It seems like the people in our world are bouncing and banging against one another inflicting damage.
I live in Kansas City, MO, where yesterday an angry gunmen wounded a police officer and killed two people at a popular local mall. The gunman himself was killed by responding officers. Reports state that he'd planned to kill many more.
Word for the Week
ricochet
noun
the motion made by an object that rebounds or skips one or more times;, as a pebble thrown along the surface of a pond.
Source: Webster's New World Ditionary of the American Language, 1968
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Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
You Want To Know How to Write A Great Poem?: Read Clive James Essay on Paul Valéry's Example
Slate.com has been featuring adapted versions of essays from Clive James', Cultural Amnesia. The perspective he presents in his essays is fascinating. It's like looking at the lives of famous figures througth a kaleidescope rather than a microscope or magnifying glass. His presentations are multifaced and often beautiful.
Paul Valéry
How poets write great poems.
By Clive James
Posted Tuesday, April 10, 2007, at 7:30 AM ET
The following essay is adapted from Clive James' Cultural Amnesia, a re-examination of intellectuals, artists, and thinkers who helped shape the 20th century. Slate is publishing an exclusive selection of these essays, going roughly from A to Z.
Sometimes something wants to be said, sometimes a way of saying wants to be used.
—Paul Valéry, "Poésie et pensée abstraite," from Modern French Poets on Poetry.
By the age of 20, Ambroise-Paul Valéry (1871–1945) was already recognized as a promising poet, but he repudiated the ambition and stayed almost silent for a full two decades. He was 40 when he was persuaded to publish his early poems, a task he undertook only on the understanding that he would add a new, prefatory poem. This took him five years to write. Published separately in 1917, La Jeune Parque and Charmes worked to establish him as the most prominent French poet of his time. Even without publishing his private notebooks—some 287 volumes—Valéry still had a full 18 volumes of prose to give the world, and scattered among them are some of the best essays written in his time. With solid mathematical training to back up his humanist erudition, he could take almost anything for a subject, but he was especially good at writing about the arts: The essay on Leonardo and the little book on Degas are models of the genre.
The homage paid to Valéry by other writers is only fitting, because nobody could quite equal him at writing about the arts out of deep and unenvious love. If there is an objection to be made to Valéry, it is a milder version of the objection we make to Rilke: that the dedication to art verges on preciosity. Valéry, however, gives a better sense than Rilke of other artists than himself being fully alive. There was a generosity to him which his nation returned in kind, as if his capacity for appreciation were in itself a national treasure. Gen. de Gaulle came to his funeral.....
Clive James, the author of numerous books of criticism, autobiography, and poetry, writes for the New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker. He lives in London.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2163822/
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Quote for the Week
Consider the hands
that write this letter.
The left palm pressed flat against the paper,
as it has done before, over my heart,
in peace or reverence
to the sea or some beautiful thing...
--from Consider the Hands that Write This Letter
by Aracelis Girmay
Monday, April 23, 2007
Samara O'Shea Shows Us How Letters Remain Center Stage In the 21st Century
Word for the Week
Letter
Currently, I'm reading Samara O'Shea's For the Love of Letters: A 21st Century Guide to The Art of Letter Writing. It's the perfect how-to book to have on one's shelf in light of recent events and the time of year. We've suffered yet another national loss, the shootings at Virginia Tech, and ironically, we are about to enter the month of May, the month when many graduate from high school and college.
Both of these circumstances, seem to bring our focus upon a heightened sense of vulnerability and the desire to cement and create bonds with friends and loved ones. When moments of crisis strike, our impulse is to connect with our friends, family and loved ones. Where our predecessors relied on newspapers, television and correspondence, we have the added benefit of the internet and mobile communication. Aside from cell phone calls, we send text messages and emails to confirm the well being of the people about whom we care. These for all intents and purposes are letters--albeit most likely more brief than a traditional letter, but they're still conversations in text.
O'Shea packs great deal of information regarding letter writing in her 172 page volume. She discusses a broad range of letters, those regarding getting together as well as saying goodbye and those which recommend along with angry letters which may offend. She also touches on letters written for matters of business, thank you letters and letters of recommendation.
