A poet's lunch

Your weekly dose of fresh poetry #113

I round a
corner to find a street
cordoned off for the shooting of a
movie or Netflix show.
Who knows, huh?

Then, away
from the crowds, up some stairs,
across some squares, and around one more
corner, I find lunch and
peace to write.

Paris is, like any big city, maybe at its most interesting in places where the tourists do not stand in line to see a famous landmark. It’s precisely in these places that I find a lot of inspiration. Not just for my poetry, but for life as well. And of course, there’s the great food. One of my favorite lunch dishes is the steak tartare. It’s delicious, and a great test of the quality of a restaurant. The one in the poem and photo, pre-prepared, was delicious, in a wonderful little restaurant on the Montmartre.

Life can be so beautiful at those simple moments. What do you enjoy?

---

---

The poetics of life

Poetry is everywhere, also in other forms than poems. In this new section, you will find some things I found poetic in life. It replaces the Something to listen to section, but there will sometimes also be something to listen to here.

Let’s start this time with something that has been showing up in headlines: a new way to protest fossil fuel usage. Around the world, activists have been protesting by throwing soup at famous artworks and glueing themselves to walls. Interestingly, they are very careful to not damage the artwork itself. Artist Joanie Lemercier has an interesting point of view on this. Sometimes poetry is about finding the important things in life:

ᴊᴏᴀɴɪᴇ ʟᴇᴍᴇʀᴄɪᴇʀ @JoanieLemercier

My reaction to the #VanGoghSunflowers action, from an artist perspective. 1/2

I really like the pace (slow) and aesthetic of this video. It’s not new, but very much worth watching:

And in this blog post, some beautiful images of a tea plantation in Java, Indonesia. The video already gives away a little bit, but be sure to watch the photos, too.

---

---

Poetry elsewhere

The poems of Punit Thakkar are wonderful. Based on rhythm and rhyme as we know it from nursery rhymes and children’s songs (and Dr Seuss), he manages to share wonderful insights about our world and humanity. This poem, The Quarrel, is no exception. Read it (or listen and watch the video):

The Quarrel

Experimenting with how words take shape on a page and what that means. Like the dutch poet’s collective De Vijftigers, connected to the COBRA movement, did. Poet Merchant Coppola, yes a pen name in the metaverse, does. They bring this art form into modern times with intriguing poems such as get off…

This beautiful, personal poem of victories and survival is a great example of the writing of Sherman Alexie. He has a wonderful ability of combining sadness and joy, the dark and the light, into one poem. Read Can You See the Mountain:

Can You See the Mountain?