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The next read-around is Thursday,
March 30, 2023 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

I just had my 70th birthday and came across this poem, “Written In A Carefree Mood,” by Lu Yu.  Many elders, if you asked them, would tell they feel younger than their years, younger than their body believes them to be. A carefree mood is likely to make anyone regress to a child-like state. Yu Fu’s poem takes the position of a witness to soneone who has adopted that attitude as a lifestyle. The poet then lays it out in a series of sanpshots depicting instances of whooping with delight and laughing with joy capped with the image of an eager student first setting off to school. The scene is so contagious, it  infected the narrator to write in the same carefree mood, which the poet then passes on to us. Even the structure of the poem expresses that lightness of being: there are no causes for the mood except immediate experience and there are no contingencies attached to the delights. It makes me want to adopt that carefree attitude as a lifestyle as well.

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts in the column on the right

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Written In A Carefree Mood

Old man, pushing 70,
in truth, he acts like a little boy,
whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits,
laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers;
with the others, having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda,
standing alone, staring at his image in a Jardiniere pool. Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read,
just like the time he first set off to school.

—Lu Yu  page 118 of dancing with joy
Translated by Burton Watson

1192, in shaoshing,  and the murmurs were villagers dressed up in costume who go from house to house at the beginning of spring, driving out evil spirits

Prompt Ideas

  1. Write your own poem about, or from the feeling of, a carefree mood.

  2. Jounral or write a poem describing how people act when they “act like a child.”

  3. Journal or write a poem contrasting age and behavior at any stage of life: How does acting like a little child play out when in one’s 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, or 60’s, etc.?  

  4.  Pick another mood and compose a poem that is written in that mood.

  5. Recall an experience that made you regress to a more child-like state.

  6. Describe a first day of school experience (personally or as a witness). This could be the first day of the first school or could be the first day of any school at any educational level.

  7. As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.