Whole ‘Lotta Poem Going ‘Round

The following blog was written by Cary Stough, an MU freshman with three poems forthcoming in this year’s edition of EPIC.

“Listen how/ their rhymes sing/ the little deaths you live.” I finally got my copy of the latest Poetry magazine. I’m just going to ramble here, so please humor me. There’s a funny thing that happened. A few days ago, the day after the night which I read the whole magazine in one sitting then went back and highlighted certain lines that I liked, in my poetry workshop at the University of Missouri, the old Mizzou, a fellow student presented on this particular journal/magazine – you see, everyone in the class is required to do a report and present on one of the more popular literary magazines/journals — and presented also to the class a poem which I had literally read one hour before class. W.S. Di Piero’s What’s Left. (to my defense, I’ve never been formally required to type a title of a poem, so if it’s supposed to be underlined or quotationed, I apologize…except not really, this is a blog, get a life or go write your own) — anyway, so like I was saying, he presented on this poem, and it just so happened to be my “favorite” poem in the magazine. That story isn’t supposed to be funny or anything. I just always feel the need to notify the world when Serendipity is present…except, I didn’t even mention any of this when that student read the poem in class. I like the line — the idea of the sentence — “…and the voice/ that breathes coffeeberry bush into your mouth.” It blew me away. I find it so beautiful the fact that even the sound of certain words can represent so much, and bring back so many sense-memories you never knew you had. It’s warm. And not a lot of things in my life right now are particularly as comforting as the sound, the feeling, the good vibration of saying coffeeberry bush over and over and over again. I think about it quite a bit now. I am in love with it. It is for my mouth forever. coffeeberry bush. It’s just one of those things, I guess. I liked the rest of the magazine as well. John Ashbery’s Rimbaud translations were nice. Translations are always nice, I think. I should also probably mention U. of Missouri’s own Scott Cairns, too. He wrote a wonderful poem titled First Storm and Thereafter. It’s good to know that there’s so much actual talent above me, and I mean it. It feels comforting in a way.

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