And so I've been trying to engage a little bit more in this mystic art of poetry (and by a little bit, I mean I'm trying to acknowledge it which is pretty hard for someone who isn't used to thinking this way.)
Anyways some of the highlights of Charles Wright
Stud.
Black Zodiac pg 23
Poem half in the manner of li-ho
All things aspire to weightlessness,
some place beyond the lip of language,
Some silence, some zone of grace.
Sky white as raw silk,
opening mirror cold-sprung in the west,
Sunset like dead grass.
If God hurt the way we hurt, he, too, would be heart-sore,
Disconsolate, unappeasable.
Which I then read the line
"that love could be soft and understanding;
that, soft or hard, love was an act of heroism"
Tanahsi Coates, between the world and me
Maya Angelou- so she is just like my hero. I love all of the words she writes.
I think she is so talented at writing the woman's experience down on paper.
She picked a good poem to name her book after because I really liked "Still I Rise"
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with glood?
Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes sprining high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Angelou is actually Beyonce before Beyonce even existed. Her words are so penetrating. Although, I'm really glad I read her autobiography (the heart of a woman) before I read this book of poetry. Like, so glad. Everyone should read that anyways. She is just fierceness all the time. I wish I could have met her. She's not low key my hero.
Next on my poetry adventures I'm going to be talking about Emily again because she's wonderful and a poem of her's was published recently and it was actually just amazing.
Emily's awesome Van Gogh poem
Van Gogh
Emily Cinquemani
In one version of my story, the police find
my apartment covered in blood, and I gift
the crescent sliver of my ear to a woman
down the street, tell her, this is important.
Maybe they wonder what makes a man want
to cut away a part of himself, but I prefer
to dwell on sharp strokes across canvas,
on the way lines can form a single shape,
on how the ring marks from a lover's glass
once drew faint circles along my kitchen table.
Some nights, the wind rams its fingers through rib
white chair spokes on the porch, and, alone, I paint
only to ignore their ghost-rocking. I paint my ear
bandaged, paint beyond my touch and her recoil.
I try to remember what makes anyone want
to press themselves into a stranger's hands.
What shifted across the bright veins in my chest
when I touched the speckled landscape of her arm?
And what part of myself did she hold
there, in the hollow of her palm?
And lastly I dabble, for the experience. Humor me.
This first one was when I was traveling on by myself for the first time and was just very focused on myself and my body and my whole being. It was a lot. I know but I wrote it and I like it.
Traveler's Story
I am but one body and one mind,
One body and one mind who work in
a way unlike any other,
Who ebb and flow with the course of
the world aroudn me.
One body who is strong when the
mind is heavy and burdened,
Who can carry me to the edges of the earth,
Who yearns to walk the path of
others,
and tough the world it has been
placed in.
One mind who is strong when the
body is timid and weak,
Who knows there is more to know,
And strives to know the stories of
people who have come before.
One body and one mind who are strong enough to change this world,
Who seek answers and challenge the
way of the world today,
To leave footprints and words so that
another body, another mind may find a
better future than the past.
If one ever finds me weak in body
and weak of mind.
One must check,
for I surely must have left.
The next one is pretty standard. One of my roommates asked us all to write "I am from" poems this week, so since we are on that topic I guess I will throw that on here too.
I komme de....
I am from a perfect life
thrown into an imperfect world.
I am from a comfortable mindset
but now crave the discomfort
that comes with learning and loving
the stories of others.
Yo soy de un mundo
donde errores son no fatal.
Soy de un mundo
donde aprendiendo es ocio
y no es una necesidad.
Ich komme aus ein Welt,
voll auf Liebe.
Aber ich lebe in ein Welt,
wo hass will ueberall fuer
selbst nehmen.
I want/You quiero/Ich will
to be from/ser de/ kommen aus
a world/un mundo/ein Welt
full/ completo/ voll
of love/de amor/auf Liebe
for all/ para todo/ fuer alles.
So glad this post is over, it has taken me a long time to get through all of this poetry info and I still know nothing so that's awesome. But it was fun (:
