Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time again for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more.
I like a good sign. Skip the platitudes and syrupy affirmations. Stir my mind, slow my fret. I want to feel, to sigh with a hmmmm. It's so much to ask, I know.
On this Thankful Thursday, I appreciate this odd, silly, profound Bearer of Truth.
What are you thankful for today?
See more messages, signs & reminders:
Allowing young people to tell
their stories and discover other
ways of seeing themselves and the
value of their lives is honoring them
and what they've survived.
Catherine O'Neill ThornBecause a few questions can lead to endless insight, I'm happy to present Fast Five — interviews with my favorite writers and literary leaders.
Catherine O’Neill Thorn is a poet, writer and founder/director of Art from Ashes, a literary youth organization in Colorado. She has been conducting transformational poetry and spoken word workshops at juvenile detention facilities, treatment centers, and schools since 1992.
O'Neill Thorn developed the Phoenix Rising curriculum, designed to empower struggling youth to express their creativity through metaphor and expose them to a language based on self-affirmation and belief in a successful future. This method has since become the seminal program of Art from Ashes. In a series of three-minute writing prompts facilitated over two hours, young people see immediate evidence of their creative ability and readily share their experiences — a process that often takes much longer using standard inquiry or therapies.
Art from Ashes has provided workshops to over 8,000 young people who have survived traumatic events, are victims of abuse, neglect and/or poverty, and are at risk for or engaged in destructive behaviors.
How did you come to writing? Were you first a writer, then a leader?
I started writing poetry when I was five years old. In the British and Irish cultures, poetry is considered a high art form, and since all schoolchildren are taught the importance of elocution, memorization and literature, it stands that memorizing poetry is an necessary part of a young person’s eduction. Consequently, my mother started reading us poetry when we were toddlers; she often played Dylan Thomas on the record player and occasionally stopped mid-sentence and recited a lengthy poem from her childhood. At the time, my bothers and sister and I were not at all impressed, but now I have only her to thank for my deep appreciation of poetry.
As a teenager and young adult, I kept numerous journals filled with poetry . . . most of it incredibly sad. I wish I had this program then. It was a lonely business pouring out my heart in despair; I would have benefitted from the transformational process, as well.
I’ve always loved poetry. Some have said it’s my religion, but to me it’s actually a vehicle. When you’ve been driving a beat-up old Volkswagen and suddenly you have access to a new Mini Cooper, well . . . that’s poetry.
People often look at writing and poetry as a mushy and temporary feel-good fix, but you seem to see written expression as critical to survival. Is this true, and if so, why?
When I started developing the curriculum for youth in residential treatment, probationdepartments and eventually for Columbine High School students, I called into play my experiences as a writer; as someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression; and also my troubled past. When I added my spirituality and research into human behavior and psychology, that's when I realized that language is a powerful medium that taps into our subconscious and can direct and manage our perceptions. Since it it ultimately our beliefs, not our cognitive process, that most affects our choices and behaviors, the ability to dialogue with our subconscious and learn to manipulate our perceptions changes everything.
When we learn that there’s a difference between a fact and our story about the fact, as a creative genius, we see that we are totally in charge of our story. And it is our story that determines our reality.
The world can be ugly and cruel. And the world also is amazing and awesome. Both and everything in between is true. Allowing young people to tell their stories and discover other ways of seeing themselves and the value of their lives is honoring them and what they've survived. More than that, allowing someone who has suffered the opportunity to find strength and hope through the power of language is not only poetry but is neurology. My definition of poetry is a dialogue with the subconscious through the language of metaphor. The dialogue can be shifted, and the resultant shift can change everything.
Art from Ashes deliberately distinguishes its writing process from art therapy. What’s the distinction?
Poetry therapy is a distinct practice that requires training in specific therapeutic techniques, as well as how to integrate poetry with those techniques. Our process is a group process, and while it is an effective support to therapy, it is more focused on each individual’s creative genius and their ability to choose an identity that does not make them a victim of experiences or circumstances. We accomplish this not by therapeutic skills (although certainly the result is therapeutic) but by introducing young people to the power of the arts and their own creative genius; by allowing both a safe process using the language of metaphor and a space space in which to express their story without judgement; and by guiding young people who have struggled through a process of transformation—from despair to self-determination.
