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The House of Belonging
In this book, poet David Whyte turns his attention to the deepest longing of human beings - the desire to belong to people and places and the many ways of experiencing a sense of home.
The House of Belonging has sold over 50,000 copies and contains some of his most beloved poems, such as The Truelove, The Journey, and Sweet Darkness. The deeply moving title poem reads as balm and benediction to wherever one finds one's home in the world, and taken together, the collection illuminates the myriad ways we belong - to others, to ourselves, and to the world.
The House of Belonging has sold over 50,000 copies and contains some of his most beloved poems, such as The Truelove, The Journey, and Sweet Darkness. The deeply moving title poem reads as balm and benediction to wherever one finds one's home in the world, and taken together, the collection illuminates the myriad ways we belong - to others, to ourselves, and to the world.
98 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1996
About the author
David Whyte
76 books1,444 followersPoet David Whyte grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire. He now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
The author of seven books of poetry and three books of prose, David Whyte holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes, Amazon and Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and workshops.
His life as a poet has created a readership and listenership in three normally mutually exclusive areas: the literate world of readings that most poets inhabit, the psychological and theological worlds of philosophical enquiry and the world of vocation, work and organizational leadership.
An Associate Fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many European, American and international companies. In spring of 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Neumann College, Pennsylvania.
In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, he illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace. He brings a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the nature of individual and organizational change, particularly through his unique perspectives on Conversational Leadership.
The author of seven books of poetry and three books of prose, David Whyte holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes, Amazon and Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and workshops.
His life as a poet has created a readership and listenership in three normally mutually exclusive areas: the literate world of readings that most poets inhabit, the psychological and theological worlds of philosophical enquiry and the world of vocation, work and organizational leadership.
An Associate Fellow at Said Business School at the University of Oxford, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with many European, American and international companies. In spring of 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Neumann College, Pennsylvania.
In organizational settings, using poetry and thoughtful commentary, he illustrates how we can foster qualities of courage and engagement; qualities needed if we are to respond to today’s call for increased creativity and adaptability in the workplace. He brings a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the nature of individual and organizational change, particularly through his unique perspectives on Conversational Leadership.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
November 19, 2023
THE TRUELOVE
There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,
and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them,
and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly,
so Biblically,
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love,
so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don't
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years,
you don't want to any more,
you've simply had enough
of drowning,
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness,
however fluid and however
dangerous, to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.
There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,
and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them,
and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly,
so Biblically,
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love,
so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don't
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years,
you don't want to any more,
you've simply had enough
of drowning,
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness,
however fluid and however
dangerous, to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.
January 13, 2022
Sweet Darkness
"When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your home
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."
"When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your home
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."
April 6, 2018
My husband and I are engineers who pretty much never read poetry so I feel pretty unqualified to write this review. I'm also not "done" with it, but I don't really know when/if I will be. Anyways, we have been reading these poems out loud to each other with some regularity and discussing them, which from what I understand is how poetry is supposed to go. Anyways. I LOVE THESE POEMS. I just feel like Whyte gets the human experience. The themes of home and belonging and aloneness resonate with me so much, and the process of reading them out loud has been really enlightening and fun and good for my mental health I think. The book was given to me by my roommate, and it's convincing me that poetry is worth my time :)
July 26, 2018
Absolutely outstanding!
The House of Belonging
"I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging."
The Winter of Listening
by David Whyte
"No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own."
The House of Belonging
"I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging."
The Winter of Listening
by David Whyte
"No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own."
May 14, 2012
I felt a connection with this book of poetry from the opening poem - which wasn't even by David Whyte but a poet named David Wagoner. Wagoner's poem is called "Lost," and it sets the tone for a very introspective collection of poems that read like a meditation.
The House of Belonging is set up in four parts: Belonging to the House, the Night, Places and Those I know. Throughout the collection, Whyte expresses the importance of finding and knowing one's true self and living the true expression of self, which is for him as a poet.
In the poem of the same title, Whyte says: (excerpt)
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
He continues to extol solitude solitude in "It Happens to Those Who Live Alone": (excerpt)
It happens to those
who live alone
that they feel sure
of visitors
when no one else
is there,
until the one day
and one particular
hour
working in the
quiet garden . . .
. . . they realize
at once,
that all along
they have been
an invitation
to everything
and every kind of trouble
and that life
happens by
to those who
inhabit
silence . . .
I love the line in Section II, Belonging to the Night, in a poem called "Sweet Darkness":
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you
This is a must-read collection for anyone experiencing mid-life and - especially - a desire to change careers or vocations and live from their passion. I enjoyed every poem and found new insights upon a second reading. This is a very inspirational work that I will add to my permanent collection.
The House of Belonging is set up in four parts: Belonging to the House, the Night, Places and Those I know. Throughout the collection, Whyte expresses the importance of finding and knowing one's true self and living the true expression of self, which is for him as a poet.
In the poem of the same title, Whyte says: (excerpt)
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
He continues to extol solitude solitude in "It Happens to Those Who Live Alone": (excerpt)
It happens to those
who live alone
that they feel sure
of visitors
when no one else
is there,
until the one day
and one particular
hour
working in the
quiet garden . . .
