Tag: despair

poetry, poetry appreciation, reflection

clamouring toward it

Nov 12, 2024 #despair, #election, #halleluiah, #hope, #love, #Mary Oliver, #poem, #poetry, #Sheenah Pugh, #sometimes by Lucy Crispin

A poem, today, to remind us that good things can happen. No, not Sheenag Pugh’s ‘Sometimes‘. Although I’m always happy to revisit that, line 6 is a bit close to home at the moment. Instead I offer you a poem by the wonderful Mary Oliver which someone brought to a poetry group I facilitate (on 6th November. A lot of poems reminding us to be hopeful were brought that day!). See what you make of Mary Oliver’s ‘Halleluiah‘.

Read More
events, poetry, poetry appreciation
poetry appreciation, reflection

emptying the handbag of my mind

Sep 3, 2024 #acceptance, #Anthony Hopkins, #Berry, #despair, #fear, #Freud's Last session, #Frost, #grief, #Keats, #Ode on Melancholy, #pain, #poem, #poetry, #RObert Frost, #sorrow, #the peace of wild things, #wendell berry by Lucy Crispin

Last time I said I’d return to Keats and ‘glut[ting] thy sorrow on a morning rose‘, but I’ve got a bit distracted by a Frost poem. Maybe it’s not distraction, though. Perhaps I haven’t had enough coffee yet to remember why the poem joined up—in my head at least—with the Keats and, according to my notes, Frankenstein and the recent film Freud’s Last Session (!). Blimey. Perhaps best just read it before I say any more. Here’s ‘Acceptance‘ by Robert Frost.

Read More
poetry, poetry appreciation

our small durance

Aug 20, 2024 #affection, #attachment, #bipolar, #bipolarity, #comfort, #depression, #despair, #fear, #Gerard Manly Hopkins, #hope, #insomnia, #intertextuality, #Leontia Flynn, #love, #maternal, #mother, #mum, #No worst there is none, #Scieszka, #The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Lucy Crispin

Oooooh I do like me a nice bit of intertextuality.* When this poem plopped in my inbox I was very glad to meet it. I’d be very interested to see what you make of ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins‘ by Leontia Flynn. For ease of reference, here’s the poem with which Flynn’s poem has such a close relationship.

Read More
poetry, poetry appreciation, reflection

talking or lying…?

Aug 6, 2024 #connection, #courage, #despair, #fear, #honesty, #intimacy, #isolation, #Larkin, #Philip Larkin, #poem, #poetry, #relationship, #Talking in Bed by Lucy Crispin

A friend of mine recently dealt with a potentially tricky situation between us with tremendous grace and courage. Their honesty brought to mind this poem about its opposite—a poem I have long loved with a deep sense of melancholy, fearing that it spoke The Truth. It’s always a great relief when I remember the poem speaks the poet’s truth, with which we all may resonate sometimes, but which need not be The Whole or Only. See what you think about Larkin’s ‘Talking in Bed‘:

Read More
poetry appreciation
poetry appreciation

the nadir experience

Feb 10, 2022 #accompaniment, #apostrophe, #be near me when my light is low, #despair, #grief, #hopeless, #hopelessness, #in memoriam ahh, #meaninglessness, #metre, #nihilism, #rhyme, #rhyme scheme, #Tennyson by Lucy Crispin

Needless to recount again my extreme enthusiasm for Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH. For today’s “poem that helps” I offer you ‘Be near me when my light is low’, poem 50 out of In Mem‘s 131-poem length. It’s in the public domain, so the text is below; but if you want a laugh, you can listen to a computer read it here. It’s hilarious. For what it should sound like, try this one.

Read More
poetry appreciation

ways to persist

Jan 28, 2022 #acceptance, #Bass, #courage, #despair, #determination, #difficulty, #Ellen Bass, #encourage, #endurance, #grief, #hope, #KBO, #loss, #persistence, #presence, #the thing is, #vulnerability, #weariness, #weary by Lucy Crispin

Lots of us find this time of year difficult at the best of times and, as we have noted before, these are not the best of times. So for the next while I want to share some poems which I find helpful. I would also be delighted to hear from you about poems which support you to carry on. (Drop me an email or comment below and we can have your poem in the column sometime soon.) But for today I want to share Ellen Bass’s ‘The Thing Is‘ which I find breathtakingly honest and stark and beautiful, and which definitely inspires me.

Read More
poetry appreciation

come, poor Jackself

Jan 14, 2022 #compassion, #Crews, #despair, #fear, #generosity, #Gerard Manley Hopkins, #Hopkins, #James crews, #kindness, #my own heart let me have more pity on, #self care, #self-compassion by Lucy Crispin

My therapy practice would be a lot less busy if people really knew how right it is to be self-compassionate. So many of us can pay lip service to the notion of “put on your own oxygen mask first” while not truly believing it’s “allowed” or, actually, the long-term more altruistic thing to do (in that it helps you keep in a fit state to support others). So I love this poem—a recent discovery—which expresses that sense of unease about kindness to self. Here’s James Crews’ ‘Self-Compassion‘.

Read More
poetry appreciation

an unlikely trio

Sep 3, 2020 #Advertising Space, #angels, #comfort, #despair, #Elvis, #Hughes, #inspiration, #lyricist, #lyrics, #Mary Oliver, #millennium, #nature, #Oliver, #opposites, #poem, #poetry, #Robbie Williams, #Roe-deer, #Ted Hughes, #the creative process, #vision, #Wild Geese, #writing by Lucy Crispin

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).

Read More
error: Content is protected !!