Archives for posts with tag: soul

On the Existence of the Soul, poem by Pattiann Rogers

January 28, 2014 //

ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL
by Pattiann Rogers

How confident I am it is there. Don’t I bring it,
As if it were enclosed in a fine leather case,
To particular places solely for its own sake?
Haven’t I set it down before the variegated canyon
And the undeviating bald salt dome?
Don’t I feed it on ivory calcium and ruffled
Shell bellies, shore boulders, on the sight
Of the petrel motionless over the sea, its splayed
Feet hanging? Don’t I make sure it apprehends
The invisibly fine spray more than once?

I have seen that it takes in every detail
I can manage concerning the garden wall and its borders.
I have listed for it the comings and goings
Of one hundred species of insects explicitly described.
I have named the chartreuse stripe
And the fimbriated antenna, the bulbed thorax
And the multiple eye. I have sketched
The brilliant wings of the trumpet vine and invented
New vocabularies describing the interchanges between rocks
And their crevices, between the holly lip
And its concept of itself.

And if not for its sake, why would I go
Out into the night alone and stare deliberately
Straight up into 15 billion years ago and more?

I have cherished it. I have named it.
By my own solicitations
I have proof of its presence.
***
“On the Existence of the Soul” appears in Pattiann Rogers‘ collection Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by Pattiann Rogers (Milkweed Editions, 1994).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pattiann Rogers was born in 1941 in Joplin, Missouri. She attended the University of Missouri, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and went to the University of Houston where she earned an MA in creative writing. Her awards and honors also include two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Poetry Fellowship, Poetry’s Tietjens and Bess Hokin Prizes, the Roethke Prize from Poetry Northwest, the Strousse Award from Prairie Schooner, and four Pushcart Prizes. Rogers has taught at numerous colleges and universities as well as in high schools and kindergartens.

PAINTING: “The Starry Night” (1889) by Vincent van Gogh

Tags Art, Authors, painting, Pattiann Rogers, Poem, Poet, poetry, soul, stars, Vincent Van Gogh, Women Authors, women poets, Writers, Writing

Categories Poetry

The Secret of the Sea, poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

October 29, 2013 //

THE SECRET OF THE SEA (Excerpt)
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

…My soul is full of longing
for the secret of the sea,
and the heart of the great ocean
sends a thrilling pulse through me.

Photo: John Payne

Tags Authors, famous poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ocean, Poems, poetry, Sea, soul, Writers, Writing

Categories Nature, Poetry

On the Existence of the Soul, poem by Pattiann Rogers

October 28, 2013 //

ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL
by Pattiann Rogers

PAINTING: “The Starry Night” (1889) by Vincent van Gogh

Tags Art, Authors, painting, Pattiann Rogers, Poem, Poet, poetry, soul, stars, Vincent Van Gogh, Women Authors, women poets, Writers, Writing

Categories Art, Poetry

Body and Soul, poem by Sharon Bryan

October 28, 2013 //

BODY AND SOUL
by Sharon Bryan

They grow up together
but they aren’t even fraternal

twins, they quarrel a lot
about where to go and what

to do, the body complains
about having to carry

the soul everywhere as if
it were some helpless cripple,

and the soul snipes that it can go
places the body never dreamed of,

then they quarrel over which one of them
does the dreaming, but the truth is,

they can’t live without each other and
they both know it, anima, animosity,

the diaphragm pumps like a bellows
and the soul pulls out all the stops—

sings at the top of its lungs, laughs
at its little jokes, it would like

to think it has the upper hand
and can leave whenever it wants—

but only as long as it knows
the door will be unlocked

when it sneaks back home before
the sun comes up, and when the body

says where have you been, the soul
says, with a smirk, I was at the end

of my tether, and it was, like a diver
on the ocean floor or an astronaut

admiring the view from outside
the mother ship, and like them

it would be lost without its air
supply and protective clothing,

the body knows that and begins
to hum, I get along without you

very well, and the soul says, Listen
to that, you can’t sing worth a lick

without me, they’ll go on bickering
like this until death do them part—

and then, even if the soul seems to float
above the body for a moment,

like a flame above a candle, pinch
the wick and it disappears.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1943, Sharon Bryan earned a BA in philosophy from the University of Utah, an MA in anthropology from Cornell University, and an MFA from the University of Iowa. She is the author of the poetry collections Salt Air (1983), Objects of Affection (1987), Flying Blind (1996), and Sharp Stars (2009), which won the Isabella Stewart Gardner Poetry Award. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut and Dartmouth College, and her awards include two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in poetry.

ARTWORK: “Body and Soul,” digital painting by Philip Sweeck. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

Tags Art, Authors, painting, Philip Sweeck, Poem, Poet, poetry, soul, Women Authors, Writers, Writing

Categories Poetry, Women Authors

Writing Advice from Franz Kafka

July 3, 2013 //

WRITING ADVICE FROM FRANZ KAFKA: “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.”