The Poetry Storehouse

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The Poetry Storehouse is a collaborative venture; the goal is to marry poetry and other creative media.  It's fascinating to see how the same poem can be interpreted in such different ways through various readings and remixes.  Here are two of my favorites so far:     

Video remix: 'Weather' by Steve Klepetar from Nic Sebastian on Vimeo. Based on a poem from 'The Poetry Storehouse' (poetrystorehouse.com) - great contemporary poems for creative remix. Original Storehouse post and poem text by Steve Klepetar here: http://bit.ly/Qsw13I. Soundtrack by Setuniman (freesound.org/people/setuniman/).

Still image remix: 'Orchids' by Diane Lockward with art by Adam Martinakis from Nic Sebastian on Vimeo. Based on a poem from 'The Poetry Storehouse' (poetrystorehouse.com) - great contemporary poems for creative remix. Original Storehouse post and poem text by Diane Lockward here: http://bit.ly/1gjDvjV. Art by Adam Martinakis (adamakis.blogspot.com). Process notes here: http://bit.ly/1nVE7QW.

"Mother's Day" by David Young

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I see her doing something simple, paying bills,

or leafing through a magazine or book,

and wish that I could say, . . .
 --From "Mother's Day," a poem by David Young, continued on the website of the Academy of American Poets, reprinted from Field of Light and Shadow: Selected and New Poems by David Young (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).    

Two novels and an excerpt from a book-length poem

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        My father has a glum nature.  He retired three years ago, and he doesn't talk much.  Left to himself, he can remain silent for days.  When this happens, he begins brooding, he begins thinking strange thoughts.  Recently he told me that I was selfish, that I had always been selfish, that when I was a baby I would start to cry as soon as he turned on the TV.  I am forty and he is seventy-two.  When he said this, I began tickling him.  I was in my parents' house in New Jersey, on a sofa in their living room.  "Who's the sad baby?" I said.  "Who's the baby that cries all the time?"
        "Get away," he squeaked, as he fell back and tried to wriggle away.  "Stop being a joker.  I'm not kidding." 
--From Family Life, a novel by Akhil Sharma (W.W. Norton, 2014). 

        He is twenty-six, and for as long as he's lived in the north there has been only the Aleut woman. 
        Several evenings a week he comes to her door with a duck or a rabbit and she asks him in.  Not asks, exactly.  She opens the door and steps aside so he can enter.
        She lives in a frame house hammered together fast out of boards and tar paper, a house like all the others in Anchorage, except it isn't on First or Fourth or even Ninth Street; instead it is off to the east, marooned on the mud flats.  But she has things in it, like anyone else, a table and two chairs, flour and tea on a shelf, a hat hanging from a peg.  She wears a dress with buttons and she cooks at a stove, and the two of them eat before, and then after she sits cross-legged in the tub and smokes her pipe. 
--From The Seal Wife, a novel by Kathryn Harrison (Random House, 2002). 

Come, it's time to set the table,
dusk is bruised with rain, the water is alive
under the wind, evening is
upon us.  Outside, the animals make their
accommodation, the lake loses its reflection,
settles deeper.  Set down the brush
on the saucer, leave off the book,
open, with its words against the pillow. . . . 
--From Correspondences, a collaboration by poet Anne Michaels and artist Bernice Eisenstein (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).  An excerpt from the book-length poem was included in Knopf's Poem-a-Day newsletter, in honor of Poetry Month, on April 26, 2014.  The excerpted material is also available online as a printable  broadside.   

The Bridegroom by Ha Jin

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The Bridegroom, a collection of short stories by Ha Jin (Pantheon, 2000).

. . . Tong Guhan was a simple man, not very interested in power.  But recently he realized that if he were the vice director, he could have moved into a new apartment long ago and said to his son, "Prepare for the wedding!" and he could also have written to his daughter, "Forget veterinary medicine and come back home.  I'll get you a residence card and find you a good job here."  Obviously the solutions to both problems depended on whether his promotion would materialize in time.  These days he became anxious.  Every morning, when watering the violets, cannas, roses, and cyclamen in his tiny backyard, he'd pray in silence that today he'd be officially notified of the promotion. . . . 
--From "Alive," pp. 17-42, originally published in AGNI, Number 45 (1997). 

