Poetry Mix Tape: Poems on The End of the World

I like a little music in the morning on the way to work. But it has to be a certain kind of music. Nothing light. Nothing sappy. In the morning, I like my music up-tempo. And I like to play it loud. Is it weird to admit that I use music to pump me up some mornings as I drive to work? Too late now to take it back, I suppose. (I'll leave off the confession that I also like to sing along. At the top of my lungs.)

One song I often turn to for a little waking up is called "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox 20. It's up-tempo. It's loud. It's singable. And it's about the end of the world.

Where exactly am I going with this? Well there seems to be a small sub-genre of poetry that I enjoy--poems about the end of the world. Not sure why I enjoy these poems. I'm sure a psycho-analyst would have a field day with that one. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here to share some good "End of the World" poems with you. Now, I have to admit, there aren't many that I can find, but here are the ones I enjoy.

My favorite has to be this one, by Stanley Kunitz...

HALLEY'S COMET

Miss Murphy in first grade

wrote its name in chalk

across the board and told us

it was roaring down the stormtracks

of the Milky Way at frightful speed

and if it wandered off its course

and smashed into the earth

there’d be no school tomorrow.

A red-bearded preacher from the hills

with a wild look in his eyes

stood in the public square

at the playground’s edge

proclaiming he was sent by God

to save every one of us,

even the little children.

“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,

waving his hand-lettered sign.

At supper I felt sad to think

that it was probably

the last meal I’d share

with my mother and my sisters;

but I felt excited too

and scarcely touched my plate.

So mother scolded me

and sent me early to my room.

Read the rest of this poem here. As with so many end of the world poems, it's the ending that seals it.

Even though there aren't a ton of this type of poem out there, here are some more you might enjoy...well maybe poems about the end of the world aren't "enjoyable" per se, but you know what I mean:

• "Update on the Last Judgement" by Ellen Hinsey
• "When the World Ended as We Knew It" by Joy Harjo
• "A Song on the End of the World" by Czeslaw Milosz
• "The End of the World" by Archibald MacLeish
• "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost
• "The end of the world" by Miroslav Holub
• "The Powwow at the End of the World" by Sherman Alexie
• "The End of the World" by Erica Jong
• "Disappointments of the Apocalypse" by Mary Karr

Maybe there are some more out there that I'm missing. Please let me know. And enjoy the mix.

Poetry Book Review: Face by Sherman Alexie

Sometimes you get the hiatus, sometimes the hiatus gets you. I hadn't intended to take such a long break from blogging, but life kept getting in the way. I have found some time to read some really good books, though. Like Face by Sherman Alexie.

Alexie has written some high quality short stories and novels, but I find his poems to be just as good. Face is Alexie at his best...humorous, insightful, and creative. And the topics are incredibly wide-ranging--from children to memory to marriage to life on the reservation and more.

In some of the best poems, he combines poetry and prose, almost interrupting himself, like he does in a poem called "Inappropriate."

A lot of the poems fall under the "narrative" category, like "Missed Connections," a poem about mishearing a sentence during an airplane ride. Alexie tells stories just as well in poems as he does in his novels.

I leave you with a poem about fatherhood, "How to Create an Agnostic," which is one of my favorites from the book.

How To Create an Agnostic

Singing with my son,

I clapped my hands
Just as lightning struck.

It was dumb luck.

But my son, awed, thought
I’d created the electricity.

He asked, “Dad, how'd you do that?”

Before I could answer,
thunder shook the house

And set off neighborhood car alarms.

“Dad,” he said. “Can you burn
down that tree outside my window?

The one that looks like a giant owl?”

O, my little disciple, my one boy choir,
I can’t do that

because your father,
your half-assed messiah,

is afraid of fire.

© 2008 Sherman Alexie

Poetry Mix Tape: Poetry by Native Americans

It's been a busy week, what with the return to work and all, so I'm tardy in my creation of a Poetry Mix Tape. My inspiration for this week's theme, Poetry by Native Americans, came after reading a poem by the award-winning author and poet Sherman Alexie. It was a beautiful, moving piece. There was only one problem--I couldn't remember where I'd found it. I knew I read it within the last couple weeks, but wasn't sure if it had been online or in one of the anthologies I checked out from the library.

After much searching, I finally found it. And I was glad I did:

I Would Steal Horses  

By Sherman Alexie 

For Kari

for you, if there were any left,
give a dozen of the best
to your father, the auto mechanic
in the small town where you were born

and where he will die sometime by dark.
I am afraid of his hands, which have
rebuilt more of the small parts
of this world than I ever will.

I would sign treaties for you, take
every promise as the last lie, the last
point after which we both refuse the exact.

I would wrap us both in old blankets
hold every disease tight against our skin.

(I apologize for posting the entire poem; I couldn't resist. You can find copyright info and the entire poem here.)

So I went on to spend some of my free time this week hunting for poems for this week's mix tape. I came across many new poems by poets that were both familiar and new to me. It was challenging because it's an area of poetry that I don't have much of a experience with. And also because there's no one place on the net where Native American poems can be accessed. They're spread out quite a bit. I guess that's why I like this mix tape project. It lets me search far and wide for poems that fit my theme and then compile them in one place for perpetuity.

Please, if you know of any poems that fit this week's theme, post them to the comments. The more, the better. And while I think of it, teachers out there, feel free to encourage your students to participate in this little weekly project. The Poetry Mix Tape has no age limits!

So here is my Poetry by Native American Poets Mix Tape:

"What is Broken Is What God Blesses" by Jimmy Santiago Baca
"Blankets of Bark" by Sherman Bitsui
"The Girl Who Loved the Sky" and "Song of Our Times" by Anita Endrezze
"When the World Ended as We Knew It" by Joy Harjo
"Blind Curse" and "Culture and the Universe" by Simon J. Ortiz
"Ash" and "Birth" by Elise Paschen (scroll down to find them)
"Hoola Hand" by Henry Real Bird (scroll down here, too)
"I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move" and "Captivity" by Louise Erdrich

I know this is my biggest mix tape so far, but I couldn't narrow it down. I didn't have many poems by Native American poets in my mental database to begin with, so I really wanted to push myself to come up with a good number of them. I hope you find the time to look through some or all of them. And please add your contributions to the mix tape in the Comments section.