Vatic = of or characteristic of a prophet; oracular.
I have been signed up to receive a poem a day.
I like poetry well enough - I'm moved from time to time and though I am occasionally completely befuddled by some poetry I like to think that I have something of a discriminating palate for it. I can even appreciate poems that don't rhyme. (Obviously I'm gifted.) (BTW, do they even say gifted anymore? about grown-ups? That just seems dumb.)
So.
Anyway.
I get these poems every day and once I can cull the ones about death and the rotting of flesh and the ones with punctuation and cadence from bizarro-world (I'm sounding mighty literary right now, amn't I?) there are some winners and some losers.
I think I used to operate under the assumption that all poetry was good poetry. I guess this is normal. But now I've developed more of a taste for it, reading it every day, and while I'm not always sure what I think is "good" I always know what I like.
Today marks the end of National Poetry Month in the US (though I am, as you well know, in Tuvalu, we like to celebrate the occasional US holiday) and this is the poem I received:
Everything's Inevitable
by Katy Lederer
That everything's inevitable.
That fate is whatever has already happened.
The brain, which is as elemental, as sane, as the rest of the processing universe is.
In this world, I am the surest thing.
Scrunched-up arms, folded legs, lovely destitute eyes.
Please insert your spare coins.
I am filling them up.
Please insert your spare vision, your vigor, your vim.
But yet, I am a vatic one.
As vatic as the Vatican.
In the temper and the tantrum, in the well-kept arboretum
I am waiting, like an animal,
For poetry.
And here I am, at my desk. Waiting. Like an ANIMAL. For poetry.
On the other hand, one of our editors has brought me this one...
Letter
For Richard Howard
by Mark Strand
Men are running across a field,
pens fall from their pockets.
People out walking will pick them up.
It is one of the ways letters are written.
How things fall to others!
The self no longer belonging to me, but asleep
in a stranger's shadow, now clothing
the stranger, now leading him off.
It is noon as I write to you.
Someone's life has come into my hands.
The sun whitens the buildings.
It is all I have. I gave it all to you. Yours.
How things fall to others. It is all I have. I gave it all to you. Yours.
I like this one.
Happy Poetry Day.
I like poetry well enough - I'm moved from time to time and though I am occasionally completely befuddled by some poetry I like to think that I have something of a discriminating palate for it. I can even appreciate poems that don't rhyme. (Obviously I'm gifted.) (BTW, do they even say gifted anymore? about grown-ups? That just seems dumb.)
So.
Anyway.
I get these poems every day and once I can cull the ones about death and the rotting of flesh and the ones with punctuation and cadence from bizarro-world (I'm sounding mighty literary right now, amn't I?) there are some winners and some losers.
I think I used to operate under the assumption that all poetry was good poetry. I guess this is normal. But now I've developed more of a taste for it, reading it every day, and while I'm not always sure what I think is "good" I always know what I like.
Today marks the end of National Poetry Month in the US (though I am, as you well know, in Tuvalu, we like to celebrate the occasional US holiday) and this is the poem I received:
Everything's Inevitable
by Katy Lederer
That everything's inevitable.
That fate is whatever has already happened.
The brain, which is as elemental, as sane, as the rest of the processing universe is.
In this world, I am the surest thing.
Scrunched-up arms, folded legs, lovely destitute eyes.
Please insert your spare coins.
I am filling them up.
Please insert your spare vision, your vigor, your vim.
But yet, I am a vatic one.
As vatic as the Vatican.
In the temper and the tantrum, in the well-kept arboretum
I am waiting, like an animal,
For poetry.
And here I am, at my desk. Waiting. Like an ANIMAL. For poetry.
On the other hand, one of our editors has brought me this one...
Letter
For Richard Howard
by Mark Strand
Men are running across a field,
pens fall from their pockets.
People out walking will pick them up.
It is one of the ways letters are written.
How things fall to others!
The self no longer belonging to me, but asleep
in a stranger's shadow, now clothing
the stranger, now leading him off.
It is noon as I write to you.
Someone's life has come into my hands.
The sun whitens the buildings.
It is all I have. I gave it all to you. Yours.
How things fall to others. It is all I have. I gave it all to you. Yours.
I like this one.
Happy Poetry Day.
Comments
A whole lot of wondering going on here.
Thanks for adding a little culture to my day.
Not sure about being vatic!