Poetry Friday: "Tension" by Billy Collins (via George Bilgere)

Last week I shared a poem by one of my favorite poets, George Bilgere, and mentioned a place you should surely visit: Poetry Town. Poetry Town is Bilgere's daily newsletter in which he shares a poem he loves, but wouldn't it be lovely if Poetry Town were a real place? I would move there immediately. 

Would Bilgere be the mayor, or would he share mayoral duties with Billy Collins (whose poem he shared in the August 9 edition of his newsletter and which I'm sharing below)? What would the population of Poetry Town be, and could just anyone live there? Self-proclaimed poets or published poets only? Non-poets who love to read and hear poetry? Or would Poetry Town be a place in which every business sported a poetic name, every billboard bore a sonnet? Restaurants could revamp their menus, rhyming roasted with toasted, grilled with chilled, and tea with glee. We could all speak in rhyme all the time. 

We could — oops. Suddenly, I've realized that I've gotten distracted. Suddenly, I need to redirect you to today's poem because this is, after all, a Poetry Friday post, not a city planning meeting. Suddenly, I need to use the word suddenly excessively, because Billy Collins does and I'm a sucker for anything Billy Collins does. 

And so, suddenly, I give you the Bilgere-picked, Collins-written bit of pure delight, "Tension." 

May it bring you sudden enjoyment. 

Tension
by Billy Collins

“Never use the word suddenly just to
create tension.” ––Writing Fiction


Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,

and suddenly I was in the study

looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.

When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.

A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen

....

(Read the rest here, at Bilgere's Poetry Town Newsletter.) 

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Susan Thomsen has the Poetry Friday round-up this week at Chicken Spaghetti. 

(Photo courtesy of Pixabay.) 

Poetry Friday: "August" by George Bilgere

This one by George Bilgere captures precisely what I feel every, single August. Just as I've hit my summer rhythm, just when I know summer is sailing along and the world can do no wrong, that fateful day arrives: the season shifts, I sigh heavily, and I go in search of just the right poem. 

I found it. 

August 

by George Bilgere 

Just when you’d begun to feel
You could rely on the summer,
That each morning would deliver
The same mourning dove singing
From his station on the phone pole,
The same smell of bacon frying
Somewhere in the neighborhood,

(Read the rest here.) 

Here are my past posts featuring George Bilgere. (Some of the old links there are broken, but you can find all the poems I've mentioned or linked to here, at the old Writer's Almanac site.) 

Here is his website, and here's a link to his Poetry Town newsletter (a daily poem delivered to your Inbox, with a few words from Bilgere.) 

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Imagine the poetry possibilities this week with Rose Cappelli, 

who is hosting the round-up. 

Poetry Friday: "How to Love" by January Gill O'Neil

I've missed a few Poetry Fridays, but that's the nature of summer, right? 

As summers go, it's been a rather strange one in many ways, but that's the nature of life, right? 

And as lives go, they are ever-changing but often circular, and so here I am, back to Poetry Friday. Right? 

Right. 

Let's go. 

This beautiful short poem looks at moving forward, at taking a risk. At Poets.org, January Gill O'Neil said of it: 

“I should have called this poem, ‘How to Trust Again.’ How does one stay open and believe in love after a betrayal? It’s a meditation on hope, really. Also, any poem I can fit my name into is a good one.”

Here's to Trust, here's to Hope, and here's to sneaking our names into poems. (Though that's a challenge for me these days, "Karen" being what it is. 😃) 

How to Love
by January Gill O’Neil

After stepping into the world again,
there is that question of how to love,
how to bundle yourself against the frosted morning
—the crunch of icy grass underfoot, the scrape
of cold wipers along the windshield—
and convert time into distance.

What song to sing down an empty road
as you begin your morning commute?
And is there enough in you to see, really see,

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.)   

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the incomparable Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone. 

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Photo courtesy of sofi5t at Pixabay.