I believe I have hosted Poetry Friday only twice before. Each time I shared a Richard Wilbur poem. I didn't actually realize this until tonight, when I found myself planning to share a Richard Wilbur poem. I did a search on my blog for all the other times I've shared Richard Wilbur and I discovered my pattern. Not one to mend something that isn't broken, I'll continue to share Richard Wilbur with you as part of my hosting duties.
In the past, my host-day poems were The Writer (one of my all time favorites) and The Beautiful Changes. Today it's this marvelous poem:
The Reader
by Richard Wilbur
She is going back, these days, to the great stories
That charmed her younger mind. A shaded light
Shines on the nape half-shadowed by her curls,
And a page turns now with a scuffing sound.
Onward they come again, the orphans reaching
For a first handhold in a stony world,
The young provincials who at last look down
On the city’s maze, and will descend into it,
The serious girl, once more, who would live nobly,
The sly one who aspires to marry so,
The young man bent on glory, and that other
Who seeks a burden.
(Read the rest here -- just scroll down, past The Writer, but please, please listen to him read The Writer. The audio link is right there.)
For more on my
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23 comments:
Lovely poem, Karen. I wasn't familiar with it, and I also enjoyed rereading "The Writer." Thanks!
And thanks for hosting--happy Poetry Friday.
Thanks, Karen. I'm welcoming "Autumn" @ the FATHER GOOSE blog and pondering "The Art of Letting Go" @ the BALD EGO blog
Hi, Karen - I'm up with an original poem today, just cuz:
Unfair
Thanks for hosting!
Thank you for hosting, Karen! And thank you for another Richard Wilbur poem. Traditions are great.
Today I share poem #178 of this year which is #19 in my series of poems about poems. I also have peek inside a first grade classroom to see "Poet of the Month".
http://poemfarm.blogspot.com/2010/09/poetry-friday-peek-and-poem-178.html
A.
Thanks for hosting, Karen. I'll be out in the beautiful weather all weekend, fly fishing with breast cancer survivors, so it will likely be later in the week before I get to come and enjoy all of this week's offerings. Something to look forward to!
There are books that I, too, have read many times and yet, "still turn enchanted to the next bright page." What a lovely, slightly sad, wise poem.
I'm in today with a review of Markus Zusak's novel, Getting the Girl. All of his writing is poetic, but this, his early work, is raw around the edges, and I love it.
thanks for hosting, and for tipping me toward the wilbur poems. i particularly liked the pairing of "the writer" with "the reader."
i'm in with an original poem that, honestly, i have no idea where it came from.
Thanks so much for hosting, Karen!! Not even your blog title is predictable. :) And yes, love that poem.
Hello Karen, I've come to your blog via Melissa Wiley's. Thank you for hosting this and for the opportunity to link to it. I have a Louise Gluck poem up on my blog today.
Hi, all. I have a call for poetry submissions up today. I am editing an anthology for the Maryland Writers Association. The theme is love. I hope some of you will submit your original poems.
Hi Karen,
Thanks so much for hosting today. I just shared a link to April Halprin Wayland's post on our TeachingAuthors blog. She shares two original poems in honor of National Punctuation Day.
Carmela
TeachingAuthors
If you're gonna get repetitive, it might as well be with Richard Wilbur. Honestly! Thanks for sharing and for hosting...
Thanks for hosting and the poem. I can't get enough Richard Wilbur.
Thanks for hosting, Karen. And I really love that Wilbur poem. I totally get your obsession!
lol You crack me up about the posting the same poet ☺
He is obviously one of your favs
I've not heard of him so I am thankful you posted a few of his as it will give me variety of the poets work ☺
Thanks a bunch and I so love this friday poem thing I will take part most certainly once we have begun school come sept.29th ☺
I love this poem. Thanks for sharin and hosting today.
Love his voice -- the reading voice and the writing voice. Had heard The Writer before, but it's so much better with him reading it!
Thanks, as always, for hosting and posting!
Janet
PS If you folks haven't yet, check out the book give-away contest at The Write Sisters blogsite: www.thewritesisters.blogspot.com
Karen - As far as I'm concerned, Richard Wilbur is the best, bar none, of living poets. His mastery of form, his intelligence, his playfulness, his sense of wonder, and his curiosity - well, you couldn't pick a better poet to be "obsessed" with over the years!
Thanks for hosting Poetry Friday. I've left my info with Mr. Linky, so I won't repost that here.
Julie
Yes, you couldn't pick a better obsession. And thanks for hosting!
Thanks for hosting!
I'm up this week with a poem called Moment, written by Vincent Guilliano.
My selection is Ivan's Great Fall: poetry for Summer and Autumn from great poets and writers of the past, by Vanita Oelschlager with illustrations by Kristin Blackwood.
Karen, The Reader is great...but The Writer was greater. It's new to me and maybe the best poem I've read all year. Thanks for sharing it with me.
Loved listening to "The Writer" again. And The Reader is delightful. That last couplet especially caught me:
"The blind delight of being, ready still
To enter life on life and see them through."
Nice to have saved a little poetry for a sickly Sunday afternoon.
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