poet
Preparing for tomorrow’s class, I remembered this essay from 2012 posted on Books New Haven:
Why are people so afraid of poetry? That’s a question that’s been plaguing poet Amy Nawrocki, of Hamden. Now, with her new collection, Lune de Miel, being released in August, she talks …
Source: Is poetry too hard? Amy Nawrocki, Hamden poet, gives a resounding NO and explains why
Copies of Lune de Miel, which came out in 2012 can be purchased by clicking the tab: Purchase Signed Copies.
Many thanks to a little boy named Ezra (and his expert crocodile tears) and Mark Rothko for filling my time at AAA as I waited to get my new 44-year-old license. I have to admit that it felt a little awkward giving up on Lucretius, who got me through a registration renewal at the DMV last year. But Rothko’s The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art gave me encouragement:Â
“The Truth of Art is foremost. . . . This artistic conscience, which is composed of present reason and memory, this morality intrinsic to the generic logic of art itself, is inescapable” (“The Artist’s Dilemma,” chapter 1)
Thus, musings from Reconnaissance:
The Rothko Conundrum
—the Phillips Collection
1.
binary hypothesis
recognizable. a door
two mirrors. eight cauldrons
a house with its roof
green wishing away a marooned horizon
a blood puddle laying
on the upturned walkway
the puddle pretending a dance
the mirror between
2.
an upside-down paragraph
hapless bronze fire
waking the vertical
bottle glass wishing away a citrus horizon
unfinished books. the last pieces
of paper left on the floor
perpendicular mischief
3.
lost fish music. horizontal longing. orange and red on red
wishing away a missing horizon
lost in watertight cathedral windows
burdenless aches. plurality
the singular capture of loss
knowing or not knowing the ending
4.
the house next door
a second window, serenity
ochre hallelujahs caught
on the windowsill
kneeling inside emptiness
sore fences. twice pink horizon
where seraphs go
why envelopes open
quadrilaterally quiet
five times red
Generous Bruises
At the bank the teller catches me
counting on my fingers—the same feeling
I had chasing my sister’s bike down
the unpaved road. She would fall before
I could catch her. As the road curved
I was thinking how little I have
to rely on; I should run faster.
Caught in the act of failing, used up again
dwelling in those Hopper paintings
where nothing vacillates, nothing
is weak, and all the women wear black pumps.
Their isolation—so original, it makes them
efficient, but keeps them separate.
But consider this: a crystal’s structure
appears only when cracked. We experience
the same self when the I cracks
and our breath runs out. We earn
the favor of being by breaking
revealing a symmetry so generous it bleeds.
Watching a bruise heal from the inside out
it’s the color that matters:
never black nor blue, but shades of yellow
and one hundred degrees of plum.
A poem from Potato Eaters (2008 Finishing Line Press). Be grateful this Thanksgiving.
Portrait of a Girl and Boy on a Bus
She is seven, maybe eight; cords of brown hair
weave around her neck, weary of years.
Holding her brother’s hand
as loosely as a button off a winter coat,
she waits as he climbs the broad bus steps;
he doubles up on each, just missing a shoelace
undone and unraveling from each of his shoes.
A pair of red knit mittens connected by string
falls loose as her arm laces around his frame;
his hair, misshapenly cut, hides a blue bruise
behind his ear.
Protecting his six years,
how she glows—as if light winked
from under clouds, and cast a coral light around them.
If only sand coursed beneath their feet,
and starfish gleamed, the ones they’ve never seen
land-locked by this turbulent bus,
this unlucky globe.
An indirect homage to How to Eat by Thich Nhat Hanh, to mindfulness, and gratitude to wandering what if, here my the poem that appears as an introduction to A History of Connecticut Food. Indulge mindfully, whatever your indulgences may be.
Hunger
What if the egg
never cracked or the slick moon
of a spoon never borrowed broth
from the blackened kettle
to meet our lips?
What if the apple tree
never shook in a spring storm
or a mantle of snow
never foretold future greens
and silky yellows?
If the cook never tested the pie
or the famished traveler
never asked for seconds,
whose heart would break
with meringue’s collapse
or the steak’s charred crust
folding toward a knife edge?