Her writing style is direct and conversational. The book flies. Her letter writing instructions are simple to follow. She also sprinkles example letters by herself, both from her personal life and her professional life, as a letter writer for hire at LetterLover.net, and famous authors, John Keats' declaration of love, Edgar Allen Poe's angry adieu to his estranged parent and Andrew Carnegie's letter to close a deal, are featured among others.
O'Shea makes a convincing case for letter writing. The historical background of letters that she offers illustrates how letters can change lives and shape deaths (see the letter by Marie Antoinette pages 39-41). Take the time to read this book. Then, give a gift; write a letter.
Letter
Currently, I'm reading Samara O'Shea's For the Love of Letters: A 21st Century Guide to The Art of Letter Writing. It's the perfect how-to book to have on one's shelf in light of recent events and the time of year. We've suffered yet another national loss, the shootings at Virginia Tech, and ironically, we are about to enter the month of May, the month when many graduate from high school and college.
Both of these circumstances, seem to bring our focus upon a heightened sense of vulnerability and the desire to cement and create bonds with friends and loved ones. When moments of crisis strike, our impulse is to connect with our friends, family and loved ones. Where our predecessors relied on newspapers, television and correspondence, we have the added benefit of the internet and mobile communication. Aside from cell phone calls, we send text messages and emails to confirm the well being of the people about whom we care. These for all intents and purposes are letters--albeit most likely more brief than a traditional letter, but they're still conversations in text.
O'Shea packs great deal of information regarding letter writing in her 172 page volume. She discusses a broad range of letters, those regarding getting together as well as saying goodbye and those which recommend along with angry letters which may offend. She also touches on letters written for matters of business, thank you letters and letters of recommendation.
Her writing style is direct and conversational. The book flies. Her letter writing instructions are simple to follow. She also sprinkles example letters by herself, both from her personal life and her professional life, as a letter writer for hire at LetterLover.net, and famous authors, John Keats' declaration of love, Edgar Allen Poe's angry adieu to his estranged parent and Andrew Carnegie's letter to close a deal, are featured among others.
O'Shea makes a convincing case for letter writing. The historical background of letters that she offers illustrates how letters can change lives and shape deaths (see the letter by Marie Antoinette pages 39-41). Take the time to read this book. Then, give a gift; write a letter.
Friday, April 20, 2007
How Do You Define Poetry?
Writing Prompt
I made what I did not consider poetry fairly clear in my previous post. I think that my explanation of the qualities of Hip Hop also make it fairly clear what I do consider poetry.
Spend a few minutes writing your definition of poetry.
I made what I did not consider poetry fairly clear in my previous post. I think that my explanation of the qualities of Hip Hop also make it fairly clear what I do consider poetry.
Spend a few minutes writing your definition of poetry.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Yeah, I watched Oprah...This ain't about poetry, hip hop...or censorship!
I am a poet, and I took exception to Russell Simmons donning the breastplate of artistry, while standing on his righteous indignation over censoring said artistry to defend and legitimize the output of various rap performers. (I refuse to give many of them the dignity of being called poets much less artists.) His naming those who write and perform rap music as poets without making distinctions regarding the type of rap music they perform was circumspect, best case scenario, or worse case scenario, duplicitous.
As far as I'm concerned all rap is not created equal and Hip Hop is not the commodity mass produced and blasted on radio and television stations. Hip Hop depicts a culture of consciousness one that observes, analyzes and reflects the world in which it exists. It seeks to educate and uplift, to offer criticism and critique, to mobilize its listeners to pursue positive change, both inwardly and outwardly. Sometimes, Hip Hop is just plain fun. Hip Hop lives mostly off the screen of mainstream entertainment, creating the occasional blip--Common....Mos Def...Eryka Badu....Jill Scott.
In my opinion, much of the rap music produced, sold and shoved via the spoon of mass marketing down the throats of those who once loved it, is an over exuberant exercise in mediocrity. Rap has become a festival of depravity in which the most base and debasing elements of human existence are glamorized and presented as life pursuits. I won't focus on the misogyny of rap, because it is guilty of many other abuses as well. From its perspective, the world is full of black people who are moving targets which receive every type of abuse, mental, physical and sexual, especially from their own.
