Response to a Reading of Kevin Hart's Poetry

Kevin Hart is the head of the Religion/Philosophy Department at the University of Virginia. He has been writing poetry since he was 13 years old - The early stuff he dubbed a "crap." He also gave a brief life story about himself that I found very interesting. He grew up in England, and said he was not the smartest child. In fact, he was the bottom in all of his classes. His parents actually tried to take him out of school and put him in a trade. But when that too failed, he just struggled through school. Then, all of a sudden, there was a moment in his life, when he was thinking about a math problem, he suddenly became motivated to work. And when he applied himself to his work, he, and his teachers, found out that he was a brilliant man. The following year, he was at the top of his class, where he stayed, even throughout secondary school and at the university.

He read from a number of his books, but my favorite poems were a poem about a stone and making a rat. The poem about the stone was very interesting. The narrator was the rock, and the rock was describing his perspective on life. Since it was a rock in nature, Hart described beautiful scenery, that really made me think about the beautiful parts of nature. In contrast, the poem about making a rat was dark and even disgusting. He said he attempted to write this poem many times and almost gave up, but finished the poem after someone told him that he could not "make a rat."

Hart also read from his most recent book of poems titled Morning Knowledge, "The totally Virginia book." The reason why I bring the title of this book is because the story behind the title. Typically, we perceive morning as the beginning of the day, and evening at the end. But in the Bible, Angels learned about science, from God, in the evening, so science is known as evening knowledge. Then God created the Earth with all the animals. This creation blinded the Angels because God's love was (and is) so great. So this became known as morning knowledge. I just thought this was a very beautiful story and a great title for his book of creation.

There were two poems that struck me when he read them. The first is called "Inevitably Dark Bird." This is a poem about his father dying. Hart said he was having trouble describing his father's death, until one day, a "very ominous bird" came swooping down towards his face, brushing his ear as it flew by. Hart said he instantly thought of a poem, sat down, and wrote it in his notepad.

The second poem is titled, "My First Tie," which is about his father giving him, obviously, his first tie. Hart said he received this tie when he was 7 or 8, and it was all black. He said that when his father showed him how to tie it, he "felt like a grownup." Consequently, this poem is about a boy entering into adulthood.

At the end, someone asked how thorough Hart was with his revisions and he said that when he was younger, he used to make 40-50 drafts, but now that he's older, they are fewer in number. I thought this was interesting because it means that I have a lot more revisions to make before my poems are finished.

Ultimately, it was a great to listen to an experience poet read his works. Kevin Hart certainly has a gift for poetry with his descriptive metaphors and unique stories. However, the background stories for each poem really made the poems seem that much more special.

A Review of Alex Espinoza's Visit to Campus

Laura J. Persun
Dr. Miranda
English 204: Creative Writing: Poetry
4 April 2011

Commentary on Writer Alex Espinoza’s Visit to Washington and Lee University

On April 4th, esteemed Chicano/a writer Alex Espinoza read excerpts from his novel Still Water Saints in Washington and Lee University’s Northern Auditorium. Additionally, Espinoza discussed at length the challenges that low-income minorities face when attempting to receive an education. Espinoza, the youngest of eleven children, grew up in La Puente, a Los Angeles suburb. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Riverside, and obtained a Master’s degree from the University of California at Irvine in 2004. He overcame the overwhelming constraints placed upon him by his family, socioeconomic level, and skin color. Espinoza remains to date the only member of his family to attend college. His brothers, he states, work in dangerous factories with the sad satisfaction that they have accomplished what was expected of them.

Espinoza’s novel Still Water Saints focuses not on lofty ideals and beautiful people, but takes place in a gritty, greasy Chicano/a town. The protagonist, Nancy, receives a marriage proposal in the gas station while her fingertips are coated in nacho cheese and her fiancé’s knees are soaked in grease. A van full of suited prisoners cheers as she happily accepts her lover’s offer to marry her. Though the setting has neither flowers nor red brick, there is an inherent beauty to its filth, likely due to Espinoza’s loving descriptions. Espinoza writes about what he knows best, inspired by other Chicano/a writers such as Sandra Cisneros. He reminds us that great literature, unlike its classic stereotype, need not be about beautiful Victorian women or Roman heroes. Great literature is simply about people, average people, who breathe and feel and love.

