BW16: National Poetry Month: The Chance by Arthur Sze

 

Happy Sunday! Since April is National Poetry Month leaving you with The Chance by Arthur Sze which is excerpted on the poster above. 

The Chance 

The blue-black mountains are etched

   with ice. I drive south in fading light.

   The lights of my car set out before

   me, and disappear before my very eyes.

   And as I approach thirty, the distances

   are shorter than I guess? The mind

   travels at the speed of light. But for

   how many people are the passions

   ironwood, ironwood that hardens and hardens?

   Take the ex-musician, insurance salesman,

   who sells himself a policy on his own life;

   or the magician who has himself locked

   in a chest and thrown into the sea,

   only to discover he is caught in his own chains.

   I want a passion that grows and grows.

   To feel, think, act, and be defined

   by your actions, thoughts, feelings.

   As in the bones of a hand in an X-ray,

   I want the clear white light to work

   against the fuzzy blurred edges of the darkness:

   even if the darkness precedes and follows

   us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine.

BW16: P stands for .......

 

Happy Sunday! P stands for Paint.  We’re still prepping our bathroom since we had the bathroom disaster and we’ve been scraping and scrubbing and sanding, redoing the old orange peel left over from the days we used to rent before we lay linoleum, and shop for replacements for the old medicine cabinet and mirrors, and light fixtures. Hubby and I have different methods for getting some things done and we are both passionate about how to do so but we have fun in the process since both ways work well. Things goes faster when we work together as a team. Which brings me to our letter of the week.

P not only stands for paint but also poetry,  plot, prose, personification, protagonists, proverbs, puns, as well as pool.  Ha! 

"Trouble (oh, we got trouble)

Right here in River City (right here in River City)

With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool (that stands for pool)

We've surely got trouble (we've surely got trouble)

Right here in River City (right here)

Gotta figure out a way to keep the young ones moral after school

(Our children's children gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble)"

Ya Got Trouble by Robert Preston

April is National Poetry Month and the poster above represents the poem Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton. 

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

Why the poem has no punctuation is beyond me, but it's another p word.   So read a book of poetry or punctuation.  Read about Robert Preston, or Prince or Pedro Pascal.  Read a book about painters, or pets, or penguins.  Read a book about passion or peace or prosperity. 

Find your pleasure, find your prize, as you participate in our favorite pastime.  

Peace out! 

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BW17: National Poetry Month

 Happy Sunday!  We are going to close out the month with a nod to National Poetry Month and this year's Poet Laurette Ada Limon.  

The Last Thing

First there was the blue wing

of a scraggly loud jay tucked

into the shrubs. Then the bluish-

black moth drunkenly tripping

from blade to blade. Then

the quiet that came roaring

in like the R. J. Corman over

Broadway near the RV shop.

These are the last three things

that happened. Not in the universe,

but here, in the basin of my mind,

where I’m always making a list

for you, recording the day’s minor

urchins: silvery dust mote, pistachio

shell, the dog eating a sugar

snap pea. It’s going to rain soon,

close clouds bloated above us,

the air like a net about to release

all the caught fishes, a storm

siren in the distance. I know

you don’t always understand,

but let me point to the first

wet drops landing on the stones,

the noise like fingers drumming

the skin. I can’t help it. I will

never get over making everything

such a big deal.

This week's post is brought to you by the letter Q for guiet, quintessential, question, and quest. 

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BW14: April Author of the Month - Barbara Kingsolver

 

Happy Sunday! April is a fun month of the year since it is National Poetry month as well as National Humor month, National Frog month, and National Kite Month.  Today we celebrate Palm Sunday as well as Children's Book Day, the 3rd is Find a Rainbow Day, the 4th is School Librarian day, the 5th is National Walking Day, the 6th California Poppy Day, and the 7th is Good Friday as well as World Health day, and the 8th is All is Ours day.

