Kiva's Bookshelf...

Kiva.D

One Landscape Still by Patrick MacDonagh, 1958

“…With a rich music and expanding thought
To rouse the intellect, delight the ear,
Making a verse meticulously wrought,
Impersonally splendid…”

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Edited and Annotated by Ernest Clapp Noyes, 1920

"This play is so purely delicious, so little intermixed with the painful passions from which poetry distills her sterner sweets..." ~Thomas Campbell

Kiva.D

...a book reveals itself to its reader...

“As if stories were as pure as that, as gorgeous and straightforward… I found (her) easy way with her own circumstance intoxicating. All I had to do was go and let her graces find me…”

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"Just now and then the pupil's noiseless shutter
is lifted. -Then an image will indart.
down through the limbs' intensive stillness flutter,
and end its being in the heart."

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"It is strange because it is so telling- because...it so plainly confronts us with nonsensical independence."

"There is, where this all rings true, no real light"

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“So nothing would be lost to oblivion,
How grand a gift, the consolation of a book like that.
…Could be this [man] is drafting a story
That will leave me more wakeful,
More aware of alternatives to the path…”

Kiva.D

"Being is what there is when beings that had come to light are
no longer there...He has made them out."

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...inspiring and joyous...

"...a melody that floats in a serene air so purely..."

"Her [Elizabeth Barrett Browning] deepest inner conflict was whether grief could be transformed by love, the past supplanted by the present... Life in a new rythym.... Where else in literature can a sequence of poems be so intimately and movingly connected to the lived life that inspired them" ~editors note, William S Peterson

Kiva.D

Hauntingly painful poetic stories which held my attention throughout.

"Sometimes the heart breaks. Sometimes it is not held hostage..."

"...But this story-- you start in the middle, in the thick and marrow of it..."

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A lovely read with a chronology of his life and poetry.

"For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright..."

Kiva.D

Vita Nova

The Triumph of Achilles

Averno

The Seven Ages

The Wild Iris

Her poetry is deeply emotional. She incorporates poignant questions into her writing: "Ask her if she regrets anything..." "...Do you think you're free?" Vita Nova was the first book I read, and probably my favorite; it broaches transforming endings into beginnings. Averno seems a study of Pesephone. The Triumph of Achilles, of Patroclus. The Seven Ages, of facing mortality. The Wild Iris, an allegory of The Garden. I look forward to reading more of her collections.

Kiva.D

A critique of post-modern architecture, the book is an interesting study of how societal conventions negatively affect architecture.
Can’t wait to find a 1966 copy of Robert Venturis 'Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture’ for comparison.

Kiva.D

I finished the book a few weeks ago. I was uncomfortable its tone and temperament.
I must have appreciated the content, since I marked several passages to re-read.

the authors words...
"This is a difficult book, if it is taken too seriously. Dip into it here and there.
Perhaps there will be a passage that resonates with your curiosity”

Kiva.D

A book of poetry. The first half seemed completely disconnected from the latter half. In reconciling her passion for writing with a loss of physical function,
she experimented with various poem structures and wordplays. I appreciate her process, but it wasn't my favorite book.

Kiva.D

The authors depiction of time on the natural world is… vivid, eloquent, picturesque, illuminating. If I had but one book of poetry, I would choose a Jorie Graham book. Her poems are wrought with fast energy; the reader must slow the pace to observe each nuance and depth of description offered in her parenthetical, bracketed scripting (not unlike my own fragmented writing style).

“Golden sentences writ on clearest moving waters,
moving their meaninglessness on (not in) the moving of the waters
(which feels tugged)(wanting the eye to catch and take
dominant final-hold, feel the thickest rope of waterlipped scripting
to be producing of a thing that speaks [to whom
one does not know, but a true speech])…”

Kiva.D

A book of poetry written by a woman separated from her teenage love until rediscovering each other at midlife.
Her poetry felt flat and fell far short of what the book promised. Here's one of only a few poems with which I could relate:

The Cliffs of Mistake
To know you’re making a mistake as you make it, yet not be able to stop,
is to step off a cliff, expecting to scramble backwards and up through the air
to stand on the outcrop you stepped from, even though it can’t unhappen
as you backpeddle wildly with the second step, looking far, far below
onto the moraine of pain you anticipate later, which is now only the shock
of recognizing the result there’s no leaping back from.
Oh God, and this is only a metaphor.
Might this be what metaphors are for?
To say what it’s like before you hit what it is.

Kiva.D

An uplifting poetic celebration of the minute details in nature, not visible from the human perspective.

Mindful ~Mary Oliver
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight,
that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
It was what I was born for - to look, to listen, to lose myself
inside this soft world - to instruct myself over and over in joy,
and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant - but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise
with such teachings as these - the untrimmable light of the world,
the ocean's shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?

Kiva.D

“Distinctions matter… The untranslatable thought must be the most precise. Yet words are not the end of thought, they are where it begins.”

A book of poetic assays, exploring the measure and meaningfulness of overlooked items, ways of being, and parts of speech, such as:

“And”: An Assay (excerpt)
Before disappears.
After transforms into others.
“And” – that strong rock – stays standing.
Undevourable thus of connection…

“Burlap Sack”, “It Was Like This: You Were Happy”, and “To Gravel: An Assay” were a few of my favorites. The author considers her poems to be ‘pebbles’ - a "brief, easily pocketable perception that remains incomplete until the reader’s own response awakens inside it" … I found such to be true when, after reading the first half of the book on an inconsolable day, I judged her poetry as pointless. After returning to it on a brighter day, I found her poetry wrought with meaning … Such is the power of receptiveness.

