tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-176769502024-03-14T15:07:55.805-04:00Poets Online - the blogPoets Onlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880224855001620610noreply@blogger.comBlogger810125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-63726257894838840912024-03-04T13:01:00.001-05:002024-03-04T13:01:00.129-05:00Prompt: The Fragrance of Memory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBTWVfBaUNv3-uJSXe7jooU10asPY1Td1pVQxG6RUs9CWEO4mo7YNowh-QHpKSMI5d_k8vMDadnhAvnaBbYzbuQYTmfbTS8TmOva8b9zzrGSzrWj_maDD9S77X-HclAWhhT2pVNSBfcO1RuSi0s7JB6wyjuzGfqCm6GcF3uBh961mrnv_MxsIoiw/s1024/poker%20chips%204.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBTWVfBaUNv3-uJSXe7jooU10asPY1Td1pVQxG6RUs9CWEO4mo7YNowh-QHpKSMI5d_k8vMDadnhAvnaBbYzbuQYTmfbTS8TmOva8b9zzrGSzrWj_maDD9S77X-HclAWhhT2pVNSBfcO1RuSi0s7JB6wyjuzGfqCm6GcF3uBh961mrnv_MxsIoiw/w400-h400/poker%20chips%204.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p>Kenneth Rexroth's poem, "<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42804/prousts-madeleine" target="_blank">Proust’s Madeleine</a>" (from his collection <em>The Collected Shorter Poems)</em> alludes to novelist Marcel Proust, the author of the multi-volume novel <i>À la recherche du temps perdu,</i> translated as <em>In Search of Lost Time</em> (and also previously as<em> Remembrance of Things Past</em>).</p><p>The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poetryfoundation.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc993b88231f5f84146565840e%26id%3Dee3dd85b26%26e%3D92b38887ab&source=gmail&ust=1709604123512000&usg=AOvVaw0bHnXKe_YSeglrvftw-ksY" href="https://www.claudiamerrill.com/blog/madeleine-effect" target="_blank">"Madeleine Effect"</a> is the sparking of a memory from a related object. For Proust, it was a madeleine cookie and cup of tea, and for Rexroth, poker chips. Though Rexroth's memory of his father comes from an object rather than a fragrance, he includes "His breath smelling richly / Of whiskey and cigars."<br />
<br />
I believe that many memories have an attachment to a fragrance, pleasant or not. There is a clear but mysterious connection between fragrance and memory. I don't want to get stuck in the science of it (limbic system, amygdala, and hippocampus) but <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/why-do-we-associate-memories-so-strongly-with-specific-smells-5203963#:~:text=Scientists%20believe%20that%20smell%20and,very%20vivid%20when%20it%20happens">research has shown</a> that memories associated with smells are more likely to be remembered. Why? Because they are more emotionally evocative and vivid autobiographical memories tend to be the result of emotional events. </p><p>We gathered submissions back in 2005 about memories triggered by objects, but for this call for submissions, we ask for poems about memories triggered by fragrances. I use the more poetic word "fragrance" which suggests something pleasant, but your memory might be better described as an odor or smell.</p><p>Click the link if you want to learn a bit more <a href="https://poetsonline.blogspot.com/2024/03/madeleine-oh-madeleine.html" target="_blank">about that Proust cookie connection and read the relevant passage</a>.</p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The deadline for submissions for the next issue is March 31, 2024</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Please refer to our </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/ronkowit/Dropbox/poetsonline.org/submit.html" style="background-color: white; color: #bf0000; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">submission guidelines</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> and look at our<br /> </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/ronkowit/Dropbox/poetsonline.org/archive/index.html" style="background-color: white; color: #bf0000; font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" title="archive">archive of 25 years of prompts and poems</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">.</span></div></span><p></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-29342621319532039472024-03-03T21:57:00.001-05:002024-03-04T09:57:34.170-05:00Madeleine, Oh Madeleine<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Madeleines are little cakelike cookies that are <a href="https://amzn.to/49AIcD3" target="_blank">baked in special molds</a> that give them a delicate shell shape. According to one story the name "Madeleine" was given to the cookies by Louis XV to honor his father in-law's cook Madeleine Paulmier. Louis first tasted them at the Chateau Commercy in Lorraine in 1755. Louis' wife, Marie introduced them to the court and they soon became all the rage at Versailles. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDZ-ijNUgRxgcC64vMys82SQtTcMYrxUWNCY1y40InykrdPf-LoJC8A_y41OkDme1ufJZahFKK4-36gXYKqoxZXslSRgNKy8Oigyh-1Rdxrdm4BAoM8dg07vVBVfQF6RgZrczARFjV399OK9PfaKzJzGDRa10AiPOGQlnquiH_6p-zwb-Nir8kQ/s1024/proust%20tea%20madeleine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDZ-ijNUgRxgcC64vMys82SQtTcMYrxUWNCY1y40InykrdPf-LoJC8A_y41OkDme1ufJZahFKK4-36gXYKqoxZXslSRgNKy8Oigyh-1Rdxrdm4BAoM8dg07vVBVfQF6RgZrczARFjV399OK9PfaKzJzGDRa10AiPOGQlnquiH_6p-zwb-Nir8kQ/w400-h400/proust%20tea%20madeleine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Whatever the true origin, they have become inextricably linked with the author <a href="https://amzn.to/3P7Lx4B" target="_blank">Marcel Proust</a> because of his use of them as a memory device in his <i>In Search of Lost Time</i> (À la recherche du temps perdu) published in seven volumes and previously translated as <i>Remembrance of Things Past</i> (1913–1927)</span><i style="font-family: verdana;">.</i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here is an excerpt from Volume 1 </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Swann's Way </i>s</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">o that you can see the context of the allusion.</span></p><p></p><blockquote>Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?<br /><br />And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was... and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-60101714122201649442024-02-26T11:00:00.012-05:002024-02-26T11:00:00.137-05:00U.S. Poet Laureate Projects<p>Since the Poet Laureateship was created by an act of Congress in 1985, nearly half of the laureates have taken on a signature project to raise the national appreciation of poetry.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> The best of them have a life beyond their tenure and some of them have an online presence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">A good example is the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/american-life-in-poetry/" rel="" style="color: #0076ad; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">American Life in Poetry</a> project by <span style="background-color: white; color: #242424;">Ted Kooser from 2004-2022 to create a space and a presence for poetry in American culture. American Life in Poetry provided newspapers and online periodicals with a free weekly column by Kooser that featured a poem from a contemporary American poet. The poems and columns remain archived online.</span></span></p><p><span class="item-description-title" style="color: #242424; display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.75rem;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/favorite-poem-project/" rel="" style="color: #002347; outline: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Favorite Poem Project</span></a> by <span style="font-family: inherit;">Robert Pinsky was the first digital one I experienced. It is a way to celebrate, document, and encourage a public appreciation of poetry as well as acknowledge the role of poetry in the everyday lives of Americans. The project called for Americans to share their favorite poems with the nation.</span></span><span class="item-description-title" style="color: #242424; display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.75rem;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/poetry-and-literature/images/banner-poetry-180.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="800" height="128" src="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/poetry-and-literature/images/banner-poetry-180.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white;">Billy Collins' </span><a href="https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/" rel="" style="color: #0076ad; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry 180</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"> was one I used in my classroom. It was his </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">effort to make poetry an active part in the daily experience of American high school students, giving students a chance to read or listen to a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year. <a href="https://amzn.to/42UlbbP" target="_blank">Two anthologies</a> came from the project.