But if summer has come early, the air temperature doesn't know it yet! The water in the pool this morning was warmer than the air, thank goodness, but it was icy stepping out from lap swim. All warmed up now.
Sending you back to these words from editor Tom Dooley and poetry editor Jennifer Finstrom of Eclectica, in connection with forget-me-nots. I was so pleased to have poems in their April/May issue (including one with the longest title ever). I was thinking about "garden poems" recently, reading the guidelines of a magazine that doesn't want any, and what those editors might have meant by that, or assumed about "garden poems," no doubt based on receiving a bunch of the kind they don't want. Would these be overly pretty poems? Poems only about the garden? Poems suitable for greeting cards?
I've got to hope my own garden poem is not just about forget-me-nots (stanza 1), not just about me (stanza 2), but also about the world and its "rough men" with beautiful, delicate souls, and so on, and what we are to do here, with each other, and in the garden of the world (stanza 3).
Of course, my poem, as a poem (a written artifact), must be a way of saying "forget me not," with all the ironies attached to that. But isn't it also saying, "Let's don't forget to pay attention to what's at hand, and let's don't forget to really see?" Or is that just another "fond belief" of my own?
On the other hand, left to themselves, forget-me-nots could easily take over the garden. Or the world.
Wonderful poems - my orange daylilies aren't quite open yet, but our bushes are blooming and attracting gorgeous butterflies - picture later! Forget that editor who doesn't want "garden" poems -poems begin in flowers all the time.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Donna. And, on the other hand, I think Georgia O'Keefe's paintings ARE about flowers (not that other thing) as well as the whole world.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the poems. I especially like the loooong title one with the "rough men." Summer's coming.
ReplyDeleteA garden poem that I can't imagine anyone rejecting:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.poetry-archive.com/w/the_widows_lament_in_springtime.html
Enjoyed your wonderful poems! Thank you for sharing the links (I tweeted them).
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarah Jane!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, Julie, "The Widow's Lament in Springtime," by William Carlos Williams! Beautiful & aching for a reader, and inspiring for a poet.
There are, actually, journals out there now who would reject it, saying, "It's been done" (tee hee) or finding it too sentimental. And someone would complain that he had used a woman's voice, and so on. But we ignore that kind of thing and keep going....
Thanks, Maureen. Tweeting is a sound made by non-angry birds, right?
ReplyDeleteMy worms thank you for the fond belief.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thank the worms. And the ants, slugs, and birds.
ReplyDelete