"We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others." -- Albert Camus
Saturday, December 02, 2006
A Thought from Albert Camus - Geezzz, He had so many good ones
"We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others." -- Albert Camus
Plath daughter puts her pain in poetry - Sunday Times - Times Online
Plath daaughter
Richard Brooks, Arts Editor
FRIEDA Hughes, the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, has written a frank autobiographical book of poetry about the tragedies in her life. The terse and painful style of her work is remarkably like that of her mother.
Published last week in America before it appears in Britain in the spring, Forty-Five has 45 poems about each of the years of her life. The most poignant cover the suicide in 1963 of her mother, her discovery in her teens that her mother had taken her own life, and her father’s death from cancer in 1998. ughter puts her pain in poetry - Sunday Times - Times Online
Tag: Frieda Hughes
Richard Brooks, Arts Editor
FRIEDA Hughes, the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, has written a frank autobiographical book of poetry about the tragedies in her life. The terse and painful style of her work is remarkably like that of her mother.
Published last week in America before it appears in Britain in the spring, Forty-Five has 45 poems about each of the years of her life. The most poignant cover the suicide in 1963 of her mother, her discovery in her teens that her mother had taken her own life, and her father’s death from cancer in 1998. ughter puts her pain in poetry - Sunday Times - Times Online
Tag: Frieda Hughes
Friday, December 01, 2006
Tagged with a Poetry Meme
Imagine that!
Thanks to Cindy I have been posed a series of questions. Hopefully the answers will not bore readers to death.
1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was....hard for me to say with certainty but I am sure the first I recall was a nursery rhyme. Probably read by my mother or grandmother. I can recall a big thick nursery rhyme book that they would both read from. My grandmother had enormous influence on me in my early years.
I think I was most impressed by the images of four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. I recall all these people being places and doing things, the King, the Queen, the Maid... counting money, eating bread and honey, hanging out clothes.... I liked how busy it seemed (perhaps a foreshadowing of ADD) but it would be a long time before I would view this a poetry.
Very likely the first poem to really speak to me as a poem was Frost's Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening. Whose woods these are I think I know/ seemed somber and formal and very strong. Still, I think it is these lines, The woods are lovely dark and deep / but I have promises to keep / and miles to go before I sleep / and miles to go before I sleep // that reached my deep and left an impression on me while yet still young. It became a mantra that to this day probably contributes to my uneasiness with aging and death because I feel the incredible drive to make a difference in this world. Which surely accounts for my involvement in politics much earlier in life than most people.
2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and... I really don't recall a lot about it. I remember thinking it was horrible at the time as did most all the students. I think we were given a choice between several but I have no idea what it was. What I do recall is that whatever it was the poem was about four or five stanzas and that when it came time to recite it I was very uneasy and could only recall about two-thirds of it. Others fell short but I remember several students that memorized very long poems and did them perfectly. I felt terribly inferior but that was not uncommon for me in those days.
To all those who point to such experiences and say being forced to memorize poems turned them against poetry at an early age, I can say in the end, the experience neither helped or hindered my love of poetry.
3. I read/don't read poetry because.... I read it because it speaks to me in a way that reading anything else fails to do. It often captures a spirit within me and causes it to stir. Poetry at times will awaken feelings and emotions to speak to things in my past that otherwise remain locked inside me. It is a freeing experience. Sometimes scary, often times quite enjoyable but always pushing me to think and feel.
4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is ....... Oh wow, there are so many, but one that often comes to my mind is going to sound really funny coming from a guy. It would be The Blue Dress by Sharon Olds. Olds is able to bubble to the surface very deep emotions as though she were pouring peroxide over what appears to be a superficial wound but bring out so much more than you thought was there.
5. I write/don't write poetry, but... I write poetry. Writing has been therapeutic to me, but it is like more than just taking medicine for something it is also like a vitamin and mineral supplement. Even when it is not emotionally healing, it is strengthening.
I seriously believe that it also helped me deal with my issues of mortality. It is the best, no, the only way I know to beat death. Create a part of you that death cannot have.
In more recent year I have come to embrace the artistic value of poetry. Something I did not recognize in my younger writing. In this way, what and how I write have evolved and continues to change in voice and content.
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.....for several reasons. I like that when I read poetry it speaks to me on a level different from anything else. But I also enjoy reading poetry because my eyes are not as good as they used to be and sometimes I tire easy of reading longer material, which frustrates me. Especially since I am also learning that I am not as broadly well read as I would like to be. I do think this hinders to some degree my own writing.
