Charles Simic is having a good week. He has just been named Poet Laureate of the United States and has also won the Wallace Stevens Award for Mastery in the Art of Poetry given by the Academy of American Poets.
Some salient links:
"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
[From a Mary Oliver poem, and quoted here: SACRED ORDINARY]
Feeling reflective today. My almost 94-year-old grandmother is having a health issue and even though it's something she's dealt with in the past and isn't immediately life-threatening. . . it just puts thoughts in one's mind.
I was prompted to post these lines by the Sacred Ordinary post it came from -- the author of the blog was talking about how dealing with the death of loved ones can't help to bring to mind our own mortality. We always think we're going to have decades of life remaining. . . and should certainly prudently plan (retirementwise, etc.) as if we will.
But I'm trying very hard to make time for important things that always get pushed aside by work or laundry or dishes or the mindless relaxation of television viewing . . . I must carve out time to write the letter, create the scrapbook, take the pictures, call the friend or relative, play the piano, write the poem. . .
"The head of the Library of Congress is to name Donald Hall, a writer whose deceptively simple language builds on images of the New England landscape, as the nation's 14th poet laureate today. Mr. Hall, a poet in the distinctive American tradition of Robert Frost, has also been a harsh critic of the religious right's influence on government arts policy. . . He will succeed Ted Kooser, the Nebraskan who has been the poet laureate since 2004." [NY Times]
"Who knows how long we have, anyhow? Naomi Shihab Nye captures the sentiment beautifully in the poem I just posted to Ephemera. I feel compelled to savor these words at the start of the new year, hold them close to me as I move through the wide world:
Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time." [romanlily.com]
"Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity."
[excerpt of Wendell Berry poem; read more: The Writer's Almanac]
Table
~ Richard Tillinghast
A man filled with the gladness of living
Put his keys on the table,
Put flowers in a copper bowl there.
He put his eggs and milk on the table.
He put there the light that came in through the window,
Sounds of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel.
Read the whole thing and tell me what you think . . .
