by | April 6, 2026 · 6:00 am
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Poetry Mentions

Happy National Poetry Month!

While I think of my new memoir Scrap as being hybrid (a mix of genres, such as flash, poetry, playscript, essay) with flash the predominant genre, I thought I’d look at references to poetry in the book.

I mention how much I loved Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry when I was young. This poem, which she wrote when she was nineteen years old, I listened to over and over again on an LP album.

“Renascence” is a dramatic poem, perfect for reading aloud, much different from the short and pithy Emily Dickinson poems I also read in my late teens. Here is one I remember reading in high school lying on my bed:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

I also mention Omar Khayyam, not for his poetry, which I didn’t know at that age, but because I knew of him and his Rubaiyat and ate dinner at a restaurant named after the poet. Khayyam was a Persian poet who lived one thousand years ago.

sample from THE RUBAIYAT

Most significantly in Scrap is a reference to Anne Sexton and “The Starry Night.” Here is the poem:

The Starry Night

“That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.” Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.
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That poem is depressing with its dark sky and its dark theme, but remember what the official 2026 National Poetry Month poster tells us: “Even if the darkness preceds and follows us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine.” You can read about Arthur Sze, the poet responsible for that quote in his poem “The Chance,” here: Arthur Sze. The poem here: THE CHANCE
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9 Comments

Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Flash Nonfiction, hybrid memoir, Memoir, National Poetry Month, Poetry, SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY, Scrap:Salvaging a Family, Writing

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9 responses to “Poetry Mentions”

  1. Kate Crimmins
    April 6, 2026 at 6:32 am

    Loved the poems you included. Always loved Khayyam!

    Reply
  2. John W. Howell
    April 6, 2026 at 11:15 am

    Great poets and poems, Luanne. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  3. Eilene Lyon
    April 6, 2026 at 7:05 pm

    Wonderful collection of poems!

    Reply
  4. pollymorse
    April 7, 2026 at 2:07 am

    Love both poets. Tragic lives they both led.

    Reply

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