As with any human endeavor, there are degrees of workmanship. Poverty is no excuse, nor is suffering, a mantle of martyrdom which gives its bearer the right to inflict suffering upon others. Malcom X was poor and abused--told to pursue carpentry, thief, ex-con. Paul Laurence Dunbar started poor.
I understand that people must mature and grow and change. I understand that money is a need, not a want in America. Rap performers want to be paid, and capitalism is all about supply and demand. They're providing a product. It's business. I also understand that power concedes nothing without demand.
Those who know better, must do better. Art reflects culture, but it can also shape it. Remember the Black Arts Movement? Black is Beautiful. Say It Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud!
Russell Simmons has created many progressive opportunities for African Americans. I acknowledge that the Hip Hop Action Network is educating many, but it is also teaching them to ignore that which is unjust in their community. I must also acknowledge that the same individuals who spew poison about themselves and their community cannot credibly offer an educational or uplifting message.When it comes to the future content of mass marketed rap music and the distribution of Hip Hop, he and his counterparts must do better.
As far as I'm concerned all rap is not created equal and Hip Hop is not the commodity mass produced and blasted on radio and television stations. Hip Hop depicts a culture of consciousness one that observes, analyzes and reflects the world in which it exists. It seeks to educate and uplift, to offer criticism and critique, to mobilize its listeners to pursue positive change, both inwardly and outwardly. Sometimes, Hip Hop is just plain fun. Hip Hop lives mostly off the screen of mainstream entertainment, creating the occasional blip--Common....Mos Def...Eryka Badu....Jill Scott.
In my opinion, much of the rap music produced, sold and shoved via the spoon of mass marketing down the throats of those who once loved it, is an over exuberant exercise in mediocrity. Rap has become a festival of depravity in which the most base and debasing elements of human existence are glamorized and presented as life pursuits. I won't focus on the misogyny of rap, because it is guilty of many other abuses as well. From its perspective, the world is full of black people who are moving targets which receive every type of abuse, mental, physical and sexual, especially from their own.
As with any human endeavor, there are degrees of workmanship. Poverty is no excuse, nor is suffering, a mantle of martyrdom which gives its bearer the right to inflict suffering upon others. Malcom X was poor and abused--told to pursue carpentry, thief, ex-con. Paul Laurence Dunbar started poor.
I understand that people must mature and grow and change. I understand that money is a need, not a want in America. Rap performers want to be paid, and capitalism is all about supply and demand. They're providing a product. It's business. I also understand that power concedes nothing without demand.
Those who know better, must do better. Art reflects culture, but it can also shape it. Remember the Black Arts Movement? Black is Beautiful. Say It Loud! I'm Black and I'm Proud!
Russell Simmons has created many progressive opportunities for African Americans. I acknowledge that the Hip Hop Action Network is educating many, but it is also teaching them to ignore that which is unjust in their community. I must also acknowledge that the same individuals who spew poison about themselves and their community cannot credibly offer an educational or uplifting message.When it comes to the future content of mass marketed rap music and the distribution of Hip Hop, he and his counterparts must do better.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Charles Bukowski Says, If You're Going To Write, Then Do The D___n Thang!
As I read "so you want to be a writer?", I wondered if Charles Bukowski intended it as reverse psychology to treat the reader, himself or both. Of course the obvious possibility remains; he means just what he says.
Check it out, and tell me what you think: so you want to be a writer?
Visit Poets.org to find for thousands of poems, biographies, essays, and audio clips. Poets.org is a program of the Academy of American Poets.
"Poetry is that which helps us live." --Wallace Stevens
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Passion and Discipline Are Key to Writing Great Poetry
The best poetry is born of passion and discipline--depth of feeling and effective application of the tools of the writing craft. When poems are written with too much of one and not enough of the other, they end up in the trash, or at least they should. Passion and discipline, the means by which we create art, cultivate them and prosper.
Quotes for the Week
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Kahlil Gibran
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Aristotle quotes
Quotes for the Week
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Kahlil Gibran
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Aristotle quotes
Monday, April 16, 2007
What Do Poetry & Alchemy Have In Common?
