The Top 3 Poems of 2011
NPR Books published the top three poems of 2011 according to poet Tracy K. Smith. [1] The three poems include:
- Laura Kasischke’s “Look,” from Space, in Chains [2]
- Rae Armantrout’s “Soft Money,” from Money Shot [3]
- and Ross Gay’s “Love, You Got Me Good,” from Bringing the Shovel Down. [4]
I haven’t read any of these poems nor the books from which they originate.
What do I think the top three poems of 2011 should be? Where does one begin to select the top poems of the year? Maybe, what is most memorable? Or has the most enduring image?
I can think of a few books that captured my attention, but there are small number of contemporary American poets that disturb my universe. [5] This may be in part because I have purchased only a few poetry books this year and I have allowed all my favorite literary magazine subscription lapse. And the only poems that really disturb the cosmos of my mind are the poems I endeavored to translate from German and Russian. Due to the obscurity of these poets, I’ll simply offer that the Mountain Xpress’s first annual poetry prize presented a lot of very talented poets to watch in the coming year. [6]
NOTES: [1] Read Tracy K. Smith’s reasons why she selected these three poems as the top three poems of 2011 at NPR Books: Savage Beauty: The Top 3 Poems Of 2011 [2] Read Laura Kasischke’s “Look” [3] Read Rae Armantrout’s “Soft Money” [4] Read Ross Gay’s “Love, You Got Me Good” [5] With apologies to T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” [6] Not that I am biased in any way, but the Mountain Xpress’s 2011 poetry event was most memorable and I look forward to their 2012 event.
People do judge a book by its cover
Brave New World - The 20 Most Iconic Book Covers Ever
Have you ever considered who the people are who design book covers? I know most of us are more interested in the author and the story being told, but for me it is interesting to learn of the designers behind such iconic book covers. That’s why I enjoyed this short list of iconic book covers and the creatives who designed them. The list includes some of my favorites like The Great Gatsby (designed by a relatively unknown artist at the time, Francis Cugat), To Kill A Mockingbird (designed by Shirley Smith), Brace New World (designed by Leslie Holland), and Fahrenheit 451 (designed by Joe Pernaciaro). What are some of your iconic book covers?
‘For Christmas Day’ by Charles Wesley
Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconcil’d!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”
Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb!
Veil’d in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail th’ incarnate Deity!
Pleas’d as man with men to appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here!
Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace,
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.
Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display thy saving power,
Ruin’d nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.
Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form’d in each believing heart.
(via Poetry Foundation)
‘Advent’ by Donald Hall
When I see the cradle rocking
What is it that I see?
I see a rood on the hilltop
Of Calvary.
When I hear the cattle lowing
What is it that they say?
They say that shadows feasted
At Tenebrae.
When I know that the grave is empty,
Absence eviscerates me,
And I dwell in a cavernous, constant
Horror vacui.
(via Poetry Foundation)
‘Mosaic of the Nativity (Serbia, Winter 1993)’ by Jane Kenyon
On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:
“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”
God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.
(via Charlie Lowell)
‘The God We Hardly Knew’ by Óscar Romero
No one can celebrate
a genuine Christmas
without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
those who, because they have
everything, look down on others,
those who have no need
even of God- for them there
will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
those who need someone
to come on their behalf,
will have that someone.
That someone is God.
Emmanuel. God-with-us.
Without poverty of spirit
there can be no abundance of God.
(via Charlie Lowell)
‘Into The Darkest Hour’ by Madeleine L’Engle
It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss-
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.
It was time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight-
and yet the Prince of bliss
came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! Wonderful it is
with no room on the earth
the stable is our heart.
(via Charlie Lowell)
‘Annunciation’ by Denise Levertov
‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
From the Agathistos Hymn, Greece, VIc
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.
But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.
She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.
____________________________
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
______________________________
She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.
Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –
but who was God.
(via chriscorrigan.com)
‘Advent Calendar’ by Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
(via the guardian)
‘Mighty Mercy’ by John Piper
Why did He choose a northern maid
From Nazareth, who had to trade
Her Galilee for Judah just
To get Messiah where He must
Be born? A strange and roundabout
Procedure for a God, no doubt,
Who values His efficiency
And rules the world from sea to sea!
Why not a girl from Bethlehem?
Well half the girls in town would stem
From David’s line. And carpenters
Aplenty there could bear the slurs
And gossip on a virgin got
with child, who blushed and said she’d not
Once kissed her man this whole year past.
Why not? Because God’s power is vast,
And in one little virgin birth
His sovereign joy and mighty mirth
In saving us from evil bent
Could never, never rest content.
Instead He turned and set His sight
To spangle Rome with all His might;
And took a girl from Galilee
To magnify His sovereignty.
And made the Roman king conspire
With God, to serve a purpose higher
Than he or any in the realm
Could see—a stroke to overwhelm
A few with faith and cause their heart
To know the truth, at least in part,
That, though God loves efficiency
And rules the world from sea to sea,
He does not go from here to there
By shortest routes to save His fare.
He’d rather start in Galilee,
Then pass a law in Rome, you see,
To get the child down south at length,
And magnify His sovereign strength.
God rules the flukes of history
To see that Micah’s prophecy
Comes true. Why did He choose a maid
From Nazareth? Perhaps she prayed
That endless mercy might abound
And take the longer way around.
The mighty mercy we adore
As we light advent candle four.
(By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org)
