#AboutABook #OfPoetry A trio of used finds , fairly recent.
Eggs Excellent 👌🏼 4mo
vivastory I used to read a lot of Rexroth 💙 3mo
Leftcoastzen @vivastory love beats and pre-beats & beats adjacent 3mo
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#AboutABook #OfPoetry A trio of used finds , fairly recent.
I just cringed and my heart was broken when I saw how my boxes of books were being handled 💔😢
pickDonald Hall, the former poet laureate of the United States, lost his wife of 22 years to leukemia. Also a poet, Jane Kenyon, almost avoided their marriage because she feared a long widowhood. But life took her at 47 and Donald Hall lived into his 90‘s. His sadness and devastation is evident in this book of poems. Yet, it also shows the immense love he had for her.
Weeds and Peonies
“Your peonies burst out, white as snow
squalls,
with red flecks at their shaggy centers
in your border of prodigies by the porch.
I carry one magnanimous blossom indoors
and float it in a glass bowl, as you used to do.”
#poemsbeforephones
Not a lot of time for @DeweysReadathon but did start the day with this book, and will continue reading throughout the day. Good luck to all!
Letter In Autumn
“ Looking south
from your stone, I gaze at the file
of eight enormous sugar maples
that rage and flare in dark noon,
the air grainy with mist
like the rain of Seattle‘s winter.
The trees go on burning
without ravage of loss or disorder.
I wish you were that birch
rising from the clump behind you,
and I the grey oak alongside.”
#poemsbeforephones
SONG FOR LUCY
By Donald Hall
She nursed so well, I loved
being sick. Freud said
A man thrives his whole life
if he received as a child
“his mother‘s entire devotion.”
#poemsbeforephones
Starting a new book of poetry by a former poet laureate of the United States. He wrote this book to and for his wife who died from leukemia. Moving, sad, yet a beautiful tribute to love. #closetoyou #anglophileapril
Love's Progress
When love empties itself out
It fills our bodies full.
For an hour we lie twining
pulse and skin together
like nurslings who sigh
and doze, dreamy with milk.
Donald Hall's last collection of poetry. This was my favorite poem in the collection. Overall, I thought the collection was so-so. Definitely my least favorite Hall collection.
#poetry
The epigraph to my third novel, PAST THE BLEACHERS, in honor of the talented, kind, and insightful #DonaldHall, who passed away today. #RIP, Donald. You were a gift to us all. This is from his beautiful essay, “Fathers Playing Catch with Sons.”
