Notes from a week of poetry…
Tuesday evening, coloring with markers, sweating wine glass filled with melting ice and Pinot Grigio, too hot to have windows open; Krista Tippett’s crisp apple voice speaking with, listening to, Marie Howe. This was my third listen:
“It strikes me that these rituals of ordinary time themselves are a little bit like poetry, these condensed, kind of economical little packets of beauty and grace that carry so much more forward than, than is obvious…..”
“I mean, it used to be that we would attend these things every week that would remind us of these, you know, the sacredness of the everyday. And it’s harder to find it now…..”
“Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. You know I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth. Uh, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.”
The Poetry of Ordinary Time. From the On Being podcast. August 14, 2014.
Thursday morning, working through this metaphor exercise still. And it’s very hard. And, it hurts. I’m 6 of them in; have only shared one. A buzzed inebriation on words persists; Magdalene- The Seven Devils.
Listen to Magdalene- The Seven Devils, by Marie Howe
Sunday morning, raining, I stayed home to allow space for a coveted adjustment in attitude; newspaper came to the stoop triple bagged and containing a box for the NYTimes virtual reality immersion experience.
“The rapid rise of Instapoets probably will not shake up the literary establishment….but they could reshape the lingering perception of poetry as a creative medium in decline.”
“their appeal lies in the unpolished flavor of their verses…..”
The Web Poet’s Society. By Alexandra Alter, front page column on the November 8, 2015 New York Times.
All week long, the new job, the fruition of old vines; promoting, optimizing, participating in an endeavor that nurtures a poetic culture for children.
“Once kids realize that paper is a safe place for thought exploration…..Writing becomes a safe playground instead of an intimidating foreign country.”
-Julie Bogart, Brave Writer.
Stinson Park in Ortega, Jacksonville, Florida
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