contemporary poetry

“What I Learned from My Niece” by Lori Levy

~ jama ~ 17 Comments

“Gleaming skin; a plump elongated shape: the eggplant is a vegetable you’d want to caress with your eyes and fingers, even if you didn’t know its luscious flavor.” ~ French Chef Roger Vergé

“Eggplants and Copper” by Jeremiah J. White.

Ahhhh . . . the eggplant has returned! *kisses bunched fingertips**

Remember when I shared Lori Levy’s wonderful poem, “Not a Hollywood Movie” for Valentine’s Day? We learned she squeezes fresh orange juice for her husband in the morning, while he patiently fries eggplant for dinner, eggplant that she loves stuffing into pita bread “with anything, everything.” That’s how I learned about sabich, a popular Israeli street food.

Recently, Lori sent along another delectable food poem in which we learn a little more about her love of eggplant and a practice suggested by her niece that I’m totally on board with. See if you agree. (This poem will appear July 9 in Certain Age Magazine.) 🙂

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Lori’s niece Ofri pursuing a favorite hobby.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY NIECE
by Lori Levy

When asked what her hobbies are,
my 22-year-old niece says one is food—
eating it, not cooking it. Good food, 
which, for her, means anything from shawarma to
endive salad with fruit and cheese, gnocchi with
pink sauce, purple soup with kubeh and beets.
I love that a hobby can be as simple as
savoring—not riding a bike over rough terrain
or kayaking down a river, like others in my family.
No action required but
bringing a fork or spoon to your mouth.

Maybe my hobby is eggplant.
On this visit to Israel, I scan the menu
for anything with eggplant: pasta, sandwiches, salad.
My brother-in-law Hiski
fries eggplants for us because I crave sabich.
I fill pita with chopped salad, hard-boiled eggs,
tahini, amba, and my beloved eggplant,
almost closing my eyes in anticipation
of the first bite.

My niece, Ofri, says another hobby is
sitting on the beach.
I could claim that one, too.
Not sailing or surfing or scuba diving.
Just sitting on a beach chair,
still and silent as a rock,
as the sky turns red over the Mediterranean—
pita with eggplant in a picnic basket beside me.

~ Posted by permission of the author, © 2025 Lori Levy.
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Come Lounge With Me

~ jama ~ 44 Comments

“I always have this imagination, something I want to use. I don’t understand the idea of leisure time.” ~ Cher Wang

“Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney” by Robert Henri (1916).
PAJAMA DAYS
by Joanna Zarkadas

Here's to pajama days,
And the people who celebrate them.
Here's to comfort over style,
Uncombed hair and faces without makeup.
Hats off to reading all day
Or binge watching the latest Netflix series.
Kudos to cold pizza for breakfast,
Or hot buttered popcorn for dinner.
Blue ribbons for long phone conversations with friends,
And lazy couch lounging by the fire.
Gold medals for forgetting about "to do" lists,
Bathrooms that need cleaning,
Or bills that need paying.
Cheers to taking a day off every now and again
Without remorse, without guilt, without judgment.
High fives to sometimes doing whatever you want,
When you want, and
Eating whatever suits your fancy,
No matter the carb count or sugar content.
Here's to pajama days,
And a round of applause for those who know they deserve them!

~ as posted at Your Daily Poem (September 7, 2023).

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“The Green Pajamas” by Leopold Gould Seyffert (1932).

Ah, I can just see it now — me in my jade green silk pajamas reclining on a chaise lounge, sipping a nice cup of darjeeling, dipping in and out of the latest Jenny Colgan novel, bossa nova music softly playing in the background. Secret husband Colin Firth (dressed in his Mr Darcy finest) drifts in at regular intervals with a tray of freshly baked French pastries. Not a care in the world, I feel thoroughly pampered.

If only.

I’m certainly in favor of “reading all day,” and know I’m adequately skilled at “lounging by the fire,” i.e., hanging around in general (years of practice). 😀 As for the pajamas, it’s kind of my daily uniform anyway. Skip cleaning the bathroom and paying bills? Count me in!

About those “long phone conversations with friends.” Um, no thank you (read about my love-hate relationship with phones here).

