Devin, your weekly posts are a gift to your readers. In a world of distractions and skimming, your newsletter grounds me like an anchor, keeping me mindful, present and thoughtful. I think I would probably read your grocery lists if you were to post them. I hope you continue this for a long, long time. Looking forward to your novel. Signed, with gratitude.
A simple "thank you" feels lacking and un-poetic, but thank you for this post, Devin. For all your posts. And for sharing your gifts and insights. I hope someday to read the novel (or anything else you write). Why can't more novels be about "pursuit of mystery, the expression of platonic love, and a lot of bread baking"? I'd read the heck out of that. :)
I always look forward to Sunday mornings. The quiet. The sleepy dog. The birdsong. The coffee. The new words from you. Have a peaceful and happy day.
I love everything about this so much. I woke up suffering and this brought me a lot of joy. It also turned my attention back to my writing as an antidote, as a reminder that writing makes me look out that window in wonder, and that seeing is what matters. Just the seeing.
"What is difficult, always, is the act of turning away at the moment of finishing each essay, the act of returning to the world, with its reliance on information and data, with its commodification of slowness and mindfulness, with its relentless pursuit of profit, with so much that often feels so at odds with whatever a poem might remind me of — whether generosity or wonder or attention or anything I find myself obsessing over, again and again and again."
Thank you for so beautifully capturing a feeling I feel very often and have trouble articulating. And thank you for your newsletters, which have been a recurring Sunday gift over the past two years. :)
Your posts are like beautiful journeys that one takes with a friend. There is movement with the flow of the thought and also stillness and quietude. And a deeper appreciation of poetry and all that it can hold and of life itself. Thank you.
"It is greedy, isn’t it, to spend a day full of watching and paying attention? It’s greedy to hold that joy; it’s greedy simply to want."
Oof! I jumped to offer a gentle, polite disagreement, but you got yourself there by the end of the paragraph.
Devin -- your ability to offer such attention, presence and care seems to be at the heart of your thoughtful essays, none of which could ever be interpreted as greedy. Can true joy, true attention ever really be contained to the self? Or must it, by the highly-technical-laws-of-emotional-physics, have no choice but to seep out into our surroundings, color every interaction with warmth and love?
Thank you for your thoughtful writing. Your newsletter has been such a joy to read over these past few years!
Devin, thank you for your writings, your shared wondering and wandering through the beauty and power of poetry these last few years. Your writing has been an impactful thread for me through this time, and I’m grateful for your ability to remind us all what it can feel like when we slow down and simply notice. “I believe that reading — not just writing — can be an imaginative practice, a connection between lived and unlived moments in time, the opening of doors to rooms that have yet to be built, but where there still is light waiting to be windowed.”
I read your work for the first time today. I could connect to so many passages, and this especially resonated with me: "It is greedy, isn’t it, to spend a day full of watching and paying attention? It’s greedy to hold that joy; it’s greedy simply to want. But the wonder of such greed is that it hurts no one."
I love how poetry often invites us to pay attention to small details, to see a lifetime of thoughts flow through one line, that little details in our lives we might not notice are somehow brought to the forefront of our minds with one line of poetry.
In one of her poems, Mary Oliver says: "Pay attention / Be astonished / Tell about it". So, too, as you have said. Amazing to think that, from the Big Bang, across all the billions of years and among all the uncountable atoms, our human work is so simply described. Thank you for taking us farther along this road.
Thank you so much for your weekly meditations, and, today, thank you so much for this: "where poems exist too, though they do not save us and never have, where they simply offer an invitation to look at this world we live in together differently, or more sweetly, or more harshly, or anywhere in between or in combination." Beautiful.
Devin, your weekly posts are a gift to your readers. In a world of distractions and skimming, your newsletter grounds me like an anchor, keeping me mindful, present and thoughtful. I think I would probably read your grocery lists if you were to post them. I hope you continue this for a long, long time. Looking forward to your novel. Signed, with gratitude.
