Poetry

about my poetry books and life as a poet

A New Film Poem: The Writer’s Call

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I'm taking a small break from our series about mapping creative intention to bring you this film-poem about why I write.

I made it using Animoto, a great tool for making book trailers, or any kind of slideshow. I'll definitely be using it again.

The music is by Kimba Arem.

You can find out more about film-poetry here.

I hope to make more of these, it was great fun.

And I hope you enjoy.

Back to the Creative Mapping series tomorrow.

Two Mary Oliver Poems

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Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
I have two Mary Oliver poems I keep coming back to.

Here's one I sent to my daughter Treasure, who has a tendency to be hard on herself, and loves inspirational poetry. I dedicate it to her and all the women who do too much.

That used to be me.  Not so much now.  

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — 
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.

Aaaah!

The second one is Summer Day and here is Oliver reading it herself.

You'll find more of her poetry here. .

And can I also recommend to you her book about writing and reading poetry (in particular, metrical verse): Rules for the Dance.

Last Promise: A New Poem

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Promise me, that when the leaves turn in the wind

or in the falling, you’ll remember. And smile

at the day we spent under the green ocean dome

that welled above us, all ebb and flurry, each leaf-shake

a flutter held, a quark of forest time shifting

and regrouping, but yet the whole — the copse within

the wood that was the whole of it to us — set slow. Slower,

the further out we looked, until our eyes could see 

no further than an army-band of trunks upholding calm.

The wood protects us. I could not bear for you to see it all. We are too small.

So when the coming time is here

and you see a leaf is turning green to brown

and beginning its intention to descend, anticipating

the day of its great fall, twisting, pirouetting even,

high above the floor that’s calling: come. Come. When

you see it twist this way and that, testing the stick of its stalk,

the heft of its trust, look. Look closer, past the colour of its sap,

the flow of its line in space, in time, and know it has practiced

what it needs, all summer long dancing with the wind. And think of

me and how I loved the leaves and brought you there to see you smile.

And smile. Now, promise me.

~~~