Robs Lit-Bits Poetry. Words. And, words about words

Time 2020-10-17 12:04:03

Web Name: Robs Lit-Bits Poetry. Words. And, words about words

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All NineBefore and afterThere’s this thing going around abouthow we should not want to go backto “normal” because what came beforeshould be – upon reflection – forsaken.I don’t know what your normal looked likebefore, but as for me, I can’t wait tohave a random unplanned conversationwith a colleague by the coffee machineas we hover waiting our turn, stand onthe sidelines with the other soccer moms,go to the Word Barn crowded with loversof poetry and listen elbow to elbowin rapt attention to a local writerrap about random shit, sip wine as we listenfully and nod, walk miles back and forthwith the waves and a hundred otherbeach walkers on Long Sands, browseaimlessly in an indie bookshop – touchevery interesting cover, then waitin the café for my husband, who will take twice as long to…View original post 74 more words I skipped a day yesterday. A little lie to continue calling these Viral Dailies under those circumstances. But, alas, here we go all the same for National Poetry Month s penultimate offering. Today s comes from 2012 Washington State Poet Laureate, Kathleen Flennikan.Kathleen Flenniken is the author of three poetry collections.  Plume (University of Washington Press, 2012) Her first book, Famous (University of Nebraska Press, 2006), won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association.  Her third poetry collection, Post Romantic, has been selected by Linda Bierds for the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series and will be published by University of Washington Press in Fall 2020.Kathleen’s awards include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Artist Trust. She served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2012 – 2014.Kathleen teaches poetry in the schools through arts agencies like Writers in the Schools and Jack Straw. For 13 years she was an editor at Floating Bridge Press, a nonprofit press dedicated to publishing Washington State poets, and currently serves on the board of Jack Straw, an audio arts studio and cultural center. Kathleen holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Pacific Lutheran University, as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering. She lives in Seattle.What follows is a gorgeous recitation of her poem, Angel in both English and Spanish.________________________________________________The role of art isn t merely to inject beauty into ugliness. That s decoration. Art plays a uniquely prophetic role in the culture. It must help us to see ourselves sufficiently to become not just self-aware, but fully aware of injustice and imbalance needing adjustment. In this remarkable poem, written shortly after Trump s inauguration (crowning), it holds truer today after four years of this seemingly unshakable shit-storm than it did when first published. Sherman Alexei, our featured poet, and those like him, we thank you for the courage of insight and setting it to the music of words.________________________________________________HymnWhy do we measure people’s capacityTo love by how well they love their progeny?That kind of love is easy. Encoded.Any lion can be devotedTo its cubs. Any insect, be it preyOr predator, worships its own DNA.Like the wolf, elephant, bear, and bees,We humans are programmed to love what we conceive.That’s why it’s so shocking when a neighborDrives his car into a pond and slaughter-Drowns his children. And that’s why we curseThe mother who leaves her kids — her hearth —And never returns. That kind of betrayalRattles our souls. That shit is biblical.So, yes, we should grieve an oceanWhen we encounter a caretaker so broken.But I’m not going to send you a cardFor being a decent parent. It ain’t that hardTo love somebody who resembles you.If you want an ode then join the endless queueOf people who are good to their next of kin —Who somehow love people with the same chinAnd skin and religion and accent and eyes.So you love your sibling? Big fucking surprise.But how much do you love the strange and stranger?Hey, Caveman, do you see only dangerWhen you peer into the night? Are you afraidOf the country that exists outside of your cave?Hey, Caveman, when are you going to evolve?Are you still baffled by the way the earth revolvesAround the sun and not the other way around?Are you terrified by the ever-shifting ground?Hey, Trump, I know you weren’t loved enoughBy your sandpaper father, who roughed and roughedAnd roughed the world. I have some empathyFor the boy you were. But, damn, your incivility,Your volcanic hostility, your listsOf enemies, your moral apocalypse —All of it makes you dumb and dangerous.You are the Antichrist we need to antitrust.Or maybe you’re only a minor leagueDictator — temporary, small, and weak.You’ve wounded our country. It might heal.And yet, I think of what you’ve revealedAbout the millions and millions of