Kay Ryan on lending a hand with Brazil

The best bit of this wet and windy weekend  lies in reading my bloglines and discovering through 3quarks Daily another poet who delights,

Kay Ryan, the new Poet Laureate to the United States.

Already I am marvelling over how much she communicates with so little. 

ATLAS

Extreme exertion
isolates a person
from help,
discovered Atlas.
Once a certain
shoulder-to-burden
ratio collapses,
there is so little
others can do:
they can't
lend a hand
with Brazil
and not stand
on Peru.

Kay Ryan

Poet Laureate to the United States

You can read a sample of her writing here and check out her reading of "Home to Roost" below.

Comments

[nix]

A woman with a truly amazing gift with words.

Thank you for sharing.

[Artichoke]

I am constantly bewildered by the extent of wonderful stuff that I know nothing about Nix ...

[Janet Hawtin]

http://www.ashoka.org/sites/ashoka/files/Nat_Geo.pdf

[Janet Hawtin]

It is possible to make work for Atlas
with nothing more than fear.
It is possible to shape Brazil with our fear.
We put fear in places and words and people
which separate it from ourselves.

All made of nothing but refracted doubt
Light become particle, particle become mass.
I am weary of fear and its ephemeral gravitas.
It is a difficult light to read by.

Shopping for the antidote.
It is just good pattern, good practice, making hope,
making peace, trust and balance.
I know it is inside me somewhere
like a forgotten rhythm.
I am sensible, but not solved.
Persistence is useful.

======

Brasil has heart and passion.
http://www.manuchao.net/
(funky music, some might be feral)

I dont know the context for the original poem,
I do know of economic ecological and cultural brokenness
applied to indigenous people there.
At least from an external perspective.
http://cafod.org.uk/brazil

But neither Australia or the USA are standing on
moral highground on those issues.
We all share the same broken economics
The plays differ in expression and players,
but the form is more universal.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

Something we all need to face and change.

[Suzie Vesper]

Hi Pam! Thanks for this poem and especially thanks for the 3 Quarks blog. There go yet another few precious hours of my life :-) Have started to look into books to buy and have been perusing your Library shelf. What would be your absolute top three books that have influenced your thinking?