Novelist Robert Bausch said, "Saying you don’t
read poetry is like saying you don’t change your underwear; it says more about you than the underwear."
With this in mind, I will not SAY that I don't read poetry, but I will admit that even though I don't SAY it, I actually don't read poetry very much. And when I do, I'm afraid I lack the patience to really absorb it. Yesterday I listened to Richard Blanco read his poem "One Today" as part of President Obama's second inauguration festivities. I believe poetry is meant to be heard as well as read, and I immediately liked the poem. I shared it with a young friend who writes poetry, and she said she liked it too. But I wondered, "Why do we like it?" And so I found the text of the poem and read it through a couple of times.
The first characteristic I noticed was that Richard Blanco chose several interesting verbs--not verbs that I had to look up in the dictionary, mind you, but words I didn't expect to hear used as verbs or words that were in some way surprising but effective in communicating his thoughts and feelings.
I have reproduced the first two stanza's here and highlighted the verbs or verb forms I thought especially interesting.
One
Today by Richard Blanco
One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.
My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school
buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks
heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.
Blanco also made good use of visual and auditory images. Listen to Stanza 6:
Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.
And then the figures of speech--similes, metaphors, personification...
"The sun...greeting the faces of the Great Lakes;...the apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise;...and always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window..."
Thank you, Richard Blanco, for making us want to read poetry.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Grandma Moses and Me
"I look back on my life like a good day's work; it was done and I am satisfied with it."
Anna Mary Robertson Moses.
Grandma Moses was born in 1860; she began oil painting in the 1930s when arthritis in her hands made the hobby of embroidery difficult or maybe impossible. Notice I said "began"! If you will do the math, you will see that in 1930, she was 70 years old. What a time in life to begin a new career. And what a career it was!
She is remembered today as an important American folk artist. If you Google her name, I'm sure you will recognize her work.
Grandma Moses' story encourages me because it is easy for me to regret what I have failed to do up until now. But you know, the days, months, and years will pass whether I make use of them or not. Grandma Moses could have said, "I've always wanted to paint. Ho hum, I wish I had started years ago. My, my, now I'm too old." Somehow I doubt Grandma Moses ever really "got old," though she lived to the age of 101.
That's how I want to be. Obviously I didn't choose the year I was born, and I'm not ashamed of the number of birthdays I have had, but I don't want to be "old" in thinking and attitude! And so I am doing a few things to help ward off "oldness." I try to stay in shape physically by walking for exercise, but I need to add some resistance training to this. You know, the whole fragile bone thing... Also, I'm keeping my brain active with reading, teaching, and piano practice, and I have added lumosity.com games to my regular routine.
And then there are some things I need to do MUCH better in. One of them is my walk with the Lord. Bible reading and prayer are so important, but often they don't seem urgent to me and tend to get shuffled around. And so this needs to go to the top of the list.
Then there is that nagging wish to write. I'm not sure why or why I can't get away from it or why I feel such reluctance to just DO it. Anyway, in this area, my goal is to write 50 posts in 2013 whether anyone reads them or not. (I would have said 52 for 52 weeks but...you guessed it, I'm already 2 weeks behind!)
If I were to die today, I don't think I could say, "I look back on my life like a good day's work; it was done and I am satisfied with it." But I would like to.
Anna Mary Robertson Moses.
Grandma Moses was born in 1860; she began oil painting in the 1930s when arthritis in her hands made the hobby of embroidery difficult or maybe impossible. Notice I said "began"! If you will do the math, you will see that in 1930, she was 70 years old. What a time in life to begin a new career. And what a career it was!
She is remembered today as an important American folk artist. If you Google her name, I'm sure you will recognize her work.
Grandma Moses' story encourages me because it is easy for me to regret what I have failed to do up until now. But you know, the days, months, and years will pass whether I make use of them or not. Grandma Moses could have said, "I've always wanted to paint. Ho hum, I wish I had started years ago. My, my, now I'm too old." Somehow I doubt Grandma Moses ever really "got old," though she lived to the age of 101.
That's how I want to be. Obviously I didn't choose the year I was born, and I'm not ashamed of the number of birthdays I have had, but I don't want to be "old" in thinking and attitude! And so I am doing a few things to help ward off "oldness." I try to stay in shape physically by walking for exercise, but I need to add some resistance training to this. You know, the whole fragile bone thing... Also, I'm keeping my brain active with reading, teaching, and piano practice, and I have added lumosity.com games to my regular routine.
And then there are some things I need to do MUCH better in. One of them is my walk with the Lord. Bible reading and prayer are so important, but often they don't seem urgent to me and tend to get shuffled around. And so this needs to go to the top of the list.
Then there is that nagging wish to write. I'm not sure why or why I can't get away from it or why I feel such reluctance to just DO it. Anyway, in this area, my goal is to write 50 posts in 2013 whether anyone reads them or not. (I would have said 52 for 52 weeks but...you guessed it, I'm already 2 weeks behind!)
If I were to die today, I don't think I could say, "I look back on my life like a good day's work; it was done and I am satisfied with it." But I would like to.
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