Author Archives: presssendpoetry

When I say the word “poetry”, what comes to mind?

Maybe it’s the beautiful simplicity of Japanese haiku. Perhaps it’s more the stress of Chaucer, Dickinson, or Shakespeare. Or maybe it’s a sentimental card you received once; “roses are red, violets are blue….”

I’ve found that too many times, poetry is an instinctive shudder. Which is just to say – poetry is ruined for a lot of people in school and they never look back.

Well, my goal is to convince you to try poetry again because it’s worthwhile for your career and life, no matter who you are, right at this very moment.

We all have a creative side (even you!). The trouble is that most of us don’t cultivate it. Mostly, we’re just too busy.

But poetry fits a busy lifestyle better than most arts.

And the reason for adding poetry to your life isn’t just to cultivate your artistic side (which it will) – it’s also to improve your leadership, your communication, and your overall ability to relate to the world.

Poetry requires a cultivation of patience. It also demands self-reflection and exploration, both of which might not be on your daily to-do but are vital skills to hone. It’s my belief that practicing the art of poetry improves these two areas of our lives, which in turn, improves our ability to perform at work.

If I’ve piqued your interest, let’s start with how to write your first poem. With each step, we’ll see how it also relates to work performance. Like yoga, the benefits are in the practice of it… so don’t be shy to try!

Continue reading “A “Roses are Red” Approach: How Poetry Improves Your Work Performance”

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Patrick Phillips lives in Brooklyn, but in every city, town and village, and at every crossroads, there’s an old guitar. Here’s one from Elegy for a Broken Machine, a fine book from Alfred A. Knopf.

The Guitar

Oh how I loved this week’s column. Had to share! Enjoy~

American Life in Poetry: Column 537

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

One of the first uses of language must surely have been to tell others what happened beyond the firelight, out in the forest. And poems that do just that seem wonderfully natural and human to me. Here’s Anya Krugovoy Silver telling us something that happened far from home. She lives and teaches in Georgia.

Doing Laundry In Budapest

The dryer, uniform and squat as a biscuit tin,
came to life and turned on me its insect eye.
My t-shirts and underwear crackled and leapt.
I was a tourist there; I didn’t speak the language.
My shoulders covered themselves up in churches,
my tongue soothed its burn with slices of pickle.
More I don’t remember: only, weekends now
when I stand in the kitchen, sorting sweat pants
and pairing socks, I remember the afternoon
I did my laundry in Budapest, where the sidewalks
bloomed with embroidered linen, where money
wasn’t permitted to leave the country.
When I close my eyes, I recall that spinning,
then a woman, with nothing else to sell,
pressing wilted flowers in my hands.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by Anya Krugovoy Silver, “Doing Laundry in Budapest,” from I Watched You Disappear: Poems, (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Anya Krugovoy Silver and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Here’s the beautiful thing about
this dream we live together across
time, space, generations
(you do realize it’s all a dream, don’t you?)
we hold souvenirs from our trips and don’t realize it:
a ring that i wear,
and you wore, and she wore,
before another wore,
i don’t know what it looked like but
i assume we all have the same
long fingers thin to set it.
a framed sketch of Young Eve,
an antique chair (i reupholstered in green)
how i feel us all sit down at once
with our dreamy books perfuming our small room,
together slipping away in revelries
specific to our own moments in time.
isn’t it amazing to travel infinitely this way,
and others will join us later too,
Come along now~

A flutter of teases
shivering up the spine of each leaf
until the whole shakes like a belly laugh.

(You can’t force someone to see it; you
have to wait until they make time to
discover their own)

if I were a tree in the wind,
I’d giggle every time my skirt lifted at the ends,
shimmy, shimmy down to roots.

You had told him,
don’t mow that part of the lawn
let it stay pretty a little while longer.

Magnolia blossoms spread out like
a soft pink tree skirt,
verdant grass now growing older, taller.

You squealed joyfully when the wind blew:
us women on rocking chairs
and more petals like snow falling, fresh.

(sun rises)

don’t ask
the sun to change its course. everyone knows
the east wins the morning,
west dictates the night.
don’t pine for a
brand new shirt, or a new
route home. don’t beg to erase lines,
they are carbon-dated.

(next day, sun rises)

my father and mother know this. my sister too.
a small child shakes her head with a laugh,
so elementary.

(next day, sun rises)

a leopard
loves his spots; he sits smugly in his tree,
licking a paw absently.
everyone knows this.

(next day, sun rises)