kcecelia - Tumblr blog

[kcecelia]

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart. Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done. Remember treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

—Dan Albergotti, The Boatloads

[kcecelia]

#resist

[kcecelia]

C. D. Wright, born on this day in 1949. Read her work at Poets.org.

[kcecelia]

Happy New Year from Northern California. #2017

[kcecelia]

Roxane Gay. From The New York Times: “The Audacity of Hopelessness” Now it’s time to fight.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/the-audacity-of-hopelessness

[kcecelia]

VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. #vote #imwithher #exerciseyourright

[kcecelia]

© 2010 Speak Truth to Power, a project of NYSUT and the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. http://blogs.nysut.org/sttp/defenders/john-lewis/

[kcecelia]

To avoid starting work, I sometimes stop for coffee at a nearby cafe. I am very fond of the morose Italian waiter, and always ask him: ‘How are you today?’ He stops to think about this, and always replies: 'I don’t know.’ As far as I’m concerned, his answer is an example of magnificent writing. It sets me up for the day.

Deborah Levy (The Guardian, 2016)

[kcecelia]

This is beautiful.

Fear of Flowers Part 1

[kcecelia]

Experiments in pauses: Falling in love with solid ground until 4 September 2016. #davidwhyte #poetry #astonishment #love #solidground

[kcecelia]

Starting today, 4 May—I’m writing this early 5 May, but you get the idea—I’m taking ninety days off all social media to reassess and re-enter my own life.

Joining Twitter in 2009 saved my life in multiple ways more literal than figurative. I was depressed, isolated, struggling with severe PTSD. Things were so bad I had no idea how bad they were.

Joining Twitter was intended to be a short experiment in learning a new technology. Instead, it became an experiment in connection, kindness, love, and seeing myself in new ways through the eyes of generous, compassionate strangers. Some of those strangers are now in-real-life friends, some remain virtual but as beloved as if we’d met, some are delightful acquaintances. All of you make me laugh, think in new ways, and introduce me to new things I would not otherwise know about. I’m grateful for all of it.

If you’d like to correspond by snail mail, please send me your address via private message on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. I’ll check those locations for the first week I’m off, but I won’t be online.

And, since I make sense of the world through poetry. Here is a poem for you by William Stafford. It speaks to the new glimpse, starting here, in this room, that I want for myself now. I wish you the same.

YOU READING THIS, BE READY

Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found; carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life—

What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

William Stafford. Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford. Graywolf Press.

[kcecelia]

Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. It is also Independent Bookstore Day. That makes today the perfect day to buy a book from your independent bookstore, or order a poetry book from an independent publisher. @copper_canyon_press and @graywolfpress are my favorites. This poetry book, C. D. Wright's STEAL AWAY, came from Copper Canyon Press wrapped in brown paper with their pressmark, the Chinese character for poetry, which combines the ideograms for word and for temple, stamped in red ink on the paper. The time they took to wrap my book and stamp it, remind me of Garrison Keillor's words: "Books are a gift you can open again and again." #indepentbookstoreday #nationalpoetrymonth #books #poetry #cdwright

[kcecelia]

National Poetry Month. 30 April 2016. C. D. Wright from Everything Good Between Men and Women. #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poetsorg #cdwright

[kcecelia]

National Poetry Month. 29 April 2016. Margaret Atwood from Variation on the Word Sleep. #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poetsorg #margaretatwood

[kcecelia]

National Poetry Month. 28 April 2016. Tess Gallagher from Under Stars. #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poetsorg #tessgallagher

[kcecelia]

National Poetry Month. 27 April 2016. Raymond Carver from Happiness. #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poetsorg #raymondcarver

[kcecelia]

National Poetry Month. 26 April 2016. T. S. Eliot from The Dry Salvages the third poem of The Four Quartets. #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry #poetsorg #tseliot