7. I find poetry...... (chuckling here) much to the dismay of my family, I find poetry in almost everything. They do not share passion for poetry. Don't get me wrong, they are very supportive of my writing.
I see poetry in a 6-4-3 double play. I see it in an empty baseball diamond. I see it in my backyard, the kitchen, in politics, in the silence of the night. This can be troubling to some. ( smile)
8. The last time I heard poetry.... I suppose it was myself reading out loud from a manuscript before I sent it off yesterday. Trying to reassure myself I suppose.
I used to go to readings fairly regularly. And last year I was reading every month someplace and sometimes two or three times in a month. It has been a while since I've done that. I do listen to poetry as well from various podcast sources.
9. I think poetry is like... life itself. I think it's like complexities reduced to simplest terms. It is an affirmation of magic. Evidence of a higher power. It is the closest thing to a universal language of the soul. It is where the heart and mind meet and a great fission occurs that produces the art of ourselves in language.
Ah... now who to tag with this.....? Deborah, Robert and Kelli.
Thanks to Cindy I have been posed a series of questions. Hopefully the answers will not bore readers to death.
1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was....hard for me to say with certainty but I am sure the first I recall was a nursery rhyme. Probably read by my mother or grandmother. I can recall a big thick nursery rhyme book that they would both read from. My grandmother had enormous influence on me in my early years.
I think I was most impressed by the images of four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. I recall all these people being places and doing things, the King, the Queen, the Maid... counting money, eating bread and honey, hanging out clothes.... I liked how busy it seemed (perhaps a foreshadowing of ADD) but it would be a long time before I would view this a poetry.
Very likely the first poem to really speak to me as a poem was Frost's Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening. Whose woods these are I think I know/ seemed somber and formal and very strong. Still, I think it is these lines, The woods are lovely dark and deep / but I have promises to keep / and miles to go before I sleep / and miles to go before I sleep // that reached my deep and left an impression on me while yet still young. It became a mantra that to this day probably contributes to my uneasiness with aging and death because I feel the incredible drive to make a difference in this world. Which surely accounts for my involvement in politics much earlier in life than most people.
2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and... I really don't recall a lot about it. I remember thinking it was horrible at the time as did most all the students. I think we were given a choice between several but I have no idea what it was. What I do recall is that whatever it was the poem was about four or five stanzas and that when it came time to recite it I was very uneasy and could only recall about two-thirds of it. Others fell short but I remember several students that memorized very long poems and did them perfectly. I felt terribly inferior but that was not uncommon for me in those days.
To all those who point to such experiences and say being forced to memorize poems turned them against poetry at an early age, I can say in the end, the experience neither helped or hindered my love of poetry.
3. I read/don't read poetry because.... I read it because it speaks to me in a way that reading anything else fails to do. It often captures a spirit within me and causes it to stir. Poetry at times will awaken feelings and emotions to speak to things in my past that otherwise remain locked inside me. It is a freeing experience. Sometimes scary, often times quite enjoyable but always pushing me to think and feel.
4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is ....... Oh wow, there are so many, but one that often comes to my mind is going to sound really funny coming from a guy. It would be The Blue Dress by Sharon Olds. Olds is able to bubble to the surface very deep emotions as though she were pouring peroxide over what appears to be a superficial wound but bring out so much more than you thought was there.
5. I write/don't write poetry, but... I write poetry. Writing has been therapeutic to me, but it is like more than just taking medicine for something it is also like a vitamin and mineral supplement. Even when it is not emotionally healing, it is strengthening.
I seriously believe that it also helped me deal with my issues of mortality. It is the best, no, the only way I know to beat death. Create a part of you that death cannot have.
In more recent year I have come to embrace the artistic value of poetry. Something I did not recognize in my younger writing. In this way, what and how I write have evolved and continues to change in voice and content.
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.....for several reasons. I like that when I read poetry it speaks to me on a level different from anything else. But I also enjoy reading poetry because my eyes are not as good as they used to be and sometimes I tire easy of reading longer material, which frustrates me. Especially since I am also learning that I am not as broadly well read as I would like to be. I do think this hinders to some degree my own writing.
7. I find poetry...... (chuckling here) much to the dismay of my family, I find poetry in almost everything. They do not share passion for poetry. Don't get me wrong, they are very supportive of my writing.
