Playlist: National Poetry Month: American Sonnets and One Ode
Compiled By: Susan J. Cook
In celebration of written and spoken poetry, some from Breathing: American Sonnets. Some first appearing here. Einstein's Sonnet written in 2008. All by Susan Cook.
Tell Me How Many Black Seabirds
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:02
In these times, a poem for the places we find resilience.
- Playing
- Tell Me How Many Black Seabirds
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Tell Me How Many Black Seabirds
-Susan Cook-
Tell me how many black seabirds
woke up this morning, flew to a high place,
shook off a thousand drops of river, heard
each one, in slow motion, fall, a trace
of where each one began inside. This is
a daily ritual. They celebrate
with such silence, quiet applause, which is
to say, this abundance will tell a (late
sometimes) lie. The absence of chaos, just
drops of water shaken off, lets the heat
from the sun's dependable rays, we trust,
bring heart to any body's weary beat.
Tell me how we remind ourselves to turn
to the deliberate, needing it just now.
An American Sonnet for The Woman Who Is a Journalist
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:17
During National Poetry Month, an American Sonnet to bring us to know better the women journalists of Ukraine.
-Susan Cook-
Doing Good for Evil: An American Sonnet
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:07
My father often said his mother always told him, "Do good for evil." It's drawn from the Bible "This is your calling, your business in life- to do good and to do good for evil." I Peter 3:9
- Playing
- Doing Good for Evil: An American Sonnet
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Do Good for Evil:
An American Sonnet
-For Gary Lawless-
-Susan Cook-
First, you take your place in the lineage
of humanity, right there. You are one
of many. Again, we see sin's triage
unfold. All and everything is undone.
You (and many others, after all) watched, stilled
by the sight and sound of desperation.
Where does the seam of evil come loose, filled
too tight, inconspicuous, impatient.
There is nothing left for us to do but
give what no one has asked of us, to tame
harm before its time, the knife lifted, cut
smaller and smaller, no evil star flamed.
Do good for evil. Do good for evil.
When we are left motionless, leave good will.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:07
Some years back The House of Representatives' healthcare bill denied maternity care and denied health insurance to 18 to 25 year olds. Back then, Maine's Representative Poliquin fled to the restroom when reporters asked about his vote to pass the bill. Only a sonnet conveys the stark neglect of others in his proposed bill.
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- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- From
- Susan J. Cook
-Susan Cook-
anymore. It tolls for whom white men want
it to. Those for whom we’ve wept - give me
your tired, your poor, your huddled mass, who want
to be free, remember- are left on bare
Mattresses. Newborns are a wealthy man’s tax
burden, babies denied health care, once they’re
born. Mr. Pro-Life’s knife, stabs at their backs
and ex- Representative Poliquin
hides in the men’s room. The truth has a fist,
that now endures and cannot be hidden.
In his healthcare vote, newborns don’t exist.
The bell tolls now for white men, who squander
this country of hope, the lost who’ve wandered.
Sonnet for Justice
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:34
A sonnet about justice when it is buried and forgotten.
- Playing
- Sonnet for Justice
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet for Justice
Most of the world is doing stuff like that
most of the time. They are taking justice
out in the backyard in a body bag.
Most of them think, we’ll never know. Just this
should prove to us, clearly, reality
has its way, anyway. Our consciousness
knows the world can be a bad place without
actually seeing the men lift listless
bodies, you know, very carelessly, up.
The world cannot imagine justice placed
in some back yard like that, neglected, much
less the earth thrown over the shallow grave.
Consciousness can not protect her, listless,
in her shallow grave, breathless now justice.
