Category Archives: poetry

Aug3

(Luck I.)

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this very moving page popped up on my screen recently

proof once again

that one person’s simple act

can have a huge impact on another

often without  them ever knowing.

profound and quiet kindness

yes.

 

—

source credit: Luck (I), by Joy Sullivan

Joy lives in Portland, Oregon and is a poet and educator. She has a masters degree in poetry and served as the poet-in-residence for the Wexner Center for the Arts. She also leads live transformative writing workshops for individuals who have experienced trauma and has guest-lectured in classrooms from Stanford to Florida State University.

Joy’s work is a part of The San Marcos Writing Project and is one of over 200 writing project sites in the country devoted to developing teacher leaders that improve the writing and learning of all students.

csusm.edu/education/outreach/smwp.html

Apr9

dipped in words and art.

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a beautiful, beautiful book

 what is a poem, really, and what exactly is its use?

Every once in a while, you stumble upon something so lovely, so unpretentiously beautiful and quietly profound, that you feel like the lungs of your soul have been pumped with a mighty gasp of Alpine air. This is a Poem That Heals Fish  is one such vitalizing gasp of loveliness — a lyrical picture-book that offers a playful and penetrating answer to the question of what a poem is and what it does. And as it does that, it shines a sidewise gleam on the larger question of what we most hunger for in life and how we give shape to those deepest longings.

Written by the French poet, novelist, and dramatist Jean-Pierre Simeón, translated into English by Enchabnted Lion Books founder Claudia Zoe Bedrick (the feat of translation which the Nobel-winning Polish poet Wislawa Syymborska had in mind when she spoke of “that rare miracle when a translation stops being a translation and becomes … a second original”), and illustrated by the inimitable Olivier Tallec, this poetic and philosophical tale follows young Arthur as he tries to salve his beloved red fish Leon’s affliction of boredom.

i read the above review by maria popova, and simply had to find it

i read it three times and looked closely at the details

i so agree with her.

—

in honor of national poetry month

and every day of every month

read a poem. 

—

“great children’s books are wisdom dipped in words and art.”

-peter h. reynolds

 

 

‘

 

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credits: maria popova, marginalian, enchanted lion books

Feb25

private.

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is it really, though?

what would stop anyone from just walking around the sign,

unsure of where the private part begins and ends?

or to test the boundaries?

 

—

“there is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.”

*George Eliot, Felix Holt: The Radical 1866

 

*Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, (who changed her name because she wanted her writing to be taken seriously), was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and widely recognized as one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, the Radical, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda.

Jan4

words on a page.

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ten  years ago

this surprise postcard

appeared in my mailbox 

from a former student

now far away

addressed to peaches

my affectionate nickname

sent to me

when she was seven not yet eight

her only message

a beautiful poem 

summed up

 life

in three lines

love is love

life is life

there is nothing else to it.

i knew way back when

she was just four not yet five

learning

how to hold a pencil to write

she was a beat poet and roller derby queen of adventure.

—

“one should write because one loves the shape of stories and sentences

and the creation of different words on a page.”

-annie proulx

 

 

 

 

Sep6

september days.

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“by all these lovely tokens,

september days are here. 

with summer’s best of weather,

and autumn’s best of cheer.”

-helen hunt jackson

 

—

art credit: debi hubbs, folk art painting

Aug20

so, how’s a poet to even try to keep their days straight?

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yo!

rainbow

hello

don’t go!

 

—

an original, in honor of bad poetry day

which i just missed 

but now

it’s very nearly national poets day

and before too long will be national poetry day.

and so

see below.

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Hard on the heels of Bad Poetry Day on August 18

Comes National Poets Day on August 21

Presumably we celebrate good poets for this day.

Although Poets Day could certainly refer to any poets, good or bad.

It could even mean you! If you’re a poet …

So on August 21, celebrate the poet in you. Or in your friend. Or your favorite poet. It’s all up to you.

This day is different from yet another day celebrating poets and poems: National Poetry Day in October.

Mar21

listen, earth sings.

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May be an image of flower, nature and body of water
 Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France
 “Spring has returned again.
The Earth is like a child
that knows poems by heart;
so many poems, so many verses,
patient toil winning her prizes at last.
Strict, the old teacher.
We loved the whiteness in the old
gentleman’s beard,
its bright snow.
Now when we ask what the green,
what the blue is,
Earth knows the answer,
has learned it.
She knows.
Earth, you’re on holiday,
lucky one: play now!
Play with us children!
We’ll try to catch you.
Glad, joyous Earth!
The gladdest must win.
Every lesson the old teacher
taught her,
all that is printed in roots
and laborious stems:
now she sings it!
Listen, Earth sings.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
—
“The inspiration for this sonnet came from
a visit to Ronda, in southern Spain, in the
winter of 1912-13. Rilke had overheard a
group of schoolchildren singing in the Convent
of Santo Domingo, accompanied only by a
triangle and tambourine. He didn’t know what
their song meant, but the light-hearted
animation of their singing is reflected in the
cadences of the second and third stanzas.”
—
on international poetry day
Oct7

october slipped quietly in.

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“Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now how comfortable it will be to touch the earth instead of the nothingness of the air and the endless freshets of wind? And don’t you think the trees, especially those with mossy hollows, are beginning to look for the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep inside their bodies? And don’t you hear the goldenrod whispering goodbye, the everlasting being crowned with the first tuffets of snow? The pond stiffens and the white field over which the fox runs so quickly brings out its long blue shadows. The wind wags its many tails. And in the evening the piled firewood shifts a little, longing to be on its way.”

~Mary Oliver, “Song for Autumn”

 

 

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art credit: willowday flower project by gina, stockholm

May2

at last, may.

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yes it was yesterday, i think they may have over-celebrated and lost count. 

the fairy dance

the soft stars are shining,

the moon is alight;

the folk of the forest

are dancing tonight:

o swift and gay

is the song that they sing:

they float and sway

as they dance in a ring.

o seek not to find them,

the wee folk so fair;

they’re shy as the swallow

and swift as the air:

if you come, they are gone

like a snowflake in may:

like a breath, like a sigh,

they vanish away.

 

-katherine davis (1892-1980)

 

 

 

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image source: peter gray’s vintage art and postcards

Apr20

noetic or poetic?

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NOETIC

no-ED-ik

Part of speech: adjective 

Origin: Greek, mid-17th century

Definition: Relating to mental activity or the intellect.

Examples in a sentence:

“The philosophy department attracts noetic students.”

“Noah was equally athletic and noetic”

—

Some travel life, 

Shining brightly noetic

But as for me, 

 I’d rather wax poetic. 

-beth

 

 

 

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image credit: npr brightside