Welcome to Litsy!

I have to ask my library where they are getting these marvelous pins. 🩷 New ones this month.

What an inspiring voice and spirit! Her words are filled with anger, beauty, grief and passion, and she can make the act of reading and bearing witness feel sacred and powerful.

#turtle #poetrymatters @TheSpineView

#turquoise #poetrymatters @TheSpineView

Memories of powerful language and imagery…this volume takes us through the whole of the poet‘s life, reflecting on what has changed and how she has grown, with profound, slippery themes—rapidly shifting within one single poem—and narratives that are sometimes difficult to follow but still graspable.

You can feel how she set the tone for what popular poetry would go on to become. Oftentimes dense, I find it overwhelming as well as inspiring….

Some women wait for themselves
around the next corner
and call the empty spot peace
but the opposite of living
is only not living
and the stars do not care.

Some women wait for something
to change and nothing
does change
so they change
themselves.

The first time I touched my sister alive
I was sure the earth took note
but we were not new
false skin peeled off like gloves of fire
yoked flame I was
stripped to the tips of my fingers
her song written into my palms my nostrils my belly
welcome home
in a language I was pleased to relearn.

Father the year has fallen.
Leaves bedeck my careful flesh like stone.
One shard of brilliant summer pierced me
and remains.
By this only
unregenerate bone
I am not dead, but waiting.
When the last warmth is gone
I shall bear in the snow.

#PoetryMatters Day 11: #Paper

“and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive“

Remembering Audre Lorde on her birthday.

I am opting for intentions over resolutions this new year. And one of my reading intentions is to do a deeper dive into some poets I like but only know a little. I'm starting with Audre Lorde. No real plan or goal, just seeing where it takes me.
Here is the full text of Lorde's poem
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/Poems/42583/a-woman-speaks
#magic #poetrymatters @TheSpineView

I love looking at pics of peoples‘ book stacks. I look to see which ones I‘ve read. I look to see what kinds of titles and authors the person chooses to get a feel for what that person might be like. Here are a few shots from some of my shelves ☺️

This was a challenging read but well worth it. The language is really rich and dense, and often really oblique (I didn't quite 'get' a lot of it, I have to admit), but very powerful.

Apparently the cricket isn't going so well. #BooksAndBooze

#BooksAndBooze

Next up #PrideMonth #BlackLivesMatter

Went for this instead.

I‘m more apt to appreciate poetry when I‘ve read it, aloud, and if to another person more vulnerably so.

Canter and tone, voice, pace, meaning.

Commentary. Pause [] touch

How I read, what you see, hear. Experience. Purpose or need. How can you say I speak not of my feelings? There they are, unshattered or broken. Bits mingling in the exchange. I can see them, right there, and you can reach and touch and that‘s a kind of conveyance, there.

Fellow #littens please welcome a newcomer to the family, @CeeVee 😍 CV posts about powerful poetry, social justice manifestos, and memoirs on ig, so of course Litsy is a natural platform progression, right? #LitsyWelcomeWagon

Came across this beautiful poem by the activist, novelist and poet.
#quotsyfeb18 #soft

#PoetWarriors

#riotgrams #blackhistorymonth #audrelorde

Spotted at Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI.

Not watching the US debate because I simply can't handle it. I'm practicing self-care instead. Sending care, solidarity and love to those who are watching and listening 💓💓💓