Saturday, March 19, 2011

Two poets speaking



Emily Dickinson radiate
in many ways yesterday.
Here at Tonia's blog,
in the book I'm reading
A Summer of Hummingbirds,
and then in a movie that I
watched last night.

Emily Dickinson's 1870 remark to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911):

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me,
I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

" Emily knew the liquid modernity of where you land~ a time of ocean or wave , moving in the eye of the storm, THIS liminal space are the dashes to consider these moments of pauses. They are essential to humanity. They are the battle against the pragmatic world so value these dashes . We try to edit them out. Stitch them together a fragment of humanity. ( Luke 18) " notes at IAM: Makoto Fujimura on Emily's dashes


I was moved just like Emily's
definition by "Self Help for
Refugees" by Li-Young Lee.
It stirred me to well up with
tears as compassion and metaphor
mixed in my heart and mind.
You can listen here.

2 comments:

walking said...

Within a week, two completely unrelated sources pointed me to "Tell It Slant" by Emily Dickinson. I love when these things happen. It's like a nudge from God.

Bonnie said...

Thanks....I will look up that Emily
poem~