Mentioning the Meseta fog has reminded me of this:
Fog-thick morning -
I see only
where I now walk. I carry
my clarity
with me.
I can more or less guarantee that most people won't know the poetry of Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970), 'America's Greatest Unknown Poet'. Fans of Emily Dickinson will almost certainly love her. She was the retiring daughter of a Wisconsin fisherman who spent much of her life beside a flooding river in a ramshackle hut without electricity or drinking water. She worked as a hospital cleaner.
Remember my little granite pail?
The handle of it was blue.
Think what's got away in my life -
Was enough to carry me thru.
John Lehman wrote about her poetry in 2003: Niedecker's poetry is not a journey to another place. It takes us neither forward nor backward in time. Rather, it's a journey into nearness and immediacy. If we take the time and the effort to make some of these poems our own, they can awaken us and make us more fully aware of our own lives.
A journey into nearness and immediacy. I like that. I wish for that in all my own journeyings. Near or far. In fog or in sunshine.
Fog-thick morning -
I see only
where I now walk. I carry
my clarity
with me.
I can more or less guarantee that most people won't know the poetry of Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970), 'America's Greatest Unknown Poet'. Fans of Emily Dickinson will almost certainly love her. She was the retiring daughter of a Wisconsin fisherman who spent much of her life beside a flooding river in a ramshackle hut without electricity or drinking water. She worked as a hospital cleaner.
Remember my little granite pail?
The handle of it was blue.
Think what's got away in my life -
Was enough to carry me thru.
John Lehman wrote about her poetry in 2003: Niedecker's poetry is not a journey to another place. It takes us neither forward nor backward in time. Rather, it's a journey into nearness and immediacy. If we take the time and the effort to make some of these poems our own, they can awaken us and make us more fully aware of our own lives.
A journey into nearness and immediacy. I like that. I wish for that in all my own journeyings. Near or far. In fog or in sunshine.
