We're delving into non-fiction this week in a different way. Sure, lots of us read history, science, technology, mathematics, biography, and other topics for fun or education.
What I'm looking for this week are your favorites in my two favorite non-fiction genres, Poetry and Essays.
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Alice Walker is my favorite contemporary poet.
"I said to Poetry:"I'm finished
with you."
Having to almost die
before some weird light
comes creeping through
is no fun.
"No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
I'm out for good times--
at the very least,
some painless convention."
Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn't sad or anything,
only restless.
Poetry said: "You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?"
I said: "I didn't hear that.
Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.m.
I'm not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you."
Poetry said: "But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how suprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with
Think of that!"
"I'll join the church!" I said,
huffily, turning my face to the wall.
"I'll learn how to pray again!"
"Let me ask you," said Poetry.
"When you pray, what do you think
you'll see?"
Poetry had me.
"There's no paper
in this room," I said.
"And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise."
"Bullshit," said Poetry.
"Bullshit," said I."
She makes the point that the poet is powerless against the poetry inside. I love that. That's my second-favorite poem by her. My favorite is a love poem I have in a compilation which is somewhere in the stacks-I cannot find it online. If I find it, I'll post it in comments.
Alice Walker writes concise, condensed poetry with a minimum of words expressing a maximum of emotion. She writes on a broad spectrum of topics, including animal rights, environmentalism, women's issues, love, and politics. She's amazing. She also wrote one of my favorite books, "The Color Purple".
Up and coming (sorta, even though she's been around a while) in the same vein is an amazing poet named Sapphire.
Humpty Dumpty Heart
my heart leaks knowing
since you shot my sheets
with light,
lifting me out my skin
past sky.
i look for your tongue in light
& listen to tales of a new daughter
apartments, mortgages, wife;
knowing i was just a blurred night--
black, whited-out & lost.
Out the blue you call back the years
like a movie reel rewinding,
after six deaf years i hear
you want to come over.
the silence of blind rooms
goads me to balance
humpty dumpty like
one more time the weight of light.
& i would,
but for the bleeding yolk
that lies in cracked knowing--
once it's eaten
it's over.
Sapphire also wrote a heartwrenching book called "Push" that is incredible. I highly recommend it, but bring Kleenex.
My favorite all-time poet is Khalil Gibran. This love stuff is on my mind a lot lately because of the upcoming nuptials.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Essays now.
My two favorite essayists are David Sedaris and Umberto Eco.
I tend to enjoy the humorous essayist more than the serious, but Eco does both. His "Travels with a Salmon" is my favorite book of essays. Eco is so smart, so precise, and so damned glorious in his writing voice that he makes me despair of ever writing anything near as good.
David Sedaris has written several hilarious collections of essays, including "naked" and "me talk pretty one day". I used to listen, religiously, to This American Life just to hear his occasional features. His wit is second to none, but I'm glad I didn't grow up with his family-they sound even crazier than mine.
I used to write a lot of poetry and essays, but it's been a while. Here's a very short essay.
Hawk
I stood in the meadow and my eye was caught by a hawk circling over the pines. It was a beautiful and elemental creature, full of exuberance in the warm air, rejoicing in the day at hand and all the possibilities therein. It let out a call, high and sweet in the wind, and swept towards the high grass beyond the mown meadow.
Searching in the grass were a dozen or so killdeer, their white neckerchiefs gleaming in the sun, calling to each other in their gay voices. Then one sensed the hawk nearby. The alarm went out in a flash and the carefree killdeer sprung off the meadow and dashed into the tall grass, no doubt to protect the young hidden there. The hawk slid across the tips of the grass and back up, making an aeronautic masterpiece and a sudden startled flock of small brown birds leapt out of the grass and in perfect formation like an army dashed off to their nests. The hawk observed this, his red wingtips flashing as he circled. Back into the sky, as a pair of swallows sped across in a panic, purple tails twitching and their ruddy undersides heaving, to save their family from the airborne menace above. Blindly they went their haste obvious in the chattering talk they were having as they flew. Again the hawk circled. He cast an amused glance at the meadow, then looked my way. I saluted his bright and intelligent eye, respecting his respect for his prey. He seemed to address me with the song of his graceful flight, telling me that he had to keep them alert that the strongest might survive his hunger. Telling me that he enjoyed the game he played with the lesser birds there. Telling me he understood the way of nature and its logic. The beautiful creature went higher and higher into the sky, his bronze feathers gleaming in the late afternoon sun, and then sped back down to the pine trees, calling again to his mate, and telling her of his sport. She rose to join him, and they disappeared into the trees.
And a reasonably short poem.
Chopin is unforgiving
I neglected him too long,
His notes are an accusation
I sit and fumble over the keys
Again and again
Searching for the magic I once knew
But it has gone
I curse myself for this neglect
My Fredrick, my dream
The notes I cannot reach with
Inadequate fingers, impossible tenths
Searching for the memory within the joints
But it has gone away
So again I am an infant
Before this vision of ivory and
Carved cherry wood that taunts me
Reminding me of the overtones
I search for the ease with which I once played
But it hides from me
The valse brilliante is clear in my mind
The notes cascading from the
Fingers of one who once knew the
Secrets of their birth and their life and their death
I seek the secrets out once more
And swear not to neglect them again
Slowly he returns to me
In the company of other dead men
That live on in the ether of sound
The echoes of his dream flowing through clumsy hands
I reach for them and grasp them to my heart
And taste again the beauty of his mind.
So, if you're still awake after that, let's hear who your favorite poets and essayists are-and as always, what have you read lately?