female poets: a place to begin

Yesterday, I shared that I'm thinking about the tables I want to sit at when having conversations about the beautiful questions (as David Whyte calls them), and one part of this is sharing more about poetry here on my blog and reading and sharing more female poets.

So here's a list of just a few to get you exploring. Because poets tend not to have personal websites, I'm linking to Poetry Foundation for you to learn more about these female truth tellers and adventurers and read more of their poems. Please feel free to share other female poets and your favorite poems in the comments. I'd love this post to become a beautiful resource for all of us.

Naomi Shihab Nye: Her poem "Kindness" is one of my favorites. I also love her collection Red Suitcase. What Have You Lost? is often by my bedside; it's a collection of poems by others she gathered on that topic. 

Marge Piercy: I remember the first time I read "The Day My Mother Died" and stood rereading it again and again, my mouth agape with that "I'm not the only one" kind of feeling swirling around me. I also love the poem "Colors Passing Through Us." And her collection The Moon Is Always Female must be mentioned in this week's poetry conversation.

Sharon Olds: Her poem "I Go Back to May 1937" was the first poem that caused me to say "Oh shit" out loud (there have been others). I've written about it several times (including here), but I have to mention it today because of the way it tells a story so many of us touch around the edges of but seldom have words for. Her collection "The Father" is about her father's illness and death and her reflections on all of it. It is gritty and masterful. In other collections she writes about the real stuff of motherhood and holds nothing back. Here she is reading "The Clasp." (Wow. Just wow.)

Jane Kenyon: I have Kenyon's Collected Poems. I pick it up, read one maybe two poems, then try to catch my breath and put it down for two to four months, then repeat the process. I could probably devote an entire blog post to explain why, but part of me really wants you to discover her on your own and begin your own conversations with her. A few for you to begin with: "Let Evening Come," "Happiness" (you can hear her read it), and "The Shirt," which might just surprise you and make you laugh out loud.

Diane Ackerman: I'm a big fan of Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses and have had A Natural History of Love on my shelf for a long time. It's now in the pile of books I'm hoping to read this winter. With these books though, you get more of her naturalist/poet self; they aren't filled with poems. You can dive into her poetry in Origami Bridges. And here's one for you to read right now: "We Are Listening."

Elizabeth Bishop: Her personal story just really captures me. She is now recognized as one of the great American poets, but she wasn't well known while alive. So many of her poems rhyme, which is also intriguing to me. Here's one for you: "Full Moon, Key West."

and of course, Mary Oliver: She's my favorite poet. The one I turn to daily. At retreats, I will often pick up one of her books from the basket of poetry I have beside me and just turn to a poem. It is almost always the one the group needs to hear at that point in the retreat. Magic. Her poems often chronicle the walks she takes each day. And they just tell the real stuff about life...about being a human in this beautiful, heartbreaking world. I'm so grateful for her. I pretty much recommend every collection, but Red Bird is a great one to start with. And here's one of her poems, "Breakage," for you to read aloud again and again.

And then there's Nikki Giovanni and Kathleen Norris and Marianne Moore and Susan Howe...there are so many others. Please do share your own favorites in the comments.

Tomorrow our week of poetry continues, so please do meet me back here.

beautiful questions

 

Here, a woman stands at a seat between Rilke and Heaney, across from Whyte, and wonders if she can sit down.

These are the words I wrote while listening to poet David Whyte speak earlier this month.

I'm a big fan of David Whyte's work in the world and his poetry. If you've been at one of my retreats, I've probably read you a few of his poems. Kelly Barton has a great story about me reading his poetry to her while a storm pounded down outside the house we were staying in in Manzanita, Oregon. His words opened her up to poetry in a new way; little did she know I was reading to keep myself centered because the storm was pretty much freaking me out as we were on the ocean with floor to ceiling windows as the sea and sky raged all around us.

Over the last nine years, David Whyte's words have become talismans I carry with me to remind me that I'm not alone.

But while listening to him speak for two days, my friend Bridget and I noticed one glaring omission: the poetry of women.

