GOOD GRIEF
BY SANNA WANI
Remedios Varo, The Call, 1961.
I HAD THIS IDEA
I COULD HEAL
DRIVING HOME
LATE AT NIGHT
REACHING FOR SOMETHING
I COULD NOT TOUCH
HUNGRY FOR SOMETHING
I COULD NOT NAME
“I do not wish to talk about myself.” –Remedios Varo
MY PITCH IS GRIEF
POETRY PLAYS GRIEF
AND NATURE
SOMETIMES ART IS PLAY
I WANT TO PLAY
I WANT TO SEE
WHERE THEY LEAD
THE ARTISTS
AND OTHERS
Nora Claire Miller, “To Understand A Tendency Consider Its Conditions,” 2021.
IF I HAVE A TENDENCY TOWARD GRIEF
THEN IT GREW AROUND ME
IF GRIEF GREW ME
THEN I GREW GRIEF
GOOD GRIEF GREW
AND I GREW WITH IT
I GREW LIFE FROM MY TOOTH
I GREW LIFE LIKE AN EGG
I AM SUGAR AND BONE
I AM SOUR AND NEW
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the river
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
Mary Oliver, “I Worried,” Devotions, (2017)
HAS ANYONE SEEN MY GRIEF?
I LOST IT THIS MORNING
AT THE RIVER BANK
WHO IS COUNTING CHANGE
IT WANTED TO FLY ME HOME
HOME IS ANOTHER BIRD
ON THE HARBOUR OF MEMORY
LOST
HUNGRY
HOPEFUL
MY LUSH AND LONELY LOVE
In this city, you fall in love at Chester subway, it’s not a beautiful subway so your
love makes it so. But its ugliness may doom your love, and you know it but you
love anyway.
Dionne Brand, “VERSO 3.4,” The Blue Clerk (2018)
GRIEF IS NOT LOVE’S UGLINESS
LOSS IS NOT LONGING’S
IN A FIELD OF A THOUSAND FLOWERS
I AM ONE HUNGRY AND HOLY BUD
WHO CAN TELL ONE PETAL
FROM ANOTHER
She was around ten years old at the time. Her first outing to a coffee shop, accompanied by her aunt, was also the first time she set eyes on sugar cubes. Those squares wrapped in white paper possessed an almost unerring perfection, surely too perfect for her. She peeled the paper carefully off and brushed a finger over that granular surface. She crumbled a corner, touched it to her tongue, nibbled at that dizzying sweetness, then eventually placed it in a cup of water and sighed as she watched it melt away.
She isn’t really partial to sweet things any more, but the sight of a dish of wrapped sugar cubes still evokes the sense of witnessing something precious. There are certain memories which remain inviolate to the ravages of time. And to those of suffering. It is not true that everything is colored by time and suffering. It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.
Han Kang, “Sugar cubes,” The White Book (2016)
HOW TO MAKE MY MOTHER’S TEA
TOAST A DASH OF SUGAR AND HALDI WITH GRATED GINGER
TWO ELACHI AND A BIT OF CINNAMON
ADD TWO CUPS OF WATER
ONCE THE WATER IS BOILING
ADD TWO TEASPOONS OF LOOSELEAF BLACK TEA
ONE CUP OF WARM MILK
LET IT BOIL OVER TWICE
DON’T WORRY IF IT MAKES A MESS
IT TASTES BETTER THAT WAY
STRAIN AND SERVE HOT
SWEETEN TO YOUR PREFERENCE
The Prophet (SAW) said, “Allah says: ‘I am just as [you] think I am and I am with [you] if [you] remember Me. If [you] remember Me in [yourself], I too, remember [you] in Myself and if [you] remember Me in a group of people, I remember [you] in a group that is better than they; and if he comes one span nearer to Me, I go one cubit nearer to [you]; and if [you] come one cubit nearer to Me, I go a distance of two outstretched arms nearer to [you]. If [you] come to Me walking, I go to [you] running.”
Sahih al-Bukhari 7405
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING, I GO TO YOU RUNNING
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING, I GO TO YOU
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING, I GO
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING,
IF YOU COME TO ME
IF YOU COME
IF YOU
IF
IF YOU
IF YOU COME
IF YOU COME TO ME
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING,
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING, I GO
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING, I GO TO YOU
IF YOU COME TO ME WALKING, I GO TO YOU RUNNING
I GO TO YOU RUNNING
I GO TO YOU
RUNNING
I GO TO
YOU
I GO
Remedios Varo, Meeting, 1959.
Syllabus 