April is National Poetry Month

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17452407.post-88658272054217166632008-04-24T17:37:00.000-07:002008-04-24T17:41:28.276-07:00April is National Poetry MonthUkiah Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 24, 2008 <div align="center"> </div>  <h1>Introduction to Poetry</h1> <h2>Billy Collins</h2> I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 24, 2008<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> Sonnet Week!<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> <h1 style="text-align: center;" align="center">Edna St. Vincent Millay<o:p></o:p></h1> (Thanks, Sally Gearhart, for the suggestion!)<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> clxviii<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> I will put Chaos into fourteen lines<o:p></o:p> And keep him there; and let him thence escape<o:p></o:p> If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape<o:p></o:p> Flood, fire, and demon – his adroit designs<o:p></o:p> Will strain to nothing in the strict confines<o:p></o:p> Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,<o:p></o:p> I hold his essence and amorphous shape,<o:p></o:p> Till he with Order mingles and combines.<o:p></o:p> Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,<o:p></o:p> His arrogance, our awful servitude:<o:p></o:p> I have him. He is nothing more nor less<o:p></o:p> Than something simple not yet understood;<o:p></o:p> I shall not even force him to confess;<o:p></o:p> Or answer. I will only make him good.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17452407-8865827205421716663?l=mendocinocountylibrary.blogspot.com'/></div>Staff of the Mendocino County Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04659535804429631684noreply@blogger.com