Plus our Author of the Month is Barbara Kingsolver, best known for the Poisonwood Bible which I found to be an absolutely amazing story and stayed with me long after I finished it. Nathan Price knows nothing about the Congo or its people, but is determined to start a church and save all the natives.  The story is from the perspective of Orleana Price and her four daughters.  Rachel, a teenager who vain and self absorbed; twins Leah and Adah, both extremely intelligent, but physically different.  Adah disabled from birth and can't speak.  Leah adores her father whereas Adah views him and the world more realistically. And Ruth who sees the world through her five year old eyes.  While Nathan insists on the natives conforming to his view of the world, Orleana and her daughters do their best to survive, learning about the world they now are forced to reside it. 

The Poisonwood Bible is full of African history and culture. Because there are many different meanings to the same words, whether the emphasis is on one part or another, it leads to many miscommunication between the Prices and the villagers. Throughout, the villagers remain a constant.  They end up teaching the Prices about life, individuality, liberty, and death.  Africa changes the Price family, for better and for worse, forever.  I didn't expect to enjoy this story as much as I did but from Rachel's self absorbed rants to Adah's metamorphosis, the lives of the Prices and the story of Africa completely enfolds you.  If you haven't read The Poisonwood Bible yet, I recommend it. 

Kingsolver has written many books which I am looking forward to reading. She was an editor for Best American Short Stories in 2001. Plus her stories are part of the core literature curriculum in many high schools and colleges. 

Join me in reading Barbara Kingsolver's works this month. 

Our post is brought to us by the letter N which stands for narrator, night, national, and names. 

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BW16: National Poetry Month

 

National Poetry Month Poster by Bao Lu

April is National Poetry Month and it's time to build a rhyme.  Use a letter, use a vowel, write a ode to a towel, or write rhapsodies about an owl. From blank verse to free verse, from haiku to dodoitsu, from nonet to sonnets, from the abstract to the sublime, be it weighty or flighty,  anyone can do it, if you dare write a line.     

Ode to C

Big C 

Little C

What Begins with C

Thanks to Dr. Seuss

We won't end up in a Tree

Calliopes and carousels

chugging, chanting, caroling. 

Circling without a care. 

Courteous citizens

develop the knack,

Reaching, stretching.

Fingers to snatch

That colorful, oval,

 brass ring.

Homonyms

As the son walked in the sun, he couldn’t decide if he was right to write about the tale of the tail.  Who would believe it would affect him so and change the effect of the rain when he decided to reign. Nobody told him to fold his cards or fold his clothes.  He preferred to bail out the boat rather than to bail out his brother. She preferred to count out her cents and ignore all common sense while the scent of the horse made him hoarse. The whole time he dug the hole, she was at the inn, jammed in the door jamb. The knight came in the night to pick up the male only to discover it was only mail.  Who was she to meddle with the medal and allowed him to speak aloud.  He was awed even though she was odd, when she offered him cash and instead handed him her cache of keys.  The boy was rather coarse when he showed him the course.   

  

Okay your turn.  Are you drawing a blank? Sit with paper and pen and don't think, just write, let your brain play and see what you have to say.   If I can do it, so can you. 

 Blank

What do you see,

When you draw a blank?

Letters, foggy and fuzzy

 Roam and flee.

Words, simple.

Yet not.

Like butterflies about to land.

Do you catch them or wait?

As they sit on the tip of your tongue.

or the back of your hand.

Rhythm and rhyme,

Let it be.

Make you see.

Take your time. 

Words, simple.

Yet not.

Pens bleed

Across the page.

Strokes and symbols

Take on need.

Blank and blind

Thoughts and letters,

Illuminate and illustrate

What comes to mind.

Words, simple.

Yet not.

Do you dare????  Please share! 

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Count of Monte Cristo Readalong

Chapter 31. Italy: Sinbad the Sailor

Chapter 32. The Waking

Chapter 33. Roman Bandits

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BW17: Notes on the Art of Poetry

As we wind up April and National Poetry Month, I'll leave you with a couple more tidbits.

