Poem is an ocean stirring
your imagination
and your pen pours rivers of creativity.
Take a deep breath and dive in!
Maja S. Todorovic
Month: September 2016
Poetry improves lives: a guest post by Jon Freedman
This is a guest post, a courtesy of a fellow blogger and poet Jon Freedman – another enlightening story on how we can enrich our lives through words.
Hi. I’m Jon Freedman. My blog, middaymidlife.com chronicles the midlife changes I’m going through after my 28 year marriage ended last April.
In addition to writing about my journey, I write about books and music important to me. Though I haven’t written on poetry, my very first blog post concludes with a poem I wrote, Wrecked in Rejkavik
While i rarely write poetry these days, my appreciation for the art form has not waned. Certain poems remain so poignant, so powerful that I am forever awed and and perhaps, even a tad jealous of their existence.
A good poem blends sound and meaning. A good poem is a song without music, meant not to just be read, but read aloud. A good poem has no shelf life.
I’d like to present two poems by Charles Bukowski. The first dark, the second not. Extremely different but connected by the power of the simple words.
I discovered Bukowski late in life. I knew of him but wasn’t at all familiar with his oeuvre. I was somewhat familiar with his fiction, but not his poems.
Bukowski’s personal story is a fascinating study of an artist who finally reaches recognition later in life, enabling him to focus on his art. There are a ton of biographies on the Interweb, if you’re interested.
Reading about Bukowski’s life raises the debate over art appreciation and how critical it is to understand the context of the artist’s life. As an English professor, and writer, Nabokov summarized it best, “does one need to know the spider to appreciate the web?”
In literature I find myself leaning towards “yes”. Though not in music or fine arts for the most part.
What say you? I’d love to hear your perspective on the question of the importance of knowing an artist’s “backstory” for lack of a better term, to appreciate the creation.
Until then,
Stay in touch. Share, comment, connect!
Jon Freeman
The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth
if I suffer at this typewriter think how I’d feel among the lettuce- pickers of Salinas? I think of the men I’ve known in factories with no way to get out- choking while living choking while laughing at Bob Hope or Lucille Ball while 2 or 3 children beat tennis balls against the wall. some suicides are never recorded.
From Love is a Dog From Hell by Charles Bukowski
The Laughing Heart
your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.
From Betting On The Muse by Charles Bukowski
Jon Freedman is a Washingtonian whose love for words was inspired while growing up in a household where reading was much more than fundamental. After college, he worked in advertising and marketing. Jon has worked for start-ups, Fortune 500’s as well as marketing in pro sports. Along the way, he married, and has three adult daughters, who are the lights of his life. When he’s not reading, Jon is busy chronicling his own midlife experiences in the latest chapter of his journey. In addition to writing, Jon is an avid cook and lover of music. You can find his writings at middaymidlife.com
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Athena
You are warrior of kindness.
Your courage is your sword and
persistence is your shield.
You bravely walk through life
and with owl-like wise eyes
you observe and admire the world.
Embrace this wisdom:
don’t be afraid to spread the wings
of your own powerful potential.
Maja S. Todorovic
3 reasons why anything you write has value
Probably you have encountered yourself thinking that what you wrote was not good enough, that nobody would like to read it, ext. And as writers we all have that moments. It’s so easy to let that moment overpower us – just let it flood us with self-loathing about our own skills and capabilities. But today I want to offer you a different perspective on your writing and tell that anything, any word you write has value and it’s not your waste of time.
I so immensely believe in the power of written words, our own words we spill on pages that I’m quite confident in the following statements I’m about to make:
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Your writing has value because it’s inevitable part of your own self-exploration and the way to know yourself better.
Each writing session is actually part of something much bigger, a pattern, a recorded reflection of you in particular moment in time. It doesn’t matter do you write a novel, an article, or purely stating your opinion and commenting on someone else’s work – it’s part of you. And anything that is coming from your own sincerity and open heart has value.
What you write at this moment doesn’t have to be perfect. Probably this exact information you are reading can be written in better style, using better words (especially concerning that English is not my mother tongue), but still you can understand the encouragement I want to give you here. And that is what counts, the message and intention behind it.
