June 20, 2011

Summer Poetry Challenge: Week 4

Fragmentary Blue was lovely to memorize. Now, on to this week's poem. This is for my daughter, Chelsea, who just graduated from high school and will be starting life's next big adventure soon. She's a bit of a worrier, this one, and has every reason not to be. Relax, child. You're doing well.

LIVING
by Unknown

To touch the cup with eager lips and taste, not drain it;
To woo and tempt and court a bliss--and not attain it;
To fondle and caress a joy, yet hold it lightly,
Lest it become necessity and cling too tightly;
To watch the sun set in the west without regretting;
To hail its advent in the east--the night forgetting;
To smother care in happiness and grief in laughter;
To hold the present close--not questioning hereafter;
To have enough to share--to know the joy of giving;
To thrill with all the sweets of life--is living.


June 17, 2011

One Muppet to Rule Them All

*Sorry about the spacing glitches. I tried to make this cleaner, but Blogger is being stubborn.

Some of you know I love Twitter. I've met an amazing, funny, talented group of people there, most of them writers. So what better way to spend a cold, blustery June morning, than hanging with my favorite Tweeps?

It all started with this, a simple Tweet about an exchange between me and my husband:

 

Me: I need to amp up my fantasyNO I'M NOT ASKING YOUR ADVICE. Hubs: Trolls. Giant Eagles. A magic ring. Muppets. #thisiswhyIdontask

Funny, right? My husband is so supportive. I'm laughing on the inside.
But then this happened:


June 13, 2011

Summer Poetry Challenge: Week 3

I did it! I passed off INVICTUS, by William Earnest Henley (who, by the way, makes a great shirt), and there was much clapping and cheering. Then I made my family clap and cheer, too.

They said next time I need to memorize something with rainbows and butterflies and no blood. *sigh*

So, my next poem is one I remember analyzing in high school, but not memorizing. Though not a rainbow (sorry, kids), it reflects how I feel after our L-O-N-G Wyoming winters, with high blue skies above, but only browns beneath.

FRAGMENTARY BLUE
by Robert Frost

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.




Follow along with fellow Poetry Challenge participants over on Twitter using the hashtag #PoetrySummer

June 6, 2011

Summer Poetry Challenge: WHY NOT?

Last week Dan Wells issued a challenge on his blog. Honestly, I thought it sounded fun, but I'm really busy. I mean, really busy. Busier than you. Busier than Dan Wells, or Sarah M. Eden, or Robison Wells . . . I'm busier than everyone. 

NOT

So when Marion Jensen, another writer I am NOT busier than, tweeted that he was considering accepting the Summer Poetry Challenge, I nodded. Yes. I, too, would consider accepting this challenge. And then Dan told me it was the shiz, so . . .

Starting last week, and proceeding through the summer, we’re memorizing one poem a week. That’s up to 12 poems. Want to join us? Here are the rules: 

1. It must be a poem you don’t already have fully memorized, but it’s okay if you already have some of it memorized.
2. You must recite the entire poem, out loud, from memory, for at least one other person, on Sunday. That gives you slightly less than a full week for the first one, so pick something easy.
3. There are no length restrictions, but if all your poems are little quatrains or tiny nursery rhymes you’re cheating in spirit. Throw a few multi-stanza poems in there; you can do it.
4. No William Carlos Williams allowed. There will be zero tolerance on this point.
5. Everything is done completely on the honors system. If you say you did it, we believe you.

My first poem is a stirring declaration. Life has bowed me several times, and I've been afraid, but I'm thinking writing here. I want to write. And pretty much nothing is going to stop me. 

'Cept maybe the kids on summer break. "Mooooom!"

Invictus

by
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


"Ship At Sea Sunset" by Edward Moran
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...