And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk
“A Ritual to Read to Each Other” by William Stafford
Sometimes in this crazy world that’s getting a little more nutty every day, we need a voice that’s “shadowy” to speak truth. Someone who can “talk” from beyond the grave, that “remote important region.” Sometimes we need a poet in a turban. Sometimes we need a poet covered in tattoos. We need a little Rumi and Mac Miller now.
I’ve been reading Rumi this month, and he is not exactly my cup of tea. But this 13th century Sufi mystic remains one of the most popular poets in the world, and so when I got a deal on The Essential Rumi, I decided to dive in. Then I read a Tweetspeak post about a student who combined the lyrics of rapper Lauryn Hill with lines from poet Emily Dickinson, and I stood up inside myself and said, RUMI AND MAC ARE SOUL BROTHERS!
Like Rumi, Mac has never been my cup of tea either, but after his death from an accidental overdose, his family posthumously released his album Circles, and I finally understood his popularity
The more I think about the similarities between these two artists, the more excited I get. I like the idea of Mac as a mystic, or alternatively, Rumi as a rapper.
Here’s a sentence about Rumi that works for Mac as well: “Rumi’s fame during his own lifetime was notable, and his death was widely mourned.” If Rumi had a YouTube channel I suspect the comments would be just as laudatory as those on Mac’s, with sentiments like “see you in the next life brother” and “Stress no more. Rest easy,” and “I hope he knows how many people he helped, especially after death.”
So let’s do this. Let’s place lines from Rumi’s My Worst Habit beside Mac’s Good News. Let’s make some weird, wild poetry. I chose these two works in particular because both have a sense of hopeful despair.
My Worst Habit: Good News
R: My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
M: Well so tired of being so tired
R: I become a torture to those I’m with
M: No they don’t like me when I’m down
R: My words / tangle and knot up
M: What is there to say?
R: If you’re not here, nothing grows.
M: I’m running out of gas, hardly anything left / Hope I make it home from work
R: How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.
M: When you’re high but you’re underneath the ceiling
R: When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools
M: Why I gotta build something beautiful just to go set it on fire?
R: Dig a way out through the bottom / to the ocean
M: Wake up to the moon, haven’t seen the sun in a while / But I heard that the sky’s still blue
R: Take sips of breath all day and night / before death closes your mouth.
M: I’m always wonderin’ if it feel like summer / I know maybe I’m too late
R: Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
M: There’s a whole lot more for me waitin’ on the other side
M: It ain’t that bad / ain’t so bad / well it ain’t that bad / at least it don’t gotta be no more
R: There is a secret medicine / give only to those who hurt so hard / they can’t hope
R: The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.
M: It make ‘em so uncomfortable
In the section The Essential Rumi, translator Coleman Brooks tells an old Chinese Taoist story that ends with this observation: “Rumi’s poems are like firecrackers on a funeral pyre. They won’t allow much public posturing, and they point us away from misery.” Sometimes the only way to make sense of this life’s remote important regions is to light a fire, stand back, and let the teaching begin.
July’s Pages
Poetry
The Essential Rumi, Jalal Al-Din Rumi, translator Coleman Brooks (not quite done)
Adult
My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite (This is what happens when poets write novels.)
The Enneagram of Belonging, Christopher L. Heuertz
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Dancing Prince, our own Glynn Young (the last in the five-part series)
Early Readers and Picture Books
Anno’s Medieval World, Mitsumasa Anno
Please Bury Me in the Library, J. Patrick Lewis, illus. Kyle M. Stone (playful children’s poetry)
Sure As Sunrise: Stories of Bruh Rabbit & His Walkin’ Talkin’ Friends, Alice McGill, illus. Don Tate (Join us for Children’s Book Club, Friday, August 14!)
Middle Grade and YA
The Devlin Quick Mysteries: Digging for Trouble, Linda Fairstein (sliced & diced this one)
Made Progress
The Power of Ritual, Casper ter Kuile
Your turn
1. Can you think of a poet and a singer/songwriter whose words might pair well?
2. I got into both Rumi and Mac at the nudging of others. Who is an artist you initially did not care for, but later found something to like after being encouraged to dive in?
3. Share your July pages. Sliced, started, and abandoned are all fair game.
Photo by Unsettler, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.
Browse more from A Ritual to Read to Each Other
“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro
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Glynn says
Dancing Prince! An excellent choice! (And thank you.)
As I was reading your words about Rumi and Mac Miller, I was thinking of Longfellow. I’ve had him on the brain, having just finished “Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow” by Nicholas Basbanes (finished it in August, so it doesn’t count for July). Longfellow wrote many poems that told stories, specifically American stories, and he ended up being one of the most popular poets in the world in the 19th century, even outselling Browning and Tennyson in England. I think I might pair him with songwriter Jimmy Webb, one of the most popular songwriters of the 20th century whose songs told stories (MacArthur Park, Galveston, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Up, Up and Away, etc., etc.). Webb wrote songs recorded by Glen Campbell, the 5th Dimension, Johnny Rivers, the Supremes, Brooklyn Bridge, Waylon Jennings, Frank Sinatra, and many, many more.
