What an outrageous spring!
I find myself walking around waving at mountains quoting e.e. cummings, “i thank you, god, for most this amazing day/for the leaping greenly spirit of trees,/ and a the blue true dream of sky,” and so on. I am stopped in my tracks by peach, cherry, and strawberry blossoms in my yard.
How do you put this exhuberance into words? I believe you must READ poetry. For Spring, you can’t do better than Mary Oliver, e.e. cummings, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Muir, (not a poet, but an ecstatic writer), Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, a wonderer over nature, and Stanley Kunitz, the poet gardener.
Harvest the flow and rhythm of the seasons, our rivers and mountain cascades, the rise and fall of tides, written by poets you call by their first names: Emily, Jane, Keith, Naomi, Lucille, Jim and Billy.
Next, go to a library or your favorite independent book store and ask for the following books on writing:
If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland, Graywolf Press
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver – Harcourt Brace and Co.
Blue Pastures by Mary Oliver, Harcourt Brace and Co.
The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice to Beginning Poets by Ted Kooser, University of Nebraska Press
Making Your Own Days: The Pleasure of Reading and Writing Poetry by Kenneth Kock
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirshfield, Harper Collins
My mentor, poet, Jim Moore, recommended two books. One is by poet Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures by Wave Books, 2012, the other, Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer, Graywolf Press. I have both on order at Accent on Books.
Poetry is happening in Asheville this May. Check out the LEAF Festival, Blue Ridge Book Fest (May 17 and 18 at Blue Ridge Community College), and Word Fest at Asheville’s Lenoir-Rhyne University (May 4 and 5).
Western North Carolina’s small towns have poetry writers and lovers, too: think Scott Owens in Hickory, Glenda Beale in Murphy, and Christine Ardvison in West Jefferson. In fact, here are the Wordkeepers dates for the remainder of the year: June 15, August 17, October 19, and December 21. Events are free, refreshments provided, at the Ashe County Arts Center in West Jefferson. 5 minute open mic slots, call (336) 489-0066 to sign up. Music at 3 p.m.; readings at 4 p.m. Everyone is invited.
My last poetic gasp – If you missed Keith Flynn’s reading at Malaprops, you missed IT! It was an evening of Keith’s bluesy voice, and the music of his words.
Rhett Butler would give his left spur to sound like Keith Flynn. Keith’s sung blues set the mood for the poems that followed. His book, Colony Collapse Disorder, published by Wings Press this spring, is full of buzz. So were his comments:
“Poetry requires a life-long commitment. Poetry is the highest compliment we can give. Congress has the same rating as the ebola virus. The living word is God. Poetry is music. Music has the ability to persuade without argument. Poetry needs silence – white space.”
See, you should have been there!