by Kat | Apr 6, 2023 | General, Poetry
Welcome to my favorite month of the entire year… National Poetry Month!
As usual… Kym, Bonny, Sarah, and myself will be sharing some poetry with you this month on Thursday’s.
Before I share my poem for today, I thought I’d give you some ideas of how you can add more poetry to your April days! You will find a treasure trove of resources here… including getting a Poem-A-Day emailed to you. This month they will all be curated by Ada Limón, Poet Laureate. Want more… you will find 30 ideas here to bring more poetry to your April!
Today, each of us will be sharing a poem around the idea of wonder… I read a good deal of poetry and considered a number of different poems, but ultimately I picked a poem by Ellen Bass. She is a favorite poet of mine… she is easy to read and her poems really hit home for me. This poem starts with Rilke (who I just can’t get enough of!) and from there, she shares the wonder of us… she makes it personal…intimate for the reader… me and you …in the most incredible way.
The World Has Need of You
by Ellen Bass
…everything here seems to need us…
—Rilke
I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.
The World Has Need of You © Ellen Bass
If you want to learn more about Ellen Bass and her poetry… look here, and here.
And be sure to stop by to see what Kym, Bonny, and Sarah have shared today!
by Kat | Mar 16, 2023 | General, Poetry
Happy Third Thursday….aka Gathering of Poetry Day!
In my search for a poem to share with you all, I read a lot of poetry. But one poem has stuck with me and I have thought about it every single day since I read it. It is a poem by Mary Oliver, who seems to have a poem for every occasion. I think Invitation is the perfect spring poem.
Invitation
by Mary Oliver
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
Mary Oliver, “Invitation,” A Thousand Mornings: Poems from New York: Penguin Books, 2013.
While I don’t have the Goldfinches Mary describes, I do have some very loud Song Sparrow’s, who absolutely encourage me to linger on my morning walks with Sherman in the very best way with their raucous singing! I hope this poem provides you some encouragement to linger over something ridiculously delightful in your day!
Need more poetry today? Be sure to stop and see what Bonny and Kym have gathered today!
Photo by Andrew Patrick
by Kat | Feb 16, 2023 | General, Poetry
I read the poem I am sharing today earlier in the month and I did not know then how much these words would help me as the month progressed. I have memorized these words – it was simple to do so – and they have become my litany of hope as February has had some daunting challenges.
Langston Hughes wrote this poem, part of the Shadow of the Blues, in 1987. John Musto set the four poems to music, which you can listen to here (Island begins at 5:03). I did not need the music to find the balm of hope in Hughes words though… and I hope that you do as well.
Island
by Langston Hughes
Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now:
I see the island
Still ahead somehow.
I see the island
And its sands are fair:
Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes.
If you want to read more poetry, Bonny is gathering us all together today! If you’d like to join me with Bonny and Kym and share a poem…we’d love to have you!
See you all back here tomorrow.
by Kat | Jan 19, 2023 | General, Poetry
I first heard this poem a couple of years ago and late last year, I got myself a new book for my Poetry Library (Happy Birthday to ME!) and I was happily surprised to find it there as well.
This poem is for teachers everywhere, who teach all the amazing things every single day.
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent From Fourth Grade
by Brad Aaron Modlin
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you have forgotten to do something else —
something important — and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
From Everyone at This Party Has Two Names by Brad Aaron Modlin. Copyright © 2016 by Brad Aaron Modlin. Originally published by Southeast Missouri State University Press.
We (Bonny, Kym, and myself) would love for you to join us and share a poem that you love!
I will see you all back here on Monday!
by Kat | Dec 15, 2022 | General, Poetry
It’s the third Thursday of December and that can mean just one thing…it’s the day to share a poem!
December is a month that overflows with poetry for me. Maybe it is the darker mornings, maybe it is the twinkle lights, maybe it is the season… but December finds me steeped in poetry.
