Purple veins
Purple veins
on white petals reach out
like tentacles of summer grabbing
us to wake us from our
winter sleep.
The circularity of life is a wonderful thing. When you live in a part of the world that experiences four distinct seasons, your surroundings are a constant reminder of the passing of time and the renewal that each season brings. Now, I don’t really mind the winter, especially when there’s snow involved (which there wasn’t for us this year, alas), but spring always brings a bit of joy. The days are lighter and longer, and everywhere you look bright colours pop out of the ground. Croci, daffodils, snow bells - they’re telling us the warmth is returning, nature is awakening from hibernation and life, as always, goes on with new energy.
Which season(s) do you enjoy?
Creativity is more than just letting a pencil dance across a sheet of paper or jotting a few words in a notebook with a fountain pen. It’s the basis of solutions to the challenges you face every day in your personal life and your work. That’s why we start every week with a creativity prompt in the #trpplffct chat. Above is one example. Come and join us. You need to be subscribed to this inbox magazine and download the Substack app on your mobile device. For both, we have a button here:
The poetics of life
We are very connected in this world, and that becomes quite obvious when you learn a bit more about… funghi. They are a very important part of our ecosystem, even if we often rather get them as far away from us as possible. Anyway, this is a fun short video about the fungarium at Kew Gardens.
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Poetry elsewhere
I know many of you here are also reading (or at least subscribed to) Poetry Trapper Keeper (PTK). This project by the wonderful poets Larissa and Kelly is always filled with surprising poetry that captures contemporary culture perfectly. And sometimes, even at moments when we are reminded that submissions are open, a different, very personal, light shines through. In this issue of PTK, at the end, sad news is shared, accompanied by one of the most beautiful eulogies I’ve ever seen.
Another culture is emerging in the digital world, the one where digital artists publish their art on blockchains. Whenever things like that happen, it’s good to step back and comment on what happens. In my series A Crypto Poet’s Guide to the Metaverse, I try to do that, but I am certainly not the only one. Personally, I like it even better when poets write poems about it. Shahnaz Ahmad did so wonderfully with her poem An NFT Poet’s Blockchain Lament.
Some poets can make the most beautiful poems about the most mundane things. Ever read a poem about the water pipes in your house? Well, Amy has the talent to squeeze out the extraordinary from the ordinary, to find the beauty in the mundane, and the sonnet in this issue of her newsletter is certainly proof of that. The shorter poems are certainly also worth the time you spend with them, so go and enjoy:
CRYING. Thank you for sharing and always supporting us <333
Summer's my favorite- everything here feels alive. I also live in a university town, so there's a different energy during those months than there is during the academic year.