I turned in last night, wondering what, if, I might write for Father’s Day.
I woke up this morning wondering the same.
I got onto my laptop, sorry Wendell, but my father told me to take a typing course, it would come in handy later - if only he knew :-), and this crawled up outta me, with a few brief timeouts, in about 30 minutes total.
Father’s Day
That’s today.
What do I feel about this being Father’s Day?
What do I feel about being a father?
What do I feel about my father?
What does it matter how I feel?
Does it matter?
I doubt is matters to the florists,
I certainly don’t want roses delivered to my front door step.
Maybe that’s the best thing about Father’s Day-
it’s not a great day for merchants.
Looking back,
I’m not impressed with myself as a father.
I was too preoccupied with me
to be what my children needed.
No mystery, I copied my father.
I’m fortunate my children forged their own way
without me trying to bend them to my will.
I’m fortunate I don’t depend on my children to
entertain and look after me,
ever trying to help me feel better,
hounding me for this and that.
They have their own lives,
their children have their own lives.
I enjoy watching and hearing about them
live their lives,
move forward into the great mystery
unhindered by me,
envied by me,
I’m proud of them,
wish them all the best.
I hope they and their children
somehow get to experience
the America where I grew up.
Knowing that's not gonna happen,
I worry for them in this America.
I hope they are cunning and gentle
and brave enough
to live their lives fully,
be who they really are,
keep moving forward,
changing,
growing,
deepening,
loving,
being true,
without remorse,
in an America I’m glad
I did not help create
and tried very hard to prevent,
where where money, guns and fake narratives
are more important than anything else,
an America the Founding Fathers could not possibly imagine.
I’m glad the final round of the US Open will provide
Thanks, I hope that for my kids and their tribes, and I still for some reason keep hoping my physical ails will simmer down a bit, as I dread the a long drawn out decline past when ailing beloved pets are kindly put down, but oh my goodness, how many great industries, including religion, depend on people living and $uffering for as long as po$$ible, and then $ome.
Wonderful! In the end we are the poem. To be a poet is to disappear in our own unfolding. Losing yourself in the spaces between the words. The only way. Home. Happy Father’s Day. 🙏❤️
About how to be a poet, though this is not a bad approach, it is just one of many others. There is no magic bullet on how to be a poet. This here has some good points but there are not concluding ones Every one will find for himself or herself what works best.
Something I wrote a while ago for another forum; it's a bit long, but since it's on topic I hope it will be acceptable here.
Advice For Aspiring Poets
When writing a poem, keep in mind that a poem is something made of words, not of feelings.
And that you are writing for a reader who has no reason to care about your personal thoughts, feelings, or experiences.
And that a poem is self expression, but the self a successful poem expresses is that of the reader, not that of the writer.
And that trying to make a poem successful by having it express important moral truths is cheating and, what’s worse, won’t work.
And that for a poet, as for an actor, to say “I” is not to take off a mask but to put one on.
Read a lot of poetry, preferably in more than one language, making no effort either to concentrate on or to avoid the poetry of any particular country or century, including your own: just read what you like.
Assume your reader has read, understood, and liked all the same poetry that you have read, understood, and liked. That this isn’t true doesn’t matter.
When composing a poem never ask yourself “What do I want this poem to say?” Always ask yourself, “What do I want this poem to do?”
Forget about poetry readings. They’ve degenerated into nothing but group therapy sessions that don’t cure anyone.
Don’t try to “get published.” Put your poems somewhere where people who want to read them can find them, in the hope that sometime in the next few centuries they will find readers who value them.
Don’t touch anything labelled “Creative Writing” with a ten foot pole.
Never pay reading or contest fees. If asked why, say, “I don’t pay for love and I don’t pay for readers.”
Read your poem aloud to someone who isn’t into poetry. Can they tell it’s poetry and not prose? If not, you haven’t written a poem.
Remember that the worst mistake a poet can make is to try to be one of the acknowledged legislators of this world.
Get a good education. Then get the hell out of the university, and don’t hang around with literary types.
Thanks for sharing your advice on being a poet a lot of which I liked and appreciated (especially in the last few paragraphs).
I’ve had some college experience in this department and once I discovered that some poseur girl won an award by plagiarizing Rimbaud I was done with the charade and dropped out of the university herd soon after to join “the real world”.
I taught myself about poetry, learning from my favorites along the way in how to express myself. At first it was about myself, about being a “poet”. But I eventually disabused myself of that notion and just wrote poetry.
I’m trying to connect to the souls of others in as direct and poetic a language as possible. To give them an experience, to reveal other layers of reality without too much verbal legerdemain.
Oh well, that’s enough about me. Thanks again for the advice.
Amen.
I turned in last night, wondering what, if, I might write for Father’s Day.
I woke up this morning wondering the same.
I got onto my laptop, sorry Wendell, but my father told me to take a typing course, it would come in handy later - if only he knew :-), and this crawled up outta me, with a few brief timeouts, in about 30 minutes total.
Father’s Day
That’s today.
What do I feel about this being Father’s Day?
What do I feel about being a father?
What do I feel about my father?
What does it matter how I feel?
Does it matter?
I doubt is matters to the florists,
I certainly don’t want roses delivered to my front door step.
Maybe that’s the best thing about Father’s Day-
it’s not a great day for merchants.
Looking back,
I’m not impressed with myself as a father.
I was too preoccupied with me
to be what my children needed.