But this moment me writing this, leads to another writing moment, another blog post, another poem and inevitably we become more comfortable and confident in our writing, which reveals my second reason:
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Your writing has value because it’s part of the process where you improve your writing skill and you ‘calibrate’ your writing voice.
As long as you trust your authenticity your writing is original. The way you select and arrange words – especially in poetic writing which is so sophisticated, each time you write poem you are discovering your specific writing expression. It’s unique just as your finger print – you learn to use the words to best express your nature, personality, opinions, belief system and anything you stand for.
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Your writing has value as it teaches you to be more mindful of your thinking and stay present in the writing moment.
Each poem or paragraph you write doesn’t have to be approved by editors, experts or published in high impact journals in order to be of value. You write what is true and real for you in that exact moment. While we progress with writing, as it changes so do we. At the beginning of my writing practice I used to write long prose-poems, where I needed a lot of space and words to express myself. As mindfulness begins to dominate my writing lines, so my writing becomes simple and clear. You probably also can relate to this: compare your early works with something you recently wrote and you will see how your poems/writing is more coherent, straight to the point and purposeful.
These are my top 3 reasons why you should keep writing, each time you start to doubt and feel discouraged. There is no word, minute or paper wasted.
And probably the 4th and most obvious (and important) reason that I didn’t list above it’s because it simply brings you joy and fulfillment. Yet, I focused on another crucial elements that most people don’t recognize and easily overlook. These are my three reasons giving me that push I sometimes need to write and commit myself to get the words out there.
Trust your yourself – your writing has value.
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved youall your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.Derek Walcott
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Autumn
For some reason autumn has always been my favorite time of the year. Dark green, yellow and deep red are colors that always reminded me of maturity, contentment and that satisfying feeling of carrying enough knowledge and experience into the colder and darker days…
For the first official day of autumn let us enjoy these simple yet mindful words by Amy Lowell:
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INFOGRAPHIC: 9 benefits of reading poetry
As opposed to the most popular post on this blog ‘Why people don’t like poetry’, I have compiled according to my so far done research a little, simple (yet cute, you have to admit 🙂 ) infographic about beneficial aspects of reading poetry. Many of us do like reading/writing poetry and we all know that it goes beyond pure use of certain words and language functions.
I think this is especially interesting to the newcomers to this blog and how they are not that much acquainted with the previous work done, here are also links of the specific posts leading to creation of this infographic.
How poetry can stimulate creativity?
Poetry and Creativity: crucial blocks in building leadership qualities
Can poetry help you become a better strategist?
Are you a ‘deep reader’? 3 reasons why you should nurture this habit
How important is tacit knowledge for your creativity and one simple way to get more of it
Develop your own mindfulness practice for more patience and joy at work
Diversity at workplace: how to use poetry for improving communication and intercultural differences
Raise your emotional intelligence for creative entrepreneurial leadership- part I
Raise your emotional intelligence for a creative entrepreneurial leadership – part II
Are you an introvert? Poetry can help you access your inner treasures
Please, feel free to share this info as we together can inspire more people to make poetry essential part of their lives.
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Making Peace by Denise Levertov
As today we are celebrating a World Peace Day, I thought of sharing this beautiful words by Denise Levertov, “Making Peace” and through poetry take opportunity to first find peace within ourselves and simply let that energy transcend further, around us:
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15 most beautiful poems about mindfulness
We are all aware that present moment is the place where our power lies. Not in the past or future, but in the now where we can make the most of our lives. Yet, being mindful is not that easy: we often catch ourselves dwelling on the past or worrying about distant events, thus allowing sometimes beautiful tiny moments escape our attention. In this post I share my own practice on using poetry for meditative purposes that I found to be helpful. Today I list here my 15 top poems about mindfulness, purpose in life and happiness. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do.
The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
What Do We Know by Mary Oliver
The sky cleared
I was standing
under a tree.
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain —
imagine! Imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For the time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
What We Need Is Here by Wendell Berry
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life–
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
Enough by David Whyte
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now
Stand Still by David Wagoner
The trees before you and the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is a place called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
Happiness by Hermann Hesse
If luck you chase, you have not grown
enough for happiness to stay,
not even if you get your way.
If, what you lost, you still bemoan,
and grasp at tasks, and dash and dart,
you have not known true peace of heart.
