ok, the poem i want to promote today can't be found in it's entirety on the internet (not that i've discovered anyway). it's called The Heights of Macchu Pichu by Pablo Neruda. do yourself a favor: pick up a copy (it's published individually as well as in some of his anthologies) or drop me a line and i'll photocopy it and send it to you. it's is my favorite poet and poem in literature. if you've read anything by Neruda i'd love to hear your opinion.
and to follow the cat poem fern posted, i thought this short piece called God Says Yes to Me by Kaylin Haught had the same feel:
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
Bloodaxe published a collection of hers called Being Alive if you're interested
4 comments:
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.
neruda died while i was at sdsu. i remember the college had organized several readings of his poetry. i suppose if one was in love, in pain, or alone.
regarding haught...i applaud the sense of empowerment the poet lends her diety. probably because questioning and asking questions of G-d is a very jewish thing. what isnt a very jewish thing is the line...'she said you can do just exactly what you want to.' just can not imagine G-d empowering 'her' consituency such power without a warning about the consequences of such choices.
Lauren recommended this poem to me a month or so back. It truly is as good as she says, especially, I imagine, if you can read it in Spanish (I have FSG's bilingual edition).
My recommendation is to pick up the poem, or anything else by Neruda (bookstores will usually at least carry 'Twenty Love Songs and a Song of Despair'), and then watch the film 'Il Postino' ('The Postman'). 'Il Postino' is a story of how Pablo Neruda, in exile in southern Italy, teaches his postman to write poetry in order to win the love of the town beauty...
in Il Postino he writes (among others) Morning XXVII for the the postman which is my personal favorite of his sonnets.
on the whole Neruda is my "I Wish I Had Written That" guy.
Lauren--I will have to check out the Neruda. I have seen Il Postino though, I think in a college course...
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