[Fuusmchat] Fw: American Life in Poetry 787 -- moving to "stillness" from swirling thoughts

Mon Apr 20 10:08:06 CDT 2020

American Life in Poetry 787Happy Monday!  I cannot thank you enough, Martha, for sharing so many wonderful & calming emails & sites. All connections to FUUSM chat by all members & friends are keeping my spirits afloat!
Randall, your music is an incredible blessing. Darryl, what a great idea for the sharing of quotes. I have many to share after I debug -repair my system. Cross your fingers on that one.

Brenda Lisk

From: Martha McGovern via fuusmchat 
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 10:54 AM
To: fuusmchat at fuusm.org 
Cc: Martha McGovern 
Subject: [Fuusmchat] Fw: American Life in Poetry 787 -- moving to "stillness" from swirling thoughts

From: American Life in Poetry 
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 6:59 AM
To: marthamcg at suddenlink.net 
Subject: American Life in Poetry 787

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                              Welcome to American Life in Poetry. For information on permissions and usage, or to download a PDF version of the column, visit www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.

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                              American Life in Poetry: Column 787
                              BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006  

                              I had to drop out of a philosophy class in college because I'd begun to think about what I was thinking about and I was getting dizzy and sick. Here's a poem by Danusha Laméris about getting relief from thinking. It's from Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, published by Grayson Books of West Hartford, CT. The poet lives in Santa Cruz, CA, and she has a book forthcoming in April 2020 from the University of Pittsburgh Press entitled Bonfire Opera.

                              Thinking 

                              Don't you wish they would stop, all the thoughts
                              swirling around in your head, bees in a hive, dancers
                              tapping their way across the stage? I should rake the leaves
                              in the carport, buy Christmas lights. Was there really life on Mars?
                              What will I cook for dinner? I walk up the driveway,
                              put out the garbage bins. I should stop using plastic bags,
                              visit my friend whose husband just left her for the Swedish nanny.
                              I wish I hadn't said Patrick's painting looked "ominous."
                              Maybe that's why he hasn't called. Does the car need oil again?
                              There's a hole in the ozone the size of Texas and everything
                              seems to be speeding up. Come, let's stand by the window
                              and look out at the light on the field. Let's watch how the clouds
                              cover the sun and almost nothing stirs in the grass.

                              We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Danusha Laméris, "Thinking," from The Moons of August, (Autumn House Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Danusha Laméris and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

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                              American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.

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