Lyricality Blog
I tell them what I know by Sandy Bot-Miller
Sandy Bot-Miller will be the guest editor for Sunday Morning Lyricality in August, 2020. She is an artist-poet with a desire to address a personal and planetary search for peace, beauty and meaning.
Sebeka, Minnesota by Simon L. Eckman
Music often exists in the sonic realm, much the same as the spoken word. What is spoken word, but simply vibrations cultivated by our vocal musculature? Listen as Simon’s lyrical guitar “speaks,” as it contacts his inspirations, such as nature and spirituality. Be mindful of where your mind wanders when listening to a “song without words.”
Going to Be OK by Lisa Deguiseppi
Sometimes, this isn’t a more perfect time for a hopeful, optimistic song. With her acoustic guitar and bass/percussion accompaniment, Lisa Deguiseppi shares with us her words for moving forward. We’ve all had the urge to throw in the towel, and this piece stands as a beacon for better days to come. She reminds us that it is not foolish to look to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but a necessity, to be okay.
Like Paper Planes by Marco Vendrame
With a moving acoustic guitar ostinato and flowing violin melody underneath, Marco sheds light on the breadth of opportunities that pass us by while we work fervently for safety and comfort. He offers a solution: Take risks with unknown outcomes or trajectories, like paper planes. He closes with a message to his daughter, asking for patience and positing support, both virtues we all could benefit from adopting as we continue down our own roads.
Just Because by Duncan Vinje
Over a gritty guitar tone, VINJE challenges our perspective of ‘broken.’ His piece ‘Just Because’ is a call for us all to examine how we piece together those around us from the lense of our own experiences. An awful lot can appear broken if we struggle to complete the puzzle. If we can shed our mental shackles and take time in stride, perhaps we may not need to ‘fix’ that which is ‘broken.’
Carrying Water to the Field by Joyce Sutphen
In Carrying Water to the Field, Minnesota Poet Laureate Joyce Sutphen has made a poem that soothes and cools my deep longing to know simple human kindness. The childlike innocence of this poem is akin to poems by Emily Dickinson and William Blake. But apparent simplicity is often significantly more complex than we assume. There is some poetic (artistic-linguistic-musical-mathematical-philosophical) genius at work in this astonishingly perfect poem.
Things That Cannot Die by Paige Riehle
Sunday Morning Lyricality, June 28, 2020 is generously sponsored by Danielle Dufy Literary and Stone Gathering: A Reader. Every issue of powerful, memorable poems, small fictions, and short essays, edited by Deborah Jacobs and published under the imprint French Press Editions, is a treasure trove of “portable, affordable, collectible...
Crow Pose by Kris Bigalk
Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer, followed by a prompt to help you write your own poem. Kris Bigalk's poem "Crow Pose" appears to be about practicing to master a difficult yoga position. On a deeper level, it explores the question of how, when life gets awkward and hard, a person...
Random Floating Cells With Style by Ed Bok Lee
Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer. Do our efforts make any difference at all? Do we matter? Ed Bok Lee's "Random Floating Cells With Style" alludes to the darkness, doubt, and difficulty surrounding the strenuous, moral work of overcoming fear. Compared to the unfathomable vastness of...
Egg Money by KateLynn Hibbard
Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer, followed by a prompt to help you write your own poem. Dr. Dorothee Ischler of the Center for Healing and Resilience in Northfield, MN says that validation "can be a practice that will help us bridge our differences. We come from different backgrounds...
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Do you value Minnesota poets and lyricists? Your monthly or one-time contribution will help us work to connect local writers to local local audiences. We are the only organization focusing a multi-media spotlight exclusively on Minnesota poets and songwriters, and your support matters.
Donate
Do you value Minnesota poets and lyricists? Your monthly or one-time contribution will help us work to connect local writers to local local audiences. We are the only organization focusing a multi-media spotlight exclusively on Minnesota poets and songwriters, and your support matters.