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So I wrote something a few weeks ago on Confident Writing about where people should go to look
for poetry, and whether there were particular books or anthologies of poetry where it would
be a good place for people to start looking for poems, and the conclusion I reached was
that the best bet was actually just to let poems come and find you, through newspapers,
through weblinks, through things you happen to find at the library,because they stick
with you and resonate with you in a different way, so I thought it might be an interesting
experiment to share some of the poems that come and find me during the course of a week,
and two poems have come and found me this week, and I thought I would start off by sharing
one that bumped into me this morning. I had shared somehting myself with a group I've
just set up on Facebook, called poetry for a change, and it was about seeing things differently
through the eyes of an artist, or a poet, and not wanting to have your eyesight recorrected
to the way things are 'supposed' to be; and someone on the group very kindly shared a
poem by Mary Oliver called 'the fist'. And it starts like this: there are days when the
sun goes down like a fist, though of course, if you see anything in the heavens in this
way you had better get your eyes checked, or better still, your diminished spirit, and
it goes on to say that the heavens don't behave remotely like a fist, or wouldn't they have
been shaking it for a thousand years now, instead, she finishes, instead, such patience,
such willingness to let us continue, to hear little by little the voices, only so far,
in pockets of the world, suggesting the possibilities of peace. And I really like that bit abou
the pockets of the world, because that's where I think the poems and the poets lie, in those
small pockets, suggesting the possibilities of peace, and the last line goes: keep looking,
behold how the fist opens, with invitation. And I really like the poem. I haven't shared
the whole thing because I need to check out the whole thing about copyright sharing so
I thought I'd just share a few of the lines that resonated with me, and the interesting
thing was, I thought I hadn't read this poem before, but then I discovered that I do have
the book on my shelves that has the poem in it, it's Mary Oliver's 'Thirst' but what tends
to happen with books is that you don't notice all the poems that are in it, it's only when
somebody shares it with you for a particular reason that it jumps out and grabs you, and
works its way into your heart, and that's when you remember them, and that's when they
become significant, and that's when you also want to pass them on. So that was the poem
that came and found me this week: it's called The Fist, and you'll find it in Mary Oliver's
book 'Thirst', or somewhere circulating on the web, or in pockets of poetry somewhere
in the world. Thanks for listening, bye.