Welcome to Poetry
My real appreciation of poetry didn’t happen until after my 50th birthday. Now I can’t imagine starting the day without a poem from the likes of Rilke or Mary Oliver, or others who are able to express in words what I can only feel. Hopefully this means I’m finally growing up!
I read poetry because it slows me down and stills me, even as it works inside me. Poetry clears my vision so that I can see more, and farther. Poetry invites me to pay attention to the mystery that is embedded in everyday things and places and people around me. In Mary Oliver’s words, poetry is the tree calling out to me as I’m hurriedly rushing by, saying: “Stay awhile. You too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine”.
Poetry is a way of “thinking with our feelings” (Elizabeth Bishop), of connecting mind with heart as we find words that convey an experience, an idea or a feeling. Poetry has a way of calling you to engage with what’s going on inside, where you are nobody but yourself. Ursula Le Guin makes this comparison: “Science describes accurately from the outside, poetry describes accurately from the inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe”.
For me, this is the magic of a well-written poem: its ability to describe from the inside the experience as I live it on the outside, using carefully chosen words that surprise me and open my vulnerability. As David Whyte has famously said: “Poetry is language against which you have no defenses”.
This poetry section welcomes poems that you want to share, because they mean something to you. These poems may be offered without the need for any explanation on the poem itself. They might even be poems written by you!
Robert, February 2019
A Poem for living: The Layers by Stanley Kunitz
The thoughtful facilitator of our poetry group recently introduced us to Stanley Kunitz. I was grateful for his choice and the opportunity to meet such a profound poet. Our experience with the poet was enhanced by listening to him read his works. The combination of Kunitz’s energetic elderly voice, with its inflections and pauses, along with the imagery of the words made for an insightful discussion.
A Poem by Billy Collins: Osprey
I am a latecomer to the poetry of Billy Collins, but after reading one of his poems for the first time this April, I wondered how I could possibly have missed him! He is a former Poet Laureate of the United States and Poet Laureate of New York State. His poetry is presented as simple observations that are insightful and powerful, often tinged with wit and humour, with multiple layers of meaning. I get the impression that for Collins everything in life, regardless of how mundane, has a poem embedded in it, and is worth being curious about.
‘Everything Comes Next’ – Young People’s Poet Laureate
It’s not necessarily the first section I choose to browse when visiting our local bookstore. Fiction, mysteries, and the latest award winners grab my attention before I think to wander over to check out anything to do with poetry. But that’s changing. This poetic...
‘Sometimes’
I know new year resolutions are a required practice in many cultures. They may be significant to the beginning of your year but personally, I find them quite complicated. Perhaps the process seems artificial, perhaps it’s a lack of discipline, or perhaps they seem...
Vulnerability Poems
This past May, Nexus hosted a global event online where people around the world met to explore the theme of vulnerability through a film, a live concert, and poetry. Our poetry event was wonderfully facilitated by spoken-word poet Brittany Williams of Atlanta. She...
With the Benefit of ‘Kindsight’
'Love After Love' The time will comewhen, with elation,you will greet yourself arrivingat your own door, in your own mirror,and each will smile at the other’s welcome,and say, sit here. Eat.You will love again the stranger who was your self.Give wine. Give bread. Give...
‘Brother Body’
I was reminded recently of my fragility after the coronavirus rudely invited itself into my body and overstayed its welcome for two weeks. I wasn’t my usual self, and my body was also acting in unusual ways. As though it barely knew me – in the words Rilke uses to...
‘Where I Am Going’
Where I Am Going Again the murmur of my own deep life grows stronger, flowing along wider shores. Things grow ever more related to me, and I see farther into their forms. I become more trustful of the nameless. My mind, like a bird, rises from the oak tree into the...
Ten Poems …
My relationship with poetry began poorly, like for many, I am sure. The focus was purely academic, understanding was generated for a test, and the verses were often too complicated for meaning to be easily grasped. Decades passed and I generally ignored this avenue of...
Emily Dickinson on Hope
“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 BirdThat kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in...
