Thursday, September 07, 2006

Poetry Thursday

Lynn over at Poetry Thursday writes: This week, Liz Elayne challenged us to use the color blue as the inspiration for a poem.

One of my favourite poems is titled Blue Vigour and was written by Anne Michaels. In the back of her poetry collection Anne writes: Before she became the highly acclaimed short-story writer, using the pen name Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen emigrated from Denmark to Kenya where she ran a farm from 1913 to 1931. Her love and respect for the land and its people are documented in her paintings and memories.

For me, the poem Blue Vigour calls up memories of the movie of her life ... Out of Africa. It opens with:

I think, if you have lived through a war
or have made your home in a country
not your own, or if you've learned
to love one man,
then your life is a story.


Because so many of the poems I love are long, I've created a seperate poetry blog so you can find the rest of this poem there.

3 comments:

Angie said...

Just from the opening, I love that poem! I have never read Anne Michaels... I'll have to add her to the list!

You inspired me to join the Poetry Thursday fun! :)

Crafty Green Poet said...

I love Anne Micheals work - Fugitive Pieces is my favourite novels and I really enjoy her poetry too. This is I think a new one on me though, sao I'll pop over to your other blog and carry on reading!

Di Mackey said...

I'm passing it on angie ... Spain's wandering woman inspired me to join :)

You have taste in authors, craft green poet. I saw your comment there and immediately smiled - that's a delicious name, just by the way.

The other blog ... I've got some new 'finds' and as usual, they're long poems. Sigh.