YOU ARE INVITED

TO A POETRY READING

PRESENTED BY

Devin S. Cooper ‘11

As partial fulfillment of her minor in Creative Writing

Date: Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Location: Elrod Commons, Rm. 114

Time: 4:30pm

free & open to the public

Education 

- by Devin Cooper

You know before I met Daddy I couldn’t count higher than 10.
But when I met Daddy a year ago, I learned how to count up to 69…
Yup all the way to 69.

Then after I had learnt all those numbers,
Daddy put me on the track.
He said I would become a business woman!!
Can you believe that?!
I ain’t even had to go to school
 (Yeah fuck the eighth grade)

At 15, I became a business woman.
I had more tricks in my bag than the most famous porno star.
Daddy said I had diversified my stock…

I could be traded on Wall Street!
But being a business woman wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.
I ain’t make no money!
And Daddy turned real mean all a sudden when I didn’t make enough profit.

I told him I was leaving, going back to my mama.
He had the nerve to ask “What you gonna tell her? Mama I’m finished being a ‘ho?”
No! Imma tell her that I got an education…
I can count to 69 and I got my own business!
Then he says “Being a ‘ho ain’t no business.”

Well I guess he’s right,
Mama won’t like that I’m a ‘ho business woman
Well at least I got my education…right?

L - O - V - E

Poet Nikki Giovanni says: "Writing a good love poem is like being a good lover. You have to touch, taste, take your time to tell that this is real. The Supremes say You Can't Hurry Love and you can't fake it, either."

Love


She tries it on, like a dress.
She decides it doesn’t fit
and starts to take it off.
Her skin comes, too.

by Lola Haskins

This poem performs the difficult but amazing task of describing an abstract concept in very concrete, tactile terms. We know exactly what kind of love this is: something that started casually, something that she thought would be reversible, or temporary; something that literally gets under her skin, becomes part of her. To remove it is akin to skinning oneself.  Alive.

All in four lines!

Or check out how Billy Collins plays with clichés of love, then subverts them, twirls them around, and manages to sound romantic all at the same time:

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

-Billy Collins


Your assignment this week is to write a love poem using the following rules:

1. do not mention the word love
2. stay entirely in the concrete
3. surprise us - reject clichés
4. You may use any form you like (you can try a new form, like the Villanelle, or stick with one you've already tried; you can also use free verse).

The problem with love poems, of course, is that so many have been written that we have a whole array of predictable images, expectations, and symbols that accompany our thoughts about love poems. These rules are designed to kick you out of those ruts, force you to be original, and encourage your personal originality.

FREEWRITES:

Write down a list of random nouns:  rock, raspberry, window, chicken, footprint.  In your freewrite, start with [pick one]: 'Love is ____.'  Perhaps start with ‘rock.’  Remember how many different kinds of rocks there are, how many origins, colors, sizes, weight. Try to recall all the names you know for types of rock:  granite, marble, bedrock, chert, boulder, pebble, sandstone, pumice … remember that some rocks are alive with colonies of moss or lice or even animals. Remember that rocks have a smell, might make noises if hit or thrown, could taste of minerals, iron, grit, and have texture variations from ultrasmooth to pitted and cracked.  Go for 5 minutes. What is love? – but don't use the word love at all.

The second prompt was similar; pick one of your nouns, perhaps one that doesn’t appeal to you particularly, or one that sounds a bit bizarre.  Write about that object as if you were in love with it. What would it require from you to love a rock? What would your relationship with that rock be like? What kind of person would you be, or become?  How would you demonstrate your love? How would the rock love you back, or would it?  Again: stay concrete, sensory, tactile, as physically present as possible.

