T.R. Kingston
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Feb 26
Poetry & coincidence = Jazz Asteroid https://trkingston.substack.com/p/where-it-begins
Best Poetry Articles
Event today: Poetry Prompts for Fighting Fascism
Hosted by Holly, this event is free and open to everyone. Link inside!
Find the event link down at the bottom!
i think i am in love
Visual of the week
The museum of poetry
I’ve always wanted poetry to be consumed like art– hung on museum walls: giant rooms with poems in elaborate frames, numbers to punch on little devices so the voice of the poet streams into the listeners’ ears as they sit on benches, letting the words sink in, the world dissolving and reconfiguring like kaleidoscopic patterns inside their eyes. And ever…
Friend Rajani....
This is an excruciatingly gorgeous concept, wonderfully realised in words. I might just wander through those rooms in my dreams tonight. I do so comprehensively love the idea. (And not because of your very kind reference to my poem - but thankyou for that too).
It occurs to me - as I consider ordinary people walking through a little museum of poetry - that Poets are just people walking through the massive museum of reality; as large as a universe. We pause, we observe, we see strange connections and symmetries, beauty and its obverse, evil and good.
Then we report.
"She shivered. Screamed." I wonder if this was the point she realized she wouldn't find the poem she sought? The tour of the museum is wonder-full, frightening. Maybe the poem she's seeking is in the last room of mirrors? Maybe a museum can't contain it at all: "Outside, unseen, a crow flew over the / museum, a half-moon still in its beak." Poets do tend to get lost in the museums of the greats.
It was a very odd, totally spontaneous moment of self-nurture that happened to me a few days ago. After a shower, towel drying, leaning down, caught sight of my right leg, I suddenly felt a surge of something I’d never felt before, and said/thought: “Well done, leg! You did a great job today, despite everything. Proud of you!”
For the first time in my life (I’m 64!!) I was contemplating some part of my body with no sense of judgement, no trace of shame, no vanity. Just a: Good job leg!
NB. Left leg equally worthy of praise, needless to say! ;)
Well the most nurturing thing this week has to be bird song. I am fortunate to have a garden that attracts lots of birds. I made a conscious effort this week to go out and just sit and listen. The back and forth of bird song was so mesmerising. Conversation that I didn’t need to understand and could just listen to. The variety of notes were astonishing. I have carried this experience all week and as I sit looking out this morning from my bed at the howling wind blowing the trees and watching the pouring rain I can still hear the birds.
Fady Joudah’s [...] has worked silently in my mind all week. So many thoughts about the ellipsis, the unsaid, the implied, the silent. The first thing that leapt to my mind (for which i made a note for further research) was how this use of the ellipsis is part of a vocabulary of silence. The term SELAH came to mind which one finds at the end of some Psalms in the Bible. I noticed these as a child but only learned long after that they are not meant to be uttered but are an indication that a pause, a silence, be taken. Which made me think of all the musical commands I learned in my piano lessons - sotto voce, pianissimo, pianoforte - ever silent instructions that govern the quality of sound. But the story that came to mind was of one of my low moments of bad behaviour. It was at a party with fellow university students in the early 80s (i was maybe 19 or 20). Drink in hand, I met a visiting Irish PhD student and, of course, asked her what her PhD was about. She said her dissertation was about the ellipsis which, to my shame, i took as a joke and laughed rather rudely. When she patiently explained that she was serious, I descended into worse behaviour and mocked the idea of a PhD about something so trivial. Wretched behaviour that still burns when remembered. I'd like to say I woke the next day with a revelatory epiphany about the genius of grammar and the profundity to be found in the most modest of symbols. But, no, it was years before I recalled my horrible behaviour and ignorance. Would that I could apologize now. Remembering this story serves to remind me to remember my ignorance, to be more curious than judgmental, to be kind, and to let a poem reveal itself for what it has to teach about, in the case of Fady Joudah's poem, fear and disaster and freedom and the silences that are as much a part of our selves as speech.
Admitting that I have been away from the podcast for awhile. Grateful that you pulled me back in. Your books are a lifeline for me in these times.
Here is a found poem/story gifted to me recently at our local therapy swim pool by a lady in her late 80s who happened to be showering next to me.
The story began by her telling me how everything just took more time these days. I responded by something about how good the water felt.
She said …
I used to be a life guard
Started when I was sixteen
My dad said I shouldn’t because adults needed jobs
I took my test in a lake
(I said I did too!)
First job was minding a kiddy pool
One day when I took a dip before pool opened the manager let a man in ahead of time. Man did the most amazing belly flop I’ve ever seen! He stunned himself and needed help. I managed to pull him to the side. He never thanked me
I told the manager that he shouldn’t let people in ahead of time. He said you are fired.
I went home. The mayor lived a block away from me . So I walked down to talk w him.
His pony was giving birth. I had never seen this so I waited and watched the birth.
Afterwords I told the mayor what happened. He said you are not fired.
Next day I went back to work. The manager never talked to me again.
I was paid 75 cents an hour. That was good pay.
