The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 10/21/06)

[RetroLounge]

First Sex

Who would guess that glory
would live on a pea plant’s
sticky mouth smeared

with golden pollen?
The monk frees
the flowers’ sexes

from the calico bonnets
and shoos the abbot’s
sweet-bottomed bees

and with tweezers snips
powder from the anthers
while the style hot with nectar

reaches up. He pushes the tip
of the camel-hair brush
in this bright dust—

and the bells of the flowers
twist to him; the knotting tendrils
strain on their brittle twigs—

and the tiny stem is painted
gently, as if it were
a thread of spun glass.

The opening yellow
bud swallows
the scientist’s bait

and it floats down
into the ovum like a
point of light in the throat

so that the whole body
is singing deep praise
of his touch and oh

yes Mendel this
moment is the best
of glory’s evidence—

one can see it even
in the white blossom’s
effusion of bliss.

Susan B. A. Somers-Willett

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http://www.susansw.com/index.htm

Susan B. Anthony Somers-Willett was born in Ohio and raised in New Orleans. After earning a B.A. from Duke University, she worked briefly in the New York City publishing industry as a production manager, editor, and designer. Susan went on to receive an M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in American Literature at The University of Texas at Austin. She has taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, where she completed a manuscript of criticism entitled The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race and the Rise of Popular Verse in America. She currently teaches as a visiting faculty fellow at the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is researching the impact of public poetry projects on American culture.



*******************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Good morning, my dear Retro!

How vivid and fascinating this poem is!

So sweetly erotic and full of life as well......

Thank you! :hug:

[RetroLounge]

3. ...

Good Evening my dear CP...

:hug:

RL

[wildhorses]

2. even educated fleas do it--

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain, the best upper sets do it

Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Fins
Folks in Siam do it - think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines, without means, do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks em I know
Why ask if shad do it - Waiter bring me
"shad roe"

In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love