked.
Anyway, I decided to play around with this in a poem.
Acknowledgements
First, I must express my gratitude
to Ladislaw Kruplizard for allowing me
to borrow his twenty-volume treatise
on Viking axes. Elliot Logbottom, Ezra
Liverdust, Diana Glutenate, and Myron
Timitomi all glanced at drafts of the manuscript
and rolled their eyes. I thank them, and I have
a long memory. Mao Lee Williams, Fidel
Du Pont, and Tami Bumble let me camp
in their backyards and fight raccoons
for garbage. No, really; thanks. To
the janitor at the Newton Figg Libary of
Fascinating Items, my thanks for letting
me in the back way, and mum's the word.
Finally, there are no words to express
adequate gratitude to my former wife,
Lady Esther Feastfoot, whose lawyers
destroyed my lawyers, thereby leaving
me with little to do but write this book.
Esther, the libel laws are on my side.
Anyway, I decided to play around with this in a poem.
Acknowledgements
First, I must express my gratitude
to Ladislaw Kruplizard for allowing me
to borrow his twenty-volume treatise
on Viking axes. Elliot Logbottom, Ezra
Liverdust, Diana Glutenate, and Myron
Timitomi all glanced at drafts of the manuscript
and rolled their eyes. I thank them, and I have
a long memory. Mao Lee Williams, Fidel
Du Pont, and Tami Bumble let me camp
in their backyards and fight raccoons
for garbage. No, really; thanks. To
the janitor at the Newton Figg Libary of
Fascinating Items, my thanks for letting
me in the back way, and mum's the word.
Finally, there are no words to express
adequate gratitude to my former wife,
Lady Esther Feastfoot, whose lawyers
destroyed my lawyers, thereby leaving
me with little to do but write this book.
Esther, the libel laws are on my side.
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