So many thoughts can come to a person when reading. Finding little details or looking at the broader picture; trying to find the author’s meaning in the words, versus feeling your personal heartstrings tug at where the writing pulls you in. Scholars and simple readers alike can pour over an author’s work in different ways, studying themes and structure in their own ways. Poems, to me, are some of the easiest forms of writing that can be pulled apart like this. Yet I know it can also be a struggle to do so as well, either getting confused by language, or the true message the author intended flying over your head. I believe then, while it’s understandable to want to know every detail and facet of what the author meant, that you can read poems as how they speak to you specifically. How you feel; what the writing means to you; how you read it in your mind. So, with these many poems I’ve been given to read over, I wanted to express this way of thinking over them. Going author by author, I want to connect the dots of what this tiny sample of all their works means to me.
And so, to me, Shutta Crum’s works that are featured here give me a distinctive feeling: Yearning. The poems I read all seem to look at the past in some way, and the writer’s desire for or remembrance of the feelings that took place there. Whether it’s the struggle between love and loss, simply looking over past objects with fondness, or giving character to nature yearning for rest. Each poem in the set I read feels so different if you read them separately, but reading them all side-by-side made them feel like one person.
“Early Walk Along The River” is the last poem in Shutta’s set that I have, and its sense of yearning is put on the river itself. I know that may feel like a stretch for what feels like the most simple form of artistry among the three poems, yet I feel the whole purpose of the poem is the yearning from early morning nature to have peace. The river is reluctant to get up from slumber, not wanting to take off its foggy blanket; and the nature around it is also silent, as if not wanting to abandon its own sleep or agreeing to let the river rest. It’s only when moving life – the writer – is introduced, does it seem to awaken. Not by choice, but by the crunching of steps on gravel interrupting this song of slumber and stillness. Personifying nature in this way, it paints a beautiful picture of the early morning, and that sight’s yearning to let nature stay this calm for as long as it can.
Reading these poems, even when I maybe look too deep into them or maybe put too much thought into a few words, has been very fun. Finding meanings, either the writer’s or my own, is an exciting way to exercise my brain and appreciate the writing that’s been given to me. “A Gathering of Poets 2”, the collection of poems that was given to me, may hopefully become a series I keep reviewing and pouring my thoughts into for the rest of my time here at First Coast Life, along with any other blogs I can do. My only hope is that these make you yearn for more, either of this series, or for more of these amazing works of art.
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Early Walk Along the River
The river reluctantly sheds
its gown of fog.
It is a mute companion
still heavy with sleep.
No ripples lap, no windsong,
no birdsong, no movement
in the draperies of Spanish moss.
Our footsteps on the graveled path
are rude notes in this morning’s
praise song to slumber.
Shutta Crum
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A bachelor’s student (soon-to-be graduate!) of Communications & Media, with a passion for writing whatever words come to her mind. Taking inspiration from the most complicated feelings to the simplest things like cute clouds; you can transform anything you can imagine into a feast for the eyes and mind, in my opinion. I also like to take pictures of those cute clouds, among other things, whenever a sight strikes me with happiness or intrigue.
I’ve been writing among friends for several years, but my published works right now are my summer internship blogs with Connecting Thru Music (https://connectingthrumusic.org/blog)! I can’t wait to write more blogs here for First Coast Life, whether that be inspirational rambles or about my visits to all the amazing events and sights the first coast has to offer!
