poem of the week: "perhaps after death"
Sep. 8th, 2007 11:11 pmAnd is this what you are doing now, Madeleine?
poem of the week: evening
Apr. 22nd, 2007 11:20 pmIt's spring, really absolutely spring, and I am giddy with it. It's warm and fresh and exploding with living things and I can run about barefooted if I want (which I don't really, and swinging barefooted by the church wall gets me in irritatingly close contact with thorns) and spend hours sitting out on the roof out my bedroom window playing my guitar and reading and watching people and dogs wander by.
Spring and Rilke seem to go together somehow, maybe because they both have a feeling of wonder and joy and delicacy. So here is your weekly dose of poetry, which made me a bit breathless when I read it a moment ago.
On the Doctor Who front (yes, there is one), 'Daleks in Manhattan' is loads of fun, even if the American accents are groan-worthy, to say the least; and I discovered several days ago that the Meholicks, who I have known for five years and whose house I am currently living in have been Doctor Who fans for years and NEVER SAW FIT TO TELL ME ABOUT IT. (Mrs. M didn't know there was a new series, though. Poor dear! ;D) I have been extended an invitation to drop by sometime and watch their collection of Fourth Doctor episodes (!!!!!).
This is one of my favourite poems that I've rediscovered recently. I love its stream-of-consciousness style and the beautiful language the poet employs, and the joy and discovery he finds in discovering what he didn't know he loved. Lovely, lovely poem.
( i never knew i liked night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain )Also, happy birthday to the lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wanderlight! Here's to a good year for you! ♥
poem of the week: music i heard with you
Apr. 5th, 2007 07:52 pmSo, here we are, April (the cruellest month? but there's Doctor Who in it!), which means that I ought to stop being a lazy git and get up my poem of the week thingummy again and stick with it. With no further preface, I give you this simple, lovely, melancholy poem by Conrad Aiken, the first two lines of which Hugh Franklin used to propose to Madeleine L'Engle (aww!).
In other news, Doctor Who is still made of awesome, and our hospital's got a little shop.
In other news, Doctor Who is still made of awesome, and our hospital's got a little shop.
The main Other Thing is this: I am going to Maryland tomorrow. Er, today, rather, seeing as it is one in the morning. (I will sleep in the car.) Dad's got a preaching engagement at a church out there someplace, and the family's going along. He's one of five candidates, and we're not even sure we'll like the church yet, so don't go all-out. :) I think it is very encouraging to Dad to have something, at last, even if it turns out not to be something we'd go through with. He's been rather discouraged.
I am to be on my best behaviour and not to wear any clothing that might frighten people. (Drat!) This means no stripey stockings, no experimental eye-makeup, no skirt-over-trousers, and no colours that clash. My wardrobe specialises in these things frequently. Ah well. I have a fluffy blouse that, except for the buttons on the front, looks very eighteenth-century dandy, and a Tuesdayish patchworky skirt, and a blue and green vest. Only moderately odd, but I can twirl in the skirt. ^-^ Oh, and I will be back Sunday evening, so you lot won't even miss me.
Also--HAPPY BIRTHDAY
![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
midenianscholar!! (Tell your parents that I have been trying to send them an email and it won't go through and I am terribly sorry.) Your presents will be a bit late, as I am Going Away, but, er, mwahaha. All the best to you, darling! (Aldon and Siarl wanted to get you the Black Plague.) The cat keeps attempting to take up residence in the cupboard behind the canned foods, syrup, and peanut butter.
Anyway, about the poetry--we have this book which, for some reason, I have never perused, although when Mum brought it out this morning for our poetry reading the cover did look vaguely familiar. It is called Winter Poems, selected by Barbara Rogasky and illustrated (exquisitely!) by Trina Schart Hyman. I think it was put out as a children's book, but it really isn't--not that children can't enjoy it, but it's not...childish, you know. Also, it's got Wallace Stevens and Edna St. Vincent Millay and Carl Sandburg in it. Squee!! I ran across the following peom today and was absolutely entranced by its simplicity and sweetness.
