David J Bauman

Certainly you know that I am not the only one who records poems and posts them on WordPress. I follow a fair number of poets who write and post their own original work on their blogs on a regular basis. In an upcoming post I’ll share links to some of my favorites, as well as to some of those brave souls who are accepting the NaPoWriMo challenge of writing one poem per day during this National Poetry Month.

I’d also like to point out that there are many poets not in the United States who are participating with us, as the interwebs do not limit the geography of our celebration. Thanks to all of you. I think there is already another international poetry month that I’ve heard talked about, but I really wish we would just knock down the silly barriers and make this month global. There is enough to separate us already, isn’t there?

Yesterday I told you about how Poetry Magazine had given away tons of copies of their April edition in celebration of National Poetry Month, but I’m not sure if I made it clear that the entire April, 2013 issue is available online right now.  And I may be wrong but I think there is also a way to download it as a PDF file, if you’re into that sort of thing.

So here is a second poem from that issue by another poet with whom I was not yet familiar. I like her voice, her compactness, her knack for implication. I’ll be reading more Jane Hirshfield for sure. Here is her piece from Poetry, “An Hour Is Not a House.”

An Hour Is Not a House

An hour is not a house,
a life is not a house,
you do not go through them as if
they were doors to another.

Yet an hour can have shape and proportion,
four walls, a ceiling.
An hour can be dropped like a glass.

Some want quiet as others want bread.
Some want sleep.

My eyes went
to the window, as a cat or dog left alone does.

–by Jane Hirshfield

Source: Poetry (April 2013).

Related articles

• Ripeness, by Jane Hirshfield (skyeblaine.wordpress.com)
• David Reads from April’s Poetry Magazine, Part 1 (dadpoet.wordpress.com)
• National…Poetry Writing Month? (whitewolfwriter.wordpress.com)
• NaPoWriMo (poeticallyversed.wordpress.com)
• Day 1: Confession (after Jane Hirshfield) (summerpoetry.wordpress.com)
• Jane Hirshfield ⎥2012 Hall-Kenyon Prize Winner (storypreservation.wordpress.com)
• “How fragile we are, between the few good moments.” ~ Jane Hirshfield (poietes.wordpress.com)
• 60 Minutes or Less: Poetry readings on SoundCloud (suntimes.com)