“Ritual Version —for Kate Middleton humself, shamself, hymnself, shameself—. lameself, lambself, numbself, unself—. sing anger, goddess, of—. many devices—. sing anger godless—. tell me who—. sacred in the sea suffered so many woes—. bookshelf, doubtshelf, debtshelf, riftshelf—. driftshelf, truthshelf, foolshelf, rueshelf—. sing less the many souls sent—. they perished—. sing spoils for the dogs—. who swallowed down the foolish song—. the soul and its companions—. nounself, nonceself, nonself, lashself—. ashself, lawself, thoughtself, aughtself—. tell me, muse, from any point—. and birds—. sing less the wrath of—. a man’s cleverness—. tell also us—. of recklessness—. of home—.” LoveHomeSpiritPoetryLanguagePoetPoemMuse Author:Dan Beachy-Quick
“Some Consequences of the Made Thing The End. Above these words the sky closes. It closes by turning white. Not The white of all clouds or being within a cloud. White of worldless light. The End. Feel a silence there that reminds you of a scent. Crushed grass the hooves galloped through Or is it the binder’s glue? Some silence never not real finally can be Heard. Silence before the first words. Precedent chaos. Or marrow work. Or just the sound of the throat opening to speak. Like those scholars of pure water Who rode through mountains and meadows To drink from each fresh spring a glass And then with brush and ink wrote poems On the differences of sameness, You too feel yourself taste the silent page Of the end and the silent page of beginning. They taste so much of whiteness never more White than white that’s been lost. You have some sense of the book Altering, page sewn secretly next to page, Last page stitched to first. O, earth— It rolls around the solar scroll Turning nothing into years and years into Nothing. At The End you’re a witness to this work That wears the witness away. And who are you Anyway. Pronoun of the 2nd person. Lover, Stranger, God. Student, Child, Shade. Something similar gathers in you. Another way of saying I in a poem— Of saying I in a poem that realizes at the end That I am just a distance from myself. And so are you. That same distance.” SelfWisdomPoetryNaturePoetPoemEgo Author:Dan Beachy-Quick
“The poems are part of my attempt to understand being in the world in an honest way.” WorldWayWritingHonestSongwriting Author:Dan Beachy-Quick
“Poetry challenges you. Much of its importance is that it's one of the few places left in culture that makes things difficult-it asks you to think, to perceive and not to take for granted what we think about the world.” ThinkingWorldWritingCultureAsksLeftDifficultChallengesImportanceGrantedPerceiveSongwriting Author:Dan Beachy-Quick
“[The publication of his first poem] was wonderful ... but it taught me early on that the only thing that really matters is writing the next poem. Publication is best seen as a happy accident.” WritingFirstsMatterNextWonderfulTaughtAccidentsSongwritingPublicationHappy Accidents Author:Dan Beachy-Quick
“Words are substance strange. Speak one and the air ripples into another's ears. Write one and the eye laps it up. But the sense transmutes, and the spoken word winds through the ear's labyrinth into a sense that is no longer the nerve's realm. The written word unfolds behind the eye into the world, world's image, and the imagination sees as the eye cannot see-thoughtfully.” WorldWritingEyeSpeakImaginationBehindsWrittenAirStrangeWindEarsSubstanceRealmsNervesLapLabyrinthRippleWritten WordSpoken Word Author:Dan Beachy-Quick
