A QUATORZAIN / IAMBIC / RHYMED / VARIED FEET
I took an angry walk today.
Not very far, but far enough away
to breed a distance from all I knew
-- and sat on the slant of a hill view,
on a lock of concrete overlooking a creek.
The late spring evening was a pleasant feel
against my livid cheek; that and the hustle
and leap of the stream relaxed me. Light shuffled
between the water and the trees,
gleaming like tinsel in a breeze.
If it were winter still,
the light would touch ice, not the rill;
and by this hour have come and gone, with the moon
already donned just like a cap on the sun.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Off The Bookshelf
Sometimes I forget how amazing Google is; this feature is an oldie but a goodie. I'm not sure precisely how many pages of The RF Reader are revealed but I got to page 42 before I stopped checking. So I encourage you to "thumb" through as many pages as possible. Also Bartleby's offers an impressive selection of Frost poems done up by collections, in this case, four.
A jaunt to Half-Price Books unearthed this metrical delight, and working my way through the poetry (and soon, the prose) has deepened my appreciation for the melodies of meter and the deceptive ease of rhyme. I had read Robert Frost is 'America's Poet' but now I know it for fact. His subjects are as down to earth as snow and fields and picking apples at the height of harvest; his words typically stretch no further than the vernacular but there is elevation in every poem. Again I am amazed by the power and subtlety of words, all words. Of course I have my favorites, a handful of selections I'd like to draw your eye towards --
Into My Own, from 'A Boy's Will'
The Trial By Existence, from 'A Boy's Will'
After Apple-picking, from 'North of Boston'
A Star in a Stoneboat, from 'New Hampshire'
Funny story: the day I bought this book I stopped by a local CVS on the way home. I had carried the book with me (don't ask me why) and at the counter the cashier exclaimed at the sight, "Ugh! I don't envy you!" She thought I was in school, you see, bound by some English course to read the "dreaded" poetry! And honestly, her expression was all sympathy and pity... until I told her, with a laugh, I had bought the book for pleasure. She looked sheepish then and mumbled, "Oh... well, en... joy?" We all shared a laugh then.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
EDIT
Only ageless quiet attends our altars
shrouds our days in motes and in shade, a half-life
lived in half-light. Even our fire can pale in
twilight and gray or
starve in empty temples though instinct never
Wavers, never dulls in the pitch - the God Who
Slumbers in the Waters still sleeps; the sun still
sets in our brother's
bloodless breast. We follow the endless arc to
guard the sun, descend to lustrate in gold-tipped
shrines where chanted litanies hailed the dawn. But
no one reveres us
now: a younger god has transfixed man's needy
eye. Unsung, we leave empyreal climes, slough the
night off (like a barnacle fastened to the
hip of the sun) to
pace abandoned Houses. In temple dusk we
wonder, will we ever again be met at
dawn? Be praised, our manifold Names half-sung? Will
anyone love us?
shrouds our days in motes and in shade, a half-life
lived in half-light. Even our fire can pale in
twilight and gray or
starve in empty temples though instinct never
Wavers, never dulls in the pitch - the God Who
Slumbers in the Waters still sleeps; the sun still
sets in our brother's
bloodless breast. We follow the endless arc to
guard the sun, descend to lustrate in gold-tipped
shrines where chanted litanies hailed the dawn. But
no one reveres us
now: a younger god has transfixed man's needy
eye. Unsung, we leave empyreal climes, slough the
night off (like a barnacle fastened to the
hip of the sun) to
pace abandoned Houses. In temple dusk we
wonder, will we ever again be met at
dawn? Be praised, our manifold Names half-sung? Will
anyone love us?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
FOUND
So, I found this written in a book I'm reading -- a little something I had jotted down and forgotten. This isn't the original. I'm too lazy right now to type it out, maybe later? You know (or maybe you don't) I'm on this metered poetry kick, right? So I decided to take a stab at turning this into a metered poem. I'm not sure as of yet where the subject of this poem is heading but the journey should be fun.
The sun set (as it does)
behind the thunderhead,
on a pathway that was
washed with pinks and with reds.
The sky shrank to a bruise.
And I saw this old wound
as something almost new...
{like pulling teeth, the line after this... actually, so were the lines after 'with pinks and with reds'... hm!}
{finally got it!}
The sun set (as it does)
behind a thunderhead,
on a pathway that was
washed with pinks and with reds.
The sky shrank to a bruise.
And I saw this old wound
as something almost new
under the argent moon...
{So I have a bit more to add, came up with that bit more tonight}
The sun set (as it does)
behind a thunderhead,
on a pathway that was
washed with pinks and with reds.
The sky shrank to a bruise.
And I saw this old wound
as something almost new
under the argent moon.
Fingers out, the stars, too,
gaped at the livid bloom
as if to ask, "But who...?"
