Writing my way through the A-to-Z blogging challenge, I’ve tasked myself with throwing open the cabinet of curiosities and wondrous things I call my brain and leading you on a tour of what actually resides in there – all through the lens of unusual, obscure, or simply charming-to-me words.
O is for…
oakus – wallet; pocket billfold (circa 1930, criminal slang)
It delights me that today happens to work out to be April’s O entry and I have a specific reason to introduce you to the word oakus, and I’ll tell you why in a moment. But first let’s talk a bit about wallets.
While we all know what wallets are, their history extends much further back than our modern version. The term wallet has been in usage since the 14th century, but at that time it referred to a sack or bag-shaped object capable of holding essential items and provisions. The ancient Greeks mention messenger god Hermes carrying such a bag which at that time was called a kibisis.
Once paper currency was introduced in the 1600s wallets became the flat-shaped forms we’re familiar with, and coin purses began their demise.
I actually like making wallets, although in the tradition of the Japanese I like to make them out of paper, albeit sturdy highly fibered paper. While origami (bonus O word today) is my favorite, and there are a number of folds I prefer, as a bookbinder I’ve also made more rigid structures akin to checkbook covers with pockets in modified wallet form.
But why am I happy to talk about oakus/wallets today? Well it’s in preparation for tomorrow (April 18) which is Poem in Your Pocket Day. In an annual celebration, undertaken in 2008 by the Academy of American Poets, people are encouraged to choose a poem, carry it around with them and share it with others. What a perfect way to actually participate in April’s National Poetry Month.
I’ve participated for many years, and if you know me at all, you know poetry is essential to my life. I read it daily, and I share my favorites widely with friends. I am on a mission to encourage people to open more fully to this art form, and to see the world through this lens. If I were in charge of things there would be no armies, only poetry academies and versification salons. And everyone would look forward to April’s thirty days of celebration.
While my dreams and imaginings may be bold and unlikely, what is true and doable is that I can in fact carry poems in my pocket to share, and I’ll do so with this paper-fold wallet tomorrow. It has four pockets, so I can slip in four poems.
If we saw each other in person, I’d invite you to choose one of the poems to read. But since we’re not likely to see each other, I’m offering you an opportunity to check out the poems I’ll be carrying.
I try to be mindful when quoting poems here on my blog to use only short excerpts or only those that are in the public domain, so as to respect the rights of the poets. So I’m not going to post the poems here. But no worries – I am linking to them and really encourage you to take some time and check them out.
I understand of course that you might have decided you don’t actually like poetry, and/or that this post is already too long and you don’t have time. I get it. But I’ll offer once again my opinion that poets open portals into seeing and understanding that circumvent our ordinary habitual brain ruts. And it is a gift to sometimes take the journeys that bring us to new edges.
As is often true, my choices for poems are eclectic, and yet these are also loosely held in theme. The world holds hard and difficult things for us to navigate and pretending otherwise is ludicrous. And yet I also believe we are shaped of light that can help us find our way, and offer hope to others as well in finding theirs. So if I were to suggest an order to approach these poems, it would be this:
Sarah Kay’s Jakarta, January. You can listen to the poet reading it or read it yourself here.
Jan Richardson’s How the Stars Get in Your Bones can be read here although you need to scroll down the page.
Barbara Ras’s poem You Can’t Have It All can be found here.
Finally, Hafiz offers his beautiful life guidance in If It Is Not Too Dark here.
So there you have it. A look at what’s in my oakus as I prepare for Poem in Your Pocket Day tomorrow. What about you? Carrying some secret treasure in your wallet? Have a favorite poem? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
I’ve never heard a wallet called an oakus, but now of course I shall do so from time-to-time. This sounds like it could be a crossword puzzle clue.
My favorite poem is an old one that I learned as a younger person. It is: A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I can recite from memory many stanzas of it.
That being said, I’ve never taken much interest in poetry. I know that Mary Oliver is quite the rage and that I liked reading William Blake when I was in college. Apparently my tastes in poetry are all over the place, eh?
Oakus may be obsolete, but it does have a nice tongue feel doesn’t it? How fun that you can still recite stanza from Longfellow’s poem. I’m certainly drawn to Blake’s visionary works – he was a very interesting man indeed.
For some reason poetry and I have never really been friends. I think I “don’t get” it. I have tried Mary Oliver and while there are some phrases that I like, I must not like them too much because I can’t remember them!
I do carry around a poem in my oakus that was given to me by my husband many, many years ago. It was attached to an angel pin he gave me as a surprise.
Love Angel
My soul knew in an instant
The very moment we first me
That you would be that someone
My heart could not forget.
So as a loving token
Of my feelings deep and true,
I’m giving you this angel
Who holds my love for you.
That’s a poem I can understand quite easily! Thanks for sharing your favorites and I’ll make sure to check them out.
What a sweet gift – aren’t love tokens the best?! And how perfect you’ve kept the message with you all this time.
All the poems are beautiful Deborah thank you! The first one wasn’t well spaced at least on my computer. Poetry is such an extraordinary language that really gets to the depth of life and love and all that is ..
How lovely is your oakus .. a place for each essential thing. The poem, the pen and all enclosed in beauty ..
Deborah (A Liberated Sheep) who often comments on my posts writes beautiful poetry .. you would enjoy your namesake’s prose I am sure ..
It may not be overly obvious but there is an icon at the top of the page with that first poem that expands it to full screen making the format easy to read. I hope if you didn’t get to read it comfortably, you saw that you could listen to it.
And thank you for heading me in the direction of Deborah – I’m sure I’ll enjoy her writing.
