Monday, May 10 -- voice

What is it that we want our voice to call out -- and how in tune are we to our own inner voice?
Thanks to Lorrie, who discovered an anthology of Black Writers on Nature, we enjoyed discussing a poem by June Jordan : b. 1936 --

It takes a room full of people, carefully in tune, looking, searching deep into the spaces around the words, their sounds, to find all sorts of different meanings.
I love her voice in poems like "Apologies to All the People in Lebanon", and "A Poem about Intelligence for my Brothers and Sisters." The Secret of Intelligence...
-- more later.

I shared
Lucille Clifton:
hag riding

why
is what i ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in me
still trying to get home
after all these years
but when i wake to the heat of morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride


The voice of Jack Gilbert, illustrated by a Utube where someone draws as the poem is spoken --
Jack Gilbert:
" How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite."
How we say Love, and get it all wrong. The details are sensuous, archaic, biblic. Etruscan tombs,where indeed, couples smile, as Emily pointed out, may give us a clue... or not. Like our words.

Linda Pastan : Traveling Light: the favorite of the group: Tone management (word choice, use of vernacular, the switchblade weather) to create a sense of lurking danger and that all is not so well with "I'm only leaving for a few days" -- and what we guess about such specific instructions... in spite of which "our lives have minds of their own". It brought out memories of preparing for traveling; the larger metaphor of traveling through life, and what it is we really need.

Alberti, translated by Mark Strand: Song : reminded me of a song sung as ashes are sprinkled out to sea.

Stephen Dunn: One Source A Love Poem
Terrific fun -- the tropical storm (Barbara) and how changeable she is -- which is as suspect as the reporting of the behavior.