</span><p></p><p><span class="item-description-abstract" style="background-color: white; color: #242424; display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><span class="item-description-title" style="display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.75rem;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/american-conversations-celebrating-poems-in-rural-communities/" rel="" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0076ad; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities</span></a> was the <span style="font-family: inherit;">2018 project of Tracy K. Smith who visited rural communities around the country and gave away copies of her anthology, <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3uDiQFJ" target="_blank">American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time</a></i>, to spark conversations about the power of poetry.</span></span><span class="item-description-abstract" style="display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><span class="item-description-abstract" style="display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/living-nations-living-words/" rel="" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0076ad; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Living Nations, Living Words</span></a> was c<span style="font-family: inherit;">reated in 2020 by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. It gathered a sampling of work by 47 contemporary Native poets from across the nation and features an interactive Story Map and a newly developed audio collection.</span></span><span class="item-description-abstract" style="display: block; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/poetry-and-literature/images/banner-living-nations-living-words.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="800" height="184" src="https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/poetry-and-literature/images/banner-living-nations-living-words.jpg" width="545" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, visit <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-620219098634632332024-02-16T15:51:00.001-05:002024-02-16T16:01:17.195-05:00Writing a Poem Is Like...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JsP5AO6LES6R5B1p2Q5_AtWpMzLNcYOtyrab3fB6gZSXXu64WRgVCtBtt7C0tNgjnt3u8K_nMXwLlGn4UldhYCixa9X-Ljh_YzFdX_rvp3F1onT5spw2xnYZdG6FnCuz8PdN6-OKoHiM1bZUJux8_m-c8bkBs6XTLkwPY6D224HHS3SoTDdu2g/s1024/typewriter%20tech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JsP5AO6LES6R5B1p2Q5_AtWpMzLNcYOtyrab3fB6gZSXXu64WRgVCtBtt7C0tNgjnt3u8K_nMXwLlGn4UldhYCixa9X-Ljh_YzFdX_rvp3F1onT5spw2xnYZdG6FnCuz8PdN6-OKoHiM1bZUJux8_m-c8bkBs6XTLkwPY6D224HHS3SoTDdu2g/s320/typewriter%20tech.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Kurt Vonnegut had written:</p><p></p><blockquote><b>Writing a novel is like making a movie: All sorts of accidental things will happen after you’ve set up the cameras. So you get lucky. Something will happen at the edge of the set and perhaps you go with that. You come into it accidentally. You set the story in motion, and as you're watching this thing begin, all these opportunities will show up. So, in order to exploit one thing or another, you may have to do research. You may have to find out more about Chinese immigrants, or you may have to find out about Halley’s Comet, or whatever, where you didn't realize that you were going to have Chinese or Halley’s Comet in the story. So you do research on that, and it implies more, and the deeper you get into the story, the more it implies, the more suggestions it makes on the plot. Toward the end, the ending becomes inevitable.</b></blockquote><p>If we can agree that it is true that writing a novel is like making a movie, does it also apply to writing a poem?</p><p>Accidental things happen while writing. Sometimes there is research. </p><p>Your thoughts?</p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-35600931079386751142024-02-13T16:00:00.003-05:002024-02-13T16:00:00.127-05:00Love Poems for Valentine's Day<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFSf4q18g3ao9WJlpDYXIvKozJ4yxJp3cbsQG2AAFqGbRozKwUMOjFrcWaxYTpeAb5Yrv00TCXuG0vt4-SgDUIAbfZNUgOX5R9OocZ8dUpHJTs6NoS37o12Q4xkhdvozYHR76VQ/s1600/val.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFSf4q18g3ao9WJlpDYXIvKozJ4yxJp3cbsQG2AAFqGbRozKwUMOjFrcWaxYTpeAb5Yrv00TCXuG0vt4-SgDUIAbfZNUgOX5R9OocZ8dUpHJTs6NoS37o12Q4xkhdvozYHR76VQ/w400-h260/val.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Did you forget to get your love a gift for tomorrow?<div><br /></div><div>Need some poetic lines (or inspiration) for Valentine's Day? Try <a href="http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/love-poems" target="_blank">some classic and contemporary love poems</a> ranging from "<a href="http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/how-do-i-love-thee-sonnet-43" target="_blank">How Do I Love Thee?</a>" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning<br />
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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.<br />
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height<br />
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight<br />
For the ends of being and ideal grace...</blockquote>to "<a href="http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/how-love" target="_blank">How to Love</a>" by January Gill O’Neil<br />
<br /><blockquote>
After stepping into the world again,<br />
there is that question of how to love, <br />
how to bundle yourself against the frosted morning—<br />
the crunch of icy grass underfoot, the scrape <br />
of cold wipers along the windshield—<br />
and convert time into distance...</blockquote><br />
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-38873901660671183792024-02-04T14:14:00.001-05:002024-02-04T14:14:46.593-05:00Prompt: what you didn't know<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjajDFixLJ34KgUY_bWfo-l56FXkTWmCGHXJDAPcwg5vh5wN-qc-Sx2g_r3ufDKpvjxgDHrtnRpp64Xn1gskbbkPjEF_FtqHslioa1T2fltKjckEaqg8XNIyChH5rThIoFeQgIiBovoQ8WaznI-VHp_du0zpQeJ7muoryFJb9onUek2FNkqT0pz_Q/s1024/what%20youdidnt%20know.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjajDFixLJ34KgUY_bWfo-l56FXkTWmCGHXJDAPcwg5vh5wN-qc-Sx2g_r3ufDKpvjxgDHrtnRpp64Xn1gskbbkPjEF_FtqHslioa1T2fltKjckEaqg8XNIyChH5rThIoFeQgIiBovoQ8WaznI-VHp_du0zpQeJ7muoryFJb9onUek2FNkqT0pz_Q/w400-h400/what%20youdidnt%20know.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">After I reread Jon Loomis's poem "At the Lake House" (from </span><em style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3SLCGGT" style="color: #bf0000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Mansion of Happiness</a>)</em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">, I thought I knew his name and a little searching turned up his poem, "</span><a href="https://poets.org/poem/deer-hit" style="color: #bf0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Deer Hit</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">" which I had read much earlier. That poem is about being 17 years old, driving drunk, and hitting a deer. I used it in a classroom lesson. I first read his poem "</span><a href="https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=11057" style="color: #bf0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">At the Lake House</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">" on </span><em style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">The Writers Almanac</em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> and had bookmarked it for a future prompt.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">On first reading, I considered it a poem about betrayal, but when I read it a few more times it began to be a poem about what you don't know about people you think you know well. That is our prompt this month.</span><br /></p><p></p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">What have you discovered about someone close to you - parent, spouse, sibling, colleague, friend, neighbor - that you had not known? It might be a betrayal, a secret, something shameful, or something extraordinary. But more importantly, this revelation about <em>them</em> changed something in <em>you</em>.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQtyObog2jQYoPulmfv6d2mjvrPjh4CQjQQf6YAiQQdDKh98rLudC0rEnrQ3XqCEUMhU-7yNKoswKYgMfAt7cH8tf5ThGOIau0zjT6NObObpzgFZgQaoN29F6nt7lxLw9gPSmJph4iS0FSpl3WDt9hM7s1WVOyhROy3gtnF13AdlxtXXxdaAkNA/s450/loomis%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQtyObog2jQYoPulmfv6d2mjvrPjh4CQjQQf6YAiQQdDKh98rLudC0rEnrQ3XqCEUMhU-7yNKoswKYgMfAt7cH8tf5ThGOIau0zjT6NObObpzgFZgQaoN29F6nt7lxLw9gPSmJph4iS0FSpl3WDt9hM7s1WVOyhROy3gtnF13AdlxtXXxdaAkNA/w267-h400/loomis%20cover.