Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

Photo by Kathleen Tyler Conklin

Spring in the environs of Washington D.C. ranks high on the list of the world’s most beautiful.

It seems especially so this spring, in part perhaps in contrast to the ugliness of the political antics happening, being reported on and endlessly discussed here.  The contrast is poignant, but not only caused by political chaos.  Exquisite beauty can often stir up feelings of longing and sadness…a sickness of heart, sometimes referred to as spring fever.  Bipolar we become…knocked out by the loveliness of nature…but unsettled because we realize our human nature is so far from the perfection we find there.  We can’t quite capture it in our works of art.  We hope others will be able to feel  the beauty we felt, but know it will be fleeting and somehow changed forever.  We are left with a feeling of not quite getting there, a feeling of loss, a restlessness of spirit.

Shakespeare’s sonnets surely speak to the beauty of nature, but also to that feeling of never quite arriving home.  T.S. Elliot reminds us in his poem “The Wasteland” that “April can be the cruelest month”.  The jazz rendition of those words found in the song “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most “(lyrics by Fran Landesman) expresses so well the ache found in the sweetness of spring.  Listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing these words and feel better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd5VVELfWC8

What Is it About Poetry?

I recently read two articles in the newspaper that touched and amazed me and started me wondering what it is about poetry that makes it powerful. The first story concerned a soldier, who upon killing his enemy decided to go through the dead man’s pockets. I’m not sure what motivated him to do this or what he hoped to find, but what he found shocked and puzzled him.  There on a folded piece of paper was a poem.

The second story was about a mother’s effort to reach her troubled teen-aged daughter who was deeply depressed. Her daughter was acting out her despair in a rebellious way by refusing to wear shoes to school. It came to an ultimatum from the school, shoes or no school. Shoes had become a touch point, a focus of her daughter’s depression. The mother was inspired to use the shoes as a place of connection and hopefully of healing. She began to leave a folded poem in her daughter’s shoe each morning to let her see 

that “people had been in pain before and had struggled to find hope.”  The poets took that pain, that struggle and put those thoughts into the best, sparest words they could.

After some time, the mother noted a change in her daughter…the dark cloud seemed to lift a bit.  At the same time, she found the poems unfolded in her daughter’s pockets.

She was reading them and they were beginning to have an effect. “Poetry knew where hope lived.”

An enemy soldier carrying a poem in his pocket, a troubled teen finding a poem in her shoe every day, reading it and finding hope again. Pretty powerful stuff.  I am not promising you a magic elixir, but it seems there is something about poetry that deeply touches the human heart, gives it comfort and helps it to heal. And perhaps more.

A Shower Of Poetry

Photo by Kathleen Tyler Conklin

 

April is poetry month.  Poems arrive daily on my computer from Knopf Poem-a-Day.  Poetry readings and panel discussions proliferate.

I am blinded by a burst of candle lights on the cake of the greatest Poet of them all---Shakespeare, whose birthday and brilliance is celebrated this month.

Alas, there is no shower from within.  I have hit a dry patch and struggle like the cherry blossoms to open to the warmth of any creative urge.  All is dormant.

 

But, I am hopeful.  Maybe with the warming days, my creative juices will begin to flow.  Poems will spurt from my throat, my pen, my fingertips---brilliant and well crafted…maybe even a rhyme or two.  They will float from my mind to seed and sprout around me…an array of colorful flowers. I will bloom again. Until then, I soak in the shower of poems that abound, now that April is here.

Note: The Folger Library celebrates Shakespeare's birthday on April 23rd with an open house, many festive, fun activities and a front lawn cutting of a birthday cake…check their website. Also the Library of Congress is offering many poetry events at:  http://www.loc.gov/poetry/events/#apr11

Honor your own unique thoughts and gifts. It's Spring!

Today I planted a few things in the soft, loamy earth. As I put in a few small plants, I began making a comparison with the fertile ground of the mind. I saw that as I dug, the hard crust began to give way. I pulled out some hard rocks---how like our thoughts. They can often be covered with a a crust of cliches and hardened concepts. We need to soften the mind and dig around, letting the fertile ground appear. Let fresh ideas sprout. April is here. It is poetry month.

Shakespeare's birthday is April 23rd. Honor the bard. Honor your own unique thoughts and gifts. April 29th is carry a poem in your pocket day. Carry you favorite poem and read it to yourself several times. Read it to other people you encounter that day. It even could be one that you have written. Let the ground be fertile!