No mystery, I copied my father.
I’m fortunate my children forged their own way
without me trying to bend them to my will.
I’m fortunate I don’t depend on my children to
entertain and look after me,
ever trying to help me feel better,
hounding me for this and that.
They have their own lives,
their children have their own lives.
I enjoy watching and hearing about them
live their lives,
move forward into the great mystery
unhindered by me,
envied by me,
I’m proud of them,
wish them all the best.
I hope they and their children
somehow get to experience
the America where I grew up.
Knowing that's not gonna happen,
I worry for them in this America.
I hope they are cunning and gentle
and brave enough
to live their lives fully,
be who they really are,
keep moving forward,
changing,
growing,
deepening,
loving,
being true,
without remorse,
in an America I’m glad
I did not help create
and tried very hard to prevent,
where where money, guns and fake narratives
are more important than anything else,
an America the Founding Fathers could not possibly imagine.
I’m glad the final round of the US Open will provide
something to entertain me this afternoon.
Golf was my father’s game,
he could have been a pro,
but he wanted more than anything
to win his father’s approval
and went into business with his father.
and I followed suit, for a while.
The only time I beat my father at golf,
I didn’t count all of my strokes.
Played the old way,
no mulligans,
no improving your lie,
counting all of your strokes,
golf is an X-ray of the soul-
Thanks, Dad
And thanks for the inheritances,
without which
I would be homeless,
or dead.
And thanks for suggesting I take a typing course
my first year in high school,
which gave me a life skill,
even if it didn’t make me a living wage.
My body failing,
mind farts increasing,
I hoped to wake up on
the Mother Ship this morning,
but since I didn’t...
Thanks, I hope that for my kids and their tribes, and I still for some reason keep hoping my physical ails will simmer down a bit, as I dread the a long drawn out decline past when ailing beloved pets are kindly put down, but oh my goodness, how many great industries, including religion, depend on people living and $uffering for as long as po$$ible, and then $ome.
Thanks.
"There are only sacred places and desecrated places." Yes!
'make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.'
Beautiful!
yes
Yes. Now the question is, how do you do that???
I never fail to be inspired by Wendell Berry
“… for patience joins time to eternity”. Genius.
Wonderful! In the end we are the poem. To be a poet is to disappear in our own unfolding. Losing yourself in the spaces between the words. The only way. Home. Happy Father’s Day. 🙏❤️
Wendell Berry / poet and farmer /
still cultivating the soil of poetry /
turns 90 next month!
Man, that's one of the best poems I've read in awhile.
What a wonderful prescription for quiet, reflective creativity — thank you!
Just what I needed
About how to be a poet, though this is not a bad approach, it is just one of many others. There is no magic bullet on how to be a poet. This here has some good points but there are not concluding ones Every one will find for himself or herself what works best.
He's writing as a reminder to himself. This isn't advice for the masses. He revealed that in the beginning.
Something I wrote a while ago for another forum; it's a bit long, but since it's on topic I hope it will be acceptable here.
Advice For Aspiring Poets
When writing a poem, keep in mind that a poem is something made of words, not of feelings.
And that you are writing for a reader who has no reason to care about your personal thoughts, feelings, or experiences.
And that a poem is self expression, but the self a successful poem expresses is that of the reader, not that of the writer.
And that trying to make a poem successful by having it express important moral truths is cheating and, what’s worse, won’t work.
And that for a poet, as for an actor, to say “I” is not to take off a mask but to put one on.
Read a lot of poetry, preferably in more than one language, making no effort either to concentrate on or to avoid the poetry of any particular country or century, including your own: just read what you like.
Assume your reader has read, understood, and liked all the same poetry that you have read, understood, and liked. That this isn’t true doesn’t matter.
When composing a poem never ask yourself “What do I want this poem to say?” Always ask yourself, “What do I want this poem to do?”
Forget about poetry readings. They’ve degenerated into nothing but group therapy sessions that don’t cure anyone.
Don’t try to “get published.” Put your poems somewhere where people who want to read them can find them, in the hope that sometime in the next few centuries they will find readers who value them.
Don’t touch anything labelled “Creative Writing” with a ten foot pole.
Never pay reading or contest fees. If asked why, say, “I don’t pay for love and I don’t pay for readers.”
Read your poem aloud to someone who isn’t into poetry. Can they tell it’s poetry and not prose? If not, you haven’t written a poem.
Remember that the worst mistake a poet can make is to try to be one of the acknowledged legislators of this world.
Get a good education. Then get the hell out of the university, and don’t hang around with literary types.
Thanks for sharing your advice on being a poet a lot of which I liked and appreciated (especially in the last few paragraphs).
I’ve had some college experience in this department and once I discovered that some poseur girl won an award by plagiarizing Rimbaud I was done with the charade and dropped out of the university herd soon after to join “the real world”.
I taught myself about poetry, learning from my favorites along the way in how to express myself. At first it was about myself, about being a “poet”. But I eventually disabused myself of that notion and just wrote poetry.
I’m trying to connect to the souls of others in as direct and poetic a language as possible. To give them an experience, to reveal other layers of reality without too much verbal legerdemain.
Oh well, that’s enough about me. Thanks again for the advice.
Love love love
Just started perusing Timbered Choir. Sublime
Life-giving. Enjoy.
Beautiful protocol
"There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places." -- Wendell Berry
Thank you for the reminder