I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster

This poem is one of my favorite life-mantras. We've all had that moment when we realize, immediately after walking out the door, that our keys are still inside. For just those times, I've been trying to memorize this poem--and others--so I can recall these words when I'm uncontrollably flustered and can't seem to accept that shit happens.

I also like how this poem turns at the beginning of the last stanza. Losing is one thing when we're talking about a watch, or even a house. But we let people go, too, and often with a cold nonchalance better left to keys. Why is it that with lost objects we feel as if the world is crashing down around us, but with people, we just let them go?

Finally, there's Bishop's interjection in the last line. Sometimes I'm not sure I like it, but it has to be there; it makes the poem. Writing really is the salvation.

Posting this poem seemed especially fitting now, when I am in constant flux--always staying, going, leaving, losing.

One Art

--Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

of emptiness, of fullness perfectly contained

One week into The Post and I’m already behind. Insert comment on Miriam-lateness here.

Ok, here’s a real-life conversation from last week…

Me: I was supposed to be born in mid-October, so I was a few days early.

Allison: You? Early?! I guess it happened that one time aaaand it’s never happened since! (buh dum chh)

I didn’t post on Monday, as promised, because I was sick and still went to work. Bad move. I’m paying for it now. I dragged myself to a clinic this afternoon to find out what's wrong (I've been sick three times in four weeks; turns out I have a sinus infection and an ear infection) and then I went on a quest for the ultimate medicine: Matzah ball soup.

Whenever I'm sick, all I want is chicken soup. My dad sent me a bunch of Hanukkah presents last month, including a gift card for a delicatessen in Tenleytown, so I managed to get carry-out today. I cashed in big-time--two containers of matzah ball soup, a turkey melt, an everything bagel, blintzes, rugelach, and a Dr. Brown’s cream soda. Now I have enough food to last me through the weekend--and hopefully through this illness.

So my question for you is: What are your favorite comfort foods??! And why? (This seems like the kind of question my roommate would like. She's moving out tomorrow and it’s going to get lonely around here!!)

My comfort foods are:

*Mom’s chicken soup with acini di pepe

*Mom’s polenta with spicy Italian sausage

*Mom’s roast beef and mashed potatoes

*Mom’s cornbread and Irish soda bread

*Mom’s oatmeal (notice a trend here?)

*Chinese food--onion pancakes, rou chuan, guan guan mien from Tai Dong, etc.

*And of course, kreplach or matzah ball soup

Comfort foods remind us of where we're from... So what are your favorites?

This poem has been one of my favorites since Mrs. Greenbaum’s Advanced Writing class senior year. It was a great class--probably my favorite at Groves. We wrote a lot. We read a lot--both poetry and prose--and I knew I loved Mrs. Greenbaum when we read a short story by Charlie Baxter, who was my mom’s professor in college. Emily, Caitlyn, Kate, and I were in the class together, which gives me the warm fuzzies because Caitlyn and I had brunch in Woodley last week, and almost exactly a year ago, Emily and I were in Southeast Asia.

I like the simplicity of this poem and how everyday it is--like a snapshot out of Alan Dugan’s life. It makes me think of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and of being in New York--one of the places I'm from, in a way.

And most of all, as a perpetually-late Libra, I like the imperfect metaphor of perfect balance.

Closing Time at the Second Avenue Deli
--Alan Dugan
This is the time of night at the delicatessen
when the manager is balancing
a nearly empty ketchup bottle
upside-down on a nearly full ketchup bottle
and spreading his hands slowly away
from the perfect balance like shall I say
a priest blessing the balance, the achievement
of perfect emptiness, of perfect fullness? No,
this is a kosher delicatessen. The manager
is not like. He is not like a priest,
he is not even like a rabbi, he
is not like anyone else except the manager
as he turns to watch the waitress
discussing the lamb stew with my wife,
how most people eat the whole thing,
they don’t take it home in a container,
as she mops up the tables, as the
cashier shall I say balances out? No. The computer does all that. This
is not the time for metaphors. This is the time
to turn out the lights, and yes,
imagine it, those two ketchup bottles
will stand there all night long
as acrobatic metaphors of balance,
of emptiness, of fullness perfectly contained,
of any metaphor you wish unless
the manager snaps his fingers at the door,
goes back, and separates them for the night
from that unnatural balance, and the store goes dark
as my wife says we should take a cab
or walk, the stew is starting to drip already.
Shall I say that the container can not
contain the thing contained anymore? No.
Just that the lamb stew is leaking all across town
in one place: it is leaking on the floor of the taxi-cab,
and that somebody is going to pay for this ride.

because life is short and you too are thirsty

I have realized two things in the last year…

Realization 1: People write blogs.

There appear to be two main kinds: topical and personal. Topical blogs connect us with issues, ideas, information, and with strangers who share similar interests. (Check out a couple of my favorites on the left.) Personal blogs, on the other hand, connect us to people we love when distance or circumstance get in the way. (I have somewhat filled the void left by BSG marathons and three-hour Xinjiang lunches in Qingdao by reading Stella’s blog about life in NYC; I catch up on my roommate Megan’s page when, because of our divergent sleep schedules, I haven’t seen her for days.) Both kinds enrich our increasingly distracted and distant lives--for the reader and for the writer.

Realization 2: I miss the constant flow of new projects and ideas present in a university setting.

I knew that would happen post-graduation and post-Chinese-cultural-immersion, but I didn’t realize that one of the specific things I would miss would be the exposure to thoughtful quotations and striking words—frequently in the form of poetry. I have always sought out poetry on my own, but I miss having someone who is an expert in his field, whose opinion I value, presenting his students with a piece of writing that he particularly likes. A professor is like an aggregator of words.

All that being said, I am beginning a new project—The Poetry Post.

Each Monday around noon, for as much of 2010 as I can sustain it, I will post a famous (or infamous) poem for your lunchtime-reading pleasure. Most of my favorite poems are fairly contemporary, but my love for haiku from the Japanese masters throws a samurai sword into your V-8. (The engine, not the juice.) I will try not to repeat any writers during the course of the year, but that may prove impossible with Basho, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver... Yes, word-nerd I am!

If you enjoy a poem, leave a comment or “like” the post on facebook. If you’re also a fan of a poet whose work I highlight and you have another favorite by said writer, feel free to leave a link or the poem's text for others to read. I share with you, you share with me, that’s what the internet is for, right?

(P.S. Future posts will include less words from me and more from the actual writers... Enjoy!)

To start off The Post, here is XIII (Dedications) from An Atlas of the Difficult World by Adrienne Rich. We read Dedications on the first day of SWC 300, which will go down in history as Hell Fox’s horrible, festering waste of class. (Snapshot: A bunch of English majors hating a writing class. Something is WRONG here.)

Encountering this poem, however, was worth all of it.

XIII (Dedications)

--Adrienne Rich

I know you are reading this poem

late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a gray day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plain’s enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running

up the stairs

toward a new kind of love

your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the Intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.