Tag Archives: poetry

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

 

 

‘

 

—

credits: maria popova, marginalian, enchanted lion books

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

 

 

 

 

Dec21

another solstice comes to pass.

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“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

Aug20

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

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yo!

rainbow

hello

don’t go!

 

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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

Apr9

as poetry.

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“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

 

Dec23

an answer.

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THE NIGHT TRAVELER

Passing by, he could be anybody:

A thief, a tradesman, a doctor

On his way to a worried house.

But when he stops at your gate,

Under the room where you lie half-asleep,

You know it is not just anyone—

It is the Night Traveler.

You lean your arms on the sill

And stare down. But all you can see

Are bits of wilderness attached to him—

Twigs, loam and leaves,

Vines and blossoms. Among these

You feel his eyes, and his hands

Lifting something in the air.

He has a gift for you, but it has no name.

It is windy and woolly.

He holds it in the moonlight, and it sings

Like a newborn beast,

Like a child at Christmas,

Like your own heart as it tumbles

In love’s green bed.

You take it, and he is gone.

All night—and all your life, if you are willing—

It will nuzzle your face, cold-nosed,

Like a small white wolf;

It will curl in your palm

Like a hard blue stone;

It will liquefy into a cold pool

Which, when you dive into it,

Will hold you like a mossy jaw.

A bath of light. An answer.

 

 

—

credits: poem from Twelve Moons, 1979 by Mary Oliver, painting – google images

Aug18

all the loveliness.

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queen anne’s lace in august
—
Passing The Unworked Field
Queen Anne’s lace
is hardly prized but
neither is it idle,
look how it
stands fiercely
on its thin stem,
how it
nurtures its white budlets
with the
gift of the sun,
how it
makes for this world
all the
loveliness it can.
-Mary Oliver