Gregory orr why all this music

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Poems for Kids. Poetry for Teens. Lesson Plans. Resources for Teachers. Academy of American Poets. American Poets Magazine. Poems Find and share the perfect poems. I think another thing that scares us is rage. Those who have been harmed, one response is shame. We all know that, have done that. We do it, one way we live. But you can also turn the rage outward.

And again, this is part of our legacy. I think what art does is, it tries to get to the place where — or, lyric tries to get to what we all share. And I think we share mysteries, but we also share passions. And passions are very, very frightening. We all experience joy. We all experience fear. We all experience anger.

We all experience sadness. And we all experience disgust. Some kind of experiment, some other story. What we have, and I guess this is what I would say lyric poetry does, is, we have the effort on the part of poets to both articulate their passion and modulate it into the form that we call a poem, into some kind of coherence. Whether — I think they can lead us forward, in ways — that is to say, if we can find the poems and songs that seem to show a path forward, for us. And I think one of our spiritual tasks, in my notion of secular religion, is that job that Emerson assigns us, to make our own bibles, take responsibility for what we consider to be meaningful statements of being, meaningful in the sense that we can walk in the darkness, our own darkness, stepping, using these poems and songs and pieces of wisdom as solid footing for our journey.

A valley of tears that we walk through, or as Johnny Cash …. I will not sing it. There is no other world. And our job, as humans, is to create our own souls.

And I think one of the ways we do that is by finding the songs and poems that sustain us and explain us and make us brave enough to live in this world. Tippett: I think we should end with some poems of yours. I have to say, these two books, about The Body of the Beloved , they are just beautiful and wild and mysterious, to me. I wonder what you might want to read for us.

And I feel like you, somehow, the beloved is somewhere, always, for you, your brother? And on, from there, other beloveds. Orr: No, no, no; I think, for me, when I try to think about these things, when I try to think about this term that I rely on so often in the poems — yes, my brother, my mother, both; both, deeply lost and also the wanting to bring them back because oblivion seems a cruel place to be. The beloved can be, I think, in my thinking, my understanding of it, certainly always a person or people.

We have multiple beloveds, it seems to me. Creatures: My dog is, obviously, one of my beloveds. And my cat is an off-again, on-again beloved …. This is two poems.

Whether garbed In mortal tatters, Or in her dress Of everlastingness —. And this is Mr. Orr perversely reversing that. No other world But this one: Willows and the river And the factory With its black smokestacks.

No other shore, only this bank On which the living gather. No meaning but what we find here. No purpose but what we make. Dodge Poetry Festival and Foundation. And the last voice that you hear singing at the end of our show is Cameron Kinghorn. It is distributed to public radio stations by PRX. I created this show at American Public Media. The Fetzer Institute, helping to build the spiritual foundation for a loving world.

Find them at fetzer. Kalliopeia Foundation, working to create a future where universal spiritual values form the foundation of how we care for our common home. Humanity United, advancing human dignity at home and around the world. Find out more at humanityunited. Written and read by Gregory Orr. Written by Robert Hayden. Read by Gregory Orr. Written by Gregory Orr. Poetry Unbound. Tracy K.

Love is shown and celebrated in observing the small practices of another. Grace 59 books view quotes. Feb 13, PM. Lorna books view quotes. Nov 24, AM. Caroline 1, books view quotes. May 08, PM. Honour 6, books view quotes. Feb 20, PM. Ruchika books view quotes.

Jan 06, PM. Tessa books view quotes. Dec 08, PM. Ro 1, books view quotes. May 06, PM. Sophia 2 books view quotes. My poems podcast, Words by Winter , can be found here.

So many memories of dancing. A ballet studio on the second floor of a frame house: First position. Second position. The Alibi: a bar in Vermont, my best friend and I waiting in the entryway every weekend until the cover dropped to half price. The tiny dance floor where every song, in my memory, is by the Police.

A swing dance party in Maine: me a newbie unable to follow the tight rhythms until a dark-eyed man curled my fingers around the tips of his: Resist me. Follow me, and at the same time resist me. Boards laid across mud. Mud-soaked red shoes: one heel broken by the end of the night. Been a while since I danced things out late at night in the living room, or thought of this poem.

To be alive: not just the carcass but the spark. For more information about Gregory Orr, please check out his website.