Tag: poetry

All Distances of Place, All Distances of Time

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It’s the kind of morning when I need to be reminded of the interconnectedness of the universe. What better way to do that than with a little Whitman? From Leaves of Grass, On the Beach at Night, Alone:

ON the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,
All distances of place, however wide,
All distances of time—all inanimate forms,
All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,
All men and women—me also;
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe;
All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them.

Click through to check out the rest of Leaves of Grass. Any poems you’re inspired by today?

(image: Thayer and Eldridge, via Wiki Commons)

Aprill Shoures Brung May Flours: April Is for Poetry

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April is National Poetry Month, so it makes sense that one of English literature’s oldest poems opens with a reference to this very month. Check out this opening to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

Um…what does that mean? Don’t worry, I’m not exactly fluent in Middle English myself. Fortunately there’s a translation:

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.

Whether April’s inspired you to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury or not, you can check out the rest of The Canterbury Tales here. I didn’t have the best experience with Chaucer in college, which of course makes me think I should go back and investigate this Chaucer guy. I mean, dude did popularize the English language. We need to give him props for that.

May your April showers be sweet with fruit!

The Furious Bird of the Calm Storm

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What a beautiful animated interpretation of “The Me Bird” by Pablo Neruda:

I like that it’s a true inspiration piece, not a video with the poem appearing as text or read aloud. A great reminder, just before National Poetry Month, that poems can inspire all sorts of works of art.

(via NPR Fresh Air)

Pens and Paws

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Happy belated St. Patrick’s day, everyone! Last night we watched The Secret of Kells, which is such a gorgeous movie, and reminded me of this lovely poem about a writer and his cat. Here’s one famous translation by Robin Flower:

The scholar and his cat, Pangur Bán
(from the Irish by Robin Flower)

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

I love this comparison between a cat at hunt and a writer at work, especially that last stanza. Check out a few other translations as well.

(poem via Beatrice Santorini)(image by Robert Crum)

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

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I find it strange to talk about September 11th because, unlike so many people in New York or Washington or Pennsylvania, my life wasn’t dramatically affected that day. Whenever this day comes up, or the anniversary of any other tragic event, I turn to this poem by Adam Zagajewski:

Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

—Adam Zagajewski

(Translated, from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh.)

It was published in the September 42, 2001 issue of The New Yorker. Click through for more poetry in response to that day.