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><p></p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://amzn.to/41zgDa8" style="background-color: white; color: #bf0000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Jon Loomis</strong></a><span style="background-color: white;"> was born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio. He holds a BA in creative writing from Ohio University, and a MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia. where he studied under the poet Charles Wright. He is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. </span><em style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://amzn.to/41yqpt0" style="color: #bf0000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Vanitas Motel</a></em><span style="background-color: white;"> his first book of poetry, won the 1997 annual FIELD prize in poetry. His 2001 poetry collection is </span><em style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3unjWFq" style="color: #bf0000; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank" title="book">The Pleasure Principle</a></em><span style="background-color: white;">. He is also the author of the three Frank Coffin mysteries set in Provincetown, Massachusetts.</span><br /></p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Am3vLRr1hcM0O1eelqUjf1xPYizwaeY7dfLZk8Gww5smbMHjZoVlYaMRxmEwCiRn-H0Sc2OYR1I8CUCVNXXyXlo1wcVFGUXQKr3oNeZnZADdt9n1HY44WsbVM8jFLqo7UzaRWEzNUsGREBzkIX0bPHoaozoKYpA3ftg2wg6K5UtcBAagPBXdgw/s270/dog%20typing.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="270" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Am3vLRr1hcM0O1eelqUjf1xPYizwaeY7dfLZk8Gww5smbMHjZoVlYaMRxmEwCiRn-H0Sc2OYR1I8CUCVNXXyXlo1wcVFGUXQKr3oNeZnZADdt9n1HY44WsbVM8jFLqo7UzaRWEzNUsGREBzkIX0bPHoaozoKYpA3ftg2wg6K5UtcBAagPBXdgw/w200-h148/dog%20typing.gif" width="200" /></a></div><br />The deadline for submissions for the next issue is Leap Day, February 29, 2024. Please refer to our <a href="https://poetsonline.org/submit.html" style="color: #bf0000; text-decoration-line: none;">submission guidelines</a>, and look at our <a href="https://poetsonline.org/archive/index.html" style="color: #bf0000; text-decoration-line: none;" title="archive">archive of 25 years of prompts and poems</a>. <p></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-45638335864479370302024-01-22T18:00:00.001-05:002024-01-22T18:00:00.132-05:00The Cento<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9KTP2yUD6PWiA52dMcpXNwdJfdDKWVeP8hZQOhm3SeS_X0ifd36wDty5FWHXJcVSxL-TI14k_ZSinkHXC2ct6iJDYUW05RryjquIuS2VmHRQnCS1BoxYSnmpO_N3DON3NpQaSdQ/s800/collage.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9KTP2yUD6PWiA52dMcpXNwdJfdDKWVeP8hZQOhm3SeS_X0ifd36wDty5FWHXJcVSxL-TI14k_ZSinkHXC2ct6iJDYUW05RryjquIuS2VmHRQnCS1BoxYSnmpO_N3DON3NpQaSdQ/w400-h266/collage.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;">street wall collage - Photo:PxHere</div><br /><div>The cento is a poetry form that I used with students but that I haven't used myself or used as a prompt on Poets Online. "Cento" comes from the Latin word for “patchwork." Centos are sometimes called collage poems because they are made up of lines from poems by other poets. </div><div><br /></div><div>Poets often borrow lines from other writers. It might be an epigraph or the lines might be mixed with their own writing. It sounds like plagiarism and that was part of my point in using it with students. How can you take from other writers <i>legitimately</i>? In prose, we have citations and works cited, but in poetry, other than the epigraph, we don't always cite the source.</div><div><br /></div><div>If I were to use "Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all" in my poem, I might put it in quotes or italics, but I probably wouldn't drop in John Keats' name. But a true cento is composed entirely of lines from other sources. </div><div><br /></div><div>Early examples can be found in the work of Homer and Virgil. The cento evidently originated in ancient Greece. There are examples in Aristophanes's plays where lines have been taken from Aeschylus and Homer. Roman poets, as early as the late second century, lifted lines from Virgil. It seems to me to be a bit of thievery. Borrowing <i>can</i> be a creative process. Copyright law allows for reuse when the new use is "transformative." But being transformative is a high bar, which is probably why I haven't used it as a prompt for Poets Online. Separating thievery from transformation is not as easy to do as one might think.<div><div><br /></div><hr />
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-21294137398153543402024-01-18T09:30:00.002-05:002024-01-18T09:30:00.124-05:00At Home with Piles of Books<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYi_6Dzi35_HxMvs2AadOyoqbjEXhayIeMfS0859ufS47mygw5cRLkxUchd8WUELSb-7VUAWj6-InSVdx0i-HXNGNvorU4A_iYdHgIY1GQ76cAEpqLFzcKP6_JCKB81SePeTV_w/s1600/book+pile+pixabay.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="796" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYi_6Dzi35_HxMvs2AadOyoqbjEXhayIeMfS0859ufS47mygw5cRLkxUchd8WUELSb-7VUAWj6-InSVdx0i-HXNGNvorU4A_iYdHgIY1GQ76cAEpqLFzcKP6_JCKB81SePeTV_w/s400/book+pile+pixabay.jpg" width="373" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hopefully, your tsundoku is not this big.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br /><div>
I wrote a post about Japanese loanwords for <a href="https://whynameitthat.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">another blog that focuses on word origins, names and language oddities</a>. A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word adopted from one language (the donor language) and incorporated into another language without translation.<br />
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We have loanwords in English from many other languages and a good number from Japanese, including karaoke, karate, tsunami, typhoon, teriyaki, sake, sushi, manga, anime, tofu, emoji, origami, shiatsu, ramen, and wasabi.<br />
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The new word for me is <b style="font-style: italic;">Tsundoku</b> which I think might apply to some poets and writers. It's one of those words that beyond a meaning implies almost a lifestyle. The word is used to mean acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in your home without reading them or refers to an actual "reading pile."<br />
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Readers and writers do tend to have these piles. I have one on my nightstand (mostly novels), one in the family room (many magazines) and two in my office (one with non-fiction; one with poetry books).<br />
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Most people with these piles intend to read those books, but sometimes the pile grows faster than our reading consumes it.<br />
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Another Japanese loanword I recently discovered isn't meant to be used for poets or other writers, but I know a few who it describes. </div><div><b><i> </i></b></div><div><b><i>Otaku</i></b> literally means “house" but in English and Japanese, the word is used to describe someone who spends a lot of their free time at home.<br />
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In the original Japanese usage it meant home playing video games, reading manga and watching anime. I know a few writers who I think spend too much time inside reading and writing and not enough time in nature or with people. The word is not always considered negative. Fans of anime and manga use <i>otaku</i> to describe others who have similar interests.<br />
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-62095463521207192432024-01-07T20:45:00.003-05:002024-02-25T12:30:56.473-05:00Prompt: Sleep<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYJ3NPwlHMqEuVQEu5qHV7weNS5uEHGJ6I_lhsmynW7_B_fWPsPKwU3-GaR40NZGD9Ys5gIdzZgrLus2NT9BfbsCdhUzBLGPW9qKDrFeoh9L-K3eD0-ZuJzA-8EEDTp2CAVxP2vNrxBW87pN9IDR9A0H1ETawHY_DrZ4AcRDZvcw6LP_2hKi1Tiw/s1024/sleep%20insomnia.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYJ3NPwlHMqEuVQEu5qHV7weNS5uEHGJ6I_lhsmynW7_B_fWPsPKwU3-GaR40NZGD9Ys5gIdzZgrLus2NT9BfbsCdhUzBLGPW9qKDrFeoh9L-K3eD0-ZuJzA-8EEDTp2CAVxP2vNrxBW87pN9IDR9A0H1ETawHY_DrZ4AcRDZvcw6LP_2hKi1Tiw/w400-h400/sleep%20insomnia.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">To sleep, perchance to dream," said the Bard. That is sometimes easier said than done. Is your sleep that of <a href="https://poets.org/poem/sleep-1" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">John Keats?</a><br /><br /><em>O soft embalmer of the still midnight!<br />Shutting with careful fingers and benign<br />Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,<br />Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;<br />O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,<br />In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,<br /></em><br />Even when the eyes are willing, the sleep may not come.<br /><br />And it would be sweet if sleep brought dreams in this cold month about spring, as in the "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/winter-sleep" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Winter Sleep</a>" of Edith Matilda Thomas<br /><br /><em>I know it must be winter (though I sleep)—<br />I know it must be winter, for I dream<br />I dip my bare feet in the running stream,<br />And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep.