Photos: Malcolm Greenaway
April is National Poetry Month. I know quite a few poets, and I truly value the way they capture feelings obliquely and more deeply than common speech. In fact, at my sister’s memorial service in January, I read my friend Ronnie Hess‘s poem called “What We Scarcely Know,” from her collection Ribbon of Sand about a childhood on Fire Island. The theme of sand repeatedly washing away and returning in a new form really spoke to me. What poems speak to you?
Photo: Wisconsin poet Ronnie Hess
Rhode Island poet Nancy Greenaway has been bringing a love of poetry to her community and to students on Block Island for decades. Recently she told me, “For National Poetry Month, I usually organize a reading of favorite poems by community members who are not poets: a ferry captain, a police chief, a teacher, a real estate broker, a minister, a doctor, a guitar-playing student, a gift shop owner, a first warden [something like a mayor], a manager of the power company, for example.
“We had scheduled the Voices from the Village reading for April 24, but cancelled because of COVID 19. Instead, we are asking community members to email favorite poems to their friends during the month of April. I’ve received two so far:
Wendell Berry’s ‘The Peace of Wild Things‘ and Kitty O’Meara’s ‘And the people stayed home.’ ”
Nancy’s email inspired me to search online for articles about past Voices from the Village events. This is from the Block Island Times, May 2018: “The annual community poetry reading known as Voices from the Village featured a wide range of voices reading the works of many different poets:
“Here is the poem by [former first warden] Edie Blane’s sister, Eileen Lee, titled ‘Block Island Spring,’ from Jan. 31, 1962.
Photo: Malcolm Greenaway
“Spring doesn’t come to our bleak island home
“With whispering air and fragrant smell of earth.
“Ours is a different world —
“Grey, cold and harsh,
“And April days are angry with us still.
“The equinox comes in with windy roar;
“Pale dune grass dips and rises in its path.
“Seas crash
“White crested and dark shining green.
“The sun is bright but gives no pleasant warmth.
“And yet we have a portent, old as time,
“Though cold winds rule us yet, with icy breath;
“A day of quiet comes —
“The Sound grows still, a pale and milky blue
“The smallest waves lap gently on the shore.
“In the great echoing stillness on the sea
“The sweet slow tolling of the buoy rolls in.
“At last, this is the long awaited time,
“First sign of island spring.”
See all the Malcolm Greenaway photos of the 2018 readers here. And for inspiration from Nature, check the photographer’s website, here.
I’m wondering if a group poetry reading could be done virtually, the way these singers handled the old-time spiritual “Down to the River.” Looks complicated.
I really, really like David Whyte’s “Everything Is waiting for You.”
Thanks so much for telling me. Found it here: https://onbeing.org/poetry/everything-is-waiting-for-you/
Love that poem so much!