The sun set (as it does)
behind the thunderhead,
on a pathway that was
washed with pinks and with reds.
The sky shrank to a bruise.
And I saw this old wound
as something almost new...
{like pulling teeth, the line after this... actually, so were the lines after 'with pinks and with reds'... hm!}
{finally got it!}
The sun set (as it does)
behind a thunderhead,
on a pathway that was
washed with pinks and with reds.
The sky shrank to a bruise.
And I saw this old wound
as something almost new
under the argent moon...
{So I have a bit more to add, came up with that bit more tonight}
The sun set (as it does)
behind a thunderhead,
on a pathway that was
washed with pinks and with reds.
The sky shrank to a bruise.
And I saw this old wound
as something almost new
under the argent moon.
Fingers out, the stars, too,
gaped at the livid bloom
as if to ask, "But who...?"
Monday, November 16, 2009
All Good Things Come In Threes...???
Last post. I swear it. It occurred to me, as I moved to close this browser tab, that I never posted my finished sapphic verse poem (click here for more details). It won't win any awards but here it is:
*
Only ageless quiet attends our altars
Shrouds our days in motes and in shade - a half-life
Lived in half-light. Even our fire can pale in
....Twilight and gray or
Starve in empty temples. But instinct never
Wavers, never dulls in the pitch: the God Who
Slumbers in the Waters still sleeps; the sun still
....Sets in our brother's
Bloodless breast. We follow the endless arc to
Guard the sun. Descend to lustrate in gold-tipped
Shrines where chanted litanies hailed the dawn. But
....No one reveres us
Now: a younger god has transfixed man's needy
Eye. Unsung, we leave empyreal climes, slough the
Night off (like a barnacle fastened to the
....Hip of the sun) to
Pace abandoned Houses. In temple dusk we
Wonder - will we ever again be met at
Dawn? Be praised, our manifold Names half-sung? Will
....Anyone love us?
photo & poem copyright belongs to: Shanee Gbelawoe
*
Shameless plug but do remember to check out the two posts following this one as they are new too! And about music!
*
Only ageless quiet attends our altars
Shrouds our days in motes and in shade - a half-life
Lived in half-light. Even our fire can pale in
....Twilight and gray or
Starve in empty temples. But instinct never
Wavers, never dulls in the pitch: the God Who
Slumbers in the Waters still sleeps; the sun still
....Sets in our brother's
Bloodless breast. We follow the endless arc to
Guard the sun. Descend to lustrate in gold-tipped
Shrines where chanted litanies hailed the dawn. But
....No one reveres us
Now: a younger god has transfixed man's needy
Eye. Unsung, we leave empyreal climes, slough the
Night off (like a barnacle fastened to the
....Hip of the sun) to
Pace abandoned Houses. In temple dusk we
Wonder - will we ever again be met at
Dawn? Be praised, our manifold Names half-sung? Will
....Anyone love us?
photo & poem copyright belongs to: Shanee Gbelawoe
*
Shameless plug but do remember to check out the two posts following this one as they are new too! And about music!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Sapphics
Sappho by Charles Mengin [pic source: virgotex.wordpress.com]
I think I finally have my sapphic verse poem down... and still it is grossly inadequate. Sigh. The deeper I get into strengthening this poem, finding new and more detailed sources on the form, the more the poem seems wanting. A while back I found an example of sapphic verse written by (surprise!) Sappho which fulfilled the brief and is lovely to read. 'The Anactoria Poem' translated by Lattimore (an excerpt):
Some there are who say that the fairest thing seen
on the black earth is an array of horsemen;
some, men marching; some would say ships; but I say
.... she whom one loves best
[click on the stanza to read full poem]
Throughout this experience I have come upon various essays on craft and sapphics, each one opening my eyes to my flaws and, hopefully, influencing a better crafted poem in the end. In case someone else types 'sapphics' or 'Sappho' or 'sapphic verse' into a search engine looking for someone to shed a little light on the subject matter, I'll list (with links) the webpages and sites which are giving me a leg up, so to speak.
I started first with examples of sapphic verse and settled on three poets/poems --
* Sappho's 'The Anactoria Poem', trans. by Lattimore;
* Swinburne's 'Sapphics';Some there are who say that the fairest thing seen
on the black earth is an array of horsemen;
some, men marching; some would say ships; but I say
.... she whom one loves best
[click on the stanza to read full poem]
Throughout this experience I have come upon various essays on craft and sapphics, each one opening my eyes to my flaws and, hopefully, influencing a better crafted poem in the end. In case someone else types 'sapphics' or 'Sappho' or 'sapphic verse' into a search engine looking for someone to shed a little light on the subject matter, I'll list (with links) the webpages and sites which are giving me a leg up, so to speak.