Here are two examples taken from freewrites I've done in the past (slightly touched up, still not finished poems yet):

Love is a Window

One of those old ones from colonial times, with wavery glass that distorts everything you view through it. When you try to open this window, to lift the sash, it sticks, goes up in little shudders and bursts of wood and flaky  old paint. The weights inside the side panels have long since broken, cords frayed or mouse-chewed. So you have to find a stick, or a book, or an old shoe, to hold the window open. Then of course, the window is too old to have a built-in screen, so you shove in, or finesse in, one of those expandable wooden-frame screens, hope no bugs get past, but know they will. Be realistic:  you are in for a sweltering, buggy, breezeless night with this window. It won't be pretty. The old wood might shove a splinter up your fingernail when you try to push it too far. The glass might crack if you yank too hard. Don't even think about trying to lock it shut in winter.  Stubborn?  Yes.  Low maintenance?  Only if you don’t want fresh air or security.  But remember this: that window has lots of character.  That cloudy eye has seen at least a century’s worth of history: rain, humidity, thunder and lightning that would break your heart.  They don’t make windows like that anymore.  Windows that refuse to shut out the world.

Loving a Footprint

You must love impermanence. It will appear suddenly, then become blurred, distorted, scuffed, gone. Other tracks will cover it up, obscure the fact of beloved shape. Only you will remember if it ever existed: the deep cup of the heel, long ridge of edge, delicate suggestion of an arch, five toes neat as peas. You must imagine all the rest: the muscular calf, sturdy knee, flexible hip.  The tender belly, lusty lungs, heart, shoulders, the intelligent eyes. Believe that it's all there, even when all you have is a spare and skinny footprint. Loving a footprint means loving travel. You must have a willingness to go, to move, head out, keep on. Hug the clay, sandy verges, muddy shoulders where you can follow that footprint with the eye, but  depend on your heart. Be observant. Make good guesses. Anticipate loss, disappearance at the edge of streams. Loving a footprint forces you to rush things.. Remember those ancient human footprints in lava, hardened over millennia? We can't all be so lucky.

A third way to approach this assignment is to think about hearts. How do poets describe hearts in love, hearts surviving loss of love, hearts trying to bear grief? If hearts could speak for themselves, what would they say? Here are a few examples:


This is My Heart

This is my heart. It is a good heart.
Bones and a membrane of mist and fire
are the woven cover.
When we make love in the flower world
my heart is close enough to sing
to yours in a language that has no use f
or clumsy human words.

My head, is a good head, but it is a hard head
and it whirrs inside with a swarm of worries.
What is the source of this singing, it asks
and if there is a source why can’t I see it
right here, right now
as real as these hands hammering
the world together
with nails and sinew?

This is my soul. It is a good soul.
It tells me, “Come here forgetful one.”
And we sit together with lilt of small winds
who rattle the scrub oak.
We cook a little something to eat, then a sip
of something sweet, for memory.

This is my song. It is a good song.
It walked forever the border of fire and water
Climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you.
Its new wings quiver with
vulnerability.

Come lie next to me, says my heart.
Put your head here.
It is a good thing, says my soul.

- Joy Harjo


Mongrel Heart

by David Baker

Up the dog bounds to the window, baying
like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds
from the belly, as if mourning a dead king,

and now he’s howling like a beagle – yips, brays,
gagging growls – and scratching the sill paintless,
that’s how much he’s missed you, the two of you,

both of you, mother and daughter, my wife
and child. All week he’s curled at my feet,
warming himself and me watching more TV,

or wandered the lonely rooms, my dog shadow,
who like a poodle now hops, amped-up windup
maniac yo-yo with matted curls and snot nose

smearing the panes, having heard another car
like yours taking its grinding turn down
our block, or a school bus, or bird-squawk,

that’s how much he’s missed you, good dog,
companion dog, dog-of-all-types, most excellent dog
I told you once and for all we should never get.


Little Clown, My Heart

- Sandra Cisneros

Little clown, my heart,
Spangled again and lopsided,
Handstands and Peking pirouettes,
Back flips snapping open like
A carpenter's hinged ruler,
Little gimp-footed hurray,
Paper parasol of pleasures,
Fleshy undertongue of sorrows,
Sweet potato plant of my addictions,
Acapulco cliff-diver corazon,
Fine as an obsidian dagger,
Alley-oop and here we go
Into the froth, my life,
Into the flames!


Heart, My Lovely Hobo
- Sandra Cisneros

Heart, my lovely hobo, you
remember, then, that afternoon in Venice
when all the pigeons rose flooding the piazza
like a vaulted ceiling. That was you
and you alone who grinned.