I lived in northern Missouri then. It was a nice town.
Yesterday I walked my dog around the block. I try to do that twice a day but some days it hurts too much.
(Water feels good on the body. Movement w/o pain. Especially for those of us that know water)
Yes, yes it does
A poem by Emily Bludworth de Barrios
from issue 93
A GHOST IS WHAT YOU CALL A WOMANA ghost is what you call a woman Who has three children in quick succession Smiling in a garden of children The woman lies down on the soil She is now a witch A witch produces magic in the world I chop apples I chop chunks of cheese Three pieces of magic dot the house Joaquín, a piece of nature Román, a sliver of adventur…
Ah, Padraigh. Thank you for Eavan's beautiful poem. What a heavy prompt today. It is my vocation to help folks re-member their lives and their pasts. But, what of my own? Immediately, I think of the way that addiction and depression have dismembered my own family. I want to live in a way that re-members mental illness and seeks peace. But, deeper still. I am a product of the American South. Enslavement and murder, past and ongoing. Deep racism that still divides. How "in the world" do I live and re-member in THIS place, this time, where we now live? So, so sadly, I see the culture I live in moving in the opposite direction of my heart, which is another siren call to living loud. I confess I do not have a broad swath answer. But I am looking for daily ways to re-member. To foster community, to be engaged and involved, to seek and enact wisdom and peace. Your question, Padraigh, is the great challenge of our time. May we live accordingly.
Beautiful piece, Padraig. For me, the locating of Rowan Gillespie’s sculptures near the IFSC is also a reminder of the often-overlooked importance of humility. This is not about debasing ourselves before others but actually about recognising our intrinsic equality and connection, as you allude to at the end of your post. The Sufi scholar, Jamal Rahman, expresses this wonderfully: “The practice of humility is about dissolving self-centeredness. The person who has traveled beyond self-centeredness realizes he is nothing and yet is not separate from Divinity. One bows lower and lower to the mystery and beauty of this paradox. This bowing brings him or her true dignity…"
"...like a timid suitor." A recent move from New England to the American South. The end of relationships both casual and intimate. Rebuilding (again) a career. In this liminal space (aren't all spaces liminal? Aren't tides eternally changing?), I wonder what is wooing me that I am yet unaware of. And, immediately, I ponder what things I am being timid about when this is a time to be fierce. Thus, I pray for wisdom, open eyes, and heart to see what timidly woos and where to be courageous, outspoken, firm.
... thank you for sharing Jane Kenyon this snowish morning in Maine ... here is another favorite:
Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Jesus, Please
Jesus, please, get down here and do your part. I’m not smart enough to figure this out. Hide me in the pocket nearest your heart. It is not enough to have self-sympathy. Shelter me in the shade of your empathy. I don’t want to be flayed by the enemy. This is a problem only you can solve. Teach me the fine art of what is my part.
I bought a huge orange 🍊
Visual of the week
Subscribed! I have a similar newsletter, though I will soon be moving off Substack. It's called Four by Four: Four things to read, four things to see, four things to listen to, and four things about me. It's new home will be here: https://www.richardjnewman.com/blog/.
Dig this idea of these three artistic expressions! I’m here to connect
Poetry Bulletin: February 2025
Waive-to-play, important fee support update, and three upcoming deadlines
Hi poets — this is a quick version of the usual monthly post, since January and February have already been busy with the annual publisher update and the special update on reading periods for first books.
Receiving Ashes
While the earth is still winter quiet, farmers burn their fields so that ashes will warm the ground and melt into nutrients with the spring rains. “Remember, thou art dust and to dust …” We celebrate this annual festival of examination and compunction with the quickening of spring for the sake of sacrifice; self-restraint. Of course, this risks …
Poetry Book Club - March
The Book of Bad Betties, edited by Vanessa Kisuule and Anja Konig
An extra post from me this week. I’m not even going to pretend I’ve not been desperate to send this one out. Incase you missed it, this year I’m planning to read a poetry book a month and am inviting anyone who fancies doing the same to join in the fun. All the details can be found here:
A group of friends planted a tree in memory of our son after he died.
It was a large oak tree that had been hit by lightning and had a scar that ran aroung the trunk, but it was big and strong and beautiful. It is planted on a golf course where he hit a shot they all remember. Every year we decorate it with flowers on his birthday.
Four years after it was planted one of those friends knocked on our door and presented us with a handful of small styrofoam cups. In each cup was an acorn beginning to sprout ! He had gathered these acorns from Matt's Tree and cared for them until they were ready to be planted.
I called them "baby Matt trees" and began to obsessively nurture them to grow. Three years later I had five 3 foot tall oak trees ! I gave one to his sister, and the others to cousins and friends. One friend planted his next to a creek where he said it would always have plenty of water. His sister planted hers in their front yard - transplanting it each time they moved. It is thriving today . . . tall and beautiful.
Matt's mother tree is now enormous and the lightning wound is completely gone. It represnts for me the beauty of his heart and I love knowing more memorials to him are thriving from a creek in NC to Texas.