Notes on the Art of Poetry

by Dylan Thomas

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on

in the world between the covers of books,

such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,

such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,

such and so many blinding bright lights,

splashing all over the pages

in a million bits and pieces

all of which were words, words, words,

and each of which were alive forever

in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

******

Book Lover

by Robert William Service 

I keep collecting books I know

I'll never, never read;

My wife and daughter tell me so,

And yet I never head.

"Please make me," says some wistful tome,

"A wee bit of yourself."

And so I take my treasure home,

And tuck it in a shelf.

And now my very shelves complain;

They jam and over-spill.

They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"

"some day," I say, "I will."

So book by book they plead and sigh;

I pick and dip and scan;

Then put them back, distrest that I

Am such a busy man.

Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,

my Gibbon and Defoe;

To savour Swift I'll never learn,

Montaigne I may not know.

On Bacon I will never sup,

For Shakespeare I've no time;

Because I'm busy making up

These jingly bits of rhyme.

Chekov is caviare to me,

While Stendhal makes me snore;

Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,

And Balzac is a bore.

I have their books, I love their names,

And yet alas! they head,

With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,

My Roster of Unread.

I think it would be very well

If I commit a crime,

And get put in a prison cell

And not allowed to rhyme;

Yet given all these worthy books

According to my need,

I now caress with loving looks,

But never, never read.

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BW16: Bookish Potpourri

Hello my lovelies. Did you know today is World Plant a Vegetable Garden Day? How about just a plain old planting day. When I met my husband 28 years ago, he had two huge Hawaiian Schefflera plants growing in his shop and by the time we moved the business last October to our new building, it was still alive (barely) root bound, a messy clump of limbs and leaves, with its fair share of aphids, that none of us wanted to move. He saved a clipping and low and behold, roots began to grow and the plant lives on. I think it's time to repot, dontcha think?



Ramadan is coming up on the 20th and April 22nd is Earth Day and Arbor Day on the 24th. I think I jumped the gun on National Zucchini Bread day on April 25th because I baked a couple loaves of zucchini bread this past week of which we have devoured one loaf and the other is in the freezer for later. 

So get to planting and cooking while listening to some great audiobooks or bookish podcasts.

Also consider reading a book which was written 50 years ago in 1970, 75 years ago in 1945, or maybe a 100 years ago in 1920, plus learn about 30 Newsworthy Anniversaries in April 2020.

Cuddle Up With the 25 Best New Books Coming Out in April 2020

We have several anniversaries of well known authors birthdays this week including William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Henry Fielding, Halldor Laxness, Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh, Daniel Defoe, and Anthony Trollope to name a few.

It's National Library Week and many libraries are providing online services.

Please also support your independent bookshops and help them stay afloat.

Don't forget it is still National Poetry Month. Bustle provides an interesting list of reads, and poets are taking open mic nights and readings online during April. Plus learn to write your own poems as well.

HOPE WAITS

I'm here, she says

Lean on me. Wait, don't go.

I have much to teach,

We have far to row.

I'll do my best for tomorrow

There is hope in my sorrow

We look, we listen, we wait.

We do our best to bear the hands of fate.

We are saved. I am here.

No more pain, no more fear.

Yes, I'll wait.

Stand tall, it's not too late. 

Hope waits, hope gives,

Sorrow passes, hope lives. 

Don't worry, don't hate

Sorrow walks alone through the gate.

Remember, no matter what

The door will not shut.

Nothing is beyond my reach. 

I have much to teach. 

Don't worry yourself so.

Save the tears for tomorrow.

Hope tells the tale, 

blessings prevail.

Hope waits.

Blessings and good thoughts winging your way for a bright tomorrow! 

