Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Resilience

http://www.theschooloflife.com/london/shop/resilience-one-day-workshop-5/

"The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more creative uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies."
~Joanna Macy

"There is no way to re-enchant our lives in a disenchanted culture except by becoming renegades from that culture and planting the seeds for a new one."

~Thomas Moore

"The more we focus on trying to instill grit, the less likely we’ll be to question larger policies and institutions."

~ Alfie Kohn

Midweek Motif ~
 Resilience

Whether the topic is climate change, endangered species, burnt trees or trauma of human varieties, we hope to discover resilience. More than resistance, "resilience" is growing better and stronger in moving beyond the obstacle. But what if real social change is needed?  
When is individual resilience enough?

Your challenge: In your new poem, define/clarify resilience by example. 

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Solitude

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; 

Weep, and you weep alone. 

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, 

But has trouble enough of its own. 

Sing, and the hills will answer; 

Sigh, it is lost on the air. 

The echoes bound to a joyful sound, 

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you; 

Grieve, and they turn and go. 

They want full measure of all your pleasure, 

But they do not need your woe. 

Be glad, and your friends are many; 

Be sad, and you lose them all. 

There are none to decline your nectared wine, 

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded; 

Fast, and the world goes by. 

Succeed and give, and it helps you live, 

But no man can help you die. 

There is room in the halls of pleasure 

For a long and lordly train, 

But one by one we must all file on 

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2007.

Invictus

Related Poem Content Details

BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Audio Player00:00

Out of the night that covers me, 

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

Lodged
BY ROBERT FROST

The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged - though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt. 

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Please share your new poem with Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

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

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Survival

“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. 
All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, 
to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.” 
― James Baldwin

film trailer:  http://www.poetryofresilience.com/

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“. . . and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive” 
― Audre Lorde, 
The Black Unicorn: Poems

Midweek Motif ~ Survival

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Breaking the cycle of violence 

against women and girls.  Stopping violence altogether.

Today, I am thinking of the ones who 

don't survive.  Of the ones who do.

 Of surviving  huge violence and 

violence others might perceive 

as small.   I want to write,  but how 

to take one event and emotion

 from among so many that 

stuff up our mouths?  

Your challenge: Speak about survival so that others may listen.  Write a new poem because that is what we do. 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

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(Next week, Susan's Midweek Motif will be Energy, as in Vitality)