-Susan Cook-
In "Breathing: American Sonnets"
Remembering We Have Already Said Farewell: "Epilogue: To a Fire Gone" from "Breathing: American Sonnets"
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:42
From "Breathing: American Sonnets"
by Susan Cook
(available from GulfofMainebooks@gmail.com)
Epilogue
To a Fire Gone
After "Reluctance: by Robert Frost
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
When was it less than treason? But what do
you mean, Mr. Frost? That’s for countries to
feel short-changed by. Loss happens to those who
see the passing on of days, years, one blue
time in life, one breaking, undoing a
treacherous rope they have been tied onto,
its deep burn. In the coldest time of day
or night, fires started that you thought grew
larger instead were, licked back into their
own intensity, remained confined on
one small patch of earth. You did not see where
the fire, some time later, died. You were gone.
Big difference, see, between countries resigned
to losing, small unfed fires, gone in time.
How Einstein Understood E=mc Squared
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :55
Poetry Month and Einstein creating E=mc squared
- Playing
- How Einstein Understood E=mc Squared
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet for Why Einstein Understood E=mc2
I believe it was Einstein’s broken heart
that led him to understand E equals
mc squared. He knew when E fell apart
in his life. He knew how love goes. Sequels
that should have followed each other wouldn’t.
Just one listlessly paralyzed moment proved
it. Nothing gave him motion. He couldn’t
lift a finger, let alone an arm moved
by a body, within a body, held
by light they shared: she’d hold hers for him, he’d
hold his for her, then they’d fall. Oh, they fell
and fell. It broke his heart, the last of E.
Bereft and broke, idle in his time,
he knew his heart longed for some equal sign.
Einstein's Sonnet: Love Is Relativity
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:23
On September 28, 1905 Einstein's paper on the special theory of relativity was published in Annalen der Physik. A Poetic version, "Einstein's Sonnet" offered in anticipation of Valentine's Day.
- Playing
- Einstein's Sonnet: Love Is Relativity
- From
- Susan J. Cook
On September 28, 1905
Einstein published his paper on the special theory of relativity
In Annalen der Physik
-Susan Cook-
Do not tell me that in time all things pass.
my love, Einstein mused, makes but a minute.
The Distance of Time: An American Sonnet about Relativity
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :51
Poetry makes everything accessible, even the Special Theory of Relativity.
The Distance of Time
Relativity is everywhere in
daily life. Understanding doesn't mean
that first, there have to be twins, who begin
to move apart, one at home, one last seen
climbing on a space ship, each with a clock.
The years go by and when they meet (because
the speed of light is really slow, can stop
the years from showing up) there's a loss
of time, between them. One twin, traveling out
somewhere in space, can not remember when
they were last together, the day in doubt,
which year it was. While waiting for a friend,
Einstein, always late, knew, time's lost by hours.
Space brings us closer; time is never ours.
Small: An American Sonnet
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :57
In the large, large universe, the mind's eye still sees what it will.
- Playing
- Small: An American Sonnet
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Small
It doesn't matter how diminished we
feel, situated deep deep within the
large, large universe, we now know, we see
more and more of, its every corner, the
source of a revelation, a surprise
appearance of something we did not know
was there but has been all along. The size
of anything is not important, no,
changes mostly depend on nothing more
than the sun's cast shadow, the patterns we are sure
to form, in our mind's eye, largeness ignored,
the smallest persistent, convinced we'll endure.
Small, large do not save us as the mind's eye
slowly watches, no urgent need to hide.
To the First Images Seen of A Black Hole
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:03
Black holes still doing what they do. Re-visiting Einstein imagining his most important discovery.
- Playing
- To the First Images Seen of A Black Hole
- From
- Susan J. Cook
To the First Images Seen of A Black Hole
In the Department of Poetic Justice: Sonnet for the Primordial Gravity Waves
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:14
The 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to those who offered proof of the existence of Primordial Gravity Waves. Einstein theorized they were there. Thus a Sonnet for the Primordial Gravity Waves, another way Einstein might have known.
-Susan Cook-
Just after the universe began, love
started too. There were no people yet. It
was so, so hot, far too hot, above
all else, for touching. No one was kissed
in that airless, stifling burn, New York flat,
the hottest night at the time. Desire though
had begun, primordial, yes, that
bearing, preoccupied, down. We now know
that was love. Things became much cooler and
the universe transparent, light perceived,
attraction thus visible, hand-in-hand,
no one there to give, to taste or receive.
