Jim Thompson’s Spiritual Poetry Class #28

Dear Poetry Folklery:

I thought last week’s discussion was especially nice, although I now wish I had explained a bit about “The Night Game” and the baseball context of it beforehand for the non-baseball fans in the group.

Don Maruska made a wonderful suggestion after I said, “If I didn’t know Robert Pinksy was the Poet Laureate I would have thought ‘The Night Game’ wasn’t a great poem (note: after our discussion, I understand it much better and now really appreciate it).

Don asked, “What do we each think makes a poem great?”  Sandra responded, “One that I can understand!”

So, let’s do this for next week:

• Read the poems and come prepared to engage with them and
• Bring your thoughts about what makes a poem great. We’ll kick off with a discussion about this.

Here are this week’s poems:

• “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins (also a Poet Laureate). This may provide some grist for your thoughts about what makes a great poem and is hilarious.
• “Trough” by Judy Sorum Brown. You may find this a description of what many people have been through. The call to action at the end seems entirely appropriate today, the day that the 2020 Presidential Election was called for Joe Biden.
• “The Worm’s Waking” by Rumi. What an incredible vision from a poet of 8 centuries ago! Eleven short lines to paint a gritty – inspiring picture of how I would like to be. How about you?

Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81559141019?pwd=bS9odlRoeFlzcWVNWVpZaUxYdlZVZz09

Passcode: 153924