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

[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.