4/10/2000

Readers' Poetry

Several poets sent me samples of their work after reading the recent article I posted containing poetry from June Starr and Kathryn. Thank you so much, readers, for educating me about this mysterious craft, in which you are able to speak volumes in so few words.

Robert Wetmore is a native of New Milford and a practicing attorney. Mr. Wetmore has an interest in writing, creative, fiction and nonfiction, which he says his teachers nurtured and encouraged. In the last 19 years, Wetmore has written approximately 300 poems, a number of which have appeared in small press journals such as Back Streets, Capper's, The Pegasus Review, the Country Poet and Canada's Stroll of Poets. The Waterbury Republican- American and the Meriden Record Journal have featured his work in their Sunday editions. For inspiration Wetmore looks to nature, the human condition, the spiritual life, and his musical background. He has said, "Poetry is the music of language and from a booming march or Mozart's clarinet concerto music heightens the senses to the beat and chords that are always around us."

OLD OAKS, STONE WALLS & BUCK TRACKS
By Robert Wetmore

When the urban confusion settles on me,
Like a dark, dank cloud of foggy dew,
Escape to the serenity of a farm of happy,
Unrehearsed encounters with rural friends,
Staring at the aftermath of raccoon and bucks,
Doe always there, and the royal rack hidden,
And a pesky skunk annoyed perfumes the air.
When forebears plowed the dark river mud soil,
They piled short castles and walls, marking metes,
Denoting bounds and spatial alignments in perpetuity,
That if I should ever depart my birthplace in years,
Still constant remained place, decrying rude development,
Old signposts unchanged like eternal oaks, and buck tracks.

TO RIDE ACROSS THE DUSKY SKY
By Robert Wetmore

In moments of dreams, and reams of thought,
One might contemplate a bicycle ride across the sky.
Not unlike the popular alien and his amazed pals,
Seeing the gradual fading of day and sun, on the run,
Patchwork of land, crops, and edifices lay out below,
A view of common respect of wry hawks and eagles,
Who contemplate the quarry and plunge in dives.
Flight in all its forms and variety is lusted after,
By all that would defy the prison of gravity, embrace air,
In the spiritual envelopment of all the Angels, now and to come,
Beyond the effervescent, ever-eternal oases of free.

HOWLING RIVER
By Robert Wetmore

Running the wild howling river,
Battling intensely against current,
Flying down the flume and flush,
Foam and flurry of rock piercing water,
Sleekly and swiftly the canoe collides,
Bounced, buffeted by push and pull,
Nearly jacked out of my perch,
Bestriding fragile gunwales,
Bound in sheets of birch bark,
Thrice sealed in pine tree pitch,
And down shallow falls, we go
Into the mouth of a placid pool,
Running rivers running gauntlets
Of challenge, risk and chance,
A test of stress, aquatics dance.

***

Dear Beth,

The article you posted about poetry was right on the money. Like June Starr, who you quoted in the article, I often get the insane urge to write poems. I've been writing them for the past 20 years on subjects as varied as June's. My avocation is making pottery and I'm working on a series I call SHARDS - for potters and people who love pottery. Shel Silverstein turned me on to poetry when my son got "Where the Sidewalk Ends" as a child. I began writing poems in Shel's style for children and someday I hope to publish them. -- Dick Kupstis

The Slink
By Dick Kupstis

There's an interestin' animal known as the slink,
And it looks like a cross tween a snake and a mink.

It'll slither and slide and it moves real neat,
As it twists and then curls itself round your feet.

It can weave through your toes and then wrap round your shins,
It can go loop de loop,flip n flop,and do spins.

It'll curl round your waist and give you a cuddle.
He'll make you feel warm in the midst of a muddle.

But you'd better watch out if he reaches your chin,
When you open your mouth, He'll just up and jump in.

To See
By Dick Kupstis

If i could see around the bend,
I would not be so sorely vexed,
To know at least what's coming next,
What path to take.which way to wend.

To live one's life with certainty,
Conviction and of course no doubt,
Puts fear and shame and dread to rout,
To know in ten years where i'll be.

But life is fickle,twists and turns,
A child gets sick,a parent dies,
A friend is jailed before my eyes,
And oh my soul it burns and yearns.

What would I do if I did know.

***

Dear Beth,

I happened to click on your article about poetry today. June Starr's explanation of how she came to write sounds exactly like my own experience. I am a youngster though, only in my early fifties. I might not write a poem for months and then all of a sudden a concept locks into my mind and it won't go away until I put it down on paper. My poems tend to be whimsical for the most part, a few, motivated by events that I have found disturbing, are more serious. But they are always quite straightforward. No one has to try to "figure out" what in the world I am talking about. Here's one I wrote in 1993, I hope you enjoy it. --Bruce Tiven

THE ATTEMPT
By Bruce Tiven

I sat down to play with words,
to try to make them rhyme,
to see if I could write a poem,
because I had the time.

I wondered what to write about,
just exactly what to say,
what to write that others might,
desire to read some day.

I thought that something fun would do,
some things to bring a smile,
but wondered in these troubled times,
if that would be worthwhile.

Perhaps to talk about real life,
the good times and the bad,
but who will read a poem,
if all it does is make them sad?

So I thought and thought,
and realized my poem should be profound,
but knowing nothing of that sort,
how stupid I would sound.

And subjects started speeding
through my mind at frantic pace,
injustice, taxes, murder,
the future of the human race.

What started out so simply,
what was just to be for fun,
suddenly controlled my thoughts,
and would 'til I was done.

Come on, I thought, a little poem,
can't really be that tough,
just words that rhyme and make some sense,
would really be enough.

But as I failed and failed again,
how clearly I could see,
that writing poems with rhyming words,
was really not for me.

So ended my attempt at fame,
and fortune as a poet.
Writing words of sense that rhyme,
is tough, and now I know it.

Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.