Kevin Young: Dear Darkness

I’m reading it for PFFA’s NaPoReMo II.

I will not be writing much about it on this blog.

If you want to know what I think about it, go here:

http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showthread.php?t=66786

But if you want to know what it’s like, go buy it.

Because it’s no longer March

but April, it’s time for NaPoWriMo, that monthly madness where we write a poem a day.

Some certifiable folk are writing a poem a minute for 30 minutes. O joy. I leave to it and wish them best (and wonder how many will survive in the open, and how many will be institutionalized before their half-hour’s up).

In the past, I’ve listed poems of note from PFFA’s NaPo habit. This month I’m teaching once again, which means that marking is my lot. I cannot promise much — it’ll be a challenge to write the poem a day — but I’d like to kick off with the first thread to watch:

Jee Leong’s “A Lover’s Recourse”, which begins with a ghazal that I like. And I don’t like ghazals.

The bit I want to remember:

The cloudy pigeon, mutant dove, aches through the air,
nowhere safe to land, save the branches of the river.

Go see the lunacy for yourselves. Consider joining, if you must. But know this — PFFA’s changed its policy this year, so if you don’t post your first poem today, today, you will be disqualified from participating on the Poetry-Free-For-All.