Nevertheless, she persisted.
Oh, Friday, Glorious Friday
If I may
I’d like to say,
Come sooner next time, m’kay?
Thus ends Poetry Friday. UR welcome.
On Saturday, I’m taking my son to Chocolatier Blue where I went last Sunday and came home with goodies for him that had him floored with their delciousiocity. I told him to bring his own money.
In other news, The Next Paranormal continues to go well. I should get back to it shortly.
Also, I have decided to be funnier, only I can’t think of anything. Sorry.
Maybe next time?
Ah, yes. My birthday is approaching — April 30th! And I have Friday off. Grin. It’s good for you guys too. Details about how you can win stuff are in this very post!
I have gifts and ARCs for you. Today’s gift is in honor of National Poetry month, literary and visual.
A House (by Pablo Neruda)
Someone touches a stone and the stone
explodes and the pieces
come back together again:
it is the work
of young gods expelled
from the solitary garden.
It is the work of
breaking, restoring again,
smashing, gluing together, conquering
until that rock
yielded to the hands of Aguilera
the eyes of Antonio and Recaredo,
the head of don AlejandroThat is how the houses on the coast are made.
And later the footsteps come and go.
That’s just one of the many wonderful poems in this book. Neruda is one of my favorite poets.
So, how do get the chance to win? So glad you asked!
Leave a comment about, uh, what superhero you would be and why. Perhaps even Reform School Girl. You can make up your own or use an existing one. If you don’t include a way to contact you — via a blogger or other id that leads me to an email address, then you’ll need to check back here around May 1st to see if you won. K? (SonomaLass, you can email me to enter- I know you were having trouble with the blog.)
I’ll pick today’s winner probably the day after my birthday or so. And I’ll send an ARC of My Forbidden Desire to some of you, too. How many? It depends. I have four days, a box of ARCS. We’ll see, eh?
P.S. My Forbidden Desire got 4.5 stars and a top pick from Romantic Times! (yay!!!!) I’ll post that review sometime soon.
P.P.S. It’s not to late to enter for a chance to win a pound of Belgian chocolate. See previous blog post.
At the end of this post, I have some questions for you but first, it’s National Poetry Month, so here is a poem by yours truly:
Chocolate, A Dirge To Perfection
Just now I finished my hot chocolate
Sadness
Sorrow
Sob
Oh hot chocolate,
My mind is lonely
Without you
And yet the inside of
my belly
Seems quite content.
Such power you have
Over my matter and mind.
And now, just so you appreciate the difference between good and bad, chocolate and no chocolate, here is a poem by a real poet:
At Eleusis, by H.D.
What the did,
they did for Dionysos,
for ecstasy’s sake:now take the basket,
think;
think of the moment you count
most foul in your life;
conjure it.
supplicate,
pray to it;
your face is bleak, you retract,
you dare not remember it:stop;
it is too late.
The next stands by the altar step,
a child’s face yet not innocent,
it will prove adequate, but you,
I could have spelt your peril at the gate,
yet for your mind’s sake,
though you could not enter,
wait.What they did.
they did for Dionysos,
for ecstasy’s sake:Now take the basket–
(ah face in a dream,
did I not know your heart,
I would falter,
for each that fares onward
is my child;
ah can you wonder
that my hands shake,
that my knees tremble,
I a mortal, set in the goddess’ place?)
Now for the questions:
My blog has been boring lately. What should I do for more fun and games here?
Maybe a poetry blog contest? Like, everyone write a poem on the subject of chocolate and somebody will win something?
Polls?
Quizzes?
What?
How about a picture of your pet contest? And if you don’t have a pet, make one up or lie or something.
Please help.
There. I said it.
Yes, I dislike Mondays. They’re so far away from Fridays and even farther away from Saturday mornings when I can be sleeping when it’s not pitch dark. And they’re too close to the memory of sleeping in on Sunday and then doing whatever I feel like, including staying in bed with the covers over my head pretending it’s still dark out.
Sometimes Monday is a payday, which makes for a better than usual Monday, but that was not today’s Monday. Nor is that next Monday. In fact, the next Monday-Payday isn’t until June 15th.
From time to time, Mondays are a holiday and then I am in charity with the day and I can say, Tuesday — Blech. (as a stand in for Monday. I think we’re all well aware that such a Tuesday is really Monday in disguise. A meta-Monday, if you will.) But a holiday Monday doesn’t come around all that often. The next one’s not until the end of May. Sigh.
Mondays — Blech
As a General Rule,
I dislike you Monday
You have goopy eyes
And bitter breath
Your hair is a tangle
And the pillow left
A crease down the right
Side of your face
Your nose is crooked
You stole 15 of my
Twenty winks.
I want them back.
But not at lunch or
In the Boring MONDAY
Meeting when people
Will notice I’m
asleep.My nose hits the table.
Ouch.
I’m awake now.
Mondays.
You are NOT my friend.
1. The poet Joyce Kilmer was an editor of New York Times Book Review (or maybe it was that whole Sunday supplement) anyway, he HATED prose poetry. People like Ezra Pound and H.D. and others got him all in a twist and he managed to fill pages will all sorts of invective against Free Verse. Not that I don’t kind of admire him and mourn his death in WWI. What a waste that was. I think we would have seen some really astounding things from him had he lived.