The Phoenix Rising program reaches young people who have had limited or no exposure to the arts; because we bring in published poems, we provide arts education; because we introduce local poets and authors, we engage marginalized youth with the creative community; because we provide public performance opportunities, we allow young people to practice public speaking skills and reengage them with their community.
While all art is intrinsically healing, and while therapy has multiple cognitive and behavioral benefits, our curriculum is unique and effective because it’s interactive, self-directed, and taps into the creative subconscious utilizing our three-step process of expression, connection and transformation.
You’ve founded, organized and managed numerous literary events and community programs. You’re a motivational speaker, and a writer. What keeps you motivated to continue to give your time, energy and effort?
Someone once asked me about the spiritual beliefs that informed my work. After explaining the source of my process and that I believe this is the reason I was placed on the planet, he said, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful (you have to love sentences that start that way), but what if you’re wrong?”
Without giving it any thought, I responded, “I don’t care. It works.”
As long as the youth are responding, as long as their lives are improving, as long as they want to keep living, as long as they see themselves having a powerful future, I accept the multiple challenges (and even the ongoing fatigue!!!) and will go as long as I can.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve given or received?
Given: Don’t think. Your left brain is analytical and judgmental and has to be right and has to be good and you just need to make it SFU if you want to dialogue with your creative subconscious.
Received: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I gave it to all the Columbine students in my poetry group when they graduated. She has a whole chapter on Shitty First Drafts that corresponds with our process, but it was so refreshing to hear a widely-respected published author say it. I have to fight my own “rational” brain all the time to just let the words flow.
So yeah. Basically both say the same thing.
Bonus Question: I’m a word collector. What are you favorite words?
Oh so so many! The ones that are “chewy” in my mouth are my favorite, as well as onomatopoeia. I also like fairly obsolete words. We tend to cheer for those at the office. The Indian name Ramachandran is amazing to say. The Spanish word susurrada is one of my favs (whispered). I also like words like eschew (I have a bumper sticker that says “Eschew obfuscation”) and finagle and . . .
Altered book art by Valerie Savarie, inspired by Drew Myron poem. Now showing at Valkarie Gallery in Colorado.
Stitched
In a mystery
that threads
horizon to sky
river to ocean
bird to flight
a simple stitch
binds me
to you
with a filament
as ordinary
and grand
as earth to sun
love to life
- Drew Myron
I'm delighted to share this poem and join 2 artists and 10 poets taking part in Ekphrastic: A Collaboration of Visual and Literary Art, showing at Valkarie Gallery in Lakewood, Colorado.
Ekphrastic: in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness.
The exhi
bition is an inspired collaboration between artists and writers. Each writer was invited to submit a poem, which was then visually interpreted by the two artists.
Ekphrastic runs September 23 - October 18, 2015. Opening Reception is on Friday, September 25, 6 - 9pm, with a Poetry Reading on Saturday, October 10, 5 - 7:30pm.
Artists | Valerie Savarie & Sharon Eisley
Poets | Lincoln Carr Bree Davies Susan Froyd Nicole Haag Toni Lefton Rob Lessig Drew Myron Kimberly O'Connor Rebecca Snow Colleen Teitgen Trinity La Fey
Crowds gather for Pope visit to Philadelphia, 2015. AP Photo/Michael Perez
There was a big moon this week. People went crazy with photos and fawning appreciation.
And then there was a religious leader, and thousands of people pressed against each other to maybe see a white speck of a man from a large distance.
And then there is a corpse flower and people paid money to see it bloom.
While we were making so much of a man, a moon, a flower, I sat alone watching a big bee hover on the last gasp of a dandelion and the low autumn light almost made me cry.
Do you blackout?
Inspired by Austin Kleon, for years I've been marking up newspapers and magazines. Creating blackout poems is good mental practice, a great challenge, and just plain fun.
Need a nudge? Watch this short clip and grab a marker.
See some of my blackout poems:
Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time for Thankful Thursday.
Some people find solace in a chapel, at the beach, or on a mountain trail. For me, it's a library.
Since childhood I've gravitated to libraries, finding spots of refuge across the map — from New York to Seattle and dozens of stops between. In a new town, as tourist or resident, I seek first the library (followed by the post office). From grand to plain, large to cramped, old to new, with each I've found a haven of warmth and trust.
This week has been rough, and I've been far from home. When I offered to return an overdue book, I was busy and planned to simply drop-and-go. I wasn't looking to linger.
But once inside, the light drew me in and I stumbled, grateful, into the Quiet Reading Room.
