“birds sing sweeter than books tell how,” says e.e. cummings. And though he may be right, there is little will stop the poet from trying to write it down anyway.
Pablo Neruda, poeta y diplomático chileno. Su poesía abarcó el ámbito político y formó parte del “ataque literario” contra Hitler, por lo que le fue otorgado el Premio Stalin de la Paz.
Deber del poeta
A quien no escucha el mar en este viernes
por la mañana, a quien adentro de algo
casa, oficina, fábrica o mujer,
o calle o mina o seco calabozo:
a éste yo acudo y sin hablar ni ver
llego y abro la puerta del encierro
y un sin fin se oye vago en la insistencia,
un largo trueno roto se encadena
al peso del planeta y de la espuma,
surgen los ríos roncos del océano,
vibra veloz en su rosal la estrella
y el mar palpita, muere y continúa
Así por el destino conducido
debo sin tregua oír y conservar
el lamento marino en mi conciencia,
debo sentir el golpe de agua dura
y recogerlo en una taza eterna
para que donde esté el encarcelado,
donde sufra el castigo del otoño
yo esté presente con una ola errante,
yo cirucule a través de las ventanas
y al oírme levante la mirada
diciendo: cómo me acercaré al océano?
Y yo trasmitiré sin decir nada
los ecos estrellados de la ola,
un quebranto de espuma y arenales,
un susurro de sal que se retira,
el grito gris del ave de la costa.
Y así, por mí, la libertad y el mar
responderán al corazón oscuro.
Bukowski (prolific drinker, writer, womanizer) wrote this poet, a far less beautiful account on poetry:
this poet he’
d been drink
ing 2 or 3 da
ys and he wa
lked out on t
he stage and
looked at th
at audience
and he just k
new he was
going to do i
t. there was
a grand pian
o on stage a
nd he walke
d over and li
fted the lid a
nd vomited i
nside the pia
no. then he c
losed the lid
and gave his
reading.
they had to r
emove the st
rings from t
he piano and
wash out the
insides and r
estring it.
I can unders
tand why th
ey never invi
ted him bac
k. but to pas
s the word o
n to other un
iversities tha
t he was a
poet who lik
ed to vomit i
nto grand pi
anos was un
fair.
they never c
onsidered th
e quality of
his reading.
I know this
poet: he’s ju
st like the re
st of us: he’l
l vomit anyw
here for mon
ey.
that little thing is the gift a “slam-ish” piece answering the question of “why write?” mayda del valle performs poetry with passion and grace. and to my knowledge… no hurling in pianos, so go ahead and book this poetess.
The Trouble With Poetry by Billy Collins, who will not be blessed with a bio in this post because he already got one here.
The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night –
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky –
the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.
And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,
and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.
Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.
But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.
And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.
And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti –
to be perfectly honest for a moment –
the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.
Ok. And that’s all for now!