Falling had been heard, though, long riffs of jazz,
the beat started, before the heart it has.
On the death of Stephen Hawking "Sonnet for The Black Hole" "Sonnet for A Loss"
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 02:03
Stephen Hawking has died who brought us all to imagine what black holes are and to recognize ourselves in them and him.
After Stephen Hawking and A Brief History of Time
-Susan Cook-
in a book. There are places far from earth
where once you're there, you will know it .
Leaving's struggle, to escape, just not worth
the time, the gravitational force on
the feet stronger, even though the mind may
say, "Time", time has become love's distraction
what once seemed stardust, that too swept away.
The only choice is stay: "passing that point
of no return, without noticing it",
collapsing, in tiny increments, joined
no longer. What will never again fit
is this: the logic of the light that drew
you, stars still sparkling far away and few.
Sonnet for A Loss
speaking, I mean, it has only happened
when I know you have died, I mean, I see
you not being where you were at the end,
you straddling that big stream that's rising up,
threatening to separate you from yourself,
you from your own, your reach not wide enough.
We're made of all those days we find that shelf
of river's edge, climb up, and get there, strive
for that (time, now and then, dipping into
that thirsty bowl of water called a life).
Your straddle grows still wider, merely you,
who one day is here, then one day it's you
who's moved away from you, away from you.
Sonnet for the Higgs Boson: A Poem Demystifing
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :49
In National Poetry Month, a poem to explain how the Higgs boson really works.
Sonnet for the Higgs boson
-Susan Cook-
You, Higgs boson, you come out of nowhere,
once you're blasted, hard enough, then, they say
indifference turns into desire, prepares
these subtle transformations, mystery's way,
bringing things together. Beauty, boson.
A boy beside me pulls me to my feet.
His truck is dark, darkness all in motion,
moving in the heat. Higgs, that was not heat
alone. Heat, remember, cools so quickly,
his, a perfect truck, catching you. You've known
that darkness deep inside a truck, thickly
threading all as one. I think Adam owned
a truck, magnetic wheels. The moving sent
him off. A truck, a truck, world without end.
The Discovery of Light: An American Sonnet
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :55
Thomas Edison and what his light did- understood through an American Sonnet.
- Playing
- The Discovery of Light: An American Sonnet
- From
- Susan J. Cook
The Discovery of Light: An American Sonnet
-Susan Cook-
Thomas Edison discovered cotton,
carbonized, sent out strands of silky light.
The non-believers drove for miles, not in
fascination, but in doubt that night sight
didn't require burning fire first,
a kindling so much harder to ignite,
the loss of life, from time to time, the curse
of other lamps, the tragedy of fire
placed too close, times when frightened horses kicked
the stable candle, burning hay that brought
entire towns to ash, the flames that licked
up everything, the cost of fire caught.
Some still don't trust a horse's fear, sudden
swaying, still not sure what this light has done.
Sonnet for the First Fish, Best Fish
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :51
Sonnets are a way to find optimism in difficult times. This is a sonnet that acknowledges that the first fish is the best fish and can provide for many.
- Playing
- Sonnet for the First Fish, Best Fish
- From
- Susan J. Cook
-Susan Cook-
America's Sonnet
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :57
On Juneteenth.
- Playing
- America's Sonnet
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet For The Baseball Teams Playing "Sweet Caroline"
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :54
This is a sonnet for the baseball teams who after the tragedy at the Boston Marathon each played the song the Boston Red Sox play during a game when they score a home run.
Sonnet for What Will Be Well
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:01
Poems are solace in times of not knowing.
Today, a Sonnet for What Will Be Well.
"There are events that narrowly avoid
crossing our paths, every day but let you
be...You can thank your lucky stars.