I treated myself to two new poetry books this month. I picked up Billy Collins Musical Tables and I had pre-ordered Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, which was released on December 6th.
I am saving the Poetry Unbound volume to read next year… I will read one poem and essay for 50 weeks and I am very much looking forward to this addition to my poetry reading!
However, I have been unable to put down Billy Collins new book of poems! I have read it through twice and I am on my third time through currently. It is so, so good. If you think that poetry is not for you, try Billy Collins… he makes poetry fun, easy to read, but with just enough for you to think about after you have read one of his poems! And if you want to listen to a delightful interview where NPR’s Scott Simon talks with Collins about his new book of poems, you will find it here (it starts at 7:58).
Today, my selection is from Musical Tables with a very appropriate for the season poem.
Crèche
by Billy Collins
For a moment,
the ox and a sheep
looked over at each other,
then they turned away
and went back
to adoring the Child.
Billy Collins: Musical Tables © 2022. Published by Random House, Penguin Random House LLC
A huge thanks to Bonny for hosting us all today, please stop by and see what poems have been shared! And I would like to encourage you all to pick up a poetry book and read a poem or two… you might even find one that you’d like to share one with us because we’d love to have you join us!
Happy Thursday everyone!
by Kat | Nov 17, 2022 | General, Poetry
It seems impossible that it is already the third Thursday of the month… and yet it is. And I have a poem to share with you all today (plus one to listen to, if you so desire!) I had originally imagined that I would find something to share from the stack of poetry books on my desk. I am working my way through Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind – again. And loving it more than the first time I read it! I am also reading a poem or two from Wendell Berry’s The Peach of Wild Things…which for me is Poetry Meditation.
I had a lovely list of poems to choose from, but then I discovered Carter Revard and I then knew that he would be the perfect poet for November. I have listened to this episode of Poetry For All multiple times… Revard’s poem What the Eagle Fan Says is so beautiful. And so I began the search for Carter Revard poetry… I first started here (which has not been updated, Mr. Revard died in January) and I was surprised that so little of his poetry was posted anywhere online.
No worries, because my library has one of his books and I picked it up this week. And so I began reading… beautiful poetry intertwined with equally beautiful stories. He was a Rhodes Scholar and I especially love his poems from his time at Oxford. The poem I am sharing today is from that time period… this is a poem that will linger with me long after I have read it. And though, I have never been to the Isle of Sky, Mr. Revard makes me feel like I have.
October, Isle of Skye
by Carter Revard
Wading up Brunigill’s rush
for a long time is a question
of where to place each boot
on a rock that will hold, advance,
of not slipping on moss-slime’s
green blackness under the swashing
of water past boots—
then eyes raise to a pool
too golden-deep for boots,
and before climbing around it, pause
and stretch and look down through
the amber lucence where
slow gold-lit ripplings touch
white crystals in rockbed,
till a rowan-berry comes bobbing,
red-round and lightly,
to ride through the pool—
then boots go up over sheep-paths
to the heathery ridge and
a bumblebee knee-brushed from
purple paper-firm bells
drops wet and stunned,
chill mist on her wings,
tumbles in browning blossoms
and on her back caught
in the jungle of heather her front legs
rise drowned and waking, hook
slowly a heather-twig, pull
the fur-body up as antennae wag
through green and amber sensing
late pollen, nectar
for bee-bread in burrows—
and light changes dazzling
in downstream mist,
blue brilliance,
cloudrush,
soft greyblue
sunfilled,
while newlit water
birdshrills and gurgles,
and down again climbing
bootplace by bootplace
to the stream and
its rowanberry raft
by moss-edge of pool—
that from scarlet seed
over amber movement
a green tree may sway.
October, Isle of Skye by Carter Revard from An Eagle Nation, published by The University of Arizona Press © 1993
I want to thank Bonny for providing the space for us to share our poems! And we’d love for you to join us if you have a poem to share…and I hope you do!
See you all back here on Monday!