I started first with examples of sapphic verse and settled on three poets/poems --
* Sappho's 'The Anactoria Poem', trans. by Lattimore;
* Isaac Watts' 'The Day of Judgement';
These three helped me with the intangibles as it were -- the flow, the sense of the form. They also provided concrete help when my dactyls were kicking my butt. I didn't lift any from the poems it's just that seeing how others handled dactyls talked me "down from the ledge" whenever I over-thought my own.
* An audio track at least an 90 minutes in length, of Allen Ginsberg teaching Basic Poetics, specifically sapphic verse. You can download the track or simply listen to it; I highly recommend it. It is an invaluable listen. He presents the material in an approachable way. Here's his stab at sapphic verse (better than mere mortals) --
Red cheeked boyfriends tenderly kiss me sweet mouthed
under Boulder coverlets winter springtime
hug me naked laughing & telling girl friends
.... gossip til autumn
* I am currently rummaging through Eratosphere on AbleMuse.com for more insight on sapphics and meter in general. If you use the search function on the site and type in sapphics, as I did, you can find a wealth of information.
After I do some more clean-up; submit for critique and review my piece I'll probably post a draft of it on this blog soon.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thursday Rush Update
I'm rushing to publish an update before putting up the A Girl's Open Thread post; and yes, I know technically it is already Friday -- the open thread start date -- but for me, a day starts with the first blush of dawn.
I have a couple of updates -- let me start with my hair: It's vain and admittedly shallow but I love my hair; I love the feel of it, the length; I love taking care of it. It is time-consuming yet oddly fun. I've been natural for a while but I have never embraced it in its totality until recently. Choosing all natural products has left my hair silky, strong and long-long-long!!! Not (Black girl) perm long but kinky curl long where the twists hang enough to pull into pony tails, create full bangs or stylish 'bumps'. It's strange to me now, the idea that our natural hair is considered "hard" to style or "limited". It's not! The hair styles are half the fun! Yesterday I cornrowed my twists and I'm looking mighty cute if I do write so myself, LOL. Initially I attempted to do a 'faux-hawk' by cornrowing the sides but, with twists, the middle falls too limply. I still want to blowout my hair to get an accurate measurement of length but I'm terrified of the heat, literally. As a small child I couldn't stand the hot comb or the blow dryer. I winced and whimpered so much under their use my mother thought I suffered from sensitive scalp (nope, it's as tough as the Rock of Gibralter). Now the fear is under control (somewhat) and my fear is based more on the damage heat can do to hair.
Next on the update list -- poetry. I've continued to write. I resumed reading 'The Book of Forms' by Lewis Turco(?), once more from the start, and it has made me feel bad about myself. LOL, I kid. No, really, Turco writes there is no such thing as "free verse" because verse requires meter, measurement, a foundational pattern of a kind which it either holds to or breaks but a pattern nonetheless. Yeah, I rarely... Never. I never do that. Sigh. Without that it's all just prose, pretty prose perhaps, but prose. It also explains why my rondeau, though it fits a basic, prescribed structure still sounds wrong. I dread the redo but it must be done. Currently I'm working on sapphic verse -- it's a Greek form relying on a strict format of (in this order) two trochees, a dactyl, and two trochees per line for three lines, then an adonic line, which is a dactyl and a trochee, for the fourth and final line of the stanza. It's a blank quatrain; blank means unrhymed. Dactyls and trochees are different units of paired stressed and unstressed syllables.
Let's say this little guy [ ' ] represents a stressed syllable and this little guy [ - ] an unstressed syllable, trochees and dactyls look as follows:
trochee ' -
dactyl ' - -
So, a sapphic line looks like this: ' -..... ' -..... ' - -..... ' -..... ' -
And an adonic line looks like this: ' - -..... ' -
My creative brain is still frustrating me; it took me three days to crack that first sapphic stanza, three damn days to finish the first two and a half lines! I just completed the third line's latter half and the adonic today! Then I lit through the other quatrains as if on fire! It's as if my brain needed time to click onto the syllabic pattern because suddenly the dactyls which had troubled me so much troubled me no longer. I have one last stanza (I hope) and then I will submit the poem for critical review on the site, The Critical Poet. It's an excellent board full of knowledgeable writers and poets. It's also partially the reason why writing this poem has been so difficult. You see, this is in answer to a ten word challenge, an exercise in which ten random words are provided and must be used, in one form or another, within a freshly created poem. So on top of trying to obey a metrical pattern I also had to factor in ten odd words. Maddening! I really, really, really wanted to give up; I nearly did. However I realized quitting would only further complicate my writing path since the next form I try will probably be just as difficult if not more so. So I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. Of course I'm pretty sure once I submit the thing those who post on The Critical Poet will 'red pen' it to death but I'm cool with that -- how else does one learn? How else does one get better?
That's all for now!