But if no wishes are your own,
and you don’t try to win the game,
and Lady Luck is just a name,
then tides of life won’t reach your breast
and all your strife
and all your soul will rest.
Rumi
Be empty of worrying
Think of who created thought
Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open
Move outside the tangle of fear thinking
Live in silence
Flow down and down
Into always widening
Rings of being
Hafiz
Now is the time
Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God?
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
with veracity and love.
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
That this is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is Sacred
Franz Kafka
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice,
it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
T.S. Eliot
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope for hope
would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Osho
There is a music which has no sound,
the soul is restless for such silent music.
There is a love in which the body is not,
the soul longs for such unembodied love.
There is a truth which has no form,
the soul longs for this formless truth.
The Way It Is by William Stafford
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
One Sand Grain Among the Others in the Winter Wind by Jane Hirshfield
I wake with my hand held over the place of grief in my body.
“Depend on nothing,” the voice advises, but even that is useless.
My ears are useless, my familiar and intimate tongue.
My protecting hand is useless, that wants to hold the single leaf to the tree
and say, Not this one, this one will be saved.
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If only
If only I could be a river
a river that goes, flows to the mouth of giant
whale, joining other watery hands to handshake in
the rhythm of waves, rejoicing drop by drop in the
eternity of an ocean;
If only I could be a wind, that carries my breath
collides white clouds, like a spider’s net catches every word
has the strengths to rearrange desserts
and knows how to surrender
in the eye of storm;
If only I could be a tree,
a tree that knows its place under the sun,
how to befriend soil and welcome rain
a tree that accepts its roots – broken sinews
too tired to grow:
I would congratulate myself,
I would sing the song only I hear,
I would visit places only I knew exist
I would finally be who I am.
Maja S. Todorovic
Making sense of life: putting your memoir in poetic discourse (writing prompt)
Following this post published few weeks ago, it occurred to me: there is always something we haven’t told yet. A story, an event or memory that we shy from for some reason, that we avoid thinking about, talking about. And I don’t mean talking to others, but to ourselves. That internal conversation (or lack of it), has a subtle impact on our day to day life governing our decisions and choices in ways we are not even aware of. Our subconsciousness is like a vast ocean where we can drown deep with our feelings or we can strive for the surface to enjoy the sun and blue sky.
Each emotion and memory from the past has hidden opportunity for growth and healing. And these are the main reasons why people engage in writing memoirs. It’s a path of self-exploration, where time, the main ingredient offers different perspectives and lays a platform for us to embrace and accept our past. Not simply to remember but to celebrate each moment in life as these moments are the foundation for our future self. It can be painful and cathartic, but most importantly – freeing! In this interesting interview, Samantha M. White the author of Someone to Talk To: Finding Peace, Purpose, and Joy After Tragedy and Loss explains that in your memoir writing – the results can go beyond your initial intention.
Writing my memoir transformed my life. Not only my day-to-day present, and my future, but even the past about which I had written!
Transformation was not my goal. I wrote it because I had a story pent up inside me, pressing to be told – to share what had happened to me, and how I had found my way out of pain. I wanted to assure readers of the universality of suffering, and the reality of healing and finding new joy. I felt driven, and afraid that if I died before publishing the book, an important message wouldn’t be heard”.
So today I want to propose a bit different writing exercise. Think of any event or situation in your life that you would like to understand better, to explore, analyze or that just needs to be ‘poured’ on your paper and write a poem about it. Tell your story using poetry. And you might ask, why just don”t write about it? I think that poetry goes beyond prose writing and it allows you more freedom to express your feelings in different ways. Often we can’t find the right plain, straightforward words to say something but it needs metaphoric guidance that offers us strengths to deeply dive into the ocean of our subconsciousness. Take your time and write your way through it.
Narrative form of poetry and memoir complements each other to open the door of that internal conversation – you might be surprised what ‘s on the other side.
I personally often use this technique to simply sort my feelings and make a sense of life. These confessional poems are often highly emotionally charged and there’s the beauty: being able to feel is for me a proof that I’m alive. Accept every emotion that comes your way, because that’s human – to be vulnerable and celebrate your flaws, mistakes and successes as you navigate through life – the best you can.
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Business in Rhyme 