A simple "thank you" feels lacking and un-poetic, but thank you for this post, Devin. For all your posts. And for sharing your gifts and insights. I hope someday to read the novel (or anything else you write). Why can't more novels be about "pursuit of mystery, the expression of platonic love, and a lot of bread baking"? I'd read the heck out of that. :)
I always look forward to Sunday mornings. The quiet. The sleepy dog. The birdsong. The coffee. The new words from you. Have a peaceful and happy day.
I love everything about this so much. I woke up suffering and this brought me a lot of joy. It also turned my attention back to my writing as an antidote, as a reminder that writing makes me look out that window in wonder, and that seeing is what matters. Just the seeing.
Devon, I can only echo the previous comments. Thanks for your generosity and, I would dare saying, vulnerability.
"What is difficult, always, is the act of turning away at the moment of finishing each essay, the act of returning to the world, with its reliance on information and data, with its commodification of slowness and mindfulness, with its relentless pursuit of profit, with so much that often feels so at odds with whatever a poem might remind me of — whether generosity or wonder or attention or anything I find myself obsessing over, again and again and again."
Thank you for so beautifully capturing a feeling I feel very often and have trouble articulating. And thank you for your newsletters, which have been a recurring Sunday gift over the past two years. :)
"I guess this greed is not greed at all, then. I guess it is like life." Thank you for the generous "greed" of your attentive writing. <3
"It is no small thing, the at least of our lives" ❤
Your posts are like beautiful journeys that one takes with a friend. There is movement with the flow of the thought and also stillness and quietude. And a deeper appreciation of poetry and all that it can hold and of life itself. Thank you.
"It is greedy, isn’t it, to spend a day full of watching and paying attention? It’s greedy to hold that joy; it’s greedy simply to want."
Oof! I jumped to offer a gentle, polite disagreement, but you got yourself there by the end of the paragraph.
Devin -- your ability to offer such attention, presence and care seems to be at the heart of your thoughtful essays, none of which could ever be interpreted as greedy. Can true joy, true attention ever really be contained to the self? Or must it, by the highly-technical-laws-of-emotional-physics, have no choice but to seep out into our surroundings, color every interaction with warmth and love?
Thank you for your thoughtful writing. Your newsletter has been such a joy to read over these past few years!
Devin, thank you for your writings, your shared wondering and wandering through the beauty and power of poetry these last few years. Your writing has been an impactful thread for me through this time, and I’m grateful for your ability to remind us all what it can feel like when we slow down and simply notice. “I believe that reading — not just writing — can be an imaginative practice, a connection between lived and unlived moments in time, the opening of doors to rooms that have yet to be built, but where there still is light waiting to be windowed.”
Devin, I love this work. And I suggest it is not greed. It is living the full life offered to everyone. D
I read your work for the first time today. I could connect to so many passages, and this especially resonated with me: "It is greedy, isn’t it, to spend a day full of watching and paying attention? It’s greedy to hold that joy; it’s greedy simply to want. But the wonder of such greed is that it hurts no one."
I love how poetry often invites us to pay attention to small details, to see a lifetime of thoughts flow through one line, that little details in our lives we might not notice are somehow brought to the forefront of our minds with one line of poetry.
In one of her poems, Mary Oliver says: "Pay attention / Be astonished / Tell about it". So, too, as you have said. Amazing to think that, from the Big Bang, across all the billions of years and among all the uncountable atoms, our human work is so simply described. Thank you for taking us farther along this road.
Thank you so much for your weekly meditations, and, today, thank you so much for this: "where poems exist too, though they do not save us and never have, where they simply offer an invitation to look at this world we live in together differently, or more sweetly, or more harshly, or anywhere in between or in combination." Beautiful.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You: “I find myself changed in the act of writing them…”
Me: I find myself changed in the act of reading them.
You: “I find myself feeling and being.”
Me: Me, too.
With gratitude for you and how your words move in the world.
I adore Raymond Carver's poetry. So glad to hear you will continue with these posts. They are a gift!