what's he talking about?

I realized I haven't posted a poem for quite awhile! Here's a quirky one by another of my favorite poets, Frank O'Hara. There are a lot of references to random people, many of whom I'd never heard of before, so I've created links to information about some of them to better inform the poem. Most of them are pretty straightforward but hey, it's nice to know! Hover over the name for a brief overview of why the person is being referenced, or click for a link to more information.

Lines for the Fortune Cookies

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you -- even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU -- there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.

Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.

Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.

Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.

You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you're legendary!

Your walk as a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.

You will eat cake.

Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?

You think your life is like Pirandello, but it's really like O'Neill.

A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.

That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

I realize you've lived in France, but that doesn't mean you know EVERYTHING!

You should wear white more often -- it becomes you.

The next person to speak to you will have a very intriguing proposal to make.

A lot of people in this room wish they were you.

Have you been to Mike Goldberg's* show? Al Leslie's? Lee Krasner's?

At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.

Now that the election's over, what are you going to do with yourself?

You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.

You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?

Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.

You too could be Premier of France, if only ... if only ...

*Frank O'Hara has another excellent poem about his process as a poet compared to Mike Goldberg's process as an artist. I love this one too:

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be

a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.

"Sit down and have a drink" he

says. I drink; we drink. I look

up. "You have SARDINES in it."

"Yes, it needed something there."

"Oh." I go and the days go by

and I drop in again. The painting

is going on, and I go, and the days

go by. I drop in. The painting is

finished. "Where's SARDINES?"

All that's left is just

letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of

a color: orange. I write a line

about orange. Pretty soon it is a

whole page of words, not lines.

Then another page. There should be

so much more, not of orange, of

words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in

prose, I am a real poet. My poem

is finished and I haven't mentioned

orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call

it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery

I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

the apartment is really cold haha

I think I first discovered this one during some kind of exam... SAT or AP English or maybe the Language Arts Praxis. Regardless, I thought it was just beautiful and it's really stuck with me since then.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

-- Robert Hayden

One thing that really resonates for me in this poem is how the father's love is expressed in such a powerful way, but the son doesn't even notice until years later. The reason I though of this one today is that I've been thinking a lot about different ways of expressing caring as I begin to teach. All semester we've all been talking about how important it is to care for our students, but at the same time I feel very aware that I can't just care them into good grades, or healthy choices, or even make them aware of my caring. I had a student test me on my very first day in her classroom and I felt like I didn't handle it as well as I could, yet I tried to make it right and even as she refused to make eye contact I could see (wishful thinking maybe?) that she was listening, but in such a short time it may not be possible to get that relationship to where I would like it to be. A week or two ago one of our professors said teaching is a lonely profession, which I thought was ridiculous because I think it's a profession where colleagues spend a substantial amount of time supporting each other and working together, but these first few days in the classroom have made me see that it can be lonely when you're trying so hard to connect with students and a misstep makes the connection more difficult. I guess all I can do when that situation arises is not take it personally, keep caring and hope that we find some common ground.