. . . they realize
at once,
that all along
they have been
an invitation
to everything
and every kind of trouble
and that life
happens by
to those who
inhabit
silence . . .
I love the line in Section II, Belonging to the Night, in a poem called "Sweet Darkness":
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you
This is a must-read collection for anyone experiencing mid-life and - especially - a desire to change careers or vocations and live from their passion. I enjoyed every poem and found new insights upon a second reading. This is a very inspirational work that I will add to my permanent collection.
October 3, 2021
Underwhelmed with a majority of this collection (but I'll my acknowledge daunting expectations). Whyte seemed hyperfocused on themes, imageries, and metaphors that failed to be of emotional sustenance to me. That said, wonderous poems like "Truelove" and "The Sun", intermixed with bits and pieces of poetic light, salvaged my experience with the work.
March 31, 2010
Deeply touched.
The Winter of listening
No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside
....
Even with summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard
......
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
The Winter of listening
No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside
....
Even with summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard
......
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
Read
January 9, 2017So may we, in this life
trust
to those elements we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
----
What I am
Is what I have been grown by,
The sun,
That great love,
All the many small loves,
And you that one love too
Who waited so long
To find me and
Who has always
Walked by my side
Folding my remembering
Hand in hers.
----
One small thing
I've learned these years,
How to be alone,
And at the edge of aloneness
How to be found by the world.
trust
to those elements we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
----
What I am
Is what I have been grown by,
The sun,
That great love,
All the many small loves,
And you that one love too
Who waited so long
To find me and
Who has always
Walked by my side
Folding my remembering
Hand in hers.
----
One small thing
I've learned these years,
How to be alone,
And at the edge of aloneness
How to be found by the world.
Read
March 6, 2024A beautiful meditative little book of poems that felt very much like wandering through the emotional landscape of a newborn species. It didn't reach me. The poems are beautiful, but crafted from all the reliable ingredients of white privilege: easy access to nature, languid states of reverie, the assumption of safety, an unassailable individualism, quiet night skies without bombs, an absence of snipers and mutilation and starvation and 1.3 million people herded in a place the size of Heathrow airport. All I could think about was the video I saw this morning of five young athletes in Gaza catapulting through the air like gravity wasn't a thing. Like occupation and genocide wasn't a thing. They somersaulted and backflipped over each other, laughed and then ran away to practice elsewhere as Israel blew up another building nearby. I watched that video a hundred times and it was all the poetry I needed today.
August 27, 2024
Hot diggety damn, I found another kindred spirit wandering this world.
Here are some excerpts from “The Truelove” for you (because, of course):
“I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
…so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years,
you don’t want to any more,
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning,
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness,
however fluid and however
dangerous, to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.”
Here are some excerpts from “The Truelove” for you (because, of course):
“I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
…so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years,
you don’t want to any more,
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning,
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness,
however fluid and however
dangerous, to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.”
December 23, 2024
intimate !
familiar yet distant |
an enjoyable read with abundant dog ears |
revisit the last poem (cryptic jeje)
familiar yet distant |
an enjoyable read with abundant dog ears |
revisit the last poem (cryptic jeje)
March 14, 2024
It has been awhile since my heart has been open to poetry. I read some reviewers found these poems to be underwhelming, and I’m certain I would have felt that way too at other times in my life. For me, right now, I suppose, that was part of the draw. They didn’t over-promise or overwhelm. I felt a space for holding melancholy, angst, hope, and wonder, without any urgency. Really enjoyed reading this collection.
July 30, 2013
I can't say enough about this precious book of poems and David Whyte's incredible depth of vision. This book is at my bedside and I review one or two poems for meditation often. I've also recommended this book to those who attend my local poetry group, as well as friends, especially those who are passing through the inevitable dark shadows we find on our life's path...
I highly recommend this book for anyone who appreciates the wonder and mystery of nature, life... and even death. Whyte's words will touch your heart!
I highly recommend this book for anyone who appreciates the wonder and mystery of nature, life... and even death. Whyte's words will touch your heart!
July 30, 2012
To start, I want to note that this book was already reviewed this year by Annie:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...
But I found I had somewhat different things to say about it so rather than commenting on her review, I decided to write my own in full.
David Whyte actually made/makes money taking poetry (Dante particularly) into corporations to help move leadership teams out of ruts. Crazy huh? Yes. But he did it and did it successfully. His focus was on the ability of some poetry to move people spiritually. I found this bit on youtube that gives you a taste of what he was doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO0Ojt...
He has a peculiar, though effective, repetitive way of reading poetry that you get a taste of at 2:25 and 5:35 of that video.
