Month: November 2020

poetry appreciation
poetry appreciation

difficult thoughts

Nov 19, 2020 #disenfranchised, #dread, #dream, #dreaming, #fear, #gloom, #hope, #hopelessness, #hopes, #Lindsay, #Louis MacNeice, #Macneice, #passion, #possibility, #powerless, #powerlessness, #protest, #unrespresented, #Vachel Lindsay by Lucy Crispin

When times are hard, is it helpful or appalling to read something and realise that times have been hard in the same way before (and therefore probably will be again)? Mostly, as you’ll know by now, I tend to think it’s helpful to read and know you are not alone; but when today’s poem presented itself for duty in my head, seeming apt for the times, resonant and gloomy, I did initially feel a bit droopier than I already had been. So, see what you think: do you feel droopier when you read ‘The Leaden Eyed‘ by Vachel Lindsay? (Note: in versions I’ve seen in print there is a stanza break between lines 4 and 5, which doesn’t appear in this online version.)

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poetry appreciation

the joy of autumn

Nov 12, 2020 #academia, #autumn, #change, #crispin, #Lucy Crispin, #November sends me a postcard, #peace, #possibility, #renewal, #rest, #seasons, #spring, #the blue nib, #winter by Lucy Crispin

I don’t know if it’s because one way and another I ended up spending a ridiculously long time in the academic system—schoolchild, student (several times!), lecturer, then student again—but to me autumn has always felt much more like the beginning of things than spring. The changes in light and landscape always wake in me a quiet excitement, a sense simultaneously of possibility and openings and yet also, with the longer evenings and nights, the opportunity for peace, retreat, renewal. That probably sounds paradoxical, I know. But it’s true. So that’s what this hymn to November is about.

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poetry appreciation

temporarily moving in the same direction

Nov 5, 2020 #analog, #analogue, #connection, #digital, #dream, #dreaming, #journey, #letting go, #Matthew Zapruder, #Poem for Passengers, #relax, #responsibility, #separate, #surrender, #train, #train travel, #trains, #yearning, #Zapruder by Lucy Crispin

I love being on trains; or I did, BC. Like everyone else in the world I’ve crossed out many trips and treats from my diary over the last 8 months, and it seems such a long time since I enjoyed that licence-to-drift which train travel affords. So I was delighted to discover ‘Poem for Passengers‘ by Matthew Zapruder. It really captures the experience for me. See what you think.

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