National Poetry Month 2020 Day 17: “In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind” & “School for Fools”

Mary Oliver is just so inspiring. I’m going to have to share “Wild Geese” and probably many other poems
of hers another time, but at the moment I chose this one, which comforts me a little when I fear losing my
mind later in life (or sooner! What do any of us know?). I first read it from her New and Selected Poems that
I got with my Whitman College bookstore work-study employee discount. I guess if I just have the chance to
reach an old age, and to hold on to kindness and creativity, that will be something. 

In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind

By Mary Oliver 

On cold evenings

My grandmother,

With ownership of half her mind—

The other half having flown back to Bohemia—

Spread newspapers over the porch floor

So, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath,

As under a blanket, and keep warm,

And what shall I wish for, for myself,

But, being so struck by the lightning of years,

To be like her with what is left, that loving.

And now for another taste of my own undergraduate angst at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. We
start to see that I write prolifically during periods of transition, and apparently my most productive year for poetry
writing so far was in 2000, though I’m changing that this year.

School for Fools

By Blythe Stephens

The lights are jarring, the vending machines hum.

My eyes are blinking, my mind goes numb.

Others speak around us and flip through books

In every one of the library’s nooks.

The days are shrinking as I return to school.

Afterthought all summer, I’m often still a fool.

But my senses are keen, I’ve got things to share,

Constantly observing and taking in, I stare.

My fragile life is now and here from all sides pressing in,

If I can just live it, that will be a win!