The Joy of Poetry!
Who so loves believes the impossible.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When non-essential retail reopened after the last lockdown, I stayed away from places like Oxford Street and Regents Street for fear of them turning into a bit of a bun fight, I was however desperate for a little retail therapy so sought out a few less popular, quieter places like Gabriel's Wharf and Connaught Village, only 20 minutes’ walk from Oxford Street but could be a million miles away! I tend to gravitate towards these kinds of places anyway as they tend to attract more of the quirky, independent shops. When global travel starts once more, I’ll give you a whistle stop tour of the best little hidden shopping gems!
For now though I want to focus on women in poetry, I know, a bit of a leap but there is a link honestly! Whist wandering fairly aimlessly around Gabriel's Wharf, I spied a bookshop I’d not seen before. These days most of my reading is done on my tablet but I do like the tangible joy of holding and reading a book, I love to have a little stack of books on or around my coffee table, next to the TV and on the side in the kitchen, (usually cookery books for obvious reasons!), so, I wandered into the shop in the hope of finding something suitable for my random stacks.
I picked up a few books before becoming quite engrossed in an anthology of poems by women through history, I found their works oddly soothing and calming so much so, I thought I’d share a few with you with some background on the poets;
Sappho 620 BCE to 550 BCE
Little is known with certainty about the life of Sappho, or Psappha in her native Aeolic dialect. She was born probably about 620 BCE to an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos during a great cultural flowering in the area. Apparently, her birthplace was either Eressos or Mytilene, the main city on the island, where she seems to have lived for some time. Even the names of her family members are inconsistently reported, but she does seem to have had several brothers and to have married and had a daughter named Cleis. Sappho seems also to have exchanged verses with the poet Alcaeus. Scholars have discussed her likely political connections and have proposed plausible biographical details, but these remain highly speculative.
One Girl
Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, —
Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now.
Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning – 1806-1861
Arguably one of the most highly regarded poets of the nineteenth century, Browning’s literary reputation eclipsed her husband Robert Browning’s. With a wide following in both England and the U.S., her work inspired none other than the iconic Emily Dickinson. Dickinson even had a photo of Browning framed in her room. Poet Edgar Allan Poe also borrowed the meter from her poem Lady Geraldine’s Courtship for his notorious poem The Raven.
How do I love thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace…
Now come on, you’d heard that before, hadn’t you??!?
Hilda “H.D.” Doolittle – 1886-1961
This unique and avant-garde poet published under the pen name H.D. Feminist, modern, and highly intellectual, H.D.’s one-of-a-kind voice unpacks themes of love and war, birth and death, gender, and language. H.D. was also transparent about her bisexuality, making her an icon for the early LGBT rights movement and feminist movement in the 1970s and 1980s.
At Baia
I should have thought
in a dream you would have brought
some lovely, perilous thing,
orchids piled in a great sheath,
as who would say (in a dream),
“I send you this,
who left the blue veins
of your throat unkissed.”
Why was it that your hands
(that never took mine),
your hands that I could see
drift over the orchid-heads
so carefully,
your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
so gently, the fragile flower-stuff—
ah, ah, how was it
Anna Akhmatova – 1889-1966
With work ranging from short lyric poems to intricately structured epics, Anna Akhmatova is easily one of the most prolific poets of twentieth-century Soviet Russia. Known for her economic use of language and emotional restraint, her work deals heavily with the struggles of living and writing under the Stalinist era. Much of her work was condemned and censored by Stalinist authorities.
Muse
When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,
Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.
What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,
When compared with the gentle piper's tread?
And she came in, threw out the mantle's edges,
Declined to me with a sincere heed.
I say to her, "Did you dictate the Pages
Of Hell to Dante?" She answers, "Yes, I did."
Sonia Sanchez – 1934 - present
Poet, playwright, professor, activist and one of the foremost leaders of the Black Studies movement, Sonia Sanchez was born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her mother died when she was very young and Sanchez was raised by her grandmother, until she too died when the author was six years old. Sanchez eventually moved to Harlem with her father, a schoolteacher, in 1943. She earned a BA from Hunter College in 1955 and attended graduate school at New York University, where she studied with the poet Louise Bogan. Sanchez also attended workshops in Greenwich Village, where she met poets such as Amiri Baraka, Haki R. Madhubuti, and Etheridge Knight, whom she later married. During the early 1960s Sanchez was an integrationist, supporting the ideas of the Congress of Racial Equality. But after listening to the ideas of Malcolm X, her work and ideas took on a separationist slant. She began teaching in 1965, first on the staff of the Downtown Community School in New York and later at San Francisco State College (now University). There she was a pioneer in developing Black Studies courses, including a class in African American women’s literature.
This Is Not a Small Voice
This is not a small voice
you hear this is a large
voice coming out of these cities.
This is the voice of LaTanya.
Kadesha. Shaniqua. This
is the voice of Antoine.
Darryl. Shaquille.
Running over waters
navigating the hallways
of our schools spilling out
on the corners of our cities and
no epitaphs spill out of their river
mouths.
This is not a small love
you hear this is a large
love, a passion for kissing learning
on its face.
This is a love that crowns the feet
with hands
that nourishes, conceives, feels the
water sails
mends the children,
folds them inside our history
where they
toast more than the flesh
where they suck the bones of the
alphabet
and spit out closed vowels.
This is a love colored with iron
and lace.
This is a love initialed Black
Genius.
This is nor a small voice
you hear.
I hope they touched you as they touched me!
What’s on this week?
Head & Eyes – LeLUTKA Head Fleur 2.5
Face Skin – Not Found - Misty Skin Toffee Normal
Body – Maitreya Mesh Body - Lara V5.2 + [the Skinnery] Skin Toffee + Addons
Nails – Ascendant - Girl on Fire Fatpack - Maitreya
AO – BodyLanguage SLC BENTO AO Cadence
Shape – Not Found - Misty Shape, small adjustments
Face Piercings – ^^Swallow^^ Indira
Shoes – Eudora3D Kitsune v1 (Maitreya)
Pictures take at the Beautiful Tulun Township
Kommentare