Word for the Week
amal·gam:
a mixture of different elements
Poetry and Alchemy have more in common than one might expect. Both require the use of appropriate measures. The correct application of the necessary elements, words, punctuation, narrative, meaning, stress and rest vs. stone, mineral, fire, water, earth and air, determine the quality and quantity of the end product of both processes. If the guiding principals of either art/science are misapplied, you can end up with a real stinker.
amal·gam:
a mixture of different elements
Poetry and Alchemy have more in common than one might expect. Both require the use of appropriate measures. The correct application of the necessary elements, words, punctuation, narrative, meaning, stress and rest vs. stone, mineral, fire, water, earth and air, determine the quality and quantity of the end product of both processes. If the guiding principals of either art/science are misapplied, you can end up with a real stinker.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Let's Take A Walk With Nikki Giovanni
Writing Prompt
Nikki Giovanni is a poet who's work is easy to revisit. Whenever I open a book of her poems, I find a bit that seems as if I'd written it myself. With her simple and direct voice, she creates a sense of intimacy, the intimacy of old friends meeting for tea or a slice of pizza; because her work shines with honesty, the stories she tells become real.
Click on the title of this post to visit the Smithsonian Folkways website and listen to Giovanni's poem, Boxes. The poem can be found in her collection cotton candy on a rainy day.
What boxes hold you? How do you plan leave them? Do you want to leave them?
Nikki Giovanni is a poet who's work is easy to revisit. Whenever I open a book of her poems, I find a bit that seems as if I'd written it myself. With her simple and direct voice, she creates a sense of intimacy, the intimacy of old friends meeting for tea or a slice of pizza; because her work shines with honesty, the stories she tells become real.
Click on the title of this post to visit the Smithsonian Folkways website and listen to Giovanni's poem, Boxes. The poem can be found in her collection cotton candy on a rainy day.
What boxes hold you? How do you plan leave them? Do you want to leave them?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Are you a poet in search of a workshop or just some current poetry?
I Googled "Poetry Online" and discovered poetry critical.com, an online poetry workshop. I've participated in a few online workshops and they can be very helpful. Even if you don't sign-up, reading what's posted is a great way to have the refreshing experience of reading other poets' work.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Feeling Subversive.....Poet?
Poetry notoriously treats the big three, birth, love and death. Poetry also gives voice to a gamut of emotions and voices, which do not embody the cliche expectations of melodrama or syrupy effusiveness which many expect from poetry. Poetry and poetic prose provide a creative form fit to express the thoughts and passions of protest or lamentation, as well as exhortations of love or hate--read Wuthering Heights lately? Visit Poet's Corner to read some examples of Protest Poetry.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Visit Publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux's, The Best Words In Their Best Order, An Engaging & Elegant National Poetry Month Blog
FSG's poetry blog is definitely a must stop for poets and lover's of poetry. This site offers podcasts of poetry readings, reviews, downloads and commentary for the discerning poetry fan. Click on this post's title to follow the link to the blog.
Quote for the Week
"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
Quote for the Week
"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
Monday, April 09, 2007
Words for the Week~National Poetry Month Rocks!
I'm about to make a confession which may put me on the bad side of quite a few people. I love my muse more than the poetry they inspire. Of course, I love that most which moves me to pick up the pen. Some may empathize with me immediately; others require explanation. My muse moves me to express my thoughts, my emotions in poesie, then challenges me to make my current creation better than the last.
If I most loved poetry, I'd be an enthusiastic and appreciative reader, but not necessarily inspired to write. And being honest, I'd rather be a little known or unknown poet, rather than an anonymous fan of the art. As reader and poet, poetry for me is three dimensional, it is alive, begging to be read, spoken, written, rewritten and performed--liberated from the page. To my muse, as always, I send my love.
Here's my favorite poem again--What's yours?
"I Will Put Chaos into Fourteen Lines" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon--his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more or less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
Check out this explanation of the Sonnet form: The Sonnet Form
If I most loved poetry, I'd be an enthusiastic and appreciative reader, but not necessarily inspired to write. And being honest, I'd rather be a little known or unknown poet, rather than an anonymous fan of the art. As reader and poet, poetry for me is three dimensional, it is alive, begging to be read, spoken, written, rewritten and performed--liberated from the page. To my muse, as always, I send my love.
Here's my favorite poem again--What's yours?
"I Will Put Chaos into Fourteen Lines" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon--his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more or less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
Check out this explanation of the Sonnet form: The Sonnet Form
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