Breakfast Poetry

Anne Marie reads Marie Ponsot's poem Discovery.

Clare Sullivan is a Professor of Spanish at the University of Louisville, and translates the poetry of Natalia Toledo, a Zapotec poet from the Oaxaca region of Mexico. Clare fell in love with the Spanish language growing up in Chicago, and became a student of literature and Spanish in her graduate studies. As a translator, Clare listens to the weaving of sounds and rhythms as she strives to maintain the playfulness, beauty, and complexities of Natalia's poetry. In our conversation, we explore the many ways language is a reflection of culture and how poetry is a vessel for the sounds of tradition and evolution.

A full reading of the poet Jorie Graham's Self-Portrait as the Gesture Between Them: "The gesture like a fruit torn from a limb, torn swiftly...The rip in the fabric where the action begins, the opening of the narrow passage...But what else could they have done, these two, sick of beginning, revolving in place like a thing seen...as the apple builds inside the limb, as rain builds in the atmosphere, as the lateness accumulates until it finally is, as the meaning of the story builds...scribbling at the edges of her body until it must be told...so that she had to turn and touch him to give it away...a new direction, an offshoot, the limb going on elsewhere, and liking that error, a feeling of being capable because an error, of being wrong perhaps altogether wrong...and loving that error...that break from perfection...out of nowhere to share the day." - Jorie Graham.

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core..."

"If we could, like the trees, practice dying, do it every year just as something we do...Whatever the trees know when they stand undone, surprisingly intricate, we need to know also so we cal allow that last thing to happen to us as if it were only any ordinary thing..." from Grace Butcher's poem, Learning from Trees.

"...Does all grow slowly nameless in your mouth? Where words once were, discoveries flow, set free from the fruit's flesh, amazed...O knowing, feeling, happiness--, immense!" This morning's poetry reading is Rilke's Sonnet to Orpheus, 13. A poem for the ripe fruit of autumn. Feel, taste, grow clear, awake, and be transparent.

"...In the newborn orchard each morning I ponder. And sense the vibration of bonds that wed me to the great host of invisible stars, to the sunken moon, to the sun whose laughter flushes the hill with crimson..." from Denise Levertov's poem "Are We Ruled by the Wind?"

Today's daily poetry reading is from the Sufi poet Kabir, translated by Robert Bly. "The Guest is inside you, and also inside me...inside love there is more joy than we know of...Those who hope to be reasonable about it fail..." Music by Kayhan Kalhor, "Silence of The Night."

"...I did not see Life was About to change, as it does, When odd magic appears: There was No music Yet..." Music: As Time Goes By, Stephane Grappelli.

"...listen: hang on keep your silence until the words ripen in you, look at and caress things the hands know, their is a blind wisdom..."

"...Undeciphered let my song rewire circuits wired wrong, and with my jingle in your brain, allow the Bridge to arch again." - Leonard Cohen, All My News from his Book of Longing.

The sea is still there after dark...I want to bring the sea back...Yi Lu (伊路) is one of the most widely read poets in contemporary China. Known for her elegant and distilled lyrical voice as well as her ecological awareness, Yi is the author of five collections, most recently Forever Lingering, Using Two Seas, and See. Sea Summit, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, is the first appearance of Yi's work in English.

A poem in praise of the beauty of the earth by the Polish poet. Wisława Szymborska won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.

Anne Marie reads the Spanish poet's series of short poems The Return. "I'm coming back for my wings..."

Tongo Eisen-Martin was born in San Francisco, California, and received an MA from Columbia University. He is the author of Someone's Dead Already (Bootstrap Press, 2015), which was nominated for a California Book Award, and Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights Publishers, 2017), which received the California Book Award and an American Book Award. His newest book Blood On the Fog (City Lights Publishers, 2021) is now available. A poet, movement worker, and educator, his latest curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. Listening to Tongo recite his poetry is stepping into a whirlwind of conscious altering transformation. Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and be ready to go on a journey like no other into the heart of our troubled, wondrous waters. (Music: Blue Bossa, Joe Henderson)

Daily poem for your morning ritual. Louise Glück's Parable of the Dove read by Anne Marie Vivienne is found in the 1962-2012 collection of her poems printed by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Anne Marie Vivienne reads Rumi's poem Every Tree, translated by Coleman Barks. Daily poems for your morning ritual.

In this episode, Didier Sylvain talks about how we don't need to save the world, but we do need to offer our unique magic to the world. Through his in-person and online coaching sessions and webinars, Didier guides individuals through a transformative process of self-renewal and coherence to enable them to contribute their gifts to their community as they engage in the collective optimal good. We discuss resonance, power, choice, freedom, archetypes, renewal, possibility, and the healing magic of ordinary ritual. Didier is a certified life alignment coach and consultant in leadership and personal development. He coaches individuals and groups into becoming fuller and more integrated versions of themselves—so they can deliver powerfully on their missions. By applying grounded wisdom and adaptive frameworks to life's challenges and opportunities, he helps leaders transform their organizations, their teams, and themselves. Didier's course offerings can be found on his website: didiersylvain.com and you can follow him on Instagram @__didiersylvain

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, storyteller, and human who sees and speaks from truth. In this episode, Rosemerry shares some of the poems that have changed the way she sees the world and herself in it. She reminds us of the power of believing in our own worth and our own beauty, that we are the narrator's of our own life. Rosemerry has been writing a poem every day since 2006, and shares her advice on how to find poetry that moves you. This conversation will move you, and remind you that there's nothing to fix about who you are and how life is meeting you in this moment.