Was it made just for me? It seemed so. With windows, sunshine, soft chairs, and a beautiful hush, it ushered me in, pressed me to stay.
And for the first time in days, my shoulders relaxed, jaw loosened, and eyes softened. When action finally takes a break, feeling replaces tasks and sadness arrives as a sort of relief.
Oh, what peace a library brings.
What are you thankful for today?
Selfishness
and greediness
are just diseases
like measles and
chickenpox and
can be cured
very easily.
— Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
by Betty MacDonald
Until recently, I had forgotten this delightful book, a favorite from childhood. Published in 1947, it's a children's chapter book that is still relevant and entertaining. Penned by Betty MacDonald (who wrote for adults too), Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle features a wise and kind woman who lives in an upside-down house and provides cures for naughty boys and girls. She has many fixes, such as The Answer-Backer Cure, The-Never-Want-To-Go-To-Bedders Cure, and my favorite, The Radish Cure (for dirty children who won't bathe).
I've been on a book binge, racing through books I treasured as a youngster: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Anne of Green Gables, for example. Next up: Little House on the Prairie, and, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew — remember that one?
What are your favorite books from childhood, and have you reread them as an adult?
I never liked the idea of audio books. It seemed like cheating.
But in another episode of don't-judge-those-shoes-until-you-wear-them, I'm now an avid book listener.
I have a new client (hooray!) and the work requires a good amount of driving (blech) and I've taken to audio books like freckles on a redhead.
Did you know your local library has dedicated shelves of space to books on compact discs? Me neither (I'm always late to the party, but make up for my tardiness with great enthusiasm, and extra wine). This summer I wandered into this new listening-to-books world and discovered fresh opportunities to do something with my wandering mind.
The First Great Book
Lucky me, the first book was a gem that had lingered on my books-to-read list for too long. I knew I should read this much-hyped book but I also knew that when time is short I choose feel-good over feel-smart (much like eating — bag of chips or bag of lettuce?). Without the audio version I would have missed a fantastic book: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, with superb narration by Kathe Mazur.
The Book That Will Not Be Named
My next choice was a dud, and so clearly a repackaging of earlier books that I felt duped shortly after hitting "Play" and still I hung on through all eight CDs (quitters never win, but they probably have more fun).
The Other Book That Will Not Be Named
Sometimes things get worse before they get better. And my next pick was a loser, too. This book was delivered by the author, a pepped up, self-claimed "bad-ass life coach" (cringe). What was I thinking?
The Best Audio Book (so far)
I've enjoyed David Sedaris essays for years but after the first few books the irreverence and humor started to feel reheated and stale. But listening to Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls restored my faith in his unique wit and charm. While a great writer, his entertaining delivery — a combo of tender, tight and sharp — really gives life to his words. I was touched, amused and even found myself laughing aloud. I may never "read" a Sedaris book again.
Here's What I've Found
Admittedly my research is scant; I've "read" just five books on CD, but as I noted earlier, I'm quick to judge, so let's jump in:
1. The best books feature the author reading, or a smooth, intelligent voice offering a mix of authority and warmth (i.e. Kathe Mazur).
2. Talk nonfiction to me, please. Right away, I established my personal book boundaries, and limited my audio choices to nonfiction and/or books I wouldn't read if I had the opportunity to actually read.
3. CDs skip, and that's a real drag, especially if you're in the middle of laughing through a Nora Ephron essay and really want to know what she did about her neck.
On this Thankful Thursday, I'm getting in the car, turning up the volume, and giving thanks.
It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to give thanks and express appreciation for people, places, things and more.
What are you thankful for today?
Pity the writers hunched over keyboards, racked with longing and loneliness.
The other day a blogger I like urged readers to comment on a blog — hers, yours, anyone’s.
"But surely," she wrote, "someone else out there is writing by themselves and wondering, Does anyone care?"
It seemed at first sweet, this request for affirmation, and then sad. And then familiar.
A few months ago, one of my favorite writer-bloggers expressed her fatigue. “If you love something on the internet, say so," she wrote, "or it might disappear.”
I nod. Because we're sad, because we're hungry.
____
Blogs are dead! Are blogs dead? We’re having this debate, again. Email is dead. Conversation is dead. Books are back?
No one talks anymore, and yet everyone talks too much.
If blogs are waning, have we finally tired of talking about ourselves? Or, more likely, we’ve tired of reading about others talking about themselves.
