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

source

 

“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."

source

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!

source

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(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Winter )
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Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Morning Poem

“A monk sips morning tea,
it's quiet,
the chrysanthemum's flowering.”— Matsuo Basho

SOURCE

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”— Khalil Gibran

   Midweek Motif ~ Morning Poem

Capture the time in your lines when the day is new and you are out of your slumber.

Isn’t it always a good morning whether it’s bright, gray, cloudy or rainy? Or is it not?

A few lines from Langston Hughes:

Bad Morning

Here I sit
With my shoes mismated.
Lawdy-mercy!
I's frustrated! 

Today’s motif is Morning Poem. Let’s see where the morning takes you J

Morning Poem

by Mary Oliver

(here)

300

by Emily Dickinson

'Morning'—means 'Milking'—to the Farmer—
Dawn—to the Teneriffe—
Dice—to the Maid—
Morning means just Risk—to the Lover—
Just revelation—to the Beloved—

Epicures—date a Breakfast—by it—
Brides—an Apocalypse—
Worlds—a Flood—
Faint-going Lives—Their Lapse from Sighing—
Faith—The Experiment of Our Lord 

One O’Clock In The Morning

by Charles Baudelaire

Alone, at last! Not a sound to be heard but the rumbling of some belated and decrepit cabs. For a few hours 
we shall have silence, if not repose. At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and I myself shall be the 
only cause of my sufferings.
At last, then, I am allowed to refresh myself in a bath of darkness! First of all, a double turn of the lock. It 
seems to me that this twist of the key will increase my solitude and fortify the barricades which at this instant 
separate me from the world.
Horrible life! Horrible town! Let us recapitulate the day: seen several men of letters, one of whom asked me 
whether one could go to Russia by a land route (no doubt he took Russia to be an island); disputed generously with the editor of a review, who, to each of my objections, replied: 'We represent the cause of decent people,' which 
implies that all the other newspapers are edited by scoundrels; greeted some twenty persons, with fifteen of whom I am not acquainted; distributed handshakes in the same proportion, and this without having taken the precaution of 
buying gloves; to kill time, during a shower, went to see an acrobat, who asked me to design for her the costume of a 
Venustra; paid court to the director of a theatre, who, while dismissing me, said to me: 'Perhaps you would do well to 
apply to Z------; he is the clumsiest, the stupidest and the most celebrated of my authors; together with him, perhaps, 
you would get somewhere. Go to see him, and after that we'll see;' boasted (why?) of several vile actions which I
have never committed, and faint-heartedly denied some other misdeeds which I accomplished with joy, an error of
bravado, an offence against human respect; refused a friend an easy service, and gave a written recommendation to a
perfect clown; oh, isn't that enough?
Discontented with everyone and discontented with myself, I would gladly redeem myself and elate myself a
little in the silence and solitude of night. Souls of those I have loved, souls of those I have sung, strengthen me,
support me, rid me of lies and the corrupting vapours of the world; and you, O Lord God, grant me the grace to
produce a few good verses, which shall prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to
those whom I despise. 

Morning

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The mist has left the greening plain,
The dew-drops shine like fairy rain,
The coquette rose awakes again
Her lovely self adorning.

The Wind is hiding in the trees,
A sighing, soothing, laughing tease,
Until the rose says "Kiss me, please,"
'Tis morning, 'tis morning.

With staff in hand and careless-free,
The wanderer fares right jauntily,
For towns and houses are, thinks he,
For scorning, for scorning.
My soul is swift upon the wing,
And in its deeps a song I bring;
Come, Love, and we together sing,
"'Tis morning, 'tis morning." 

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                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Surprise!)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Masks

Golden masks excavated in Kalmakareh, Lorestan, Iran.

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” 

― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is me

 I believe in my dance-- And my destiny” 

― Sam Shepard

“A mask tells us more than a face.” 

― Oscar Wilde

Three pictures of the same female noh mask 

Midweek Motif ~ Masks

Masks. Can't live with them and can't live without them! And in addition to our personal masks, there are also cultural and ritual masks that are precious to the faithful and also to collectors.

Can we tell when someone is undisguised? 

Do we prefer people to maintain the mask?

Your Challenge: In a new poem,
unmask a mask, reveal its use and properties, or tell its story.

Masks from Many Cultures - Screener

We Wear the Mask 

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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 overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O 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!

Maya Angelou, We Wear The Mask

The Poem as Mask
by Muriel Rukeyser




Orpheus

When I wrote of the women in their dances and 
      wildness, it was a mask,
on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy,
it was a mask; when I wrote of the god,
fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love gone
      down with song,
it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from
      myself.
   
There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory
of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued
      child
beside me among the doctors, and a word
of rescue from the great eyes.

No more masks! No more mythologies!

Now, for the first time, the god lifts his hand,
the fragments join in me with their own music.








Source
Source
WWI Gas Masks



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(Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be ~ Finding a Sanctuary.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Independence

(Tim Hall Cultura Getty Images)

“Independence is a complex word in a foreign tongue.
 To resist occupation, whether you're a nation or merely a woman, you must understand the language of your enemy. Conquest and liberation and democracy and divorce are words that mean squat, basically, when you have hungry children and clothes to get out on the line and it looks like rain.” 

― Barbara Kingsolver

“From birds she learned how to sing; from cats she learned 
a form of dangerous independence.” 

― Salman Rushdie

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country 

so distrustful of the independent mind. 

― James A. Baldwin

source

Midweek Motif ~ 
Independence

Many of our countries have holidays that celebrate gaining independence from foreign rule, and many of us also have rites--formal and informal--related to gaining independence.  Some of these are about our countries and ~ more importantly ~ some of these are about us as individuals and members of groups.   

What is your experience of independence? 

How might you describe independence to someone who has never encountered it?

How are your beliefs about independence reflected in how you see nature?  

Or vice versa: How is your view of nature reflected in your beliefs about independence?

Your Challenge: Let your new poem answer one of the four questions above.

Johnny Cash - As Long As the Grass Shall Grow

Excerpt from "The Declaration of Independence" 

by ― Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable rights,

that among these are life, liberty

and the pursuit of happiness.

Sympathy

Related Poem Content Details

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

    When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

And the river flows like a stream of glass;

    When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,

And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—

I know what the caged bird feels! 

I know why the caged bird beats his wing 

    Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;   

For he must fly back to his perch and cling   

When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; 

    And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars   

And they pulse again with a keener sting— 

I know why he beats his wing! 

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, 

    When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— 

When he beats his bars and he would be free; 

It is not a carol of joy or glee, 

    But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,   

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— 

I know why the caged bird sings!

mud mothers

Related Poem Content Details

BY LENELLE MOÏSE

the children of haiti

are not mythological

. . . . 

we are a living dead example

of what happens to warriors who

in lieu of fighting for white men's countries

dare to fight

for their own lives

during carnival

we could care less

about our bloated empty bellies

where there are voices

we are dancing

where there is vodou

we are horses

where there are drums

we are possessed

with joy and stubborn jamboree

but   . . . .

(Read the rest HERE)

🐎

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(Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be ~ Movement.)