Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook - and experiential sharing

Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook is a dead useful teacher on the techniques and technicalities of poetry (writing). She mentions "a poem's great weight of glittering pulls it down", "I like to say I write poems for a stranger who will be born in some distant country hundreds of years from now. This is a useful notion, especially during revision. It reminds me, forcefully, that everything necessary must be on the page....  like a traveller in an uncertain land, it needs to carry all that it must have to sustain its own life - and not a lot of extra weight either.",

But most of all:
"It is also good to remember that, now and then, it is simply best to throw a poem away. Some things are just unfixable".

So true for life as well! We all have tried to pen a poem some point or other in our lives when we were down or needed comfort. A minority of us progressed to make poetry-penning part of our lives. Yet an even smaller percentage pursues it formally in University - Literature.

How easy to just write and let go. After reading Oliver's work, may I just say I'm just beginning to see light on what true poetry writing is? It is a never-ending journey. I'm quite unnerved by the hard work one must put in in order to comprehend things more. Experience and imagination combine threads to weave a poem that holds its own world in self-sufficiency. Through the art of poetry, I think I'm just beginning to appreciate that excessive glitter really weighs one down..

The hallmark of a good poem is its ability to transfer its experience, without attachment to the poet's life. You do not get to know the poet through the poem (usually). Poems are living creatures, magnificient as unicorns, nostalgic as a rainsoaked toy in the gutter, meant for us to love.

In a Watch Gallery

The watches stare at me as if their smug

faces hold riddles: hands frozen in 10-2 smiles
as the rich foreign tai-tais sauntering by
too eager to flaunt a purse or high ass.

Some watches contort as if in vain
of expressing human emotions: 4-8 sadness,
9-3 bummer. I catch one in the act
of sidling me a nasty grin: sitting still

for hours, luring a tai-tai to open up
her yearning, out credit card. The long
hours have taught my colleagues the art
of statue kung-fu: holding in paused-play our smiles

for loudmouthed Chinamen and Texan countrywomen.
One colleague chooses a watch, breaks it out
of mocking trance, winds it back to grin again,
like our slow bonds forged over smiles on aching lips.

Words in Supper

Over supper, dad speaks of leaving
one’s body on earth when he dies.
I glance at bread, my palm that lies
in lines; the coffee ripples as if believing

a statement it tries to solve in brown broth.
Words vaporize between us: this staunch
man I’ve loved for years, and the paunch
he developed digesting truths and wrath

from a boy. I bow my head, noting moon orbits
around his eyes, asteroids of storms and ages.
A sip – the coffee, cooled, like all beverages
simmer with time as ruminations absorb it.

The man raises a hand to pat my head, crinkles
the way I often do in photos, minus the wrinkles.

Fetal

She slurps wanton mee as her child
rests, fetal position. Watchful, eagle
eye cast over the lamp-halo of her girl’s
head. How it reminds me of you, fetal-
curled in my lap, tasking me with the role
of stroking your hair unto sleep, protector
of your brief crib from the snow wolves and bears.

Give-up Gloria on the Reserved Seat

Opposite, Stand-up Stacey smiles like a popsicle

in a trash bag. Beside, fat-assed with meaning,
old auntie glares like an old man missing a testicle,
says with her eyes, “Hey kid, how unbecoming –”

Regressed in rhapsody, I bite a retort –
Fat Stacey can break her glasses, chew on daisies
and the station wouldn’t hear a stop-train report
going off. “Auntie, you buy your veggies

standing up, comb afternoons at the market
for hot deals. Right now my legs are wobbling
like tofu. My buttocks have lost their bucket
of firmness. Can you stand your grandson hobbling

on crutches?” Curiously, Thought tendered its resignation
letter; my Heart stood up, as if by obligation –

To Conquer a Cat

To answer a cat’s sphinx riddle,
first look into her eyes. Amber-spirited,
temple of soul, they’ll tell you
the fate of your hand approaching
for a pat. Judge her temper now by the speed
of her tail. Come from the side, stealthy
as a rodent humbling itself to be eaten.
Your fate rests with how sneaky
your own paw can be, extended
like a fireman’s ladder to save her
from loneliness. As you advance, watch
the glowing coals of her eyes: slitted
request for contact, for fellowship. The catch
is to calm her ego with the palm of your
soul. Tame the runaway spirit. Bring the god
of trust back into the shrine of her eyes.
Let her reward your coming by the sacrilege
of her furry head rubbing against the pillars
of your thighs.