Poetry Friday–Ars Poetica & Monarchs

Happy Poetry Friday! I went to a poetry workshop last week on Ars Poetica at the Poetry Foundation. I think this is the first of many Ars Poetica poems that I may write.

 

ARS POETICA #1

Words crawl out from nowhere or somewhere
images begin to form or not–

Voice vacillates seeking its venue,
     found
                    space
                                   takes a

                                     place …                     

                        Structure might

                          Interrupt–   

                                    But,

Voice returns self-assured or questioning,
as if a mountain could speak–what if it can?

What would it say …
“Follow your passion–” Listen to that mountain speak–

              Listen to Nature–Mother Nature,
                           and Poetry, ask them questions

then listen with your mouth
              speak with your ears

                             paint words whatever way you can
               on whatever you can find

                                           music moves cultures
                paper-thin-poetry can move cultural barriers

Come–Now–Voice, no Boomeranging
                                  no Balderdashing

Sing–sweet as a child’s piercing cry
            Move–sure as tsunami’s destructive path

Carry–silent as a thunderstorm
            Resound–willful as a fighter’s last breath

                              ensure monarch’s next flight
                                            a small wing of humanity  

                                                           moves forward
                                                                        forever, forward
                                                                                     Wings of
                                                                                         Words.

© 2018 Michelle Kogan

You can  read more about Ars Poetica here. I also found a few other Ars Poetica poems to share.

ART CLASS
By James Galvin

Let us begin with a simple line,
Drawn as a child would draw it,
To indicate the horizon,

More real than the real horizon,
Which is less than line,
Which is visible abstraction, a ratio.

The line ravishes the page with implications
Of white earth, white sky!

The horizon moves as we move,
Making us feel central.
But the horizon is an empty shell—

Read the rest of the poem here.

WHAT HE THOUGHT
By Heather McHugh

For Fabbio Doplicher

We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does “flat drink” mean? and the mysterious
“cheap date” (no explanation lessened
this one’s mystery). Among Italian writers we

could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib. And there was one
administrator (The Conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone
narrated sights and histories
the hired van hauled us past.
Of all he was most politic–
and least poetic– so
it seemed. Our last
few days in Rome
I found a book of poems this
unprepossessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he’d recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom
he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn’t
read Italian either, so I put the book
back in the wardrobe’s dark. We last Americans

were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked

“What’s poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables
and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori

Read the rest of her poem here.

ARS POETIC
by Rita Dove

Thirty miles to the only decent restaurant
was nothing, a blink
in the long dull stare of Wyoming.
Halfway there the unknown but terribly
important essayist yelled Stop!
I wanna be in this;
and walked fifteen yards onto the land
before sky bore down and he came running,
crying Jesus–there’s nothing out there!

Read the rest of her poem here.

 

Rebecca Herzog at her blog Sloth Reads is hosting this weeks Poetry Friday Roundup, thanks Rebecca! Be sure to stop by her blog for more poetry!