{"id":1011332,"date":"2023-04-11T17:25:59","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T22:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=1011332&preview=true&preview_id=1011332"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:12:25","slug":"joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Joy<\/span><\/h2>\n
Joy bubbles up - fresh water from a cool well\r\nSprings from the fertile earth to swell nascent\r\nSeeds of satisfaction, warmth, contentment.\r\n\r\nJoy leaps a fountain from the heart - it frolics,\r\nAs a hart in sun-dappled woods, alert;\r\nYoung and strong, passions awakened.\r\n\r\nJoy suffuses parched, cracked places\r\nQuenches the thirst of the dull, dry ground\r\nRenews the aging heart in Spring.<\/pre>\n
\u2014 Holly Jahangiri (April 11, 2023)<\/em><\/p>\n
Author's Note<\/strong>: Today's featured image is a collaboration with Midjourney. I fed it the entirety of today's poem; it gave me this marvelous image of childhood joy! Sometimes, AI isn't so bad.<\/p>\n
Sometimes<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Today's Poets<\/h2>\n
Edward Smyth Jones<\/strong> - it's hard to imagine anyone more determined to attend Harvard than Jones. \"Arriving travel-worn, friendless, moneyless, hungry, he was preparing to bivouac on the Harvard campus his first night in the University city, when, being misunderstood, and not believed, he was apprehended as a vagabond and thrown into jail.\" It was there that he wrote the poem, \"Harvard Square.\" Read more here<\/a>.<\/sup><\/p>\n
Harvard Square by Edward Smyth Jones (poetry.com)<\/a><\/p>\n
The African-American poet who travelled 1,200 miles to Harvard, only to be thrown in jail | Aeon Videos<\/a><\/p>\n
June Millicent Jordan<\/b>\u00a0- was an American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist who explored themes like gender, race, immigration, and representation in her work.\u00a0<\/sup>Jordan used\u00a0Black English<\/a>\u00a0in her writing and poetry, considering it an important outlet for expressing Black culture. She was inducted on the\u00a0National LGBTQ Wall of Honor<\/a>\u00a0within the\u00a0Stonewall National Monument<\/a>\u00a0in 2019. Read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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April is National Poetry Month<\/a>. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo<\/a> - 30 days of writing poems - is poets' answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).<\/p>\n
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge<\/a>, 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.\u00a0You can see the list of participants<\/a> - I'm sure they'd love it if you'd visit and comment on their blogs.<\/p>\n
This month, my goal is to:<\/p>\n
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  1. Write a poem a day and share it - uncurated<\/a> - here; and<\/li>\n
  2. Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    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.<\/p>\n
    Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers<\/em>, 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!)<\/p>\n
     <\/p>\n