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Friday, April 30, 2021

The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry

Here is Wendell Berry's well-known poem, "The Peace of Wild Things," read by the author and illustrated in a poetry film by Charlotte Ager & Katy Wang with the On Being Project. Having grown up in the country, I often took refuge in the woods near our home when I was a child. Holding those memories in addition to many experiences in nature through the years, I can attest to the truth of Berry's poem. 


 





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Thursday, April 29, 2021

[in Just-], by e.e. cummings

 e.e. cummings does a delightful reading of his poem, "in just spring." 

 


All month, I have been emphasizing poetry as a spoken art form, celebrating the age-old oral aspect of the genre. I was glad to find this recording of e.e. cummings' poem, yet one of cummiings' trademarks is the visual aspect of the written poem upon the paper. For that reason, I have included here the print form of the poem we just heard.

[in Just-]

by E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

 

whistles          far          and wee

 

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

 

when the world is puddle-wonderful

 

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

 

it's

spring

and

 

         the

 

                  goat-footed

 

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee








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Wednesday, April 28, 2021

"Wait" by Galway Kinnell

 Galway Kinnell reads his poem, "Wait," a poem he wrote as advice to a troubled student. Found on the Poets.org YouTube channel. 

 





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Tuesday, April 27, 2021

When I Have Fears, by John Keats (read by John Neville)

A beautiful reading by British-Canadian actor John Neville of John Keats' famous sonnet, "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be"


 





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Monday, April 26, 2021

Monday Music: Langston Hughes - "The Weary Blues"

African-American poet, Langston Hughes recites his poem, "The Weary Blues" (1925) to jazz accompaniment with the Doug Parker Band on the CBUT (CBC Vancouver) program "The 7 O'Clock Show" in 1958.


 




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Sunday, April 25, 2021

A Ted Talk by W.S. Merwin - Connections

"Almost every political poem is bad, quite true. And almost all love poems are bad, but I mean it's not a reason not to write love poems."

William S. Merwin has become one of the most widely read and honored poets of our time. In an illustrious career spanning six decades (and counting), Merwin has received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1971, 2009); the Tanning Prize, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets; and the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, he was appointed United States Poet Laureate. 

Merwin is also a translator, gardener and environmental activist. For nearly 30 years, he has lived on Maui in a home he designed and help build. Surrounded by acres that erosion, logging and toxic agricultural practices had depleted, he lovingly restored the land, transforming it into one of the most comprehensive palm forests in the world—a future sanctuary called The Merwin Conservancy.




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"Yesterday" by W.S. Merwin

From the YouTube notes:

W.S. Merwin reads his poem "Yesterday." Part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

 






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Saturday, April 24, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Apple Blossoms

 


white apple blossoms
current beauty, future hope
under a blue sky



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Photo courtesy of Pixabay




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Friday, April 23, 2021

William Shakespeare (A & E Biography)

On the birthday of the Bard of Avon, enjoy a biographical documentary on William Shakespeare, originally produced for the A & E Network, which at one time emphasized the Arts in Arts & Entertainment.


 



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Memory Of Sun. A Poem By Anna Akhmatova

From the YouTube notes:
Anna Akhmatova is the pseudonym of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (1889 - 1966), a Russian poet, credited as one of the most acclaimed poets of the 20th century. Her style, characterized by its economy and emotional restraint, was strikingly original and distinctive to her contemporaries and with her strong female voice, she struck a new chord in Russian poetry.


 




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Thursday, April 22, 2021

Poetry as Enchantment (Dana Gioia)

Dana Gioia, speaking at the Library of Congress talks about the special power of poetry as an oral art form, how it taps into a different kind of knowing, and how academic analysis in the classroom has robbed poetry of its beauty.

 





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Dana Gioia poem about love: "Marriage of Many Years"

From the YouTube notes:
In a marriage, couples develop a private language that becomes the most intimate form of communication they ever experience. But the language is very fragile. If you lose one speaker, you lose the language. When writing the poem, Gioia had in mind the languages of California Native American tribes that only have one or two remaining speakers left. When these speakers die, the entire language will be lost with them. In a similar way, Gioia says, a marriage is like a tribe of two people with a shared language only they speak.