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BW17: Happy Birthday Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren

This month is National Poetry month and to help us celebrate, we are honoring the birthday of writer, essayist, and poet Robert Penn Warren. He was born April 24, 1905 and died at the age of 84 on September 15, 1989 from cancer. He wrote numerous novels including All the Kings Men and poetry including Promises: 1954-1956 and Now and Then: 1976-1978 for which he won Pulitizer prizes.  

Tell Me a Story

by 

Robert Penn Warren

[A]

Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood

By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard

The great geese hoot northward.

I could not see them, there being no moon

And the stars sparse.  I heard them.

I did not know what was happening in my heart.

It was the season before the elderberry blooms,

Therefore they were going north.

The sound was passing northward.

[ B ]

Tell me a story.

In this century, and moment, of mania,

Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.

The name of the story will be Time,

But you must not pronounce its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight.

Learn about Robert Penn Warren through Brainpicking's Power and Tenderness: Robert Penn Warren on Democracy, Art, and the Integrity of the Self; Find out more and listen to his 1964 interviews with civil rights activists whom he interviewed for his 1965 book Who Speaks for the Negro?; and check out PBS's documentary Robert Penn Warren: A Vision which aired in 2018. 

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BW15: National Poetry Month goes international.

Courtesy of Poets.org

In April 1996 the National Poetry Month was established by the Academy of American Poets for the purpose of introducing more people to the pleasures of reading poetry and to appreciate the achievements of American poets.  This year's celebration include the Dear Poet project and invites students to watch the chancellors read a poem, then write a letter in response.  The poster was created by graphic designer Paula Scher.  It celebrates typography and is concrete poetry and evokes Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

Included in the list of 30 ways to celebrate are

·         Buy a book of poetry 

·         Attend a poetry reading

·         reading Edward Hirsch’s essay “How to Read a Poem.

·         Read Allen Ginsberg’s classic essay about Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” 

·         Recreate a poet’s favorite food or drink by following his or her recipe.

·         Watch or read Carolyn Forche’s talk “Not Persuasion, But Transport: The Poetry of Witness.”

·         Read or listen to Mark Doty’s talk “Tide of Voices: Why Poetry Matters Now.”

·         Write a poem of your own. 

Poetry is a way of celebrating and/or processing emotions: from the happy - full of laughter, to the sad - filled with angst, to the mad - fit to burst.  Npr's 2018 Poetry review runs the gamut of emotions with their selection of powerful books of poetry with The Personal is Always Political.  

According to Bustle, these are the 18 poets you need to read in 2018. 

Take a peek at the poets involved in Versefest 2018,  Ottawa’s annual International Festival of Poetry, which took place a couple weeks ago.  

We mustn't forget to celebrate English Poets and Poetry as well as other international poets including Icelandic poets such as Vatnsenda-Rósa,  Magnús Sigurðsson or  Gyrðir Elíasson, or  Gerður Kristný.  Don't forget to check out Hello Poetry's selection of Icelandic Poems.

Want to try your hand at translating a poem? Participate (online or personally) in the the poetry translation project - In Other Words - at the 49th Poetry International Festival taking place in Rotterdam on May 29th through June 3^rd.

Celebrate poetry with me this month and read a poem or book of poems or read about the life of a poet. Try your hand at writing a poem and try different forms  including  haiku, free verse, sonnet or verse.

Blank 

What do you see,

When you draw a blank?

Letters, foggy and fuzzy

 Roam and flee.

Words, simple.

Yet not.

Like butterflies waiting to land.

Do you catch them or wait?

They sit on the tip of your tongue.

On the back of your hand.

Rhythm and rhyme,

Let it be.

Make you see.

Take your time.

Words, simple.

Yet not.

Pens bleed

Across the page.

Strokes and symbols

Take on need.

Blank and blind

Thoughts and letters,

Illuminate and illustrate

What comes to mind.

Words, simple.

Yet not.

