{"id":1245,"date":"2008-04-25T00:03:59","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T06:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2008-04-25T07:01:07","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T13:01:07","slug":"poetry-friday-the-poets-upstairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1245","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: The Poets Upstairs…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hey,There are serious perks to having poets for upstairs neighbors. Like, they loan me books. And take me to readings by excellent authors<\/strong><\/a>. And invite us up to play Rock Band<\/a><\/strong>. And introduce me to hilariously surreal products on a cool new blog<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also, I keep thinking someday I’m going to write something with the title “The Poets Upstairs” because I just like saying it. So it’s inspiring, too. For now, I get to use it as the title of this post, because one of them had a poem published recently in Goblin Fruit<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and it’s so great I had to share it with you guys.<\/p>\n

Goblin Fruit<\/em>, in itself, is worth your attention. It’s a journal devoted to “poetry ‘of the fantastical,’ poetry that treats mythic, surreal, fantasy and folkloric themes, or approaches other themes in a fantastical way.” Really, really good stuff there. And the Spring 2008 issue includes, front and center, the very fairy-tale-ish “Nesting” by Dana Koster<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

When you are born I will say: love me
\nas I loved my own mother — desperately,
\nas though love could stitch a path to the dead<\/p>\n

and I will guard you with the greed of ancestry…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/strong> (you’ll have to click on the poem’s title). I love the whole concept of this poem – it\u00a0feels like the beginning to a great story. The bird\/egg imagery hints of the Leda myth. But the\u00a0lines about the desperate love of a mother and the loss of a year for each question asked remind me of all those fairy tales (Thumbelina, Momotar\u014d, the Gingerbread Man, etc.)\u00a0that start off with a lonely woman who wants a child so very badly<\/em>… and she gets it (or at least, something almost<\/em> a child). But there’s always a catch, a price to pay, something lost in the bargain.<\/p>\n

This is maybe the best perk yet from The Poets Upstairs. Hope you enjoy it too.<\/p>\n

* * * edited to add:<\/em> * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Today’s Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Tricia of The Miss Rumphius Effect<\/strong><\/a>. Git along, lil’ dogies.<\/p>\n

Also, because I think Dana would particularly appreciate it, check out this version of the Leda myth<\/strong><\/a> I accidentally stumbled upon. I don’t know what this guy’s deal is, but when you click on the image links, you get photos featuring anatomically-correct ersatz-Barbie dolls posed as mythological characters. Ew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are serious perks to having poets for upstairs neighbors. Like, they loan me books. And take me to readings by excellent authors. And invite us up to play Rock Band. And introduce me to hilariously surreal products on a cool new blog. Also, I keep thinking someday I’m going to write something with the […]<\/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-1245","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\/1245","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=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}