I shall see you lot Sunday.
I'm reading this book by Edward Hirsch called How to Read a Poem (And Fall in Love with Poetry), and I hereby insist that any of you with any ability to do so go out and find it immediately. (avonleigh especially: there's a chapter on 'Poetry and History: Polish Poetry after the End of the World'.) It's not just the way Hirsch examines poetry and what makes it important, what makes it able to reach us deep down someplace; it's not just his careful, elegant prose; it's not just the way he examines different poems, pointing out their motivations and meanings and end results and histories: it's the poems themselves, the ones he chooses to examine. I read several that reduced me to utter stillness afterwards, so powerfully they moved me. The following is one of them--it feels like a chant, an invocation of sorts, and the imagery is stunning, the emotion wrenchingly raw.
And now, a request: I can't download anything until we get our computer back, but I do have high-speed--can you recommend to me a band or artist that I can listen to online? I've been listening to Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope streaming on her website for two days straight, and I rather need something new. That, and I simply love music recommendations in general.
poem of the week: debris of life and mind
Sep. 17th, 2006 12:37 amSo, I got this Wallace Stevens collection from the library. It is very pretty, hardcover, bound in night-blue, with one of those ribbon bookmarks that are very useful and attractive. I haven't been reading much, because I was frantically reading my more plot-oriented library books, and poetry is something I read in a rather different way from other things. Oh, I've found some real lovelies--but at the moment, this one is my favourite. Especially because my mind cried 'Remus!!' very loudly once I'd finished. (And, yes, of course, it will insist on being fic eventually. I mean, look, the title is perfect.)
In other news, I miss iTunes a bloody lot. I want to burn myself autumny mix albums.
In other news, I miss iTunes a bloody lot. I want to burn myself autumny mix albums.
poem of the week: in-just
Aug. 15th, 2006 11:14 pmEr, yes, so it's been a really, really long time since I last did this, and in all fairness, I should have, say, fifteen poems in one post. Except that no-one would read them all, because most of them would be long and very geekish and oblique and most likely half of them would be Eliot and Millay and William Carlos Williams, because. (I just fell wildly in love with Eliot's 'East Coker'. Egad. I must share that one, eventually, or at least the one section that absolutely spoke to me. Also, I read it about six times at midenianscholar's when for whatever reason no-body had anything to be doing so I sat on the couch and read her grandmother's first-edition Four Quartets.)
Oh, and I read this lovely interpretation of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' in the answer key to Sound & Sense, the poetry course I shall be studying come September. (YES. I HAVE A POETRY COURSE. *wibble*) It is so magnificently Remusy that I feel obligated to type it up (it's not too long) and share the geekish psychoanalitic love. I also feel the profound need to write a fic entitled 'The Love Song of Remus J. Lupin', but I haven't any idea what the actual plot might entail. (Never mind. My fics never have any plot. They are just rambling and run-ons and lots of jawbreaker words and semi-colons and hyphens. This does not exactly constitute a plot.)
Anyway. Poetry. I found this one in an illustrated children's poetry book we have, and was immediately and completely enraptured.
Why is it that e.e. cummings is so exquisitely good at capturing some fleeting sense of incredible joy?
midenianscholar's when for whatever reason no-body had anything to be doing so I sat on the couch and read her grandmother's first-edition Four Quartets.)Oh, and I read this lovely interpretation of 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' in the answer key to Sound & Sense, the poetry course I shall be studying come September. (YES. I HAVE A POETRY COURSE. *wibble*) It is so magnificently Remusy that I feel obligated to type it up (it's not too long) and share the geekish psychoanalitic love. I also feel the profound need to write a fic entitled 'The Love Song of Remus J. Lupin', but I haven't any idea what the actual plot might entail. (Never mind. My fics never have any plot. They are just rambling and run-ons and lots of jawbreaker words and semi-colons and hyphens. This does not exactly constitute a plot.)
