“Look at that which is empty. In the empty room, there is bright light, there is happiness. If you cannot stop there, your mind is galloping abroad though your body is sitting.”
Yip, Wai-lim. Diffusion of Distances: Dialogues Between Chinese and Western Poetics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993. p. 73.
Catalog Record
University of California Press
“The track was flanked on either side by knee-high grass and speckles of white and bright yellow flowers. The track snaked uphill and led to a flat field where poplars and cottonwoods soared and wild bushes grew in clusters.”
Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York, NY: Penguins Books, 2007. p. 9.
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Penguin Random House
“Photosynthesis can take place only in the waters near the surface where bright sunlight penetrates, and consequently marine plants in the open ocean cannot support themselves on solid ground.”
Revelle, Roger. "The Ocean." Scientific American 221, no. 3 (1969): 64. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0969-54.
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JSTOR
"In front of the pigeon house the white pigeons are preening themselves, And in the yard the white chickens with bright red combs bustle about;
At the pool in the lots six or seven brown wild birds are drinking"
Reznikoff, Charles, and Milton Hindus. Selected Letters of Charles Reznikoff, 1917-1976. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1997. p. 92.
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“The human eye appears to respond to an intensity of light about 10−10 times that of bright sunlight, the greatest sensitivity at low intensities lying in the green at wave length .503 μ.”
Sverdrup, H. U., Martin W. Johnson, and Richard Howell Fleming. The Oceans: Their Physics, Chemistry, and General Biology. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1942. p. 831.
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University of California Press E-Books
“A great wind is blowing,
heavy rain—
thick darkness;
the sailors running here and there,
shouting at one another
to pull at this and at that rope,
and the waves pouring over the ship;
landing in the rain—
the cold rain
falling steadily;
the ground wet,
all the leaves dripping,
and the rocks running with water;
the sky is cloud on cloud
in which the brief sun barely shines,
the ground snow on snow,
the cold air
wind and blast;
we have followed our God
into this wilderness
of trees heavy with snow,
rocks seamed with ice,
that in the freezing blasts
the remnant of this remnant
kindle so bright, so lasting a fire
on this continent,
prisoners of ice and darkness everywhere
will turn and come to it
to warm their hands and hearts.”
Reznikoff, Charles, edited by Seamus Cooney. “New Nation.” The Poems of Charles Reznikoff 1918-1975. Boston: David R. Godine, 2005. p. 166.
Catalog Record
WorldCat
“Low rolling hills covered with sage; neither house nor cattle. By
nightfall it is snowing.
The dark ground is flat to the river—bright with dawn;
beyond rise the mountains blue and purple;
the blue of the sky becomes purple, in which a star is shining.”
Reznikoff, Charles, edited by Seamus Cooney. “Autobiography: New York.” The Poems of Charles Reznikoff: 1918-1975. Boston: David R. Godine, 2005. p. 194.
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WorldCat
“sands dazzling under the near
and not less brutal feet journey
in light
and wind
and fire and water and air the five
bright elements
the marvel
of the obvious and the marvel
of the hidden is there
in fact a distinction dance”
Oppen, George. "Disasters." The American Poetry Review 5, no. 5 (1976): 14. Accessed May 26, 2021.
JSTOR
“I hear
I am
I receive what is
Listening
No argument
Spark bright
Sounding pulse energetic
Fade out beautiful
Dying in my living?
Living in my dying?”
Oliveros, Pauline. "The Earth Worm Also Sings: A Composer's Practice of Deep Listening." Leonardo Music Journal 3 (1993): 37. doi:10.2307/1513267.
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JSTOR
“The tall lilies are brought forward in all their glory by the light of your blazing camp-fire, relieved against the outer darkness, and the nearest of the trees with their whorled branches tower above you like larger lilies, and the sky seen through the garden opening seems one vast meadow of white lily stars.
In the morning everything is joyous and bright, the delicious purple of the dawn changes softly to daffodil yellow and white; while the sunbeams pouring through the passes between the peaks give a margin of gold to each of them.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 196.
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Internet Archive
“In the upper cañons we usually find them in pretty regular succession, strung together like beads on the bright ribbons of their feeding-streams, which pour, white and gray with foam and spray, from one to the other, their perfect mirror stillness making impressive contrasts with the grand blare and glare of the connecting cataracts.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 115.
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Internet Archive
“A telephone bell can deflect & dissipate my light
The deflected light is lost to poem & person
I turn my telephone off these days to help ordinary light breed poems
The sun is so bright on my desk now except on the typewriter keys
that there’s no need for the light of the student lamp placed to
shine on the paper”
Low, Jackson Mac. “58th Light Poem: For Anne Tardos—19 March 1979.” 22 Light Poems. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1968.
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