poetry

by

Louise Glück

A new-to-me poet, Louise Glück has tossed me a morsel or two to enchant me and cause me to pursue her poetry. Better yet, here’s what she has to say about it all. (More in the way of actual poetry to follow.)

“It seems to me that the desire to make art produces an ongoing experience of longing, a restlessness sometimes, but not inevitably, played out romantically, or sexually. Always there seems something ahead, the next poem or story, visible, at least, apprehensible, but unreachable. To perceive it at all is to be haunted by it; some sound, some tone, becomes a torment — the poem embodying that sound seems to exist somewhere already finished. It’s like a lighthouse, except that, as one swims towards it, it backs away.”
Louise Glück
Photograph by Webb Chappell

Posted by Follies Of God

My only question is why aren’t there more books on the shelves?

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Getting Old

When I’m an old lady,

I want to be one of those

women that has a house

By Maria Seruya

full of potted plants and

weird rocks and crystals

with a cluttered garden …

That just looks after her

animals and paints and

minds her own business,

with her crazy hair.

And I’ll go visit my friends

to have tea and they’ll

be happy too.

https://www.thepowerofoldladies.com

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Old Faces

In the morning
After taking cold shower
—-what a mistake—-
I look at the mirror.
There, a funny guy,
Grey hair, white beard, wrinkled skin,
—-what a pity—-
Poor, dirty, old man,
He is not me, absolutely not.
Land and life
Fishing in the ocean
Sleeping in the desert with stars
Building a shelter in the mountains
Farming the ancient way
Singing with coyotes
Singing against nuclear war—
I’ll never be tired of life.
Now I’m seventeen years old,
Very charming young man.
I sit quietly in lotus position,
Meditating, meditating for nothing.
Suddenly a voice comes to me:
“To stay young,
To save the world,
Break the mirror.”
—Nanao Sakaki

Posted by Poetic Outlaws

Someone once said “Old age is a terrible thing to happen to a 12-year-old child.” That’s one of those things you wish you’d said and think perhaps you did.

The old man said “Yeah, that’s the truth all right. Doesn’t matter. You brush your teeth and go to bed. Soon enough you die anyway. Then you don’t have to think about it.” Sounds like a poem to me, I said.

He said, “I never wrote poetry. Maybe the guys who do don’t die. They’ll still get old though. So I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. Still, I guess I’d rather just grow old.”

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Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is such a poet as speaks to our hearts, our souls, without cleverness or opaqueness. She is open, and opens our love and pain with the beautiful pictures she paints of all of the states and passions we pass through.

This, on death:

Posted by Parker J Palmer
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Words

Just in case there was something prior, More on words I dislike:

  • Eponymous. It seems so pretentious. Why not just say what it is? The title of whatever is the same as the person I’m writing about. Well OK, in fewer words. Or maybe it just annoys me as I had to look it up so many times as I kept forgetting what it meant. The word is just plain unfriendly.
  • Siblings. Hissssss. A cold word, an almost but not quite harsh word. It doesn’t sound at all like brother or sister. Maybe it’s good to use if you don’t like your family.
  • Facetious. Another pretentious word. It’s rarely spoken unless it’s the only three-syllable word someone knows. And then it’s used often.

And something to note about Yeats:

  • He is the only poet I’m aware of who has many poem titles longer than the poem.
  • I love & adore many of his short poems. There’s none better than “When You are Old,” “The Mask,” and “A Deep-sworn Vow.” “Leda and the Swan” is so powerful it can quite make you shudder. That poem is posted in full under “Myth and Mystery” in this blog.
  • Of course the Center Will Not Hold…there is no center. (This I discovered within Meditation.) Go ahead—look for your center.

And then, because there are no better words than those we receive from Rumi:

  • Posted by Hiral Thakkar

And thus it is I leave us for the day—to go sit on the patio, the dog and I—to watch the Thunderstorm, aye, by and by.