Editorial: The Poetry Business
These poems of memory and girlhood are powerful evocations of the changing body and the male gaze. A raw, absurdist humour provides a sense of defiance throughout, and the tone is in turns sad, angry, rue.– Hannah Lowe
The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives. Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives. But finding a starting point can be overwhelming, even off-putting, so in this series we offer up our Top 10 classic poets, who brim with talent and verse, on a range of subjects and themes that we can all enjoy. The great city of London is perhaps unrivalled in its scale and effect on humankind down the centuries. Its sprawl and its teeming throngs have shaped the world and even how we live today. With the words of these 10 poets and their insightful, knowing verse we can perhaps begin to understand just why that is.Ver libro
Poetry, like religion, is the practice of wonder—a way of being open, a way of reaching out to touch the hem of the world’s garment. Like the great spiritual teachers, poetry invites us to be radically present, to inhabit the world a little more closely, to attend a little more lovingly, with an awareness beyond the mere mind. The numinous shines right before our eyes, nonchalantly hidden, poorly disguised. The Divine lurks in the shadowy places. The Realm of Grace is at hand, among you, within you. There’s delight and suffering and mystery: everything the heart desires. We’re embedded in it. All we have to do is slow down and pay attention. Poetry is a way of letting the world come to you. These poems are offered to waylay us from the grind of productivity, off into the weeds of the divine. Unfolding Light is a collection of 184 poems gathered from 45 years of writing. They are part of my practice of wonder. They include reflections on daily life, scripture passages, walking in the woods, contemplative prayer, the natural world, dogs, bees, and driving across Montana with a peach. They’re rooted in my observation that the world is a thin place, filled with mystery, the divine presence, tears of every kind, and abundant blessing.Ver libro
A short story about an Egyptian young man who wanders around Cairo until he finds himself in the zoo to look at an elephant. He is surprised that the elephant looks at him with the same look as he does, so their minds unite and separate to see the world from the perspective of an elephant tied with a rope to its leg.Ver libro
Annabel Lee is the last complete poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Like many of Poe's poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are jealous. He retains his love for her even after her death. There has been debate over who - if anyone - was the inspiration for Annabel Lee. Though many women have been suggested, Poe's wife Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe is one of the more credible candidates. ©2009 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.; (P)2009 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.Ver libro
Produced in 458 BC, Aeschylus' Choephori is the second play in the Oresteian trilogy. The bloodshed begun in the first play with the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra is here continued when Agamemnon's son Orestes avenges his father's death by killing Clytemnestra. It is not until the third and final play, Eumenides, that peace is restored to the family of the Atreidae. The introduction discusses the pre-Aeschylean 'Orestes' tradition in literature and art, as well as the place of Choephori within the Oresteia, its imagery and dramatic structure, the questions of staging the play, and the manuscript tradition.Ver libro
Not all love is the same, which is one of the most peculiar truths in life. Your Love is as unique as the individual you feel it for. I think that’s one of the greatest paradoxes we will live through. It seems to me, there is little choice in how big it is, or how hard it hits. There’s no telling what it will do to you when you enter the arena, and that is why it can be a force we sometimes fight; because it has felt like a battle we’ve lost before. Although it feels like you are powerless in Love, you aren’t powerless at the end of Love. You choose whether or not big Love crushes you, or if it shrinks for you to carry it in your pocket as a reminder of the greatness it once was. The desire to not be destroyed by Love is where I am. This is a story of 14 days that coincided with my 40th birthday and a time I fell in Love. It was through a difficult turn of events that I got to step away from my uncomfortable life to experience turning 40 in Mexico; with someone I didn’t just love, but who I liked. So this is also a story about the importance of falling in Like. For a long time I said if I ever shared this story, I’d have to call it fiction because it feels so personal. But eventually I realized it made more sense to just admit: it’s me. I’m the quiet naive girl in these pages who had barely begun to know herself and didn’t know how to communicate as well as she thought she did. I’m the one who was learning that Love can be complicated; while seeming simple to me. One of the greatest lessons anyone learns, is knowing what it feels like to fall in love and experience connection. That was my greatest benefit; because I have been able to use that measure of connection ever since. One can break and fall apart in many ways, but it’s my opinion that until big love breaks you, a level of innocence remains. After that, you decide whether or not big love heals you. For me, it took this little trip of 14 days to finally benefit from the long journey of 40 years.Ver libro