~by Robin M~

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BW14: Artistic April

How Diamonds are extracted

We are saying a fond farewell to March and giving an enthusiastic hello to Artistic April.  Not only is it National Poetry Month, it is also a time to celebrate Easter as well as Autism Awareness, and  Earth Day.  We have a variety of daily celebrations including April fool's, Children's book day, School Librarian day, national Tartan day and Scrabble day.  Plus a few wacky days such as Sorry Charlie, No housework day, Walk Around things, and National cheeseball day.

The Birthstone of the month is Diamond. You may choose to spell out the word, reading one book per letter or read a book with the name or the colors of the stone in the title.  Or perhaps find an author whose name is Diamond.  You may decide to find a book set in the time period where the birthstone was discovered or surrounding the myth and lore or set in countries where the birthstone is currently found.

Diamonds were first discovered during 4th century in India's rivers and streams and believed to be the only source for diamonds and traded along the Silk road between India and China.  Then gold miners discovered diamonds in Brazil in the 1700's and dominated the market until the 1800's when a large deposit of diamonds were found along the Orange River in Africa.  Presently, diamonds are mined in Australia, Russia, China, Africa, parts of South America and Canada.  They are a symbol of love, strength, clarity and truth and believed to have metaphysical properties of energy and vision.

We are going to follow the path of the diamonds so our armchair travels are taking us east of the Prime Meridian. You have a wide variety to choose from this month as you travel the trail of diamonds from Antwerp to Argyle. Follow the Silk Road, explore Africa more in depth and delve into the history of conflict diamonds,  visit Australia, or dive into historical fiction set in Russia. Have fun following rabbit trails.

Happy reading!

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BW17: Darwin's Bards

Darwin's Bards

Seeing as April is National Poetry Month, figured I'd highlight one of the Poets mentioned in Darwin's Bards written by John Holmes: 

Darwin's Bards is the first comprehensive study of how poets have responded to the ideas of Charles Darwin in over fifty years. John Holmes argues that poetry can have a profound impact on how we think and feel about the Darwinian condition. Is a Darwinian universe necessarily a godless one? If not, what might Darwinism tell us about the nature of God? Is Darwinism compatible with immortality, and if not, how can we face our own deaths or the loss of those we love? What is our own place in the Darwinian universe, and our ecological role here on earth? How does our kinship with other animals affect how we see them? How does the fact that we are animals ourselves alter how we think about our own desires, love and sexual morality? All told, is life in a Darwinian universe grounds for celebration or despair?

Holmes explores the ways in which some of the most perceptive and powerful British and American poets of the last hundred-and-fifty years have grappled with these questions, from Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning and Thomas Hardy, through Robert Frost and Edna St Vincent Millay, to Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn, Amy Clampitt and Edwin Morgan. Reading their poetry, we too can experience what it can mean to live in a Darwinian world. Written in an accessible and engaging style, and aimed at scientists, theologians, philosophers and ecologists as well as poets, critics and students of literature, Darwin's Bards is a timely intervention into the heated debates over Darwin's legacy for religion, ecology and the arts.

Still 

by 

A.R. Ammons

I said I will find what is lowly

and put the roots of my identity

down there:

each day I’ll wake up

and find the lowly nearby,

a handy focus and reminder,

a ready measure of my significance,

the voice by which I would be heard,

the wills, the kinds of selfishness

I could

freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,

I can find nothing

to give myself to:

everything is

magnificent with existence, is in

surfeit of glory:

nothing is diminished,

nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:

ah, underneath,

a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:

I looked at it closely

and said this can be my habitat: but

nestling in I

found

below the brown exterior

green mechanisms beyond the intellect

awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:

I found a beggar:

he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying

him any attention: everybody went on by:

I nestled in and found his life:

there, love shook his body like a devastation:

I said

though I have looked everywhere

I can find nothing lowly

in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,

transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,

stood in wonder:

moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent

with being!

Find out more about A.R. Ammons  in The Paris Review interview as well as with Philip Fried of the Manhattan Review.  Meanwhile continue your voyage following in the HMS Beagles wake.

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