It’s been raining far more than average here in southern Arizona.
Recording of Sarah Webster Fabio’s “I Would be for you Rain.”
Enjoy.
Ideally, while it’s raining for you
Photo by Inge Maria on Unsplash
Elizabeth Acevedo has written a five-start novel in verse about a poet, Xiomara, who calls herself, Poet X.
“I’ve never mourned something dying
before this moment.
I have no more poems. My mind blanks.
A roar tears from my mouth.
“Burn it! Burn it.
This is where the poems are,” I say,
thumping a fist against my chest.”
“Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too?
You would burn me, wouldn’t you, if you could?””
… page 308, Burn
There’s a poem in between those statements.
I moved about eight weeks ago and had to say goodbye to my decade-long membership in a Madison, Wisconsin, writing group Tuesdays with Story. They were smart, supportive, and insightful when reviewing peer submissions.
I need a writer’s group for a few reasons: deadline, feedback, motivation, and commiserating with like minds. Assuming any two writers have like minds.
Thursday I’m planning to attend my first meeting of a writer’s group in my new hometown of Green Valley. I’m nervous like it’s the first day of school coming up! Where is my Monkees® notebook? What should I wear? Will they like me? Can I pay attention to them and stop thinking about me?!!
I realize I have to write a poem about this.
The Poetry Foundation site has a cool compilation of Back to School poems. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68662/back-to-school-poems
Such love does
the sky now pour,
that whenever I stand in a field,
I have to wring out the light
When I get
home.
and…
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
– St. Francis of Assisi
I just finished Barry’s awesome book, Syllabus – Notes from an Accidental Professor. Should I call it a book? It’s a unique compilation of her notes. The library had it in the Graphic Novel section.
Read this! It’s so compelling. Where do images come from?
I think this comment applies to poetry as well, right? “What happens to a poem because of what we think?” Nothing!
I love that she made her students memorize a couple of Emily Dickinson poems like this one:
The Lost Thought
I felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.
The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,
But sequence ravelled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.
“Ravelled.” Don’t you love that?
An Anthem Against Silence Play this to remind yourself. Play this to motivate yourself instead of just ranting against you-know-who (my apologies to Lord Voldemort).
Thanks to Maria Popova and Brainpickings.org
PROTEST
To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.
I spent this afternoon writing poetry annotations for a non-fiction book I’m working on. It has been enlightening.
Somehow my self-talk got to admonishing myself to trust myself.
I thought of this Najumi quote:
I have a corollary to that idea.
“The woman who trusts herself is the safest person on the planet.” – Pat Edwards, November 6, 2016
Yep.
I am a Great Aunt again (and I am the best of the great aunts, to be sure).
I wrote this poem for new person, Duke, my niece’s new son. You expect that the parents would respond immediately with love, but to feel strongly as an aunt, thousands of miles away, immediately?? That amazes me.
There wasn’t even a hole there.
But now you fill it.
I didn’t know I was missing you.
But now you’re here.
I knew love was infinite.
But now I’ve felt its stretch.
You’re the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
You’re the beat my heart didn’t know it was missing.
You are now a part of this:
a cloud forming to hold the rain
a bud leaning into the light
a bird gliding toward the branch
a wave skimming the shore.
Welcome.
I read Auden’s last book, “Thank You, Fog”. The second poem in there, Aubade (meaning a poem for the dawn or early morning) is a perfect representation of connectivity. I referenced in my post on http://dayswithoutpirateattack.com/2016/03/18/ripples-out/
“I know that I am and will,
I am willing and knowing,
I will to be and to know,
facing in four directions,
outwards and inwards in Space,
observing and reflecting,
backwards and forwards through Time,
recalling and forecasting.”
– W.H. Auden, Aubade
Poetiosity 