THE FINE RABBLE
A Piece On A Poet: Joanie Adams
A Companion of Compassion, Affection, and Bedazzling Brilliance
“Precious ought to be our considerations; Precious ought to be the nature of our words — most precise; Precious ought to be the spending of Our Time.” — Joanie Adams
A proud drumroll, please, for Medium’s very own Shakespeare-ette. Joanie, with her eloquent penmanship, fashions the chaos of life into a literary work of art. Her rhetoric holds all the poetic bravado of Shakespeare, the musical finesse of Mozart, and the artistic craftsmanship of van Gogh.
Joanie is an Angel and an absolute Darling. She has been an incredibly uplifting and dear friend to me since I began my Medium journey, and I am truly grateful for her sweet friendship and support. As a fellow Founder of The Fine Rabble (our cheerful little Writer’s group), Joanie has been nothing but a spring of joy for us all!
To me, her gentle words hold all the affection and familiarity of a heroine from a Brontë or Jane Austen novel. Sometimes, it truly feels like we were good friends in a different era! A timeless friendship shared on the pages of a classical novel!
This piece (call it a letter, if you like) is in response to this truly heart-warming piece that she penned for me:
Well! It’s a brilliant day today, for I’ve hand-selected some of my all-time favourite pieces penned by Joanie (though I admire them all!) to showcase to you all.
Joanie’s delightful little memoir is a joy to come back to the more you become acquainted with her. The more you understand her, the more depth you see in her self-portrait.
“Conjurer of Words; Bard of Songs; Doctor of Fun. Landseer; Sightseer — Woe-begone.”
Conjurer of Words, indeed she is! Wise words all around from the Doctor.
“Precious ought to be our considerations; Precious ought to be the nature of our words — most precise; Precious ought to be the spending of Our Time.”
This is the first enchanting piece that captured my attention. As a lover of classical literature, I was utterly drawn to her aesthetic literary style, philosophical tone, and poetic penmanship here that felt so reminiscent of an era long-gone.
In this era of cold, shallow materialism, Joanie’s sunny words are such a warm, artistic, and philosophical delight to fall upon! It felt like suddenly stumbling into Charlotte Brontë or Jane Austen wandering these modern urban streets.
In this piece, Joanie takes a philosophical lens and discusses mental health and the wonderous ways Nature can help us begin our healing journeys:
“The Temper afforded by a new Clime; of new Lodgings; of a much-promised, kind, and hearty Folk brings much gaiety back into the loosened heart, that all up in recent Passages, has been shocked senseless by seemingly Dreadful and Harming things.”
Indeed, she pens her solutions so brilliantly. Her words are always raw, vulnerable and come straight from the depths of her beautiful, timeless soul.
Speaking of mental health, this complementary piece ties in with the first quite nicely! Also taking a philosophical view on mental health, Joanie artistically grapples with the darkness of everything from depression to anxiety and even Nihilism.
Indeed, I had quite an epiphany reading this particular truth from her piece:
“Unpleasant as it can be — my expectations of this life, of these lives were never without the expectation of loathsome toiling — Pain is one thing, but to transform that Passion of life and of the pains and harmful throes that are dealt […] and turn Ripe from ruin, we have the potential to surprise ourselves.”
And therein lies the solution once again — to find meaning or purpose in our suffering. For life is suffering. Accepting that brutal and harsh fact is the first critical step in our healing journeys.
Thanks, Joanie, for the brilliant epiphanies during times of strife!
Can I just say that I absolutely adore this poem! It’s based on Hans Scholl’s and Sophie Scholl’s At the Heart of the White Rose (1984) and fabulously carries its tone and style.
They have not been slewed by our oft-had arms By pen or march; Nor by their failing Panzers upon the Russian fields.
I absolutely admire the way Joanie weaves in history through this poem, presumably set during World War II. There’s a strong beat and rhythm that carries the words, as she moves between a host of emotions and snippets of scenes pertaining to the Scholl siblings.
They have ended that Happy Life; whilst it was strumming to be. I ended my own happy game by gaining against that ill state.
And this couplet! Just brilliant! Look how beautifully they mirror each other in tone, style, and thought!
And say hello to this colourful poem that I have also fallen in love with! For some intriguing reason, it reminds me of the English nursery rhyme “The Grand Old Duke of York”. It is such a vibrant, artistic piece and feels quite like it belongs to the Modernist era of abstract art.
Interestingly enough, “Peregrinus” in Latin translates roughly as a “traveller”. I take this piece to be spoken from a Russian soldier’s point of view (a traveller), perhaps in the scenes before The Battle of Austerlitz (1805), perhaps not. I need to stop reading so much Tolstoy!
But that’s the joy of her poetry — it takes you wherever you wish to go. A soldier who so desperately attempts to focus on coloured squares of happier emotions, yet he is inevitably dragged into the black squares of battle.
Black Stiff; Black Square: Though many of you would rather have it as transformative or loose in separation by its jade of color, it cannot be; It is Black as the narrowed sky at a screening night before the final cogs and turns of Battle;
Joanie takes you down on a journey cascading down a kaleidoscope of colours that make us feel all sorts of human emotions.
Just so brilliantly creative!
To darken the atmosphere a little, here are some more profound letters penned by Joanie pertaining to more darker and tragic historical events: Slavery and The Holocaust:
Sir, don’t you find it so utterly precarious to discuss in apt discourse that the majority of all god’s children have been Enslaved or be the harsh Enslaver?
I sincerely do hope this piece has given you much reason to peruse the delightful pages of Joanie’s Collected Works!
And I also hope you, too, experience the joy of becoming acquainted with her as a person!
That is all, for now.
In Joanie’s words, Ta-ta now!
The Fine Writer of this Piece:
Marches Of Gold; Write For Our Publication:
Another Piece by our Writer:
#Marchesofgold — #TheFineRabble