<br /></em><br />Is this month's call for submissions "sleep" or "insomnia"? I think those are two sides of the same coin. Maybe your sleep associations are more like Rita Dove's "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/insomnia-etiquette" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Insomnia Etiquette</a>"<br /><br /><i>There's a movie on, so I watch it.<br /><br />The usual white people<br />in love, distress. The usual tears.<br />Good camera work, though:<br />sunshine waxing the freckled curves<br />of a pear, a clenched jaw—<br />more tragedy, then.<br /><br />I get up for some scotch and Stilton.<br />I don’t turn on the lights.<br />I like moving through the dark<br />while the world sleeps on,<br />serene as a stealth bomber<br />nosing through clouds...</i><br /><br />Or is it more like the "Insomnia" from my undergraduate poetry professor, Alicia Ostriker?<br /><br /><em>...But it's really fear you want to talk about<br />and cannot find the words<br />so you jeer at yourself<br /><br />you call yourself a coward<br />you wake at 2 a.m. thinking failure,<br />fool, unable to sleep, unable to sleep<br /><br />buzzing away on your mattress with two pillows<br />and a quilt, they call them comforters,<br />which implies that comfort can be bought<br /><br />and paid for, to help with the fear, the failure<br />your two walnut chests of drawers snicker, the bookshelves mourn<br />the art on the walls pities you, the man himself beside you<br /><br />asleep smelling like mushrooms and moss is a comfort...<br /></em></p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">I chose as our model this month, a "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/sleep-3" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Sleep</a>" poem from <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3vrAM64" style="color: #cc0000; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Rock Tree Bird</a></i> by Twyla M. Hansen. I like the contrast of sleep seen from the perspectives of a child, teen and adult. I like the idea on this cold day that "the ancient ones" probably spent most of winter sleeping.<br /><br /><em>...the ancient ones<br />whose lives revolved around the same sun—sun worshipers—<br /><br />who discovered fire, calculated the heavens, tracked stars,<br />who likely slept through most of this gloomy season...</em><br /><br /><strong>What are your sleep associations? Do they come from your childhood, a baby or child's sleep, what dreams may come, or not come, along with restless sleep, nightmares, and no sleep at all?</strong></p><p style="line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 15px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgj81JEAhDtJF_GFbYH4cLIaY4Jbl2uPBEj4Qdle8ffQkPZTQbxj0ctVggWtL_GmYrPf67C8TvliJXYxo2Lo2yyCHGM0RKQwxNfmR_prCPDEAuYU6VEUf6rh6Ba6JBD_7UCIjGSXCAwo8GDXfEJKGd02UpgcNxaOCNDVym9XM3nzSNEq5HpXjMg/s150/submitkey.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="144" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgj81JEAhDtJF_GFbYH4cLIaY4Jbl2uPBEj4Qdle8ffQkPZTQbxj0ctVggWtL_GmYrPf67C8TvliJXYxo2Lo2yyCHGM0RKQwxNfmR_prCPDEAuYU6VEUf6rh6Ba6JBD_7UCIjGSXCAwo8GDXfEJKGd02UpgcNxaOCNDVym9XM3nzSNEq5HpXjMg/w115-h120/submitkey.jpg" width="115" /></a></div><br /><strong style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2024</strong><br style="background-color: white;" /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Please refer to <a href="https://poetsonline.org/submit.html" target="_blank">our </a></span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://poetsonline.org/submit.html" target="_blank">submission guidelines</a></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14px;">, and look at <a href="https://poetsonline.org/archive/index.html" target="_blank">our archive</a> of 25 years of prompts and poems to get a sense of the poems we publish.</span></span></span><p></p><div><strong><br /></strong></div><div><br /></div>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-75077875734078109442024-01-01T12:30:00.001-05:002024-01-01T12:30:00.146-05:00Paying the Poetry Bills<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH2Ii5uxXm70jf6ckVhZo-rSg_Iubps4x0Pfrm-YY3A95moFDbxv4-1pdD0dhps7rLrDReSM-k_Rhr14Fh_HLilmlpkCkSf_0n5y39Q1LlM8ggv2wGdR2-FmFPV9u4g5u9DAmQ4Qo68gtH8hc7A4UaVN-91djomVnlYfOgr4_eAWCdw-2izHiqog/s400/pay%20bills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="400" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH2Ii5uxXm70jf6ckVhZo-rSg_Iubps4x0Pfrm-YY3A95moFDbxv4-1pdD0dhps7rLrDReSM-k_Rhr14Fh_HLilmlpkCkSf_0n5y39Q1LlM8ggv2wGdR2-FmFPV9u4g5u9DAmQ4Qo68gtH8hc7A4UaVN-91djomVnlYfOgr4_eAWCdw-2izHiqog/w400-h253/pay%20bills.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Poets Online has been a free site since it started in 1998. Free to use, free to read the issues and free to submit. That doesn't mean it doesn't have bills. All of us (mostly me, Ken) who read the poems, do some editing and then format the web versions and promote all of it through social media and our blog are unpaid. It is a labor of mostly love. <p></p><p>We need to pay for the hosting and for the domain poetsonline.org and through the years the only source of income has been by having Amazon.com links to books and occasionally other items</p><p>At the end of 2023, Amazon is going to stop allowing image links (like a book cover) and many of its banner and box ads that we have used on the website and blog. Poof. They will disappear and sometimes leave behind an ugly white block in their wake on the screen. We received about a two-month notice about this and it will be quite impossible for us to fix all those links easily. It also means people are less likely to click on a link and possibly make a purchase. </p><p>Each purchase made through our links sends a few pennies (literally) into our account. There are months where that income doesn't even hit the Amazon $10 minimum so it just gets held over. </p><p>I don't know anyone who went into poetry to make money. I certainly did not, but I'd like to see Poets Online at least break even for the year.</p><p>People have suggested adding one of those Patreon or some such donation link but that feels wrong. To charge a fee to submit, as many poetry publishers do to cover costs, would require some fancy setup or using a service like Submittable (which would cost us more than we would probably take in). And I know that a fee would stop many people from submitting.</p><p>Poets Online began amongst some poet friends and grew and was always meant to be open to a wide range of poets by age and experience. We would like to keep it that way. </p><p>So, if you shopping online for books or whatever, you can help us by using <a href="https://www.amazon.com/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=sl2&tag=poetsonline&linkId=4daeed7242598f7cfab0ed51636c80c6" target="_blank">our general Amazon link link</a> (You can bookmark the short version <a href="https://bit.ly/poetsamazon" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/poetsamazon</a>) or by clicking on any of our <a href="https://amzn.to/3QEdm4e" target="_blank">poetry book links</a> for our featured poets and their books and making a purchase. <i>Anything</i> purchased through our general link counts - buy that engagement ring there! Using the links does not affect your price. </p><p>Thanks for reading this post, and for using the site whether you only read the poems or submit your own poems for consideration. We hope to still be here at the end of 2024.</p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-44340739903720453022023-12-31T09:00:00.000-05:002023-12-31T09:00:00.172-05:0025 Years of Poets Online<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GyhPVVq2geCULG7bsj6Zf2LeMwlJHhPsWpXiyqbM4a1SiEDdZZrjGl-rQgRhMtqdDx1S15r7HogiO5LO9OwpVwtJKZvr9Ru70KZX2fz98nepm3Ckm6kgCJyLc0DquNBr6HXcPsFVKQ6Yee8iX3K4nFhN4WQP0IXkGH8ntivAulsHzh5Q9Brtzg/s400/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GyhPVVq2geCULG7bsj6Zf2LeMwlJHhPsWpXiyqbM4a1SiEDdZZrjGl-rQgRhMtqdDx1S15r7HogiO5LO9OwpVwtJKZvr9Ru70KZX2fz98nepm3Ckm6kgCJyLc0DquNBr6HXcPsFVKQ6Yee8iX3K4nFhN4WQP0IXkGH8ntivAulsHzh5Q9Brtzg/s320/25.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">Closing out 2023 means that Poets Online has been online for 25 years. A significant number for any publication, especially one that features only poetry.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Our January issue will be the 316th prompt and issue of poems. I never referred to them as "issues" at the start back in 1998, but over the years as our audience and contributors expanded that became the label. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The site started as an e-mail exchange among four poets taking turns at suggesting a prompt and then e-mailing our poems to each other. As more poets joined the group, it became an awkward mailing process, and the website was created. The following year we created a mailing list to remind people to check the latest prompt and read the poems. That list now has hundreds of subscribers.