I have a couple of updates -- let me start with my hair: It's vain and admittedly shallow but I love my hair; I love the feel of it, the length; I love taking care of it. It is time-consuming yet oddly fun. I've been natural for a while but I have never embraced it in its totality until recently. Choosing all natural products has left my hair silky, strong and long-long-long!!! Not (Black girl) perm long but kinky curl long where the twists hang enough to pull into pony tails, create full bangs or stylish 'bumps'. It's strange to me now, the idea that our natural hair is considered "hard" to style or "limited". It's not! The hair styles are half the fun! Yesterday I cornrowed my twists and I'm looking mighty cute if I do write so myself, LOL. Initially I attempted to do a 'faux-hawk' by cornrowing the sides but, with twists, the middle falls too limply. I still want to blowout my hair to get an accurate measurement of length but I'm terrified of the heat, literally. As a small child I couldn't stand the hot comb or the blow dryer. I winced and whimpered so much under their use my mother thought I suffered from sensitive scalp (nope, it's as tough as the Rock of Gibralter). Now the fear is under control (somewhat) and my fear is based more on the damage heat can do to hair.
Next on the update list -- poetry. I've continued to write. I resumed reading 'The Book of Forms' by Lewis Turco(?), once more from the start, and it has made me feel bad about myself. LOL, I kid. No, really, Turco writes there is no such thing as "free verse" because verse requires meter, measurement, a foundational pattern of a kind which it either holds to or breaks but a pattern nonetheless. Yeah, I rarely... Never. I never do that. Sigh. Without that it's all just prose, pretty prose perhaps, but prose. It also explains why my rondeau, though it fits a basic, prescribed structure still sounds wrong. I dread the redo but it must be done. Currently I'm working on sapphic verse -- it's a Greek form relying on a strict format of (in this order) two trochees, a dactyl, and two trochees per line for three lines, then an adonic line, which is a dactyl and a trochee, for the fourth and final line of the stanza. It's a blank quatrain; blank means unrhymed. Dactyls and trochees are different units of paired stressed and unstressed syllables.
Let's say this little guy [ ' ] represents a stressed syllable and this little guy [ - ] an unstressed syllable, trochees and dactyls look as follows:
trochee ' -
dactyl ' - -
So, a sapphic line looks like this: ' -..... ' -..... ' - -..... ' -..... ' -
And an adonic line looks like this: ' - -..... ' -
My creative brain is still frustrating me; it took me three days to crack that first sapphic stanza, three damn days to finish the first two and a half lines! I just completed the third line's latter half and the adonic today! Then I lit through the other quatrains as if on fire! It's as if my brain needed time to click onto the syllabic pattern because suddenly the dactyls which had troubled me so much troubled me no longer. I have one last stanza (I hope) and then I will submit the poem for critical review on the site, The Critical Poet. It's an excellent board full of knowledgeable writers and poets. It's also partially the reason why writing this poem has been so difficult. You see, this is in answer to a ten word challenge, an exercise in which ten random words are provided and must be used, in one form or another, within a freshly created poem. So on top of trying to obey a metrical pattern I also had to factor in ten odd words. Maddening! I really, really, really wanted to give up; I nearly did. However I realized quitting would only further complicate my writing path since the next form I try will probably be just as difficult if not more so. So I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. Of course I'm pretty sure once I submit the thing those who post on The Critical Poet will 'red pen' it to death but I'm cool with that -- how else does one learn? How else does one get better?
That's all for now!
Friday, July 3, 2009
A Girl's Open Thread
Again?! Yes, again. It's meant to mark the weekend, and it's the weekend. I hadn't much to write in the interim days so two open threads in a row.
