Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Authenticity

  “But to be what I am, to live what I was meant to live, to want to sound like no one else, to yield the blossoms dictated to my heart: this is what I want - and this surely cannot be arrogance.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters on Life)

“Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.”

― W.H. Auden

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“To be authentic, we must cultivate the courage to be imperfect — and vulnerable. We have to believe that we are fundamentally worthy of love and acceptance, just as we are. I’ve learned that there is no better way to invite more grace, gratitude and joy into our lives than by mindfully practicing authenticity.”

 — Brené Brown

 Midweek Motif ~ Authenticity

 (the quality of being real or true)

What makes each of us authentic?  Where and when are we most authentic?  Do people perceive us as inauthentic if we change?  In what ways does authenticity shape anyone's writing and art?  


As Sumana would say, "We are all ears."

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Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight 

 by Wallace Stevens

Say that it is a crude effect, black reds,
Pink yellows, orange whites, too much as they are
To be anything else in the sunlight of the room,

Too much as they are to be changed by metaphor,
Too actual, things that in being real
Make any imaginings of them lesser things.

And yet this effect is a consequence of the way
We feel and, therefore, is not real, except
In our sense of it, our sense of the fertilest red,

Of yellow as first color and of white,
In which the sense lies still, as a man lies,
Enormous, in a completing of his truth.

Our sense of these things changes and they change,
Not as in metaphor, but in our sense
Of them.  So sense exceeds all metaphor.

It exceeds the heavy changes of the light.
It is like a flow of meanings with no speech
And of as many meanings as of men.

We are two that use these roses as we are,
In seeing them.  This is what makes them seem
So far beyond the rhetorician’s touch.

Renoir Bouquet of Roses (1882)

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

An Ancient Gesture

       by Edna St Vincent Millay

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.

And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.

Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.

But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.

He learned it from Penelope.
.
.

. 

Penelope, who really cried.

Odysseus and Penelope by Francesco Primaticcio (1563)

We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar - 1872-1906

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Winter )
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Poets United: Midweek Motif ~ A Million Years Howl When Voices Whisper Among The Trees

Autumn in the Forest ~ Pinterest 

“And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.” ~ Hermann Hesse

“People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive.  It is as though they were traveling abroad.” ~ Marcel Proust

Midweek Motif

There is an indescribable feeling near the end of October that grows loud, so much so that the sounds surrounding it are muted and are dipped in shades of monochrome. 

All Hallows Eve is a holiday that is celebrated in several countries on 31st October. The holiday includes activities such as trick or treating, attending costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins into jack o lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing and divination games. 

What’s interesting is that around the same time on November 1st ‘Dias de los Muertos’ i.e. The Day of the Dead is celebrated in central and southern Mexico. Though the holiday coincides with a Catholic holiday known as All Souls & All Saints Day, indigenous people have combined this their own beliefs. 

It’s a way for them to visit with family who have passed on to a better world and give them gifts. In some cultures a skull is a symbol of death as well as rebirth; a different way of looking at death which is what Halloween is all about. 

So, for Midweek Motif today, I invite you to write poetry and offer the following two options: 

1) Write a poem inspired by ghost stories, popular myths or legends that you might have heard or narrated over the years. Feel free to address what sends chills down your spine.

2) Or, if your muse prefers something different, write a poem about remembrance in the spirit of 'Dias de los Muertos' i.e. The Day of the Dead. Let us honor our loved ones.

Add the direct link to your poem to Mr Linky. Remember to visit others and to comment on their work. I look forward to reading what you all come up with. 🍣

And You As Well Must Die, Beloved Dust

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

And you as well must die, beloved dust,

And all your beauty stand you in no stead;

This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,

This body of flame and steel, before the gust

Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,

Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead

Than the first leaf that fell, —this wonder fled.

Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.

Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.

In spite of all my love, you will arise

Upon that day and wander down the air

Obscurely as the unattended flower,

It mattering not how beautiful you were,

Or how beloved above all else that dies.

Corpse Flower 

by Vanessa Angelica Villarreal 

Yesterday, the final petal curled its soft lure into bone.

The flowerhead shed clean, I gathered up your spine

and built you on a dark day. You are still missing

some parts. Each morning, I curl red psalms into the shells

in your chest. I have buried each slow light: cardinal’s yolk, live seawater,

my trenza, a piece of my son’s umbilical cord, and still you don’t return.

A failure fragrant as magic. Ascend the spirit into the design.

My particular chiron: the record that your perfect feet ever graced

this earth. Homing signal adrift among stars, our tender impossible longing.

What have I made of your sacrifice. This bone: it is myself.

All Hallows
by Louise Gluck

Even now this landscape is assembling.

The hills darken. The oxen

sleep in their blue yoke,

the fields having been

picked clean, the sheaves

bound evenly and piled at the roadside

among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness

of harvest or pestilence.

And the wife leaning out the window

with her hand extended, as in payment,

and the seeds

distinct, gold, calling

Come here

Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

Autumn Rain ~ Pinterest 

 (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ Authenticity)