Ok, so he found a way to make money reading the poetry of others and applying it to crises/needs in organizations. My impression is that he did these presentations and then made a recording of them and then wrote a book based on them but I could have the sequence wrong. The book "The Heart Aroused" is on amazon but I don't see that the tapes/cds are. I have no idea when he started writing poetry. Again from the bio on his website it appears that he started writing/publishing poetry first and then did the corporate bit if one goes by the publication of books about the corporate approach. But the publisher of all of his poetry is essentially his own promotional company, Many Rivers Press, which also handles his speaking engagements. The House of Belonging doesn't have a list of prior publication credits because it hasn't been through the usual editorial process of submission/acceptance in poetry journals. He self-publishes. Perhaps someone else revies/comments on his poetry, but I would say the poems in this book suffer from the lack of running through the literary guantlet to be honed/rejected. The result is a very uneven collection.
The beginning of the book strikes me as being written by someone who wants to be a guru more than a poet. The poems do more telling than showing and are painfully enjambed. From "At Home":
the sky
a broad roof
for the house
of contentment
where I wish
to
live forever
in the eternity
of my own
fleeting
and momentary
happiness.
It may be I've been too indoctrinated by current literary convention but I wanted to yell "concrete!" and in many cases "cut this!" Especially that last in the poem "The Winter of Listening," which has three pages of this:
Even with summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
And in my opinion could all be scrapped but the last page:
And
here
in the tumult
of the night
I hear the walnut
above the child's swing
swaying
its dark limbs
in the wind
and the rain now
come to
beat against my window
and somewhere
in this cold night
of wind and stars
the first whispered
opening of
those hidden
and invisible springs
that uncoil
in the still summer air
each yet
to be imagined
rose.
Yes, a rather cliched batch of imagery (and still that crazy enjambment) but still lovely and at least imagery.
To be honest, I was tempted to stop reading, but I didn't and I'm glad I didn't because things got better (except for the enjambment, which I got used to). I have to say his poem "Four Horses" now resides with other favorite horse poems ("The Names of Horses," "She Had Some Horses" and "The Blessing"). Here are a couple of stanzas:
I find myself wanting
to run down First Street
like an eight year old
saying, "Hey!
Come and look
at the new horses
in Fossek's field!"
And I find myself
wanting to ride
into the last hours
of this summer
bareback and
happy as the hooves
of the days
that drum toward me.
I consider his best poems in the book "Tienamen [spelled incorrectly in the book] (The Man in Front of the Tank)" and "Edward" the best poems in the book. The first is not what it would seem and the set up creates a brilliant contrast. The second is a wonderful poem about friendship and how it both changes and stays the same over large spaces of time and physical distance.
I'm going to keep this book for its successes but I wish he would find someone hard-nosed to edit his work. I'll leave you with a link to him reading one of his poems in this volume that does a fairly good job of wedding imagery and soul experience (note that it was read at a psychotherapy conference):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PK3Gh...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...
But I found I had somewhat different things to say about it so rather than commenting on her review, I decided to write my own in full.
David Whyte actually made/makes money taking poetry (Dante particularly) into corporations to help move leadership teams out of ruts. Crazy huh? Yes. But he did it and did it successfully. His focus was on the ability of some poetry to move people spiritually. I found this bit on youtube that gives you a taste of what he was doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO0Ojt...
He has a peculiar, though effective, repetitive way of reading poetry that you get a taste of at 2:25 and 5:35 of that video.
Ok, so he found a way to make money reading the poetry of others and applying it to crises/needs in organizations. My impression is that he did these presentations and then made a recording of them and then wrote a book based on them but I could have the sequence wrong. The book "The Heart Aroused" is on amazon but I don't see that the tapes/cds are. I have no idea when he started writing poetry. Again from the bio on his website it appears that he started writing/publishing poetry first and then did the corporate bit if one goes by the publication of books about the corporate approach. But the publisher of all of his poetry is essentially his own promotional company, Many Rivers Press, which also handles his speaking engagements. The House of Belonging doesn't have a list of prior publication credits because it hasn't been through the usual editorial process of submission/acceptance in poetry journals. He self-publishes. Perhaps someone else revies/comments on his poetry, but I would say the poems in this book suffer from the lack of running through the literary guantlet to be honed/rejected. The result is a very uneven collection.
The beginning of the book strikes me as being written by someone who wants to be a guru more than a poet. The poems do more telling than showing and are painfully enjambed. From "At Home":
the sky
a broad roof
for the house
of contentment
where I wish
to
live forever
in the eternity
of my own
fleeting
and momentary
happiness.
It may be I've been too indoctrinated by current literary convention but I wanted to yell "concrete!" and in many cases "cut this!" Especially that last in the poem "The Winter of Listening," which has three pages of this:
Even with summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
And in my opinion could all be scrapped but the last page:
And
here
in the tumult
of the night
I hear the walnut
above the child's swing
swaying
its dark limbs
in the wind
and the rain now
come to
beat against my window
and somewhere
in this cold night
of wind and stars
the first whispered
opening of
those hidden
and invisible springs
that uncoil
in the still summer air
each yet
to be imagined
rose.
Yes, a rather cliched batch of imagery (and still that crazy enjambment) but still lovely and at least imagery.
To be honest, I was tempted to stop reading, but I didn't and I'm glad I didn't because things got better (except for the enjambment, which I got used to). I have to say his poem "Four Horses" now resides with other favorite horse poems ("The Names of Horses," "She Had Some Horses" and "The Blessing"). Here are a couple of stanzas:
I find myself wanting
to run down First Street
like an eight year old
saying, "Hey!