What has happened this week? Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died. The latter was sadly expected while the former was a shock. If only, in the wake of his death, the only memories we embraced of him were positive, his music for one. Yet the media appears determined to make a circus of his funeral, the welfare of his estate and his children. He did not always make the wisest choices -- who among us does? However he deserves a funeral free of the malicious gawking and self-righteous judgments which marked the later years of his life. Let the man rest in peace. My first real experience with Farrah Fawcett was in a telefilm about a woman who was raped; when her rapist comes for her again, she traps him in her fireplace. It is a crazy movie but her intensity, the rawness of her situation grabbed my attention as a child. She acted the hell out of that role; I believed in her pressure, her overwhelming fear and unbridled rage. For many Farrah is Charlie's Angel; for others she is the woman from 'The Burning Bed'; for me she will always be that broken yet fierce woman wielding a poker demanding justice for herself. /passings
Moving briefly to politics: Sarah Palin announced the resignation of her governorship. O-kay. I am not big on her; I don't like her, but I'm dyed blue and her message is not for me. I can say she did herself no favors neither with her resignation nor with the rambling press conference marking the announcement. /politics
If you are a fan of Moby, his new album 'Wait For Me' just dropped. It's very Moby and a pretty listen. /music
I haven't written about it since it is depressing but my boy, my favorite of faves, Nadal, has been sidelined with tendonitis in his knee. I really miss watching him play especially at Wimbledon which is currently ongoing. However, the tournament is drawing to its close and most of the usual suspects are in the final but there is one welcome surprise. Andy Roddick. He's in the Wimbledon final!!! Congratulations Andy, it's been a long slog! Juan Carlos Ferrero was my first tennis crush but Andy was the first male tennis player I ever rooted for with obsessive zeal (kind of like the way I am with Nadal now). So, he's still in my "stable" and I do a little mental happy dance when he does well. He appears to have found the next level, now he needs to bring it against Roger. Come on, Andy! My girls, Venus and Serena Williams, are in the women's final for the second year in a row. Suck it on it, haters! For me choosing between them is no longer like choosing between children, for the longest time now it has been Venus all the way. Tomorrow is no different! Bring the pain, Venus -- take that title! My girls are also in the doubles final for the second year in the row, defending champions. That's right, they carried twice the hardware out of England last year and I'm crossing my fingers they'll do so again. As it is, they are guaranteed first and second place finishes, as it were, in the single's match. I admit I skipped the first week at Wimbledon due to the lack of Nadal but the second week is typically where all the fire is anyhow. Some of those matches were really sweet! Ooh, good luck to my favorites! Just bring a good fight, the best fight and (hopefully) the rest will follow. /sports fanaticism
Oh, I picked out a new manga to read. Actually it's a manwha (the Korean version of the Japanese manga) called 'Psyren'. I was randomly searching for 'Veritas' raws and came across a board on which someone stated (paraphrase), 'Veritas' is so good I like it better than 'Psyren' now. I decided to check out 'Psyren' based on that alone since the writer and I shared a love of 'Veritas'; I figured it meant we had similar taste in manwha. Turns out we do! 'Psyren' is great though I also understand why 'Veritas' blows it out of the water -- better artwork, tighter plotting, in most categories this manwha loses to 'Veritas'. It's still wonderful with a compelling the story that seems to have picked up its pacing as the tale progresses. /otaku
I will write a rondeau. It is a poetry form requiring the repetition of the first part of the first line (a refrain) and a rhyming scheme of:
a
a
b
b
a
a
a
b
R(efrain)
a
a
b
b
a
R(efrain)
Not in this post, silly! I haven't started yet but I want to declare my intention. /Friday
What has happened this week? Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died. The latter was sadly expected while the former was a shock. If only, in the wake of his death, the only memories we embraced of him were positive, his music for one. Yet the media appears determined to make a circus of his funeral, the welfare of his estate and his children. He did not always make the wisest choices -- who among us does? However he deserves a funeral free of the malicious gawking and self-righteous judgments which marked the later years of his life. Let the man rest in peace. My first real experience with Farrah Fawcett was in a telefilm about a woman who was raped; when her rapist comes for her again, she traps him in her fireplace. It is a crazy movie but her intensity, the rawness of her situation grabbed my attention as a child. She acted the hell out of that role; I believed in her pressure, her overwhelming fear and unbridled rage. For many Farrah is Charlie's Angel; for others she is the woman from 'The Burning Bed'; for me she will always be that broken yet fierce woman wielding a poker demanding justice for herself. /passings
Moving briefly to politics: Sarah Palin announced the resignation of her governorship. O-kay. I am not big on her; I don't like her, but I'm dyed blue and her message is not for me. I can say she did herself no favors neither with her resignation nor with the rambling press conference marking the announcement. /politics
If you are a fan of Moby, his new album 'Wait For Me' just dropped. It's very Moby and a pretty listen. /music
I haven't written about it since it is depressing but my boy, my favorite of faves, Nadal, has been sidelined with tendonitis in his knee. I really miss watching him play especially at Wimbledon which is currently ongoing. However, the tournament is drawing to its close and most of the usual suspects are in the final but there is one welcome surprise. Andy Roddick. He's in the Wimbledon final!!! Congratulations Andy, it's been a long slog! Juan Carlos Ferrero was my first tennis crush but Andy was the first male tennis player I ever rooted for with obsessive zeal (kind of like the way I am with Nadal now). So, he's still in my "stable" and I do a little mental happy dance when he does well. He appears to have found the next level, now he needs to bring it against Roger. Come on, Andy! My girls, Venus and Serena Williams, are in the women's final for the second year in a row. Suck it on it, haters! For me choosing between them is no longer like choosing between children, for the longest time now it has been Venus all the way. Tomorrow is no different! Bring the pain, Venus -- take that title! My girls are also in the doubles final for the second year in the row, defending champions. That's right, they carried twice the hardware out of England last year and I'm crossing my fingers they'll do so again. As it is, they are guaranteed first and second place finishes, as it were, in the single's match. I admit I skipped the first week at Wimbledon due to the lack of Nadal but the second week is typically where all the fire is anyhow. Some of those matches were really sweet! Ooh, good luck to my favorites! Just bring a good fight, the best fight and (hopefully) the rest will follow. /sports fanaticism
Oh, I picked out a new manga to read. Actually it's a manwha (the Korean version of the Japanese manga) called 'Psyren'. I was randomly searching for 'Veritas' raws and came across a board on which someone stated (paraphrase), 'Veritas' is so good I like it better than 'Psyren' now. I decided to check out 'Psyren' based on that alone since the writer and I shared a love of 'Veritas'; I figured it meant we had similar taste in manwha. Turns out we do! 'Psyren' is great though I also understand why 'Veritas' blows it out of the water -- better artwork, tighter plotting, in most categories this manwha loses to 'Veritas'. It's still wonderful with a compelling the story that seems to have picked up its pacing as the tale progresses. /otaku
I will write a rondeau. It is a poetry form requiring the repetition of the first part of the first line (a refrain) and a rhyming scheme of:
a
a
b
b
a
a
a
b
R(efrain)
a
a
b
b
a
R(efrain)
Not in this post, silly! I haven't started yet but I want to declare my intention. /Friday
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Man, you are singing my song.
