#271: Poetry on a full moon night 🌝
Dear reader,
It’s been a quiet week for my mind, and there’s been a lot of processing and articulating my evolving creative practice and what The Alipore Post stands for. I like the conversations going on in there, and can’t wait to see what this pre-33 reflection leads to. (My personal website up and running, I hope? Here’s to putting this out there on a full moon night. May it finally manifest and become a tangible reality. Fingers crossed.)
We’re one week away from April, and I’m unusually excited to throw myself into the deep end of words and write 30 poems in 30 days. You’re all welcome to join along! (Here’s the prompt list and participation rules, in case your inner poet is lured out and would like to write.)
A few notes on inspiration from here and there before April arrives:
“Going through things you never thought you’d go through will only take you places you never thought you’d get to.”
-Morgan Harper Nichols
“I think the best sort of writing that actually changes hearts and minds has a blend of the rational and the emotional.”
-Author Megan Mayhew-Bergman
Poetry Corner
Prayer For Joy by Stuart Kestenbaum
What was it we wanted
to say anyhow, like today
when there were all the letters
in my alphabet soup and suddenly
the ‘j’ rises to the surface.
The ‘j’, a letter that might be
great for Scrabble, but not really
used for much else, unless
we need to jump for joy,
and then all of a sudden
it’s there and ready to
help us soar and to open up
our hearts at the same time,
this simple line with a curved bottom,
an upside down cane that helps
us walk in a new way into this
forest of language, where all the letters
are beginning to speak,
finding each other in just
the right combination
to be understood.The Tell by William Bronk
I want to tell my friends how beautiful
the world is. Not but what they know
it is terrible too-they know as well as I;
but nevertheless, I want to tell my friends.
Because they are. And this is what they are;
and because it is and this is what it is.
You are my friend. The world is beautiful.
Dear friend, you are. I want to tell you so.Lullaby by Louise Glück
Time to rest now; you have had
enough excitement for the time being.Twilight, then early evening. Fireflies,
In the room, flickering here and there, here and there
And summer’s deep sweetness filling the open window.Don’t think of these things any more.
Listen to my breathing, your own breathing
Like the fireflies, each small breath
A flare in which the world appears.I’ve sung to you long enough in the summer night.
I’ll win you over in the end; the world can’t give you
this sustained vision.You must be taught to love me. Human beings must be
taught to love
silence and darkness.Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
Links worth devouring
Watching: Ashkasha by animator Lara Maltz
Visually pleasing: Postcolonial churches in South India
Brewing: How humanity got hooked on coffee
Daydreaming: The Slow Pleasures of Analog
Reading: Why we write - https://kottke.org/24/02/visible-mending-on-love-death-and-knitting
Inspiring: Sofia Negri’s animated documentary The Skatebook incorporates live action and sketchbook scenes (Wow!)
Drooling: Eleanor Macnair’s Classic Photographs Rendered in Play-Doh
Collecting: Buttons!
Mulling: “Don’t Be the Best. Be the Only.”
Mmhmm-ing: Should there be an Oscar for title design? (Yes please!)
Parting words
Went on a Tumblr binge and came across this. Too beautiful to not share:
To Do by Anne Boyer
1. write poems which allow me to believe I have written no poetry
2. write prose which allows me to believe I don’t know a word
3. read with a technique that convinces me I’ve read nothing
4. think in a way deniable as thought
5. sleep each night of sleep in a way of sleeping which feels as if I’ve never rested
6. love with a technique of love allowing me to declare innocence that I’ve felt anything at all
7. develop a way of living which I swear to you will generate material evidence that I’ve never been born
Sending some full moon energy your way! Meowwwwww.
Love and (moon)light,
Rohini