 






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Wednesday, April 21, 2021

“The Waking” by Theodore Roethke


What I love about this poetry reading is that the poem is read not by an actor, not by an English professor but by a high school custodian, demonstrating that poetry is for everyone, not just the academics or the elite. 


Tom Moran reads the Roethke poem and tells why it is meaningful to him. You can find other people from all walks of life reading poems at the Favorite Poem Project site, 
Americans Saying Poems They Love. It is a wonderful way to show that poetry does indeed matter


 





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Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Clenched Soul by Pablo Neruda

Poetry translations often can give us only hints of the poet's work, but it is always a worthy effort. From the YouTube notes:

Tom Hiddleston reads poetry for Ximalaya FM: "The Chilean poet – Pablo Neruda, was a master of expressing intense emotion, as in this next work."

 






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Monday, April 19, 2021

Monday Music (and a poem): No Ordinary Conversation (Brian "Voice" Porter)

I usually feature music each Monday on my blog. This month I am celebrating poetry with various spoken word presentations. Today, local spoken word artist, Brian Hawkins is featured with his own poem that includes music from local musician Kerry "2smooth" Marshall in "No Ordinary Conversation." 

 






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Sunday, April 18, 2021

Starbucks Presents: To Be Human - Brian “Voice Porter” Hawkins

A couple of years ago, a representative from the Starbucks Company walked into a local Starbucks coffee shop in the Birmingham area and happened to meet a young spoken word artist named Brian Hawkins, aka Voice Porter. They struck up a conversation, Brian shared one of his poems, and the Starbucks rep was so impressed, they made a video of his recitation and flew him out to their convention. We're glad that The Voice happened to be getting coffee that day. Here is Brian Hawkins' poem via Starbucks Presents:

 





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Saturday, April 17, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Crabapple Tree

 


crabapple blossoms
drifting down at midday
clouds upon the ground



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Photo by Trish Graham, "Crab apple blossom and field gate on Denovan Road"
Courtesy of Geograph


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Friday, April 16, 2021

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"

In an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Sir Lawrence Olivier is enticed to recite a poem. He chooses Shakespeares's Sonnet 116 from memory. The recitation begins around minute 4:40; a true model of effective oral interpretation.







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Thursday, April 15, 2021

Helen Mirren Reads "Ulysses" by Tennyson

Here is Helen Mirren reading from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses," to an emotional Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. This clip has been popular across social media, which is evidence of the beauty and the power of poetry.








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Wednesday, April 14, 2021

"Invictus" recited by Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman's voice adds weight to whatever he speaks or narrates on film. In this interview, he recites from memory a poem that has had meaning for him.

"Invictus," by William Ernest Henley is the poem that inspired Nelson Mandela to persevere through hardship.


 






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Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Amanda Gorman Talks about Poetry on The Daily Show

A thoughtful conversation on Trevor Noah's The Daily Show in which Amanda Gorman talks about reading "The Hill We Climb" at the Presidential Inauguration. She also talks about the role of poetry in society in terms of  "cleansing" and "resurrecting" our ideals, and in terms of activism to make things better.

 





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Monday, April 12, 2021

"Freedom Is a Breakfast Food" (e. e. cummings)

How many times does poetry break into late-night talk shows on television? I don't know for sure, but this week we will be presenting some of those moments. 

Today we hear Lawrence Fishburne recite e.e. cummings' "Freedom Is a Breakfast Food" on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

 





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Monday Music: The Beatles' Blackbird Sung in Algonquian

From an article in Open Culture, "The Beatles’ ‘Blackbird’ Sung in the Indigenous Mi’kmaq Language"

To raise awareness of her native language, 16-year-old Emma Stevens sang a version of The Beatles’ 1968 classic “Blackbird” in the Mi’kmaq language, an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 in Canada and the United States. A member of the Eskasoni First Nation, the Nova Scotia student sang lyrics that were painstakingly translated by Katani Julian, a teacher who works in language revitalization.

 
 


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Sunday, April 11, 2021

Coleman Barks interview with Bill Moyers

I had a truncated version of this interview in my previous post. On YouTube, we find an extended version of  Bill Moyers' interview with Coleman Barks in the PBS series, The Language of Life. He talks about Rumi, mysticism, poetry, and those oceanic experiences of life and poetry. I have posted it in four parts below.

