Poems included: "LXX," by The Monk Shun-E, "XLIV," by Komachi, "LVI," by Fujiwara no Toshinari, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World," by Adam Zagajewski, and "Sadness," by Stephen Dunn
1 hour ago
Friday, December 14, 2018
Poetry Friday: Sadness
A month ago I posted a list of things I do to cheer myself up. One of them was reading poems. Sometimes it's good to read something cheerful, but sometimes what you really need is to wallow in sad, and this post is the result of some of that. I didn't even type them up, just took some blurry photos of them and the books where I found them. (Click on the photo to enlarge it, and I'll replace a couple of these once the sun comes up and I have better light to use.) (Edited to add slightly improved photos.)
Poems included: "LXX," by The Monk Shun-E, "XLIV," by Komachi, "LVI," by Fujiwara no Toshinari, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World," by Adam Zagajewski, and "Sadness," by Stephen Dunn
Laura Shovan has today's roundup.
Poems included: "LXX," by The Monk Shun-E, "XLIV," by Komachi, "LVI," by Fujiwara no Toshinari, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World," by Adam Zagajewski, and "Sadness," by Stephen Dunn
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7 comments:
Dear Ruth - poems cheer me up too! And I have this anthology. It survived the downsize, so that right there says something about how I value it. Thank you for sharing! xo
Sometimes there's nothing like a good wallow. I like the ending of Stephen Dunn's "Sadness."
Your poems made me think of "Lodged" by Robert Frost:
The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
Sometimes when the need to 'wallow in sad' is so real, reading others' words means there's a crowd out there with you, I think. I suspect that those who are honest may be poets, and forget to write down the words. Thanks for sharing these, Ruth. Wishing you more poems that linger.
Sometimes, that overwhelming sad...the kind that requires a wallow is the brilliance of an artist feeling the feels of the self and world that need to be expressed. I don't have this anthology. But, I think I need it. I hope your wallow has been productive and that there is an end in sight. Beauty is sure to come from it. I just know it.
That first poem is heartbreaking -- the long night and no release when day comes. Thank you for sharing these, Ruth.
Here's an article I've been sharing about sitting with a child's sadness. Thought you might like it: https://pickanytwo.net/the-train-analogy-that-will-change-how-you-see-your-crying-child/
The poets.org poem of the day on September 21 was Gerard Manley Hopkins' 41 [No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,]. I read that poem over and over again (and cried and cried) as I made my way through the hardest start of a school year. Poetry definitely helps.
Thank you for Try to Praise the Mutilated World. That one will help me with my ongoing environmental wallow.
There is such beauty in this sad poem, it's so visual you can touch and taste it,
"I remember a grass hut
On a rainy night,
Dreaming of the past,
My tears starting at the cry
Of a mountain cuckoo."
Thanks for sharing these poems Ruth.
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