Anyway. Poetry. I found this one in an illustrated children's poetry book we have, and was immediately and completely enraptured.
Why is it that e.e. cummings is so exquisitely good at capturing some fleeting sense of incredible joy?
So, I sang today. With my mother, n front of my entire church: or at least a third of it, as we are large enough to have three services. (But no, we are not a mega-church, thank God. Mega-churches worry me with their lack of intimacy. Time to do some planting, you lot! Come on!) I was nearly shaking afterwards, but it was an amazing experience, and I shall recount it to you lot later, as it is rather long, and there are two services left to be sung at. However, I must mention The Best Compliment Ever: Ben Palumbo, a bloke who works with the youth a lot, said that my voice put him in mind of Joan Baez. ♥! (Joan Baez sung with Dylan rather a lot, and she's a lovely folk singer in her own right, although I doubt, though I haven't investigated overmuch, that our politics match up much at all.)
And now, the poetry.
Also,
ressie_noldo, I started the Dylan fic. I'm not entirely sure where it's going, and there's a bit of it I heartily dislike, but there is some of it written, which means that more will be forthcoming. *would do the happy writer dance if she weren't so sleepy*
And now, the poetry.
Also,
ressie_noldo, I started the Dylan fic. I'm not entirely sure where it's going, and there's a bit of it I heartily dislike, but there is some of it written, which means that more will be forthcoming. *would do the happy writer dance if she weren't so sleepy*poem of the week: sea without poets
Apr. 23rd, 2006 08:00 pmSo, today we went to the thrift shop, and I am in possession of a very Sherri Dupree-like vest (black, with white pinstripes; deliciously vintage), a soft white sweater (it's more of a spring / late summer sweater than a winter one), a weird purple and green patchy blouse that I can completely see Tuesday wearing, and--most exciting of all--a pair of gloves. Real gloves, I mean: not those excessively boring things one wears out into the cold. I have been looking for a pair for quite a while!
Also, Candlelight with pictures is up at _plentyofpaper, although some of the formatting went wonky on me. Nasty, despicable, vengeful formatting. Picture-fic is addicting. Because The Wise and the Lovely is my Major Project That Goes On Forever Even When It Shouldn't (drat you, uncharacteristically sentimental Remus!), I am hunting for pictures to accompany it as a sort of More Pleasant Than Rowing With Remus All Day sort of thing. (I think he's still mad at me for the birthday angst-fic. Fine. I'll write fluff next year, provided that by then I have learned to write fluff that does not suddenly turn into angst midway through. Bloody werewolves.)
Er, yes, you're all here for the poetry, aren't you? It's short this week, but it's a favourite of mine, and I sincerely doubt any of you will have ever heard of it before. (If you have, you are probably geekier than me and should be elevated to some sort of geeky pinnacle, or...something.)
I find this poem to be deeply poignant in its brevity. When I had a cycle of depression last year, it really spoke to me of the powerlessness of being without words to speak what you mean, or to exorcise emotion, and also of the disturbinfeeling that one is, as Matt Slocum said, "in love with their problems". The last two lines are some of the most meaningful I've ever read.
So. I just had this bizarre thing spring vaguely into my head: some sort of fantasy farce involving a somewhat foppish vegetarian werewolf.
Don't ask. I honestly don't know. And time will tell if he has a long coat and a weskit and a pocket watch or not. (Must--not--fangirl--pocket watches--!)
In almost-related news, Miss Tuesday Aiken has informed me that her birthday is thirteen April. (That's in five days. What a time to tell!) Also, I have lost all ability to Write Coherently. I have about a billion fragments of fics, some jotted on paper, some taking up hard drive, and some Not In Any Tangible Medium At All, which is sort of stupid, I suppose. There are also severaltuesday_skyline fragments. Apparently I either don't actually have that Deep Communion with my characters that I fancied I had, or I've offended them (again), and they're refusing to have anything to do with me. The latter is extremely likely. My characters are a monstrously fussy lot.
