Quote for the Day: September 6th, 2021

*The Boston Girl: A Novel* by Anita Diamant

When a shy person smiles, it’s like the sun coming out.

Poem for the Day: September 5th, 2021

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night, 
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
     bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding 
     sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I 
     pray. 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It’s almost cliché to love Dylan Thomas at this point and what a shame that is. Do not go gentle into that good night is so popular because it is so profound, opening itself up to multiple interpretations. Thomas wrote it as his father was ill and dying, the poem’s urgency borne of both his current and impending grief.

If dreams are deferred and passions put aside for more pressing matters, the regret found at the end of a life not fully lived can drive a soul to despair and a mind to madness. You want to beg for more time and the plea falls on deaf ears.

There’s also a fair amount of regret expressed: Though wise men at their end know dark is right, / Because their words had forked no lightning they / Do not go gentle into that good night. Oxford Languages gives the definition of forked lightning as “lightning that is visible in the form of a branching line across the sky.” People who are facing death are forced to reckon with the way they’ve spent their time on earth, and part of this is measuring the impact of one’s words and deeds. If dreams are deferred and passions put aside for more pressing matters, the regret found at the end of a life not fully lived can drive a soul to despair and a mind to madness. You want to beg for more time and the plea falls on deaf ears.

**Bonus: Sir Anthony Hopkins reads Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas**

What did you think about today’s poem? Do any lines strike you in particular? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: September 5th, 2021

In this moment, you’re still breathing. In this moment, you’ve survived. In this moment, you’re finding a way to step onto higher ground.

I’ve read What I Know For Sure twice and I keep coming back to this quote. It’s easy to become bogged down by the accretion of worries and problems that we never really seem to have time to process before we have to tackle the next challenge. Remembering this quote helps me to get through by living moment to moment—by living mindfully. I can take stock in each moment when I feel overwhelmed and know that as of right now, I have everything I need. Right now, I am still breathing. Right now, my family is safe, healthy, and provided for. Right now, I am capable of doing what I have to do. Right now. Right now. Right now.

Haiku XII

Haiku XII by Fred Slusher

Window pane on fire. 
Darling, where’s my wedding gown? 
Pain, bring me a pyre.

Haiku XI

Haiku XI by Fred Slusher

War memorial: 
A hurricane of lilacs; 
Big wind, pray for me.

Poem for the Day: September 4th, 2021

Holy Sonnets: I am a little world made cunningly by John Donne

I am a little world made cunningly 
Of elements and an angelic sprite 
But black sin hath betray’d to endless night 
My world’s both parts, and on both parts must die. 
You which beyond that heaven which was most high 
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write, 
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might 
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it, if it must be drown’d no more. 
But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire 
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire,
And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal 
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

John Donne (1572-1631), in addition to being arguably England’s chief metaphysical poet, also served as a cleric in the Anglican Church. He was made Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621, where he spent the last decade of his life preaching and writing.

Quote for the Day: September 4th, 2021

I own my self, I own my leaving
Jorie Graham, Sea Change: Poems

I feel like Jorie Graham is one of those poets who just gets it. Her work seems to come from this wellspring of hidden and ancient knowledge, accessible only to a few people who are willing to dig, to seek, and then finally to see. I love this entire collection, but those eight words right there say everything. I own my self, I own my leaving. Carve that on my headstone, please. When birds are relieving themselves on my resting place, let these be the words that passersby can see.

Haiku X

Haiku X by Fred Slusher

Poignant memories 
Bitter like forgotten dreams
I’m always awake

Poem for the Day: September 3rd, 2021

The Symbolic Life by Hayan Charara

They kept showing up, for days,
dead on the windowsill, 
and for days I did nothing about the ladybugs 
except to ask if their entering the house 
unnoticed and dying before I saw them 
was symbolic. 
Thinking was so easy. 
They symbolized birth and death,
change and rebirth. 
It was also possible the tiny beetles 
embodies an inborn need 
to show themselves,
to turn up in every and any place,
even as the dried out remains of the once-lively. 
Or they stood for the burden of being one thing 
relieved by becoming another,
which all the world’s children suffer. 

This went on and on, and could’ve gone on 
forever, so I finally opened the window 
and blew them into the wide open 
because everything and everyone should get a 
     chance 
to be mourned, and they got theirs, 
but first they had to die, which is life, 
not symbolism.

Quote for the Day: September 3rd, 2021

Every recorded story implies a future reader.
Margaret Atwood

Today’s quote by Margaret Atwood has been stuck in my brain ever since I first came across it. If memory serves me correctly, I believe it was in a new introduction by Atwood to her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which if you haven’t already read, there’s no better time than the present.

The written word is our receptacle for memory. Without documentation, we have no history, no blueprint for the future, and no constancy to purpose in terms of our collective attempt at living what many philosophers have called the good life. Every time we write, we are holding in our psyches the implied future reader Atwood references. Even if we never write with the intention of publishing our work in mind, there is still a knowing behind committing your thoughts to paper, a compact between yourself and those who may stumble across your words in the future.

Without documentation, we have no history, no blueprint for the future, and no constancy to purpose in terms of our collective attempt at living what many philosophers have called the good life.

When I was a library worker, we got book donations all the time, oftentimes daily. Most of the books were, forgive me, ready for the rubbish bin, but every now and again a folded scrap of paper would fall out with someone’s gnarled script on it and I’d have a new treasure. Most of them I didn’t keep because they were things like checklists or grocery lists or other ephemeral scraps, but there’s one I still have in my possession: a decades-old scrap of notebook paper with a poem on it. It is one of my most treasured possessions.

I was the implied future reader. And this is how we are connected, invisibly and irrevocably.

Perhaps one day I’ll share it on here. The point is I have carried that poem in my heart for years and I don’t even know the author. Only a first name and a date are listed but I think about the writer often. In the poem, they are beseeching God for answers because they’ve lost something (or someone, more likely) dear to them. This person may be long gone by now, passed into eternity, but I still pray for them. I wonder how their life turned out. I was the implied future reader. And this is how we are connected, invisibly and irrevocably.