Come and look
at the new horses
in Fossek's field!"
And I find myself
wanting to ride
into the last hours
of this summer
bareback and
happy as the hooves
of the days
that drum toward me.
I consider his best poems in the book "Tienamen [spelled incorrectly in the book] (The Man in Front of the Tank)" and "Edward" the best poems in the book. The first is not what it would seem and the set up creates a brilliant contrast. The second is a wonderful poem about friendship and how it both changes and stays the same over large spaces of time and physical distance.
I'm going to keep this book for its successes but I wish he would find someone hard-nosed to edit his work. I'll leave you with a link to him reading one of his poems in this volume that does a fairly good job of wedding imagery and soul experience (note that it was read at a psychotherapy conference):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PK3Gh...
December 16, 2018
Outstanding. Even if you’re not generally the type to bring home a book of poetry, give this one a go.
May 27, 2021
I've been reading more poetry and this was lent to me by a dear poet friend. Although he's a white male who I wouldn't typically read, Whyte is a lovely poet and I enjoyed the book. His work is peaceful and simple, very readable.
June 23, 2016
Favorites: "House of Belonging," "Sweet Darkness," "Four Horses," "Tienamen," and "Working Together"
Overall, I felt many of the best poetry was hidden in larger poems that were trying too hard to make a point or trying to be deep (without really going there, a case of staring two minutes instead of four, perhaps). For instance, some of the best lines were in a poem about Kavenagh, but that poem was several pages long, instead of just the best of it.
A risk of this sort of poetry, too, which depends largely on symbolic imagery, I reckon, is obeying Pound's dictum to "make it new."
That said, the poems that were good were very, very good. I also enjoyed the interplay of lyric and narrative poetry throughout the collection.
Overall, I felt many of the best poetry was hidden in larger poems that were trying too hard to make a point or trying to be deep (without really going there, a case of staring two minutes instead of four, perhaps). For instance, some of the best lines were in a poem about Kavenagh, but that poem was several pages long, instead of just the best of it.
A risk of this sort of poetry, too, which depends largely on symbolic imagery, I reckon, is obeying Pound's dictum to "make it new."
That said, the poems that were good were very, very good. I also enjoyed the interplay of lyric and narrative poetry throughout the collection.
February 20, 2022
It took forty years to discover that I could indeed read, and love poetry for the art that it is.
I never quite understood that there could be so much variety to poetry. That writing so beautiful, and plainly worded was just outside my path of experience.
If you somehow find yourself reading this review, I encourage you to buy yourself a paper copy. This will be something you come back to read again, and again.
I never quite understood that there could be so much variety to poetry. That writing so beautiful, and plainly worded was just outside my path of experience.
If you somehow find yourself reading this review, I encourage you to buy yourself a paper copy. This will be something you come back to read again, and again.
September 11, 2023
Lovely, evocative poetry that touches on home, community, family, love, nature, grief, joy, and belonging. I first read David Whyte's poetry on the On Being poetry project website: https://onbeing.org/projects/poetry-r...
I can't wait to read more of his poetry.
I can't wait to read more of his poetry.
July 13, 2021
David Whyte is my celebrity crush. End of discussion. "Sweet Darkness" changed my life. When I heard him reading it on an NPR show, I had to pull my car over in a pre-dawn coffee run because I was crying too hard to drive. Yeah. Buy a poetry book for once in your, you heathens!
January 22, 2016
Superb poetry. I'm not big into poetry, but David Whyte is incredible. I can totally relate to his poems and use them as part of my daily spiritual practice.
February 6, 2018
Sometimes reading
Kavanagh I look out
at everything
growing so wild
and faithfully beneath
the sky
and wonder
why we are the one
terrible
part of creation
privileged
to refuse our flowering.
Recommended to me by Goodreads due to my interest in Mary Oliver, I find this to be a decent collection. There are some truly excellent pieces here that hold a universal and spiritual appeal, though there also a great many that seem to wander into a dispassionate droning of description that left me with a distance from the material.
The book as a production, divided into four distinct chapters (House, Night, Places, and To Those I Know) each of them a variation of 'belonging', and carrying with it the central theme of exploring personal attachment, is crafted quite well. Each piece feels appropriate in its placement, truly accentuating its distinct voice in what the author wishes to say, along with what that particular section is emphasizing.
I know my innocence
and I know my unknowing
but for all my successes
I go through life
like a blind child
who cannot see,
arms outstretched
trying to put together
a world
For the author, as a personal exploration in establishing identity within self, hardship, place, as well as with others, and how that manifests itself in a myriad of emotions, I think the book is successful. For the distant reader, however, it doesn't always translate effectively. It can challenging to wade into some of these allusions while trying to find a sense of meaning, particularly within the author's elusive memories. It can, however, be a joy to find something within upon which to anchor yourself to and therefore unlock the mystique of a particular selection, revealing at least part of the motive and mystery therein. I was able to find that at several points, though not quite as often as in other collections I've read. That challenge does not make this particular collection bad; truly, I don't think there is a poor piece in the entire book. There are, however, some that I could not connect with with any level of application.
