Poetry Tip: Picnics and Poems

Yes, the weather is getting gorgeous and what better way to enjoy the weather than to traipse outside with your journal or laptop and write some poems? Think of how many poets get their inspiration from the outdoors, particularly in nice weather. Mary Oliver springs to mind… So your tip for this week is to go outdoors, whether it’s for a picnic, BBQ, Frisbee, or sitting in a lawn chair, and absorb some of those wonderful outdoor moments into poems.

Don’t just use the visuals of the outdoors, think of the sounds! I, for one, hear my neighbors’ wind chimes and the birds chirping, all of which could fit nicely into a poem. What about the sound of the water sprinkler? A watering can over the vegetables and flowers? How might the sounds of warm weather affect your poems? Next there are the insects, animals, trees, breezes, wind, etc… Plenty there for a poem or two!

May the muse be with you and please drop in again soon…

Adirondack Review Open Submissions

Send between 2-7 poems via e-mail to tarpoetry@blacklawerencepress.com.
Be sure the poems are between 8 and 80 lines, they don’t publish much rhyme, and include a brief bio. For more details visit the link below, good luck on your submissions!

http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/submissions.html

Thanks for dropping in, please visit tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://www.nzetc.org/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP07/t1-g1-t19-body1-d1.html
“Blame Vermeer” by Vincent O’Sullivan

http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0408/poem_181322.html
“What is it to be Human?” by Waldo Williams, translated by Menna Elfyn


Thanks for checking in, please stop by tomorrow for another Open Submissions

Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov was born in Ilford Essex, England in 1923 and passed away in December 1997. During her lifespan she converted from Judaism to Christianity, was educated entirely at home, had her first poem published at the age of 17 and became a nurse while also maintaining a prolific writing career. Even after her death, her poems were still being published. More about her can be found at the link included below at poets.org. I picked up her book Sands of the Well, published by New Directions Books in 1994, at the library.

While Levertov is plain-spoken, that is, every poem is readily understandable, there is grace and beauty in every one. There are two poems that I will focus on and the first is titled “Threat.” It speaks of the majestic beauty of a pinetree and the fear that comes from having one so near your house yet also the fear of losing it altogether. For example, her lines say: “You can live for years next door/to a big pinetree, honored to have/so venerable a neighbor, even/when it sheds needles all over your flowers/….” Then goes on to say “under respect, under your faith/in the pinetree’s beauty, there lies/the fear it will crash some day/…the fragility of the safe/dailiness you have almost/grown used to.”
What I love is that she has such respect, love, and fear all mixed in the same poem about nature and human’s nature towards it.

The second poem is “A Gift” and I simply cannot do this one justice by talking about it. I wish that I could. The poem is gorgeous and contemplative. The beginning lines are fabulous: “Just when you seem to yourself/nothing but a flimsy web/of questions…” and goes on to say that questions from others are being given to you so that “in the emptiness of your hands,/…butterflies opening and closing themselves/in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure/their scintillant fur, their dust.” Essentially the poem says the questions you ask of life that are never answered are replaced with questions from others that somehow satisfy your need for answers. Isn’t that a beautiful idea?

There are many pages of this book that I “dog-eared” where I liked the poem so much I wanted to go back and absorb it again and again. I hope you will find her equally satisfying when you come across her in your own library or book-store, or perhaps on the web.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/41

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound

Tomasso Gervusatti's Site

Gervasutti discusses poets and their works in his blog. His comments are personable and I enjoy dropping in on him from time to time. I hope you will, too, check him out using the link below…

http://tommasogervasutti.blogspot.com/

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…