Richard Poirier and Stanley Cavell: two inspired guides into deepest Emerson
Posted: December 24, 2019 Filed under: books, people, poetry, states of mind, writing Leave a comment
“Emerson says now and then that language might lead us back to human origins, that ‘language,’ as he says in ‘The Poet,’ is ‘fossil poetry.’ This implies that there are discoverable traces in language of that aboriginal power by which we invent ourselves as a unique form of nature. Frost in an Emersonian mood ends the poem ‘All Revelation’ with a tribute to this human inventiveness:
‘Eyes seeking the response of eyes
Bring out the stars, bring out the flowers,
Thus concentrating earth and skies
So none need be afraid of size.
All revelation has been ours. ‘”
A second coming?
Posted: July 20, 2019 Filed under: people, poetry, states of mind, writing Leave a commentEarth Day
Posted: April 22, 2018 Filed under: buddhism, poetry, writing Leave a comment
Earth Day
by Jane Yolen
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud,
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle,
Skin and bone.
And just as I
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.
That’s why we
Celebrate this day.
That’s why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Earth’s temple services
Posted: April 6, 2018 Filed under: buddhism, people, poetry, states of mind 2 Comments
Laddawan and her sister Maliporn
A Poem for Earth
She said: “I named him Earth because he was everything to me.”
He screamed a million times. She gave him a million kisses.
He never said a word.
He went into shock a million times. She held him and gave him hugs
a million times.
He never said a word.
She said: “I named him Earth because he was everything to me.”
He smiled at her a million times. She smiled at him a million times.
He never said a word.
She said: “I named him Earth because he was everything to me.
He was everything to me.”
Laney Yarber, Laddawan, me and Joe, Laney’s son.
Some of our friends.
Distilled Wisdom
Posted: February 16, 2018 Filed under: poetry, writing | Tags: writers Leave a comment
A landscape painting from the Tang Era.
No road to happiness or sorrow.–Chinese proverb.
Silly boys in time become silly old men.–Chinese proverb.
“I heard” is good. “I saw” is better.–Chinese proverb.
Water and words, easy to pour, impossible to recover.–Chinese proverb.
The house with an old grandparent harbors a jewel.–Chinese proverb.
You own ten fingers are unequaled.–Chinese proverb.
Before you beat the dog, learn his master’s name.–Chinese proverb.
Pleasures are shallow, sorrows are deep.–Chinese proverb.
One dog barks at a shadow, a hundred bark at his sound.–Chinese proverb.
Do not open a shop, unless you like to smile.–Chinese proverb.
Many a good face under a ragged hat.–Chinese proverb.
Rivers and mountains may change, human nature never.–Chinese proverb.
A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles.–Chinese proverb.
Easier to rule a nation than a son.–Chinese proverb.
Without sorrows no one becomes a saint.–Chinese proverb.
Learning is treasure no thief can touch.–Chinese proverb.
While you are bargaining conceal your coin.–Chinese proverb.
Great doubts, deep wisdom. Small doubts, little wisdom.–Chinese proverb.
Cheat the earth…earth will cheat you.–Chinese proverb.
On this day 200 years ago, Henry David Thoreau was born.
Posted: July 12, 2017 Filed under: books, photography, poetry, states of mind, writers Leave a comment
Thoreau spent two years, two months and two days in a cabin near Walden Pond where he wrote Walden. He spent a little over two years at the cabin, and used one year, the four seasons, as a metaphor for growth in Nature and in human nature. He was urged on in his inner pursuits by Ralph Waldo Emerson, his neighbor, who was firing up the emergent, new American imagination. Walden was Thoreau’s personal attempt at spiritual enlightenment and a flag for self-reliance in the search for inner growth and peace. Again, I have to say the book that opens up Walden like no other is Stanley Cavell’s Senses of Walden, which really should be read before reading Walden.
Thoreau’s notebook journal from Nov. 11, 1858.
Dylan’s Nobel Prize Speech
Posted: June 5, 2017 Filed under: music, people, poetry, writers Leave a comment
Here’s Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize speech, which is a peek at his inspirations, entanglements and bondings and the power of stories to convey word pictures of the world. I was surprised he barely mentioned poetry.
Plurality By Louis MacNeice
Posted: November 23, 2016 Filed under: people, poetry, religion, states of mind Leave a commentPlurality
By Louis MacNeice
It is patent to the eye that cannot face the sun
The smug philosophers lie who say the world is one;
World is other and other, world is here and there,
Parmenides would smother life for lack of air
Precluding birth and death; his crystal never breaks—
No movement and no breath, no progress nor mistakes,
Nothing begins or ends, no one loves or fights,
All your foes are friends and all your days are nights
And all the roads lead round and are not roads at all
And the soul… Click here for this wonderful poem…
by Rollie McKenna, bromide print, 1954
Ralph Ellison’s Faux Haiku
Posted: November 20, 2016 Filed under: books, people, poetry, writers Leave a commentAlbert Murray, Ralph Ellison’s friend, remembers a short poem, which I will call a haiku, from their days as students together: Murray recalls the author of Invisible Man as the smartest-dressed upperclassman at Tuskegee. Murray was impressed that Ellison always seemed to check out the best books in the library, and he presented a “nascent elegance” in his two-tone shoes, bow tie, contrasting slacks, and whatever else the best haberdasher in Oklahoma had to offer.
“I even remember the poetry Ralph wrote,” Murray said:
“‘Death is nothing, / Life is nothing, / How beautiful these two nothings!’ “
Ring Them Bells, brothers and sisters
Posted: October 13, 2016 Filed under: music, poetry Leave a commentRing Them Bells
BY: BOB DYLAN
Ring them bells, ye heathen
From the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
’Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride
Ring them bells St. Peter
Where the four winds blow
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know
Oh it’s rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow
Ring them bells Sweet Martha
For the poor man’s son
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled
With lost sheep
Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf
Ring them bells for all of us who are left
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through
Ring them bells, for the time that flies
For the child that cries
When innocence dies
Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they’re breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong
the roy hamric journal 