So pleased to share this article that appeared in the April issue of Penny Saver
Keep scrolling after the workshop for Alla's Eclipse thoughts!
Below as well a few highlights after attending a delightful poetry workshop led by Kathleen Wakefield at the N. Winton branch of the library on Wednesday with an inspiring group of thoughtful writers.
We started with these quotes:
"Through poetry's concentration great sweeps of thought, emotion and perception are compressed to forms the mind is able to hold— into images, sentences, and stories that serve as
entrance tokens to large and often slippery realms of being"-- Jane Hirschfield
"Our most sublime thoughts have their feet planted in clay; our best songs are body songs." Stanley Kunitz (The Wisdom of the Body from Next to Last Things)
"The purpose of poetry is to remind us
How difficult it is to remain just one person
For our house is open and there are no doors
And the invisible guests come in and out at will."
-- Czeslaw Milosz, "Ars Poetica" from The Collected Poems.
Writing exercises included responding to an "appetizer" of words taken from a Marvin Bell poem...(Who & Where);
the powerful example of the repetitive, rhythmic Armenian poem, "The Woman Cleaning Lentils";
using titles to go in a different direction, for instance Ellen Bass' poem, "The Thing Is" and Crystal Spring Gibbons' poem "Because the Night you asked".
We were spoiled with a treasure trove of samples of poems. The charge for any poet? Use the age-old technique of looking at what the poem does that makes it work for you, and prompt you to want to respond.
Here's where I went reading an excerpt from “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee by N. Scott Momaday”
Note to cheer up my friend in the ICU with a trach tube and a swollen neck...
The sunshine btw is there — just requires a lot of imagination to remember it… Close your eyes and compose yourself a nice “Delight Song” — imagine yourself as a feather in the bright sky, a blue horse running, or a slippery fish rolling in a perfect tumble of a stream where all the rocks are polished and smooth, and everything feels like pleasure, and you are singing a song “luster, luster, luster” the sunlight catching bright colors of desert flowers in full bloom (our daughter just sent us pictures from Sedona, where she’s spending spring break, biking with girl friends and having a blast) — and your favorite colors are painting your dreams.
When a spill of words
offers
swallow
do you chose the bird, or feel a
gulp in your throat?
Weeds is the same challenge--
do you pull them or
observe?
Live can worm in as adjective
or a command to make the most
of a heart still beating,
a memory still functioning
a brain coordinating all our senses.
Sometimes appears twice, and everyone noted it, seemed to use it as jumping off point.
How do we connect the dots of all the years?
We all belong to each other, whether evenly trimmed grass, some metaphorical star shining in the dark...
How do we step into the core of things, deal with the stranglehold of sorrow.
Sometimes a life forgotten... is that better than bewildering?
Who are you? Who am I? Those three letters spelling such complexity. How does the world
acknowledge each "me"? How does each "I" look at this response?
**
Alla Levi: My thoughts about the total solar eclipse, 4/8/2024
Even though we did not see the sun during the eclipse, due to cloud cover, we saw the effect of the eclipse on the sky. As it gradually got darker and darker, the cloud cover made it possible to see beautiful colors in the sky, similar to the northern lights. I saw shimmering greens and blues and then it got very dark. And then….as if a big light switch had been magically turned on, the sky started gaining light, but not the gradual kind that we are used to seeing at dusk or dawn. It was instantaneous…from dark to light within a few seconds. The sun was once again showing its powerful strength and giving us light and life!!! This was indeed a once in a lifetime experience and so fun to share with family and friends!!!
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