Author Archives: Rachel Horowitz

Introduction to Molly’s Class

Sidney invited me to post some poems, most of which I composed during a class with Molly Peacock, which I took, fortunately, at her recommendation.  I didn’t really know Molly, but I liked her name, and her cool peacock logo, a beautiful feminine watercolor, full of movement and style.  Her class was a seminar on the metaphysical poets George Herbert and John Donne.  Surely I remembered reading Donne in college, years ago, but I couldn’t recall George Herbert.  I highly recommend studying something you’re unfamiliar with, learning something new – I know it’s a cliché, but it’s such a relief to be reminded that there are fresh insights, that what you hadn’t learned can still be learned.   And for a poet, there is such comfort in form – I didn’t even realize I needed form, I thought maybe I’d invented my own sort of form, a stream of consciousness rant like Kerouac but not as flighty, as whimsical as E E Cummings with punctuation.  Yes it’s good to have some pomposity if you’re going to try to be a poet!   

Anyhow, in class we read some wonderful poems, and unpacked them – discussed their meanings, like in school, but not in a diagrammed way, like when I learned The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but as a conversation among poets.  One thing that is so great about Molly is she has a way about speaking of the lives of Herbert and Donne as if she knew them, intimate details that made them come alive.  We read Prayer by George Herbert, and afterwards, she invited us to write a poem using comparisons, making a list, and then she added, why don’t you try it in quatrains?  We also read The Pulley, and Love (III) also by Herbert, after which she invited us to have a conversation, to combine short and long sentences, to try and resolve something.  How about a little rhyme, she suggested, and I learned not to overdo it; she counseled (while kindly not pointing out I had at first written some sort of limerick) don’t feel you have to rhyme everything.  Just a suggestion of rhyme gives a lift to the ear AND gives you the freedom to complete your thought.   

These two poems, The Painting and After George Herbert are the poems I began to write in class (the latter, as my 8-year old son would say, obviously) – they took some sprucing up afterwards, but the impetus to start them was invaluable.  If you ever think about taking a poetry class I think you should – poets are so aware that they exist together in this world of words and emotions – expressing what cannot be expressed otherwise – that it seems to me, at least from this class, that they can’t help thriving off of and supporting one another.  Plus there is joy in poetry, and poems can be read with a deep lilting voice that loves syllables and rhymes, with humor and light.  I’m really glad I took this class with Molly, which pushed me to experiment with form and realize how freeing it can be.

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Grandma Toby (continued from last post)

Grandma was married, her whole life, to Grandpa Harold. He died 25 years ago, but she remained bound to him, always. Theirs was a real love affair—she was swept away by this dashing east coast gentlemen and he never let her down. I can picture him in his blue and white seersucker suit, his polka… Continue Reading

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Grandma Toby

Grandma Toby was enormously influential to me. She would fly me out from Colorado for the summer to visit her back east for three or four weeks every year like clockwork. Lazy summers at the neighborhood pool, the shopping mall, the beauty parlor, and reading on the summer porch before a leisurely afternoon nap. “Think… Continue Reading

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