David Bromige, 1933-2009
Published poet & teacher
I never knew the man, never saw him or heard him before. I have not read a lick of him until tonight and even that not poetry but an answer to a question in a Review. However, the following quoted passage produced a movement in my chest, my mind, a lump in the throat. I feel as if I am at the start of what he describes. He's singing my song, man. He's singing my song.
courtesy of Bob & Margery's Poetry Blog on About.com:
Bromige described the place of poetry in his life in a long interview published by Electronic Poetry Review in 2001: “It’s given me my life. It’s given me being. It was my entry to being. I didn’t know what else to do with my life. I had no idea what to do with my life. It seemed like there wasn't anything to do, with a life, and that in itself is a poetic recognition, I think. I didn’t get there as soon as I might have, but I had a very strong "get a job" ethic instilled into me, so I guess I felt the purpose of life was to find a job, and do it as well as you could, and then have all the fun you could fit in, around the edges of it. But when I started to write, then I realized that there was something else that I could do that filled me and was a space I could keep filling with myself. And also that it was something to be obedient to. It was a reason to have conscience, for me, because I really didn’t have much reason to have a conscience. I believe this is often an affliction of the young. So that I wouldn’t consider other people’s feelings. But as a poet, I felt like I had to. Now I’m sure you can meet plenty of people who will tell you I didn’t consider their feelings, thanks very much, but at least I was trying. It’s an incentive to consciousness. It’s an incentive to be conscious, because if you can notice things, you never know when the next thing that you can join with is going to appear. So it was an instigation of consciousness.”
*
E.B. White's Advice to a Young Writer, courtesy of About.com Grammar & Composition:
Dear Miss R---:
At seventeen, the future is apt to seem formidable, even depressing. You should see the pages of my journal circa 1916.
You asked me about writing--how I did it. There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed. I must have written half a million words (mostly in my journal) before I had anything published, save for a couple of short items in St. Nicholas. If you want to write about feelings, about the end of summer, about growing, write about it. A great deal of writing is not "plotted"--most of my essays have no plot structure, they are a ramble in the woods, or a ramble in the basement of my mind. You ask, "Who cares?" Everybody cares. You say, "It's been written before." Everything has been written before.
I went to college but not direct from high school; there was an interval of six or eight months. Sometimes it works out well to take a short vacation from the academic world--I have a grandson who took a year off and got a job in Aspen, Colorado. After a year of skiing and working, he is now settled into Colby College as a freshman. But I can't advise you, or won't advise you, on any such decision. If you have a counselor at school, I'd seek the counselor's advice. In college (Cornell), I got on the daily newspaper and ended up as editor of it. It enabled me to do a lot of writing and gave me a good journalistic experience. You are right that a person's real duty in life is to save his dream, but don't worry about it and don't let them scare you. Henry Thoreau, who wrote Walden, said, "I learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." The sentence, after more than a hundred years, is still alive. So, advance confidently. And when you write something, send it (neatly typed) to a magazine or a publishing house. Not all magazines read unsolicited contributions, but some do. The New Yorker is always looking for new talent. Write a short piece for them, send it to The Editor. That's what I did forty-some years ago. Good luck.
