The Charm of It
Today, I thought I’d share with you one of my favourite poems, which I memorised during my first term of college and that has stuck with me all these years.
- “Just Once” by Anne Sexton
Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
walked there along the Charles River,
watched the lights copying themselves,
all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
their mouths as wide as opera singers;
counted the stars, my little campaigners,
my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
on the night green side of it and cried
my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
my heart to the westbound cars and took
my truth across a small humped bridge
and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
and hoarded these constants into morning
only to find them gone.
It also provided the inspiration for the name of my new photography blog. I’ve been wanting to bring more creativity into my life, and a photo-a-day project seems like the best method. Rather than inflict a bunch of photography posts on all of you wonderful readers, I’ve begun a new blog: The Charm of It. I’ll be posting at least one new photograph every day (haven’t decided yet if I’ll do more than that): they’ll probably be a mix of everyday life things with some more artistic/themed shots. I started it on Tumblr because the simplicity appealed to me, but I have no idea how about the social networking side. I might end up mixing personal photographs with favourite quotes, in a format similar to my bookish quotes feature, but right now I’m just doing simple captions. Please don’t feel obligated to follow me! This is a completely separate project from A Striped Armchair and book blogging, but I mentioned it on Twitter yesterday so I thought I should mention it here. Plus, today I posted a photo of Thistle, and I’ll take any excuse to brag on her. ;)
If you’re also a fan of photography, any online resources/sites/blogs/etc. I should know about? And if someone wants to explain the social side of Tumblr, I’d be grateful!
Beautiful poem, and great title for your photography blog. I don’t do much with photography, so I couldn’t be much help, but I’ll let you know if I come across any resources that might help. Thanks for sharing!
Good luck with the new blog – sounds great! As for photography resources, as it happens my wife is a college photography lecturer who is setting up a site at the moment – http://www.fotodisiac.com. It’ll have online tips, competitions, classes etc. It’s going live on 1st August. Forgive me the plug, but you did ask :-)
Have you read the biography of Anne Sexton by Diane Wood Middlebrook? I loved it.
Love this poem and the photo is just fabulous.
I have a friend doing the photo a day project. I just love the idea of it and will definitely be looking forward to seeing the photos on your other blog and am glad you shared all about it here.
Love the poem and love the idea. I’ll be following to see the pictures!
Wonderful poem, Eva! Congratulations on your new photo blog! I love the title – ‘The Charm of It’ :)
I love the line “and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home” and like the way it applies to a photograph.
The social side of Tumblr… a lot of it, at least the way I use it, is re-blogging. I don’t post my own photos on my tumblr (here) though, I just use it as an inspiration board for any picture I come across that I like. It’s refreshing to not have to talk to anyone on at least one site, but just be inspired by beautiful images! At least, that’s how I see it, although I only use it in spurts. You follow people who post pictures you like and then re-blog them if you like or just ‘heart’ or ‘like’ them. Some people use formspring I think to receive comments and questions and then post the question and answer back on their tumblr, although there may be new ways to get comments directly to a tumblr with some kind of added widget, I’m not sure. That’s about as much as I know about that, hope it helps! You can search the site through the dashboard, look for tag words that you’re interested in if you want to find more blogs to follow. I know some people book blog on tumblr, but I don’t know how many or if there’s enough of an audience or again, how comments work. More people post book quotes and pictures of books as far as I can tell and very short tidbits about themselves.
Anyway. Like the photo a day idea.