peopleWho worship beneath your tarnished steeple.Those folks admire your lack of compassion.They think it’s honest and wonderfully old-fashioned.They call you traditional and Christian.LOL! You’ve given them permissionTo be callous. They have been rewardedFor being heavily armed and heavily guarded.You’ve convinced them that their deadly sins(Envy, wrath, greed) have transformed into wins.Of course, I’m also fragile and finite and flawed.I have yet to fully atone for the pain I’ve caused.I’m an atheist who believes in grace if not in God.I’m a humanist who thinks that we’re all notHumane enough. I think of someone who loves me —A friend I love back — and how he didn’t believeHow much I grieved the death of Prince and his paisley.My friend doubted that anyone could grieve so deeplyThe death of any stranger, especially a star.“It doesn’t feel real,” he said. If I could play guitarAnd sing, I would have turned purple and roaredOne hundred Prince songs — every lick and chord —But I think my friend would have still doubted me.And now, in the context of this poem, I can seeThat my friend’s love was the kind that only burnsIn expectation of a fire in return.He’s no longer my friend. I mourn that loss.But, in the Trump aftermath, I’ve measured the costsAnd benefits of loving those who don’t loveStrangers. After all, I’m often the odd one —The strangest stranger — in any field or room.“He was weird” will be carved into my tomb.But it’s wrong to measure my family and friendsBy where their love for me begins or ends.It’s too easy to keep a domestic score.This world demands more love than that. More.So let me ask demanding questions: Will you beEyes for the blind? Will you become the feetFor the wounded? Will you protect the poor?Will you welcome the lost to your shore?Will you battle the blood-thievesAnd rescue the powerless from their teeth?Who will you be? Who will I becomeAs we gather in this terrible kingdom?My friends, I’m not quite sure what I should do.I’m as angry and afraid and disillusioned as you.But I do know this: I will resist hate. I will resist.I will stand and sing my love. I will use my fistTo drum and drum my love. I will write and read poemsThat offer the warmth and shelter of any good home.I will sing for people who might not sing for me.I will sing for people who are not my family.I will sing honor songs for the unfamilar and new.I will visit a different church and pray in a different pew.I will silently sit and carefully listen to new storiesAbout other people’s tragedies and glories.I will not assume my pain and joy are better.I will not claim my people invented gravity or weather.And, oh, I know I will still feel my rage and rage and rageBut I won’t act like I’m the only person onstage.I am one more citizen marching against hatred.Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.We will praise and weep and laugh. We will believe.We will be courageous with our love. We will risk dangerAs we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers.©2017 Sherman AlexieSherman AlexeiSpokane-based Sherman Alexie is a preeminent Native American poet, novelist, performer and filmmaker. He has garnered high praise for his poems and short stories of contemporary Native American reservation life. He has published 22 books including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, winner of a 2007 National Book Award; War Dances, recipient of the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award; and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which earned the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book. Today s poem is by Brooke Matson.Brooke Matson is a poet and educator in Spokane, Washington. Eight years of teaching and mentoring at-risk youth deepened her study of physical science and the psychological effects of violence and loss. Her current poems explore the intersection of physical science—particularly chemistry, physics, and astrophysics—with human experiences of loss, violence, and resilience.Matson’s first full-length collection of poetry, The Moons, was published by Blue Begonia Press in 2012 and was also included in the 2015 Blue Begonia Press boxed set, Tell Tall Women. Her poems have most recently been accepted to Prairie Schooner, Rock Sling, Poetry Northwest, and Crab Creek Review. The 2016 recipient of the Artist Trust GAP Award with Centrum Residency and the 2016 winner of the Spokane Arts Award for Collaboration, Matson poetry has also been selected for regional anthologies such as Railtown Almanac (Sage Hill Press), and Lilac City Fairy Tales (Scablands Books).She currently serves as the executive director of Spark Central, a nonprofit dedicated to igniting creativity, innovation, and imagination. Find out more about her and how to purchase her work here.