Tag: poetry workshop

Soul Sunday

Good morning! Welcome to poetry day on the blog. On Sundays, I often implore you to write yourself a poem. This poet says it best:

I follow a man named Joseph Fasano on Twitter. He’s an English teacher in NYC, but he is also a published prose writer, poet and a musician. Joseph Fasano is also an incredible curator of other people’s poetry. I highly recommend for you to follow Joseph Fasano on Twitter. You will learn so much. Recently he assigned his students this: “Your assignment tonight is to read a writer someone told you not to“. Readers, let’s follow that assignment. Go to a banned books list and amaze yourself by just how many of the books on that list you have already read, and loved (and perhaps, were even assigned to read in school). Let’s not let sterilized AI and limited, fearful ideology take over the beauty, creativity, honesty and humanity, that comes from the written word of so many different perspectives and experiences, told in the voices of true, vulnerable humans, seeking some form of wisdom and understanding. Empathy is uniquely human when we decide to utilize it.

Below is one of Joseph’s most excellent poems. (anyone who has ever had to leave a terrible situation, can relate to this one):

And he posted this poem the other day. This poem so reminds me of my grandparents’ generation. They just had a way with living life in acceptance that I think we may have somewhat lost throughout the years:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. I’ve experienced a lovely weekend. I hope that you have, too. Today, I decided to stop slacking, and I finally wrote my own poem for today. (Write a poem today. If I can do it, you can do it. Trust me. I consider poems to be messages in a bottle sent from the deepest recesses of your heart, up to your head to be translated, with understanding and resonation.) Baudelaire once wrote, “Always be a poet, even in prose.” Here is my poem for today:

Light breezes, finding the perfect seashell,

puppies, babies, foreign lands, spicy food,

the joys and angsts of raising children,

flowers, books, singing robustly when driving my car,

laughing, playing, loving with intimate vigor,

sunny, clear days, and calm, fire-lit starry nights,

As I ponder of what trinket of beauty to write a poem about,

I ask myself,

If I were to be thrown into a small, dark, dank prison with iron chains,

Or I found myself tied to a lonely hospital bed for the rest of my days,

would have I let myself experience enough life and unbridled emotion,

from my vital, gifted, assumed days of freedom and health,

to fill those lonely, lost days with poems of lush and vivid memories?

Am I living the poetry in my heart that is begging to flourish right now?

There is nothing sadder than a heart without poems.

Living life is what beats a heart.

Poetry flows from the beat.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

I’m delayed in writing because my husband and I got up early to do some touch up painting on our house before the blazing summer sun took over with a punishing stranglehold. It’s been one of those weekends of tackling those “instant gratification” chores – painting, weeding . . . It stinks when you are doing it, but the results are so uplifting. I keep telling my husband, as we are knocking these things off of our list, “Well, now we’re hurricane ready.” He keeps admonishing me to stop calling a hurricane in.

I’ve been lazy with my poem writing lately. I hope that you have done better with it than me. I miss it. Poetry really is the heart’s first language. Here is a good poem that I found for today:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

This is how Joseph Fasano, poet who wrote the poem below, describes poetry:

Joseph Fasano gets to the heart of it here. The reason why so many of us avoid reading or writing poetry is because it is vulnerable. It is emotional. It is truthful. It lays things bare. When I come to the blog on Sundays (a day that I have devoted to poetry), I often think to myself, do I have it in me to write about what I am really feeling? Can my mind translate my heart today? Many times I just don’t want to “go there.” So I put an oven mitt over my heart, and I look for someone else’s poem to publish.

“Why speak of the use
of poetry? Poetry
is what uses us.” – Hayden Carruth

Is it possible that poetry is just the soul translated? Poetry is the noble attempt to put into words that which can never fully be explained. Poetry is our soul trying to speak to us about what really “speaks to us.” Write a poem today, using this prompt: “I am the translator. Soul, what are you trying to tell me?” Perhaps use your non-dominant hand to write your poem. I imagine that your inner poet has more to say to you, than you think.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I recently discovered the poems of Jane Hirshfield. She says this about poetry:

“I don’t think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life.” – Jane Hirshfield

Sheep
Jane Hirshfield

It is the work of feeling
to undo expectation.

A black-faced sheep
looks back at you as you pass
and your heart is startled
as if by the shadow
of someone once loved.

Neither comforted by this
nor made lonely.

Only remembering
that a self in exile is still a self,
as a bell unstruck for years
is still a bell.

And this poem below is my own. (Write a poem today, yourself. It will deeply remind you of your own thoroughly lived life.)

Ash – wholly by me

Ash, you were born at a time that I felt a little lost,

And you came out of me, to bring me back to me.

You’re brave and curious and quirky and true,

you’ve helped me to process life and loss and love,

and the everyday banal humming,

along with the unimaginable events,

all of the usual and unusual matters that accumulate,

to make up measured time,

Five years of my lifetime.

