Pool of Living Water
“Ancestral Stream” Bardic Poetry by Joseph S. Plum
Welcome:
Greetings and welcome to American Bardic Poet.
“Ancestral Stream”
This week I share a few lines from a much longer poem that I’ve titled, “Ancestral Stream” to differentiate it from another combination of lines also containing these words, but with a different title and energy. It gets complex. At least…I find it complex.
(Read my post regarding punctuation and editing of the poems here.)
One question I’ve pondered over the years is how best to transcribe Dad’s poetry.
Do I leave it all in black and white lines - the poet prefers short lines. Or perhaps try to group it into longer lines and even (gasp) stanzas? (The poet laughs at this suggestion…says no way.)
I prefer the stanzas. (Double gasp!) But I really like this example below, too. Just a few lines - void of punctuation - powerful in their starkness.
Good journey,
(The poet’s daughter.)
ancestral stream
through this pool of living water
the ancestral stream empties into a river
how well the current knows its course
with mountains and oceans both the source
Read about the poet and the bees here.
This is a page from the book, I Believe in Seeds: Affirmations for Rewilding, made possible by a grant from the BeWildReWild Fund at Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. This book combines my watercolor paintings with Dad’s poems, and gave me a chance to try something different with punctuation. Also, it was such a beautiful moment when Dad saw my paintings and realized his poems were part of his daughter’s artwork.
I’m grateful.
I’ll write more next week. Hope to see you again then. Please consider sharing this post with someone you think may be interested in Dad’s poetry.
🙏🏼 Thank you for gathering here. May it be a blessing. 🙏🏼
About the Poet
Joseph S. Plum is a poet in the bardic tradition. He lives off-grid in rural Iowa and composes his unique chant-like oral poetry for fascinated audiences around the world. Joe has over 16 hours of oral poetry memorized in his head. He pulls from this collection of rhyming lines to compose poems according to the energy of the audience listening. Joe does all of this without writing the poems down on paper or holding any notes.
Joe’s daughter, Emily Lupita, typed up his poems over the years and launched Dreaming Deer Press to publish his work. He now has nine poetry books for sale on Amazon that can be purchased on Joe’s website - here.
🌳