</p><p>By 20023, a free hosting website and free domain weren't enough, so I bought the domain poetsonline.org, purchased hosting, and created a new list and email using Google.</p><p>We still try to accept the best poems that respond to the current prompt in a serious way. We have always thought of the site as a place where poets of varying ages and experiences could get published. We have plenty of people who read and don't submit and a good number of teachers and students have written us to say that they find the site useful. More than a hundred other sites link to us. If your poem is published and you use it in a book later, Poets Online should be acknowledged as its first appearance. </p><p>Although I never know how many more anniversaries we will have, I am thankful for all the poems I've read and poets I have made contact with over this quarter century. </p><p>Ken Ronkowitz</p><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-62620683810236074642023-12-27T14:30:00.001-05:002023-12-27T19:20:20.332-05:00"The Clock" - a prose poem for a lady<p>I am neither a big fan of the poet Baudelaire nor am I a big fan of prose poems, but this one got my attention.</p><p>I'll admit that the opening got my interest and I wanted to know how, but I too often find prose poems to be just prose. Like flash fiction. Poetic language? Perhaps, but many novelists have poetic language but I would not call a novel an epic prose poem. </p><p>I'm told that intent is key in making a prose poem a poem. That is a tough one to evaluate.</p><p>Feel free to educate me on this with a comment.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxdE7mxdhW9okSiBpOMnU68evzlxiLWKk4YLmtQSjWrf0lU4bnG2sq3uX23KfwiOqg78bYgEvjAQaSpPQEyIHSpludyySGsCxGhOEEe1zgMc8GFAbGeCJNBHKKgotjjcCck5p6Ow/s1600/baudelaire.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxdE7mxdhW9okSiBpOMnU68evzlxiLWKk4YLmtQSjWrf0lU4bnG2sq3uX23KfwiOqg78bYgEvjAQaSpPQEyIHSpludyySGsCxGhOEEe1zgMc8GFAbGeCJNBHKKgotjjcCck5p6Ow/s320/baudelaire.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>"L'Horloge" (The Clock)</b></div>
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a prose poem by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-baudelaire" target="_blank">Charles Baudelaire</a> [translated by David Lehman]</div>
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<i><b>– for a lady</b></i></div>
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How do the Chinese tell time? By looking at the eyes of their</div>
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cats. Here’s how.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A lost missionary, afoot in a sleepy suburb of Nankin, had</div>
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forgotten his watch and asked a little boy what time it was.</div>
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<br /></div>
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After a moment’s hesitation, this street urchin of the celestial</div>
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Empire said: ‘‘Wait, I will tell you.’’ A few seconds later, he</div>
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<br /></div>
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reappeared with a very fat cat in his arms, looked into the </div>
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whites of her eyes, and said, ‘‘It is almost but not quite noon.’’ </div>
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Which was the case.</div>
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<br /></div>
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As for me, if I favor my beautiful Feline, so felicitously named –</div>
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the honor of her sex, the pride of my heart, and the perfume </div>
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of my spirit, day and night, rain or shine – in the depths of her</div>
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adorable eyes I can always tell what time it is, and it is always</div>
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the same time, an hour vast, solemn, limitless as space undivided</div>
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into minutes and seconds – a lingering hour no clock observes, </div>
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soft as a sigh, swift as a glance.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And if an intruder came to disturb my study of this enchanting dial,</div>
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if some malevolent genie, some demon of ill fortune, were to address</div>
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me as a vain and idle mortal and say: ‘‘What are you staring at? </div>
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What are you looking for in the eyes of that creature? Is time told there,</div>
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and can you tell it?’’ I would reply without hesitation. ‘‘I know what time</div>
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it is; it is Eternity.’’</div>
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<br /></div>
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Madame, is not this a most meritorious bagatelle, and as full of vain</div>
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self-regard as your high and mighty self? Frankly, my dear, it has given me</div>
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so much pleasure embroidering this pretentious piece of puffery that I ask</div>
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nothing of you in return.</div>
<br />
<a href="https://yalereview.yale.edu/sites/default/files/baudelairecharles.poems_.yr107.3july_2019.final_.web_.pdf" target="_blank">from the Summer 2019 issue of <i>The Yale Review</i>, in which four other prose poems by Charles Baudelaire appear</a>.<br />
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-29081288673766066122023-12-20T08:00:00.001-05:002023-12-20T08:00:00.129-05:00Blake's Tyger and Lamb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7RA2M765FeYreywA0g2X87700cy2tqp8fk8_fu_XJNZGR3-IetYbm1WlfqZxvbZGuzRk1apyKy7YZq_uIfeLBK2XLq_eLJsNH5SFYoskfya_TwUnvnSVtHueZLQzulhcyA0gElCxx4dN4N4GaCdMqKtDP48sv-JjdB_ErTL-gX1bmBhGq0kCdGA/s586/blake%20tyger.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7RA2M765FeYreywA0g2X87700cy2tqp8fk8_fu_XJNZGR3-IetYbm1WlfqZxvbZGuzRk1apyKy7YZq_uIfeLBK2XLq_eLJsNH5SFYoskfya_TwUnvnSVtHueZLQzulhcyA0gElCxx4dN4N4GaCdMqKtDP48sv-JjdB_ErTL-gX1bmBhGq0kCdGA/s16000/blake%20tyger.png" /></a><br />Blake's illustrated version of the poem</div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">William Blake's poem "The Tyger" is his most-read poem. It consists entirely of questions about the nature of God and creation. It asks how the same God that created vulnerable beings like the lamb could also have made the fearsome tiger. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The tiger becomes a symbol for one of religion's most difficult questions: Why does God allow evil to exist?</p><p>I first read the poem in a high school class and my initial question was "Why did he spell tiger wrong?" Not the deepest of literary issues. In writing this essay, I did some digging for an answer since my teacher had no answers other than "It's what they did back then."</p><p> William Blake intentionally spelled "tiger" as "tyger" in his poem that was in his collection titled "Songs of Experience" (1794). It is thought that changing the traditional spelling of "tiger" to "tyger" not only gave the word a unique. mythical and archaic quality. It also allowed Blake to exercise creative freedom about the creature he was describing. The tyger is a literal creature but also a symbolic force.</p><p>Blake was also known for his interest in the relationship between sound and meaning in language and tyger captures the phonetic qualities of the word.</p><p>"...What immortal hand or eye,<br />Could frame thy fearful symmetry?<br />...Did he smile his work to see?<br />Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" </p><p>The lamb refers to Blake's poem, "The Lamb," where God is associated with a gentle and innocent lamb. </p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b>THE TYGER</b></p><p>Tyger Tyger, burning bright, <br />In the forests of the night; <br />What immortal hand or eye, <br />Could frame thy fearful symmetry?</p><p>In what distant deeps or skies. <br />Burnt the fire of thine eyes?<br />On what wings dare he aspire?<br />What the hand, dare seize the fire?</p><p>And what shoulder, & what art,<br />Could twist the sinews of thy heart?<br />And when thy heart began to beat.<br />What dread hand? & what dread feet?</p><p><br />What the hammer? what the chain,|<br />In what furnace was thy brain?<br />What the anvil? what dread grasp.<br />Dare its deadly terrors clasp?