Thank you for these five insightful, meaningful, awakening years, Ash.

Thank you for bringing me beautiful witnesses with their own wisdom.

Thank you for being a gentle holder of me and my own posterity.

Thank you for the purpose you give to me in the morning,

And the anticipation that you gift to me when I lie down to sleep.

Thank you for being my playground and my mirror and my muse.

I love you, Ash. Happy Birthday. May there be many more.

******Today is the five year anniversary of Adulting – Second Half (Ash). Thank you for your presence, and your attention, and your precious time, and your loyalty. Thank you for being a part of it all. It means the world. – Kelly

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

“Love is the poetry of the senses.” ~ Honoré de Balzac

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I’m still playing around with poetry. It’s not my “first language” in writing, but I find it interesting. I find it to be a worthwhile pursuit, and good use of my time and of my mindspace. Every Sunday, I suggest that you, my readers, write a little poem or two of your own. If you think that you “can’t” write a poem, look what a teacher on Twitter (shared by Joseph Fasano) got from one of her young students when given a poetry prompt (what a beautiful poem!):

And here is my own poem for today:

“A Moment in July”

I wanted the slow down.

I wanted the unending exhale.

And the Universe answered,

With a pressing heat,

that makes moving through air,

feel like moving through sludge.

“Learn to sit still,” she whispered,

As my skin felt like it was melting away,

And I had no choice but to become one,

with the steaming, still atmosphere around me.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I hope that you will try to write yourself a poem today. It’s fun. It’s relaxing in the way that things which take total concentration are relaxing. Writing poetry focuses your wild, distractible, meandering mind. I wrote today’s poem in honor of Ralphie, our Labrador retriever, who has come down with Limp Tail Syndrome (it’s a thing – look it up). He’ll be alright. It’s similar to when we roll our ankles. Still, it is sad for us, to see him sad.

Limp Tail Syndrome

They say it comes from swimming too much,

It came from doing your greatest love.

It stole your wag. It stole your grin.

Your body can’t smile in your wiggly way

with the big wet soppy toy in your mouth.

It will pass. All things do. But now

Your body just grimaces and growls,

And your tail hangs limp.

You wear your emotions on your whole body,

Not just a sleeve. You don’t hide anything.

You are the embodiment of life, breath and love,

And joy and pain and listless agitation.

You are so fully you, always and ever.

Soon your sprightly tail will wag again.

Easy, light, high and fast and free and happy.

Your tail never hangs limp for long.

It’s not in your nature to be kept down.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good, serene morning to you. I’ve read about this poem in three different sources lately, so I took it as a sign to share it this Sunday, on the poetry day of the blog. Poems say so much more than what is on the page. This poem speaks of long lasting mature love. Wendell Berry captures it beautifully and succinctly in the poem below. (Write your own poem today and capture a little bit of the essence of your own soul. I assure you that you will be astonished by your soul’s beauty and clarity.)

The Blue Robe
By Wendell Berry

How joyful to be together, alone
as when we first were joined
in our little house by the river
long ago, except that now we know

each other, as we did not then;
and now instead of two stories fumbling
to meet, we belong to one story
that the two, joining, made. And now

we touch each other with the tenderness
of mortals, who know themselves:
how joyful to feel the heart quake

at the sight of a grandmother,
old friend in the morning light,
beautiful in her blue robe!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. One thing that I loved about Italy, is that everyone greeted each other, all day long. It would have been utterly rude if you didn’t say, “Buongiorno” to anyone and everyone whom you came across, throughout your day. So, Buongiorno!! “Grazie” (thank you) and “Prego” (your welcome) were also so liberally used by everyone, that I am having a hard time not saying them constantly, even here at home. The Italians have such a friendly, warm, inviting culture.

I hope that this beautiful Sunday finds you well. I feel so lucky to have this blog to come home to, and to look forward to writing every morning. It was good for me that I took a break from writing my blog, only because it made me truly appreciate just how much writing the blog means to me. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Here is my poem that I wrote for today. (I hope that you will write one, too. Soul Sunday is supposed to inspire the poets in all of us.)

“The Antiquities”

She was exhausted from the endless beauty . . .

One marble statue equally as exquisite as the next . . .

Their individual magnificence was lost to the mass of them . . .

Airly, she remarked:

“Perhaps, they should have made less of them,

In order for their individual perfection to be truly appreciated.”

“My dear!” he laughed. “Did you think that they made them for you?

Is it your belief that they made these statues for eager tourists,

and greedy museum goers, hundreds of years into the future?

Let me ask you this: ‘How many pictures do you have on your phone?’

Your photographs hold your memories for you,

And your memories are primarily for you.

These statues, my love, were their pictures, their memories and their experiences.

These statues were primarily for their own selves,

And yet they were kind enough to leave them behind.

You, my dear, are a voyeur borrowing their own fond, many memories, left in stone.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.