A Sweet Unrest

Japandroids

I love this song.
That is all x 

 

 

Edit: The track is available for free here- link courtesy of Jeremy from the great (and completely legit) Fingertips blog!

My haggard face

I loved this book so much I'm having trouble writing anything about it.  It was one of those lucky secondhand finds, I'd never heard of it and had no idea who Gregory Orr was.  Published in 2002, it looked pristine, unread, but it's thoroughly battered now, creased and scribbled in and mine.  It's all about how poetry helps us live.

I started reading poetry a little over four and a half years ago, late in life and at a time when things were not going all that well.  I mean all the sudden I was reading Keats on a freezing New England bathroom floor at 3am by the light of one of those smelly candles praying the baby (the first one) wouldn't wake up.  This book is very much about that kind of thing and it was lovely to read, and he starts in the introduction talking about music and about how songs also save us over and over again and how real it is so I knew right away I'd found  friend.

He writes about how we collect our favorite poems and lines, treasure them, and fashion them into something that helps us navigate our lives.  And he really is at this point just talking about poetry but to me it's so much more too- songs of course, images we love, and also a certain type of blog post, the ones we write ourselves trying to capture and make sense of our own experiences, and the ones we find by those miraculously kindred souls who become our favorite bloggers because they express for us what we might not be able to say for ourselves, or because they share stories from their lives that somehow echo ours even if they live a world away.  And play the perfect song to go along.

The isn't an anthology really but Orr includes a lot of poems and of those that were new to me I think this is my favorite.  

Feelings Wakened by a Mirror by Po Chu-i

My beautiful one gave it to me when we parted,
but I leave the mirror stored in its box.
Since her flowering face left my sight,
autumn waters have no more lotus blooms.
For years I've never opened the box;
red dust coats the mirror's green bronze.
This morning I took it out and wiped it off,
peered into it at my haggard face,
and, done peering, went on to ponder sadly
the pair of twined dragons carved on its back. 

A pocketful of disposable razors wrapped in a parking ticket

April 26th is Poem In Your Pocket Day here in the US.  I've always liked the idea of it, of people carrying around a few cherished, crumpled lines maybe to share but truthfully just because they're needed.  To borrow a phrase from someone we'll be hearing more from in a minute, I really am this foolish.

I've been saving this one especially for today, from this.

The Great Poet Has Gone by Adam Zagajewski

Thinking of C.M.

 

Of course nothing changes
in the ordinary light of day,
when the great poet has gone.
Gray sparrows and dapper starlings
still squabble heatedly
in the tops of ancient elms.

When the great poet has gone,
the city doesn't miss a beat, the metro
and the trams still seek a modern Grail.
In the library a lovely girl
looks in vain for a poem that could explain it all.

At noon the same noise surges,
while quiet concentration reigns at night,
among the stars- eternal agitation.
Soon the discotheques will open,
indifference will open-
although the great poet has died.

When we part for a long while
or forever from someone we love,
we suddenly sense there are no words,
we must speak for ourselves now,
there's no one to do it for us
- since the great poet is gone.

                            (translated by Clare Cavanagh) 

I've got a great song for you too- it's written by Mark Spence, author of the first poem in the collage above, and performed by him and his band Royal Chant.

Royal Chant - Hesitation Kills

Yay!

A little pressed for time this week but very pleased to report that marvelous Tim made a podcast for us.  I was so happy when I saw it start to download.  

Enjoy x.

In the motel coffee shop

Recovering from last week's festivities and shaking my head over the inner workings of my three year old who, through the round of bunny sightings, egg dyeing and hunting plus spring-themed baking, parties and days out, kept demanding to see Santa.

The rain has returned now and with it a little quiet, so back to the books.  Over the past few weeks (I got very happily sidetracked by this and the next one is on the way) I read through A Book of Luminous Things, an anthology edited by the poet Czeslaw Milosz.  This was my favorite thing in the book, it's such a strangely sweet and unexpected tale-

Toast by Leonard Nathan

There was a woman in Ithaca
who cried softly all night
in the next room and helpless
I fell in love with her under the blanket
of snow that settled on all the roofs
of the town, filling up
every dark depression.

