David Given Schwarm

Married, Father, United

Tag: Poetry

  • Colette LaBouff Atkinson @ Casa Romantica

    This was a great poetry reading.

    I went with Jack and Kate–we had fun signing in and exploring the Casa Romantica which is completely fantastic. It was the kids first poetry reading. The crowd was a fun group of poetry insiders and high school kids.

    Colette was in fine voice and read mostly from her book–a few new poems were thrown in. Read live her poems are much more personal and do not seem as ironic as they do when I read them–a great way to see some of these poems which I might have missed. Her “theme” was Movie Poems, which are some of her best–I really liked the V for Vendetta reading coming from a speaker labeled I-V!

    Stepanie Brown also read–fun mostly modern works by a library assistant that I could really relate to.

    There was not a lot of audience interaction and the question portion of the program was not all that eventful.

    A great reading, at a great venue.

  • Mean by Colette Labouff Atkinson


    This is an amazing book from a UCI faculty member. Really strong prose poem all the way through the text.

    I liked Graphic Novel Romance (V for Vendetta):

    After the brains of fingerman, V drops his baton and tells Evey he means her no harm. Who are you? she asks. What I am is a man in a mask. Later, she wakes up in his cave,. Stan Getz plays. V hums along, makes her hole-in-bread for breakfast. In the theater, I lean over to my friend. This is how I got married. I was taken, I like to say. It wasn’t a cave. But “The Girl from Ipanema” played. Coffee was made. Books were everywhere and in alphabetical order. He split cantaloupe so I didn’t have to use a knife. And I said who are you? He answered: I’ve forgotten more than you’ve ever known. With the film still running, my friend reminds me this is comic book stuff.

    A very fun quick read that I really enjoyed. I am going to try to find more of Atkinson’s stuff.

  • Invasions by Adam Kirsch


    Section one of this book made me wonder how poetry could still be priced at 15 bucks. I mean really, everything else is so much cheaper and this books 61 pages were clearly not a good investment

    Section two changed all of that. A brilliant collection of thoughts after Boethius. Really first rate stuff.

    The final section is much like the first, but after the brilliance of the second section I read it much more critically and I appreciated it a great deal.

    I am not really a fan of Kirsch’s line–which is short and jammed and somehow common. Word choice is strong. Emotion is fantastic. But overall I think that a more unique voice is in there somewhere waiting to come out. Much of this reads exactly like the New Yorker.

    III.7 Habet hoc voluptas omnis
    First the hypnosis
    As the hive buzzes,
    Issuing dank and honeyed promises;

    Lust for the rose-
    Gold-tinted ooze
    Makes you forget the swarm, the sting, the bruise.

    That is fantastic.

  • Hot Popsicles by Charles Harper Webb


    I finished this today at Kean.

    It was a book of Prose Poems that I picked up at the UCLA Festival of Books a few years back.

    Webb teaches at CSULB or something else very close.

    The poems were “I woke up from a dream (and there were parens)” type pieces, rants against some suburban plight, or else general musing on life–not really my cup of tea. The book did end stronger then it started, but in general I am not glad that I read it–it took me a long time to actually finish mostly because I was not interested.

    The worm that crawls from the well through the earth to Tibet to learn his true name is likely my favorite poem, and fairly representative of the book.

  • Mariners Note


    Turn off the lights
    Till Death on us just
    mercy
    scrubbing is not dedot fountain
    The now has touched
    President Bush will recoup
    his several
    President McCain

  • On Purpose by Nick Laird


    This is a great series of poems. I did not know much about Laird when I picked this book up–the plug on the back by Eggers was enough for me.

    I really liked the general dynamics of this poetry and the diversity of poems that I found within–Laird is much more then a one noted beast like a lot of the poets I seem to be reading these days–lots of emotional sophistication, humor, and really good writing. Totally enjoyed everything about this. I would love to see him stretch out more in some longer verse.

    Also, the section on marriage, based on the Art of War was really good–it was not the marriage of the New Yorker, the quiet desperation and lack of creativity–rather, it was a growing living marriage that he was fighting.

    A very good book of poems.

  • Gas Poem

    This is an old
    one–I was going
    to Aron’s Art Show
    with the kids

    We stopped at
    Alton & Jeffery

    I washed the windows
    and Jack read a
    Book about water.

  • Gas Pump 02007/12/07


    Golf tees–they are
    not a four letter
    word to express
    how frustration really
    feels.

    Swimming alone with a
    busy mind–scheming and
    planning without caffine–

    the way to a happy day

  • Leaf Yoga


    his is this leaf
    fallen–like Gandhi

    and the blissful mother
    with the mute husband
    calling other men dad.

    Outside the pool gate
    still counting the
    out breath, slowly.

    Brown brittle chaste
    and cold on the sidewalk.

    The leaf does not
    create its own
    enthusiasm, it is
    shaken by the wind.

    I am not the leaf–
    biodegradable martyr
    of the ecosystem.

    Stirred by ants
    mistaken by
    Candi at dawn.

    A crack in the
    Sidewalk–the
    perfect escape.

    The leaf refers to
    the tree in ways
    that I cannot, even
    under better light.

    Stored forever in
    memory awake.

  • A Sonnet

    My love is pregnant
    And wears yoga pants
    When it rains on our suburban streets
    And at the Christmas
    Tree lot she shops
    For Trees for the kids
    Tb be flocked in blue and white
    My love understands tired
    And knows the urge to slack
    On the couch, with TV on

    And I know
    All is well.