The clutter of blank stares

So National Poetry Month is past, but I still have a treasure trove of wonderful quotes from poets. Hence I will continue to spoon feed them to you but perhaps not on a daily basis.

The Poet's Quote for today:
"How frail the human heart must be - a mirrored pool of thought. " ~Sylvia Plath

And here is a snip-it from one of my older works:

The clutter of blank stares
In a multitude of fun house mirrors
Each one, my own washed-out
Version of despair.

Wow, nice acquisition for Princeton University:
Library acquires archives of prominent literary magazine

Tags: poem Princeton Sylvia Plath Poetry Literature

May Day

To plug another poet...
I haven't read it, but I might suggest that people check out Christine Hamm's book The Animal Husband. (you can get it here) In her own words - "It is funny and sad and a little bit pretty, just like me." frankly, I haven't read much of Christine's work that I didn't just adore.

I enjoyed reading the poem PLANET by Frances Brent in the May 1 edition of the New Yorker. I loved the line, When it slid out of her grasp, / she kept asking / "Didn't I keep my promise?"

You know when people say to you, "You really should get out more?" I think my version of that line to writers is, "Your really should read other people's stuff more."

It's May 1st and you older folks like me can probably remember all the May Day photos we used to see in the papers of the long parades in the Soviet Union where they would roll out all their military hardware down the streets for the world to see. I was thinking about that this morning and how that has all changed. I was also thinking about how across the nation hundreds of thousands of immigrants - some illegally in this country will take to the streets and demonstrate for immigration reform that is favorable to their plight. At the risk of using a metaphor that may sound demeaning to them, it is kind of like cockroaches coming out of the floor molding. Here are all these people that for the most part are a part of a subterranean culture that will today be quite visible. So today, my old image of May Day is being replaced with a more contemporary. Both of these have political implications. Somewhere in all this, I'm sure I have a poem brewing.

Oh, is anyone else finding it trifling the Senator Bill Frist wants to help us poor American drivers by giving us a $100 tax rebate because of the high gas prices? Surprise!!! The GOP plan also includes a controversial proposal to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration. (source)

tags: Immigration Poetry Writing and poetry gas environment

Journalism & Poetry - Poet's Quote of the day

"To separate journalism and poetry, therefore-history and poetry-to set them up at opposite ends of the world of discourse, is to separate seeing from the feel of seeing, emotion from the acting of emotion, knowledge from the realization of knowledge." ~ Archibald MacLeish


Tags: Poetry Journalism history

Fire & Ice

"You are ice and fire the touch of you burns my hands like snow." ~ Amy Lowell

I chose this quote for today simply because it is such a powerful phrase and quite precise in the image it presents to me personally. These are the kinds of lines that produce poetry that leaps from the page rather than just existing as ink in one dimensional form.

On another note, I'd like to suggest to readers that they might consider going to the Squeet box in the left column of this blog and sign up to receive the blog postings via e-mail. I previously used another service which seems not to be defunct of at least not working more that it is. In the short time I have been exposed to Squeet, I have been impressed. This will allow you to receive syndicated feeds of this blog in your e-mail and you can choose from live, daily or weekly feeds.

I have not written much in the past week. I need to integrate a little more time into the coming week for this. I have a number of home projects I am working on and they are coming along but I know there is an endless cycle of them. I had planned to do a more extensive blog post today on a topic but I am forgoing that for now.

Here's to what's left of the weekend!

Tags: Writing and poetry syndication Feeds

Accuracy & Clarity

"Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear." ~ Ezra Pound

This is a most interesting statement in that to me I want to split down the middle falling on both sides. On one hand I heartily agree. And if we are speaking literally of language itself, yes! But just as we should strive for efficiency and clarity in language usage, I don't believe that mean we have to be so ridged with our poetry as Ted Koozer would have us all be.

I myself like a little mysticism left between the lines. I like to have to read a poem over and over. That is where discovery comes. If I read a poem once and can say, "Oh, that was nice. I understand completely," then I quite often feel cheated. There is no stretching of the mind. No room for revelation or discovery. Sure concise language is important, but not everything has to be written as though it were for remedial consumption.

Yes, there are exceptions. There are poems that are straight forward that I like very much and some of my own have been written in a fashion the Koozer's of the world would feel much more comfortable with. But these poems must say something all the more exceptional.

tag:Writing and poetry

Gee Really?

You Should Be A Poet

You craft words well, in creative and unexpected ways.And you have a great talent for evoking beautiful imagery...Or describing the most intense heartbreak ever.You're already naturally a poet, even if you've never written a poem.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

I have to give credit to Cindy at Quotidian Light for this site. Admittedly I was fearful that it would tell me I should write obituaries or greeting cards.

A Poet's Moments

"I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on." ~Rita Dove

Moments...

The concept of a moment I believe means so much to poetry. We often hold onto, whatever it is we capture, within the framework of some indefinite period of time, but it is generally considered to be a small segment.

A noun, I see a moment as both a place and a thing. As a place it is some point within a continuum. As a thing, it is an arbitrary period of time.

What I believe gives particular meaning to moment or moments within the context of poetry is that they are so often characterized by some quality.

If you consider a poem to be a snapshot (and I often feel it is) of sorts, then that very word picture that we strive to recreate is very often predicated on some moment. A loving touch, a dying breath, an intimate kiss, that first cry after coming into the world, the hawk in mid-flight, a moment of terror in the midst of a war.

I like to think that as poets what we are often doing is taking into account some moment and saying about it, "hold that thought!"




Tags: Writing and poetry Poetry