{"id":1,"date":"2011-03-31T12:01:04","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T12:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/031634a.netsolhost.com\/site\/?p=1"},"modified":"2011-03-31T23:05:43","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T23:05:43","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/2011\/03\/hello-world\/","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019m Reading for Solace"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by Kathleen Kirk<\/p>\n

Congratulations to Ellen Beals on the release of Solace in So Many Words<\/em>, her anthology of words of comfort. When she first conceived of the book, as a gathering of poems and prose pieces that might give solace to a country crushed and grieving after the events of 9\/11, I was moved by her impulse and effort.\u00a0 In calling for work that respected a universal and ongoing need for solace, she knew her project was something that could evolve, as it has over these last few years, to be able to handle our need for solace in so many ways.<\/p>\n

So it is with wonder, gratitude, and delight that I re-examine what I\u2019m reading for solace now, which is poetry. In particular I am reading the poems of Freya Manfred. \u201cI don\u2019t like poems where you can\u2019t tell what the poet is feeling,\u201d Freya Manfred has said.\u00a0 With her poems, you can.<\/p>\n

She is straight on, personal, with a language as clear as clean water, with depths and changes, of color and temperature, like the water she swims in.\u00a0 Indeed, the first book I read by Freya Manfred was Swimming With a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle<\/em>, a title that hints at the wisdom, confidence, ease, power, and bite of this wise woman poet.<\/p>\n

My poems are written by a spirit on a stone,
\nand there are many tellers, many stories, and many stones,
\nin honor of our braided paths and solitary ways.<\/p>\n

This is the first stanza of the first poem in the book, \u201cTo a Young Artist.\u201d It might also name the \u201cmany tellers, many stories\u201d and \u201cbraided paths\u201d you will encounter in the anthology Solace in So Many Words<\/em>, as people say what they mean and what they feel while navigating the basic journey of their lives.<\/p>\n

Freya\u2019s journey involves daily swimming in a lake in Minnesota, another way I connect to her, though I swim laps in a town pool. I understand the rhythms of swimming, the meditative state induced by steady movement through water that gives and resists, gives and resists.\u00a0 I understand how swimming makes one conscious of one\u2019s own breathing, otherwise an involuntary act, and makes one attentive to its necessity. And how a regular swimmer comes to feel she can breathe underwater, even though she knows she can\u2019t. There\u2019s a new way of moving and breathing, a new way of feeling natural in the world.<\/p>\n

In the book\u2019s title poem, she observes the turtle, a grand swimmer indeed, ugly and beautiful at once, trailing \u201c[r]ibbons of green moss.\u201d And the closing lines of the poem mix danger and solace in deep, deep true ways:<\/p>\n

He swims in everything he knows,
\nand what he knows is never forgotten.
\nWisely, he fears me as if I were the Plague,
\nwhich I am, sick unto death, swimming
\nto heal myself in his primeval sea.<\/p>\n

Next, also by Freya Manfred, having gotten hooked on the turtle (as a turtle occasionally gets hooked on a fishhook), I read My Only Home<\/em>, taking its title from a phrase in the amazing poem called \u201cHeart\u201d at the center of the book.\u00a0 \u201cI am. I am. I am,\u201d it begins, like a heartbeat. My Only Home<\/em> explores Freya Manfred\u2019s home in the heart, and again her home in the water, including a long poem called \u201cThe Lake that Whispers to Itself,\u201d in which she experiences water in all four seasons.<\/p>\n

As reader of poetry, I read whatever is at hand, and am frequently amazed by parallels and coincidences. Recently, I read Like Happiness<\/em>, poems by Michael Hettich, a poet I\u2019ve admired for many years.\u00a0 In the very first poem, \u201cThe Lesson,\u201d a teacher tells her students how to find happiness:<\/p>\n

In that 2nd<\/sup> grade classroom, Mrs. Circle said
\neach of us carries an ocean inside
\nbigger than we are, like happiness, and full of
\nfish that live nowhere else in the world
\nand tides that are pulled by our heartbeats, and low tide
\nsand bars to wade far out in the bright sun.<\/p>\n

There is the terrible, real tsunami, and there is the ocean inside, and the solace of safe sand bar.<\/p>\n

As they dive down deep underwater, into the ocean inside, Mrs. Circle speaks to the children in italics:<\/p>\n

Do you see your shadow down there on the sand,
\nfollowing your body?\u00a0 That\u2019s another form of you,
\na kind of memory, swimming down below
\nyour only solid body.\u00a0 Don\u2019t forget it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, swimming, breathing, and reading poetry have brought me solace. My happiness is small and sometimes complicated, and also wide and deep as a lake in Minnesota, or an ocean.\u00a0 I am grateful for it, always aware that some have their happiness taken from them unexpectedly.\u00a0 Some waste their happiness in complaining or resentments.\u00a0 Some live in ways and places that barely brush them against the opportunities for happiness.\u00a0 In my wide reading of prose, as well as poetry, I came upon this statement by Marilynne Robinson: \u201cAnd Dante, who knew the world about suffering, had a special place in hell for people who were grave when they might have been rejoicing.\u201d That hell, just like any heaven, is always at hand. I am rejoicing while I can.<\/p>\n

And now, because Mrs. Circle would want me come full circle, curving around My Only Home<\/em> in my lap swim back to the hundred year old snapping turtle, watching an eagle drop to \u201crise with a flapping silver fish,\u201d I\u2019ll close with Freya Manfred, the last stanza of \u201cTo a Young Artist\u201d:<\/p>\n

I wish you work that weaves a spell, and love,
\nand breath\u2014uncounted, irretrievable, sacred breath,
\nflying from its cage of bones\u2014eagle-falling, fish-rising, free.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kathleen Kirk Congratulations to Ellen Beals on the release of Solace in So Many Words, her anthology of words of comfort. When she first conceived of the book, as a gathering of poems and prose pieces that might give solace to a country crushed and grieving after the events of 9\/11, I was moved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,4,58,59,13,7,56,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-1","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-guest-posts","7":"tag-freya-manfred","8":"tag-kathleen-kirk","9":"tag-like-happiness","10":"tag-michael-hettich","11":"tag-poetry","12":"tag-solace","13":"tag-swimming-with-a-hundred-year-old-snapping-turtle","14":"tag-to-a-young-artist","15":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}