Sophia Loren or something

Good lord, this makes me ridiculously happy!

::goes back to reading::

Available to trade

I wish the value this blog had on Blogshares were real dollars. I would be richrich!

$1,033,958.31 when I just checked. Rich! Amusing what they play there. My value has skyrocketed since I have been purchased, and since the last time I looked. Hell, I am not cheap! But willing to sell.

Go them!

Now horrible segue, back to Li-Young Lee. I think I am falling behind again.

I am doing this everywhere so I might as well do it here too!

::passes out more post-Napo drinks::

Not a poem

Not a poem, but an observation. I am always boggled when I find a new blog to read, someone who is writing astounding things, and when I click the Sub blog button to add it to my Bloglines, I discover no one else is reading that person. Boggled. The one thing about the intarwebs, is that they are so vast, so wide, that huge voices can't be found easily. But that is the joy of the intartubes, is that those voices are out there waiting to be discovered. Well maybe not waiting, because they are going about their business, but then they are found.

Awesome.

Oh, and a note about writing group the other day. It was *so* helpful. I got pointers on POV on the story. I sent chapter 2. I need to tweak my POV because it was bobbling between third person omniscient and third person limited. As the writing has gone on now (for too long, something I have learned about myself), it has changed, and the earlier versions really show the noobiness of the writing. And some of the chunkier rewrites show the difference too. That is obviously a good thing, but it does require checking out the old. I think I have learned that I need to plop it all down in a timelier fashion than I have. If only that the threads stay together, and the story doesn't become repetitive because it has taken so long, and I have to reremember for myself. The reader doesn't need to see that.

Anyway I am very grateful for these critiques, because otherwise I would never get out of my head. I saw a comment the other day elsewhere, speaking about how writing for this person is like translation. To get it from what is in her head, to words on the page. Like translating mediums. That would be me. L commented about a specific bit of dialog, and I said that Trapper was thinking this and this, already clear in my mind. That is what I need to add. The story is already there, and I just need to use words now to get it on the page.

I am avoiding today's poem if that isn't obvious ;-) Have a great one.

A war song perhaps

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question...

I heard this on my Ipod this morning at the grocery shop, and couldn't help but relate it to previous Napowrimos. LOL Just this bit though, as I am not that cynical.

My poem is written for tomorrow, now I just have to editeditedit. Because really, that is only where there is hope! LOL I should just keep writing today, because I have to go to work tomorrow, and that will suck up the time. March break is done for me. Woe LOL

Hoisting

Happy St Patrick's day.

One of my musical regrets, was that we passed up the chance to see The Pogues in Ann Arbor 1986-7-8? because we had no money. As it turned out, MacGowen was unable to continue to sing that evening, so it probably worked out for the best.

Enjoy!

I love it twice, it must be a lyric

"i love it i love it every time every time"

Never had a google search find my journal, first hit, with something like this! Even above Wikis and Youtubevision. I am so amused.

Usually it is Smarties boxes, and little girl's dressers. And by typing this I have doomed myself. And poets of course. It makes me think I should just write the name of every poet EVAR and get my google rating up over a 3. Not that I would of course, but still.

This amuses me greatly. Enough even to use the zombie tag, something I save for special occasions.

Have a great evening!

Wings again

This is an awesome post.

You know why, fun. Wings and fantastical creatures, and ideas, are fun. Truths are revealed yes, but still fun! Stretching is fun too. Go for it!

Play and have fun this evening! Maybe a zombie or godling will lay an egg in your glove compartment. Or maybe something we do not yet know. Which would be fun too!!

Baseball bat crack to the head

When you go out and get the mail, you don't expect to feel your life has changed somehow. Or more accurately, who the hell is Patrizia Valduga, and why have I never heard of her before?

By now you know: I need the words.
You'll learn to give me what I seek.
It's my sick mind, it feeds on words.
I'm begging you, for God's sake: speak!

Crack.

From this month's Poetry. Page 232. Don't waste time, just turn to that page, and read the selections From "One Hundred Quatrains". Damn. Part of this issue, Italian poets selected, translated by assorted people. Off to google. Crack. Both literally smoking, and smacked to the head.

How it is to write a poem.

Prompted by this and Rob’s suggestion at PFFA and here, I promptly (heh) began thinking about this. How does it feel?

Well it starts with a prompt. Not unlike this post. The prompt can be absolutely any thing: learning that Fibonacci numbers can be used syllabically (just last night in fact), a juxtaposition of a natural or unnatural object, a smile, disaster. I really like the juxtapositioning because they allow so much. Metaphor sneaks in through this door. Metaphor is the sneaky one who tags along if you are lucky. Absolutely anything can prompt. But this is not the poem. It might want to be a poem, but it is not. This is confident, and rising, and sure that it should be. That confidence isn’t a poem either. But the prompt is the fire behind the poem. It is what you hope your poem will be, or at least strive toward at some point in its future. This is an important step, because otherwise you get pedantic wishywashiness. You get the crumpled pages or the overuse (or proper use) of the delete button.

After this plop of whatever the fire/flow/dare I say inspiration is, the feelings range from a sickly like vomiting, to a path as smooth as silk. Mostly this feeling is the feeling of the prompt. Good prompts that are happy joyful, feel that. Others, that hurt, but still demand to be, well they are harder.