 

A letter was lying on Nimei's desk.  She was puzzled because the envelope did not give a return address.  The postmark showed the letter came from Harbin, but she knew nobody in that city. 

--From "Flame," pp. 126-141, originally published in The Missouri Review, Issue 20.3 (Fall 1997).  

A poem by R.S. Thomas from The Writer's Chronicle and three poems by Keetje Kuipers from her book The Keys to the Jail

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To all light things

I compared her; to

a snowflake, a feather. . . .
 --From "Comparisons," a poem by R.S. Thomas, from Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2004), reprinted in The Writer's Chronicle (October/November 2013), p. 56.  

 

It was the season of dead moles,

black silken pelts like evening purses

abandoned along the forest path. . . . 

--From "Our Last Vacation," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by Connotation Press, Volume 5, Issue 8 (April 2014) and reprinted in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 15.    

 

 

What if I came here with some idea

of this place, of who I could be when I'm

 

in it: Learned the names for every clouded

body of water. . . .  

--From "Dog Gun Lake," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by Lo-Ball and reprinted in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 59.  

 

 

It was a beautiful night for the rodeo. 

Rain all day and then a sheen of evening

sun.  I went to the grocery store, bought

someone else's bread, some else's

milk. . . .    

--From "A Beautiful Night for the Rodeo," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by American Poetry Review (May/June 2013) and reprinted in Poetry Daily and in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 81.   

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, a collection of sixteen short animal-themed stories by David Sedaris, illustrated by Ian Falconer (Little, Brown and Company, 2010). 

This book is not for everyone, and although I suppose the same could be said for all of his collections, this one seems even more in need of a little warning label.  It's illustrated (by an author/illustrator of books for children); it's a collection of, essentially, fables; and the protagonists are animals.  Some of the stories have violent twists or other unsavory elements, though, and there is often accompanying artwork.  With that caveat, these were my favorites:

The squirrel and the chipmunk had been dating for two weeks when they ran out of things to talk about. 
--From "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," pp. 14-21, which was originally broadcast in a slightly different form on Public Radio International's This American Life with host Ira Glass (February 10, 2006). 

 

Plenty of animals had pets, but few were more devoted than the mouse, who owned a baby corn snake—"A rescue snake," she'd be quick to inform you.  This made it sound like he'd been snatched from the jaws of a raccoon, but what she'd really rescued him from was a life without her love.  And what sort of a life would that have been?

--From "The Mouse and the Snake," pp. 40-49.  

. . . "They are too your children," [my wife had] said, referring to her last litter, a party of four that looked no more like me than that ---- of a raccoon.  I knew they were fathered by the English bull terrier across the street, but what are you going to do?  Everyone's entitled to one mistake, aren't they?  
--From "The Faithful Setter," pp. 60-73. 

Waiting by Ha Jin

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Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.  Together they had appeared at the courthouse in Wujia Town many times, but she had always changed her mind at the last moment when the judge asked if she would accept a divorce.  Year after year, they went to Wujia Town and came back with the same marriage license issued to them by the county's registry office twenty years before.  
        This summer Lin Kong returned with a new letter of recommendation for the divorce, which had been provided for him by the army hospital in Muji City, where he served as a doctor.  Once more he planned to take his wife to the courthouse and end their marriage.  Before he left for home, he had promised Manna Wu, his girlfriend at the hospital, that this time he would try his best to make Shuyu stick to her word after she agreed to a divorce.  
        As an officer, he had a twelve-day leave each year. . . but by now a whole week had passed and he had not yet mentioned a word to his wife about the divorce.  Whenever the subject came to his tongue, he postponed it for another day. . . .   

--From Waiting, a novel by Ha Jin (Vintage, 1999).  The book was a National Book Award winner, a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, and the winner of the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award.