Sunday Picnic

[jjhunter]

Sunday, every Sunday, let's have a community picnic. It's probably been a long week, and it's lovely to have a few minutes to sit back and relax and enjoy some good conversation in a less formal space. Feel free to bring something for the Picnic Basket - a poem you liked this week, a thought you had or something you experienced, or even something completely unrelated to poetry whatsoever that you just feel like sharing. Just take a moment to say hello, and maybe have a bite to eat; no one is going anywhere fast, and the shade promises some relief from the everyday heat. Let’s get to know each other a bit better, here under the branches of the poet’s tree.

Comments

[ashestosnow]

This week I've found myself particularly affected by “Maybe I Need You,” by Andrea Gibson. It was originally a performance poem, so all sources of it online are ragged transcripts, with some typing errors; apologies for that.

At the time that I first read it, a few days ago, I almost wept at several parts. These two, I think, were the most affecting.

Yesterday I carved your name into the surface
of an ice cube then held it against my chest
‘til it melted into my aching pores.

So this is my wheat field.
You can have every acre, love.
This is my garden song.
This is my thunderstorm,
this is my fistfight with that bitter frost.

The second sounds to me a little like Florence and the Machine's lyrics, of which I'm particularly fond.

As I reread them now, I don't feel so close to weeping. I don't know if that's the lingering effects of medication, or because I'm healing. Love is a powerful drug, but so is lorazepam.

[raze]

I love Andrea Gibson; she is an AMAZING poet.

[untonuggan]

I find it amazing how poetry can just sort of mold to fit my mood. Good luck with your healing, and thanks for sharing the poem.

[ashestosnow]

Thank you very much; and you're welcome.

And yes, a good poem, I think, is adaptive. It should not be so broadly applicable as to be meaningless, but it should be able to strike a wide variety of people in a wide variety of situations. It should appeal to something universal, even if the situation is specific.

[raze]

- I am sick, very probably with murine typhus.
- I am in the midst, despite being sick, of a big project in my reptile room.
- I have things to share!

First, when I hosted, I didn't get to post on the subject of Hindu activist poetry. Poetry has been a powerful weapon against the hidden apartheid of India's caste system. Two noteworthy poet-activists for you to check out are Mahakavi Bharathiyar (the name you'd find most of his poetry under; his full name is Chinnaswami Subramanya Bharathi) and Meena Kandaswamy. Here is one of Kandaswamy's poems:

One-eyed

the pot sees just another noisy child
the glass sees an eager and clumsy hand
the water sees a parched throat slaking thirst
but the teacher sees a girl breaking the rule
the doctor sees a medical emergency
the school sees a potential embarrassment
the press sees a headline and a photofeature

dhanam sees a world torn in half.
her left eye, lid open but light slapped away,
the price for a taste of that touchable water.


Then: At our last picnic, I was surprised to find that a few readers responded positively to poetry from my novel-verse, so I figured I'd post another. This would be one written by Trent, a hybrid wereanimal, to his former lover Arlette, a mutilated harpy.

Shrapnel Love

To say that we
are pieces of the puzzle
that just don't fit
suggests - wrongly
that we're anything like harmless
little bits of cardboard.

We don't fit in the puzzle
because what we are is
pieces of shrapnel;
When we explode
we cut down
everyone around us.

So it's really no surprise
my dear
that we blew apart
- is it?

[untonuggan]

Both lovely and powerful, thanks for sharing! And I hope you keep writing...

[raze]

Thank you! I'm not fixing on stopping. ;)

[untonuggan]

Also, typhus = boo

[ashestosnow]

That sounds most unpleasant! I'm sorry to hear of your sickness.

Both of those poems are extremely powerful. I love how the ending of One-eyed is a revelation, no less impacting for the fact that you know the poem is building up to it.

The second could almost be an activist-romance poem, to my mind. Some loves are revolutionary, incendiary. I get the feeling that the tone is intended to be more negative, though; it works both ways, I think.

[raze]

It could be double-sided for those two, really; the series is a civil rights allegory, and they're a mixed species couple, and their relationship was born out of mutual experience with violence and oppression.

For fun, How I am in Haiku

[untonuggan]

today my knee's stuck
a bend of pain, hobbling
wish Dobby were here

Re: For fun, How I am in Haiku

[raze]

Aw :( I can relate. Joint pain for the lose.

Re: For fun, How I am in Haiku

[untonuggan]

Today is a little better, thanks to medication and an epsom salt bath and using a cane. Still, I'm a little like, "Really, body? We're moving in less than two weeks and you decided now was the best time to flare? Thank you so much." But it makes total sense, because stress = flare-ups. Anyway, will stop talking now. Thank you for the sympathy.

[alee_grrl]

The one problem with being on vacation is that your schedule gets completely off track. I completely forgot it was Sunday. :)

[ashestosnow]

On the subject of activist-romance poetry, I may as well share my most recent bit of writing. It's not as polished as I would like-- there's a lot that feels awkward about it, and I'm not sure that all of the specifics will make sense to everyone-- but I wanted to share it, if only because there is very little poetry out there that speaks of asexual romance.


this is a love song

this is a love song.
not a dancing of tongues,
friction of teeth against sunwarmed skin;
not tangling fingers in the soft sweet verdure
at the back of your neck. this is letting you in.
but not in the way most spoken of.
this is a song of a different merger.

this is your hands, gentle and skilful,
unbuckling not belts, but armor plate;
this is the sigh of aching muscles, released from torment
at the uncoupling of every latch and clutch,
and your palms unraveling the memory of the weight.
this is your eyes after nine days' traveling,
ringed and bleary, as you rise from our tent,
yet eager for sunrise as you were the first.
this is the shift in your posture, watchful, wilful,
your fingers in mine, that you may augment
this energy's flowing by the gift of your touch.
your magic in mine, empowering, ensconced,
yet all at once rushing and raging, fit to burst,
tearing down the barriers that represent
the illusion that fire and ice were ever discriminate.

do us disservice not; do not demean us.
eliminate from your thoughts that crippling crutch
that tells you: love requires particular response.
these responses, all and more, are goddess-blessed,
should you require that, should your brain soliloquize
that without deity, love cannot mean much.
do not mistake our love for second-best,
sincere gesture's for lust's shallow disguise
or the simplicity of holding hands for a prelude
to the end of the game. until you have danced with fire through us,
frozen a whisper in her outstretched palm, don't call this "tame".
upon our sanctuary do not intrude,
nor judge us right from wrong.
this is a love song.

[fyreharper]

Oh, this is lovely. Memory-ing the post so I can find it again later :)

[ashestosnow]

Oh, thank you. :) I'm glad you liked it.

[raze]

Loved this. I feel that asexual romance and relationships are SEVERELY under-represented in writing, so I'm thrilled to see a poem on it.

[ashestosnow]

Thank you. I've had much the same experience, and so I hoped to broaden the canon a little.

[lnhammer]

I'm feeling better today for having translated three waka and revising a couple dozen (not sure of the exact number) of my own tanka, part of a sequence. Not writing for the better part of a week makes me out of sorts.

Poem I discovered this week, and am loving: Robert Frost's "Directive" -- it's copyrighted, so link only to a site that claims they have permission. Rereading several times, I'm still teasing out layers.

---L.