Have been reading Little Women again, for the first time in...months? Maybe even a year, as dreadful as it sounds. Originally began out of fangirlishness towards Professor Bhaer, though it takes quite a while to get to his bit. Now that I am actually the age that Jo is at the beginning of the book, I'm finding myself astonishingly more and more like her (even if Jo is the one nickname of mine that NO ONE EVER USES *bawls*). The frenzied writer thing is more than obvious (I need a writing cap, though!), the nasty temper, the blunt manner of speech, the feminine-tomboy personality--it's almost frightning, actually. ^-^ Also, found two-week-old chocolate from my little sister's birthday party, which was a spiffing addition to the Saturday festivities. Or lack thereof.
(Should be writing, should be writing, should be bloody writing! --New mantra. Hopeless, aren't I?)
Speaking of writing: my old, seldom-used poetry journal_plentyofpaper is going to start doing things again. I promise. I'm just branching out a bit. (I mean, look at my profile! It's so much more interesting!) As I don't seem to write poetry very often, mainly due to Lack Of Own Computer, I am showcasing the varied, um...thingummies of my artistic...um...self? Blimey, that was a floundering mess of a sentence. Anyway. Go look. There isn't much, but I changed all my icons and everything!
As it is now Saturday, it is time for The Poem of the Week. This is one of my absolute favourite poems in existence. The very last verse is absolutely stunning. Most of you have probably read it, but re-reading it will be good for you, and who wouldn't want to re-read it, anyway (says she of the very tatted thrift-store paperback Eliot collection)? If you haven't read it, shame on you. Also, it reminds me incredibly of Remus in ways I can't explain. (I have taken the liberty of alluding the the fact that Eliot is Remus' favourite poet in at least two fics, however. ^-^ Eliot in general seems very Remusy to me.)
EDIT: OMG. I MADE IT WORK. I FIGURED IT OUT. I MADE THE RICH TEXT CUT WORK. (And there was much rejoicing.)
Don't ask. I honestly don't know. And time will tell if he has a long coat and a weskit and a pocket watch or not. (Must--not--fangirl--pocket watches--!)
In almost-related news, Miss Tuesday Aiken has informed me that her birthday is thirteen April. (That's in five days. What a time to tell!) Also, I have lost all ability to Write Coherently. I have about a billion fragments of fics, some jotted on paper, some taking up hard drive, and some Not In Any Tangible Medium At All, which is sort of stupid, I suppose. There are also several
tuesday_skyline fragments. Apparently I either don't actually have that Deep Communion with my characters that I fancied I had, or I've offended them (again), and they're refusing to have anything to do with me. The latter is extremely likely. My characters are a monstrously fussy lot. Have been reading Little Women again, for the first time in...months? Maybe even a year, as dreadful as it sounds. Originally began out of fangirlishness towards Professor Bhaer, though it takes quite a while to get to his bit. Now that I am actually the age that Jo is at the beginning of the book, I'm finding myself astonishingly more and more like her (even if Jo is the one nickname of mine that NO ONE EVER USES *bawls*). The frenzied writer thing is more than obvious (I need a writing cap, though!), the nasty temper, the blunt manner of speech, the feminine-tomboy personality--it's almost frightning, actually. ^-^ Also, found two-week-old chocolate from my little sister's birthday party, which was a spiffing addition to the Saturday festivities. Or lack thereof.
(Should be writing, should be writing, should be bloody writing! --New mantra. Hopeless, aren't I?)
Speaking of writing: my old, seldom-used poetry journal
_plentyofpaper is going to start doing things again. I promise. I'm just branching out a bit. (I mean, look at my profile! It's so much more interesting!) As I don't seem to write poetry very often, mainly due to Lack Of Own Computer, I am showcasing the varied, um...thingummies of my artistic...um...self? Blimey, that was a floundering mess of a sentence. Anyway. Go look. There isn't much, but I changed all my icons and everything! As it is now Saturday, it is time for The Poem of the Week. This is one of my absolute favourite poems in existence. The very last verse is absolutely stunning. Most of you have probably read it, but re-reading it will be good for you, and who wouldn't want to re-read it, anyway (says she of the very tatted thrift-store paperback Eliot collection)? If you haven't read it, shame on you. Also, it reminds me incredibly of Remus in ways I can't explain. (I have taken the liberty of alluding the the fact that Eliot is Remus' favourite poet in at least two fics, however. ^-^ Eliot in general seems very Remusy to me.)
