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Monday, August 24, 2015

August 24, 2015: More Poems I Love: Larcom’s “Weaving”



[A few years back, I shared a handful of my favorite American poems in a weeklong series. Before I go back to sharing poems for money—well, teaching them as part of my job, but you get the idea—I wanted to highlight another week’s worth of favorite poems and a couple reasons why I love each. Share your favorites in comments, please!]
Today’s favorite poem is Lucy Larcom’s “Weaving” (c. 1862).
I love “Weaving” because it builds on Larcom’s amazing biography—from a starting point as one of the Lowell Mill workers who started the Lowell Offering to a life as an abolitionist activist and a dean of American poetry and letters—and brings all those stories and histories together into its central, multi-layered image and metaphor. We talk about the concept of “intersectionality” in identity and society in the 21st century—well, Larcom and her poem portrayed and modeled it pitch-perfectly in the mid-19th.
Next favorite tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on this poem? Other favorites you’d share?

1 comment:

  1. “So, at the loom of life, we weave
    Our separate shreds, that varying fall,
    Some strained, some fair: and, passing, leave
    To God the gathering up of all,
    In that full pattern wherein man
    Works blindly out the eternal plan.

    I picked out these verses specifically because the poet speaks to what it means for us - for mankind - to be carefully 'weaving' together the fabric of God's plan in the world - though we don't necessarily know it... all the hows and whys. Heavy stuff, for sure.

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