Image Provided by the South Broadway Cultural Center |
“We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists
of a larger reality.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
Ever since I
came across this quote from Le Guin I’ve been obsessed with visionaries. And because April is poetry month I'm particularly focused on visionary
poets and what makes a one a visionary. In searching the internet I found all kinds of
visionaries: painters, writers, leaders, activists, CEO’s, even politicians. The most common characteristic that
they share is an ability to see the future, or a different
future than most. And not necessarily in a woo-woo kind of way. They just dream
about how things could be, like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Oglala Lakota medicine man, Black Elk.
Quotes about Visionaries
A visionary is
one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn
before the rest of the
world. — Oscar Wilde
If you have the
same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier than everyone else
then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have them five years earlier
you will be named a lunatic. — Barry Jones, Entrepreneur
Like the poet
William Blake, my anger is visionary anger. It gives direction
to my work. — Adrienne Rich
Poets, as I hear them,
speak out honestly from the intensity and clarity of their own
vision—magicians, shamans, healers, seers, prophets, alchemist. — Kenneth
Lincoln
Visionary Poems
"The Visionary" by Emily Dickinson
Recorded tribute to Frank Lima: City Lights podcast.
"I Am Waiting" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
If you've never heard "Howl" read aloud by Allen Ginsberg, you can listen to it now. Or read Howl: a Graphic Novel.
Books by Visionary Poets
I’ve culled the library’s catalog to highlight a few visionary poets who through the alchemy and language and conviction have formed their own larger reality.The Complete Collected Poems by Maya Angelou Angelou is a true visionary writer and performer who changed the landscape of the both the literary, political, and cultural world.
The Collected Poems of Audrey Lorde. Lorde has been called a "black feminist visionary and 'mytho-poet'."
Incidents of Travel in Poetry by Latino poet and visionary, Frank Lima.
A Map to the Next World by Joy Harjo whose “visionary justice-seeking art transforms personal and collective bitterness to beauty, fragmentation to wholeness, and trauma to healing.”
Words Are My Matter by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Poetry Events in April
Poetry Open Mic: The Poet as Visionary
Celebrate poetry month by reading your own visionary poetry with special guest host, Mary Oishi, Albuquerque poet, visionary, activist, and KUNM Radio personality. At South Broadway Library, Friday, April 14, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (The event will be held in the cultural center auditorium, down the hall from the library.)
Oishi will emcee the open mic and read from her book, Spirit birds they told me. |
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