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ann1962 's questions:
Do you think that you still have your "hippy" spirit? ?
Hee.midnightsjane got the same question from me. Yes, always! Hippy forever! Retirement just awakened the slumbering beast—got rid of a bunch of work-type clothes and back to bare feet most of the time. My plans for the next year include taking a long cross-country trip in my VW Beetle and getting a tattoo—superficial, but still. Just a LOT more choosy about getting intimate with foreign substances (alcohol and other soft ones don’t count)!
Who is your favorite poet? Poem? ?
Hard to answer. No, impossible. For years I would have said cummings (oyecter has one of my favorites of his on her home page) and Yeats, but not so sure any more. I like Sharon Olds (see answers to L.S.) and Martin Espada, and have always loved Jane Kenyon and Li Po (Li Bai, etc).
Here’s one I’ve always loved and one I just found, with somewhat overlapping imagery and maybe themes:
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). The Wild Swans at Coole. 1919.
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Here’s serendipity: I googled for Stephen Li ( a poet I love but must have the name wrong) at first, and my first hit was Stephen Corey (http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/Literature/Poetry&id=h-528) who was the editor who first published one of my poems.
Name all of the countries you have been to. ?
Canada, Mexico, 48 states of US and also Virgin Islands, England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Netherlands, Italy, Cameroon, People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong pre-1997.
Hopefully that list will be longer next time we do this!
Which one would you go to if you had no concerns for time or money? ?
Right now, top of my list is new ones--India—the state of Kerala (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/rachelmanija/58632.html and http://www.livejournal.com/users/rachelmanija/57686.html for why—butrachelmanija is worth seeing no matter what) and also other parts of India and Sri Lanka
But my husband says the challenge is finding a place I don’t want to go. I also want to go back and spend a month studying Spanish in Oaxaca then go to Peru, and also go around the Mediterranean: Spain, Dalmatian Coast, Greece, Turkey (maybe Crete, too), Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco. And I’ve never been to Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, Wales…
Describe the most beautiful sunset or sunrise you have ever seen? Where and when? With whom?
Gah. That is hard. Probably alone, flying to California (always a happy time for me). The sunset lasts a long, long time and turns the clouds beneath us red, and then I see a wedge shaped rainbow growing towards the darkness in the north.
Or any morning at the beach, the sun rises dark red out of the mist and the marsh glows red everywhere. And my sister and brother-in-law and I are sitting on the porch drinking tea and coffee.
ann1962 's questions:Do you think that you still have your "hippy" spirit? ?
Hee.
midnightsjane got the same question from me. Yes, always! Hippy forever! Retirement just awakened the slumbering beast—got rid of a bunch of work-type clothes and back to bare feet most of the time. My plans for the next year include taking a long cross-country trip in my VW Beetle and getting a tattoo—superficial, but still. Just a LOT more choosy about getting intimate with foreign substances (alcohol and other soft ones don’t count)!Who is your favorite poet? Poem? ?
Hard to answer. No, impossible. For years I would have said cummings (oyecter has one of my favorites of his on her home page) and Yeats, but not so sure any more. I like Sharon Olds (see answers to L.S.) and Martin Espada, and have always loved Jane Kenyon and Li Po (Li Bai, etc).
Here’s one I’ve always loved and one I just found, with somewhat overlapping imagery and maybe themes:
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). The Wild Swans at Coole. 1919.
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Here’s serendipity: I googled for Stephen Li ( a poet I love but must have the name wrong) at first, and my first hit was Stephen Corey (http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/Literature/Poetry&id=h-528) who was the editor who first published one of my poems.
Name all of the countries you have been to. ?
Canada, Mexico, 48 states of US and also Virgin Islands, England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Netherlands, Italy, Cameroon, People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong pre-1997.
Hopefully that list will be longer next time we do this!
Which one would you go to if you had no concerns for time or money? ?
Right now, top of my list is new ones--India—the state of Kerala (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/rachelmanija/58632.html and http://www.livejournal.com/users/rachelmanija/57686.html for why—but
rachelmanija is worth seeing no matter what) and also other parts of India and Sri LankaBut my husband says the challenge is finding a place I don’t want to go. I also want to go back and spend a month studying Spanish in Oaxaca then go to Peru, and also go around the Mediterranean: Spain, Dalmatian Coast, Greece, Turkey (maybe Crete, too), Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco. And I’ve never been to Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, Wales…
Describe the most beautiful sunset or sunrise you have ever seen? Where and when? With whom?
Gah. That is hard. Probably alone, flying to California (always a happy time for me). The sunset lasts a long, long time and turns the clouds beneath us red, and then I see a wedge shaped rainbow growing towards the darkness in the north.
Or any morning at the beach, the sun rises dark red out of the mist and the marsh glows red everywhere. And my sister and brother-in-law and I are sitting on the porch drinking tea and coffee.
From:
no subject
The question about the hippie stuff was just because most often now hippie conversations are followed by those that include the words "sell out" and I just wondered about your take on that.
What image would you want to have on your body for the rest of your life? I always wonder how when people get a tattoo, if they really want that image forever? Personally, I can't think of an image that I would want forever that I already haven't imprinted on my mind already!
From:
no subject
I think that Mary Oliver poem has been around--the "soft animal of the body" rang a bell for me.
On hippy-ism and selling out: well, I suppose I actually did that 30 years ago when I got married and got a job. But I really think of the old hippy spirit as a mattter of being unconfined by meaningless convention and taking joy in the present moment. And those are things I think you can always re-awaken, when you want to.