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Posted At : August 19, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories:
Poetry
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From "Steepletop," a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, appearing in her volume Mine the Harvest, published by HarperCollins.
Read by Blythe Campbell: "I'm taking a break from my garden, where I've been battling with chickweed." Blythe is a third-generation Alaskan and a Master Gardener who has just about had it with this year's "summer" weather. Blythe, her husband Rob and three children live in Anchorage. She is obsessed with the weather; click on "Area Forecast Discussion" in the table. |
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Edna St. Vincent Millay had her own frustrations with her garden, things she wrote about in her poem "Steepletop." This is the third stanza of the poem:
"Borage, forage for bees
And for those who love blue,
Why must you,
Having only been transplanted
From where you were not wanted
Either by the bee or by me
From under the sage, engage in this
self-destruction?
I was tender about your slender
tap-root.
I thought you would send out shoot after
shoot
Of thick cucumber-smelling, hairy leaves.
But why anybody believes
Anything, I do not know. I thought I
could trust you."
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Posted At : August 4, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories:
Poetry, Alaska
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This poem appears in the book of the same name, Never Night, by Derick Burleson, published by Marick Press, 2008.
Contributed and read by Derick Burleson: Derick's first book, Ejo: Poems, Rwanda 1991-94 won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, The Southern Review and Poetry, among other journals. A recipient of a 1999 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, Burleson teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and lives in Two Rivers, Alaska.
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This is Derick Burleson of Two Rivers, Alaska, and this is my poem, "Never Night."
You'd like it here where
it's never night, where the sun
circles, rather, until it ends
up where it started from,
east or west, rises, sinks
but doesn't ever set,
where in the summer
you never need to sleep
and all day and all night
the sky is a series of blues
you've seen only once before,
blues van Gogh painted
at the end. Where all the traffic
is fox and moose and bear,
where aspen and birch
bud and leaf all in one day,
and your sleep, when sleep
finally comes, is innocent,
spring wind through a window
left open now that spring
is passing fast and summer
won't stay here long before
the snow sweeps any green
away again and then it's always
night. You'd like that too, when
endless night falls and the moon
comes up, reads your book over
your shoulder, learns which dead
poet moves you tonight,
when any heat at all rises,
and becomes a visible thing.
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From "Steepletop," a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, appearing in her volume Mine the Harvest, published by HarperCollins.
Read by Leslie Shallcross: "Who could help but be a fan of the large, fragrant purple or creamy white blossoms -- they are beautiful downtown right now! As a child, I often played in the wonderful retreat provided by lilac bushes -- the thick trunks created a hiding place under the beautiful foliage and flowers." Leslie is an 8-year resident of Alaska, a public health nutritionist, and an assistant professor with the Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Health, Home and Family Development program. Her earliest memories of family life include enjoying observations of the natural world -- identifying the flowers, trees, snakes and birds in her yard. And of course smelling the lilacs. |
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Edna St. Vincent Millay loved the lilacs in her garden, but she noticed what happened in the rain in her poem "Steepletop." This is the second stanza of the poem:
"Nothing could stand
All this rain.
The lilacs were drowned, browned
before I had even
smelled them
Cool against my cheek, held down
A little by my hand.
Pain
Is seldom preventable, but is
presentable
Even to strangers on a train--
But what the rain
Does to the lilacs--is something
you must sigh and try
To explain."
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Contributed and read by Elizabeth Manning, an education and outreach specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The Bear-Aware Trash Talk Poetry Challenge was judged by Rick Sinnott, ADF&G's Anchorage-area biologist who enjoys writing these Japanese poems. A haiku has three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables and often reflects on some aspect of nature. Elizabeth recommends: www.alaskabears.alaska.gov. |
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This summer, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game held a Bear-Aware Trash Talk Poetry Challenge in which entrants had to use the words "bears," "garbage," and "shorts" in a haiku. These were the distinguished results:
First prize, from Barb Williams and family:
"Eat my shorts!" I cried
Backing into the garbage,
Afraid of the bears.
Megan Sharkey got right to the point of the contest:
Garbage on the porch
is the best way to get a
bear on short notice.
As did Jessica Pisa:
Bears in undershorts
Belong in a circus act
Not in your garbage.
Jamie Rogers focused on the crime:
Bear's tight alibi
Rules out short list of suspects
in garbage caper.
And Jessica Bowman, with the title "Divorcing Him of His Clothes," threw in some humor:
If there's garbage here
Unfit even for the bears
It's his yellow shorts.
... hoping you're keeping your bears and garbage separated ... at least when they're not in poetry.
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Posted At : July 16, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories:
Poetry, Alaska
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"Sign on a Cabin in the Caribou Hills," by Arlitia Jones, originally appeared in The Bandsaw Riots published by Bear Star Press.
Contributed and read by Arlitia Jones: "This is a poem about an actual sign on an actual cabin we found after we'd been lost in the hills all day. That was twenty years ago, and I couldn't find it again if my life depended on it."
Arlitia Jones is a poet and playwright from Anchorage, Alaska. Her award-winning book of poems, The Bandsaw Riots, was published in 2001, and her plays have been produced in Anchorage, New York City, and the United Kingdom. A link of interest: Out North, for great, innovative theatre in Anchorage. |
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This is Arlitia Jones, and this is my poem, "Sign on a Cabin in the Caribou Hills."
"This cabin belongs to Eileen Black
My husband Marvel and I built it
by hand in 1957. Friends
are welcome to use it: Perly and his
gang, Johnny Pete, Mike Klink, Bob Eber-
hard and Bob Jackovik, Diego Ron and
Steve Redmon. George & Maria, Margie
and Marty and the kids if they're along.
Donny Shelikov can come in and
Karl and Tony if he ever comes back.
Ed Greeley, keep out.
If you're lost and need a place
to get in, you can spend the night. I left
Sanka and dry goods. Help yourself.
Please clean up. Don't attract bears.
Leave it the way you found it -- woodpile
stocked and kindling dry. Remember, close
the door tight and leave it unlocked."
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