In the Summer of Bowering, Geist blogger and Poetry Is Dead magazine Editor-in-Chief Daniel Zomparelli will be reviewing George Bowering's latest poetry collection, My Darling Nellie Grey. The collection is divided into twelve chapters, named for each month of the year, and Zomparelli will review one chapter a week all summer long.

The May chapter is a glance through the travels of George Bowering in Europe. He uses his writing/notes from his trip in May of 1966 to write the poems of this chapter, which is a great way to form poems of your own. Taking the words you have already written to inspire new works is always a great suggestion as a writing prompt.

To keep the Summer of Bowering interesting, I will refrain from a review of this chapter, and instead, post my favourite poem from the month of May (with permission of Talon Books). Enjoy!

The Greek relics

By George Bowering

In Hellas, nothing has changed in 2500
years.

The kiosks in Constitution Square offer
Teen Muscles magazines,

along with chewing gum, worry beads and
Henry Miller books.

I was looking at the back of the head of a
lovely young

blonde woman from northern Europe. Her
shiny face

had been a foot from Poseidon's bronze
groin

for fifteen minutes.

One
was surrounded by marble,

by the centuries of men struggling with
their chisels.

But at the rain-threatened Acropolis

a
short homely Greek guard

hoiked
and spat on the Parthenon floor.

From up there Athens was a wide cluster of
white buildings.

Down there again it was a crush of people
in black.

You can follow along with Summer of Bowering by buying My Darling Nellie Grey at Talon Books. If you have a review for this chapter, please post it in the comment section.