I think we all do, a little bit...close the door, and turn up the air conditioning. Very powerful, very beautiful words.
L.L. Barkat
· 1 year ago
Love it.
Though as you say, for whimsy it's a bit dark. Like new leaves push off the old ones... kind of sinister. Still, isn't tension a friend of poetry?
Marcus
· 1 year ago
Erica, thanks for that comment.
L.L. dark whimsy is my special interest, I suppose.
Ann Voskamp
· 1 year ago
Isn't good poetry the kind that lingers, calls you back again, and slowly lets you find words of your own?
Yours here did that. Hooked me. Brought me back. And now, finally, I have words to leave, an offering here.
What rang me? It's different for each of us. Where we live, where we've come from, it shapes us in ways that makes it hard to hear each other. Too often I forget how it can be so very different for someone else from somewhere else --- geographically, spiritually, personally.
Your poem grabbed me by the jugular and shook me a bit. And that last line? Brilliant. Is that how we deal with lament? Shut the door, turn up something to self-medicating, soothe?
Yes, your words keep lingering, Marcus.... Thank you....
L.L. Barkat
· 1 year ago
Ann, what a marvelous way to describe the power of poetry-- that which holds on to us, calls to us, and which we in turn hold on to and call back to in our own words. This reminds me of a set of verses from Proverbs...
Of Lady Wisdom it says in Proverbs 1:20, "Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice." Then in 2:1-3 it says, "My child...if you...cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding..."
Words as partnership. Poetry a very deep partnership indeed.
And can we have such partnership across place? A girl who grew up in the shadows of a forest, and one who flourished with her fingers in Canadian soil, and a guy who drifts on the rivers of Texas, and others too... many others? You give me hope that they can. Place defines us, yes, but maybe we can reach beyond our borders through the gesture of words.
Helena Curie
· 1 year ago
I'm thinking about those new leaves pushing off the old ones the way a person in a boat pushes off the shore to begin a new journey; of course it could also be more sinister, like the way someone could push someone else off an edge in order to preserve herself.
In either case it is fascinating to consider the interplay between the old and the new, between life and death... an interplay that is often filled with both promise and sorrow... an interplay which is not so easy to shut the door on, since the process is inherent in existence itself.
Megan Willome
· 3 weeks ago
Yes! Yes! Yes! (as someone who shares your weather & culture). I just read Seamus Haney's translation of "Beowulf" -- fabulous. Why didn't I get it when I was in 8th grade? Probably because I was in 8th grade.
All Comments
Though as you say, for whimsy it's a bit dark. Like new leaves push off the old ones... kind of sinister. Still, isn't tension a friend of poetry?
L.L. dark whimsy is my special interest, I suppose.
Yours here did that. Hooked me. Brought me back. And now, finally, I have words to leave, an offering here.
What rang me?
It's different for each of us. Where we live, where we've come from, it shapes us in ways that makes it hard to hear each other. Too often I forget how it can be so very different for someone else from somewhere else --- geographically, spiritually, personally.
Your poem grabbed me by the jugular and shook me a bit. And that last line? Brilliant. Is that how we deal with lament? Shut the door, turn up something to self-medicating, soothe?
Yes, your words keep lingering, Marcus....
Thank you....
Of Lady Wisdom it says in Proverbs 1:20, "Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice." Then in 2:1-3 it says, "My child...if you...cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding..."
Words as partnership. Poetry a very deep partnership indeed.
And can we have such partnership across place? A girl who grew up in the shadows of a forest, and one who flourished with her fingers in Canadian soil, and a guy who drifts on the rivers of Texas, and others too... many others? You give me hope that they can. Place defines us, yes, but maybe we can reach beyond our borders through the gesture of words.
In either case it is fascinating to consider the interplay between the old and the new, between life and death... an interplay that is often filled with both promise and sorrow... an interplay which is not so easy to shut the door on, since the process is inherent in existence itself.