</p><p>When the stars threw down their spears <br />And water'd heaven with their tears:<br />Did he smile his work to see?<br />Did he who made the Lamb make thee?</p><p>Tyger Tyger burning bright,<br />In the forests of the night:<br />What immortal hand or eye,<br />Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Compare that tiger to the lamb. Blake was clearly a religious person who saw visions of angels, but to me "The Tyger" is a poem that literally questions God. Can God be credited with both the good and evil in the world? I din't think you could give him the credit for creating the "lambs" of this world without also giving him responsibility for the "tygers" of this world. That was my high school interpretation (which my teacher did not appreciate or agree with) and it remains my interpretation.</p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p><b>THE LAMB</b></p><p>Little Lamb who made thee <br /> Dost thou know who made thee <br />Gave thee life & bid thee feed. <br />By the stream & o'er the mead;<br />Gave thee clothing of delight,<br />Softest clothing wooly bright;<br />Gave thee such a tender voice,<br />Making all the vales rejoice! <br /><br /> Little Lamb who made thee <br /> Dost thou know who made thee <br /> Little Lamb I'll tell thee,<br /> Little Lamb I'll tell thee!</p><p>He is called by thy name,<br />For he calls himself a Lamb: <br />He is meek & he is mild, <br />He became a little child: <br />I a child & thou a lamb, <br />We are called by his name.</p><p> Little Lamb God bless thee. <br /> Little Lamb God bless thee.</p></blockquote><p></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-64591716158849301382023-12-13T18:12:00.001-05:002023-12-13T18:12:00.125-05:00Robert Frost's Christmas Cards<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSB31lYxCjj3vUg9Xy8fDp2Z_7UGA0GSMBAVv-z7yGztF0oo1TYEmlpmnmAgo9DIAXwNAOVg4Jblmy-IPVbbfNQ0c5AaYxu4bXTNPk0NAb_hChVwrMFdQkhc-gUHAEGPRlwLogvpCYv0GmGgMmb6pliYNILUt51o6W2H2pRE2-BdGSIG2IlJEUdw/s1108/xmas%20trees%20freerangestock.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="1108" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSB31lYxCjj3vUg9Xy8fDp2Z_7UGA0GSMBAVv-z7yGztF0oo1TYEmlpmnmAgo9DIAXwNAOVg4Jblmy-IPVbbfNQ0c5AaYxu4bXTNPk0NAb_hChVwrMFdQkhc-gUHAEGPRlwLogvpCYv0GmGgMmb6pliYNILUt51o6W2H2pRE2-BdGSIG2IlJEUdw/w400-h194/xmas%20trees%20freerangestock.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />Our call for submissions for the January 2024 issue is about <a href="https://poetsonline.blogspot.com/2023/12/prompt-personal-holidays.html" target="_blank">"personal" holidays</a> which do not get on official calendars and probably don't get you a day off from work or cards and gifts. But I thought of how Robert Frost sent out Christmas poem “cards” from 1929 to 1962.<p></p><p>Each year, Frost would select a poem and often write an original piece for the occasion. he sent them to some friends and loved ones. Later they went out to his publisher’s friends and loved ones. If you were lucky enough to be on that list and still have them, they are collectors’ items.</p><p>They began as just his way to honor the winter season with a poem. One poem used was "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/christmas-trees" target="_blank">Christmas Trees</a>." (an excerpt below)</p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;">...He proved to be the city come again <br />To look for something it had left behind <br />And could not do without and keep its Christmas. <br />He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; <br />My woods—the young fir balsams like a place <br />Where houses all are churches and have spires. <br />I hadn't thought of them as Christmas trees. <br />I doubt if I was tempted for a moment <br />To sell them off their feet to go in cars <br />And leave the slope behind the house all bare, <br />Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon...</span> </blockquote><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNA85oZQhxBr0YXBid8UCwmOKszefgEi2Gb7N8VyFB30mcvvBlzqPkZ-TeKKC9CZnZO99j1mDAwY2iJGhNKlNcYQRrG8PdBpslpyZX2jpffUtGBtdGlI80hawT9-tqI_L61Iui5-O5miRFnOyeXfsxbpabQ9XxpDoV5Ivdpo2CZ_u-CB4MVbtRug/s691/frost%20Ullman%20NatPortGallery%20wiki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNA85oZQhxBr0YXBid8UCwmOKszefgEi2Gb7N8VyFB30mcvvBlzqPkZ-TeKKC9CZnZO99j1mDAwY2iJGhNKlNcYQRrG8PdBpslpyZX2jpffUtGBtdGlI80hawT9-tqI_L61Iui5-O5miRFnOyeXfsxbpabQ9XxpDoV5Ivdpo2CZ_u-CB4MVbtRug/w296-h400/frost%20Ullman%20NatPortGallery%20wiki.jpg" width="296" /></a><br />Frost, 1929 (by Doris Ulmann, national Portrait Gallery)</div><br />Joseph Blumenthal headed Spiral Press during those years. Without Frost's knowledge, while working on an edition of Frost’s poetry in 1929, he printed 250 copies for friends and colleagues of “Christmas Trees.” When the poet saw the publication, his first response was not to sue him but to request a few copies to send out to his own family members. And so, the annual tradition was born.<p></p><p>The last Christmas mailing contained "The Prophets Really Prophesy as Mystics, the Commentators Merely by Statistics” which went out with 16,555 copies. </p><p>The collection would feature other classic poems by Frost, including “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/birches" target="_blank">Birches</a>,” “A Boy’s Will,” and “The Wood-Pile” </p><p>"Christmas Trees" is no Hallmark greeting card, but it ends with this Christmas wish: </p><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;">
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!<br />Worth three cents more to give away than sell,<br />As may be shown by a simple calculation.<br />Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.<br />I can’t help wishing I could send you one,<br />In wishing you here with a Merry Christmas.</span></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>More about the cards at <a href="https://poets.org/text/robert-frosts-christmas-cards" target="_blank">poets.org/text/robert-frosts-christmas-cards</a><br /><hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><p></p></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-47309322022402183462023-12-06T22:10:00.006-05:002023-12-06T22:10:46.225-05:00Prompt: Personal Holidays<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLYmaZdLOTltNzhaAHY9aFP-ygRKWgq7m0IIvVXLvF3f_xW_bID6gdGCnqO8onkLfQXjH4gvlr52QlBSiS92ddIuOgQsVDHc1-Ybn1RQXCwuwWQXDoA5DfkicK3KJTxRW7XMBkX3tr2hMYz7sfn4zDdRqs2JLygSrZ_zzBll_lh0oW8tN7bJPeQg/s683/dec%20calendar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLYmaZdLOTltNzhaAHY9aFP-ygRKWgq7m0IIvVXLvF3f_xW_bID6gdGCnqO8onkLfQXjH4gvlr52QlBSiS92ddIuOgQsVDHc1-Ybn1RQXCwuwWQXDoA5DfkicK3KJTxRW7XMBkX3tr2hMYz7sfn4zDdRqs2JLygSrZ_zzBll_lh0oW8tN7bJPeQg/s320/dec%20calendar.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br />December is a big month for holidays both religious, pagan and secular. Many people love these holidays and spend a lot of time and money celebrating them. But not everyone is a fan of these "official" holidays. <br />
<br />
In the poem<a href="https://poets.org/poem/new-law" target="_blank"> "A New Law" by Greg Delanty</a>, he proposes:<br /><br />
Let there be a ban on every holiday.<br />
No ringing in the new year.<br />
No fireworks doodling the warm night air.<br />
No holly on the door. I say<br />
let there be no more.<br />
For many are not here who were here before.<br />
<br />
I wouldn't propose that radical of a change in holidays, but I understand the sentiment.<br />
<br />
For this December call for submissions in the 25th year of <i>Poets Online</i>, we are looking for poems about personal holidays. These are the holidays that perhaps only you celebrate. They are not on official calendars but they might be on your personal calendar. Not birthdays, anniversaries, national holidays, or religious holy days, not even Festivus. <br />
<br />
In Galway Kinnell's poem "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/26th-december" target="_blank">The 26th of December</a>" he marks the day after Christmas not as being connected to that holiday but as" A Tuesday, day of Tiw, /
god of war." Not exactly what most people would connect to the day after Christmas. <br />
<br />
He celebrates the short day by<br />
<br />
"talking by the fire,<br />
floating on snowshoes among<br />
ancient self-pollarded maples,<br />
visiting, being visited, giving<br />
a rain gauge, receiving red socks,<br />
watching snow buntings nearly over<br />
their heads in snow stab at spirtled bits<br />
of sunflower seeds the chickadees<br />
hold with their feet to a bough<br />
and hack apart, scattering debris<br />
like sloppy butchers"<br />
<br />
It is a short holiday, one day and in a season of short days. And when it is over, "
Irregular life begins" again, as with many holidays.<br />
<br />
"Telephone calls,<br />
Google searches, evasive letters,<br />
complicated arrangements, faxes,<br />
second thoughts, consultations,<br />
e-mails, solemnly given kisses."<br />
<br />
Give us a poem about your personal holiday.