The central theme and some of its suggestions, being 'stuck' with yourself, in a manner of speaking, and finding value in that while trying to understand your place in the wider scheme of things, is very pertinent. How time, country, and family, can define who you are just as much as those who you define with your own presence, is thoughtfully presented.
The House of Belonging is a fair collection that I really believe will reward multiple reads. It's a book that is worth keeping on your shelf for those times you may feel disconnected with yourself, or the world. Whyte's voice is a yearning one, though has an occasionally distant, almost apathetic feel, but is presented with a distinct and interesting vision. He is exploring, with thought, word, and prose, what it means to 'belong'.
LOAVES AND FISHES
This is not
the age of information.
This is not
the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.
People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.
Kavanagh I look out
at everything
growing so wild
and faithfully beneath
the sky
and wonder
why we are the one
terrible
part of creation
privileged
to refuse our flowering.
Recommended to me by Goodreads due to my interest in Mary Oliver, I find this to be a decent collection. There are some truly excellent pieces here that hold a universal and spiritual appeal, though there also a great many that seem to wander into a dispassionate droning of description that left me with a distance from the material.
The book as a production, divided into four distinct chapters (House, Night, Places, and To Those I Know) each of them a variation of 'belonging', and carrying with it the central theme of exploring personal attachment, is crafted quite well. Each piece feels appropriate in its placement, truly accentuating its distinct voice in what the author wishes to say, along with what that particular section is emphasizing.
I know my innocence
and I know my unknowing
but for all my successes
I go through life
like a blind child
who cannot see,
arms outstretched
trying to put together
a world
For the author, as a personal exploration in establishing identity within self, hardship, place, as well as with others, and how that manifests itself in a myriad of emotions, I think the book is successful. For the distant reader, however, it doesn't always translate effectively. It can challenging to wade into some of these allusions while trying to find a sense of meaning, particularly within the author's elusive memories. It can, however, be a joy to find something within upon which to anchor yourself to and therefore unlock the mystique of a particular selection, revealing at least part of the motive and mystery therein. I was able to find that at several points, though not quite as often as in other collections I've read. That challenge does not make this particular collection bad; truly, I don't think there is a poor piece in the entire book. There are, however, some that I could not connect with with any level of application.
The central theme and some of its suggestions, being 'stuck' with yourself, in a manner of speaking, and finding value in that while trying to understand your place in the wider scheme of things, is very pertinent. How time, country, and family, can define who you are just as much as those who you define with your own presence, is thoughtfully presented.
The House of Belonging is a fair collection that I really believe will reward multiple reads. It's a book that is worth keeping on your shelf for those times you may feel disconnected with yourself, or the world. Whyte's voice is a yearning one, though has an occasionally distant, almost apathetic feel, but is presented with a distinct and interesting vision. He is exploring, with thought, word, and prose, what it means to 'belong'.
LOAVES AND FISHES
This is not
the age of information.
This is not
the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.
People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.
June 9, 2023
Sometimes something comes to you at precisely the moment you needed it most. I received this as a gift for my 49th birthday, nearly a year ago, but only picked it up to read over the past month. Anytime between then and now would have been the right time, but that I waited until we were moved into what was to be our forever home, the home we waited some two-and-a-half years to move into, was either cosmic alignment or happy accident. I did not consciously choose to wait to read this book until our arrival at Creekside Cottage, but perhaps it did. As it happens, this may not remain our forever home, as a possibility has presented itself (one for which I have many ardent adjectives but will withhold for the sake of prudence), and so we are, right now, as unsettled as we’ve yet been, perhaps more, since our move to Manhattan, Kansas in the fall of 2020.
If you hadn’t gathered, David Whyte’s The House of Belonging hit me figuratively and literally, thoroughly and profoundly, in ways I am still trying to sort out. The poems within travel in many directions—lamentations and celebrations, remembrances and gifts and odes to love, to loss, to memory, to place and places, to self—but those that haunt and dwell and churn within me still are the ones that seem to mirror my own present, my own pilgrimage to find my place of belonging in the world and with myself. It has, as often as not, been a journey of travail and hurt, of averting my gaze and looking it in the eye.
A handful of poems in, I revealed to my gifter that I was, at last, reading the book he so kindly bought for me, which includes an inscription that reads, in part, “May we continue to create a sense of belonging in all we do.” He asked what I thought thus far, to which I replied, “It might be too good.” Like a perfect chord that, when struck, reverberates and resonates so deeply, so absolutely within that it alters not just your mood or disposition but begins to rearrange the fabric of who and what you are, who you believed yourself to be or could be—even what could be in the vastest comprehension of what that might mean—The House of Belonging embodies and offers a sort of universal truth by which a life can be seen, can be measured, can be lived.
