PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

wonderful wonderful

Enjoyed this a lot. Living on a cold windy hill, I too yearn for green life to return. Too many browns and greys, and too many drabby lingering mud puddles. And we haven’t even had a flake of snow yet to make it pretty. I’m ready for some colour and warm sun.

That Patriciajj is a great Poet is beyond doubt and debate.  But who is she like?  Into what poeitc constellaton does she best fit?  Is she like Eliot?  Stevens?  Vergil?  Basho?  One ponders.

  They tell me that when Petrarch invented the sonnet---with two stanzas---the second stanza was supposed to "swerve" from the first by modifying its content.  They tell me that classic Haikus also featue a kind of "swerve" in the third and last line.  These are, of course, structured poems; but Patricia's poem also demonstrates a swerve although its form is free verse (a form that can, paradoxicsally, demand far more verbal skill than sonnets or Haiku).  This poem's swerve is in the single line, "alive," and that line is also the exact center of the poem's center of gravity which are the stanzas preceding and following "alive."

  In the final two stanzas, she also gives us the process of Poetry.  Poetry permeates the spirit and the creation, and becomes both of them---the way water permeates both the sky and the earth, becoming clouds and living things; or becoming great flows of water that, given enough time, can convert a small shallow channel into the Grand Canyon.  And, when I sip that tall glass (paper cups don't do it for me) of distilled or sparkling water, with a thick twist of lemon, that water will enter my cells; in that way, it becomes me.  This is what Poetry does with the spirit and the creation.

   When the poem begins, we are in the midst of the drama that, the Poet admits, she curses.  (Here I am reminded of Stevens' poem, "Chaos In Motion . . ."; but when we enter the poem's gravitational center and emerge on its other side, we are now prepared to see the melting into spirit and creation.  Because, to use another metaphor, we can be like ice, which can feature some very sharp, hurtful edges:  sharp enough to injure a finger, say, or slice the Titanic right along the horizontal axis.  The finger bleeds and the great ship---three years and two days in the building---sinks like a common stone in a couple of hours.  But when the ice has melted, it can permeate---and be permeated by---spirit and creation.

    This is the process and purpose of Poetry that Patriciajj depicts and demonstrates for her readers.  And she uses ordinary items---moss, espresso---to depict that process; which, to me, is the key to identifying which Poetic style hers most resembles and aligns with.

     I think, when you come right down to it, Patricia's poetic alignment, the constellation her poetc stars belong do, is that of the great Poet of the New Testament, the Apostle Saint John---whose Gospel, first letter, and Apocalypse are demonstrations of deeply poetic nature that God inspired, as David's poetic nature was similarly inspired in the Old Testament.  They tell me that the Celtic poets of antiquity were inspired by John (as the Poets of continental Europe were inspired by Matthew); and of that historic nature and inspiration, Patriciajj partakes.

     And partakes with stellar success. 

The phrases you use to describe

Life in igloos are perfectly on point

You are a creative genius

When it comes to word perfomances

This poem turned me into

A sculpture of ice crystals and also

Lit a warm flame deep within