Kiva.D

“Be careful what you say… The magic of words unfolds intention… Our lifetime is packaged inside us as imprints triggered by words…
We are both the spider and the fly, imprisoning ourselves in our own web.” (excerpt from 'Prisoner of Words')

A lyrical unfolding of Deepak’s karmic teachings. The latter half was in celebration of new life – as if singing to his newborn child. “Ticket to Freedom” and "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind” were among my favorite poems. “I Must Make Peace With My Shadows” mirrors my current state of… fragmentation.

Creative Impulses of the Cosmos
The mind of God. Where does it hide? Creative impulses of the cosmos, where do you abide?
In the depths of your soul are boundless energies and powerful forces, side by side.
Inifinite accomplishments with little effort.
In the eternal storehouse of creation are treasures beyond imagination.
Invisible forces are here to help you. They are silent outside the bounds of fear.
Step aside, do not interfere. Look within and face the world.
In the mirror of relationships are secrets to be unfurled.
Wherever you go, there you are. In this realm there is no near or far…
…A flame of candle or dancing light on distant stars.
…In this body you will not find the me, that’s free, a different kind.
In this world and not of it, you will understand, bit by bit.
…Behind the machinations of history, lurks a deeper mystery.
Fearless, magnificent, full of splendor…

Kiva.D

Swarm by Jorie Graham

5/3/98
When do I say . . . . . . yes
And it become again a form of joy?
A sound like water.
A large bucket lifted and poured.
A can still hear water.
No I can still remember.
What isn’t true but must be believed?
What isn’t . . . . . . but must be.
How strange . . . . . . A mind made up.
Say the words you should have said.
Say what you would have meant.
Say what you . . . . . . mean.
Disguised as thoughts.
Ruins . . . . . . Sentences.
Self-evidence, then story.
Then where they take one chair
Away.

* I borrowed Koth's :cool: spiffy posting style

Kiva.D

The Love Poems of William Shakespeare

Then I confess
Here on my knee before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor but honest; so's my love.
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intensible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still...

Kiva.D

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

…someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that...

Kiva.D

True Love by Robert Fulghum

...One of the reasons people in my neighborhood eat at a local restaurant is because of a sign on its wall: “We reserve the right to only serve those in love, those who have been in love, or those who want to be in love.” It’s hard to feel alone in the atmosphere created by this sign… Service has never been refused – the sign is inclusive...The only thing constant about love is its universality. The only thing universal about love is its inconstancy. These truths make conspirators out of strangers.

Kiva.D

The Lost Land by Eavan Boland

MOTHER IRELAND

At first I was land
I lay on my back to be fields
and when I turned
on my side, I was a hill
under freezing stars.
I did not see.
I was seen.
Night and day, words fell on me.
Seeds. Raindrops. Chips of frost.

From one of them
I learned my name.
I rose up. I remembered it.
Now I could tell my story.
It was different
from the story told about me.
And now also, it was spring.
I could see the wound I had left
in the land by leaving it.
I travelled west.

Once there
I looked with so much love
at every field as it unfolded
its rusted wheel and its pram chassis
and at the gorse-
bright distances I had been
that they misunderstood me.
Come back to us they said.
Trust me I whispered.

Kiva.D

The Physics of Imaginary Objects by Tina May Hall

I should have told you rain does not come from a clear sky.
I should have told you a sharp blow is necessary for a flash of light...
...Should we not meet again, the memory of these days will still unite us.
Or rather, was not the paying of the price a portion of the delight?

Kiva.D

Come, Thief by Jane Hirshfield

This, your life had said, it's only pronoun.
Here, your life had said, it's only house.
Let, your life had said, it's only order.
And you did have a choice in this? You did-
...A few times, you chose not to be frightened.
A few times, you held another beyond any measure.
A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.
Mortal, your life will say,
as if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.

Kiva.D

The Second Person by C. Dale Young

You must be still. You must move as if
Through water. Your feet must be an anchor,
Your hands both graceful and terrible.

You must become water. You must absorb force.
Let yourself ripple each attack to stillness.
Whatever happens cannot be erased.

Let your surfaces reflect and distort.
Be still and move only with purpose.
You must be calm but capable of great force.

Kiva.D

Rope by Alison Hawthorne Deming

But still he can't get back
to the woman he loves
can't get outside of his pain.
Brother give me your face
again one time and let it be calm.
Your poems and mine were lovers
though we never were.

Kiva.D

Edna St Vincent Millay, selected poems

Excerpts from Fatal Interview

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish — and men do —
I shall have only good to say of you…

The heart once broken is a heart no more,
And is absolved from all a heart must be;
All that it signed or chartered heretofore
Is cancelled now, the bankrupt heart is free…

If in the years to come you should recall,
When faint in heart or fallen on hungry days,
Or full of griefs and little if at all
From them distracted by delights or praise;
When failing powers or good opinion lost
Have bowed your neck, should you recall to mind
How of all men I honoured you the most,
Holding your noblest among mortal-kind…

Kiva.D

A Gift of Wings by Richard Bach

I used to wonder, a few years ago, about fog and rain: why was it, some days, that the whole earth was gray and wet, the whole world a miserable, flat, sad place to live? I wondered how bleakness happened to the whole planet at once, and how it was that the sun, so bright yesterday, had turned to ash. Books tried to explain, but it wasn’t till I began to know an airplane that I found that clouds don’t cover the whole world at all – that even from where I stood in the worst of the rain, soaking on the runway, all I had to do to find the sun again was to fly above the clouds.

Kiva.D

Little Boat by Jean Valentine

Excerpt from What Are The Consequences of Silence?

I was going to tell you about it…
but the air was too thin, I couldn’t…
Two years later, we were in love,
and still never talked about it
…not about our lips that never touched.