Why do you mark the day(s) and how do you celebrate? (If celebrate is even what you do.) <p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://poetsonline.org/submit.html" target="_blank">Submission Deadline: December 31, 2023</a> Happy New Year! <br /></p>
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<p><b><a href="https://amzn.to/3t2QljT" target="_blank">Galway Kinnell</a></b> was an award-winning poet best known for poetry that connects the experiences of daily life to much larger poetic, spiritual, and cultural forces. Kinnell was born in 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island and grew up in Pawtucket. A self-described introvert as a child, he grew up reading reclusive American writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. After two years of service in the U.S. Navy, he earned a BA in 1948 from Princeton University where he was classmates with poet W.S. Merwin. He earned an MA from the University of Rochester a year later.<br />
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Of his first books, <i>What a Kingdom it Was</i> (1960), <i>Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock</i> (1964) and<i> <a href="https://amzn.to/3uO86Ed" target="_blank">Body Rags</a></i>(1968) which contains the bulk of Kinnell’s most praised and anthologized poems.<i> Selected Poems</i> (1982), for which Kinnell won the Pulitzer Prize and was co-winner of the National Book Award in 1983, contains works from every period in the poet’s career and was released just shortly before he won a prestigious MacArthur Foundation grant. Kinnell released the retrospective collection, <i><a href="https://amzn.to/4aaN6r4" target="_blank">A New Selected Poems</a></i> (2001), focusing on poetry of the 1960s and 1970s, and his <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3uP9Vkg" target="_blank">Collected Poems</a></i> was published in 2017.<br />Kinnell lived in Vermont for many years. He died in 2014 at the age of 87.<br />
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-10197375298024555342023-11-28T11:08:00.002-05:002023-11-28T11:08:41.494-05:00The Visions of William Blake<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnN-vlSru2z_yKsRyQG1s4NQknV_qUBqNFrTHfI_gfz7qheEGKlicUjRXvuqJxor3h0pPP9a2uVPdXhU0DLZyL2L_vWxzJwHbKvqT3S_EjzFtf4k-K9AKu52gotwsUe72kkDC7qG8pdDH7RxK0jEmFcshW5CG1qV2OXcwLEC7Cj2b-cJrowEvUjA/s567/blake%20angels%20christ.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="411" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnN-vlSru2z_yKsRyQG1s4NQknV_qUBqNFrTHfI_gfz7qheEGKlicUjRXvuqJxor3h0pPP9a2uVPdXhU0DLZyL2L_vWxzJwHbKvqT3S_EjzFtf4k-K9AKu52gotwsUe72kkDC7qG8pdDH7RxK0jEmFcshW5CG1qV2OXcwLEC7Cj2b-cJrowEvUjA/w312-h430/blake%20angels%20christ.png" width="312" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;">Blake's illustration of angels guarding Jesus in the sepulchre </div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>November 28 is the birthday of poet and artist William Blake, born in London in 1757. He was four years old when he had a vision that God was at his window. A few years later, he went for a walk and saw a tree filled with angels, their wings shining. He had other visions, too: he saw the prophet Ezekiel sitting under a tree, and angels walking with farmers making hay.</p><p>While some aspects of his behavior and beliefs might be considered eccentric or even insane by conventional standards, it's better to approach the question of his mental state with some sensitivity and historical context.</p><p>During Blake's time (1757-1827), the understanding and classification of mental health were different from contemporary perspectives. There is no definitive evidence to suggest that Blake was clinically insane. However, he did experience visions and claimed to have mystical experiences, which heavily influenced his artistic and poetic creations. Blake's unique worldview and his incorporation of spiritual and visionary elements in his works are more often seen as products of his unconventional thinking and artistic genius rather than indicators of mental illness.</p><p>When Blake was 10 his parents sent him to drawing school, and at the age of 14, he was apprenticed to an engraver. After seven years, he went into business for himself, and a few years later he privately printed his first book, <i>Poetical Sketches</i> (1783 which was a total flop. The book wasn't even mentioned in the index of<i> London's Monthly Review</i>, a list of every book published that month.</p><p>Not long after that, Blake's beloved brother, Robert, died at the age of 24. Blake spent two sleepless weeks at his deathbed, and when he died, Blake claimed that he saw his brother's spirit rise through the ceiling, clapping its hands with joy. From then on, Blake had regular conversations with his dead brother. </p><p>A year later, Robert appeared to William in a vision and taught him a method called "illuminated printing," which combined text and painting into one. Now known as relief etching, it was a huge breakthrough in printing. Blake printed his own <i>Songs of Innocence</i> (1789), <i>Songs of Experience</i> (1794), <i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i> (1790), and <i>The Book of Los</i> (1795). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_v2yBjVHcIHOve7pLfQ054gcv4kesKEE4VssHcGCbKKSwDkAxNafQ4Yvn9UqBrwgkkTxFOgenYA0VljphrPXMGxFGvg3e2avkL20-mIbBynkRSuCFtK8QrhCArvOLCK1nJLK1uCDreKhvG48sB1soTf31vEU4__-BIbr042P2fOEa_AfOxxV5wQ/s328/blake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="256" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_v2yBjVHcIHOve7pLfQ054gcv4kesKEE4VssHcGCbKKSwDkAxNafQ4Yvn9UqBrwgkkTxFOgenYA0VljphrPXMGxFGvg3e2avkL20-mIbBynkRSuCFtK8QrhCArvOLCK1nJLK1uCDreKhvG48sB1soTf31vEU4__-BIbr042P2fOEa_AfOxxV5wQ/w313-h400/blake.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><p>Blake died at the age of 69. He spent the day of his death working on a series of engravings of Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i>. That evening, he drew a portrait of his wife, and then told her it was his time. A friend of Blake's who was there at his deathbed wrote: "He died on Sunday night at 6 o'clock in a most glorious manner. [...] Just before he died, His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and He burst out into Singing of the things he saw in Heaven."</p><p>At the time of his death, Blake was an obscure figure, best remembered for his engravings of other peoples' work, or maybe his one famous poem, "The Tyger." Among those who knew more about his life's work, the consensus was that Blake was insane. <i>Songs of Innocence and of Experience,</i> which he had engraved and painted by hand, had sold fewer than 20 copies in 30 years. </p><p>It wasn't until more than 30 years after his death that a husband-and-wife team, Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, published a two-volume biography of Blake that firmly established him as a brilliant and important artist.</p><p>Throughout his career, he continued to see visions — in addition to communing with the spirits of relatives and friends, he claimed to be visited by the spirits of many great historical figures, including Alexander the Great, Voltaire, Socrates, Milton, and Mohammed. He talked with them and drew their portraits. He was also visited by angels and once by the ghost of a flea, whose portrait he drew. