Tag Archives: poetry

Win Some with Winsome Poetry

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This is Just to Say

I have
eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

~ William Carlos Williams

::     ::     ::

So April is National Poetry Month.
For the five percent of us, that is splendid.
The rest, ho hum.

I’m going to try.
Try to entice.
Give you a taste.
Small bites.

If you can’t read it
in two minutes,
I will only post a part.

But poetry is
delicious!

More poetry posts.

Upgrading April

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April, the Angel of Months
Vita Sackville-West

September and October have always been my favorite months.
Harvest, color, moderate temps, rewards for work.

April has been pleasant, but never made it in my top three favorite months.
It’s time to upgrade April.


Here’s why.

First the name.
This is about the happiest moment
of my brief career learning Latin.
April comes from the Latin “aperire” which means to open.
April is the opening month.

Open flowers.
Open windows.
Open gym shoes.
Open grave.
Opened eyes to color.
Opened ears to poetry.

Yes!
April is National Poetry Month.

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring–
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. –Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Spring ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

…all in a rush with richness…
…all this juice and all this joy…

Don’t worry about getting it.
Take your time and savor the words.
Go slow and the meaning will come.

Autumn Song

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Autumn clouds are flying, flying,
O’er the waste of blue.
Summer flowers are dying, dying,
Late so lovely new.
Laboring trains are slowly rolling
Home with winter grain;
Holy bells are slowly toiling
Over buried men.

Goldener lights set noon asleeping
Like an afternoon;
Colder airs come stealing, creeping
After sun and moon;
And the leaves all tired of blowing,
Cloud-like o’er the sun,
Change to sunset colors, knowing
That their day is done.

Autumn’s sun is sinking, sinking
Into winter’s night;
And our hearts are thinking, thinking
Of the cold and blight.
Our life’s sun is slowly going.
Down the hill of night;
Will our clouds shine golden-glowing
On the slope of night.

But the vanished corn is lying
In rich golden glooms.
In the churchyard all the sighing
Is above the tombs.
Spring will come, slow-lingering
Opening buds of faith.
Man goes forth to meet his spring
Through the door of death.

  

So we love with no less loving,
Hair that turns to gray ;
Or a step less lightly moving,
In life’s autumn day.
And if thought, still-brooding, lingers
O’er each bygone thing,
‘Tis because old autumn’s fingers
Paint in hues of spring.

~  Autumn Song by George MacDonald

: : from the archives, first published October 24, 2009

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Sing Me to Heaven. Setting by Daniel E. Gawthrop. Text by Jane Griner

In my heart’s sequestered chambers lie truths stripped of poets’ gloss
Words alone are vain and vacant, and my heart is mute
In response to aching silence, memory summons half-heard voices
And my soul finds primal eloquence, and wraps me in song

If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song
If you would mourn me and bring me to God,
sing me a requiem, sing me to Heaven

Touch in me all love and passion, pain and sorrow
Touch in me grief and comfort, love and passion, pain and pleasure
Sing me a lullaby, a love song, a requiem
Love me, comfort me, bring me to God
Sing me a love song, sing me to Heaven

(Thank you, Brenda.)

A Call for Poems

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Sherry at Semicolon is making a list of Top 100 Classic Poems.

I thought a Top 100 Classic Poems Poll would be a great spring/summer project. I might learn something and be encouraged in my own quest to learn and appreciate poetry. You might learn some new poems or be reminded of some classics. We all might enjoy visiting and re-visiting the best in English poetry together.

The rules and instructions are at Semicolon.  The deadline is midnight, March 26, 2010.

You don’t have to submit ten.  If you can only think of five, or three, that is fine.  April is poetry month and I’m going to wait until then to post my nominations. I can say this: each poem moves me…either to tears or to some pretty ferocious laughter.  Poetry has a way of doing that. 

When we homeschooled, we started each day with a poem.  I can’t say it was the favorite part of the day for anyone, but the drip, drip, drip of a daily poem worked its way through the other intellectual clutter.  I really miss that routine.  I could reinstate it for myself, but that would require getting up earlier and planning on bypassing the domestic rush hour.

You don’t need to be a blogger to participate.

All it takes is the love of one good poem.  Or three. Or ten. 

If you like the idea of exposure to poetry, but don’t know where to start, you can pick up poetry anthologies just about anywhere.  I’m fond of  The Top 500 Poems.

Nothing But A Comma

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(A professor, denouncing this punctuation:
Death be not proud; Death thou shalt die!)

Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from life everlasting.
Very simple, really.
With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer
something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks.
It is a comma, a pause.
And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die.

Emma Thompson, the reason why Sense and Sensibility is my favorite movie, Emma Thompson of Much Ado, Henry V       and…  and…  

Emma Thompson played her most convincing role yet as Vivian Bearing, a scholar of 17th century poetry, an expert on John Donne.  Wit is the story of Professor Bearing’s journey through advanced ovarian cancer. 

This movie is heavy.  Heartbreakingly heavy.  It’s the kind of movie that saturates you.  Words, cancer and Emma.  Most of the movie is shot as a monologue with Emma talking directly to the camera.  Thompson is a marvel at giving each syllable its due. 

One thing that can be said for an eight month course
of cancer treatment: it is highly educational.
I am learning to suffer.

Audra McDonald plays the part of Suzie, Vivian’s primary nurse.  Fabulous.  She looked so familiar and it finally came to me.  Audra is also an opera singer.  My husband and I both fell in love with Audra McDonald one quiet Christmas afternoon, watching her sing.  You will love the way Suzie cares – in all its meanings — for Vivian.  How profound is a dollop of lotion and a hand massage.

I am a scholar.
Or I was…when I had shoes…or eyebrows.

When Vivian’s aged mentor visits her in the hospital and reads her Runaway Bunny, I was sobbing.  It demonstrates that sometimes simple words are the best.  It reminded me of a bedside scene in Bleak House where a young woman simply says the Lord’s Prayer. 

Words.  You will never forget the meaning of soporific.  My old friend concatenation had its half-second of fame.  Even the name of the protagonist is interesting:  Vivian – which evokes all those Latinate vivo- words – means lively.  Bearing gives the sense of what she is doing with all the cancer treatment: bearing it. 

Why is such a sorrowful movie called Wit?  John Donne is called a metaphysical wit, the word wit used in the sense of keen discernment or exceptional intelligence. 

The words of Donne did me in.  Just like watching Julie & Julia makes you want to cook up a wonderful meal, watching Wit makes me yearn to learn Donne, to have his potent poetry memorized.  I’m particularly interested in his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.   The first thing I did after the credits had rolled and I had picked the puddle of myself up from my chair was go to Amazon and put the DVD (only 5.99!) in my shopping cart.  Clicking on the picture below takes you there.

…and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest…