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Collecting and Responding to Poetry with Naomi Shihab Nye

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 9, 2011 in Blog, Healing Poetry

A video arrived in my email box a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of The Academy of American Poets: One excerpt in particular strikes me: I can never imagine how someone would fall in love with poetry and stop reading poems. But I think that people often talk themselves out of a bit of responding, which I also think is as important as collecting. We collect poems that encourage us to think in a way we need to think, or look at the world. But then we also allow ourselves—whatever our circumstances, or whatever our past history with writing—to write a little bit. I love that. The importance of collecting. But then to take it the next step. To write a little. To allow ourselves to write a little. Whatever our circumstances. I think something happens when we write in response to a poem—at least I’ve noticed this in myself. For one thing, I read the poem more carefully. I begin to hear the words and rhythms of it inside my head. The poem becomes more a part of me. I think there are a number of ways that we get “talked out” of responding to poetry. Sometimes we’ve had bad experiences with this in the past (and mostly with teachers, I’m afraid). Sometimes we think the experts own it—or that we could never know enough to respond. But we do know enough. My high school students, for instance, know enough. I know enough. We all do. At the very least, we each contain a storehouse of experiences and perceptions (we’re the expert on those) and we know enough to begin to make connections from the poem to this storehouse. Or we know enough to begin to make connections to other poems—or to books or movies or to a fragment of overheard conversation. We know enough to ask questions. To wonder about a poem. To speculate. I wonder what she was thinking when she wrote this. I wonder what she was feeling. I wonder who she had in mind as she was writing. I wonder why I chose to collect this poem. I think something powerful can happen when we begin to collect and respond to poetry. When we begin to keep notebooks—or folders with scraps of paper. When we begin to intercalate our own words between and among the words of the poets. And then when we begin to share these. See also: A Secret About What A Poem Can Do to Us. A piece about Michelle Bloom’s song, Last Night As I Was Sleeping, which shows what can be created out of a response to a poem. The Academy of American...

A Secret About What a Poem Can Do to Us

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 2, 2011 in Blog, Healing Poetry

I am returning to Antonio Machado’s poem, “Last Night As I Was Sleeping,” because I found yet another interpretation of the poem. In this case, not a different translation but a kind of collaboration with the poem to create something new. Michelle Bloom, a singer songwriter, has taken the poem and transformed it into a song. She’s used Robert Bly’s translation, but then twice, between stanzas, she’s inserted a chorus that she herself has written. She introduces her song this way: Inspired by the idea of making a moment, a “We” out of the quiet, internal act of reading a poem, this song seemed to come out of a dusty road in the Spanish countryside that Machado walked with the children he taught in a one-room schoolhouse. In the chorus I imagined Machado or The Poet, Universal, to suddenly interrupt the poem and turn toward the reader, eager to tell us a secret about what a poem can do to us, how it becomes not words on a page, but a living moment, embodied. I love this idea of an imagined interruption. She imagines Machado or a Poet interrupting. At the same time, it’s she herself interrupting and offering us something new. How lovely is that. She’s taken the “quiet, internal act of reading a poem” and used this to add another layer to the poem. That secret hinted at—what a poem can do—if we begin to sing it ourselves, and feel it. See also: Last Night As I Was Sleeping The audio and lyrics for her song are no longer available. The photo is from her her old site, All Things Bloom. She does have an album on...

Last Night as I Was Sleeping

Posted by Diane Morrow on July 26, 2011 in Blog, Healing Places, Healing Poetry

Twice recently I have come across this haunting and joyous poem by the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado. In the translation by Robert Bly it begins: Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt – a marvelous error! – that a spring was breaking out in my heart. I said: Along which secret aqueduct, Oh water, are you coming to me . . . Looking around a little, I’ve seen some differences in the translation–especially in the second line. The original Spanish word translated as error is ilusion and can also be translated as vision. I dreamt – a marvelous vision! – a blessed vision! – that a spring was breaking out in my heart. Either way – so many possibilities here. I love the idea of the water inside. It reminds me of a retreat center I visited once. The place was a house with a central courtyard and in the courtyard was a garden with a pond. I’m not a good meditator. But I tried a couple of meditation sessions there and when I did, and sometimes in the weeks and months after, I found myself imagining having that kind of courtyard inside my own self, with a pond. In Machado’s poem I like the idea that the water is moving. A spring. A secret aqueduct. Full poem can be found here. Photo from...

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