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Tuesday, May 7, 2019

The Tuesday Platform


Geoffrey G. O’Brien (May 10, 1969) is an American poet. Educated at Harvard University and University of Iowa, he has taught at Brooklyn College, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been a Distinguished Poet in Residence at St. Mary's College of California. I recently came across a poem written by him was deeply touched by the emotion in his writing:

May


This is a love poem. It has no business. It happens
in that anyway world where the bodies are by now
decided to get all the way up, accompanied
by changes in temperature and light welcome and
unwelcome both, lie down, get up, go prone again,

get nowhere in time. I won’t reduce to a single
preposition a relation to the one person about it 
like grass. Who has a pronoun, a name, three or
four even, which globe, without containing,
her experience, of which I chase awareness till  

her letters are with one exception all over this
deepening sheet, name- blind blue of a cloudless
day. Unconcerned with property disputes,
the poem gradually permits itself to figure grass,
the blue of the sky because we see those first kinds

of immense quiet as sleepers while walking the dog
in the hills and store them for future use as simile
and metaphor, each ancient and suspiciously free of
present disaster. (Read full poem here)


As a poet, O’Brien is meditative, given to neither satire nor parody and is anything but un-selfconsciously literal, the highs and lows keep the reader engrossed, but most of the poem's appeal is found in quiet passages, in the rich detail and the savouring of moments.


Welcome to the Tuesday Platform, the weekly open stage for sharing poems in the Imaginary Garden. Please link up a poem, old or new, and spend some time this week visiting the offerings of our fellow writers.

SHARE * READ * COMMENT * ENJOy

19 comments:

  1. Hi, friends! I haven't written a thing yet since April... well, except for submitting a huge proposal at work that should probably count. :) I'm sharing this amazing post that some of you have already seen on Instagram or FB but it's just so wonderful. :) Hope everyone has a great week!

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  2. I've been waiting a little impatiently for this Tuesday Platform, as the piece I'm sharing follows directly from the April poeming.

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  3. @Marian; Helloo pretty woman! Heading over to read you!πŸ’ž☕

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  4. @Rosemary; You intrigue me, I am going to grab some coffee and come right over! Happy Tuesday!πŸ’ž☕

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  5. Thank you so much for the prompt, Sanaa. I have a bit of running around to do, but I will be back this afternoon to delight in today's word-yum! And Ramadan Kareem, to you! ❤️😊❤️

    Have a glorious reading, everyone.

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  6. I am looking forward to reading more of O'Brien's work. Thank you for sharing and hosting, Sanaa.

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  7. @Magaly; That's so sweet of you! Ramadan Kareem to you too!❤️😊❤️

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  8. @Kerry; Thank you, so glad you liked his work! Heading over to read you! πŸ’ž☕

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  9. I'll join the "Good Morning" wishes too if I may. I literally found myself 'standing in the corner this morning. It didn't come to me right away but when it did I couldn't figure out why I was there and that I was doing nothing. Things I do sometimes remind me of chicken behavior. Most is the sick chicken but this time it was the chicken just standing there.
    So I wrote a 14 line ditty ending with an invitation for folk, one in particular, to join me.
    ..

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  10. I added just the shortest poem I could imagine.

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  11. @Jim; Yours was a thought-provoking write! Happy Tuesday!πŸ’ž☕

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  12. @Bjorn; It's good to see you, heading over to read you!πŸ’ž☕

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  13. It's been a stormy Tuesday here. Sadly there is area flooding, but we are fine at hour house.

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  14. Evening, Garden Dwellers! Thanks, Sanaa, for hosting the Platform this week! :)

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  15. @Susie; I am so relieved to hear you guys are all right!πŸ’ž☕

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  16. @Frank; Thank you for joining us, heading over to read you!πŸ’ž☕

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  17. Late to the party, but happy to be here! :-)

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  18. @Rob; It's never too late for Tuesday Platform, be right over!!πŸ’ž☕

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  19. Thanks for sharing this poem, Sanaa! True, it's meditative. :) Sorry for the delay in commenting here. <3

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