"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Posts tagged ‘Blessings’

Sometimes the Day is the Poem <3

Whatsoever you do….

Daily Prompt Love <3 It Droppeth As a Gentle Rain

21 July 2019 

For Mercy has a human heart,/Pity, a human face:/ And Love, the human form divine,/And Peace, the human dress.–William Blake

Make art about mercy, about showing mercy, about receiving mercy, about the power of mercy. 

mercy

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

Daily Prompt Love <3 Make It Yourself

17 March 2019 

Make art about luck, about feeling lucky, or about making your own luck. 

luck

Daily Prompt Love x 2

24 February 2018

Make art about what’s right there in the palm of your hand. 

palm of your hand

 

25 February 2018

Make art about peeling back the layers. 

layers

 

Daily Prompt Love <3 Seeking Solace

26 July 2017

The world is in so much pain right now, so much anger, so much fear. If I am not mindful, that collective despair will weigh down on my back, settle ’round my shoulders like a yoke, until it chokes me, and I am become part of the problem, rather than doing what I think I should–choosing light, choosing peace, choosing Love–doing all that I can to be a force for compassion and Love in this world. So I have to make sure that I care for myself, body and spirit. I personally seek solace in the natural world, in my garden.

It reminds me, daily, that we are made not from our successes, but from the narrative of learning embodied in failure, every lush, red tomato now the product of years on my knees, learning, lessons gifted by seeds that did not germinate, rain that did not fall, soil that wasn’t ready, woodlings that wandered in and ate the fruit, reminders of my rent being due, for sharing this space.

Reward, and humility, in equal share, mistakes and losses, the cost of carelessness, the reminder that I own no space alone in my time on this planet, reside always in the garden. But even more, for me, in that small space, dwells possibility. Even in the darkest winter months, I imagine what will come, with spring. I find solace in the garden’s persistent gift, the imagining of an unimaginable future.

Make art about where you find solace. 

abundabce

Happy National Poetry Month! A Blessing

Has to start with one of all time favorite poems ❤ 

A Blessing
by James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.   
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me   
And nuzzled my left hand.   
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
ponies

Monday Must Read! Gabrielle Brant Freeman, When She Was Bad

gabbyAnd we’re back—with the amazing Gabrielle Brant Freeman, author of the stunning debut collection When She Was Bad. Gabrielle’s poetry has been published in many journals, most recently in Barrelhouse, Hobart, Melancholy Hyperbole, Rappahannock Review, storySouth, and Waxwing. She was nominated twice for the Best of the Net, and she was a 2014 finalist. Gabrielle won the 2015 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition. Press 53 published her first book, When She Was Bad, in 2016. Gabrielle earned her MFA through Converse College.

Visit Gabrielle’s Website

http://gabriellebrantfreeman.squarespace.com/

Buy Gabrielle’s Beautiful Book! At Press 53!

http://www.press53.com/Gabrielle_Brant_Freeman.html

Praise for When She Was Bad

Lust. Love. Betrayal and loyalty. Temptation and hilarity. Gabrielle Freeman dissects her speakers’ hearts, tenderly, with supreme attention to what it is to be human, female, and fierce. Gabrielle Freeman’s poems are bad–by which I mean badass bold. Michael Jackson bad. Freeman’s bad and you know it. That’s why you read her. When She Was Bad is a smart, compassionate, tightly crafted and explosive debut. — Denise Duhamel

Read More from Gabby Online

http://gabriellebrantfreeman.squarespace.com/poems-1/

http://ciderpressreview.com/tag/gabrielle-freeman/#.WBc8rdUrKM8

http://www.chagrinriverreview.com/gabrielle-freeman.html

Hear Gabby Read!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnC84HvJl94

You don’t want to miss this poet!

Happy Reading!

xo

Mary

 

Daily Prompt <3 Kindness, Peace, and Blessings

Happy Last Day of National Poetry Month 2016! Although, of course, I think every month is Poetry Month, and every day is Poetry Day 🙂

The prompts will continue 🙂 But since I started with one of my top three favorite poems (Power by Adrienne Rich), I have to close out this month long celebration with the other two poems that fill out my top What-Poems-Would-You-Take-To-A-Deserted-Island three. 

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

 

And….what may be my favorite (if I have to pick) poem ❤ 

A Blessing

James Wright, 19271980

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Make art about kindness, blessings, peace. 

 

Sometimes the Prompt Reminds Us Who We Are

Daily Prompt

Make art about the flow of energy.

You are the Poem, You are the Song <3

We’re One, but we’re not the same
We get to  Carry each other Carry each other ❤

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