I am thrilled that Silver Birch Press is featuring another of my poems in their Self-Portrait Series:
Self-Portrait with Blue, poem by Robert Okaji (Self-Portrait Poetry Series)
I think this calls for a small snack…
O at the Edges
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
O at the Edges 
nice snack
&
for drink?
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A bottle of Avinyo Brut cava, from Catalonia, or a few pints of Real Ale Brewing Company’s Hans’ Pils, my current favorite (very hoppy) pilsner.
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Profound imagery, this is one of those poems that manifests the resolve.
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Thanks very much.
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Well done!
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Thanks!
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🙂
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Well done Robert. 🙂
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Thanks, Jane.
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Great poem, R. I’d quote a favorite line, but each self-contained stanza is its own meditative favorite when i’m reading it. Did you ever read Alexander Theroux’s essays on the primary and secondary colors? The physics of color, the history of coloring media, the language of color, presence and absence–it’s all there in this poem of yours. One of my favorites of yours.
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Thanks, Jeff. So now you’re making me read yet another work? Ha! I haven’t read Theroux’s essays, but will do so. I’ve read bits and pieces, here and there, on color, but haven’t fully dived in. That may come. Fascinating subject!
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Congratulations! I loved “the colour of moonlight and bruises” … and “woad” … the word is so loaded that it fills your mouth right up to say it!
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Yes, I know what you mean. That line came about because I simply had to use “woad.”
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Yes ~ you might have just brought “woad” back into fashion 😛
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Woadn’t that be nice?
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Although I can’t help but think of Williams and Picasso and Miles Davis whenever I ponder blue, your “self-portrait” is an essence unto itself. It’s fascinating how you would identify with the “median” of the spectrum (I find that I’ve phased in and out of different colors, including blue, in the innocuous question of “what’s your favorite color?”). I notice that I’m in all blue as I type this, save for the black-white hat and white socks. (Then again, I think Flannery O’Connor said something like, when asked about the underlying symbolism of the black hat in one of her characters — perhaps in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” — ‘sometimes a black hat is just a black hat’). I am in love with “flatted notes and blurred 7ths” and the ultimate line, “Look to me and absorb, and absorbing, perceive.” I feel I’ve undergone a cultural anthropological lesson-journey and arrived at wisdom. Perhaps I even know you better as a person, rather than a person-on-a-page, Robert. Thank you for sharing this interior look; I applaud your bravery in doing so! (And congratulations on yet another publication credit!)
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Oops. Meant to say Stevens, not Williams. Must have been thinking of red (wheelbarrows) and white (chickens)!
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Perhaps the glazing of rain water turned it blue!
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Thanks, Leigh. Picasso and Miles both came to mind as I was writing this. My interior is much more interesting than my exterior, but then whose isn’t?
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Wonderful, and congratulations to you. I, too, associate “blue” with Miles and Picasso (and with sadness).
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Thank you, Ann. I suppose this could be an exercise in looking at the other side…
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Thanks for liking my post!
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You’re very welcome.
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Loved this poem!!
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Thank you.
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Hey. Thanks for checking out my stuff at The imAgine RooM. Well done on the publication and amazing looking snack you made there … were they stuffed vine leaves? Yum!
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Yes, plus some chile-marinated cheese, olive bread, an Alta Langa robiola, salami and whatever else we could find.
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Interesting thoughts, thought provoking! Congratulations Robert.
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Thank you.
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Congrats on another feature–love the snacks!
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Thank you. They were rather tasty.
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