Bluebell Books Twitter Club!

Hello all you Bluebell poetry lovers!
Here we are at the end of a beautiful month. Summer is becoming a memory and football games are stealing the limelight away from long warm days. Now its time for crisp fall nights and leaves blowing along the ground. What a good time to curl up with some apple cider and a great book of poetry.

Today I have a great book to recommend to you for doing just that.

The book is entitled View with a Grain of Sand
Selected Poems By Wislawa Szymborska

This Poet is most lauded for her spare, elegant style of writing.

Like this sentence:

"What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?"

That is a line from a poem entitled "True Love". a poem I particularly liked for its wry humor and for its totally different "take" on a subject that most writers choose to only address as a positive; ah yes, true love.

TRUE LOVE

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?
Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles
, and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.
Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!
It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?
True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.
Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die
-Wislawa Szymborska
Agree? Disagree? Find it jaded? Humorous? Imagine the great conversations could be had if this poem was the subject.
This poem along with many others are in this weeks heartily recommended book View with a Grain of Sand.
You read a preview and/or purchase a copy here


http://www.amazon.com/View-Grain-Sand-Selected-Poems/dp/0156002167#_



I would be remiss to leave out this one significant detail. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1996 was awarded to Wislawa Szymborska "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".






One of the things I love most about writing here at Bluebell is the amazing poetry that is out there when I go looking. I really have had my eyes and my mind opened by the sheer volume of talent that exists in this beautiful world we all share. Go out and discover a new poet or book for yourself this week. It will put a smile on your face, I promise!

Indie