Join me for a reading and an exploration of Octavio Paz's poem, "Reading John Cage." Read. Unread. Music without measurements. Sounds passing through circumstances...

In this episode I speak with Nigerian conceptual photographer, film maker, and creative director Wami Aluko. Her photographs evoke the magic of humanity, culture, and the stories we tell. In our conversation, Wami talks about how faith, intentionality, and tarot all play a role in her storytelling process and the photographs that result from her unique genius. Growing up in Lagos, she celebrates the diversity amongst Nigerians and the Nigerian diaspora in her work. Her debut documentary, ‘For Those Who Listen', was an exploration of the impact of music on the Lagos creative youth. Since starting her creative journey in 2016, she has gone on to do exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, and Lagos, and her work has been celebrated in publications such as Vogue Italia, BBC Africa, Sukeban Magazine, Konbini, Punch newspaper, and more.

In this episode I talk with Gangotri Garg about the power of reclaiming cultural mythologies, cultivating a practice of elevating our ancestors, and how intuition bestows compassion on ourselves and others with whom we disagree or misunderstand. Gangotri is a certified Integral Coach and a Facilitator for Stanford's Graduate Business School's Interpersonal Dynamics course. Over the past 21 years, she has held leadership positions within large healthcare organizations, led yoga teacher training programs, coached leaders across a wide range of professions, and run several small businesses. Through coaching, workshops, group work and speaking engagements, Gangotri teaches and mentors leaders to embrace a model of embodied leadership so that they can integrate inclusion and belonging while empowering their teams to co-create the transformation necessary in today's environment of extreme disruption. Gangotri uses her combined experience and expertise of corporate leadership, mindfulness and empathy, DEI, and leadership development to create a unique learning experience that results in profitable and sustainable change. In her spare time, Gangotri enjoys being in nature, stand-up paddle boarding, and relaxing with her husband and two children in their home in California.

Blake Spalding is co-owner and chef at Hell's Backbone Grill at the edge of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Blake is more than an advocate for the land--she is in deep relationship with the spirit and the body of the land. As a brilliantly sensitive human, Blake talks about how ritual and poetry give her courage to face the suffering and pain we are all experiencing in the shadow of patriarchy, white supremacy, and other systems that keep us sick. Her resiliency as she lives a life of activism and advocacy is proof of the radical courage of her heart. Her work is to feed people, and Blake's hearth is always open to seen and unseen friends and allies. In this episode, Blake reads the poems of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Denise Levertov.

Poetry, the rhythm and power of the word, can heal us. Beauty heals. In this first installment of Poetry Prescriptions, I offer you words and rhythms from Rainer Maria Rilke in his Sonnet to Orpheus number eight. I'll walk you through this poem of Lament and Jubilation to remind all of us that we have otherworldly allies within and all around us as we find our way through this human landscape.

This week's guest is the author and personal coach Erin Yu-Juin McMorrow. Erin's new book "Grounded" tells the story of soil, the carbon cycle, and how our bodies and souls are inextricably linked to the ground we have forgotten. I talk with Erin about soil, the root chakra, remembering our own nature, and how to heal by going deep within. Climate solutions are far more simple than more giant technological machines. Climate change is possible only when we heal our own disconnect from the earth.

Join me to hear how photographer Chris Michel has found miracles and adventures of the heart through his daily ritual. Chris is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He has documented humans working in extreme locations like the North & South Poles, Everest, Papua New Guinea, DR Congo, and the edge of space (aboard a U-2 Spy Plane). He's also had the opportunity to photograph many global leaders, including as the photographer for the 14th Dalai Lama.

Allison Kesler talks about her seasonal anchors, the fire that she cannot put out, and her fascination with darkness and dissolution. Her morning rituals ground her in her passions as she expands herself to the edges of her knowing day in and day out. Ritual, for Allie, is sacred and gives her a way to tune in at the turning points within each day. Allie is a writer of stories, an astrological navigator, a miner of systems and patterns, a dreamer, a podcaster, and a highly feminine explorer of things unsaid and unseen. She is my IONAA podcast co-host as we delve into the mysteries of seasonal cycles and the human psyche.

Anne Marie Vivienne tells the story of how her ritual Breakfast Poetry came to be as she left a marriage and a religion to find Beauty and Meaning within herself. Beyond her personal story, Anne Marie guides you through the basics of poetry, ritual, and the holiness of the heart's affections.