Keeping us alive by throwing stones.

A poem within a poem, a poem about a poem, a poem of a poem that became a poem...

I don't even know anymore. Words, they just run.

But honestly, Muriel Rukeyser's poem "Poem White Page/ White Page Poem" seems like it is about what its like to put words of a poem on a white page.

"Poem    white page       white page      poem
something is streaming out of a body in waves
something is beginning from the fingertips
they are starting to declare for my whole life
all the despair and the making music
something like wave after wave
that breaks on a beach
something like bringing the entire life
to this moment
the small waves bringing themselves to white paper
something like light stands up and is alive."

The first time I read this poem, I didn't think much of it. To be honest, I had already picked this one for my blog because it was short. (Honesty is the best policy). But then I read the poem again and I began to take note of the power-words (as I will call them). Words that embody a sense of awe, power, or strength-- words like Wave, ocean, declare, "whole life", "entire life," "alive".  Once I saw those words, and I read it again, I read it again, and I read it again, each time with more vehemence. He made something so simple sounding, putting words on a page, sound like an epic. It IS difficult to share your life on page, but impossible to keep to yourself. I could only image what he went through, being a Jew in the second world war. It must have been brutal, terrible, evil, monstrous.... I could go on. But something about poetry keeps him alive, it keeps US alive.

In searching for something to compare and contrast, I found another Jewish poet who happened to write about poems. The title of his poem is, "Temporary Poem of My Time" by Yehuda Amichai. Both poems use repetition of phrases to increase the power and voice of the poem. Since both poets were Jews and drastically affected by the holocaust, I can only imagine that they desperately needed to have a voice--a loud, clear, powerful, voice. Amichia's poem used the imagery of a stone and of throwing those stones. Yet, at the end of the poem his last stanza moves from throwing stones to throwing "nothing"

"Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be."