July reading:
Fiction
The Taker and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Lost Manuscript by Rubem Fonseca
These Nameless Things by Shawn Smucker
Crimes of August by Ruben Fonseca
Waiting for Neruda’s Memoirs by Laura Boggess
Poetry
Railsplitting: Poems by Maurice Manning
Fording the Stream: Poems by Jessica De Guyat
Ordinary Time: Poems by Paul Mariani
Romance
The Owner’s Secret by Kimberley Monpetit
A Christmas Worth Billions by Jaclyn Hardy
Blind Date with a Billionaire Inventor by Evangeline Kelly
Her Billionaire Inventor by Dobi Daniels
The Billionaire Lifeguard by Sophia Summers
The Billionaire Doctor by Deb Goodman
Believe in Me by Autumn Macarthur
Least Expected by Autumn Macarthur
Mystery
Killer at the Cult by Alison Golden
Death in the English Countryside by Sara Rosett
Grandma Rachel’s Ghosts by Jonathan Dunsky
The Marriage Murder by Roy Lewis
The Secret of Dunhaven Castle by Nellie Steel
Non-fiction
At Gettysburg by Matilda Pierce Alleman
The Death and Resurrection of the Episcopal Church by Caswell Cooke
A Private in Gray by Thomas Benton Reed
Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits by Arthur Hoyle
Megan Willome says
Glynn, I’m so glad you thought of another poet/songwriter pairing. It’s a worthwhile exercise, especially when the artists lived in different eras.
“The Billionaire Lifeguard” wins best title of the billionaire books you listed.
Sandra Heska King says
So I never heard of Mac Miller…
I had A Year With Rumi: Daily Readings sitting on my desk for the last year but fell down on the readings and recently shelved it. Maybe I will have to pull it out again.
Since that post about Hill and Dickinson, I’ve been thinking about a lot of different pairings. Maybe I’ll put something in words sometime.
The days/weeks/months are running together. I need to start writing down what I’ve read again. Mostly it’s been slicing. But I finished the whole of Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg. I couldn’t put that one down. Also Grey is the Colour of Hope by Irina Ratushiskaya. (or maybe that was in June?)
Up next: Laura’s Waiting for Neruda’s Memoirs and Dancing Prince.
Megan Willome says
Ask a Gen Z-er about Mac. His posthumous album was described to me (lovingly) as “Cheesy Mac” because he croons more and raps less. He is an acquired taste but when I’m in the mood I dig him.
I’ve just started “Waiting for Neruda’s Memoirs” and am so glad for the chance to read it again. And I’ll be writing about “Dancing Prince” on my blog soon.
Monica Sharman says
What a fabulous idea. I am SO going to try this.
My answers to the three questions:
1. Thinking … thinking … (and am excited about it!).
2. Nightwish. I used to think metal was the only kind of music I didn’t like, but then a couple of friends introduced me to symphonic metal.
3. July pages:
The Count of Monte Cristo (3rd or 4th time — my favorite novel)
The Late Great Me, by Sandra Scoppetone (first picked it up in 7th grade, in the school library)
Brubeck: A Life in Time (awesome biography)
Donny Hathaway Live, by Emily J. Lordi (a small biography but particularly focused on his live performances)
Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton
Moving Zen, by C.W. Nicol (just trying to catch a few pages here and there — too much in my reading stack as usual)
Megan Willome says
Monica, I love that your favorite novel is a biggie. (Mine is “Kristin Lavransdatter,” and I’m on my fourth time through.)
If you do pair a singer and a poet, let me know!
Monica Sharman says
Okay, here’s my first try. The poem is “For Years You Trained for Being Lost at Sea” by Jamaal May (JM), which was in Every Day Poems. The song is “This Is the Sea” by The Waterboys (TW).
TW: Once you were tethered. Well, now you are free.
JM: With the spyglass extended, lean all the way out.
TW: These things you keep, you’d better throw them away.
JM: Worry not how your ship will stay afloat
because these are not waves.
TW: That was the river. This is the sea!
JM: The system of canals underneath were tunneled by earthworms;
worry not how they breathe.
TW: You’re trying to make sense of something that you just don’t see.
TW: You’ve been scouring your conscience, raking through your memories.
JM: Focus on the island glinting just out of reach.
Megan Willome says
That totally works, Monica. Well done, you!
Dana Kinsey says
Megan, so thrilled that you were inspired; I absolutely love your choices. These men have both spoken to me before, just never together. The lines you’ve paired mingle beautifully! 💜
I’m currently looking at Lord Byron and Prince. Stay tuned!
Megan Willome says
Dana, you started something good.
And I’m down for your Lord Byron & Prince pairing. They both rocked ruffled shirts.
Dana Kinsey says
Happy to be of service! This is awesome!
They sure did;)
Monica Sharman says
Okay, one more. Walt Whitman’s “Miracles” and Paolo Nutini’s “Pencil Full of Lead”:
WW: Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
PN: I’ve legs on my chair and shoes on my feetTwo pairs of socks and a door with a lock
WW: Whether I wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
PN: I’ve got buttons for my coat and sails on my boat
WW: Whether I talk by day with any one I love,
PN: Best of all I’ve got my baby
WW: Whether I sit at table at dinner with the rest,
PN: I’ve got food in my belly and a license for my telly
WW: Whether I look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
PN: I’ve got a nice guitar and tyres on my car
WW: To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
PN: I’m out and about so I’m in with a shout
Best of all, nothin’s gonna bring me down
Megan Willome says
You’re on a roll, Monica.