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Archive for the ‘writing’ Category

Poem of the Day: 1933

Posted in hull, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Write, Writer, writing on 12/16/2008| Leave a Comment »

1933

Whole countries hover, oblivious on the edge
of history and in Cleveland the lake
already is dying. None of this matters
to my mother at seven, awakened from sleep

(continue)

-Lynda Hull

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Poem of the Day: on Love

Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Write, Writer, writing on 12/16/2008| Leave a Comment »

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

-Kahlil Gibran

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Little Notebooks, Short lines: Muriel Inniss

Posted in little notebooks, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, short lines, Write, Writer, writing on 12/11/2008| Leave a Comment »

“I have a new method of poetry. All you got to do is look over your notebooks… or lay down on a couch, and think of anything that comes into your head, especially the miseries. Then arrange in lines of two, three or four words each, don’t bother about sentences, in sections of two, three or four lines each.” -Allen Ginsberg


On November 23rd, I asked readers to try the exercise above and send me in their results. Here’s one from Muriel Inniss.

all red,

the life i dread,

stolen bread,

left for near dead,

blood in my head,

salty tears shed,

enough said

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Poem of the Day: ‘found poem’ from a law book

Posted in poem, poet, poetry, Reznikoff, Write, Writer, writing on 12/10/2008| Leave a Comment »

(from a law book)

Amelia was just fourteen and out of the orphan asylum; at her
first job–in the bindery, and yes sir, yes ma’am, oh, so
anxious to please.
She stood at the table, her blond hair hanging about her
shoulders, “knocking up” for Mary and Sadie, the stichers
(“knocking up” is counting books and stacking them in piles to
be taken away).

-Charles Reznikoff

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Poem of the Day: Mark Rothko

Posted in poem, poem of the day, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 12/08/2008| 5 Comments »

Mark Rothko
[ 01 Dec ]
London’s Tate Modern is currently
holding an exhibition of Mark
Rothko’s later works through to 1st
February 2009. The collection
plunges the viewer into his deep
“colorfields” – chromatic spaces for
meditation.

-Nina Alvarez

This is a found poem, stumbled upon on the front page of Artprice.com. If you have any found poems, send them in! This is found poem week.

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Poem of the Day: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage [There is a pleasure in the pathless woods]

Posted in byron, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Write, Writer, writing on 12/07/2008| Leave a Comment »

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage [There is a pleasure in the pathless woods]

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean–roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin–his control
Stops with the shore;–upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,–thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,–thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: —there let him lay.

-George Gordon Byron

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Poem of the Day: Hope

Posted in dickinson, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, Write, Writer, writing on 12/06/2008| Leave a Comment »

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson

This poem uses slant rhyme.  Can you pick it out?

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Poem of the Day: Prometheus: Behind the Music

Posted in Nina Alvarez, poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, words, Write, Writer, writing on 12/05/2008| 1 Comment »

Prometheus: Behind the Music

Prometheus loved the afternoon
and took his drink with goat meat then.
And shook the rawness of his hands
on his big thighs and wiped them clean.

The giant man held conference
with intangible or tiny things.
Once a woman stayed the night,
He scared her with his offerings.

Prometheus watched television,
two channels from a long dead wire.
One of heaven, one of hell
Both claimed to fear his fire.

What say you, said the billy goat,
Rumor, said the ancient man
Of my liver’s destiny
has gotten out of hand.

Foolishness or fascism
imagines horrors blindly.
But he also said beneath his breath,
You’d think they’d try to find me.

He supped at evening languidly,
The raw meat of sheep and elk.
He drank fermented honey
And slept on arid silk.

His hands smelled of animals,
His land smelled of blood,
And though he was immortal,
He was often sick and cold.

At night he hung his hut
With every kind of fur
Prometheus had seen no gods
Since he invented fire.

He never saw an eagle,
His liver never quivered,
No horror ever chained him by
A rock or cliff or river.

He simply went away,
From fame and flames and heat
to sup at quiet mountains
a cold and bloody meat.

-Nina Alvarez

This poem uses slant rhyme.  Can you find it?

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Poem of the Day: Sonnet 6

Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, rilke, sonnet 6, Write, Writer, writing on 11/28/2008| Leave a Comment »

Is he native to this realm? No,
his wide nature grew out of both worlds.
They more adeptly bend the willow’s branches
who have experience of the willow’s roots.

When you go to bed, don’t leave bread or milk
on the table: it attracts the dead–
But may he, this quiet conjurer, may he
beneath the mildness of the eyelid

mix their bright traces into every seen thing;
and may the magic of earthsmoke and rue
be as real for him as the clearest connection.

Nothing can mar for him the authentic image;
whether he wanders through houses or graves,
let him praise signet ring, gold necklace, jar.

-Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Edward Snow)

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Poetry Exercise: Little notebooks, short lines

Posted in poem, poem of the day, poet, poetry, tip, Write, Writer, writing on 11/23/2008| 3 Comments »

“I have a new method of poetry. All you got to do is look over your notebooks… or lay down on a couch, and think of anything that comes into your head, especially the miseries. Then arrange in lines of two, three or four words each, don’t bother about sentences, in sections of two, three or four lines each.” -Allen Ginsberg

Do you have little notebooks? I do. I collected them for years and numbered each. I called them Dramatic Wandering 1, 2, 3, and on. I stopped writing in them 3 years ago when I began living my life computer-side.

Little notebooks are important for writers, and so is leaving the electronic light for a while.

I pulled out my very last Dramatic Wandering from 2005 and read just one page. I followed Ginsberg’s very simple instructions above, and this is what I got:

Anxious Buddha

Nothing sounds right
quit teaching
having being
Stupid little articles

stopped forgiving
No man
No friends
No job

past thinking freshman
bicycle anger
brother wakes construction
chant rug sleep

I’m not going to lie: I’m not really good with these types of poems, but I bet you are.

If you try the exercise, send me what you make and I’ll post it with a link back to wherever you exist in cyperspace.

Three cheers to making it new!


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