Picnic basket and summer sun

[alee_grrl]

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

[alee_grrl]

This week's Friday Haiku over at Cute Overload is strangely appropo to my life right now. Caution: slow moving thoughts.

[raze]

Hah! Very cute indeed.

[raze]

Been a rough few days emotionally, and one way I pick myself up is listening to spoken-word poetry. I will grant the one I'm about to share isn't cheerful, but it's by a poet I enjoy. I'll be featuring a work by Buddy Wakefield for our week of QUILTBAG poets, so here's an intro to his work:



Link, if the embedded doesn't work for you.

(Possible TW for language, implied homophobia, implied misogyny)

[alee_grrl]

It may not be cheerful, but it is powerful and hits you right in the heartstrings.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

To Myself - Franz Wright

You are riding the bus again
burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,
the sole passenger

with an overhead light on.
And I am with you.
I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,

the little lights off in the distance
(in one of those rooms we are
living) and I am the rain

and the others all
around you, and the loneliness you love,
and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,

and the catastrophic dawn,
the nicotine crawling on your skin—
and when you begin

to cough I won’t cover my face,
and if you vomit this time I will hold you:
everything’s going to be fine

I will whisper.
It won’t always be like this.
I am going to buy you a sandwich.

[alee_grrl]

The rhythm of this poem reminds me of long drives and the rhythm the tires make over the sections of the interstate. It's almost hypnotic. The themes are very similar to the poem Raze shared above (Convenience Store): loneliness, travel to escape, dreams. Thanks for sharing.

[ashestosnow]

Oh, I like this. I like this a lot.

A small love poem to the self, in the middle of that strange state of tedium and fascination and almost altered reality that frequently accompanies travel.

Thank you for sharing.

And something happier:

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

“Cuttings (Later)” by Theodore Roethke

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it—
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

God Says Yes To Me - Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Re: And something happier:

[alee_grrl]

I really love this. Thanks for sharing it.

[ashestosnow]

I think sometimes we all need to hear something like this, whether we believe in God or gods or the simple inexorable timelessness of nature. It's so easy to wrap ourselves up in petty concerns of what those around us think of us that we forget that we don't have to be petty. There's a whole universe out there.

Thank you for this.

[jjhunter]

Climbing out of a funk is a long, slow process, but I'm definitely feeling more like myself this weekend. Not sure if I have the time to grab a day for the QUILTBAG-themed week, but I'll let y'all know one way or another tonight.

Speaking of QUILTBAG, have you all seen melannen's QUILTBAG bag? There's a post up here that details how it was made. Very nifty!

[alee_grrl]

Climbing out of a funk is definitely a long, slow process. Glad to hear that you are slowly climbing out of it though. Let us know if you need anything.

This bag is amazing and made of so much win. :D

[lnhammer]

I had fun this week creating a seven-poem-long story over in poetry, out of a mini-anthology of poems talking to each other across times and traditions:

"Hyla Brook," Robert Frost
Kokinshu 53, Ariwara no Narihira
The chestnut casts his flambeaux, A. E. Housman
"A Quoi Bon Dire," Charlotte Mew
"The Inlaid Zither," Li Shangyin
Kokinshu 658, Ono no Komachi
There's a certain Slant of light, Emily Dickinson

---L.

[alee_grrl]

A wonderful set of poems. Read together they do create a sort of narrative. I quite enjoyed reading them all again today.

[zirconium]

Joanne Merriam mentioned Matthew Hotham's The Friends You Won't Outlive. It's a poem I'll need to revisit...

*passes around pitcher of watermelon agua fresca*

[ashestosnow]

This week, this poem-- untitled I believe, from Anis Mojgani's The Feather Room has been the one running through my mind.

There's something about the line Another has shelves of speckled stones. that strikes me particularly. I think that if a certain someone had a room inside my heart, those would definitely be there: small smooth stones the colour of robin's eggs, with dark speckles like reverse stars. It makes me want to spin a poem off the idea. How would I describe the room? What would be in it?

[alee_grrl]

I just love this poem. I can think of several people who have rooms inside my heart, and how those rooms have changed and grown over time.

[ashestosnow]

I find it a fascinating concept. And, perhaps, an interesting relationship-building exercise: aksing the people in your life what kind of things they would imagine to be in their rooms, and sharing your own ideas.