If you hadn’t gathered, David Whyte’s The House of Belonging hit me figuratively and literally, thoroughly and profoundly, in ways I am still trying to sort out. The poems within travel in many directions—lamentations and celebrations, remembrances and gifts and odes to love, to loss, to memory, to place and places, to self—but those that haunt and dwell and churn within me still are the ones that seem to mirror my own present, my own pilgrimage to find my place of belonging in the world and with myself. It has, as often as not, been a journey of travail and hurt, of averting my gaze and looking it in the eye.
A handful of poems in, I revealed to my gifter that I was, at last, reading the book he so kindly bought for me, which includes an inscription that reads, in part, “May we continue to create a sense of belonging in all we do.” He asked what I thought thus far, to which I replied, “It might be too good.” Like a perfect chord that, when struck, reverberates and resonates so deeply, so absolutely within that it alters not just your mood or disposition but begins to rearrange the fabric of who and what you are, who you believed yourself to be or could be—even what could be in the vastest comprehension of what that might mean—The House of Belonging embodies and offers a sort of universal truth by which a life can be seen, can be measured, can be lived.
July 21, 2020
I was introduced to David Whyte by listening to a lecture he gave on the poetry of self-compassion in which he read poems by Mary Oliver among others. I was in love. I listened to it multiple times and shared it with others. I then listened to a couple of his interviews with Krista Tippet and it further solidified how much I enjoyed listening to David Whyte read poetry and discuss life. So I ordered his book. And much to my surprise, I didn’t really like it. I was so taken by his voice and his demeanor and I guess I equated his reading other peoples poems with his own poetry being as wonderful. I found that his poems were essentially little essays or maybe journal entries transformed from paragraphs into poems by dividing it into short lines and multiple stanzas. I wouldn’t have even minded that so much if I felt like he was using lots of other poetic devices, but it really didn’t feel like he did. I will continue to look forward to hearing David Whyte reading other peoples’ poems, but I’m not convinced that I really like his own.
The poems I did enjoy to some degree were:
At home
It happens to those who live alone
The journey
Tienamen
Though, my favourite poem in the book was at the beginning where he included a poem by David Wagoner called ‘Lost’
The poems I did enjoy to some degree were:
At home
It happens to those who live alone
The journey
Tienamen
Though, my favourite poem in the book was at the beginning where he included a poem by David Wagoner called ‘Lost’
May 5, 2022
What an exquisite collection of poems! This is one I was rereading as I was reading and will likely read again ... not for meaning as much as for the poignance of his observations on life, love, and the various ways of belonging ... and now I see the word longing in "belonging," and there is an powerful element of longing in these poems ... for place, for living life fully, for a home for the heart.
Favorites? "All the True Vows," which Bill Plotkin quotes in his masterpiece Soulcraft: "Remember in this place no one can hear you and out of the silence you can make a promise it will kill you to break." The collection begins in the experience of solitude, of being alone, and "How I thought of loneliness, how it works at the edge of all experience.," ("Tienamen, The Man in Front of the Tanks") but it journeys to the way we belong to others and they to us. The penultimate poem, "The Sun" speaks of desire ... the desire to live life fully and to not be someone "on the deathbed whose mouths are wide with unspoken love." And longing ... those unlived lives "remind me why I want to be found by love, why I want to come alive in the holiness of that belonging." The final poem is "The Truelove."
Favorites? "All the True Vows," which Bill Plotkin quotes in his masterpiece Soulcraft: "Remember in this place no one can hear you and out of the silence you can make a promise it will kill you to break." The collection begins in the experience of solitude, of being alone, and "How I thought of loneliness, how it works at the edge of all experience.," ("Tienamen, The Man in Front of the Tanks") but it journeys to the way we belong to others and they to us. The penultimate poem, "The Sun" speaks of desire ... the desire to live life fully and to not be someone "on the deathbed whose mouths are wide with unspoken love." And longing ... those unlived lives "remind me why I want to be found by love, why I want to come alive in the holiness of that belonging." The final poem is "The Truelove."
April 17, 2023
David Whyte is a wonderful Irish poet that I first heard of years ago listening to On Being with Krista Tippett. He is known for his introspective meditations on home and belonging, and those themes are central in The House of Belonging. The collection is divided into 4 sections: Belonging to the House, Belonging to the Night, Belonging to Places, and Belonging to Those I Know.
Section II, Belonging to the Night, was above and beyond my favorite--I highlighted every poem.
From Sweet Darkness
"Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."
As a fellow introvert who also often feels a need to retreat into solitude, I find myself coming back to the line "his own well peopled solitude" from the poem At Home.
From The Well of Stars
"I have a few griefs and joys
I can call my own
and through accident it seems,
a steadfast faith in each of them
and that's what I will say
matters when the story ends."
This wasn't one of those rare collections of poetry where I loved every single poem, but the ones that stood out the most are sure to be ones that I will come back to.
Section II, Belonging to the Night, was above and beyond my favorite--I highlighted every poem.
From Sweet Darkness
"Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."
As a fellow introvert who also often feels a need to retreat into solitude, I find myself coming back to the line "his own well peopled solitude" from the poem At Home.
From The Well of Stars
"I have a few griefs and joys
I can call my own
and through accident it seems,
a steadfast faith in each of them
and that's what I will say
matters when the story ends."