And yet.
And yet, everyone is writing a memoir, sharing on Facebook, offering images on Instagram. All show, all tell, all the time. And I’ve fed this fever. For years in writing workshops I’ve urged people to tell their story. What’s your story? I ask. Only you can tell it.
And now we’ve got a saturation of self.
I’m tired of the “I.”
"I" leads the way.
And “I” am guilty. It’s tough to get through a page, a blog, a dinner, without the bigmouth I.
We’re shouting to be heard. We, as in me. As in, you too?
____
Blogging, by its nature, involves the “I.” And super hits of self: I am a writer, and here’s what I’m thinking, feeling, doing . . .
But it’s not about me. Is it?
But creating — writing, painting, photography — involves the “I”: I saw this. I felt this. I interpret the world (and myself) through that act of making.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes).
- Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
____
Are blogs over?
Most of my writing peers have left the room. Did they return to their own private toil, and now keep their trials and triumphs to themselves?
Who can blame them? In fact, let’s laud them! They know the recipe for art: quietitude, introspection, imagination.
The inner conversation hums and turns, reaches a pressure and, when we're lucky, tumbles out as poem, story, painting. Something essential emerges, something larger and more meaningful than me and I.
____
At some point you grow weary of sharing your scrapes and scars. You pack for a long trip, prepare for a solo drive, close the door, and start the car.
Are we there yet?
“Making art is a way of being present in the world. It is an act of attention,” says artist Yolanda Sánchez, who is featured on 3 Good Books.
Influenced by dance, calligraphy and poetry, Sanchez creates beautifully fluid abstract paintings. “My intention . . . is to widen my boundaries, find new sources of inspiration, discover something I don’t know. Any or all of these experiences make me love the world a little more.”
At Push Pull Books, I invite writers and artists to share their favorite books. Why? Because when we read, creativity stirs. And when we create, our lives expand.
It's annoying to pester people about a book they must read.
I'm now that person, imploring you to read this book:
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande.
It's not a charmer. There's no romance or inspiration. Poor health and near death are tough sellers.
But this book is true, necessary. It will stir and shift the way you think about serious illness and approaching death. Atul Gawande is a surgeon, a writer for The New Yorker, and an engaging storyteller. Being Mortal charts his personal experience while also calling for a change in our culture's philosophy of health care.
We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. . . Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same:
What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes?
What are your fears and what are your hopes?
What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make?
And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?"
Who should read this book? Caregivers, children with aging parents, people with serious illness, people who are friends of the ill and/or aging, family members of the ill and/or aging, people who are aging, Well, so, I guess that's everyone.
As in, you.
Buy this book. Borrow this book (libraries have it!). And for the time-pressed, watch PBS's Frontline feature on this book.
Some of the poems are about the hunger
we have for real food, but others are about
the larger hungers — our need for love,
for sex, family, success, the past.
These hungers are a kind of longing.”
For 3 Good Books, I asked Diane Lockward — author of four poetry books, including What Feeds Us, and a blog called Blogalicious — to share her favorite books on the theme of food.
When we read, creativity stirs. And when we create, our lives expand.
See you at 3 Good Books.
Poets of all ages, including Art from Ashes youth, took part in the Poetry Booth at the Denver County Fair. The annual event features a poetry contest, a performance, and a poetry booth.
Life gets busy and full. Poems drag around my ankles and fall away in the wake. Sometimes I forget the power of poetry. But this weekend I was moved and reminded.
I spent the weekend at the Denver County Fair, mixing up a big batch of poetry.
At what's been dubbed the "craziest county fair in America," pies and pigs mix with zombies, drag queens, and crazy cats (Lil Bub!). In the whirl of all this, poetry sings. And as Director of Poetry (I love this title), I get to orchestrate all kinds of fun: a poetry contest, a poetry performance, and a poetry booth.
Now in our fifth year, poetry soared, with more poem entries than any other contest category. More than pies, more than pickles, more than beer!
Along with the contest, the Poetry Performance featured powerful readings by youth poets from Art from Ashes.
"I'm a recovered addict," Tyler told the audience. "Poetry transformed my life."
"I just had my last day of chemo," announced Vaniesha. "Poetry gives me strength."
Their words burned up the stage and ignited energy.
Just a few feet away, people crowded the Poems-Write-Now table. Poets of all ages went to work, penning on-the-spot poems for appreciative customers, many of whom until that day didn't think they liked poetry.
