Forum / Darryl blogs for Olentangy Review

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  Darryl Price

  Apr 11, 07:25pm

  I'm working on a new series of blogs for the literary magazine, Olentangy Review. Below is an exclusive peek for Fictionaut members:

  Good Things(In Honor of National Poetry Month) by Darryl Price
  
  Poetry is a very good thing I have going for me in my life. I think it’s a very good thing you have going for you, too, from greeting cards to music lyrics to weddings and special days of remembrance and celebration. Why is it then just a good thing for me rather than “the” good thing? Because anytime you make something into a “the” it soon becomes a stone around your neck that miraculously gains a lot of weight on a daily basis. And that stone will weigh you down as surely as the sun will burn you to a crisp if you let it. Does this mean it is somehow hurting you on purpose? No, not unless it’s purpose is to be, which it is. Good thing you can think enough about yourself and your place in this world to slather on some aloe when you’re out and about in the sun for too long. Look, the sun works hard to nourish every living thing with its light and warmth—but too much of anything can simply be bad for you—because it upsets the natural balance of things and that causes a wobble in your reality—it can set off a chain reaction. You can get sick or you might get mad or sad or you could make some very bad choices out of anger or regret or self-loathing. So it’s always a question of balance. All things must be questioned in this way. Even your love for something as innocently wonderful as the sound of poetry. Even your love for your favorite music cds or clothes that make you feel more at home in your own body or yummy foods or racing down a hill. How much is enough to nourish your soul and how much is enough to eventually kill you from too close a proximity to the center of your being? And where does it all perfectly fit into everything else that are also the good things in your life—love, family, reading, going to the movies, birthday parties, etc. You can make it all fit together. Of this I am absolutely sure.
  
  It’s true that poetry is in everything, because everything vibrates or sings at its own frequency. Whale songs are just as beautiful as crashing waves which are just as beautiful as winds through row after row of pines which are just as beautiful as frogs wooing moons and so forth and so on. Depending on your state of mind, you may or may not have difficulty in hearing the songs around you right now. Traffic is a kind of interesting song, recognizable, strange, mutating, so is faraway laughter so is the banging of a screen door in the middle of the hot summer night. The point is, we are surrounded by the loveliness of all things being themselves and singing their songs and poets if they are very lucky can interpret these sounds into their own original kinds of songs for any others to enjoy. Of course there are painful songs being sung in the world, too… baby dolphins watching helplessly while their parents get slaughtered by Japanese fishermen, over 20,000 in a single cove. Dolphins are already proved to be evolved, intelligent, social and self-aware beings. This song will break your heart, but will it spur you into action on their behalf? It should. That’s the power of its poetry. There are ancient songs still being made by the world’s oldest mountains. And there are brand new songs to come being made this year by spring robins and buds on apple trees and flying insects of all kinds and floating clouds stretching their songs across so many stars. Poets hear it all and try to recapture it in their painted words, not so much to judge the world but to present an interpretation of its many singers in celebration of that great diversity. This is a good service. Someone’s got to do it and the poets seem more willing than the others, so I say let’s thank them for it and accept their offerings with grateful hearts. They often let us in on the secret sounds of the universe, and this of course helps us to stay balanced, aware and awake as we travel through this life.

  One more thing if I may. My wife and I were watching an episode this week of The Little Couple where Dr. Jen Arnold is unfortunately having to go through a long painful chemo therapy on top of raising two newly adopted small children with her husband. I remember turning to my wife and saying, “You know what it is I like so much about Jennifer—she has dignity (to me, the grateful, gracious state of being honorable in manner and person). Please check out the Dolphin Project at Earth Island, and also Save Japan Dolphins. Org. Thank you.
  

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  Carol Reid

  Apr 11, 10:01pm

  Balance and service. Beautiful words to me. I enjoy the way you intertwine them with the role of poetry, Darryl.

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  Darryl Price

  Apr 14, 01:00am

  Carol, thanks. I'm new to this blogging thing, so I'm not very good at it yet. Too wordy, too self conscious, but I'll eventually get the hang of it. Anyway the important thing is to be aware. To harm self aware dolphins on purpose is barbaric and cruel. Human beings are now the most dangerous animals on the planet. Do what you can do. That's all. Be the soul that you are. Make love, not war. That doesn't mean you don't defend yourself, it means you defend all.

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