How would we nourish
our labors if not with
the earth’s capacity to feed us
and the tongue’s aptitude
for savoring?
How would we find
our true selves, spice and all,
without plunging hands
into a mound of dough
or stealing a lick with sloppy fingers?
Who will butter our bread
if not the crepuscular calls
of hunger from which we have
happily never escaped?
October 8, 2016
Join me, Marilyn Nelson and Eric D. Lehman at Byrd’s Books in Bethel Connecticut for a Poetry and Fiction reading.
November 29, 2016
I’ll be reading at the Connecticut Forest and Park offices in Middlefield, CT at 7:00 p.m. This is the kick-off event and the inauguration of the trail’s new Poet Laureate David K. Leff. Joining David will be Connecticut Poet Laureate Rennie McQuilkin.
Happy Fall! Here’s a poem from Nomad’s End, published by Finishing Line Press. Purchase a personalized signed copy of the chapbook by clicking here . I’ll pick up the shipping!
Afternoon on the last day of September
begins with sun shifting across
the tiara of sky. The equinox has passed
and autumn carefully plots
her revenge against the vacancy of summer.
Bulbs await planting, else
the vernal daffodils won’t appear,
and soon the cascade of burnt orange leaves
will need raking. But for now
the lists of unaccomplished tasks
grow like unweeded sprouts
left to frolic in the dormant flower boxes.
Yet we are not entirely idle
and do our own plotting, opening
the screen door, filling the feeder.
Anticipating migration, it dangles
under the porch overhang, filled
with kernels for sparrows and squirrels.
When they exit for afternoon naps,
the feeder flutters in the soft breeze:
a mirror ball, a festival of white patches
kaleidoscoping in a living room lightshow.
The day continues shifting; soon
the dance of light will vanish
as surely as the frost will come,
purposeful in its vocation.
For the first assignment in Poetry 205, we listened as students shared a poem they loved or one that inspired, intrigued or interested them in some way. The assignment was to listen and jot down any word or phrase that struck your ear and then write a poem from the fragments. I had  a list of over a hundred phrases from poems and this is the end result:
Moon Birds
any gods
who dare to claim the sky
take sorrow
with open throats
leave chalk white arrows
and nothing more
A poem from Nomad’s End, published by Finishing Line Press, 2010.
Amateurs
What logic is in the spray of water
on our faces as the speed boat takes us to shore
in the late September evening. Our crew
moves along volcanic wreckage—a cast-iron skillet
melted and covering the land with a thick, black sheath.
Retracing Darwin’s steps, we encounter
marine iguanas creeping out of the tide
on inch-legs, sunning the skin of their necks,
as two wide winged albatrosses fence
with long beaks. As they dance, we search
for proof, follow footprints to the cliff
where the balloon-throated frigate bird blooms
in red love. We stumble upon two tortoises
mating in the forest under the ground cover
green and thick with storm-tossed debris.
They sing praise for 200 years of love. They know
what late-comers we are to this world, amateurs
attempting logic, dance, reproduction.
We’re just spectators, ruffling in the leaves,
horsing around, standing hitched
and still on this earth.
Five years ago about this time, Eric and I were on our way back from Scotland. We didn’t take in the entire West Highland Way on foot as planned, but our black sheep guides (all of them) deserve a whiskey toast.
To Leave Is One Thing
By the time we get back to Glasgow
the thistle has turned cottony
and the black sheep who has been our guide
rests quietly, dinned wheels and muddied
exterior, in the parking lot of Arnold Clark’s car hire.
On the Erskine Bridge, traffic stops
for a suicide, but we are not sad, not really.
To leave is one thing, to depart
without experience sewn into muscle and mind
would be too much.
The cabbie’s loud music turns into an opportunity.
As we approach the airport
we fill our minds of all that came before:
Central Station from the hotel window,
the Highlands materializing through the rain.
Stirling Castle and the cobbled way
toward Aberfeldy. Maple scarf marriage
and the Fortingall Yew. Haggis and scones,
bens, bogs, and roundabouts. Humming
Loch Lomond, and stealing Skye
from Clan Donald. Putting our feet down,
imagining there is no pain.
For nights to come we will dream of thistles.
Amy Nawrocki 