This 3rd chapter of the Desert(ed) Island Poems series has us leaving the east coast and heading for the west, to see which poems Fremantle-based poet Amanda Joy will take with her as she casts off in search of solitude.
Take The I Out – Sharon Olds
When I found Sharon Olds’ poetry I immersed myself in everything I could find by her. It seemed so brave, to use the narrative ‘I’. Which is all her poetry. This poem I return to again and again for it’s juxtapositions of hard to soft, intimate to public. It reminds me that the personal is always political, that the way to the heart is through the heart. I love the way I read it feeling as if I’m being dragged through homes and over steel girders and pine cones. As a poet my heart skips a little at “Take The I Out” I imagine “I” might predominate a little on a desert island.
Read the poem here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/take-the-i-out/
There is also a great article I read while searching for the link which is a bit nifty for poets to read http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5892
Digging it In – Dorothy Hewitt
This poem is a narrative that feels like home, to me. I love that I can hear the spade turning the soil. I love the way she traces the emotional ties we feel to our roots no matter how far we are/try to be, from them. There is no comfort or solace in this poem. It might remind me to plant some cress seeds I stashed in my pocket before the stranding.
Read the poem here:
http://jacketmagazine.com/12/hewett-3.html
“A” – Louis Zukofsky
I was introduced to this by my grandmother, but it was wordy and daunting as a teenager. When I returned to it a year or so ago I found myself carrying it everywhere reading and rereading it for the sheer pleasure and stimulus of it’s exquisitely crafted sounds and thoughtings. It pulses with rhythm and intellect you feel seeping into your being by some form of literary osmosis.
Found a link to a neat article by Charles Bernstein in Jacket:
http://jacketmagazine.com/30/z-bernstein.html
My Life By Water – Lorine Niedecker
I would bring this one for the sake of my sanity. I find so much more in this poem every time I read it. No word is wasted, the rhythm and syntax tight. Quietly, deliberately so much space is left between the words. I have always felt reading it her deep sense of responsibility to language and words. I like to turn each stanza over and over and admire it’s crafting from every angle.
Read the poem here:
http://www.lorineniedecker.org/poems.html
Rhythm Method – Yusef Komunyakaa
For the sublime thrill of it, over and over and over and over again. Whew! ( I’m assuming I’m alone on this island. )
Read the poem here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/rhythm_method.php
The Motive For Metaphor – Wallace Stevens
I read him quoted once as saying “The poem must resist the intelligence Almost successfully.” Tough call. There is always such a clear sense of the ungraspable in this poem. Through a strategic indirection, in the Romantic sense, the sublime. The resonance and blur of idea and obscurity, of mood and season.
Read the poem here:
http://www.cityintherain.com/poems/vitalx.html
Possibilities – Wislawa Szymborska
There is enormous generosity in this poem, within the exclusivity there is such open-armed inclusion. Deliciously simple, there is so much space for the reader to drag their own meanings in. It feels ‘wobbly’.I have always found in it a sombre absurdity. It makes me think harder about what comprises a poem.
Read the poem here:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1996/poems-4-e.html
Jagardoo – Jack Davis
I need to cheat here and say that I couldn’t pull a poem out of this book and hold it up on its own. I have a first edition hardcover which I would HAVE to take with me as a package. For all that wisdom contained. This book has stayed with me for years, I can’t imagine it ever ceasing to resonate loudly for me. It makes me listen more acutely to the world around me, hones my senses. Might even inspire me to get of my bum and start fashioning my raft from driftwood just to get home.
Words and the Diminution of All Things – Charles Wright
“The brief secrets are still here,
and the light has come back.
The word remember touches my hand,”
There are whole worlds I’ve never seen all wrapped up in ones I have, in this poem. I can unfurl it now and then for an entire panorama. Always good to pack a picnic of “small slices of silence” I’m sure all that sea sound and palm trees in the breeze gets raucous after a whiles.
Read the poem here:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16661
Poem Holding Its Heart in One Fist – Jane Hirschfield
Things that make the mouth water involuntarily, everyday, domestic things, nothing exotic. Simple things we touch and step on and around seemingly inconsequentially.
“The concealment plainly delights”
All the senses engaged in the reading, these quiet moments.. these poolings where the mind is stilled enough to listen. A wonderful meditation/mediation.
Read the poem here:
http://www.poetseers.org/contemporary_poets/jane_hirshfield/janep/poem_holding_its_heart_in_one_fist
About Amanda:
Amanda Joy is a poet, writer, installation artist and sculptor living and gardening in Fremantle Western Australia. She is the keeper of a dog called Love and has a great fascination for portals and conduits. She blogs her poetry semi regularly at her website www.littleglasspen.com and www.myspace.com/amanda_joy1970 Her work is included in numerous journals online and every now and then she pops out a little limited edition illustrated chapbook for those who ask nicely. A more sizeable binding of her wordage is gestating.