Whyte is a storyteller and philosopher who uses his own poetry and the poetry of others to share what he believes about this awesome, sometimes heartaching, gorgeous life we all live. And I love this approach. Sharing a story and the poem born from that story. The audience hopefully spends some time reflecting on their own lives and how it all connects. Alternatively he shares a poem by someone else who connects to his story or a poem by another that prompted a response of his own poem. There is a rhythm to his storytelling that often feels like home to me.

I use a somewhat similar approach when I teach at retreats. I love to share a story that will hopefully invite the women I'm teaching to open their hearts up just a bit more and then I invite them to share their own stories and put pen to the page. I also love using the poetry of others as an entrypoint to our own writing; I want my students to be able to nod along as I read poetry and see themselves inside the stories, even if they've never had the experience the poet is sharing. 

While listening to Whyte this time, I struggled to find a way to see myself in the stories and poems he shared. Women made appearances in the typical forms of daughter, mother, lover, but they weren't seen as hero, deep thinker, person who might change the world, or even person struggling with life's big "stuff."

And this has me pausing over here. I'm actually not in deep judgement of Whyte's work. The reality is that I'm a big fan and at the two other events I attended with him over the years, I didn't have this reaction. Most observations are more about how his omission brought up some "beautiful questions" as he calls them that have me asking: What tables do I want to join? What stories do I need to tell? What poems are waiting to be born inside me? What female poets should the world know more about?

As I dive deep into gathering stories and beautiful questions as I work on a new offering I want to share with you next year, I'm heading to my bookshelves and starting with Sharon Olds, Madeleine L'Engle, and Diane Ackerman. They feel like old friends who have a seat just waiting for me.

Today, think about the tables you want to sit at and the stories you want to help tell in the world.

And tomorrow come back as I've decided to make this a week all about poetry on my blog, and I'll be sharing some of my favorite female poets and few other fun things this week!

*****

As I think about the need for female voices at tables around the world, it feels pretty awesome to share that my ecourse Poem It Out is now available as an ongoing offering. This means you can sign up at anytime and you'll have access to the full course so you can dive into the world of poetry. This course includes four weeks of poetry and creativity prompts taught with both written material and more than two hours of video. To learn more about it and read testimonials from those who've already poemed it out, head over here.

peonies

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, 
and softly, 
and exclaiming of their dearness, 
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, 
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

- Mary Oliver, excerpt from "Peonies" found in New & Selected Poems

poem it out

This month is National Poetry Month here in the US, which seems like the perfect excuse to share a few poems with you.

I'm a big fan of poetry. I think it can save your life (for real). Poets are truth tellers who get right to the guts of life. They have such a short amount of space to tell the story, so they just do it. They demand we pay attention. They edit out all the extra stuff so that as the reader we are left with a mirror or snippet of a memory or a last breath or the first crocus of Spring. 

Yes. 

People often ask me for a place to begin when it comes to reading poetry. My advice is start with the poets whose poems caused you to ask this question. If you read a Mary Oliver poem and said, "YES!" then search for more of her poems. If Rumi caught your eye over on Pinterest, look him up.

You might even want to just stand in the poetry section of your closest bookstore and pretend you are choosing a bottle of wine. Look at the names of the collections, the colors of the covers. Choose one. Flip through. Read what catches your eye. If nothing does. PICK UP ANOTHER BOOK. Start over again. You will find the ones you were meant to find. (I share some more thoughts about this over here.)

Here are five poems to get you started:

"why i feed the birds" by Richard Vargas

"Any Morning" by William Stafford

"The Art of Disappearing" Naomi Shihab Nye

"Now I Become Myself" by May Sarton

"Morning" by Billy Collins

*****

Poem It Out: It's a way of living. My way of living. The way I move through the world, through my grief, through my fears, through my joy. I poem. I read poetry. I write it. I put pen to the page and find my way. It is also a series of ecourses and in-person workshops that I teach. 

keeping our hearts open

Variations on these words, "keeping our hearts open will heal us," have tapping on me this week. I can't stop thinking about how our hearts crack and mend, and how the mending comes when we let ourselves really live.

I've been thinking about this idea so much that I felt moved to make a little video and tell you a story about a poem I wrote about this idea and to share more about why I believe this is true.

The poem is from my poetry collection Five Days in April, which you can find in my shop.

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