poetry appreciation – Page 7 – lucy crispin, poet

strangeness making sense

Oct 8, 2020 #alone, #aloneness, #belonging, #comfort, #home, #isolation, #Larkin, #loneliness, #lonely, #Philip Larkin, #poem, #poetry, #relationship, #society, #solitude, #The importance of Elsewhere, #Vers de Societe by Lucy Crispin

The other poem in my head while I was on holiday was one I almost always hear in there when I’m away from home: Larkin’s ‘The Importance of Elsewhere‘. The experience of being where no-one knows your name (apologies for the echo of the Cheers theme tune which may have just drifted across your mind) can feel safe or frightening, liberating or paralysing, and I’ve always loved Larkin’s exploration of these facts in this poem.

poetry appreciation

the winged life

Oct 1, 2020 #attention, #Berry, #Blake, #Eternity, #holiday, #mindfulness, #presence, #social media, #The Vacation, #wendell berry, #William Blake by Lucy Crispin

Everything there is to be said about the toxic potential of social media has already have been said somewhere else (probably on social media) so I won’t rehearse it here. And it’s true that the splicing together of commercials for our lives (rather then inhabiting them) isn’t quite what Wendell Berry’s splendid ‘The Vacation‘ is about; but it feels related, somehow. Besides, this was the poem which came to mind while I was away on my holiday. Here it is.

poetry appreciation

beside the seaside

Sep 13, 2020 #beach, #birds, #grace, #holiday, #Maccaig, #mindfulness, #nature, #Norman MacCaig, #poem, #poetry, #presence, #Rhu Mor, #seaside by Lucy Crispin

I am lucky enough to be retreating from Real Life for a while: a week (ish) away near the Galloway coast in a house where there’s no internet and only a very feeble, intermittent phone signal. So this column will be on holiday along with me, though back as usual in a fortnight’s time. To give you a virtual visit to the sort of place I’ll be, and a vision of the sorts of creatures I hope to be gazing upon, here’s the vivid and wonderful ‘Rhu Mor‘ by Norma MacCaig. (Unfortunately I can’t find this anywhere on the internet with the poet’s own layout on the page, so we’ll have to make do with this. As consolation, you can hear MacCaig himself reading it here.)

poetry appreciation

an unlikely trio

It’s very often time for Mary Oliver, I find, though I know those who do not agree. For those readers, best pass by. Today I wanted to read ‘Wild Geese‘, so I am. I know most people have already read it. I know that (like other Oliver texts) it’s been plundered for Pinterest posts and self-help-seminar titles and many, many Inspirational Items (posters, mugs, t-shirts, who knows what). Still, its beauty and wisdom persist—just as the Mona Lisa survives being a jigsaw. So: enjoy ‘Wild Geese’ all over again (with the plus of hearing Oliver read it).

poetry appreciation

pie, anyone?

Aug 27, 2020 #appreciation, #courage, #creating, #exposure, #Grace Paley, #intimacy, #intimate, #Paley, #pie, #poem, #poetry, #revealing, #writing by Lucy Crispin

And now for something completely different. Make a cup of tea (or whatever you’d usually have with a nice slice of pie) and savour ‘The Poet’s Occasional Alternative‘ by Grace Paley.

poetry appreciation

encouragement

Aug 13, 2020 #courage, #covid 19 coronavirus, #despair, #Galway Kinnell, #hope, #pandemic, #persistence, #wait, #waiting by Lucy Crispin

I reckon lots of us are currently in need of encouragement to keep on keeping on. This poem, ‘Wait‘ by Galway Kinnell’, does it for me. I only discovered it recently but it’s already installed itself in my Emergency Lanterns anthology. Scroll down the linked page a bit to hear the poet reading it himself, and find the text underneath.

poetry appreciation

tenderness

Aug 6, 2020 #care, #careful, #caring, #connection, #coronavirus, #Covid 19, #fear, #Naomi Shihab Nye, #pandemic, #shoulders, #tender, #tenderness by Lucy Crispin

One of the many weird, sad things about living during this time of pandemic is what it does to how we look on other people: suddenly everyone is threat, or potential threat, and connection is something to be avoided, not sought. I’d like to offer a little antidote to this—a reminder of connection as protection—in the shape of ‘Shoulders‘ by the deeply gifted Naomi Shihab Nye.

poetry appreciation

the nearest thing to life

Jul 31, 2020 #A Litany for Survival, #Audre Lorde, #difference, #disadvantage, #fear, #function of art, #George Eliot, #Lorde, #privilege, #safety, #universal by Lucy Crispin

In an essay written just before her first published venture into fiction, Eliot claimed that ‘The greatest benefit we owe the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies’. She continues: ‘art is the nearest thing to life, it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot’. It feels worth remembering this at the moment, when so many arts organisations and institutions seem to be staring down the twin barrels of Covid and being insufficiently valued/funded anyway (don’t get me started on what happened to the humanities when Literacy Hour and the National Curriculum came in…). And Eliot’s line rings round my head as I think about this week’s poem, ‘A Litany for Survival‘ by Audre Lorde. (You can find a tantalising trailer for a film about Lorde here.)

poetry appreciation

triumph and honour

Jul 23, 2020 #decency, #despair, #honour, #If, #Kipling, #politics, #process, #product, #shame, #shamelessness, #solidarity, #The Second Coming, #To A Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing, #triumph, #trust, #WB Yeats, #Yeats by Lucy Crispin

I was wondering why ‘To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing‘ swam to the surface this week. Then I sat down and thought about it and wondered no longer. A poem about shamelessness? about the difficulty of honour in a time when Might is Right? Hmm, not so difficult to fathom, perhaps, after all.

poetry appreciation

peine forte et dure

Jul 16, 2020 #acceptance, #coronavirus, #Covid 19, #Denise Levertov, #feelings, #grief, #Levertov, #mourning, #news, #pandemic, #peine forte et dure, #press, #pressing, #process, #sadness, #Talking to grief, #torture by Lucy Crispin

Apparently that’s the name for the torture whereby a board was placed on top of you and weights gradually added until the life was crushed out of you (or you made a plea in relation to the crime of which you were accused). “Pressing”, as it was also known, comes to my mind every now and then these days when I turn on the news or check out The Grauniad website and hear what the latest Thing is. I have a distinctly physical sense of another weight being added, another piece of bad news and difficulty on top of what already felt like a crushing load. Thus half an hour ago I was to be seen sitting with my forehead on the desk trying to summon the energy and will to sit upright. I’m sure this is a common experience. What works, apart from coffee, chocolate or a walk in the wood, is acknowledging to myself what I’m actually feeling; and so I give you ‘Talking to Grief‘ by Denise Levertov.

Category: poetry appreciation