{"id":6271,"date":"2016-02-02T02:20:08","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T07:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=6271"},"modified":"2016-02-02T05:50:36","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T10:50:36","slug":"6271","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=6271","title":{"rendered":"bloggers’ silent poetry reading: kyle dargan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of this month marks the tenth Bloggers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. (I admit to no longer being fully sure of what day it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to be. We all started on Feb. 2, but it seems to have migrated to the 1st over the years, which is when St. Brigid’s Day is actually celebrated. I am a traditionalist on this issue and always participate on the 2nd.) I think there are only a few of us left who participate, since the originator of the event has gotten rid of her blog and even the Facebook<\/a> group page has gone mostly silent.<\/p>\n

Without additional fuss, here is this year’s poem:<\/p>\n

\nPale Blue Dot
\n    ~Kyle Dargan<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We’re far enough from heaven. Now, we can freak out.
\n~Deep Cotton<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Either a romantic or subtle sadist,
\nCarl Sagan begged NASA to burn
\nVoyager’s hydrazine thrusters,
\nrotating her hull so she might
\ncapture one last snapshot
\nbefore drifting beyond radio
\ntether—exiting the literal
\nedge of our galaxy.
\nThe image she spat back:
\nbands of deconstructed rainbow
\nand one blue speck. That’s us<\/em>,
\nsome astronomer gasped
\nonce the matter of his mind
\ncould discern our infinitesimal
\neverything wrapped in blue
\nfabric—atmosphere’s loomed light,
\nwhich we recognize from pristine
\ndays when our eyes pan upward.
\nthought we have that photograph,
\nonly Voyager has felt the cold
\npull of witnessing all that we are
\nfitted on the head of a pin
\npushed into a black expanse
\nwider than any sky we’ll ever face.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Pale<\/a>
\nBy Voyager 1<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/center><\/p>\n

I went back and forth about which poem of Dargan’s, who is a D.C. resident and professor, to include here, since I just finished his 2015 poetry collection Honest Engine: Poems<\/em>. It came down to two choices, one of which used the local, close-up to illustrate the larger picture, and the other, which won out, which used the cosmos to illustrate what’s unknowable closer to home.<\/p>\n

In previous years, I have shared poems by Barbara Crooker<\/a>, William Stafford<\/a>, Mary Oliver<\/a> (twice<\/a>), Wislawa Szymborska<\/a>, Stuart Dischell<\/a>, Jean Esteve<\/a>, John Frederick Nims<\/a>, Grace Paley<\/a>, Heather McHugh<\/a>, and Barbara Hamby<\/a>, all of which are worth another read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The start of this month marks the tenth Bloggers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. (I admit to no longer being fully sure of what day it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to be. We all started on Feb. 2, but it seems to have migrated to the 1st over the years, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"yoast_head":"\nbloggers' silent poetry reading: kyle dargan - sprite writes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=6271\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"bloggers' silent poetry reading: kyle dargan - sprite writes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The start of this month marks the tenth Bloggers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. 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