"I hope there's mystery and poetry in your life –– not even poems, but patterns. I hope you can see them. Often these patterns will wake you up, and you will know that you are alive, again and again."
–– Eileen Myles (b. 1949), American writer, poet, performer
Source: Valedictory words by Eileen Myles via Austin Kleon newsletter, August 23, 2024.
via: Sketchbook N 14, 2024, p. 9.
"Pare down to the essence but don't remove the poetry."
–– Leonard Koren (b. 1948), American artist, writer, and aesthetics expert
via: Art Alternatives Knapsack Sketchbook 2018 e, 2019, p. 47
Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review each of your life's ten million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart. Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done. Remember treading water in the centre of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.
–– Dan Albergotti, American poet and professor
Source: Austin Kleon at beginning of pandemic lockdowns in 2020.
via: Sketchbook 31, 2020, p. 70.
** If there was ever a perfect pandemic lockdown poem, this is it. The poetry of Mary Oliver also helped soothe me during the incessant lockdowns.
Small Things
It usually starts taking shape
from one word
reveals itself in one smile
sometimes in the blue glint of eyeglasses
in a trampled daisy
in a splash of light on a path
in quivering carrot leaves
in a bunch of parsley
It comes from laundry hung on a balcony
from hands thrust into dough
It seeps through closed eyelids
as through the prison wall of things of objects
of faces of landscapes
It's when you slice bread
when you pour out some tea
It comes from a broom from a shopping bag
from peeling new potatoes
from a drop of blood from the prick of a needle
when making panties for a child
or sewing a button on a husband's burial shirt
It comes of toil out of care
out of the immense fatigue in the evening
out of a tear wiped away
out of a prayer broken off in mid-word by sleep
It's not from the grand
but from the tiny thing
that it grows enormous
as if Someone was building Eternity
as a swallow its nest
out of clumps of moments
–– Anna Kamieńska (1920-1986), Polish poet, writer, translator, literary critic
via: Sketchbook 22, 2014, p. 98.
"There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing."
–– John Cage (1912-1992), American composer, writer and artist
via: Sketchbook 11, 2010, p. 117
