counting down....

OK, who's ready?? April is National Poetry Month, but it's also National Jazz Appreciation Month!!! It's like the gods have spoken and declared April to be the month of AWESOME. I know, tax day is in there, too, but that's just to balance out April Fool's Day, and keep the attention where it belongs: on Poetry and Jazz.

So, I've had almost no suggestions as to what people want to have me write about, so you're all going to be left with whatever I can come up with. I'm not claiming it's going to be GOOD, just that it will be. But just to get us in the spirit, I'm going to share with you one of my favorites.

In the spring of 1999, I had a wonderful opportunity to hear a lecture given by then Poet Laureate of the U.S. Robert Pinsky. Mr. Pinsky illustrated poetry for me in a way I'd never heard, and ever since, I have found myself with a new appreciation for the art. He simply stated that poems are about sound. Even if you're reading to yourself, the voice you read with is letting a poem's sound ring in your ear. Each letter, syllable, punctuation mark and meter are heard internally, projected by the Voice. I never understood that principle until - oddly enough - hearing it said. And it made sense to me.

So, here is a work of Mr. Pinsky's that I hope you all enjoy. For those in the business of analyzing literature, I'm sure you'll find a lot in here to think on.

The Want Bone

The tongue of the waves tolled in the earth's bell.
Blue rippled and soaked in the fire of blue.
The dried mouthbones of a shark in the hot swale
Gaped on nothing but sand on either side.

The bone tasted of nothing and smelled of nothing,
A scalded toothless harp, uncrushed, unstrung.
The joined arcs made the shape of birth and craving
And the welded‑open shape kept mouthing O.

Ossified cords held the corners together
In groined spirals pleated like a summer dress.
But where was the limber grin, the gash of pleasure?
Infinitesimal mouths bore it away,

The beach scrubbed and etched and pickled it clean.
But O I love you it sings, my little my country
My food my parent my child I want you my own
My flower my fin my life my lightness my O.