| 50 Book Pledge | Book #25: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern |
Posted in Literary Art | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Daniel Pennac, Erin Morgenstern, Night Circus, Quentin Blake, The Rights of the Reader | Leave a Comment »
| 50 Book Pledge | Book #24: My Brother’s Book by Maurice Sendak |
In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “Touch Me” from Collected Poems by Stanley Kunitz.
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that’s late,
it is my song that’s flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it’s done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
Posted in Poetry | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Collected Poems, Maurice Sendak, My Brother's Book, National Poetry Month, Stanley Kunitz, Touch Me | Leave a Comment »
| 50 Book Pledge | Book #23: The House Girl by Tara Conklin |
In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “Dreams” from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes.
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Posted in Poetry | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Dreams, Langston Hughes, National Poetry Month, Tara Conklin, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, The House Girl | Leave a Comment »
| 50 Book Pledge | Book #22: We Live in Water by Jess Walter |
In honour of National Poetry Month and Earth Day, on Monday, April 22, I present “The Moment” from Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood.
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
Posted in Poetry | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Earth Day, Jess Walter, Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House, National Poetry Month, The Moment, We Live in Water | Leave a Comment »
| 50 Book Pledge | Book #20: Killdeer by Phil Hall |
In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “The Story of Old Women” from Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Różewicz, translated by Joanna Trzeciak.
I like old women
ugly women
mean womenthey are the salt of the earth
they are not disgusted by
human wastethey know the flipside
of the coin
of love
of faithdictators clown around
come and go
hands stained
with human bloodold women get up at dawn
buy meat fruit bread
clean cook
stand on the street
arms folded silentold women
are immortalHamlet flails in a snare
Faust plays a base and comic role
Raskolnikov strikes with an axeold women
are indestructible
they smile knowinglygod dies
old women get up as usual
at dawn they buy bread wine fish
civilization dies
old women get up at dawn
open the windows
cart away waste
man dies
old women
wash the corpse
bury the dead
plant flowers
on gravesI like old women
ugly women
mean womenthey believe in eternal life
they are the salt of the earth
the bark of a tree
the timid eyes of animalscowardice and bravery
greatness and smallness
they see in their proper proportions
commensurate with the demands
of everyday life
their sons discover America
perish at Thermopylae
die on the crossconquer the cosmos
old women leave at dawn
for the city to buy milk bread meat
season the soup
open the windowsonly fools laugh
at old women
ugly women
mean womenbecause these beautiful women
kind women
old women
are like an ovum
a mystery devoid of mystery
a sphere that rolls onold women
are mummies
of sacred catsthey’re either small
withered
dry springs
dried fruit
or fat
round buddhasand when they die
a tear rolls down
a cheek
and joins
a smile on the face
of a young woman
Posted in Poetry | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Joanna Trzeciak, Killdeer, National Poetry Month, Phil Hall, Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Różewicz, The Story of Old Women | Leave a Comment »
| 50 Book Pledge | Book #19: Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility by Théodora Armstrong |
In honour of National Poetry Month, I present “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Posted in Poetry | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Clear Skies No Wind 100% Visibility, Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers, National Poetry Month, Théodora Armstrong | Leave a Comment »
| 50 Book Pledge | Book #13: Dear Life by Alice Munro |
I present a passage from Random House Canada‘s The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.
That’s one of the amazing things great books like this do—they just don’t get you to see the world differently, they get you to look at people, the people around you, differently.
Posted in Web of Words | Tagged 50 Book Pledge, Alice Munro, Dear Life, Random House Canada, The End of Your Life Book Club, Will Schwalbe | Leave a Comment »
