Good Monday morning!
This morning I was inspired to read you a poem [One of the Great Functions of Art by Adrienne Rich] so I sat on my deck in the cool remains of the rain we had yesterday and made a video for you. I am always inspired to read poems aloud, as many of you know, and frankly, if I thought it wouldn’t drive you away I would record a whole morning’s worth of readings for you. I read poetry obsessively, daily, many times a day. Most days I read at least one poem aloud. I don’t do this because I love to hear my own voice. Really. But what I do love is to hear the voices of others who have shared themselves come alive in my world. What I love is to hear the insight, wisdom, teaching and care that come from the words others choose to write down. With poetry, like music, so much comes from the sound of the words themselves, the feel of them in your mouth and in the space around you. A very special combination if you can let yourself feel it.
The hearing, rather than the reading with just your eyes (though you might try sometimes to do them simultaneously), yields something bigger, something with perhaps more purpose than the words alone. And when you hear, just as when you see, taste or smell, the thing goes straight into your brain, your heart, your spine and your soul without any hesitation or stop along the way. You can’t make it stop, in fact. That’s a thing about your sense perception, it’s a direct line to your insides from the outside. No stopping. Just in.
Just in; cold wet metal, tingling tongue, soft plaintive single bird song, raindrops on stone like a hand on a drum, tongue still tingling. This was this morning in the chair on the deck. Lovely, but not comfortable. Engaging but temporary.
Reading this poem, as I have many times, I am, again and again, remembering to let the world take me in and out at the same time. I hear the inside calling me out. I hear the outside collaborating to bring in the precious moment while at the same time reminding me that I exist as only a single flimsy thread in a large tapestry of life. I do not feel sad about that. Instead I feel grateful to my body, my senses, that can keep me feeling connected to anything and everything. And I feel the plain and simple healthiness that is feeling it all; each and every bit of the scene, leaving nothing out, letting things in, feeling the movement between the two, the inside-warm, tingling, bubbling, the outside - cool, wet, dripping.
So, what I hear Adrienne Rich say about great art is that it brings us into back into contact with the world, with something beyond ourselves, so we can again feel a part of something larger than ourselves, feel both our smallness and our bigness, the smallness as the particular flavor of our moment, the bigness the space in which it is all the energy of life.
What do you hear?
What poem, piece of music, work of art takes you beyond yourself?
Please like, share and comment just below so we can all enjoy the big/small world of lovers of poetry, people and life!
Beautiful piece Josephine. Thank you for the gift of reading it aloud.
For me, the poem The Guest House by Rumi, "This being human is a Guest House, every morning a new arrival.." takes me outside of myself and reminds me of the human condition for us all.
thank you! and yes, The Guest House, is such an amazing poem. grateful to you for sharing here