But it would be nice nibbling on chocolates and sipping tea while binge watching The Great British Baking Show or All Creatures Great and Small.

“Mademoiselle Mink Breakfasts in Bed” by Janet Hill.

Yet . . . could I really enjoy doing these things sans guilt and remorse? Or would I be thinking of the extra calories I can’t afford, how not fun it will be to play catch-up the following day? Will my never-ending to-do list hover in the background even as I wait for Paul Hollywood to shake a contestant’s hand? I was never a zen person, firmly believing in planning ahead, being prepared. Yep, a real stick-in-the mud.

I do think part of it is the aging thing. The older I get, the longer it takes to get simple stuff done — stuff I could whiz through twice as fast twenty years ago. So, it’s important that I keep to plan. I’ve settled on a sensible compromise: give myself small breaks throughout the day (quick YouTube fix, drown in a fave tune from my iTunes playlist, reach for a cookie, read a poem, arrange flowers).

“The Bath” by Alfred Stevens (1873).

I’m simply not capable of giving myself an entire day off, even if I can convince myself I deserve it. Call me crazy, but I’d much rather feel productive. Alternating work + play = much less guilt. 🙂

How about you? When was the last time you gave yourself an entire day off? Any advice for how to lessen the guilt? Maybe in my next life I can be ‘devil may care’ Jama. 😀

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Lovely and talented Michelle Kogan is hosting the Roundup at MoreArt4All. Be sure to zip on over to check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere this week. Have a good Memorial Day weekend!

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“Breakfast in Bed” by Miki De Goodaboom.

“I’d rather spend my leisure time doing what some people call my work and I call my fun.” ~ Jared Diamond

*Copyright © 2024 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.

wendy cope’s orange: this juice is worth the squeeze

~ jama ~ 28 Comments

Here’s an appeeling little poem to cheer you up. 🙂

“Orange” by Lu-Yong.
THE ORANGE
by Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I got a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

~ from The Orange and other poems (Faber, 2023)

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Of Glass Slippers and Hummingbird Wings: Gregory Orr’s Wild Joy

~ jama ~ 14 Comments

“I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions, and traumatic events that come with being alive.” ~ Gregory Orr

I’ve always enjoyed reading poems about poetry — how it’s defined, what it means to both poet and audience, how it shapes our thinking and mines emotional depths, the vast potential of its reach.

Virginia-based lyric poet Gregory Orr is a particular favorite, and today I’m happy to share two poems from his twelfth collection, The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write (W.W. Norton & Co., 2019). I think you will like these ‘poems about poems’, marveling at how Orr celebrates the transformative power of language.

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“Floating Book Island with Waterfall” by Gert J Rheeders (2020).
CERTAIN POEMS OFFER ME . . . 

Certain poems offer me escape --
They're floating islands
Anchored only
By a cloud-rope of words
I can climb.

                      Some
Are the opposite:
Insisting on
Embodiment --
As if they were tattooed
On the beloved's thigh.

Still others are short
And sharp -- arrows
Aimed at the heart,
As if the purpose
Of beauty
Was to hurt me more alive.

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e. e. cummings o’clock (kisskiss)

~ jama ~ 42 Comments

“A clock is a little machine that shuts us out from the wonder of time.” ~ Susan Glaspell

“The sunlight claps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?” ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Spring is practically here and love is in the air. Why not count the minutes with kisses? 🙂

9.

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

                                      we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

~ from erotic poems by E.E. Cummings (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010)

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How’s that for sweet seduction? 🙂

Indeed, Cummings makes a great case for unbridled passion — no regulated constraints, no measured monotony. Just bring on the sensuous delights, surprising, even sudden. For something this delicious, toss your clocks out the window. After all, love has a way of making time stand still.

As you probably know, Cummings wrote many poems celebrating spring and love, often defining one in terms of the other. I think of “O sweet spontaneous earth . . . thou answerst them only with spring,” “we’re alive,dear:it’s(kiss me now)spring!,” “springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love,” or stanzas like this one:

spring!may--
everywhere's here
(with a low high low
and the bird on the bough)
how?why
--we never we know
(so kiss me) shy sweet eagerly
my
most dear

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