One of my favorite lines in the IChing is found in the entirely Yin hexagram, #2, which goes by many names always related to the Yin principle, which is dark, feminine, receptive, yielding, earthy. The line I’m referring to (line 4 of hexagram 2), speaks of the wisdom in sometimes becoming like an unopened or tied-up sack, bag or bundle, and in allowing our inner contents and treasures to remain unseen and protected from the world ~ without trouble, guilt or blame, but also without recognition or *praise*.
Like poetry, I’ve found our search for meaning and soulfulness can be passionate and directed, or fragile and unknowable, with layers of meaning not easily understood or appreciated by others.
One of my favorite books is so filled with life-changing pearls of wisdom and insight, as well as snippets of beautiful writing and poetry, the book itself is like poetry. Here’s one example from “The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture & Psyche” by Daniel Deardorff, from his chapter titled “Part One: Trickster Wisdom”:
“The choice is a simple one. It is the choice offered to Beauty and her sisters: What do you want? What is your desire? Will you choose the bright bows, buttons, and fine silks of the persona’s bright society? Or the soul’s desire, from which all troubles and sufferings flow–a single rose; but not just any common rose, it is the blossom plucked, on pain of death, from the deep forest garden of the Beast.” ~ Daniel Deardorff
Thanks Deborah, for the heads-up about “Poem in the Pocket Day” and for sharing your lovely paper wallets. If I can get it together today, I’d like to find a way to secretly and anonymously participate in a variation of the tradition. But first I’m off to check out the poems you’ve linked to.:)
I love the reference bag/sack reference. You’ve offered me much to think about with this reference to the hexagram’s line LB. I think my position on this has shifted greatly over the years and now transparency feels like the final gift each one of us has to offer to another. Not so much for the sake of being seen, although I do believe we gift each other by both seeing and allowing ourselves to be seen, but rather for releasing what wisdom we’ve carried as the gift we’ve ultimately incarnated to share. This is of course has proven an interesting dance for me as by nature I’m private and inwardly reflective.
The quote from Deardorff is fabulous as well. I’ve not read the book and clearly I have a treat in store for me – thanks for pointing me in that direction.
Deborah ~ I hear what you’re saying and sometimes struggle with this myself. I understand and share the profound need each of us has (myself included) to feel as if we matter, to know that our voices are heard and understood and that our unique gifts are valued, to know we are loved. But also how important it is for each of us to understand the ways in which our voices, ideas, and gifts may have been unconsciously shaped by the oppressive forces that surround us ~ within our families, schools, tribes, and larger surrounding culture.
The world of empire and oppressor models and promotes selfish individualism, not self-love, not love for the least among us, certainly not love for the poor and the oppressed. Instead we’re taught that we must earn our love by demonstrating our worth and by *having* something of value to offer, something that people want. Without realizing it, we’re taught how to market and commodify *ourselves*, sometimes by cultivating a unique persona that appeals to and exploits the needs of our audience.
Whenever I receive Line 2 of hexagram 4, it’s a reminder to remain silent and invisible among those who would only dismiss or twist or distort and exploit, maybe even try to harm and suppress who I am and what I value. And to understand the risks involved if I choose otherwise.
The wisdom in the hexagram’s line acts as a complement to what Daniel Deardorff has explored in the brief quote I included. One of the take-aways for me (and there are many) is not that we ought to suppress who we are, but rather that in order to maintain, nurture and care for the creative, life-affirming, dark wisdom and awareness our otherness has brought us, we must remain consciously mindful of the temptation to become part of the shiny upper world of our former (and often internalized) oppressors ~ who would have us forget that to truly love is to love not only ourselves but to also **love all others as ourselves.**
Ever read Erich Fromm? He does a great job of elaborating on the distinction between having and being, and how that distinction relates to and sometimes corrupts our ideas about love.
This is a lovely deeper explanation LB – thank you. And I do understand how important it is to be vigilant in our examination of our beliefs and attitudes and behaviors. For me this is what I mean by always unfolding, always looking to release what is not pure soul vibration. Our lifelong task.
I do know Fromm, and I absolutely believe we as a collective hold such distorted understandings of what love is that perhaps we should give up and call it by a different name entirely.
Thank you for the links. With copyright restrictions, most of the poems I post are by Emily Dickinson. But she’s my favorite anyway, so maybe it has nothing to do with copyright. Great post.
It’s a rich body of work to be in love with Kathy! And fortunate that you get to share it with greater ease.
Hi Deborah,
I do not carry a poem in my oakus, but I do share your love for poetry. I enjoy reading and writing poems occasionally.
I checked out the links. I thoroughly enjoyed ‘How the stars get in your bones’ and also ‘If it is not too dark’. I can totally understand your liking for Hafiz’s poetry!
Opportunity Cost
It’s such a joy to find poems that really speak to you isn’t it Kislaya? And how wonderful that you write as well – that delights me.
Where would we be without Hafiz? And Rumi? I cannot imagine a world without their wisdom and beauty. I would be bereft.
True! I agree completely with you!
(I am catching up here)
I just finished editing a posthumous book of poems by my town’s first poet laureate. A bitter sweet task, but the first printing is here.
This term Oakus is new to me. I am learning a lot from your posts Deborah.
Glad I made to this blog.
Cheers
MeenalSonal
#AtoZChallenge
Thanks for stopping by – I’m delighted you made your way here. I have a great penchant for obscure words and oakus is a delightful one isn’t it? Hope you’re having fun with the challenge – it’s for me to believe we’re nearing the end already.