A great deal of poetry today -- all the better because I was able to introduce several people to Wislawa Szymborska whose poetry I enjoy very, very much. The smallish group gathered for lunch were open to and receptive to a selection of Szymborska's poetry that I gave them to look at and read. Later in the day in a class with a dozen women who don't usually read poetry and aren't attuned to the mores sophisticated word play and thought of someone like Szymborska, several chose to offer poems by Mary Oliver, a very accessible and deeply satisfying poet. (in picture above with furry friend) I was happy to hear a number of the women who are not readers of poetry express gladness and delight at hearing several poems that truly spoke to them.
While I love Oliver's nature poems, her relationship with the local fauna especially but also the flora and her prodding the reader to be more self-aware, and I take just every possible opportunity to introduce people to Szymborska, I am going to quote from Tess Gallagher's book
Amplitude:
What Cathal Said
"You can sing sweet
and get the song sung
but to get to the third dimension
you have to sing it
rough, hurt the tune a little. Put
enough strength to it
that the notes slip. Then
something else happens. The song
get large."
