I live in an old town, and I’ve noticed in old towns the presence of this delicate, fragile ivy called Kenilworth Ivy. It’s about a quarter the size of English Ivy and in no way as robust. It does have delightful purple/pink flowers. It always grows out of stone walls, the walls being their own little version of empire. I love to think that before, during, and after my life the Kenilworth Ivy is doing its work of eating these walls.
Todays poem and essay were brilliant, and for me, these question are what have brought me to Poetry. Poetry for me offers another way of being that flies in the face of empire, be it personal or national. It offers sustenance that reminds me of the mystery all around and where the power truly lies.
"It’s something like: this violence is capable of love, and without that love, I’d be nothing.
It’s something like:
without their presence
my mind would be an unmarked
grave.
Yeah."
Just finished reading Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese. There is something in what he conveys to me in that story that is much like what Etel Adnan addresses in that excerpt from "The Spring Flowers Own."
It was through Etel Adnan's painting of Mt. Tamalpais, a mountain visible looking north from parts of San Francisco, that I first learned of her in recent years. It turns out that during my childhood and early adulthood, she was living north of San Francisco, not far from where I grew up on the San Francisco Peninsula. She is clearly in creative kinship with NIcholas Roerich, another artist whose work speaks to me. Although I knew that she was a writer, I hadn't known that she wrote poetry.
Always a joy on Sundays to learn here something I didn't know about a writer and to be introduced to and then read the works of writers new to me -- Kaveh Akbar, for example. Martyr! stands out among all the books I've read throughout my life.
I live in an old town, and I’ve noticed in old towns the presence of this delicate, fragile ivy called Kenilworth Ivy. It’s about a quarter the size of English Ivy and in no way as robust. It does have delightful purple/pink flowers. It always grows out of stone walls, the walls being their own little version of empire. I love to think that before, during, and after my life the Kenilworth Ivy is doing its work of eating these walls.
Todays poem and essay were brilliant, and for me, these question are what have brought me to Poetry. Poetry for me offers another way of being that flies in the face of empire, be it personal or national. It offers sustenance that reminds me of the mystery all around and where the power truly lies.
"It’s something like: this violence is capable of love, and without that love, I’d be nothing.
It’s something like:
without their presence
my mind would be an unmarked
grave.
Yeah."
Just finished reading Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese. There is something in what he conveys to me in that story that is much like what Etel Adnan addresses in that excerpt from "The Spring Flowers Own."
It was through Etel Adnan's painting of Mt. Tamalpais, a mountain visible looking north from parts of San Francisco, that I first learned of her in recent years. It turns out that during my childhood and early adulthood, she was living north of San Francisco, not far from where I grew up on the San Francisco Peninsula. She is clearly in creative kinship with NIcholas Roerich, another artist whose work speaks to me. Although I knew that she was a writer, I hadn't known that she wrote poetry.
Always a joy on Sundays to learn here something I didn't know about a writer and to be introduced to and then read the works of writers new to me -- Kaveh Akbar, for example. Martyr! stands out among all the books I've read throughout my life.
All the best to you and your loved ones.