#191: Sleep poetry for the awake
Dear reader,
Are you awake? What’s the time in your part of the world? I’m writing this from bed, listening to The Alipore Post May Playlist and the pitter patter of rain.
For the past week, I’ve been reading a few poems a night from The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, edited by Jeet Thayil. The words have been keeping me company before bed, and I’m growing rather fond of the new nighttime ritual.
Today, I read Vikram Seth’s poem Qingdao: December (Pg 322 of the book), which ends with the lines:
Here by the sea this quiet night
Where my still spirit could take flight
And nullify the heart's distress
Into the peace of wordlessness,
I see the light, I breathe the scent,
I touch the insight, but a bent
Of heart exacts its old designs
And draws my hands to write these lines.
-Qingdao: December by Vikram Seth
I love how familiar the feeling is: the itch to feel the peace of wordlessness yet giving in to the urge to write a poem instead. It prompted me to attempt a bedtime haiku:
Won't you hush, dear mind,
I must string the right words
to describe the rain
It also reminded me of this wonderful perspective from Anne Lamott’s excellent book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life on why we must keep choosing to write, and leave the door open for imagination:
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”
-Anne Lamott
Poetry Corner | Sleep Poetry
1. What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
2. On Forgetting to Set My Alarm Clock by Jascha Kessler
Once to wake proud in a burst of sunlight
as bearing news of real significance,
to risk cold coffee for this native hour
unembarrassed at much cruel rapture
and clothed with an astonished nakedness
the other animals must remember:
those brunts of darkness in the opened eye
which must accept all the retributions
called justice, called civilizing peace;
to know that moment, pleasure of action,
of a world swayed by irrelevant tides
where men scorn beds made simply for sleep,
is life at a high price, without napkins,
minus the morning editorial,
an unimaginable self-respect
of the very young and the very old,
those who fear discipline as they fear death.
3. Daysleep by Laura Kasischke
Remember sleep, in May, in the afternoon, like
a girl’s bright feet slipped into dark, new boots.
Or sleep in one another’s arms at 10 o’clock
on a Saturday in June?—that
smiling child hiding behind
the heavy curtain of a photo booth.
All our daysleep, my love, remember sleep
like brides in violets. Sleep
like sleepy pilots casting
the shadows of their silver jets
onto the silver sailboats
they also sailed
on oceans miles below.
Such nothingness, on the other
side of which
infinity slid
into eternity, insisting
that we had lived together forever—and did.
4. Nocturne by Eavan Boland
After a friend has gone I like the feel of it:
The house at night. Everyone asleep.
The way it draws in like atmosphere or evening.
One-o-clock. A floral teapot and a raisin scone.
A tray waits to be taken down.
The landing light is off. The clock strikes. The cat
comes into his own, mysterious on the stairs,
a black ambivalence around the legs of button-back
chairs, an insinuation to be set beside
the red spoon and the salt-glazed cup,
the saucer with the thick spill of tea
which scalds off easily under the tap. Time
is a tick, a purr, a drop. The spider
on the dining-room window has fallen asleep
among complexities as I will once
the doors are bolted and the keys tested
and the switch turned up of the kitchen light
which made outside in the back garden
an electric room—a domestication
of closed daisies, an architecture
instant and improbable.
Recommended Listening
The Pine Walk Collection (DJ Sets from Fire Island Pines & New York City (1979-1999). These tapes were found in a recently purchased house on Pine Walk. There are over 200 tapes in total and they have been carefully digitized and remastered and offered to stream for free on Mixcloud with permission from all the living DJs they were able to contact)
The Alipore Post May Playlist (Spotify)
Sen Sound is a design studio that transforms the experience of sound in healthcare. I’ve been enjoying listening to the audio she recorded for Tranquility Room, an attempt to create a culture of quietness, care for people who care for others. (via)
Links of the Week
Martin Frost, the last working fore-edge painter in the world 🎨
Moon plants 🌙 🌱
Permission to write poetry at 12:02 on a Wednesday afternoon ✍️
Here Before A Million (Discover the best music videos with less than one million views on YouTube. Don't worry, you're early.) 🎵
Jeanne K Simmons’ projects in collaboration with the natural world 🌳
My second children’s book is out! :)
As part of a collaboration between Pratham Books and Singapore Book Council, a group of writers, illustrators and translators took part in a two-day picture book making hackathon. My bilingual English-Hindi book Searching for Home / घर की तलाश में is what culminated.
Working on a book that talks about displacement for children has been on my mind for a while because it’s a reality shaping the world around us. But the sensitivity and care with which this book came together in such a short span was quite unexpected and beautiful. Thank you to everyone who made this happen, especially to my lovely collaborator Kajol, who illustrated the book.
The blurb:
When the great flood washes the Purpeople’s home away, they set off to visit faraway lands in search of a new home. What does belonging look like in a world that’s changing so rapidly? A poignant tale on displacement and migration.
P.S. My first children’s book All Aboard is also up on Pratham Books StoryWeaver. :)
And remember…
Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
Here’s to building sand castles with words,
Rohini
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Hellooo, I just wanted to say that I loved the poetry corner this time (and your haiku!!) <3
I have to try fore-edge painting in one of my books. Building sand castles with words is what you do the best, :) lovely read this was.