Poetry (pen) Pals #19

Lucy Beckley on The Generosity of the Ordinary (and the alchemy of a cup of tea)

Sometimes a writing style immediately has me. Immediately makes me want to put on the kettle on and share a cup of tea with the writer. This was very much the case with our guest poet for this week

Lucy Beckley

. I’ve never heard Lucy’s voice but I think I can imagine what it might sound like from this post. It’s got all the tone of a gentle arm around the shoulder. And as for the poetry she shares…

Look, just delve on in, I don’t think you’ll be remotely disappointed.

---

Firstly, a huge thank you to Nelly for inviting me to contribute to Poetry Pals. For me, poetry has always been a kind companion, one that has accompanied me through the light, the dark and the many shades of grey of life. Since being able to read, I’ve always been drawn to poetry and as a child I loved the work of Michael Rosen and Roger McGough. I’m hugely grateful to Nelly for being such an incredible cheerleader and for creating such a beautiful and inclusive community where you get to share, read and play with poetry.

It’s been lovely taking the time to choose one of my favourite poems written by another and to come up with some gentle invitations to write. But to be honest, when faced with the question of what poem to choose for this piece, I found it hard! There are so many amazing poets who I admire, from Maggie Smith to David Whyte, from Jeff Goins to Mary Oliver, from Miroslav Holub to Rebecca Elson, from Kate Baer to Hollie McNish, ahhh I could share so many! When faced with narrowing my choice down, I went with a poet whose work I’ve only recently discovered.

I’ve only encountered Pat Schneider’s work in the past year and it has felt like a gift. I was on the hunt for a poem for a creative writing workshop that I was leading about pausing and playing with poetry and her beautiful piece arrived into my line of sight just when I needed it.

It may sound strange, but I often find that poems find their way to me or come into view just at the right time. There’s something about poetry that does that I think. As the poet and writer Mark Nepo says,

“Poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul that comes at times to renew us when we least expect it. Poems show us how we belong to each other and life. Like all forms of art, poetry marries what is with what can be. Poems show us our possibility.”

This encapsulates so much of what poetry does for me personally and Schneider’s work is a shining example of this in action.

Pat Schneider was born in the US in 1934 and her work explored so many themes, from grief to poverty, from home to the everyday. Having experienced a difficult childhood, she went on to lead an incredible life and taught creative writing at a number of universities and was also founder of Amherst Writers & Artists, a US based not for profit organisation for writing workshops and retreats.

For me, her poems are masterful lessons in craft, restraint and in capturing that which is often unseen and that cannot which often be named. In a world where we are faced with such overwhelm and where the attention economy is leading many of us all down a path of burnout and over stimulation, I have found her work to be a tonic and a balm.

For this piece, I chose her poem, The Patience of Ordinary Things (but I would also urge you to also read the following poems by her, On A Day When Rain, What I Want To Say and Going Home the Longest Way Around.)

---

The Patience of Ordinary Things | Pat Schneider 

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

From The Weight of Love (Negative Capability Press, 2019) by Pat Schneider. Read it here on Poets.org.

---

In my own work, I’m fascinated by the everyday ordinary and in this poem, Schneider has captured the essence of the ordinary in such a beautiful and yet precise manner. The whirr and white noise of today very often doesn’t afford any space for an appreciation of the ordinary things. Yet there are so many lines from this poem that sing to me and could be in themselves a prompt for your own work. From ‘Is it a kind of love, is it not?’ to ‘I’ve been thinking about the patience

of ordinary things’, Schneider’s descriptions are razor sharp and yet there’s always space to linger.

What I love the most about this poem is that it offers a beautiful parting of the clouds and a moment to appreciate all these otherwise ordinary things. It still makes me stop each time I read it and I am especially grateful for that last line, ‘And what is more generous than a window?’ which in itself is such a beautiful invitation to write and a moment to pause and look out of the window closest to you.

Simple, powerful and poignant it really does show us the sense of possibility that poetry can bring.

Now, on to our own poems…

---

Your writing prompt for this week:

We’re going to write a poem about the persistence and generosity of ordinary things and invisible joys.

I invite you to take a moment (five to ten minutes) to make a list of all the ordinary, everyday pleasures, those otherwise unexpected things that we so often take for granted or overlook.

You can list them out in whichever way you find helpful, perhaps as a mindmap or cloudmap, maybe you want to list them out as things that you ‘hear, see, taste, touch and smell’ or maybe you’ll just create a simple list of those quiet, untold pleasures and invisible joys.

Once you’ve compiled your list, see if there are any connections that you can draw and where it takes you, perhaps you could use Schneider’s image of a cup of tea or window as a starting point, or you can just use your own and see where they take you.

I look forward to joining in with you over the coming week to share our poems.

Thank you so much for having me, Nelly!

Lucy Beckley

---

Oh the generosity of the ordinary.

Thank you

Lucy Beckley

. Absolutely beautiful prompt for us this week. Please do go and read more of Lucy’s words. You will find her website here, she is on Instagram, and tell me you’re not immediately subscribing to her brilliant Substack from the name alone:

Until Friday,

Nelly x