Poetry Friday: Now You Know the Worst

My children are teens. They have lived long enough in this world to have experience with tragedy, both in our family and in the larger world. It's sad to think that they have a sort of script, a way of coping with death and violence in the news.

One UK newspaper, The Independent,
ran this front page on 12/16.

Younger children may not have these "skills." When we call small children innocent, are we saying that they have no filter to protect them from harm -- that their trust in life and human society is complete? They have lived nothing else.

Yesterday, I posted an article I wrote for the Baltimore Sun not long after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. The article looks at elementary schoolers coping with tragedy by making art. 

Yesterday, the Sun ran an article about a nationwide art project schools are participating in, as a response to the Sandy Hook massacre. A family in Montana is collecting paper hearts to send to Newtown, CT. Read the Sun's article here. Who can explain why creating and sharing art in response to such great pain brings comfort?

Since Friday, I have been thinking about a poem that brought me comfort when I first heard it on the radio. It was soon after 9/11. It has stayed with me ever since.

The poem is from Wendell Berry's A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997. It is from a cycle of several untitled poems.

Available from Better World Books.

WENDELL BERRY

To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum on the day of the burial of Yitzhak Rabin

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry,

for I know that you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know

there is no answer
but loving one another,
even our enemies, and this is hard.

But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he gives a light, divine

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you will have the courage for love,
you may walk in light.

The rest of the poem is posted on this theological blog, but be mindful that it may have been posted without the author's permission. Here is another poem from The Timbered Choir, published on The Writers Almanac. And you'll find a review of the book here.

Wishing you all Peace today on the Winter Solstice. May each passing day be brighter.

Today's Poetry Friday hostess with the mostest is my dear friend Heidi Mordhorst. Stop by her blog, My Juicy Universe, for the complete list of Poetry Friday posts.

NPM 50 State Tour: Kentucky

Today on our tour of state poets laureate, I've got a writing prompt to share. But first...

Kentucky is the 15th state (as of June 1, 1792). The state takes its name from an Iroquoian word meaning "land of tomorrow." (Here's the source.) Its nickname is the Bluegrass State.

You might like this website: Dumb & Stupid Laws of Kentucky. Just make sure your bees get a physical before you visit this state.

Here's an article about the history of poets laureate in Kentucky, a program which dates back to 1926. Kentucky's poet laureate is traditionally inducted on April 24, birthday of Kentuckian and first U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren.

There's a fascinating interview with current poet laureate Gurney Norman here, in which he discussing growing up in Appalachia during WWII.

He is the author of "Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project." It's a collection of poems by 90 poets from the Southern Appalachian Region.

I wasn't able to find any of Norman's poetry online, so I'm sharing a poem by Kentuckian Wendell Berry and a related writing prompt.

How To Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Read the rest of the poem here.

Writing prompt: Wendell Berry's poem, "How to Be a Poet," begins with an epigraph: (to remind myself). Try writing a poem borrowing Berry's. What do you need to remind yourself of?

Listen to some Bluegrass music while I wash the car. We're on our way to Tennessee, sixteenth state on our National Poetry Month tour.