This wasn't one of those rare collections of poetry where I loved every single poem, but the ones that stood out the most are sure to be ones that I will come back to.
April 11, 2017
What to Remember When Waking
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
&
Four Horses
On Thursday the farmer
put four horses
into the cut hay-field
next to the house.
Since then the days
have been filled with the
sheen of their
brown hides
racing the fence edge.
Since then I see
their curved necks
through the kitchen window;
sailing like swans
past the pale field.
Each morning
their hooves fill my
open door
with an urgency
for something
just beyond my grasp
and I spend my whole
day in an idiot joy,
writing, gardening,
and looking
for it
under every stone.
I find myself
wanting to do
something
stupid and lovely.
I find myself
wanting to walk up
and thank
the farmer for those
dark brown horses and
see him stand
back laughing in his
grizzled and
denim wonder at my
innocence.
I find myself wanting
to run down first street
like an eight year old,
saying, “Hey!
Come and look
at the new horses
in Fossek’s field!”
And I find myself
wanting to ride
into the last hours
of this summer,
bareback and
happy as the hives
of the days
that drum toward me.
I hear the whinny of
their fenced and abandoned
freedom
and feel happy
today
in the field
of my own making,
writing non-stop,
my head held high
ranging the boundaries
of the birthright
exuberance.
&&
The Hawthorn
The crossed knot
in the hawthorn bark
and the stump
of the sawn off branch
hemmed by the roughened
trunk. In that
omniscient black eye
of witness
I see the dark no-growth
of what has passed
grown round by
what has come to pass,
looking at me
as if I could speak.
So much that was
good in her,
so much in me,
cut off now
from the future
in which we grew together.
Now
through the window
of my new house
that hawthorn's
crooked faithful
trunk round
an old and broken
growth,
my mouth dumb
and
Dante's voice
instead of mine
from the open book
Brother, our love
has laid our wills to rest.
Making us long
only for what is ours
and by no other thirst
possessed.
Our life not lived
together
must still
live on apart,
longing only
for what is ours
alone,
each grow
round the missed branch
as best we can,
claim what is ours
separately,
though not forget
loved memories,
nor that life
still loved by memory,
nor the hurts
through which we
hesitantly
tried to learn
affection.
Our pilgrim journey
apart or together,
like
the thirst
of everything
to find its true form,
the grain of the wood
round the hatched knot
still
straightening
toward the light.
&&&
The Sun
This morning on the desk,
facing up,
a poem of Kavenagh’s
celebrating a lost love.
“She was the sun,” he said,
lives in the fibre
of his arms,
her warmth
through all the years
folding the old man’s hand
in hers
of a Sunday
Dublin morning.
Sometimes reading
Kavenagh I look out
at everything
growing so wild
and faithfully beneath
the sky
and wonder
why we are the one
terrible
part of creation
privileged
to refuse our flowering.
I know
in the text of the heart
the flower is our death
and the first opening
of the new life
we have yet to imagine,
but Kavenagh’s line
reminds me
how I want to know
that sun,
and how I want to flower
and how I want to claim
my happiness
and how I want to walk
through life
amazed and inarticulate
with thanks.
And how I want to
know that warmth
through
love itself,
and
through the sun itself.
I want to know
that sun
of happiness
when I wake
and see through
my window
the morning color
on the far mountain.
I want to know
when I lean down to the lilies
by the water
and feel their small and
perfect reflection
on my face.
I want to know
that gift
when I walk
innocent through the trees
burning with life
and the green
passion
of the pasture’s
first growth,
and I want to know
as lazily
as the cows
that tear at the grass
with their
soft mouths.
I want to know
what I am
and what I am
involved with by loving
this world
as I do.
And I want time
to think of all
the unlived lives:
those that fail to notice
until it is too late,
those with eyes staring
with bitterness,
and those
met on the deathbed
whose mouths are wide
with
unspoken love.
Every year
they keep me faithful
and help me
realize there is more
to lose
than I thought
and more at stake
than I could dream.
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
&
Four Horses
On Thursday the farmer
put four horses
into the cut hay-field
next to the house.
Since then the days
have been filled with the
sheen of their
brown hides
racing the fence edge.
Since then I see
their curved necks
through the kitchen window;
sailing like swans
past the pale field.
Each morning
their hooves fill my
open door
with an urgency
for something
just beyond my grasp
and I spend my whole
day in an idiot joy,
writing, gardening,
and looking
for it
under every stone.
I find myself
wanting to do
something
stupid and lovely.
I find myself
wanting to walk up
and thank
the farmer for those
dark brown horses and
see him stand
back laughing in his
grizzled and
denim wonder at my
innocence.
I find myself wanting
to run down first street
like an eight year old,
saying, “Hey!
Come and look
at the new horses
in Fossek’s field!”
And I find myself
wanting to ride
into the last hours
of this summer,
bareback and
happy as the hives
of the days
that drum toward me.
I hear the whinny of
their fenced and abandoned
freedom
and feel happy
today
in the field
of my own making,
writing non-stop,
my head held high
ranging the boundaries
of the birthright
exuberance.
