Dear friends,
I’ve loved reading through your notes and comments this week, all the items that hold all the experiences: small things; homes; pens; shovels; bits of paper; messages; a body; an emptiness; a grave; a ring; a chair. Thank you.
As it happens, someone came up to me as I was checking in at an airport yesterday and said, “Is this the bag?” And we admired the bag! And talked about poetry. He’s on his way to lead a group on the Camino. After having chatted for a few minutes, I was struck by the containers we carry things in: bags, wallets, pockets, mouths.
The two Poetry Unbound offerings this week — Kay Ulanday Barrett’s pantoum, and John Lee Clark’s prose poem — continue on a theme that has been so consistent throughout many of the choices of poems in the seasons of Poetry Unbound: noticing, and noticing your noticing. Kay Ulanday Barrett’s exquisite usage of the form of pantoum shows how it is that changing the sequence of the stories we notice and tell ourselves can change the final word given to that same story. The trajectory of a narrative is made new by something old: that Malaysian form of brilliance, the pantoum.
And John Lee Clark’s poem gives a sensory map of a morning: on the one hand, it’s an ordinary morning, but on the other hand, it’s a birthday morning, so there’s a special attention to the ordinary things of that day.
So — one because of form, and one because of a special day — a story is reflected upon in a new light.
My question this week is: “What helps you see things in a new way?”
It might be that you take a moment every year on your birthday to reflect, and that ritual offers you perspective. Or maybe there’s a place you go to annually that helps you reflect. Or maybe you write a sonnet, and that helps, or you go to therapy weekly, or you schedule a seasonal phone call with a friend whose point of view enlightens…
There are certain festivals I go to every year that have a sense of annual pilgrimage for me. They’re arts festivals, but I’m so used to the fields they’re held in, the smell of the marquees where music happens, the familiar faces, that those trips are containers in themselves for reflection. I’m on my way to one of them this weekend, the Solas Festival, near Perth in Scotland.
I’ll be curious to hear what your practices for cultivating noticing are.
Pádraig
The Latest from Poetry Unbound
Episodes 07 & 08
You can also listen on Spotify, poetryunbound.org, or wherever podcasts are found.
Poetry in the World
England
The “You” of Prayer; the “You” of Poetry | London
Londoners, join me on June 29 at the Meditatio Centre for an exploration of prayers and poems through the lens of the lyric address — the “you” at the heart of this most intimate of conversations. If you’re unable to join in person, there’s an online option (and a recording will be sent to all who register). 6:30-9pm, details and registration here.
Poetry Unbound at St. Luke’s | Brighton
I’ll next be in Brighton at St. Luke’s Prestonville, for a reading and chat around the Poetry Unbound book. Would love to see you there: June 30, 7pm. Details and registration here.
Poetry Unbound Live at Southbank | London
This July 23 event has been sold out. I look forward to seeing you who registered, and am sorry to miss you who were unable to.
Save the date
Open Your World with Poetry | Rhinebeck, NY
I’ll be back at the Omega Institute in New York leading another weeklong retreat, October 1-6. Discussions, readings, and writing sessions exploring the place of poetry, craft, language, and form in our lives. Each day, you’ll examine poems — some well known and other lesser known — and explore the artistry behind them. You’ll delve beyond the how of a poem and look at the why of a poem. Why did it need to be written? What does this poem explore about being human? What is the intuition and intelligence of this poem? What is its hunger? There’ll be prompts for you to respond to. Open for all who love writing or reading poetry — or want to! While the format and numbers will be similar to 2022’s event, we will include small groups, and the poems and prompts will be different to the previous year. Details, registration, and information about scholarships here.
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Read more in Pádraig’s recent letter.
One boring winter afternoon, I took my five-year-old daughter to the local ice rink. As she and a little friend skated off for a loop together, I sat and noticed: her happy clompy steps, her favorite woolen hat nearly covering her eyes, the laughter bubbling out of her. Wanting to bottle the moment up, I grabbed my phone, titled a new Note “Favorite Moments,” and added the short reminder “Ava ice skating.” A week or two later, another entry, this time simply the title of a poem that made me laugh out loud. Then came the green chili cheeseburgers on a birthday trip with an old friend, then the sweetness of my son giggling as he read Calvin & Hobbes with a flashlight under the covers, then the first ruby-throated hummingbird at the feeder that spring.
That winter day was over a dozen years ago. Each year’s list has gotten longer as the practice has made me better at noticing joy and delight. These noticed moments, digitally bottled and lined up together, took the edges off some dark and turbulent years. At my funeral, I imagine the lists enlarged onto giant post-it notes that fill the room. A life of moments, noticed.
I have a lot of friends who are performance artists -- dancers, drag queens and kings, burlesque performers... They've created an incredible platform for what they do, and I go see their performances once or twice a month. I always feel transported by the way they offer themselves to the world with magnificence, yes, but also with sadness, ache and deep humanity. They've taught me a lot about truth and artifice, about accepting what's in you, letting it breathe and looking out at the world through your own eyes. They have access to a freedom I'm still learning, and I feel like they are my therapists. They've really helped me see myself and the world in new ways, and I'm so grateful for them.