Reading Emily Dickinson

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I was browsing through Poetry Daily and clicked on a link to this article, by Sandra Lim, and found this image:

Having just spent February writing peace postcard poems and sending them out daily (yes, that is a thing), having spent a good deal of my adult life obsessing about Emily Dickinson, I felt as though Sandra was speaking directly to me.

“Make it new,” Ezra Pound said. But that’s what the best poetry always does.

Lim’s article includes (in the yellow box) a writing prompt. So excuse me while I go scribble (some more).

Where have you been, Bethany?

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I have been working on taking deep breaths that go all the way down through my toes and back up through the crown of my head.

I have been reading poems because it is National Poetry Month and each morning copying someone’s poem into my journal then writing my own “bad” version of it.

I have making homemade enchiladas and eating them with my daughters and their various friends and boyfriends.

I’ve been moving my furniture around in my house and seeing if I can get something like a “flow” going. (I think it has helped.)

I have been walking every day and snapping pictures on my I-phone and not remembering to share them on Instagram.

I’ve (gasp) shared several chapters of my mystery novel and now my first two readers are saying, “C’mon, where’s the rest? No fair!”

I have been reading my poems here and there and listening to other poets read their poems.

I’ve been working on the memory and picture book I told my siblings I would do for our parents…working on it at a snail’s pace.

I have actually been sleeping at night (most nights), in my own bed, and without resorting to watching Amazon Prime videos on my Kindle.

I have been practicing the piano and learning (very, very slowly and rather poorly) Ashokan Farewell.

I’ve gone to memorial services and Sunday church services, and Maundy Thursday and felt guilty about not doing more.

I’ve been weeding flowerbeds.

I’ve been reading Ruth Rendell mysteries.

 

I’ve been…

 

What about you?

 

https://www2.bethanyareid.com

Featured Photo by Susanne Jutzeler from Pexels

 

Join Us!

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Just a reminder that I’ll be reading my poems, along with poet Karen Whalley, tomorrow, Saturday, 13 April, noon-1:00, at Edmonds Bookshop.

Karen is an amazing poet and I can’t believe my luck at being her long-time friend. To read more about her, click here–or come join us!

 

“I’ve been waiting for years for Karen Whalley’s second collection to be published. These beautifully clear, meditative poems have it all; dexterously situated in daily experience, they meet with the difficulties of lived life, over and over with a deep, often heartbreakingly honest and humane insightfulness. Fluent, full of breakthroughs and surprises, these extraordinary poems never seem to falter; Whalley is an extraordinary poet, and this is a book in a thousand.” — Tony Hoagland

Emergency Poem

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My friend, Francine Walls, sent me this poem. She wrote it for her son, who works in the desert,
but I’ve found it mighty useful, right here at home. To learn more about Francine, click on her name.

Emergency Poem

This is the poem for emergencies,
like the spare batteries and extra gas
you pack when you drive into the wilderness.

When you discover you are lost,
you can press any word in this poem,
and walk beside calm waters.

This poem does not have
water, food, shelter or energy bars,
yet courage is hidden in every line.

Before you crumple up this poem,
feeling danger north, south, west, east,
remember love’s gift to you: your next breath.

-Francine E. Walls