Poetry Month

It comes in many forms, this poetry stuff. From risqué limericks to outre conceptual scribblings. Here’s a sample of a few things (the poetic and poetic-ish) that have recently floated my lyrical boat.

First, something appropriate for spring.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

—Ada Limón, 2017

Poetry in Motion

As poetry finds the universal in the particular, to get there from here, a dance theater piece by Maria Gillespie, Nguyễn Nguyên and Kevin Williamson, weaves three, very personal stories into a meditation on the nomadic journey from who we were to who we are. Presented last week at Daync Academy in Milwaukee, the piece is full of images and stories from past lives. Nguyên bears water using a yoke that suggests an agricultural past in his native Vietnam and later dances to a lullaby while the sounds of war ricochet through the space. Williamson tells a story of homophobic abuse from his childhood. Through movement, Gillespie evokes her roots in traditional Mexican culture and its confining gender norms.

Nguyễn Nguyên in *to get there from here.*

These coexist with images of tension and transformation. The trio begins in a tangled mass that suggests both struggle and generous codependence. A mound of dirt in the space becomes the setting for rebirth and discovery, and perhaps as a sacred place for burying stories that we want to leave behind.

Moving through this rich network of imagery, the three demonstrate superb skill as dancers. Their vocabulary is imaginative, the articulation crisp. It’s a dance of beautiful invention that is a thrill to watch.

The program also included Wild Tongue, a work in progress that is more an improvisatory structure than completed dance. Two overhead projectors turn the large studio wall into an evolving word salad that suggests ideas for individual phrases. At one point, Gillespie asks the audience for words that suggest tenderness, and then the trio turns them into individual gestures which are woven into a new dance piece. It’s playful and imaginative exploration the boundary between performers and audience.

Poetry of the Pitch

Soccer (um, I mean football) fans know that the UEFA Champions League is here, pitting the best teams in Europe in a single elimination tournament. True fans might also know about Ray Hudson, a former player and coach who has become a fixture on football broadcasts. Hudson joined CBS Sports in 2022 to cover the Champions League and American spots broadcasts will never be the same. I recently watched the match between PSG (Paris St. Germain) and Barcelona and was delighted to be treated to some of his imaginative poesy.

Describing a goal header delivered by Barcelona’s Andreas Christensen:

The danish international rises like a salmon out of a fresh summer stream to punch this one home….He peels away from his defender like the skin of a tangerine.

A goal by Barcelona’s Raphinha after fielding an impressively accurate over the shoulder pass from his teammate Pedri:

Is it clean? You’re damn right its clean, cleaner than Neutrogena. It’s a beautiful strike from Raphinha, and it's a difficult one as well. But chasing that pass, he is as focused as a hungry hog looking for his dinner.

Beat that Mr. Tennyson!

The Heat Is On.

Sumer is i-cumin in. So it’s time to think of warm weather pastimes and refreshments. Well, sure, gin and tonics, but also…

Ode to Kool-Aid

You turn the kitchen
tap’s metallic stream
into tropical drink,
extra sugar whirlpooling
to the pitcher-bottom
like gypsum sand.
Purplesaurus Rex, Roarin’
Rock-A-Dile Red, Ice Blue
Island Twist, Sharkleberry Fin;
on our tongues, each version
keeps a section, like tiles
on the elemental table.
In ninth grade, Sandra
employed a jug of Black Cherry
to dye her straightened
bangs burgundy.
When toddlers swallow you,
their top lips mustache in color
as if they’ve kissed paint.
The trendy folks can savor
all that imported mango nectar
and health-market juice.
We need factory-crafted packets,
unpronounceable ingredients,
a logo cute enough to hug,
a drink unnaturally sweet
so that, on the porch,
as summer sun recedes,
Granddad takes out his teeth
to make more mouth to admit you.

--Marcus Johnson, 2011

Tony Hoagland

Finally, a poem from one of my favorites. Wryly funny, with generous doses of both snark and heart.

At the Galleria Shopping Mall

Just past the bin of pastel baby socks and underwear,
there are some 49-dollar Chinese-made TVs;

one of them singing news about a far-off war,
one comparing the breast size of an actress from Hollywood

to the breast size of an actress from Bollywood.
And here is my niece Lucinda,

who is nine and a true daughter of Texas,
who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde

and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.
Today is the day she embarks upon her journey,

swinging a credit card like a scythe
through the meadows of golden merchandise.

Today is the day she stops looking at faces,
and starts assessing the labels of purses;

So let it begin. Let her be dipped in the dazzling bounty
and raised and wrung out again and again.

And let us watch.
As the gods in olden stories

turned mortals into laurel trees and crows
to teach them some kind of lesson,

so we were turned into American
to learn something about loneliness.

—Tony Hoagland, 2009

Have a great week.