Sling-back Sunday maybe? On this day in 2012:
This is another from what’s sort of loosely becoming a best-of collection from my month of poetry recordings six years ago. Each poem was recorded, uploaded to YouTube, and blogged about in the course of a day. So, there are plenty that were fine but can stay in the archives where they are.
This is one that just kind of came together, one of the few I memorize and “performed.” Looking back, my interpretations might have come out different, but I am pleased when it feels like I was present when a little magic happened.
Photo by Michelle Blankenship
Well, I finally got a bit of outside reading done, though I had to try several takes from multiple spots, due to background noise. I abandoned one reading done from the balcony of a local restaurant, simply because I didn’t like the inflections of my voice. While listening in the car afterward I decided that I hadn’t read the poem right. So I’ll save May Swenson for another day.
In the end, I came back to this poem, by Charles Simic, which I had memorized last week. I frankly am no good at memorizing my own poems. Why? Possibly because they go through so many drafts and re-writes and fits of editing that I am never sure which is the version I most recently decided was the best. With the poems of others I only know one version, and so it’s easier. Therefore, I try meticulously…
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The second stanza reminded me of the way Lao-Tze illustrates the notion of the Tao. Usually with references to water. The stone in this poem could slip right into a passage from the Tao Te Ching, even though that text was written over 2000 years ago.
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Crazy that just a half hour ago I was reading about translations from the Tao Te Ching?
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There are so many, and every one is so different.
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