Poems for Your Weekend
And a NEW LINK for Tomorrow's Zoom Craft Class
Dear Friends,
Yesterday, I wrote against the deliberate manufacturing of wonder—it’s really an essay on the Eiffel Tower, Coleridge, and imitation peaches (a niche 19th century Italian art: aka fruit made of marble).
My real hope was to reveal how poetry can offer a modality that helps us live more rich, balanced, and purposeful lives. To quote yesterday me: “We can’t always be looking at the Eiffel Tower, hearing a child’s laughter, or holding a letter by someone long dead. But the poem can capture these experiences and, through its various forms of enactment, deliver the almost-inarticulable stakes of human life, sending us back into our own lives prepared to do the work of reflection.”
Well, today I came across this passage from Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and thought I’d share it since it ties into what I’ve been thinking about. (Silko, whose work I didn’t previously know, is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and a debut recipient of the MacArthur “genius” Grant):
Look, I know I talk about poetry a lot (in keeping with the name of this newsletter!). But I believe with all of my heart in the power of poetry to shape public consciousness, to deepen and draw out what is best in each of us. And I hope you believe that—or are beginning to believe that—too.
If you’re a Paid Subscriber, a reminder that I’m teaching a craft class and generative workshop tomorrow for you on John Burnside from 1-2:30 PM EST. I’ll offer a replay for those who can’t make it live. Link is below the paywall.
Thank you, as ever, for being here.
xM
