{"id":1780,"date":"2009-09-04T00:18:54","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T06:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2009-09-04T00:19:51","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T06:19:51","slug":"poetry-friday-burn-like-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1780","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Burn like that."},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by Starfire - click for link.<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pefectfutures\/<\/a> \/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a><\/div>\n

First, an apology: I have bailed on Poetry Friday for the past two weeks running. I know! Shocking! Two weeks ago, I just flat out forgot. No excuse. And then last week, I burned my finger and thumb on a hot baking sheet and couldn’t type, what with all the bulky gauze and searing pain and such. So, I’m sorry. But I’ll try to make it up to you, by sharing something extra good: it’s “A Young Woman, A Tree”<\/strong><\/a> by Alicia Ostriker<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This poem gained a bit of notoriety a few years ago, because Kurt Cobain quoted it<\/strong><\/a> above a self-effacing caricature in his published journal. But this is a poem that deserves all kinds of notice on its own merit. Check it:<\/p>\n

Passing that fiery tree\u2014if only she could
\n Be making love,
\n Be making poetry,
\n Be exploding, be speeding through the universe
\n Like a photon, like a shower
\n Of yellow blazes\u2014
\n She believes if she could only overtake
\n The riding rhythm of things,
\n Of her own electrons,
\n Then she would be at rest
\n If she could forget school,
\n Climb the tree,
\n Be the tree,
\n Burn like that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here<\/strong><\/a>. I love it for the vibrant imagery, for the driving pulse created by that litany of verbs, and for its strangely affirming twist of an ending. But what do you think?<\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Today’s Poetry Friday Round-up is brought to you by the uber-classy Kelly Herold at her blog Crossover<\/strong><\/a>. Thanks, Kelly!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pefectfutures\/ \/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 First, an apology: I have bailed on Poetry Friday for the past two weeks running. I know! Shocking! Two weeks ago, I just flat out forgot. No excuse. And then last week, I burned my finger and thumb on a hot baking sheet and couldn’t type, what with all 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-1780","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\/1780","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=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}