I haven’t looked at much recent tarot poetry, but the web turns out to be a wonderful place to explore it. Here’s a few sites that offer something different or intriguing:
At heelstone.com’s poetry site you’ll find Tarot Poems by Mike Timonin, with Art by Cindy Duhe, presented in a very tarot-appropriate way. Click on the rapidly changing tarot card images and you’ll be taken to a poem determined by the shuffle. Want another card and poem? Shuffle the deck again.
You’ll also find a poem by Michael Gerald Sheehan for every card at Moon Path Tarot.
Tarot Poems by Donna Kerr from her book of poetry Between the Sword and the Heart.
Tarot Poetry by Rachel Pollack.
Here is one of the oldest tarot poems in existence: a sonnet by Teofilo Folengo, appearing in his 1527 work Caos del Triperiuno written under the pseudonym Merlini Cocai. The work includes a series of poems representing the individual fortunes of various people as revealed by cards dealt them. The summary sonnet below mentions each of the 22 Trump cards, which I’ve referenced by their number to the right of the line on which they appear. It helps to understand that Death is female in Italian, la morte, and Love (Cupid) is male. Love claims that although Death rules the physical body, Love never dies and therefore death is but a sham.
Love, under whose Empire many deeds (6, 4)
go without Time and without Fortune, (9, 10)
saw Death, ugly and dark, on a Chariot, (13, 7)
going among the people it took away from the World. (21)
She asked: “No Pope nor Papesse was ever won (5, 2)
by you. Do you call this Justice?” (8 )
He answered: “He who made the Sun and the Moon (19, 18 )
defended them from my Strength. (11)
“What a Fool I am,” said Love, “my Fire, (0, 16)
that can appear as an Angel or as a Devil (20, 15)
can be Tempered by some others who live under my Star. (14, 17)
You are the Empress[Ruler] of bodies. But you cannot kill hearts, (3)
you only Suspend them. You have a name of high Fame, (12)
but you are nothing but a Trickster.” (1)
Translated by Marco Ponzi (Dr. Arcanus) with help from Ross Caldwell, members of Aeclectic Tarot’s TarotForum, and by comparisons with the translation found in Stuart Kaplan’s Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol II, p. 8-9 (read the discussion here). The first picture is from a 1485 Triumph of Death fresco on the wall of a Confraternity Chapel in Clusone, Italy. It depicts Death as an Empress before whom all others bow. The second picture is from Savonarola’s Sermon on the Art of Dying Well, published circa 1500.
See the translation of one of Folengo’s fortune-telling sonnets at taropedia – here.
Added: Check out the poetic concept of rhyme applied to visual aspects of the tarot in Enrique Enriquez’s article on “Eye Rhyme.”
17 comments
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May 28, 2008 at 9:39 am
Rachel
Thank you, Mary, for posting this. I’d actually forgotten that article I did, and more importantly, the possibilities it opens. In a few weeks I will be leading a Tarot For Writers workshop at Goddard College, where I teach creative writing. This will be fun to include.
I also enjoyed the Journey poem, which I hadn’t known. It seemed to me to get better, and more subtle, as it went along. sort of like the Fool himself.
meanwhile, I was working some time ago on the idea of blessings for Major Arcana cards. In Jewish tradition there is a blessing one says for all sorts of occasions, from getting up in the morning, to drinking wine. It struck me it might be interesting to come up with a short blessing to say on receiving a card in a reading. For instance, if the Magician card appears one could say Blessed are you, Source of all Light, who makes us vessels of power. Or the High Priestess–Blessed are you, Silent One, who sits in the Gateway of Mystery. Some are direct, such as the Hermit–Blessed are you, Lonely One, who holds light on the mountain. And some are more esoteric, like this Emperor blessing–Blessed are you, Builder and Architect, who creates the four corners.
And here’s a poem I wrote recently, when Awakening from the Shining Tribe deck (traditional title–Judgment) fell out while shuffling.
Awake, blessed one!
The sky is singing to you.
The earth is singing to you.
Light rises from the Great Below,
Whispers fall from the Great Above.
Your fingers are seeds,
Your bones are trees,
Your skin flows
With the surge of the sea.
Blessed One! Awaken!
May 28, 2008 at 10:38 am
marygreer
Rachel –
I love the idea of the Blessings. What a wonderful way to experience a Tarot reading. You get the Devil and say, Blessed are you, oh Scary One, who terrifies the s— out of me. (I couldn’t help myself!) Actually, an honoring of the Devil as a Blessed Being could help transform our knee-jerk reactions to that card: Blessed are you, Guardian of Hidden Treasures, who values the material world.