P.S. I am not procrastinating.
I’ve been working on the last chapter most of the day. It’s not done yet. At this point, I’m not even sure it’s the last chapter anymore. I may need to continue it to another chapter. It’s going well enough, I guess. I also worked on the requirements for the Master’s final project. Very tedious, let me tell you. But the title page is done, copyright page, authorization page, and abstract, which took longer than I wanted, plus the acknowledgment. That makes all the parts done.
My new resolution is to stop stressing over whether Magellan’s Witch is crossing some lines. I’m transgressing some genre rules and right now I just say too darn bad. There’s going to be a HEA** because without that I’m not transgressing, I’m writing something that’s not romance. This book is definitely romance, but some conventions I’ve just thrown out the window for now.
**Happily Ever After
Lastly, I’m listening to Paolo Nutini’s These Streets and I’m just loving this album. Every once in a while his Scottish accent comes out and it’s just awesomely sexy. Not to mention I’ve always had a fondness for being able to hear the voice and lyrics, too. The best part is the lyrics are quite nuanced so it’s not painful to hear them more than once. Makes me wonder what his music will be like when he’s actually got some maturity on him.
Here’s a just a portion of a longer song (mindful that this portion is acoustic guitar, minor key and sung slowly, also that these particular lyrics are, for some reason, not in the liner notes, so if they’re not accurate, that’s my fault.)
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of passing. . . . through
Oh, for once there was beauty
here for me
Under these wide Northern skies
I felt the green was blacker
And the blues darker still
My roots are lying deeper than I ever think they will
I know
Heartache and poesy under these Northern skies.
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of ….. you
For me, that pause after the third passing is chilling. The images are gorgeous, and the final replacement of passing makes these lyrics reach meaning far beyond the words. Not to mention the use of the word poesy. Now, it’s quite possible he’s saying poetry but I listened several times and that’s what I kept hearing.
In fact, consider this my latest sharing of poetry.
Back to work.
What’s National Poetry Month without some Shakespeare? Here’s Sonnet no. 146, which I had to memorize when I was in High School. I still know it and occasionally recite it to myself.
Sonnet 146
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Thrall to these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
In non-poetical news, I bought a new printer today. My HP LJ 4200 has, alas, been something of a disappointment. It no longer prints clean copies, even with brand new toner. A repair estimate is $600. Well, that doesn’t make economic sense since I’ve already put $300 into a previous repair. So, now I have an HP LJ 3005dn (who on earth makes up these names?) which prints 35 pages per minutes (oh, I will bow down at your feet if this proves true!) and can do two-sided printing, which would be pretty handy, I think. There’s a $150 rebate too, but we’ll see if it actually comes. It holds a ream of paper. So, smooth sailing ahead for printing out the MA project, and considering how many books I have to write in a pretty short period of time, I’m looking forward to happy printing.
In writing news, well, I should be writing. I’ve started on the last chapter and then I’ll go back to fixing the middle ones.
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.Ezra Pound
It’s still National Poetry Month. And yeah, the more I read about Ezra Pound the more I disliked him as a person. His personal politics were distasteful to say the least. But, boy, could he write poetry. I love this poem. But I like H.D. better just on principle.
In non-poetic news, today has been a wash. I had to meet with my prof and didn’t get home from that until 5:30. It was also my son’s open house, so we left for that at 6:30 after I made him get his own soup for dinner while I answered an email from a high school student who’s got some questions about writing and writers. Got home from the open house about 7:45. Get the kid to bed etc, and I’m only now sitting down to write. Or not. Because, of course, I’m doing this instead.
Tomorrow is Friday (yay!) and the beginning of my week off to finish the Master’s degree project.
Since it’s still National Poetry Month, here’s another favorite poem of mine. My Last Duchess by Robert Browning (1842). When I read this poem (for the Brit. Lit survey I took right before grad school) I immediately saw this poem as a nice compact lesson for fiction writers. My analysis of that below:
Ferrara
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady’s wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace — all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
–E’en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
OK, so what do you think? Did the Duke murder his first wife? And what’s going to happen to the next one? If you care about such things, Wikipedia has a pretty good article about the poem.
Browning never once mentions murder or evil intent, and yet the Duke is simply not a nice man. He chills your blood doesn’t he?
When you’re writing fiction, you need to do what Browning has done in this poem. Make the reader know someone is a murderer without actually telling. Well, yeah. If it were easy, we’d all be Robert Browning, right?
In honor of National Poetry Month (I think it is, anyway) Here’s one of my favorite poems, by H.D.
The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light–
frost, a star edges with its fire.
I’d never even heard of H.D. before grad school, and I’m glad I was introduced to her poetry. Her fiction, not so much, but her poetry, yes. She was a compatriot, lover, friend of Ezra Pound, who was responsible for giving her the intials H.D. (Her name was Hilda Dolittle.) Sea Violet is my favorite of hers, I think. I love the language and the image and the emotion of this poem.