Part 1  

 

 Part 2


  

Part 3 

    

Part 4

    


 
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Love’s Confusing Joy: Coleman Barks on Poet Jelaluddin Rumi


I first heard of Coleman Barks in 1995 while watching Bil Moyers' poetry series, The Language of Life on PBS (filmed on location at the fifth biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo, New Jersey).

Here is an excerpt featuring Moyers' interview with Coleman Barks as he discusses the Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi. For me, this was the most captivating moment of the series
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* My next post has an extended version of this interview found on YouTube.



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What Was Said to the Rose (Coleman Barks)

 One of my favorite renditions of a Rumi poem by Coleman Barks. 

 







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Saturday, April 10, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Cherry Blossoms

 

the gnarled cherry tree
enduring many seasons 
white cloud blossoms




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Photo: The Old Cherry Trees, Washington, D.C.


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Friday, April 9, 2021

Bill Murray Reads Wallace Stevens

Comedian, actor, and long-time poetry enthusiast Bill Murray reads  two poems by Wallace Stevens, "The Planet on the Table," and "A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts."


 




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Irish Poet John O'Donohue reads "Beannacht" (Blessing)

 From the On Being program notes on YouTube:

Shortly before his death in 2008, the late Irish poet John O'Donohue recited his poem, meaning blessing, during an interview with Krista Tippett. We've woven his close friends' photographs of him in his Celtic landscapes with this reading.

 







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Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Naomi Shihab Nye on What Inspires Her Poetry

Some brief comments from the poet Naomi Shihab Nye about the contributions poetry can make in our individual lives as well as in our society.

 






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"Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye

Today we hear some deep and guiding words from Naomi Shihab Nye.

 





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Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Sonya Sanchez: "Our Vision Is Our Voice"

I first heard Sonya Sanchez when she came to Birmingham several years ago when the Public Library was having an event celebrating Alabama authors. She read some of her poems and I was engulfed in one of those rare moments when the spoken word transports an entire audience.

Sonya Sanchez, author, poet, and playwright, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and went on to teach in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965. She was a pioneer in the development of Black Studies at San Francisco State University. 




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Monday, April 5, 2021

Monday Music: Daffodils (e.e. cummings)

My thanks to Penny Nash st Penelopepiscopal for sharing this beautiful musical setting. It is e.e. cummings' poem "Daffodils" set to music by Jeremy Kings (b. 1987). It is performed by Vox 16 at Trinity Parish Church, Seattle, Washington.

It is quite fitting as we celebrate National Poetry Month to hear the words of a poet set to music.

 


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Sunday, April 4, 2021

The Last Word: Lawrence Ferlingetti


For more than 50 years, the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti kept the bohemian and beat spirit alive at his City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. I visited that bookstore when I was a student in Mill Valley, California. Mr. Ferlinghetti died just last month (Feb. 22) at the age of 101. In 2007, he spoke to The New York Times about his life and legacy.





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Saturday, April 3, 2021

Saturday Haiku: Spring Gold

 


in early spring
the oak awakens
with fleeting gold




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Photo courtesy of Pixabay



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Friday, April 2, 2021

Pádraig Ó Tuama reads his poem 'The Facts of Life'

 I have come to enjoy Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama's podcast, Poetry Unbound, in which he reads a poem,  discusses it, then reads it again. He exhibits a profound respect for the poem and the poet. Here he is reading his own poem, "The Facts of Life," beautifully accompanied by live music. 


 



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Thursday, April 1, 2021

April Is National Poetry Month


  

  National Poetry Month

The poet often taps into what Jung called our collective unconscious, giving voice to our humanity and meaning to our struggles.  A good poem, therefore, tells us something we already know. When we read it or hear it we say, “Ah, yes.” An exceptional poem tells us something we are on the verge of knowing. When we read it or hear it, we say, “Oh my!”                                               

                                                                                                        ~ Charles Kinnaird

 

National Poetry Month is upon us once again! This month on my blog, I will be celebrating the spoken word from a variety of poets. In some cases, we will hear the poets reciting their own work, in other cases, we will hear others reciting poetry from well-known poets. I hope you will take some time to listen, perhaps to say, “Ah, yes,” or maybe even to exclaim, “Oh my!”

Be thinking about poems that you remember, or poetry that has had an impact upon you. If you could pick one poem that is a favorite, what would it be?


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