__________________________________________________ Just five days to go until the quarantine version of National Poetry Month comes to its virtual end. I m marking the occasion by posting gems from a few of our own Pacific Northwest poets. We see life a little different here in the PNW. A bit more aloof and distant at times, perhaps to highlight our sense of entrancement at the beauty and danger of our surroundings. Perhaps because the only words that don t fail are those sung in poems. Ironically, to say as much, my offering today is from one of our favourite bands, Scottish group called Deacon Blue. They describe it well in their song lyric from The Hipsters Friends. Who needs friends, when there s a road and an ocean?  So then, to highlight the unique Pacific Northwest ethos with a remarkable economy of words is this song by a band not even from here!The HipstersAll, all those wavesAnd that old sunShiningSo driveDrive to the coastAnd let the waterSurround youI was standing by the shorePulled by the deepest blueAching for the allureOf the hipster boysAnd the hipster girlsShiningFriends, who needs friends?When there’s a roadAnd an oceanI was standing by the shorePulled by the deepest blueAching for the allureOf the hipster boysAnd the hipster girlsShiningWhen I let the dreamDie slowly downDid I do it rightOr was I wrong?I was standing by the shorePulled by the deepest blueAching for the allureOf the hipster boysAnd the hipster girlsShining, fallingGlistening, diving Today s Viral Dailies, my recognition and celebration of National Poetry Month in isolation, is by the unforgettable Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda.He was a contemporary Shakespeare when writing about love. Below is one of his best. Enjoy!______________________________________If you forget meI want you to knowone thing.You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine. Viral Dailies, Day 23. Today a prayer.innerwovenWhen the walls of fury and dystopia threaten our made up worlds,just breathe.When coughing madness spews upon us its pointless fury,just breathe.When those bent on denying as “fake” anything “those ones” have said,just breathe.When “those ones” spend all their time trumpeting the correction as the end,just breathe.When hints of community are abandoned for mutual blaming,just breathe.When neighbours and friends respond to us as foreigners and enemies,just breathe.When social distance becomes an excuse to deepen selfishness,just breathe.When social distance deepens our loneliness, broadens our fears,just breathe.When time and brilliance and humanity once again find their way,just breathe.When the disparate voices of the many find semblance of singularity,just breathe.When the despair from our losses kisses the tears of our gratitude,just breathe.When the detritus of our streets, our homes, our world…View original post 86 more words One more new dayA spot returned to an otherwise muted sun. I ll not be waylaid , she said, panting warilyin her suffusing bathtub of light, coughed upand thick, like an overworked calendar. There s much to lose on these daysof quarantined madness.  So, without another word, she sighedand winked, baring her breasts tosuckle one more new day.Picture found here Viral Dailies, Day 21Rob s Lit-Bits By Valerie Dodge Head We push out, breath from blue,like the breaking waves, alone with their thoughts,and catch ourselves among the reeds.Passing alone through districts of enchanting knowledge,we cough up our meal of bones, still hungry to drowninside a conundrum bigger than our shoes.______Our little oceans, best of our times, rimmed ‘roundwith shortening days, the noose of our shrinkinghumanity; allure, the currency of dreams.Still, one swims in what one drinks and drinkswhat washes down and around all that looksfor more horizon. Let the four-quartered moonsing what is only heard when deafness prevails.______The tragedy of the good, the irony of evil, foistedupon hearts ill-suited for the journey in.So it seems that the only way to bleed to lifeis in the unmooring of our punctured ships.There is more room to bleed when splintered…View original post 37 more wordsThe HOBBLEDEHOYI use the best, I use the restArt TheologyRevitalizing the Christian imagination through painting, poetry, music, and moreIn Search of a New EdenAncient Wisdom for Modern SeekersThe Art of BloggingFor bloggers who aspire to inspireBrave Voices MagazineWe believe in being brave.Coffeehouse JunkieShreya VikramBlurring the lines between poetry and prosejohn pavlovitzStuff That Needs To Be SaidLaura Jean TrumanWriting from the In/BetweenChris KratzerGrace // Jesus // LifeLiminal LivingSpiritual Direction for Integrated LivingpiperannieSober Couragefrom liquid courage to sober courageDave BarnhartChurch planter, pastor, author, coachTadhg Talks...an anamcara exploring those close encounters of the liminal kindLiminal LeadershipJohn BlaseThe Beautiful DueAll NineCollaborating with the Muses to inspire, create, and illuminatethe beautiful changes......in such kind ways...lilies, sparrows and grass That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works. Psalm 26:7 Privacy Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

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