I love the American Academy of Poets, whose intelligent “Free Verse! Poetry in the Wild” photoessay contest has inspired me to want to live with poetry around me, written on the walls, etched in dust, arranged in stones in the driveway and chalked on the siding. I love Jules’ contribution, and the James Wright poem, here ably illustrated with horse puckey, is also lovely and evocative and a little sad.
I am cheered by having this beauty to look at, the stately cadence and dance of words to fall back on when my own store is depleted and I am famished by the life leeches that draw on my creative blood. Poetry restores. Words feed me. These things inspire me to turn from the gray dramas of my own life, the small B-movie tragedies that prickle at me until they draw blood. With these things — the shape of a cloud, and the sight of an orange cat stalking some unknown prey under a rain-soaked bush — with these things I push away the doldrums and stretch out my own mental wings.
So, what feeds you?
This photo used courtesy of the American Academy of Poets. All rights belong to them.
I garden and love to be outside, like others have said–the sky, the moon, the tomato patch. I also appreciate thoughtful,bright-light blogs. Like this one.
The sight of small birds dipping their beaks into the swimming pool, turning their beady eyes on me. The way their wings are black on the top and mother-of-pearl on the bottom. Chameleons’ pointy little claws; the way chameleons take tiny, careful little steps, googling their eyes all around them. Scarlet poppies…
What a smart horse!!
ROFL
That poem is kind of like the “this sentence is a lie” trap…I think the poet got too much pleasure from it for it to be true!
My peace comes from working outside, without much method but with great intensity, trying to make my garden as beautiful as I can with my own two hands and a push mower. I do all my best thinking while weeding.
We have had to shut the chickens up under the barn. They were being chickens, which was hard on the seedlings.
You know, if that poem/art was in a museum, people would complain. But here, in the dirt, as photographed, it’s as you say, “lovely and sad.” I paged through the Poetry in the Wild entries lately, and was similarly impressed. It feeds me to know that people care enough to (temporarily) create an ode to their favorite words.
Being outdoors also does it for me. My husband and I ran in the woods in the rain, and even though I was pushing it to keep his pace, I liked thinking about all the bits of life around me as I ran.
I also love drama on TV. Watched Little Dorritt on Masterpiece. I’m still sort of confused by the plot, but watching the over-the-topness of Dickens’ characters (snorting rent collector! skulking butlers!) really cheers me up in a weird way.