EDIT: OMG. I MADE IT WORK. I FIGURED IT OUT. I MADE THE RICH TEXT CUT WORK. (And there was much rejoicing.)
poem of the week: lethe
Mar. 29th, 2006 04:34 pmI am a bad person. I was obessing over finding a new poem all last week, and when the time came it completely slipped my mind. I went to the library yesterday and got meself several books of poetry, including an Edna St. Vincent Millay Collected Poems. It's a really old, worn book, bound with blue-grey cloth, and just looking at it makes me feel romantic. ^-^
(In other, almost-related news, I dissected a perch by the name of Fabio yesterday. His brains looked like corn. At least I wasn't the one who pulled them out through the fish's eye socket. Although I was scraping through his skull with a scalpel trying to get at said brains, so I suppose I can't be counted much less morbid. I also ripped his head off. That was an accidently. Mostly.)
( only the sorry cost of the lovely thing )
(In other, almost-related news, I dissected a perch by the name of Fabio yesterday. His brains looked like corn. At least I wasn't the one who pulled them out through the fish's eye socket. Although I was scraping through his skull with a scalpel trying to get at said brains, so I suppose I can't be counted much less morbid. I also ripped his head off. That was an accidently. Mostly.)
( only the sorry cost of the lovely thing )
poem of the week: god's grandeur
Mar. 18th, 2006 10:39 pmI have been reading quite a lot of poetry lately--well, this week especially I've been pouring over my Americans' Favourite Poems and my battered thrift store T.S. Eliot paperback, looking for meaning and plotbunnies and other shiny things. Certain of you seem to be rather poem-hungry. I am always eager to share poetry, so here we go. Every Saturday (or Friday, or Sunday, if I can't make it on Saturday), I am going to put a poem up for you lot, because poetry is shiny and spiffing and ought to be appreciated. Um. Yes. Done now. Poetry!
( and all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil )
Read this one aloud. It simply begs for it. Pastor Peter read this aloud a long time ago during a presentation for a message on worship, and it moved me so deeply that I wrote the name of the poet down and vowed to look him up, which of course I never did. I rediscovered the poem in my favourite poetry book, Americans' Favourite Poems (well, it was my only poetry book for a while, until Mum's friend Amy sent me the dictionary-sized World Poetry, which is also spiffing but has not yet been read quite so many times, so I am not quite intimate with it yet). I'm astonished that Hopkins wrote this in the nineteenth century and yet it still flames with emotion, with beauty. It is one of the first things that has ever given me a sense of worship as something insanely beautiful and joyful and euphoric. Take note of the elegant alliteration: it reminds me of Anglo-Saxon poetry, like that of Beowulf, although not quite so rigidly structred.
God's Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
( and all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil )
Read this one aloud. It simply begs for it. Pastor Peter read this aloud a long time ago during a presentation for a message on worship, and it moved me so deeply that I wrote the name of the poet down and vowed to look him up, which of course I never did. I rediscovered the poem in my favourite poetry book, Americans' Favourite Poems (well, it was my only poetry book for a while, until Mum's friend Amy sent me the dictionary-sized World Poetry, which is also spiffing but has not yet been read quite so many times, so I am not quite intimate with it yet). I'm astonished that Hopkins wrote this in the nineteenth century and yet it still flames with emotion, with beauty. It is one of the first things that has ever given me a sense of worship as something insanely beautiful and joyful and euphoric. Take note of the elegant alliteration: it reminds me of Anglo-Saxon poetry, like that of Beowulf, although not quite so rigidly structred.
God's Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