Next morning
in the motel coffee shop
I studied all the made-up faces
of women.  Was it the middle-aged blonde
who kidded the waitress
or the young brunette lifting
her cup like a toast?

Love, whoever you are,
your courage was my companion
for many cold towns
after the betrayal of Ithaca,
and when I order coffee
in a strange place, still
I say, lifting, this is for you. 

College boys are writing sonnets

Happy Easter xx

Julie London - Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

And all the trouble of a BA in English Literature

I've found a lot to like on this one.  I don't know much about them but wonder if they their parents had a Sundays record or two kicking around- is it just me?  It's hard to pick a track to share, if you like this you might check out Argonaut, Betty Wang, and Friends of Friends too.  I got the whole album from amazon for $5.  

Hospitality - Liberal Arts

I've got a very fickle Internet connection these days but will be by to visit as many of my favorite places as possible while it's happy x.

Spinning

 My little one had a birthday last week.  If this doesn't sum it up I don't know what does.

Spinning by Kevin Griffith

I hold my two-year-old son
under his arms and start to twirl.
His feet sway away from me
and the day becomes a blur.
Everything I own is flying into space:
yard toys, sandbox, tools,
garage and house,
and, finally, the years of my life.

When we stop, my son is a grown man,
and I am very old.  We stagger
back into each other's arms
one last time, two lost friends
heavy with drink,
remembering the good old days. 

 

I can't read it without crying - perhaps it's that feeling I sometimes, on a bad day, have of my own life being pretty much over, my remaining years flying into space.  

But how we love them. What are you gonna do, eh?

xx

Dance the night away

A lifetime ago (circa 1999) when I was working girl with a wardrobe consisting solely of black-on-black and high heels, I stumbled across an Internet quiz that promised to reveal the secrets of my inner being in just 10 simple questions- to be answered all in song lyrics.  Oh yes.  Clearly this promised to be  much more useful than any quiz I'd ever seen in the pages of Cosmo and I got typing.

I can't remember the entire outcome, only the most important thing: when I got to the end, the quiz told me that the title of the song whose lyrics I'd used for Question 4 summed up my Philosophy Of Life.  That song was Van Halen's Dance The Night Away.  I liked that immensely.  And while it occurs to me now that I might have had a 'workplace image problem,' I liked that when a few of my colleagues wandered into my office to see my results, they laughed because they thought it suited so perfectly.  It may have been one of my finest moments- it was certainly a relief to see myself as something other than a bookish, brooding indie chick.  

I think a lot of their music, and most especially this, sounds wonderful today.  Like crazy carefree summer.  I don't dare put the song up but this way you get to check out DLR's moves-  see about 2:14!  

Their giggling progress

I am addicted to Instagram - it's kind of like Twitter only with pictures so there's no worry about spelling/being witty, making it perfect for parents of young children and other perennially exhausted individuals.  I also recently learned how to make nifty photo collages on my phone.  Here you see the result of my two new pastimes.  You might notice the prominence of glitter nail polish, an emergency measure after the sad thoughts of last week.  Similar to tea, there is no situation glitter nail polish can't improve.  

And the same is true of favorite books.  Edwin Morgan's The Second Life is one my new (poetry-era) favorites and it's got everything, all the big things, but I have been resting my eyes on this sweet, simple snapshot.

Linoleum Chocolate by Edwin Morgan

Two girls running
running laughing,
laughing lugging
two rolls of linoleum
along London Road-
a bar of chocolate
flies from the pocket
of the second, and a man
picks it up for her, she takes it
and is about to pocket it
but then unwraps it
and the girls have a bite
to recruit the strength
of their giggling progress.

The Second Life is out of print but many of the poems are in this.