Published poet & teacher
I never knew the man, never saw him or heard him before. I have not read a lick of him until tonight and even that not poetry but an answer to a question in a Review. However, the following quoted passage produced a movement in my chest, my mind, a lump in the throat. I feel as if I am at the start of what he describes. He's singing my song, man. He's singing my song.
courtesy of Bob & Margery's Poetry Blog on About.com:
Bromige described the place of poetry in his life in a long interview published by Electronic Poetry Review in 2001: “It’s given me my life. It’s given me being. It was my entry to being. I didn’t know what else to do with my life. I had no idea what to do with my life. It seemed like there wasn't anything to do, with a life, and that in itself is a poetic recognition, I think. I didn’t get there as soon as I might have, but I had a very strong "get a job" ethic instilled into me, so I guess I felt the purpose of life was to find a job, and do it as well as you could, and then have all the fun you could fit in, around the edges of it. But when I started to write, then I realized that there was something else that I could do that filled me and was a space I could keep filling with myself. And also that it was something to be obedient to. It was a reason to have conscience, for me, because I really didn’t have much reason to have a conscience. I believe this is often an affliction of the young. So that I wouldn’t consider other people’s feelings. But as a poet, I felt like I had to. Now I’m sure you can meet plenty of people who will tell you I didn’t consider their feelings, thanks very much, but at least I was trying. It’s an incentive to consciousness. It’s an incentive to be conscious, because if you can notice things, you never know when the next thing that you can join with is going to appear. So it was an instigation of consciousness.”
*
E.B. White's Advice to a Young Writer, courtesy of About.com Grammar & Composition:
Dear Miss R---:
At seventeen, the future is apt to seem formidable, even depressing. You should see the pages of my journal circa 1916.
You asked me about writing--how I did it. There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed. I must have written half a million words (mostly in my journal) before I had anything published, save for a couple of short items in St. Nicholas. If you want to write about feelings, about the end of summer, about growing, write about it. A great deal of writing is not "plotted"--most of my essays have no plot structure, they are a ramble in the woods, or a ramble in the basement of my mind. You ask, "Who cares?" Everybody cares. You say, "It's been written before." Everything has been written before.
I went to college but not direct from high school; there was an interval of six or eight months. Sometimes it works out well to take a short vacation from the academic world--I have a grandson who took a year off and got a job in Aspen, Colorado. After a year of skiing and working, he is now settled into Colby College as a freshman. But I can't advise you, or won't advise you, on any such decision. If you have a counselor at school, I'd seek the counselor's advice. In college (Cornell), I got on the daily newspaper and ended up as editor of it. It enabled me to do a lot of writing and gave me a good journalistic experience. You are right that a person's real duty in life is to save his dream, but don't worry about it and don't let them scare you. Henry Thoreau, who wrote Walden, said, "I learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." The sentence, after more than a hundred years, is still alive. So, advance confidently. And when you write something, send it (neatly typed) to a magazine or a publishing house. Not all magazines read unsolicited contributions, but some do. The New Yorker is always looking for new talent. Write a short piece for them, send it to The Editor. That's what I did forty-some years ago. Good luck.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
observation
From my fortress home I see
our neighbor's tree,
its thousand palms clapping in the breeze.
our neighbor's tree,
its thousand palms clapping in the breeze.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Spoon River Anthology
.
Serepta Mason
of Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
My life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides
Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals
On the side of me which you in the village could see.
From the dust I lift a voice of protest:
My flowering side you never saw!
Ye living ones, ye are fools indeed
Who do not know the ways of the wind
And the unseen forces
That govern the processes of life.
----
humming one bar of 'Moon River'
-...........
Serepta Mason
of Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
My life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides
Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals
On the side of me which you in the village could see.
From the dust I lift a voice of protest:
My flowering side you never saw!
Ye living ones, ye are fools indeed
Who do not know the ways of the wind
And the unseen forces
That govern the processes of life.
----
humming one bar of 'Moon River'
-...........
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
a girl with a notebook
The sun at nine
I forgot how cool its yellow light is
here in winter
It barely damages the snow -- unlike me
my cloddish boots are like wallops from a fist
and naked snow breaks like bone
a pinched old crow winks and winks and winks again
at the bruising sound
*
Bleh.
--
currently listening to Jean-Baptiste Lully's La Bourgeois Gentihomme
-- Chaconne des Scaramouches Frivelins et Arlequins
I forgot how cool its yellow light is
here in winter
It barely damages the snow -- unlike me
my cloddish boots are like wallops from a fist
and naked snow breaks like bone
a pinched old crow winks and winks and winks again
at the bruising sound
*
Bleh.
--
currently listening to Jean-Baptiste Lully's La Bourgeois Gentihomme
-- Chaconne des Scaramouches Frivelins et Arlequins
Thursday, December 4, 2008
a girl's inspiration: the starting line
Years and years ago...
That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,
May yield to the fire of you,
Till the fire is nothing but light! . . .
Nothing but light!
Ye young debater over the doctrine
Of the soul's immortality,
I who lie here was the village atheist,
Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
Of the infidels.
But through a long sickness
Coughing myself to death
I read the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
And desire which the Shadow,
Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
Could not extinguish.
Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
And think through the senses only:
Immortality is not a gift,
Immortality is an achievement;
And only those who strive mightily
Shall possess it.