I see poetry in a 6-4-3 double play. I see it in an empty baseball diamond. I see it in my backyard, the kitchen, in politics, in the silence of the night. This can be troubling to some. ( smile)
8. The last time I heard poetry.... I suppose it was myself reading out loud from a manuscript before I sent it off yesterday. Trying to reassure myself I suppose.
I used to go to readings fairly regularly. And last year I was reading every month someplace and sometimes two or three times in a month. It has been a while since I've done that. I do listen to poetry as well from various podcast sources.
9. I think poetry is like... life itself. I think it's like complexities reduced to simplest terms. It is an affirmation of magic. Evidence of a higher power. It is the closest thing to a universal language of the soul. It is where the heart and mind meet and a great fission occurs that produces the art of ourselves in language.
Ah... now who to tag with this.....? Deborah, Robert and Kelli.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Relief
Relief~ is seeing your manuscript to the Poets and Writers - Writers Exchange contest off at the post office.
You "proof" and have others do the same. You make sure all the rules have been followed. You count and recount... check the page order, recheck the address, secure the mailing and see it off like it were your son or daughter heading off to school the first day.
~0~
Our weather here turned nasty yesterday. Rain and sleet and finally ice. We wait now for the next wave that is supposed to be snow. They say we may get noting and we may get 6 to 8 inches.
tags:
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Wednesday Poet Series No.9 Mbembe Milton Smith
The poet I've selected for this week was a local Kansas City area poet. He would have been 60 this month had he not taken his life at age 36.He grew up on Kansas City's east side during the 1960's civil rights movement. His poetry resonates the struggles of black urban America in those times and to some extent is very relevant today.
Initially he was self-taught but he eventually became the first person to receive a double major in English and Creative Writing in the Master's program at UMKC.
In the 1970's Smith took the name Mbembe, Swahili for "smooth-tongued one."
Mbembe was more of a locally known poet, though he did move to New York and was in Chicago at the time of his death. He did publish a couple of books. He also went on to teach. His work left a major impact upon a number of people. Had he lived longer and had greater exposure, he quite possibly would have achieved more national recognition.
There was a lot of goomaterialal presented on our local NPR affiliate station KCUR and I am simply going to link to it.
You can hear the segment by Sylvia Marie Gross with Mbembe reading as well as interviews and other material on him. [ click here ]
Tags: Mbembe Milton Smith NPR KCUR Wednesday Poet Series
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
We Have A Lot of Thought Police These Days....
I'm sure there are incidents many of us never hear of, but two situations of recent times have become high profile enough to make the news.
On a 3-2 vote, the town council in Pahrump, Nevada, (town of about 30,000 near Las Vegas) passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to display a foreign flag unless an American flag is flown above it. Those in violation face a $50 fine and 30 hours of community service.
Meanwhile, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the Loma Linda Homeowners Association decided Lisa Jensen could not keep her holiday wreath with a peace sign on her home. Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association sent her a letter that said the association "will not allow signs, flags etc.That can be considered divisive." He has threatened to fine her $25 a day until she removes it.
Have we not progressed any further than this? That people in roles of authority are still trying to mold everyone into the same shape, the same thought process and tell us what is and isn't "correct"? Can a great nation lacktolerancee? Isn't that what this nation was founded upon? People came here because they did not want to be told how to worship.
I expect this kind of rule in closed societies. Such coercive measures as censorship and forced subordination are trademarks of totalitarian rule. In thesesocietiess, free expression, the arts, the free exchange of ideas and knowledge arecontrolledd or restricted altogether. Yet, there are people who seem to feel this is the only way that they can protect this country. They feel the urge to "clean" and "purge" it of whatever they fear. Have we not learned lessons from the past? From the histories of Hitler and Stalin?
tags: Bob Kearns totalitarian Pahrump, Nevada Pagosa Springs, Colorado Linda Homeowners Association
*[Note - picture above is a photo taken recently along the bank of the Missouri River]
Monday, November 27, 2006
Unconscious Mutterings week 199
- Rhyme:: Dime
- Substantial :: Raise
- Instant :: potatoes
- Greed :: land grab
- Brad :: Pitt
- Season :: Seasoning salt
- Accomplished :: musician
- Invite :: dinner party
- Sparkle :: cake decorations
- Rainbow :: somewhere over the rainbow
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