{"id":1018,"date":"2007-11-16T00:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T06:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2007-11-16T00:30:02","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T06:30:02","slug":"poetry-friday-getting-sideswiped-by-nba-winner-robert-hass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1018","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Getting sideswiped by NBA winner Robert Hass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Robert Hass<\/strong><\/a>, winner of the 2007 National Book Award in Poetry<\/strong><\/a>, for his book Time and Materials<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s an excerpt of a very cool poem of his, “Interrupted Meditation:”<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n

Little green involute fronds of fern at creekside.
\nAnd the sinewy clear water rushing over creekstone
\nof the palest amber, veined with a darker gold,
\nthinnest lines of gold rivering through the amber
\nlike\u2014ah, now we come to it. We were not put on earth,<\/em>
\nthe old man said, he was hacking into the crust
\nof a sourdough half loaf in his vehement, impatient way
\nwith an old horn-handled knife, to express ourselves.<\/em>
\nI knew he had seen whole cities leveled: also
\nthat there had been a time of shame for him, outskirts
\nof a ruined town, half Baroque, half Greek Revival,
\npediments of Flora and Hygeia from a brief eighteenth-century
\nhealth spa boom lying on the streets in broken chunks
\nand dogs scavenging among them. His one act of courage
\nthen had been to drop pieces of bread or chocolate,
\nas others did, where a fugitive family of Jews
\nwas rumored to be hiding. I never raised my voice,
\nof course, none of us did.<\/em> He sliced wedges of cheese
\nafter the bread, spooned out dollops of sour jam
\nfrom some Hungarian plum, purple and faintly gingered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Time and MaterialsClick here<\/strong><\/a> to read the rest.<\/p>\n

I love the way the poem jumps around in a very stream-of-consciousness way, just like the title implies. And I love the little hidden daggers of emotional poignancy, like the image of the whitened chocolate, or the heaving his wife’s rib cage as she sobs. It’s like he keeps getting sideswiped by his own heart. Beautiful, powerful, and clever without being cloying. That’s what I like in a poem.<\/p>\n

Congrats to the other NBA winners<\/strong><\/a> as well, particularly Sherman Alexie<\/strong><\/a> – I’m reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian<\/em><\/strong><\/a> right now, and I’m totally digging it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Robert Hass, winner of the 2007 National Book Award in Poetry, for his book Time and Materials. Here’s an excerpt of a very cool poem of his, “Interrupted Meditation:” Little green involute fronds of fern at creekside. And the sinewy clear water rushing over creekstone of the palest amber, veined with a darker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}