I Worried
I Worried I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the riversflow in the right direction, will the earth turnas it was taught, and if not, how shallI correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing, even the...
Insurgent
In this season of the Covid-19 scourge, my front yard plum tree stands in singular and solitary bloom, reminding me of everything that is right in this world. This is the urgency of beauty declaring itself in nature through blossoms, equally expressed in humans...
Wait Without Hope
In solidarity, I take this poem to heart during these difficult days. TS Eliot wrote it during World War II, when things still looked dark, and yet… To me it speaks of not jumping to easy answers when I do not know what will happen, but to see the waiting itself as part of the journey of life
Pure Gravy
“The idea for the poem had come from a conversation we’d had while sitting on the deck facing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, taking stock. “You remember telling me how you almost died before you met me?” I asked him. “It could’ve ended back then and we’d never even have met. None of this would have happened.”
Late Fragment
Surely Carver did not ask for this at age 50 – but how often do any of us get exactly what we ask for in life? Yet in the end he knows that what he has desired in life has also been given him – to feel that he is beloved. I’ve treasured this poem for a long time. In such simple and poignant words it shows me a man
A Coronavirus Haiku
My wife teaches 3rd grade at an excellent international school, Western Academy in Beijing. Because of the ongoing virus situation all schools in China are currently closed to attendance, but are conducting online classes.
‘This Only’ (Czeslaw Milosz)
Is there a place I arrive at in life where, like a traveller with a map in hand, I can identify for myself what is “this only“ thing I want in my life? To see it “purely and simply”, to feel its joy and rhythm? This poem invites me to arrive at such a “this only” stage on my journey.
‘My-ness’
The poetry of Czeslaw Milosz is fairly new to me, and leaves me wondering how I could have missed him for so long. What strikes me in this poem is the here-ness and now-ness of the moment that has brought him the sense of feeling joy in being alive on earth.
Why a doctor writes poetry
So I'm a 50 something wife, mum, and physician currently in general practice. I write because writing to me feels like living. I write when things are hard because strong emotions almost write themselves. I also write about the happy and astounding or inexplicable...
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?
I was bought "A Year of Reading Aloud" as a gift last Christmas. It is an anthology of 52 poems; with the idea of memorising one per week. Six months on I have just finished memorising my first poem! I was drawn to this because of its emphasis on pausing and being...
Faith is …
János Pilinszky, one of the most important Hungarian poets of the 20th century, defined faith as "intensely refined vision". It’s what Bach had, he said, that enabled him to produce such brilliant music. What Bach imagined inwardly, he realised physically in notes...
Now I Become Myself
Now I Become Myself Now I become myself,It's taken time, many years and places,I've been dissolved and shaken,Worn other people's faces,Now I become myself. May Sarton Some questions for reflection: Why is now the time to become yourself? Why is it hard to...
Good fences make …
My friend and I were tossing around ideas from the morning news, and we came inevitably to the subject of walls. I recalled the old saying: ‘good fences make good neighbours’ He looked at me, confused, and asked, ‘where did that come from?’ Having grown up in Southern...
A Hattyú – The Swan
Szemléld a hattyút a víznél, és csodát láthatsz kibontakozni. A parton még ügyetlenül totyogott a víz felé, sután és elveszetten, egyensúlyából ki-kibillenve. A vízhez érve aztán egy pillanat alatt kiveszett belőle az esetlenség: hangtalanul átalakult higgadt...
Adesso Divento Me Stesso
Che immenso piacere suonare con amici e per amici. Un venerdì sera tre jazzisti, io alla tromba, Salvatore al basso, e Peo alla chitarra, ci siamo trovati per condividere delle composizioni originali con un pubblico caloroso, pieno dei sorrisi di molte persone che ho...
too wonderful for words
A reflection by Robert Thiessen, May 2017 “Words are too wonderful for words. The vibrant translation of things to ideas”. (Mary Oliver, poet) The right words can blindside you with their beauty and meaning, and you gasp. This happened to me recently when reading...