"It's so nice to see poetry in such a different venue!" noted Eduardo, a contest judge and a writer working the poetry booth. "It makes me happy to see enthusiasm for poetry."
For one weekend, poetry moved out of books, libraries and schools and into the wide open world where people play, laugh, and live. Now, that's powerful stuff!
It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. What are you thankful for today?
Isn't this a beautiful passage? It was written by Louise Erdrich.
Yes, she really wrote this. Not Abraham Lincoln, Maya Angelou, Robin Williams or your second cousin who just found you on Facebook.
You know what I'm talking about. The only thing worse than no attribution is misatrribution.
That bird don't sing
"A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
Maya Angelou did not say or write these words and yet the postage stamp released April 2015 in tribute to the late poet, bears these words, her name, and face.
After the stamps were printed, distributed, and launched in a celebration featuring First Lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, the truth was out: The line was penned by Joan Walsh Anglund, in A Cup of Sun, a poetry collection published in 1967.
More than 80 million stamps were produced, and the United States Postal Service has no plans to retract them, according to a story by Ian Crouch in the New Yorker.
"It seemed to many that the folks at the Postal Service had simply believed too readily what they read on the Internet," he writes. "They had gone looking for a suitable quotation, and finding this one attributed to Angelou in all kinds of places online — quotation-aggregation sites, Pinterest boards, Facebook pages, Etsy ink prints — they had slapped it onto a postage stamp, forever."
Somebody said something but was it
that someone or another someone?
We're lazy, and confused. Our enthusiasm for inspiring words is so vigorous that we don't care, or question, the validity of what we read. We just embrace, then share, then perpetuate the incorrection.
In my writer-for-hire world, I've been researching inspirational quotes about aging.
[Sidenote: This area is ripe for reformation; Over many hours, I found just a handful of quotes that weren't saccharine, sentimental or insulting.]
One I liked: "It's not the years in your life but the life in your years."
Who said it? This pithy aphorism blazes across the internet landscape — in jpegs and flowered cheer — and is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln. But, wait, really? He doesn't strike me as a boosterish sort of speaker.
A bit more digging revealed other sources: Adlai Stevenson, Edward J. Stieglitz, and that old standby, Anonymous.
And then, praise the heavens, I found the Quote Investigator.
A solo fact-finder, Garson O’Toole has a doctorate from Yale University and he, "diligently seeks the truth about quotations."
Why so bothered?
Because words matter. And writers work to choose their words. And it's right, good and kind to give credit where credit is due.
Can I get an Amen? (And all the writers said uh-huh!)
Yes, it's okay to borrow. Austin Kleon, who re-energized the erasure poem, wrote Steal Like An Artist, the book on creative borrowing. And I do, for writing prompts and crafting collage or cento poems. But I do not lift whole lines or passages as my own. I rework and reword. And I give a nod, a hat-tip, an attribution.
Here's a tip
Before you share that next inspiring bit of quote-gold, do this:
Read, review, consider, confirm, and give correct credit.
Then share with abandon. Fuel the blaze of authenticity.
It's not the years in your life but the life in your years.
— Edward J. Stieglitz
Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation — big, small, puny, profound— for people, places, things and more.
I make lists. Every day, a new list. Every day, a fresh start.
My gratitudes this week are many:
1. Signs, like this bottlecap, that reset my perspective.
2. Summer skirts
3. Wedge sandals
4. Watermelon
5. A visit to a dermatologist who finds no reason to cut away my skin.
6. Rosé — Not long ago (okay, last year) I thought this supersweet blush was a wannabe wine for cheap teens trying to appear sophisticated (okay, that was me guzzling drecky wine coolers). But I recently discovered dry, crisp and refreshing rose. So summer, so good.
7. Feeling appreciated, if even by strangers (see #8).
8. A woman I don't know called me "sweetheart." Isn't that a warm endearment?
9. A friend has been hurt, low, and not himself. Yesterday we talked, and it was the best 20 minutes of the day.
10. This one-line poem:
Something My
Mother Told Me This
Morning on the Phone
If you don't see the light, don't stay.
— Nahshon Cook, from The Killing Fields and Other Poems
Please join me. What are you thankful for today?
Always eager for book suggestions, I started 3 Good Books.
