Picking Berries

So many of my favorite poems are about picking berries.  I’ve always loved one by Lisel Mueller, Picking Raspberries.  The first four lines are memorable: “Once the thicket opens/and lets you enter/and the first berry dissolves on your tongue/you will remember nothing/ of your old life”  (Alive Together, Louisiana State University Press, 1996, Baton Rouge, LA).  Mary Oliver has written two that I know and admire — Blackberries, and Blueberries (Devotions, Penguin Press, 2017, NY, NY), and there’s Galway Kinnell’s Blackberry Eating, that compares the ripeness of berries to “certain peculiar words/like strengths or squinched,/many-lettered, one-syllable lumps…”  (Collected Poems, Galway Kinnell, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2017, Boston, NY).  Then, there’s Seamus Heaney’s Blackberry Picking with its compelling turn at the end (Death of a Naturalist, Faber & Faber, 1966, London).

The Music of What Happens

Reviewing the BBC production of Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens (The Guardian, November 18, 2019), Rebecca Nicholson observes that the documentary “stands as an excellent tribute to the man and his work.”  Heaney’s poetry has beguiled readers since the publication of his first major collection, The Death of a Naturalist in 1966, and continues to do so.  Like his countryman, W. B. Yeats, to whom he’s often compared, Heaney has a gift for finding the music in both the somber and the prosaic, especially as it refers the rural life he knew and loved.  In his commentary on the title poem of The Death of a Naturalist, poet Andrew Spacey notes that the “language is typically rich with what has become known as clusters of sound — alliteration and assonance juxtaposed…”   This is poetry that begs to be spoken, not only read.  For Spacey’s line by line analysis — in effect a mini-course in poetic devices, go to www.owlcation.com.

Historic Greta Hall

If you’re in the market for an historic house with a literary pedigree, Greta Hall in England’s Lake District may be just your cup of tea.  The three-story, Georgian style house was variously the residence of poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, and has hosted such notables as William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and John Keats over the years.  Boasting ten bedrooms and a 335 year-old fireplace, it served most recently as a B&B.  Not to be missed: the Venetian window and view of the woods from Southey’s one-time study.  www.mansionglobal.com

Line Breaks and Enjambment

Hannah Huff’s article, Dear Bad Writers: Read This Poetry Line Breaks Guide offers some good tips on the effective use of line breaks and enjambment.  The examples are especially helpful.  www.notesofoak.com

Pushcart Nominations

Three poems that appeared in Rumors of Wisdom have each been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  The poems are “Looking Out at the Stream,” “Shed,” and “Crow Makes a Scene.”  Many thanks to Concrete Wolf Press and Editor Lana Hechtman Ayers for this recognition.

Poetry and the Contemplative Life

In the article Poetry and the Contemplative Life (Commonweal, July 4, 1947), Thomas Merton wrote:  “It is obvious, then, that contemplation has much to offer poetry.  But can poetry offer anything in return, to contemplation?”  What poetry offers, I think, is an invitation to experience the sacred in our everyday lives, which Merton — himself a poet — likely intuited.  This may also be one reason so many people are instinctively drawn to it, both as readers and writers.

Wishing you all the joys of the season, and a happy and healthy new year!