#Today, 150 years ago, Lola Ridge was born in Dublin. She was to become a modernist #poet, a leading figure in the #modernist movement in #NewYork , a very prominent #anarchist#activist and campaigner für women's rights, the rights of immigrants and the poor. Lola Ridge has had a small renaissance since her biography came out 2016, but she could be read more widely. #writingWomen#womenwriter #poetry#20s#SaccoAndVanzetti
"Among his own kind he is peace-loving
and will not pick a quarrel lightly:
but if battle has to be given, he will get hold
and not give in, or let go, for the life of him,
of stick or ball."
Somedays we push, and pull, and pry. Most days we blister and ache. We feel the weight of every failed attempt like sediment. Like coarse conglomerate. Immovable granite and bouldering clay. It's heavy. It's hard to carry. It's hard to move, but even a little bit goes a long way...
We "assemble a life from the usable fragments", Lewis Hyde says. Sacred relics of the wreckage, gathered and connected. We experience the world as wholeness when all our pieces have a space.
An absolute asset is the recent online haiku magazine 'haikuNetra', curated by Daipayan Nair.
Issue 1.5 is online now, with two truly amazing haiku by @alansummers@haikutec.
I feel honoured that three of my haiku have been chosen.
"Each of us goes through life with these holes in our bodies until the right words find them. And then afterwards? What do we look like, this patch of quilted words with arms and legs? I cannot say. I’ve never seen anyone so whole. I’ve never seen a person pass me who wasn’t leaking light."
we come in pieces
of dark and light
armoured
by diminished gods
piercing
through explosive clouds
clawing through the promised land
to hallowed
hollowed places
our sum amounts
to much less
than our broken parts
absent still
the human heart
"in our average day we make thousands of lines -
across our rooms, our schools, towns, cities.
Because we fire off, getting hurt, feeling love, unloved, all day long, we find meaning in the line we have walked, look hard to arbitrary things for symbols, and reassurance"
Short days, snowflakes fall,
Camellia's bloom, a fleeting grace,
Hunters seek their prey,
Sparrows gather 'round the bonfire's glow,
Mountain's peak, a beacon bright.
A weekly tanka whilsts I wait for timezones to catch up!
Here, I'm free
and will always be
until the day
I no longer remember the setting sun
before the night
when you and I made love
without bodies
for the first time.
Following on from a Philip Larkin conversation last night, I have aquired an anecdote: my FIL also studied at Hull University in the 1960s, so met Larkin while he was librarian there. He said he was, "fucking weird".
I still need to ask my dad for similar profound insights.
The essence of a fictive, chosen, or voluntary kinship is rooted in a profound sense of connection. This connection isn't always immediately recognized or mutual, but it's never entirely unfamiliar or one-sided...
Repression is a rite of passage, they tell us. It’s called being an adult, they say. It’s all part of becoming a semi-well-adjusted member of a society. Smile. Nod. Stay in your lane. Dress for the job you want. Do as you're told. Pay your taxes and your rent. And, most importantly, stuff all your otherness way the fuck down so no one knows, and no one sees...