Caroline Bock's Blog: Caroline Anna Bock Writes - Posts Tagged "poetry"

I write primarily fiction; however, I love poetry and since these are the final days of National Poetry Month, I am going to share with you notes from a fabulous writer's conference I attended, BOOKS ALIVE, sponsored by the Washington Independent Review of Books, an incisive online writing and book review community. This weekend, they honored poet and poetry advocate extraordinaire Grace Cavalieri with their first Lifetime Achievement Award. Upon accepting the award, she gave her top four reasons why poetry still matters (and I may be paraphrasing her, as I quickly took these notes):

-Poetry slows down time. You read slowly and you write slowly

-Poetry preserves the beloved

-Poetry makes us notice the world more

-We are more fully alive when we read and write poetry

This makes me want to write poetry, my secret writing, and to me that is the world.

Does poetry matter to you?

——Caroline

As part of National Poetry Month, (just past in April) I wrote four haikus in reaction to recent books I had read. I thought I'd share them here as well—it was a terrific exercise in reading and writing!

For The Girl on a Train…

WOMAN ON A METRO

On a metro car:
See or hear nothing, feel less.
Days of driving rain.


For The Buried Giant…

FOREVER TODAY

No past, no future—
misted memories, but all
connect, remember?


For The Great Gatsby…

THE POOL CLEANER

I cleaned the swim pool—
after cops fished Gatsby out—
more work, no more pay.


For The Collected Poems of Robert Frost…

A LOST WRITER

I don’t know these woods—
what crossroad to travel now—
lead me there, poet.


—Caroline Bock is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novels: BEFORE MY EYES (St. Martin’s Press, 2014) and LIE (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) and is a freelance bookseller at Politics and Prose.

Before My Eyes

Dear Bill Gates:

I’m concerned about your summer reading list, heavy on nonfiction titles, lacking in fiction, classics, poetry, which reflect the common core of what I believe every educated American should read (of course, I will readily admit that this is totally subjective, and I want to stress that I am happy that you are reading at all, something I stress to my own children).

So, I have some alternative titles to your summer reading list for you to consider:

-The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson, short poems, easy to read at the beach, or choose any other poetry collection.

-1984 by George Orwell. I am amazed at how often George Orwell’s 1984 is quoted, especially in relations to politics and to technology. I plan to re-read this summer, and I think you should too. “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the presents controls the past.”

-The “Battle Royal” chapter (the first chapter) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison to understand the history of racism and pain in America. The rest of the book is moving too, but it’s that first chapter you have to read.

-Hilary Mantel’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories or Lydia Davis’ collected short stories or George Pellecanos’ Martini Shot, if you’d like some terrific genre short fiction— one nice thing about short story collections is you can feel free to skip a story or two and still say you read the book. I’ve been reading a lot of short fiction lately—short fiction focuses the mind, and these stories all present character, image, conflict in the most concise way.

-The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, my son just read this in 9th grade – talks about being the ‘outsider’ and ‘other’ here in America better than any young adult novel. One other thought: Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, winner of this year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, written in verse. I have it on my TBR list and so should you.

-Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, the Broadway show is a big hit, but the graphic novel is a deep and moving tale of a father and daughter— and coming out. And it’s always cool to say you read graphic novels.

I’m sure others would have suggestions for you that go beyond your limited nonfiction and science/tech-focused summer book reading choices— any others out there?

I’d just urge you to go farther and wider and be more open and curious in your reading, and if you do, to share it with us all.

Read on, Bill! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Caroline Bock

*Full disclosure: I am the author of two critically acclaimed young adult novels: Before My Eyes (St. Martin’s Press, 2014) and LIE (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). More at www.carolinebock.com

“When the King of Siam disliked a courtier,
He gave him a beautiful white elephant...”
—In Dispraise of Poetry by Jack Gilbert

I made a great find this past weekend at Capitol Books, a used bookstore in D.C. with floor-to-ceilings offerings in a row house near the Eastern Market—a copy of the poet Jack Gilbert’s Views of Jeopardy, his first book of poetry from The Yale Series of Younger Poets, published in 1962. I am not a collector of things— I’ve never felt the urge to bring anything but words into my house.

I believe there may be a chapbook out there. I remember he published one while I was at Syracuse University, the one year he taught at this upstate New York college, and I believe I even bought it. But it’s lost to the years and a dozen or so moves.

“Three days I sat
Bewildered by love.
Three nights I watched
The gradations of dark.
Of light …”
—Before Morning in Perugia by Jack Gilbert

What I remember most about him was that he was slight man, white haired and in his sixties, by the time I was his student. He was passionate about the poetic line and about women, especially those he found himself with in places foreign to him, a guy from Pittsburgh, and I find that these passions imbued in this early set of poems.

“… When I got quiet
she’d put on usually Debussy
and
leaning down to the small ribs
bite me.
Hard.”
—Portrait Number Five: Against A New York Summer by Jack Gilbert

I think of him so young writing these poems, and want to cry out, but instead I read on, gorging on the words, ebullient with my find.

Views of Jeopardy

Have you ever found a book at a used bookstore you treasure?


--CarolineBefore My Eyes