Poetry, a couple of sonnets

[Julie]

I thought I'd kick things off by sharing a couple of my older sonnets. I think they are more accessible than a lot of my more recent work, and they seem to have a broader appeal than some of my more offbeat stuff.


But soon

I’m writing speeches for my father’s wake
deciding how I’ll hold my hands and head
while speaking calmly of the newly dead
enunciating grief without mistakes.
I will not pull away if strangers break
my spine in crushing hugs, attempt to thread
their fingers through my own. I will not dread
their platitudes or pity, but will make
myself a smiling puppet. Casseroles
will bring me solace. I will never cry
in public, nor permit my hands to tremble,
nor fuss when dripping calla lily bowls
leave lasting rings on the piano. I
will be as still as that man I resemble.



Sparrow

A shard of splintered glass still pricks my foot
since I passed underneath the window burst
by sparrow flight, as if the building put
itself into her path and wasn’t first
on this old street–predates by eighty springs
my birth, her egg. But in her jealousy
of robins’ breasts, of cardinal-bright wings,
she’d slit her throat on kitchen glaziery
and dyed down red. The tendrils of her blood
that traced the scratches in my iron sink
remain, despite my bleach, despite the flood
of soap and scrub. I’ve seen a sparrow shrink
from feathered warm to nonsense lines of brown,
and feel the glass in me that brought her down.

[pepperlandgirl]

I really like Sparrow, especially the final two lines. "sticks of nonsense brown" is a really lovely phrase, and...I don't know, there's something about your work that makes me lose my ability to critique/respond to poetry. I've trained to do that very thing for six years, but so far, every time I read your work, I'm reduced to "God, I just really like that." I often get frustrated with poetry when poets don't use their words properly. That is, they don't paint images, which is also poetry should be--an economy of language. You, however, don't leave me feeling like the work is shallow, nothing more than words strung together.

Do you read Ann Carson?

[Liberal]

My favorite between the two — though both were very good — was "But soon". Mainly for the familiarity of its content. Especially the rings on the piano. That perfectly illustrates the numbness that an otherwise obsessive compulsive person feels at a time like that.

[Zuul]

Wow. Both are lovely and I particularly liked the imagery in "Sparrow" and "But soon" so perfectly captures the experience of burying a parent. I particularly admired the way that you broke up your lines, which added to it quite a bit by giving the sense of jumbled nerves.