Heard this piece yesterday morning on NPR's Morning Edition program and wanted to pass it on to our discussion group: Can Poetry Save the Earth?
Stanford University professor John Felstiner writes in his new book, Can Poetry Save the Earth?: "If poems touch our full humanness, can they quicken awareness and bolster respect for this ravaged resilient earth we live on?"
Listen to the entire piece on the NPR Website.
Felstiner was asked to pick just one poem that could save the world, if everyone were to read it. He chose:
The Well Rising
by William Stafford
The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through the deep ground
everywhere in the field —
The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer —
The swallow heart from wing beat to wing beat
counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.
Hope you get a chance to appreciate "such a world" today.
More about poetry: I was at our local bookseller, The King's English, scouting out books to read in the Book Club next year, when I came across a lovely collection of poetry, "The Tree that Time Built: a celebration of nature, science, and imagination". The poems are both traditional and contemporary, and were selected by Mary Ann Hoberman, U.S. Children's Poet Laureate.
ReplyDeleteWe appreciated these words from Ms. Hoberman's preface:
"Try reading the poems slowly. Try reading them aloud. If you like one, read it to a friend. If you're puzzled by one, read it again. You might even memorize a favorite or two. Some of the information in this book may encourage you to look further into a particular aspect of the natural world and, like Darwin, begin some sort of specimen collection."
Lovely collection, lovely interweaving of science and art, lovely way to spend time with a child or even alone, under a tree, reading poetry!