The start of this month marks the 12th Bloggers’ (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. I no longer know what day it’s supposed to be on, since we all started on Feb. 2. But St. Brigid’s Day is actually the 1st, and that is when the few who still participate seem to share their choices. However, I am a traditionalist on this issue and continue to participate on the 2nd. This year, I decided to share a poem I memorized way back in seventh grade, since it seemed apt:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could not stop the little Bird
That kept so many warm —

I’ve heard in the chillest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet — never — in Extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

   ~Emily Dickinson

I apologize if the punctuation/capitalization is off. I didn’t memorize that part, and it’s not included in any of the poetry books I have on hand here in the Burrow. Pending a definitive reference, I’ve opted to go with The Poetry Foundation’s stylization, since the American Academy of Poets seems to have modernized it on their site.

In previous years, I have shared poems by Kyle Dargan, Barbara Crooker, William Stafford, Mary Oliver (twice), Wislawa Szymborska, Stuart Dischell, Jean Esteve, John Frederick Nims, Grace Paley, Heather McHugh, and Barbara Hamby, all of which are worth another read.

Work on my cowl is slow, in part because I haven’t felt like knitting a ton, what with the world ending and all… But I’ve joined a new knitting group, so at the very least, I knit there every week while we listen to chapters or stories from audiobooks.

My print reading is all yellow (which maybe makes me want to cast on something yellow to coordinate…) and widely acclaimed: Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, a verse novel which embodies the titular emotion as a huge, hulking crow, and Zadie Smith’s Swing Time. My friend Sam gave me White Teeth the year it came out and it’s one of those books that haunts me, as I’ve tried reading it a couple times without success. It’s been years (as in, since before I moved to D.C.) since I picked it up, but if it’s similar to her latest novel, I have a sense of why I kept giving up on it. This novel, or at least the early part in which I currently find myself wading, is written at a distance — of both time and emotion — and doesn’t easily lend itself to my preferred immersive reading experience.

I think this month I’m going to try alternating some of my want-to reads with some of my should-reads, so the sci-fi YA novel I’ve been looking forward to for months, Gemina, will likely be next. (Also planned for this month are Isla and the Happily Ever After and The Sellout.)

P.S. Make sure you stop back tomorrow (later today) for my part in the annual Silent Poetry Reading.

Yarning along with Ginny at Small Things.