Poetry

I've noticed a lot of people posting poetry on here recently, and I was checking out the Favorite Poem Project website again, so I've got a question for everyone. What IS your favorite poem?

I can't really point to a particular favorite. I like Robert Pinsky and Seamus Heaney, both of whom I've heard read their poetry (which is probably why I like them). I think a lot of songs are poetic, too, so I'm also going to have to include Rufus Wainwright and Bob Dylan as my favorite (and, to my mind, most poetic) songwriters.

The only actual poem I can find right now that I like is one I happened to save to my computer when I found it online. Here it is.

The Improvement
by John Ashbery

Is that where it happens?
Only yesterday when I came back, I had this
diaphanous disaffection for this room, for spaces,
for the whole sky and whatever lies beyond.
I felt the eggplant, then the rhubarb.
Nothing seems strong enough for
this life to manage, that sees beyond
into particles forming some kind of entity—
so we get dressed kindly, crazy at the moment.
A life of afterwords begins.

We never live long enough in our lives
to know what today is like.
Shards, smiling beaches,
abandon us somehow even as we converse with them.
And the leopard is transparent, like iced tea.

I wake up, my face pressed
in the dewy mess of a dream. It mattered,
because of the dream, and because dreams are by nature sad
even when there's a lot of exclaiming and beating
as there was in this one. I want the openness
of the dream turned inside out, exploded
into pieces of meaning by its own unasked questions,
beyond the calculations of heaven. Then the larkspur
would don its own disproportionate weight,
and trees return to the starting gate.
See, our lips bend.

The gods wept

I know it's wrong to dwell on the past. I know that. Al Gore may have won the election, but he isn't president, and I have to accept that and move on.

But when I found this video over at Shakespeare's Sister, I laughed -- then almost cried. And I do not cry easily. It's just so fucking depressing...

Random Link Du Jour

I don't have time to write a real blog entry, unfortunately. But I wanted to post something. So today's Cool Website To Check Out is Pandora. It's online radio with a twist: You specify a song or artist whose sound you like, and they play more music like it. It's a great way to hear new bands, or just more by a band you like. You can add multiple songs or bands to one radio station, or create new ones for every mood. Their program, the "Music Genome Project," does a really good job of analyzing and matching sounds. And it's all free. Check it out. They have a Facebook application, too.