Serena’s Poetry Challenge July 2020: If You Should Go by Countee Cullen

As part of Serena’s Poetry Reading Challenge I will be sharing the poem I enjoyed the most that month on the last Tuesday of each month.

One of the easiest, and possibly most difficult, will be getting people to sign up to read a poem-a-day through the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day service. The challenge is to read a poem-a-day for a week once per month and write about which poems were your favorite and why. You can write up a short blurb on your Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, or your blog. I’d love for you to share your experience in the comments each month.

I took this poetry challenge on for 2020 and have been reading a poem a day in my emails. So far this year I have only shared one poem here on my blog due to everything going on but I’m hoping to begin posting a poem on the last Tuesday of each like I initially planned to. The poem I enjoyed most lately was one that I read in June called If You Should Go by Countee Cullen.

This was my first time reading this poet and I enjoyed the melancholy feel to it. It is a short and bittersweet poem. I especially like these lines…“Go quietly; a dream …When done, should leave no trace”.  What do you think?

If You Should Go by Countee Cullen
Love, leave me like the light,
The gently passing day;
We would not know, but for the night,
When it has slipped away.

So many hopes have fled,
Have left me but the name
Of what they were. When love is dead,
Go thou, beloved, the same.

Go quietly; a dream
When done, should leave no trace
That it has lived, except a gleam
Across the dreamer’s face.

You can read the poem here at Poets.org.

You can sign up for a Poem A Day over by clicking here.

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Nothing in this post is available for download. The photo is my own.

Author Guest Post and Giveaway: Girls Like Us by Elizabeth Hazen

 

Good morning everyone. Please join me in welcoming Elizabeth Hazen as she stops by today to chat. There is also a link towards the end of the post to where you can enter to win a copy of her book. But first, here are the details about her latest collection, Girls Like Us….

Book Synopsis:

Girls Like Us is packed with fierce, eloquent, and deeply intelligent poetry focused on female identity and the contradictory personas women are expected to embody. The women in these poems sometimes fear and sometimes knowingly provoke the male gaze. At times, they try to reconcile themselves to the violence that such attentions may bring; at others, they actively defy it. Hazen’s insights into the conflict between desire and wholeness, between self and self-destruction, are harrowing and wise. The predicaments confronted in Girls Like Us are age-old and universal—but in our current era, Hazen’s work has a particular weight, power, and value.

Stanley Park by Sapphira Olson

source: review copy
title: Stanley Park
author: Sapphira Olson  (Twitter)
published: December 23, 2019
genre: poetry

blurb:
Stanley Park is a collection of 35 poems from parables author Sapphira Olson charting the story of two lovers through history as they are separated and then reunited all within the island of Stanley Park in Vancouver.

Olson weaves a beautiful and poignant narrative through a progression of emotional poetry taking the listener on a journey of hope driven by love.

Incorporating poems inspired by Squamish Nation history and legends, the collection explores themes of immortality, love, loss, the nature of consciousness, and culture.

Stanley Park itself is a beautiful 405-hectare public park that borders the downtown of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada and is mostly surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park has a long history and was one of the first areas to be explored in the city.

“What shall it profit you if you turn the whole world into a gasometer and lose your own souls?” (Thomas H. Mawson about Stanley Park in his 1912 address to the Canadian Club)

my thoughts:

I love reading poetry so when I had a chance to read Stanley Park I happily dove in.
This collection of 35 poems by Sapphira Olson revolves around two lovers who break up and then reunite. I enjoyed dipping in and out of this set of poetry and would go back and re-read a few lines in order to savor them fully. There are themes of nature, old legends and love flowing throughout these poems. The history of  Stanley Park in Vancouver is woven in throughout which was also a nice touch.

Serena’s Poetry Challenge February: Ask Me Why I Love You by Walter Everette Hawkins

As part of Serena’s Poetry Reading Challenge I will be sharing the poem I enjoyed the most that month on the last Tuesday of each month.

One of the easiest, and possibly most difficult, will be getting people to sign up to read a poem-a-day through the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day service. The challenge is to read a poem-a-day for a week once per month and write about which poems were your favorite and why. You can write up a short blurb on your Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, or your blog. I’d love for you to share your experience in the comments each month.

After reading a poem a day for a week in February, the one I enjoyed most was: Ask Me Why I Love You Walter Everette Hawkins. This was my first time reading this poet and I  enjoyed this one so much because I like love poems. I enjoy the way this poem flows, simply and beautifully. I like all the examples he gives to show that sometimes you can simply love someone just because you do…“And I will ask the flower why it loves the Summer sun…”. 

Ask Me Why I Love You by Walter Everette Hawkins

Ask me why I love you, dear,
And I will ask the rose
Why it loves the dews of Spring
At the Winter’s close;
Why the blossoms’ nectared sweets
Loved by questing bee,—
I will gladly answer you,
If they answer me.

Ask me why I love you, dear,
And I will ask the flower
Why it loves the Summer sun,
Or the Summer shower;
I will ask the lover’s heart
Why it loves the moon,
Or the star-besprinkled skies
In a night in June….

What do you think of this one? You can read the poem in full here.

You can sign up for a Poem A Day over @ Poets.org

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Nothing in this post is available for download. The flower photo is my own.

Serena’s Poetry Challenge January: Farewell by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

As part of Serena’s Poetry Reading Challenge I will be sharing the poem I enjoyed the most that month on the last Tuesday of each month.

One of the easiest, and possibly most difficult, will be getting people to sign up to read a poem-a-day through the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day service. The challenge is to read a poem-a-day for a week once per month and write about which poems were your favorite and why. You can write up a short blurb on your Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, or your blog. I’d love for you to share your experience in the comments each month.

After reading a poem a day for a week in January, the one I enjoyed most was: Farewell Alice by Dunbar-Nelson. This is not a poet I’d read before and I found her poem to be beautiful and bittersweet. I wonder if she wrote this about someone she personally could not be with and I wonder who that was. On reading more about the poet here, I found she led an interesting life and that she campaigned for the women’s suffrage movement.

Farewell by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Farewell, sweetheart, and again farewell;
To day we part, and who can tell
If we shall e’er again
Meet, and with clasped hands
Renew our vows of love, and forget
The sad, dull pain.

Dear heart, ’tis bitter thus to lose thee
And think mayhap, you will forget me;
And yet, I thrill
As I remember long and happy days
Fraught with sweet love and pleasant memories
That linger still

You go to loved ones who will smile
And clasp you in their arms, and all the while
I stay and moan
For you, my love, my heart and strive
To gather up life’s dull, gray thread
And walk alone……..

You can read the rest of the poem here. What do you think of this one?

You can sign up for a Poem A Day over @ Poets.org

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Nothing in this post is available for download. The sunflower photo is my own.