The showcase of words is the layer through which this prompt speaks. The bigger your personal internal dictionary, the better the choices. This begins the terror though. At this point it is picking the flowers, or stitching the quilt is the hard part, or dumping handfuls of sand. The design of the thing. The prompt sometimes offers suggestions about this bit, but not always. As the galley master, you get to order them around. But sometimes they don’t listen. So in that the work is hard. I find listening to the words works well. That and rhymezone.com because my memory is not what it used to be.

At some point, there may be more sparks from the prompt that help me. The “Yes!!” moments that really make me feel it is working. Or there may be silence. It is an extremely interactive process between the prompt, and me and the words and the ideas. I do feel like it is sharing. This is when it works well, feeding off of the prompt.

Or it can hurt. It can be frustrating, like a two year old that shouts no for no discernible reason. This frustration often leads to the tossing aside of the poem. A timeout if you will, to continue the toddler metaphor.

The time away from the poem allows us both to breathe.

When I come back to the poem, I am gathered, so I can see where the fire may not have been more than wishful thinking. Or it can show me that the fire really was burning strong for a good reason. At some point here, it might be a poem. This is where it decides to be. And then, when I have the energy, and the wherewithal, I can work some more and it becomes a poem. The latter parts are work. Nothing short of that. It is the hard part, but ultimately the most fulfilling part. The energy of the prompt still needs to be there, it has to still be contained in the poem. I think if the energy is gone, the poem should be scrapped. The poem has to speak the energy or else it isn’t. When it can do this, the poem makes me feel somewhat successful. If the energy is gone, then I think of it as a learning opportunity that I was offered, and took.

There is no losing in this usually. That is the lucky part. I am lucky to feel this, and occasionally be able to do this. In the end is gratitude for having had the experience. Or annoyance that I could not have done better.

Now letting the toddler out of the house is a whole other sensation. I am still learning about that one.

More love

Alive Together by Lisel Mueller
On the Grasshopper and the Cricket by John Keats
Fire On The Hills by Robinson Jeffers
I Am Not I by Juan Ramon Jimenez (translated by Robert Bly)
Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy
The Swan by Rainer Maria Rilke (found this on a Dallas subway)
To his Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvel
Selecting A Reader by Ted Kooser
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (I have the pop up book edition. So cool)

There are always more.

ETA: Now we are getting to the oh yah, can't forget this one.

Snow by Louis Macneice...
The Road Not Taken - By Robert Frost
The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy (the whole thing)...

First go round. I love these every time.

http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/oscar_wilde/poems/11065The Ballad of Reading Gaol

With No Experience In Such Matters by Stephen Dunn
Welcome by Stephen Dunn
Mon Semblable by Stephen Dunn
Chamber Music IX by James Joyce
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London by Dylan Thomas
Edge by Silvia Plath
Handfuls by Karl Sandburg
We are Seven by William Wordsworth
Sonnet 17 by William Shakespeare
Ya I know, a small theme emerges. Mostly from bookmarks in groups. But a theme nevertheless.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot (Yes, I know The Waste Land is a better poem, but I think this one is more evocative and truthful. Viagra use in poetry, lilac indeed.) ::waves to one reader::
Belief & Technique For Modern Prose by Jack Kerouac (a poem that is hiding as a list)
Dishonest by Michael Redhill
Shapeshifter Poems by Lucille Clifton
Request to a Year by Judith Wright
A Postcard From The Volcano by Wallace Stevens
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
Hurrahing in Harvest by Gerard Manley Hopkins
God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens (I think of it as Mind of Winter)
A Sort Of A Song by William Carlos Williams
The Lost Children by Randall Jarrell

More later.

Any zombies here?

I haven't seen any today. What's dead should stay dead. /Supernatural quote. Heh.

If you don't watch Supernatural you should. Rivals Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Seriously. It does. Best characterization of brothers I have seen in or out of literature. /Supernatural pimping.

I will be gone for a few days, not due to zombies either. I believe that is all. Have a good weekend.

Vicky

ETA: This is amusing, and money will go to a worthwhile cause! He is a brave man facing those dinosaurs.

Day 17

Recent Questions

If the spirit of your boy can
be broken by a girl kicking
a soccer ball, just how strong
was his spirit before the game?

With arms spread, holding tight,
do pylons play skip with their wires
at night when we aren’t
looking?

Shouldn’t flags be flown
at half mast all of the time,
and at full mast for the special
somber reasons?

If the men write of their hard
won achievements and war,
and the women write of their children and wishing
true love, and the children write of future
fantasy, what does that leave for me?

If your poetry scares
me, does that mean I
frighten easily?

If your poetry doesn’t scare
me, does that mean
you haven’t done your job?

If my spirit, holding tight, flies
at half mast, writing future fantasy,
easily frightened, am I
doing my job?


Crack I say, crack!!!! Thanks for reading.
Vicky (you should have seen the other drafts, and yes there were other drafts. Scary!)

What was the name of that surfer dude vampire on Buffy?

So, every time for the past few days, that I have seen the title of this blog (last line of the finished, never finished now, sonnet I wrote a while ago) I think it should be changed to a Page of Whoa!!!... /Keanu Reeves imitation. That amuses me. Every time now that I post someone else's poem that I am particularly impressed blown away enraptured with, I will tag those page of whoa. Works for me.

Read about 20 pages of Cormac McCarthy's The Road tonight, so I added it to my Amazon cart. Once I pop a few more gifts into that, I will hit purchase and be off.

I may have to tag this tipsy post too. Just one glass. Sigh. Vampire wine rules. Good stuff.

Have a lovely evening.