~Bruce Coville
Togo road by Jeff Attaway
How are you liking the new year? Three poems about newness for Poetry Friday:
What If This Road
by Sheenagh Pugh
What if this road, that has no held surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin...
read the rest here
***********
Spell to Begin Again
by Ann DeVilbiss
I wake with a black shroud
draped over my head, because
of windows, because the sun
insists with its terrible heat.
I unravel myself to the light,
weak-knit as I am, spill
my limbs onto the floor
until they start to obey.
Each hour is molasses,
spooned into my maw...
read the rest here
***********
Hope
by Lisel Mueller
It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.
read the rest here
***********
Reading to the Core has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Catherine!
14 comments:
Oh Tabatha. three very different poems but each made me think. I liked Hope best, since I think the world needs to find Hope and let it drive change.
I didn't mean to post my comment Anonymously. Odd. I was sure I'd selected my identity. Try again!
Who would not hanker indeed? I love these road=y thoughts especially. And for me the new year finally feels like a new year now that I'm not in the haze of sickness... and today, though cold, the sky offered the most beautiful purple-pink sunrise... very glad to be alive today! xo
These are treasures, especially the third one as it goes with my OLW. Thank you!
"it is in this poem, trying to speak" connects me to a recent picture book I read with the grand-girls, about a former slave who never learned to read until, until, she started lessons when she was over 100 years old! She was busy working, raising a family, more working, but held hope and a Bible she was given years before that she would finally learn to read it herself. That's hope! Thanks for each poem, Tabatha. I do like the idea of a road's journey surprising me, too!
I like all three of these poems, but that first one will leave me wondering--what if the road goes in a new direction.
I especially love Lisel Mueller's "Hope" -- beautiful! May you have a beautiful year full of hope, Tabatha!
Ack! I'm having a hard time reading "the rest here." The links aren't working for me. I'll try to find these on my own. Tabatha, what's your process for finding poems? I'll have a topic I want to find poems for ... and then I can't remember when I saw one or which would be right? Is there a secret way of remembering, cataloging or archiving you have?
Sorry the links aren't working for you, Linda! Here they are:
http://www2.open.ac.uk/openlearn/poetryprescription/what-if-this-road.html
http://pbqmag.org/ann-devilbiss-spell-to-begin-again/
https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=9768.html
I just save poems (and sometimes their locations) in a gmail folder. Searching the folder is no problem, assuming I can think of the right search term. I've been emailing poems to myself for a long time so I have several thousand!
I'm glad Linda asked about your process. I have often wondered, too. You obviously read incredibly widely!!
And I'll join the folks who choose HOPE as a favorite. I especially like thinking of it as
"the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another"
I found the poems and read them.....Ah ha! A folder of poems. That's not hard. I can do that! Thanks, Tabatha
The love the poems you shared and the poems that have been arriving in my mailbox with a New Year's theme. To answer your question, in spite of everything, I'm feeling grateful and hopeful.
I'm very taken by "What If This Road" and "Hope" and holding on to the upward pull in both of these poems, thanks!
Love all three! Here's my collection of favorite lines:
"It (hope) is in this poem, trying to speak,"
"A new shape rustling to life."
"Who would not hanker to be going,
at all risks?"
You've given me a bit of hope on a day that needs it more than ever!
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