Findings

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Poetry Friday: Listening

May 9, 2008 · 42 Comments

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week’s collection of poetic findings is hosted here today. To participate, leave a link to your post in the comments, and I’ll be rounding up the old fashioned way throughout the day.

One of the treasures my mother gave me is a love of reading. In honor of Mother’s Day weekend, here’s one of the best-known examples of a poet similarly blessed: Robert Louis Stevenson, who dedicates A Child’s Garden of Verses to *his mother (see note below poem) in the hope that

                          …all who read
May find as dear a nurse at need,
And every child who lists my rhyme,
In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,
May hear it in as kind a voice
As made my childish days rejoice!

The rest of Stevenson’s glowing tribute is here.

[*Edited to add: So went my initial post, but I'm grateful to Kelly Fineman for cluing me in to the fact that Alison Cunningham, to whom this verse is addressed, wasn't Stevenson's biological mother. She was his nurse, which helps to explain his reference to her as a "second mother" and "first wife."  After reading Kelly's thoughts, I went on to discover Alison Cunningham's death announcement, which describes her as "an ideal nurse for an ailing child, who required the undivided attention which his devoted, but delicate mother could not give."

So whereas my original thoughts in this post were about the influence of mothers, they've taken a turn into the influence of mother-figures, which I find in some ways even more interesting to think about. It's possible that like Stevenson, we all have "second mothers" as well as first ones.]

In any case, I like the way his nurse’s voice is inseparable from his early experience of poetry. There are certain childhood poems and stories I hear in my mother’s voice, and some in my father’s. But in our lives as readers, we break free of their voices, in the same way we have to do in the rest of life. I like Eudora Welty’s description of this process in One Writer’s Beginnings:

Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn’t hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn’t my mother’s voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself.

What ”voices” are you listening to this week? Bring them on… 

Stacey at Two Writing Teachers has a heartfelt original poem trying to come to terms with some unwelcome news about a great aunt in An e-mail I didn’t want to see at 4:15 A.M.

John Mutford has an original as well from his Writer’s Diary over at The Book Mine Set: To Melanchol.

Mary Lee is “picking her chin up off the floor” with her original poem “Flabbergasted.” It’ll make you wish you were back in 4th grade and in her class.

Cloudscome has Countee Cullen’s dialogue with an earlier artist, ”To John Keats, Poet, at Spring Time,” along with one of her gorgeous photos.

Ruth is envying the grass with Emily Dickinson  as she labors through a huge stack of student papers to grade.

Laura Salas has some 15 Words or Less poems on a nautical theme, as well as the wonderful news of a contract for a new poetry collection. Don’t miss the great story of this book’s creation.

TadMack is trying to cope with Urban Law without losing all hope of creative thought. Stop by for “No poetry, just tea and sympathy” at Finding Wonderland.

Jama Rattigan offers a dish of substance, but not comfort, with Marilyn Chin’s poem “Gruel” over at Alphabet Soup.

Jenny has a thought-provoking post on savoring the moment with Naomi Shihab Nye’s “To One Now Grown” over at Read. Imagine. Talk.

Fuse #8 has a book review of Helen Frost’s Diamond Willow, a novel in verse, along with some info and links.

Tricia gives us a glimpse of the flowers she’s been enjoying with Florence Taber Holt’s “Flowers” over at The Miss Rumphius Effect. 

Sara gives us Ode to the DiaspoRican by Mariposa, along with a performance by the poet, at Archimedes Forgets.

Little Willow has a thoughtful poetic invitation to listen by Yves Bonnefoy: “Passer-by, these are words…”.

Linda Kulp at WriteTime has an original Mother’s Day Triplet, along with an invitation to write your own.

In Need of Chocolate relates “Uphill” by Christina Rossetti, one of her favorite poets, to motherhood.

Jone shares some of the results of a poetry exercise with her 4th graders in A Ring, A Drum, and A Blanket Poem over at Check It Out. Amazing!

Karen Edmisten is mourning the loss of a beloved Pontiac in her original ode to Putty. Stop by and pay your respects!

Sylvia at Poetry for Children is taking a look at “Blue Ribbon Poetry” with a list of award-winning poetry books and novels in verse.

Anastasia at Picture Book of the Day offers Ooh! Matisse, a book authored by Mil Niepold, with art direction by Jeanyves Verdu.

Christine at The Simple and the Ordinary offers A.A. Milne’s “Daffodowndilly” in celebration of the undisputed arrival of spring.

Tiel Aisha Ansari at Knocking From Inside presents Numbers, a powerful original poem.

Michelle at Scholar’s Blog offers “Diary of a Church Mouse” by John Betjeman.

Sheila at Greenridge Chronicles posts Christina Rossetti’s poem “Caterpillar,” along with a fun variation on the original by her 6-year-old.

Becky posts Strickland Gillilan’s “The Reading Mother” at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Wes at The Well-Read Child is in with an original aubade and a challenge to try writing one of your own.

Liz Garton Scanlon’s “Sonnets and Shakespeare” post at Liz in Ink provides a link to Back and Forth Project, which features the Crown Sonnet of a few weeks back. Congratulations, Poetry Princesses! Liz also describes the effect of seeing children (including one of her own) perform Shakespeare.

Miss Erin is thinking of Shakespeare too, specifically “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”

Sarah Reinhard is contemplating (and practicing) motherhood at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering. She offers “Nourisher of God and Man,” from Heidi Hess Saxton’s Behold Your Mother.

Kelly Fineman provides insight into a collection of epigrams at Writing and Ruminating.

Charlotte is celebrating her tenth wedding anniversary with Robert Burns’ “Westlin Winds,” and a link to a version set to music, over at Charlotte’s Library.

Lisa, as part of her new resolve to study a poet at a time, offers Margaret Atwood’s “In the Secular Night” at A Little of This, A Little of That.

Becky at Farm School is offering Sylvia Plath’s “Mushrooms” as the weather coaxes some out of the ground where she lives.

Categories: Poetry

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