"Nothing is Lost" - Poem by Dana Gioia (poetry recitation)
Vložit
- čas přidán 6. 05. 2020
- Dana Gioia recites his poem about loss and recovery-- using the image of an old coin. Full text of the poem below.
"Nothing is Lost"
by Dana Gioia
Nothing is lost. Nothing is so small
that it does not return.
Imagine
that as a child on a day like this
you held a newly minted coin and had
the choice of spending it in any way
you wished.
Today the coin comes back to you,
the date rubbed out, the ancient mottoes vague,
the portrait covered up with the dull shellac
of anything used up, passed on, disposed of
with something else in view, and always worth
a little less each time.
Now it returns,
and you will think it unimportant, lose
it in your pocket change as one more thing
that’s not worth counting, not worth singling out.
That is the mistake you must avoid today.
You sent it on a journey to yourself.
Now hold it in your hand. Accept it as
the little you have earned today.
And realize
that you must choose again but over less. - Krátké a kreslené filmy
My copy of "99 Poems," in hardcover, arrived today. This poem is among the others. I wrote a poem titled "Actual Size" that alluded to such an experience. Thanks, Dana, for posting this beautiful poem. Nick Campbell
"Nothing is so small/that it does not return...." a comforting concept. IAnd love the way Dana's poetry videos ("Beauty" is another) are filmed with such an intimate approach. We feel we are there in the room, even touching the pages, with him. Beautiful filming.that does justice to the poems. Thank you!
Holds, beautifully, the paradox of how the coin accrues and loses value and both are perceived in its return. Eternal return is always an eternal return of difference.
I heard you through Rattle cast, and was profoundly impacted, by the way that you breathed fresh air to the mildewing faith i have been faltering in; disgruntled betwixt worlds, literary & otherwise. From roses in concrete, to keats, and the finding of aztec flowertrees. Thank you.
Enjoyed your poem to you dad. ( I wrote one for my mom). Your poem and word choices with the symbolic coin touched me deeply and kept me engaged throughout. I, too, am a poet specializing in Japanese forms: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka and my haiku tribute poem to Matshuo Bashō’s frog with short but in depth commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my haiku among her 10 favorite haiku of all time! What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem with Jane Reichhold’s insightful commentary:
Bashō’s frog
four hundred years
of ripples
At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA
forum.
The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing
about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the
sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water
As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain.
~~
And my tanka:
returning home
from a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear my face with paint
and morph into art
~~
-All love in isolation
from Miami Beach,
Florida,
Al
Very nice. One of your poem on a flower bouquet drying up in the corner of a room. I like to see it in video
I would like to record that poem, too. I will keep it in mind whenever we do another production.
"You must choose again, but over less"
What does that mean? I don't understand what it could mean to "choose over less."
@@alexanderolar5344 Or could it just be referring to the earlier line-a used thing being worth "a little less each time." If you're reunited with a coin you've already spent, then you'd have to rechoose how to spend it but it would be worth less this time around.
@@theresaramsay3253 That's quite possible.
There are poems that little says Much, and much lessens the precision of the poem.
Why is this an advertisement
Damned if I know! It was posted as a poem.