Rise
There’s brittle soup in her bones.
Her marrow’s been sucked dry
And no one listens, not even Ben
(The night orderly) whose paltry paycheck
Is the trickle-down
From her paltry pension and
A reverse-mortgage that somehow
(She can’t remember details) turns
Her tidy kitchen into Ben’s
Pregnant girlfriend’s gel nails.
She wonders if the girl can cook
And wishes she could will herself
To rise up, scrape her rice-paper skin
From the mechanical bed
To throw open the window,
Unfurl her wings,
Inhale the night
And fly. But even dreams
These days
Take work
And breath
And time she doesn’t have.
— Holly Jahangiri (April 20, 2023)
Today’s Poets
Francine Ringold
– 15th poet laureate of the State of Oklahoma. In 1966, Ringold became the editor of Nimrod, the literary magazine of the University of Tulsa, where she earned her Ph.D. Ringold went on to edit Nimrod and teach at the University of Tulsa for nearly 50 years. I was lucky enough to be one of her students – in a playwriting class, not in poetry. I’m not sure how I passed; Fran once said, of dialogue I wrote verbatim from a conversation with my college roommate, “Nobody talks like that.” Little did she know! But in fact, I’m a better poet than I am a playwright, despite her efforts and her kindness in not flunking me. Read more here.
Official Website of Francine Leffler Ringold, Ph.D.: Poems (francineringold.info)
Adrienne Rich – author of numerous collections of poetry, Adrienne Rich wrote poems examining such things as women’s role in society, racism, politics, and war. Read more here.
Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich – Poems | poets.org
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
I can’t imagine dreams taking so much effort. That is so sad. Loved that trickle-down reference!
Cheers,
Mitch
Right – I went years without dreaming (or at least, without remembering my dreams). I think that happens when we’re stressed or exhausted enough that we spend more time in deep or light sleep, and almost none in REM sleep. I can remember when I started dreaming again, and was SO relieved it hadn’t been a permanent condition! (I like my dreams – even the nightmares! I mean, with nightmares, it’s such a relief to wake up!) That “trickle down” reference just came to me – it’s so sad, the state of elder care in the US, isn’t it?
Holly, your posts just started to appear for me in the WordPress Reader. The community for WordPress. I hope you know this place. The only problem, er, situation, I have is there’s no way to leave you comments there. It is disabled. And seeing how I am running out of energy this month… anyway, I am so happy you are here. Your words and images. Glorious. BYW, like your words:
“April hints of hope,
Flirts promises
Unfulfilled
and
yet…”
I am a fool for April TOO! Your words are lovely, Holly. And so are the images.
Thanks for sharing. And keep going, dearest. Divinely lovely, your words are. xoxo
Thank you! Yes, I prefer not to have two comments systems on my blog. This is self-hosted WordPress, not on WordPress.com, and I had disabled Jetpack till just recently over a misunderstanding of changes in the plug-in. So I’m glad you’re getting the notices, at least! And it’s more important to me that you enjoy the poems and posts than that you race around like the Energizer Bunny to keep up! It’s almost May, and you are always welcome here, Selma.
Did this fix things, Selma? I just got home and twiddled with a few settings on the site – maybe that helps?
I love those last 4 lines especially.
Thank you, Anne! I have no idea why your comments kept landing in Spam or why I only now saw that they did – forgive me. I appreciate your visiting, reading, and commenting!
What a powerful and poignant poem!
Thank you, Deborah!
Today’s poem and the image are made for each other, Holly. Brilliant poem!
Yes, sometimes dreams do take a lot of work and time. 🙁