[Poetry Friday] “Leave the dishes… Pursue the authentic.”

Myra here.

Thank you to Laura Shovan for hosting this week.

When The Light Of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through

Edited by Joy Harjo with Leanne Howe, Jennifer Elise Foerster, and Contributing Editors (Amazon | Book Depository)

I have been dipping in and out of this collection ever since I bought it last Christmas. Given our #SurvivalStories2021 annual reading theme, this tome of a book is the perfect source for thought-provoking poems.

This poem by Louise Erdrich, in particular, caught my eye. While I own much of her middle grade novels, The Birchbark House series in particular (which I confess to not having read yet – but you can get the first book in the series here from Amazon | Book Depository), and I also own some of her adult novels, I did not know that she was also a poet. So this was a revelation to me.

As I read Advice To Myself, I see traces of myself in the words – probably because I hardly do any housework, nor do I ever do the dishes – but the pursuit of that which is true, real, genuine – that I do. That I spend my entire life doing.