The Mnemosyne Monthly: Poem Forty-Two (Doolittle)

Orchard

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

As noted last week, The Mnemosyne Weekly has now become The Mnemosyne Monthly, and we're moving right along to the forty-second poem. What a joy it's been to carry these poems around through my days, pulling them deeper and deeper into my being until they reside among the internal resources I can call on for wisdom and beauty. With the new monthly format, I'm looking forward to even greater intimacy with the poems.

This week's poet, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) was recommended to me by my friend R Jeffreys of The Write Step. I've been somewhat familiar with H.D.'s work in anthologies, but this past weekend I sat down and read my first full H.D. collection, the salty, blossoming Sea Garden, from which I selected this beautiful poem, "Orchard." 

Enjoy!

Orchard

By H. D.

I saw the first pear
As it fell --
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness)
And I fell prostrate
Crying:
You have flayed us
With your blossoms,
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring you an offering --
Do you, alone unbeautiful,
Son of the god,
Spare us from loveliness:

These fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
Grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs
And quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.

Tiferet Talk Interview with Donna Baier Stein and Yours Truly

Please join us tomorrow night at 7 PM EST for a Tiferet Talk interview with Donna Baier Stein and Yours Truly, guest hosted by R Jeffreys Author, of The Write Step. We’ll be talking about the forthcoming Tiferet Talk book, scheduled for release in winter 2012. The book includes interviews with such incredible guests as Julia Cameron, Robert Pinsky, Floyd Skloot, and more. As well, Donna will talk about her founding vision and Tiferet’s beautiful global mission.

Donna Baier Stein is the publisher of Tiferet and an accomplished, award-winning author in her own right. She received the PEN/New England Discovery Award for her novel and her story collection was a Finalist in the Iowa Fiction Awards. . She's been a John Hopkins Univ. Writing Seminars Fellow, a Bread Loaf Scholar, a New Jersey Council on the Arts grant recipient, a Founding Editor of Bellevue Literary Review and a Scholar at this year's Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania. Her work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Washingtonian, and many other journals and anthologies. And in her other life, she's written copy for Smithsonian, World Wildlife Fund, Time magazine, and many other marketing clients.

R Jeffreys is a published poet, essayist; playwright; Editor-in-Chief; editorial consultant; featured blogger and book editor; and host of the popular radio show, "The Write Step with R Jeffreys." His “WriteStep” blog was chosen by Networkedblogs.com as one of the top ten blogs for writing advice. He is also a web Shorty Award nominee and has written for the theater and many well-known stand-up comedians, life coaches, media publications, and web sites. As well, Jeff is the Program Organizer and host of the Boston chapter of the international event 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Currently, he’s editing Stories from a Holiday Heart, an anthology scheduled for release in November 2012.

I'll Stand by You Write Step Interview

 

I'm delighted to announce that I've been invited to join R. Jeffreys of The Write Step radio show to co-host an interview with Founder and Director of Global Medical Relief Fund for children,outstanding humanitarian and now author, Elissa Montanti.  Montanti will be joined by multi-published writer and Psychology Today columnist Jennifer Haupt, who worked in collaboration with Montanti in writing I'll Stand by You (to be released August 2, 2012) about Montanti ’s personal experiences in aiding children who are missing or have lost the use of limbs or eyes, who have been severely burned, or have been injured through war, natural disaster or illness throughout the world.

Montanti, who People Magazine dubbed as "the saint of Staten Island," is changing the world one child at a time. Fourteen years ago, she was a lab technician in Staten Island. She had, in the span of only a few years, lost her beloved mother, grandmother, and high school sweetheart. Hoping to find a way past her own troubles and the depression and panic attacks that quietly crippled her, she decided to raise money for school supplies for the children of war-torn Bosnia. But at a meeting with the UN ambassador she learned that those children didn’t need pencils. He showed her a photo of a boy who had lost both arms and one leg to a land mine; these children needed a lot more.

She went to Bosnia, brought the boy and his mother back to Staten Island, and arranged for free prosthetics and medical care. The Global Medical Relief Fund was born.

She founded the non-profit, non-partisan Global Medical Relief Fund. A 501c3 organization, GMRF is supported entirely by private donations and grants. Since 1997, GMRF has brought more than 150 children to the U.S, from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia for treatment, surgery and prosthetic limb and eye fittings. The countries include Bosnia, China, El Salvador, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Mexico, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, the Congo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Libya .The injured children come from countries or regions that can offer only minimal medical care, poorly fitted prostheses, or none at all.

Elissa Montanti and her story of unconditional love and charity to grievously injured children throughout the world has been widely featured in every media outlet. She has also received numerous awards and honorariums for her outstanding humanitarian work.

For more information, and for a list of Montanti's awards and media credits, please see The Write Step show page, which is the post from which much of this copy was borrowed.

The Show airs 07/25/2012 at 6:30 pm EST/5:30 pm CST/3:30 pm PST at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/writestep/2012/07/25/the-write-step-with-r-jeffreys

The Write Step with R. Jeffreys and More

This has been an exciting week! On Thursday I read with a talented bunch of poets for the Walt Whitman Birthday Bash in Conroe, Texas; on Friday I found out that I won a coveted Lone Star College System Writing Award; and on Saturday, along with my beaux and the other authors of Mark Miller's One Series, I was interviewed by Mark Miller and Giovanni Gelati, of Gelati's Scoop. As well, I was able to show my sillier side in a blog interview by the wonderful Lady Krishna, of Journey with Books, and gorgeous reviews of both Six Weeks to Yehidah and My Yehidah appeared in Chiron, the Newsletter of the C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario.

For week after next, I am looking forward to being interviewed on Blogtalk Radio by the talented and eloquent R. Jeffreys of The Write Step on May 23rd at 6:30 PM EST. I hope you'll be able to listen in!