--
currently working my way through Rhapsody's classical music section
much to the delight of my ears ^_^
One fine Spring day, my highschool Lit teacher, Mr. L invited a guest speaker into our classroom. She was a former student of his, currently enrolled in university and majoring in English Literature. Our class had spent the last month discussing and trying our hand at poetry, and she was there to further our appreciation for it. I'll never forget the sharp way in which she rebuked us for attempting poetry without having read poetry. To roughly paraphrase her, our awkward attempts would not be, could not be, what they should be without knowledge of what poetry had been. I recall being quite put off by her assertion. My adolescent thought process was, what did she know, really? I had to put a good five years of distance between myself and that dressing down before I could recognize the veracity of her statement.
It happened in the bedroom of Michael Hobson after a night of videogames and laughter -- an unexpected moment of unprompted poetry. As we sat on the edge of his bed, he rattled off a poem. His nasal voice took on an odd purity as his mouth shaped the words. And they struck me, they lit a fire within me, one which seemed to pour into my four limbs, into my soul. What a strange time, a strange place to have a 'come to poetry' moment! On the bed of a cute boy, in the middle of a nameless night.
I scoured the local Barnes and Noble's for 'Spoon River Anthology' by Edgar Lee Masters. Copy in hand, I spent subsequent nights reading this American classic. I love to read, typically burning through a book in a few short hours. But with this, I limited myself to 2-3 poems a night just before bed. I lingered over them, lingered over the many voices and stories and histories of a fictional town and its fictional souls. I carried Minerva, Emily Sparks and The Village Atheist into sleep, into dreams. They spoke of poetry and of fire, and then I knew it too.
That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,
May yield to the fire of you,
Till the fire is nothing but light! . . .
Nothing but light!
A door was blown open that night, in that room, but each poem read drew me across the threshold. My opened mind sought other masterworks: Cummings, Plath, Kerouac, Rilke. With each one came a deepening appreciation for the craft as well as a recognition of Masters's flaws. Still, his work was my gateway poetry-drug and nothing can dim that fact. So, here's to the one that started it all, The Village Atheist:
Ye young debater over the doctrine
Of the soul's immortality,
I who lie here was the village atheist,
Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
Of the infidels.
But through a long sickness
Coughing myself to death
I read the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
And desire which the Shadow,
Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
Could not extinguish.
Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
And think through the senses only:
Immortality is not a gift,
Immortality is an achievement;
And only those who strive mightily
Shall possess it.
--
currently working my way through Rhapsody's classical music section
much to the delight of my ears ^_^
Friday, July 11, 2008
Note to Self
She needs to raise the shades.
She needs to let light
In. To feel a stiff breeze
Against her skin, and breathe.
Remember, girl -
A tombed life rarely
Rises above
Its own shadows.
She needs to let light
In. To feel a stiff breeze
Against her skin, and breathe.
Remember, girl -
A tombed life rarely
Rises above
Its own shadows.
Taking a Walk with You
by Mark Strand
an excerpt...
Lacking the wit and depth
That inform our dreams'
Bright landscapes,
This countryside
Through which we walk
Is no less beautiful
For being only what it seems.
an excerpt...
Lacking the wit and depth
That inform our dreams'
Bright landscapes,
This countryside
Through which we walk
Is no less beautiful
For being only what it seems.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Oh well. It's April.
Awake again after midnight.
I should try sleeping when the living do
instead of
propping my eyes open
under the full gut of sun.
Oh well. It’s April, and here
that means storms -- long clouds
blown in on a stiff breeze, belly full of rain
and rumble. Lately the sky has been
full of them.
Beyond the windowblind the night
surrenders to the bristle and flood.
I should try sleeping when the living do
instead of
propping my eyes open
under the full gut of sun.
Oh well. It’s April, and here
that means storms -- long clouds
blown in on a stiff breeze, belly full of rain
and rumble. Lately the sky has been
full of them.
Beyond the windowblind the night
surrenders to the bristle and flood.
Friday, April 4, 2008
eh, nothing serious
we are not meant for refuge;
we are rough houses. we swing
like pendulums to hammers.
we are not songs.
we are not roses.
we are women,
unfolding.
we are rough houses. we swing
like pendulums to hammers.
we are not songs.
we are not roses.
we are women,
unfolding.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
12:24 AM
A storm is blowing
by my window, blowing
through the dark,
shaking trees
and spitting lightning.
by my window, blowing
through the dark,
shaking trees
and spitting lightning.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
impressions
into a delicate world I place myself into a delicate world
a bull amidst a giggle of girls lovely manga boys in dark
school uniforms this morning’s suited men their loosened ties
one less noose to slip flowing through a night of lights fast
drunk away on hungry weekends flee the birds and families to
calculated parks inlaid with maple and cherry trees thick
hardy stands of pine this sun takes to my skin a kiss again
again it kisses my skin I sweat through the persistent
caress
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