Sunday, November 28, 2010

The Snow Man

I've learned my lesson. I'm terrible at updating blogs. I've decided to resume my posts with our Wire Harp Poem of the Week selections, which can be seen posted around the SFCC campus. Recommendations welcome! I may even give away books someday!

~~~

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens


One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

After a delay, Whitman.

Better late than never. There's some triteness to brighten your day.

But in all seriousness, I do have a splendid poem to share with you all. Well, its actually only a section of a poem. The writer's name is Walt Whitman, and the poem I'm drawing from is titled The Song of Myself. You've all heard of it if you took an American literature class, which may also mean that most of you don't want a rehash of that same boogering. But bear with me. Whitman isn't a booger. And contrary to what you may think of poets in general, Whitman wasn't a insulated loungeabout either. He was a nurse in the Civil War, and spent the greater portion of his income supplementing his supplies. Death surrounded him, yet Whitman notes that without the Civil War "and the experiences they gave, "Leaves of Grass" would not now be existing." The Good Gray Poet can lay claim to a poet lineage unlike any other, and he may have perhaps, along with Emily Dickinson, granted America its most lasting legacy. Enjoy this glimpse of Whitman's creation, and bear his advice in mind: "No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, or as aiming mainly towards art and aestheticism."

~~~

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Well Hello There Byzantium!

          But wait, let me introduce myself. My name is Ryan Miller, and I'm the literary editor for the 2010 - 2011 Wire Harp. Though Derek may stop in from time to time to amaze us with his bearded poetic might, I will be doing most of the babbling on both this blog and the Wire Harp's Facebook page. To counteract the babbling, I will try to (regularly) post poetry, complementary music, articles on things I like and dislike, and anything else that fits in the cracks. Mostly poetry, though, as I don't know how to do half the things I just listed. I'm a social networking Neanderthal, yet am slowly refining my hand axes and beginning to domesticate sheep. If something incomplete (or possibly insulting) finds its way onto either of the Wire Harp's pages, disregard.
          Back to poetry for a moment. I'm a reader, not a writer, and I think this is probably the most important factor in how I'm going to operate as an editor. This isn't to say that I'm going to be lax on submission requests, but I want people to be aware of what poetry has been before they try to make it was it is. I have no fear of poetry's "death", as many in the literary community do, but I do feel that it will sicken if modern writers of poetry write blindly. If all art is inevitably plagiarism, as Harold Bloom puts it, then I would much rather we plagiarize what we find the most beautiful and the most human, even if it is "old". That's that. Let's read some poetry!

Sailing To Byzantium
by W.B. Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

~~~

P.S. Recognize the opening line as a movie/book title? And you thought ol' Cormac came up with that one on his own. See, quasi-plagiarism? Don't worry kids, it only causes cancer in the state of California...

P.P.S. However, only artists get away with plagiarism. Everyone else, cite your sources!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Thank You

Thanks to everyone who made this year's "Wire Harp" possible, including advisers, staff, everyone who submitted, and everyone who came to the coffee house. It wouldn't be possible without you.

Congratulations to Hayley Sims, who's poem "No Abstractions for Lone Women" won this year's Richard Baldasty Poetry Award.

And Congratulations to Ryan Miller, who was chosen to be next year's literary editor. Knowing that the magazine has been left in good hands I look forward to next year's issue.

Keep on writing, and don't forget to submit next year!
Derek Annis
Literary Editor
2010 "Wire Harp"

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Coffee House Reading

The 2010 issue of The Wire Harp comes out May 26(this Wednesday). Join us in Sub Lounges A and B at 11:30 a.m. to pick up a free copy of the magazine and listen to this year's published authors read their work. We will be serving free inspiration, coffee, and snacks. Also, some instructors may be willing to offer extra credit for students who attend this event, so don't forget to ask your instructors about this ahead of time.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Ag. Agent | Steve Reames

Start with eyes
grey as the trunk
of Jep's apple tree and
startling as its age.

Follow her eyes
from old bark to new growth
and bright apples in the foliage.

Reach for vertical yellow
streaks on round red.

Bite, finally
pungent, feral, sweet
the hoped-for surprise
open and encompassing
as her smile.


Taken from the 1990 issue of The Wire Harp.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Broken Wings (for George Herbert) | Ethan Abata

I'll give you some goddamned Easter wings.
I robbed them from a dead man.
He fell from the sky today--
He flew too high.


Gorgon paradise,
Made of words in the dark
Shines like a justified slaughter
Up in the sky, always beyond your reach.


Taken from the 2001 issue of The Wire Harp.