Fat as an oyster,
pulpy as a plum,
raw, exposed, naïve,
dumb. As if love
could be curbed, and grace
could save you from the daily beatings.

Those blue jewels of flowers in the arbor
that the bees loved. Oh, there’ll be other
flowers, a cat maybe beside the bougainvillea,
a little boat with flags glittering in the harbor
to make you laugh,
to make you spiral once more.
Not this throbbing.
This.

Heart
By Margaret Atwood

Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart.
It was either that or the soul.
The hard part is getting the damn thing out.
A kind of twisting motion, like shucking an oyster,
your spine a wrist,
and then, hup! it's in your mouth.
You turn yourself partially inside out
like a sea anemone coughing a pebble.
There's a broken plop, the racket
of fish guts into a pail,
and there it is, a huge glistening deep-red clot
of the still-alive past, whole on the plate.
It gets passed around. It's slippery. It gets dropped,
but also tasted. Too coarse, says one. Too salty.
Too sour, says another, making a face.
Each one is an instant gourmet,
and you stand listening to all this
in the corner, like a newly hired waiter,
your diffident, skilful hand on the wound hidden
deep in your shirt and chest,
shyly, heartless. 

Heart to Heart

- by Rita Dove

It's neither red

nor sweet.

It doesn't melt

or turn over,

break or harden,

so it can't feel

pain,

yearning,

regret.

It doesn't have

a tip to spin on,

it isn't even

shapely—

just a thick clutch

of muscle,

lopsided,

mute. Still,

I feel it inside

its cage sounding

a dull tattoo:

I want, I want—

but I can't open it:

there's no key.

I can't wear it

on my sleeve,

or tell you from

the bottom of it

how I feel. Here,

it's all yours, now—

but you'll have

to take me,

too.

The Laughing Heart

- by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

The Human Heart
- by Campbell McGrath

We construct it from tin and ambergris and clay,
ochre, graph paper, a funnel
of ghosts, whirlpool
in a downspout full of midsummer rain.
It is, for all its freedom and obstinence,
an artifact of human agency
in its maverick intricacy
its chaos reflected in earthly circumstance,
its appetites mirrored by a hungry world
like the lights of the casino
in the coyote’s eye. Old
as the odor of almonds in the hills around Solano,
filigreed and chancelled with the flavor of blood oranges,
fashioned from moonlight,
yarn, nacre, cordite,
shaped and assembled valve by valve, flange by flange,
and finished with the carnal fire of interstellar dust.
We build the human heart
and lock it in its chest
and hope that what we have made can save us.


Finally, in the following poem ("Broke"), I try to write about the hearts of people I know and love, people who seem to always get a raw deal, people who never seem to love wisely or get a good start on healthy relationships. Of course, I imagine myself as one of those hearts, at least in the moment of conceiving the poem, and create a community of other "broke" hearts to keep myself company. I play off the way "broke" also means "penniless" and "poor" also means living in poverty. If love were money, I wonder, how would we describe being broken-hearted? Is love a kind of currency that some of us will always be perpetually short of? Concrete imagery was the key to exploring those ideas.

Broke
 - Deborah Miranda

Poor hearts rattle paper cups on the sidewalk,
earn rent limping in three-inch stilettos,

burn holes in their pockets with unrequited love.
Poor hearts slouch in the unemployment line every month,

have more lust than sense, believe tenderness
is the root of all evil. Poor hearts

support someone else’s illegal habit,
post bail for an unfaithful lover,

squander their savings on get-love-quick schemes in Florida.
They lose their shirts when the bubble bursts,

fall for counterfeit affections, don’t have
no change for the lonely bus home.

Poor hearts love under the table all their lives,
operate on the barter system, pray for fair trade,

believe if you love hard enough …
Poor hearts can’t budget for the long haul,

get lunch at St. Leo’s kitchen, recycle
the same cheap passion till it’s threadbare.

Poor hearts do the loving no one else wants to do,
avoid the dentist till the tooth’s rotted out,

moonlight with coyotes to make ends meet.
Poor hearts flutter so thin and faded

they just need to be taken
out of circulation altogether -

set fire, burned right
down to newborn ash.