I garden constantly. I'm 82. I plant , I sow, I propagate, I tend, I weed, I water, I feed, I mulch. Each act, each job, is a gesture to the future, and a good future of fuchsias, strawberries, dahlias, asparagus, roses, courgettes, penstemons, pumpkins. The future is there in my imagination, and my dreams invariably come true. Onward!
Writing the morning, after Mary Oliver
Poetry (pen) Pals #55
Sometimes my favourite type of poetry writing is when the writing doesn’t start out as poetry at all.
In the morning
After Mary Oliver
.
1.
I wake when your hand touches my arm.
It’s almost nine o’clock, you say. In case we still want to go to church.
.
2.
As I walk down the stairs, screams rise to meet me.
One teen stands staring across the room to the tv
which the screaming child is furiously fast-fowarding,
rewinding, filled with rage. Another teen stares straight ahead
and my youngest stands at the far end of the room
surrounded by ragged dog toys, looking lost.
.
3.
I hold him on the couch when the screaming is done
when my daughter has found her calm again, just for a moment.
The dog bounces up from the ground to my lap, dropping a ball
and white vomit pours from his mouth down my leg.
.
4.
That was a lot for five minutes, wasn't it? my husband asks me
on the porch where we are figuring out the day. No church.
Just a moment for silence.
.
5.
An indigenous girl, fourteen years old, found dismembered
in Arizona. What is this country I call home?
How is it still this wicked?
.
6.
My oldest son sings about our dog. Every pop song gets adapted to his name.
.
7.
There isn’t really anything else, I tell myself. It’s all bad.
But the white lilac tree is showing green buds, because
it’s false spring. “Enjoy it while it lasts!” the newspaper
gloated last week. The pointed tips of tulips, the blueberry bush
waking up, stepping stones of fungus on the plum tree trunk.
Tell me how to make it matter
more than the darkness.
This is just glorious, Nelly. I think your version is so lovely—what time is it being the first question—how often is that the first thing I say. How you and your sister hold your hands the same way, the days being colors, just magical. I’m going to save this one. It’s such a perfect poetry/journal exercise.
Is This Really Life?
Is this really life? Or just a semblance of one? Cocooned in this Peaceful, cloying, dusty cell. Without another voice To tell me that I’m dreaming. That all this Is nothing more than A scheming o…
There Was a Time
There was a time Not so long ago, When you would have seen me blaze Before the constant grind, And the dry remorseless winds of life, Had sorely worn me down. Now, I seem…
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Poetry Book Club - February
DISCUSSION - The Moon that Turns you Back, Hala Alyan
Oh we started strong, didn’t we?!
I read it whilst at chess waiting for R and J to decimate their victims. I enjoyed the experiments in form, turned the corners on three poems, found some profound and some beyond my understanding and irritating. So it must have been a good book!
The poems of death remind me of Dylan Thomas’s “After the first death, there is no other.”
Poetry Wednesday; Poetry Pals week #55 - Good Morning
A take on a Mary Oliver Poem
Quick house keeping note - if you are here for say knitting only you can set up what you receive by clicking on the relevant sections only. This post will go into the ‘Poetry’ section. Deselect that section and you won’t get these posts. Visa versa don’t want poetry, deselect that section. This link takes you through the process
Special Update: Reading Periods for Debut Poetry Books or First/Second Books
Trends and data on submission fees, compensation, and more. Focused just on publishers with deadlines for first poetry books.
That’s a photo of my grandpa, Papa to me. It’s a moment from an AFL-CIO meeting decades ago. I wasn’t sure what image to put with this post, but then this one popped into my mind.
I'm Back 'Cause I Missed You (and Poetry)
Your survey responses, a poem about our cat + a new perk for paid subscribers
Hello to faithful readers and those who are new—welcome! By way of (re)introduction I’d like to say that although I said in January I’d be taking a break from weekly Substack writing, I changed my mi…
What a great list of poets! I especially love Trommer and Nye's work! And there are oh, so many more! (Like Lucille Clifton, Dorianne Laux and Sharon Olds!)
1. Emily Dickinson
2. Gerard Manley Hopkins
3. Malcolm Guite
4. Mary Oliver
5. Naomi Shihab Nye
6. Robert Frost
7. Rosemerry Trommer
8. T. S Eliot
9. Tanner Olson
10. Wendell Berry
Jody, I am REALLY interested in your once a month zoom call, but a weekday morning is only good for me during school breaks. 😩
Also, I LOVE your once-a-week idea!
The Soft Side of The Whip
You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye. Luke 6:42
Cordial hypocrisy is the diplomacy of the L.A. and D.C. aristocracy. When a writer turns in a draft the producer says, “it’s the best I’ve seen just change everything but the last scene.” When a scientist describes reality the senator says it’s a scare tactic and blames her for his stupidity. The powerful pretend they are helpful when they insti…
Love it! Very funny and I’m in complete agreement. I have had more than 1 crown and 1 implant. I told Stan dental care cost us more than medical care.
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