May 29, 2008 at 3:29 am
Berthe van Soest
A wonderful idea to bless the cards received in a spread. Something new to try. And a nice post too! Thanks!
Berthe
May 30, 2008 at 2:49 am
Freesparrow
“Awake, blessed one!
The sky is singing to you.
The earth is singing to you.
Light rises from the Great Below,
Whispers fall from the Great Above.
Your fingers are seeds,
Your bones are trees,
Your skin flows
With the surge of the sea.
Blessed One! Awaken!”
This is quite beautiful.
I have ‘The Shining Tribe’ but will search for other books containing your poetry, Rachel Pollack. Thanks.
May 5, 2009 at 1:58 am
Nisaba Merrieweather
Oh, I just *love* the blessings! Rachel’s actually *sing* with poetry. I am living in bliss right at this moment, mashed thumb and all.
August 27, 2009 at 5:54 am
barbarataylor
Years ago I copied into my Tarot notebook 78 two-line poems – one for every card in the Tarot deck.
Unfortunately I no longer have a record of the source of these apt little couplets, and I wonder if anyone can identify their source for me. A few examples:
Death:
Release your fears and look ahead
Today is news, the past is dead
Six of Wands:
Good news coming, success is near
Winning all that you hold dear
Four of Cups:
Discontent, feel quite alone
Experience has no profits shown
In appreciation – Barbara Taylor – New Zealand
July 6, 2010 at 7:01 am
frank hall
This sonnet by Teofilo Folengo (1527) shows us that the Tarot images/icons were not for games only, at least by the early sixteenth century. The trumps are the symbolic basis of a good philosophical poem, wherein Love proclaims that its fire can be tempered by those who live under its star, and that Love regards death as only a trickster.
July 29, 2010 at 7:48 am
Jacques
I love the way the “conventional” Tarot – and especially the Mantegna Tarot – are a summary of Renaissance spiritual understanding and the world-concept of the time. The sonnet illustrates this idea further.
April 6, 2011 at 2:24 am
Köy Deli
I hope you won’t mind Mary my mentioning my own little poetry blog, where tI also post a few short form poems around a tarot theme, for example on the Wheel of Fortune:
X
http://pfffrrrummmp.blogspot.com/2011/04/x.html
April 6, 2011 at 11:34 am
mkg
Köy-
Glad to have your contribution. More poetry, please!
Mary
April 7, 2011 at 8:04 am
Köy Deli
holy holy holy
See now the top rung
lights of the world,
both called holy:
here top the Ladder of the Moon,
Holy Roman Emperor;
there top the Ladder of the Sun,
Holy Father, Bishop of Rome.
Two lights with brides
in triumphal train,
a juggler and a madman
or, perchance, a holy fool and true:
the other two outshone.
There are illustrations to this on my blog, with notes on the medieval theory of lights in the comments, plus part of a poem by Vincenzo Imperiali, c. 1550 with links.
April 9, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Köy Deli
There is also a book of Tarot themed poems by Shane Kendal, “From Motley Hat to Deathly Shroud”, published by ATS in both print and download versions. A preview is available at Lulu:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/from-motley-hat-to-deathly-shroud/5005309
April 10, 2011 at 10:49 am
mkg
Köy –
Kendal’s book looks like a really good example of how to use tarot in a very creative and interesting way in poetry. Thank you so much for mentioning it here.
April 26, 2011 at 3:49 pm
mkg
“The Tarot Cards”
by Arthur Symons in The Knave of Hearts (1908)
[thanks to Paul Nagy for pointing it out]
The Tarot cards that rule our fates
Slip through her hands like shaken sands;
Her charmed sight upon them waits,
She holds the future in her hands;
Her fingers can unlatch the gates
That open on forbidden lands.
Under the golden kerchief lies
The mischief of the East; she sees
Beyond our eyesight with her eyes
That are the moons of sorceries;
The soul before them lives and dies
Through countless immortalities.
The shaken cards upon the grass,
Like signs of good and evil things,
Through her obedient fingers pass,
Crowned devils and bright purple kings,
Sad forms in hell, and Sathanas
Rejoicing in his serpent-stings.
Rise up from the accursed pool,
Lest the Grass Wither where you lie;
Fold up the Tarot cards that rule
Our fates, and put your witchcraft by:
Only a madman or a fool
Would will to know his hour to die.
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