entangled in national poetry month.
Apr9
entangled.
entangled in national poetry month.
Tag Archives: poetry
Aug3
(Luck I.)
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.
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
‘
—
credits: maria popova, marginalian, enchanted lion books
Jan4
words on a page.
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
Dec21
another solstice comes to pass.
“the grand show is eternal.
it is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.
eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and eternal glowing…
as the round earth rolls.”
-john muir
Sep6
september days.
“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?
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.
—
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.
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.
“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”
—
art credit: willowday flower project by gina, stockholm
Apr9
as poetry.
“some of us don’t want to be tough alpha leaders.
some of us just want to write
and wander
the garden
and breathe in the sky
and nourish and nurture
and quietly create
new pathways
and live our
lives as art.
to know the earth
as poetry.”
-victoria erickson, rhythms and rhymes
—
in honor of national poetry month
—
art credit: Edgar Degas | Landscape | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
I didn't have my glasses on.... 