Jan 03, 2013 12:56 PM EST
Oh gosh Teresa, you are so right, especially about Wendell Berry--though I think the first lines to love me were from Mary Oliver's American Primitive. Thanks for making me remember.
- Anne-Marie
Jan 04, 2013 8:19 AM EST
A wise teacher indeed to hand you Wendell Berry. You're off to a great blog!
- Heather
Jan 06, 2013 9:18 AM EST
My poetry exposure is limited. But a line I've always loved is the last of Emma Lazarus' poem on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I even used it in a haiku I wrote last year, after the Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act:
Poor, tired, huddled masses
Now just might get health care, too
Court did the right thing.
- Cari Noga
Jan 16, 2013 4:29 PM EST
May I borrow your line? I, too, am living as sincerely as I can.
- Amy
Jan 16, 2013 5:06 PM EST
"I want to die in the saddle,
an enemy of civilization."
- delp
Jan 16, 2013 8:21 PM EST
You introduced me to Berry and then in subsequent lives I've studied him, read him more and even - did I ever tell you? - met him at least two times in Kentucky. How stunningly small the world of humans is.
And, I will be so bold on your very own blog to say that yours is the poetry that continues to move me. Was just reading last night. Your turns of phrase stick with me...
*self-satisfied horseshit*
*that mile and a half of public sun*
*all kinds of wishes let loose in the room, knocking up against glass doors and animal print wallpaper*
*grief, this knobby bedfellow-all elbows and crowding in the middle*
*into a blessing beyond telling*
*but he's still here, still trying, still one of us*
- Erin Em
Jan 17, 2013 2:05 AM EST
For me, the poem I always remember is Jane Kenyon's "Otherwise" - a chronicle of her day as, I believe, she contemplates her death. "But one day, I know, it will be otherwise." Makes me cry almost every time.
- Rebecca D
Jan 18, 2013 6:32 AM EST
That last line is lovely! I've already copied it into my little notebook for further reflection.
I feel in love with poetry so long ago that I am not sure I can remember the first line that loved me, but I was often moved, as a teenager, by Rilke. In his poem 'Klage' (Lament) both the German and the translation rung and rung and rung in my young heart:
I would like to step out of my heart
an go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is--
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city...
I look forward to following your blog, Teresa. You can find me at www.thepoetryforge.com
- Holly Wren
Feb 15, 2013 11:06 AM EST
Thanks for all of these lovely examples. Delp, where is yours from?
- Teresa Scollon