grief – lucy crispin, poet

dependence

Aug 23, 2022 #beauty, #climate catastrophe, #climate change, #coronavirus, #covid, #Covid 19, #creation, #fear, #grief, #human, #interdependence, #John Daniel, #poem, #social by Lucy Crispin

In the middle of a feverish round of Covid this poem dropped into my inbox (I guess it would be on the 4th July, now I come to think about it): ‘Dependence Day‘ by John Daniel. Struggling as I was with the necessary isolation of Testing Positive, I found the poem really hit home. See how you like it.

poetry appreciation

couldn’t resist

Jun 9, 2022 #brexit, #despair, #europe, #fear, #grief, #isolationism, #Kathy Jetnil Kijiner, #nationalism, #seawall soliloquy by Lucy Crispin

I know I said I’d only be posting over at what the afternoon knows for the next wee while, but this poem landed in my inbox this week and I loved it so much I couldn’t not pass it on. Check out Kathy Jetnil Kijiner’s ‘Seawall soliloquy number two‘. It needs no gloss from me.

poetry appreciation

too much reality

There’s a lot of reality to deal with at the moment. As ever, I’m helped by poetry—and by sharing it; and by the conversations it stimulates. For some reason this poem in particular has been calling me over the last few days. Perhaps ‘The Gate‘ by Marie Howe might be helpful for you too. Let me know.

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.

poetry appreciation

ways to persist

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.

poetry appreciation

the gifts of loss

Aug 19, 2021 #bereavement, #change, #grief, #grieving, #hope, #loss, #magic realism, #Moving forward, #music, #openness, #poetry, #Rilke, #sorrow by Lucy Crispin

This week—today, in fact, if you read this on a Friday—I’m having to do a big bit of letting go. The house where my Mum and Dad lived is now sold, and I’m up in Scotland, emptying the last bits of furniture, locking the door and walking away for the last time. Like much that has happened in my life (let alone in the wider world) over the last couple of years, this feels too big and disturbing to understand at once. I feel as though I can’t think and feel all the “necessary” things, and get in a sort of panic. Just the right time, then, to read a poem about letting go and feel it find me in the way that poetry (like music) can. Here is ‘Moving Forward‘ by Rilke.

poetry

reasons to write part 1

May 27, 2021 #easter island, #Gluck, #grief, #Louise Gluck, #making meaning, #ver poets by Lucy Crispin

Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature, has said: “Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance… : bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you’ve no longer been bested by these events.” That makes so much sense to me. Sometimes writing does feel alchemical (in intent, anyway!), and reading Gluck’s comment inspires me to share one of the poems where I was attempting to turn base metal into gold…

poetry appreciation

if only…

Apr 1, 2021 #bargaining, #blame, #control, #doubt, #fear, #grief, #Jennifer Maier, #Maier, #post hoc, #post hoc ergo propter hoc, #regret, #self-blame, #self-criticism, #the road not taken, #what if by Lucy Crispin

Apologies for radio silence over the last 2 weeks; I’ve not been well. I’m glad to be back, not least because this week’s poem is a relatively new discovery (to me) and I’ve been looking forward to sharing it. Some part of me deeply recognises the states and thoughts described in Jennifer Maier’s ‘Post Hoc‘ by Jennifer Maier. How about you?

events

not making lemonade, but…

Feb 1, 2021 #community, #fun, #grief, #joy, #laugh, #loss, #mourning, #poem, #poems, #poetry, #reading, #reading together, #shared reading, #sharing, #the 42 group, #together by Lucy Crispin

I took down the “events” page from this site in about May last year. Reading and other engagements were cancelled, of course, and though I’ve taken part in some online launches and Youtube events, it’s not the same as meeting in person. Sharing a room and a poem with others has a real magic in it, and forgoing that has been one of the many losses of The Current Situation; tiny, perhaps, but real. As Cilla might have said, there’s a lorra lorra lemons about at the moment.

poetry appreciation

the unbroken

A couple of years ago the 42 group began a December tradition of making a poetry advent calendar. We choose a topic and each contribute a few of our favourite poems which, with a great deal of sherry and swearing, I grapple into a vaguely consistent format, allotting a poem to each day of advent and emailing out the resulting document. This year our topic has been healing/reassurance/comfort, that sort of thing. The Christmas Eve poem a group member contributed was new to me—so beautiful and so apt for these strange times that, with apologies to group members who are seeing the same poem twice in one day, I share it here too. Delight in ‘The Unbroken‘ by Rashani.

Tag: grief