- Playing
- Sonnet for What Will Be Well
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet for What Will Be Well -Susan Cook- There are events that narrowly avoid crossing our paths, every day but let you be. You can thank your lucky stars, small voids somewhere in space, crevices that kept you, danger’s possibilities still there. My mother used to say that, my father, too, their authority broader, because I began to believe that somehow they knew when I should or shouldn’t trust fate, rely on faith to know what will be well in life. ‘Shipwrecked. Lost everything. All is well,’ my Grandfather , last dime spent, wrote to his wife. ‘Thank your lucky stars,’ he might have murmured, to dark waters, the rescuers’ voice heard.
Sonnet for Donald Hall (after reading his essay on growing old)
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:07
Donald Hall died on June 23rd. A sonnet written after reading his essay on growing old.
(After Reading His Essay on Growing Old)
-Susan Cook-
barns, for generations, have been lost
when one last winter snow storm tears the past
apart, barns like time, there until they're not.
And Donald Hall, I'm coming by to cook
for you, who've lived the inexplicable:
that foods are truly love, the loves that look
you in the eye, the meal that leaves you full.
And Donald Hall, your tree sees where you sit
and all who've watched before sitting by your
side. Bending back in time, were you a finch?
The tree a boy? We'll never now for sure
if trees were boys or men were birds. We knew
only this man. That's you, now. See? That's you.
Sonnet for President Obama's Tear
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:11
First published on the eve of Martin Luther King Day , we turn to our preferred form of political expression, the sonnet, to acknowledge the compassion President Obama has brought to the Presidency. Today, we offer a "Sonnet for President Obama's Tear''.
- Playing
- Sonnet for President Obama's Tear
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet for President Obama’s Tear His tear is for every person lost since illegal guns became more, much, so much more available. How do you convince the NRA these dead are theirs too? Touch the darkness of those who will not ever know who their guns took, experience wretched calculations of forever’s duration, time with no end, grief re-sensed. They calculate abstractly the time passed for those whose children died, who are not here. We only know one madman’s moment lasts lifetimes when we can’t bear Obama’s tear. Obama’s tear tells what must be retold. Compassion’s time is for whom the bell tolls.
Susan Cook
A Sonnet for Negative Ads
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :57
Sometimes, there is an ineffable quality to the offensiveness of negative campaign ads. We turn here to the sonnet to express deep concern about negative political ads. Thus, for this 2014 Election Campaign season, "A Sonnet for Negative Ads".
- Playing
- A Sonnet for Negative Ads
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet for Gorbachev
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :57
The vision of Gorbachev now is destroyed by Vladimir Putin. A sonnet will remind us of what Gorbachev made possible and what is now lost by Putin's polarization.
- Playing
- Sonnet for Gorbachev
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Ode to Mr. Roubini's West Grand Lake Bass Update
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:18
In Maine, Bass fishing on West Grand Lake is a destination respite for many, including Mr. Nouriel Roubini, the legendary economist who was almost single-handed in anticipating the 2008 housing collapse and world-wide recession. This "Ode to Mr. Roubini's West Grand Lake Bass " is revisited in the wake of the recent change in , let's say, the landscape under the "River of Financial Abundance".
ODE TO MR. ROUBINI'S WEST GRAND LAKE BASS REVISITED
MR. ROUBINI, DO YOU THINK IT WAS THE WEST GRAND LAKE BASS
THAT HELPED YOUR BRAIN CELLS FORECAST THE 2008 CRASH?
LUCKY FOR YOU, SOME BASS STILL REMAINED
TELL US, WILL INTRODUCING ALEWIVES TO THE ST. CROIX RIVER DRIVE OUT THE BASS?
The 2022 Prologue,
Mr. Roubini, time to fire up the grill,
Your very best guide in this time of ticker tape upheaval
is not Bloomberg News or today's Wall Street Journal.
To keep your title as Dr. West Grand Lake Bass,
your Omega-3s jumping, still saving our last
nickels and dollars from going out with the tide,
go to www.grandlakestreamguides."