&&
The Hawthorn
The crossed knot
in the hawthorn bark
and the stump
of the sawn off branch
hemmed by the roughened
trunk. In that
omniscient black eye
of witness
I see the dark no-growth
of what has passed
grown round by
what has come to pass,
looking at me
as if I could speak.
So much that was
good in her,
so much in me,
cut off now
from the future
in which we grew together.
Now
through the window
of my new house
that hawthorn's
crooked faithful
trunk round
an old and broken
growth,
my mouth dumb
and
Dante's voice
instead of mine
from the open book
Brother, our love
has laid our wills to rest.
Making us long
only for what is ours
and by no other thirst
possessed.
Our life not lived
together
must still
live on apart,
longing only
for what is ours
alone,
each grow
round the missed branch
as best we can,
claim what is ours
separately,
though not forget
loved memories,
nor that life
still loved by memory,
nor the hurts
through which we
hesitantly
tried to learn
affection.
Our pilgrim journey
apart or together,
like
the thirst
of everything
to find its true form,
the grain of the wood
round the hatched knot
still
straightening
toward the light.
&&&
The Sun
This morning on the desk,
facing up,
a poem of Kavenagh’s
celebrating a lost love.
“She was the sun,” he said,
lives in the fibre
of his arms,
her warmth
through all the years
folding the old man’s hand
in hers
of a Sunday
Dublin morning.
Sometimes reading
Kavenagh I look out
at everything
growing so wild
and faithfully beneath
the sky
and wonder
why we are the one
terrible
part of creation
privileged
to refuse our flowering.
I know
in the text of the heart
the flower is our death
and the first opening
of the new life
we have yet to imagine,
but Kavenagh’s line
reminds me
how I want to know
that sun,
and how I want to flower
and how I want to claim
my happiness
and how I want to walk
through life
amazed and inarticulate
with thanks.
And how I want to
know that warmth
through
love itself,
and
through the sun itself.
I want to know
that sun
of happiness
when I wake
and see through
my window
the morning color
on the far mountain.
I want to know
when I lean down to the lilies
by the water
and feel their small and
perfect reflection
on my face.
I want to know
that gift
when I walk
innocent through the trees
burning with life
and the green
passion
of the pasture’s
first growth,
and I want to know
as lazily
as the cows
that tear at the grass
with their
soft mouths.
I want to know
what I am
and what I am
involved with by loving
this world
as I do.
And I want time
to think of all
the unlived lives:
those that fail to notice
until it is too late,
those with eyes staring
with bitterness,
and those
met on the deathbed
whose mouths are wide
with
unspoken love.
Every year
they keep me faithful
and help me
realize there is more
to lose
than I thought
and more at stake
than I could dream.
November 10, 2023
My writing partner gifted me her copy to introduce me to David's writing. As with most poetry, I sip a poem or two in the morning while drinking coffee after my free-wriring. David's book did not disappoint.
As Ray Bradbury invites writers to do -- read poetry every day, regardless of genre. There's a way into our subconscious where poets manage to sneak into our heads, if we're wiling to listen.
A couple of my favorites:
Sweet Darkness
"The night will give you a horizon / future than you can see."
The Winter of Listening
"Every sound / has a home / from which it had come / to us"
I enjoyed his poetry so much, I signed up for his Sunday Series.
As Ray Bradbury invites writers to do -- read poetry every day, regardless of genre. There's a way into our subconscious where poets manage to sneak into our heads, if we're wiling to listen.
A couple of my favorites:
Sweet Darkness
"The night will give you a horizon / future than you can see."
The Winter of Listening
"Every sound / has a home / from which it had come / to us"
I enjoyed his poetry so much, I signed up for his Sunday Series.
June 14, 2024
I enjoyed this book very much. Poetry like this swirls, just like the vapor coming up from a coffee against the morning light. Serene, but certain. Genuine words coming from a gentle soul that sure has learned the hard way through the difficulties of life and decided to remain soft and open to the beauty in this world. Whyte makes the ordinary moments his teachers. The waking, the sleeping, the silence of an empty house. All at the same time, his writing is intimate, lies in the twilight moments of life and is ready to speak his own earned truths for those willing to listen.
Favorite poems “the house of belonging” “all the true vows” and “the true love” ❤️
Favorite poems “the house of belonging” “all the true vows” and “the true love” ❤️
September 18, 2018
How do you write about poetry? What makes poetry good... or bad? With poetry, it is more personal. As one of my teachers said in high school 'poetry is language and emotion in concentrate'.
At first, I found the poems arrogant and austere. They had a cold wind blowing through them. Then, I found the poems grappling with loneliness while still embracing and yearning for solitude.
I found myself drawn in and having the same emotional conflicts.
I could most relate to the poem Brenden about the fierce and mysterious love of a father for his son.
At first, I found the poems arrogant and austere. They had a cold wind blowing through them. Then, I found the poems grappling with loneliness while still embracing and yearning for solitude.
I found myself drawn in and having the same emotional conflicts.
I could most relate to the poem Brenden about the fierce and mysterious love of a father for his son.
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