The weekend offered such a powerful confluence of events (Juneteenth, Mercury going retrograde, the solstice, a solar eclipse, the sun entering Cancer, Father’s Day) that I decided to lay out some cards and see how things might look with a different frame. I used the stunning Dreams of Gaia tarot (a gift from my sister-in-law) and a spread from Whitsunday Oracle.
https://lexpomo.com/poem/reading-for-mercury-in-retrograde/
https://whitsundayoracle.com/2020/06/19/mercury-retrograde-tarot-spread/
With people at home more, the neighborhood has seen a near-continuous progression of home improvement projects. My nerves feel rather frayed by the noise, and I long for the the more soothing sounds of birds and wind and distant highway traffic. But it occurred to me that having such an expectation is a certain kind of privilege: when we lived downtown in a major city, the din of emergency vehicles and garbage trucks and jackhammers was unceasing.
Here’s another found poem, a poem of erasure I suppose, from Stephen Burt’s The Poem is You. The full text may be found in his commentary on p. 171.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged erasure poetry, found poetry, Lexington Poetry Month, LexPoMo, Stephen Burt, The Poem is You
I love creating found poetry from book titles — it’s my favorite thing about working in the library. But catalogs can also be a source of found poetry, so that’s where I turned for today’s poem.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged book catalogs, book titles, found poetry, Lexington Poetry Month, LexPoMo
A recent conversation with my mother reminded me of the incident that forms the framework of this poem. Some details have been changed, largely because they are a tad fuzzy in my own recollection.
I honestly can’t say where this came from. I was catching up on e-mail and reading posts from bloggers I follow, and the first line popped into my head. After that I just followed where it led.
I have envelopes of words, phrases, and images I’ve clipped from magazines since the first of the year, part of a larger project that hasn’t yet been assembled. One of those images caught my eye while I was filing today, and here we are.
I wrestled mightily with a poem yesterday and finally had to put it away; it clearly needs more time to compost. The struggle left me with insufficient time/energy/attention/desire to work on something else to post. C’est la vie.
Taking a more relaxed approach today, I followed a blog post title that caught my eye and ended up with a small bit of found poetry. Sometimes it’s best follow the path of least resistance.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged found poetry, Lesley Wheeler, Lexington Poetry Month, LexPoMo
Yesterday evening, an apparent microburst dropped 2 inches of rain in 15 minutes and snapped trees like matchsticks. We went to bed mourning the expected loss of more than half our trees, but learned in daylight that only two were damaged and one can be saved. This afternoon, a bird flew into a closed upstairs windows; again we feared the worst, and again it wasn’t as bad as we feared. I’m choosing to take this as a sign that things in the wider world might also turn out better than we think.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Lexington Poetry Month, LexPoMo, microburst, yellow-billed cuckoo
Many important things need our attention right now. It’s also important to take breaks periodically so we don’t burn out. I’m grateful to Emily Scott for asking a simple question that reminded me of this.
https://lexpomo.com/poem/buzzmans-holiday/
https://adventuresinbeeland.com/2020/06/09/whats-flowering-now-in-cornwall-late-may-to-early-june/
The Daily Compost 