-SUSAN COOK-
''Bannon's Farewell Pose'' to the tune of ''I'll Be Seeing You''! Lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook!
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 02:18
In the Department of Poetic Justice, to the tune from 'I'll Be Seeing You', an Ohm for Mr. Bannon, updated now that he refuses an Insurrection Day subpoena.
Addendum to Bannon's Farewell Pose
Now that there's been progress re-electing You-Know-Who.
Not much time for yoga, An update on just what I do
day-to-day to keep busy, besides yoga, there's something new:
doing lots of favors those with repayments due!
As you know my allergies keep me on my toes.
It turns out using shaving cream, reeks havoc with my nose.
Yes it is a trade-off, 5 days' stubble keeps down the rose-
colored nose liberals said caused by something that rhymes with “So”.
I've maintained my regimen with someone I advise.
It's just my personality, “My Leader Do-or-Die”.
It hasn't made me famous. The liberal press think I would lie
about things like if You-Know-Who had gotten me re-hired.
No, the White House had not yet, given me a call
on January fifth or sixth. At least, I don't recall
if my direct deposit shows my paychecks still legal
right on time to see if I was still working there after all.
No, I won't go testify. My phone messages are off
limits. Details of my day-to-day are really all I've got
to build up my retirement. There's a book deal I might sign.
Want to know what he said? Find my book on Amazon!
An American Sonnet for the Woman Who Is A Journalist
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:02
As Gwen Ifill is honored, as the Holocaust murders of the ancestors of Terry Gross are revealed, in the aftermath of the harassing effort to intimidate NPR's Mary Louise Kelly by the Secretary of State, an American Sonnet for the Woman Who Is A Journalist.
American Sonnet for the Woman Who Is a Journalist
For G.I., T.G., and M.L.K.
The moral righteousness of the human
spirit gradually appears as suffering,
a dark spot on the lungs, another strand
of fatigue. Her sustenance, enough, brings
the heaviness to us differently. Just there,
in her questioning, we see physical
intricacies of transformation. This
is how evil spreading its miserable
inhumanity begins to change. This
is how goodness brings itself to the small
crevice inside, sleeping, reawakened,
rising from the body's cellular call,
compassion, for those who've been forsaken.
The softened voice speaks as if her bones find
words, chiselled there by those buried alive.
-Susan Cook-
A Sonnet for the Quantum Mechanics of Poetry
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:03
Poetry best helps us grasp the Quantum Mechanics topic of the latest Nobel Prize in Physics.
A Woman's Genius Valued For Its Own Sake: Edna St. Vincent Millay and A Slice of Blueberry Pie
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 05:32
In Rockland, Maine celebrants of the 129th birthday of Edna St. Vincent Millay gathered zoomlike to honor her poetry. A woman's genius valued for its own sake was a rare event in Millay's time. Even now, her work is not considered part of the cherished American Literary canon. "Why" may be the question we should ask, even as she is now seen as a poet offering many a poet a feather in their cap if they chance to read at her birthday celebration.
Edna St. Vincent Millay and A Slice of Blueberry Pie
In Memoriam: Nancy Milford
Sonnet for Looking for China
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :59
From the Spring 2023 Maine Arts Journal. A poem on the intricacies of grieving.
- Playing
- Sonnet for Looking for China
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Sonnet for Looking for China
(Maine Arts Journal, Spring 2023)
-Susan Cook-
I am in my garden when I fall on
my knees because I remember I can't
find you now. Things that call or that beckon,
what walks toward me, has not been you. It can't
be. So, because I remember behind
everything, there is always something more,
I start to dig. People have tried to find
China this way. You found it, I bet, sure
now, of where it is that loss goes, the fall
it brings. I will find it too and when we're
there, together, we will celebrate small
truths. "Woman burrows to China." We'll cheer
human accomplishment, what cupped hands can
do, know what it is we didn't know then.