For over a year, I've invited writers & artists to share their favorite books on themes related to their own work. The site now features over 25 creatives — novelists, poets, painters, photographers, dancers and more — sharing nearly 100 books.
When we read, we imagine.
When we imagine, we create.
When we create, our lives expand.
Expand yourself:
Nahshon Cook
Becoming
Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
Dance
Shawna Lemay
Calm
Fran Kimmel
Troubled Childhood
January Gill O'Neil
Marriage & Divorce
Erin Block
Wild Places
Currie Silver
The Art of Being
Paulann Petersen
Nature Inside & Out
Scott T. Starbuck
Activist Poetry
Shirley McPhillips
Poetry in the Everyday
Rick Campbell
Industrial Cities & Workers
Sandy Longhorn
Midwestern Rural Life
Sharon Bond Brown
Women's Ordinary Lives
Jeff Düngfelder
Absence & Silence
Valerie Savarie
Art Books
Valerie Wigglesworth & Ralph Swain
Wilderness
Ann Staley
Past & Present
Reb Livingston
Oracles & Dreams
Eduardo Gabrieloff
Latino Writers
Lisa Romeo
Personal Essays by Women
Mari L’Esperance
Mixed Heritage
Lee Lee
(Un)Natural Resources
Henry Hughes
Fishing
Tracy Weil
Play
Penelope Scambly Schott
Strong Women
Allyson Whipple
Roadtrips & Realizations
Hannah Stephenson
Artists
I haven’t been writing, I admit to a friend.
[ Cue the fears: Am I still a writer? Was I ever a writer? Do I even like to write? ]
I've been writing nearly all my life — half of it as a person who actually gets paid to write — and I've yet to unravel the mysteries of the writing juice. As in: how to rev it, keep it, make it come back.
Yesterday, after a long dormant spell, I felt a rush of words. You know that rush. An astonished levitation, in which you are following the words rather than forcing them. The head moves faster than the hand and you ride the wave of word flow.
Oh, the exhilaration!
This morning the zing returned. For just a few minutes, enough to write several pages and restore belief.
[ Cue the relief: I'm not a one-trick pony after all! ]
I still don't know what turns the writing juice inexplicably off and on, but two things helped in this recent bout:
Write the same starting line for consecutive days.
Find a line that engages, and do a freewrite using it as a starting line. If you get stuck, repeat your line again and again but keep the hand moving. Return the next day using the same line. You may see, as I did, how the line takes you places, shifts your perspective.
I used this line from Transformation by Adam Zagajewski: I haven’t written a single poem in months.
Write in response to art.
Though we live in a hyper-visual world, I can still go weeks without a strong reaction to an image. And then, mysteriously, a painting or photo will stir me.
This morning, I began my day at The Storialist, and was unexpectedly compelled. Suddenly, I was writing with a fever, covering pages and years. Again, I experienced the beautiful floating, in which I was not in control but standing aside allowing the words to tumble.
Is the writing any good? Probably not. But it doesn't matter. The juice is back, along with my belief in expression and myself. Though this feeling may be fleeting, it is enough for today. It is, really, everything.
Transformation
I haven't written a single poem
in months.
I've lived humbly, reading the paper,
pondering the riddle of power
and the reasons for obedience.
I've watched sunsets
(crimson, anxious),
I've heard the birds grow quiet
and night's muteness.
I've seen sunflowers dangling
their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman
had gone strolling through the gardens.
September's sweet dust gathered
on the windowsill and lizards
hid in the bends of walls.
I've taken long walks,
craving one thing only:
lightning,
transformation,
you.
— Adam Zagajewski
*Thanks to Calm Things for introducing me to this poem.
Want more?
Try This: Scratch Out
Try This: Steal
Try This: Poetry Poker
Try This: Postcard Poems
Try This: Alphabet Poem
Try This: Morning Read & Write
Try This: Book Spine Poetry
My education had taught me quite well to talk,
but I don't think it had taught me to listen.
And my schools had taught me quite well
to sort of push myself forward in the world,
but it never taught me to erase myself.
— Pico Iyer
The Art of Stillness
via On Being
Hope, by Mary Baker Eddy
Favorite new phrase: Hope happifies life.
My friends are cleaning out their past.
They gave me two old books. Beautiful books with ornate typography and thin, delicate pages that rustle with the quiet preservation of poems.
Their trash is now my treasure.
Thank you.
Please join me for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for the people, places, things & more. What are you thankful for today?