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMwXdWOxihKm60gKfvZKioMFqz4CDWBJTO1zrRGVjAVz0Gxg2610XjpTk6yjWOck-AT1mx3aWvWKcg3Te56YqjTs0wau7HdMi2kaqFpRsyExOfTS1kkTyoi1GzGyr7EgTaZjBrPQbvOtrcHQUb_MboweSAjg7yJKuOBEbcm3QesI4cWYXOwyP3FQ/s742/blake%20cvr.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="472" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMwXdWOxihKm60gKfvZKioMFqz4CDWBJTO1zrRGVjAVz0Gxg2610XjpTk6yjWOck-AT1mx3aWvWKcg3Te56YqjTs0wau7HdMi2kaqFpRsyExOfTS1kkTyoi1GzGyr7EgTaZjBrPQbvOtrcHQUb_MboweSAjg7yJKuOBEbcm3QesI4cWYXOwyP3FQ/w255-h400/blake%20cvr.webp" width="255" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Blake wrote:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation [...] 'What,' it will be Question'd, 'When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?' O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host."</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"First the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged: this I shall do by printing in the infernal method by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away and displaying the infinite which was hid."</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> "Without minute neatness of execution, the sublime cannot exist! Grandeur of ideas is founded on the precision of ideas."</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-1153712819891584982023-11-08T17:56:00.002-05:002023-11-08T17:56:19.644-05:00The Romance of That Little Notebook in the Cafe<div class="separator"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/1600/amelie.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="114" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/320/amelie.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" width="200" /></a><br /></div><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/1600/noteKpax.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/320/noteKpax.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/1600/moleskine-stack-703901.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/200/moleskine-stack-703901.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a><div><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/1600/noteVanGogh.gif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6620/1708/200/noteVanGogh.png" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;" width="146" /></a><span style="color: #0000ee;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Moleskine. There is something about using that little black notebook and knowing all the writers and artists who have used it before you - Hemingway, Picasso, Van Gogh (that's one of his over there on the right), Bruce Chatwin, Matisse, Neil Gaiman...<br /><br />Sketches in words or lines, notes, <a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/storie/default.htm">stories</a>, poems, ideas, overheard dialogue.<br /><br />You see it <a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/dicono/cinema.htm">in films</a>. Isn't that Amelie holding one? And even Prot (and he's from <a href="http://www.k-pax.com/">K-PAX</a> - the other planet I want to visit) has one.<br /><br />Sometimes it's used as a generic term for little soft black notebooks, the real Moleskine (pronounced mol-a-skeen-a) is a brand of notebook now manufactured by Modo & Modo, an Italian company.<br /><br />Bound in oilcloth-covered cardboard (the "Moleskin"), it has an elastic band to hold the notebook closed and a sewn spine so that it lies flat when opened. It comes in several sizes, with lined or unlined papers.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/storie/racconti/chatwin/chatwin_1.htm">Bruce Chatwin</a> used them in his travels and in the mid-1980s when his Paris source ran out, he discovered that they were no longer being made by the original manufacturer. They are back though and made in the same shapes and styles.<br /><br />I'm a sucker for notebooks and journals. I always felt an optimism for the new school year with that fresh notebook in hand. Give me a <a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/">Moleskine</a> and put me in a street cafe or bar (even a <a href="http://www.panera.com/locations.aspx">Panera</a> or <a href="http://www.starbucks.com/retail/locator/default.aspx">Starbucks</a> will do it) and I feel some ex-pat writer being channeled through me. Now, I'm not saying that it creates great writing, but it creates mood.<br /><br /> As readers of this blog already know, I have <a href="http://poetsonline.blogspot.com/2006/04/small-book-small-poems.html">small books for small poems</a> but I have a number of these notebooks <a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/catalogo/default.htm">from their catalog</a> for different purposes.<br /><br />If you have never owned one, drop by a little bookstore or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00069DKYI/poetsonline/">Amazon</a>, buy one, and give it a try.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Poets Onlinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11880224855001620610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-81413159979744009822023-11-03T10:00:00.001-04:002023-11-08T17:42:33.802-05:00Prompt: Love Poem to Yourself<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcrP5HNoF3u1A0pLIrS5Me2lOxJ95ngP2k4brsXCf9RxBquXDOBgFYvf6YHDU4th06Lc1eyMyk8TrAMjxg5KVDDb3VhwhOCJa76QEPiqEVA4I7A6rNx3SjX2StE81rh017STZLG59nu3fqifmMu9boQ9u2ydi72I5CM9tkLZzXW0SNekmfg0xPw/s512/Woman-at-a-Mirror.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="392" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcrP5HNoF3u1A0pLIrS5Me2lOxJ95ngP2k4brsXCf9RxBquXDOBgFYvf6YHDU4th06Lc1eyMyk8TrAMjxg5KVDDb3VhwhOCJa76QEPiqEVA4I7A6rNx3SjX2StE81rh017STZLG59nu3fqifmMu9boQ9u2ydi72I5CM9tkLZzXW0SNekmfg0xPw/w306-h400/Woman-at-a-Mirror.jpg" width="306" /></a><br /><i>Woman at Mirror</i> by <span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="text-align: left;">Gerard ter Borch 1652</span></span></div><p>Louise Glück (pronounced ɡlɪk) died October 13, 2023, at the age of 80. She was a highly praised and awarded American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Bollingen Prize. From 2003 to 2004, she was the Poet Laureate of the United States.</p><p>Despite all those awards, I will admit to not being very familiar with her poetry. I never heard her read in person and I don't have any of her books on my shelf. After her death, there were many posts online about her and copies or links to her poems and interviews.</p><p>The poem of hers that caught my attention is a short one titled "<a href="https://griffinpoetryprize.com/poem/crossroads-gluck/" target="_blank">Crossroads</a>." I read it as a love poem to the self, written at an advanced age when one is considering their own death. </p><p>I <a href="https://youtu.be/P1rpGy8XRzU?feature=shared" target="_blank">watched an interview with her</a> and learned a lot more about her life and work which made the poem richer on my next reading. </p><p> “Crossroads,” originally published in her 2009 book <i>A Village Life</i>, so she was still 14 years from her death. maybe she was contemplating death. Maybe she had an illness. In the poem, she looks at her body - not uncommon as we age - but also at her soul. She says that " it is not the earth I will miss / it is you I will miss."</p><p>"Self love" sounds selfish. But so many people don't love themselves. Therapists deal with that every day. </p><p><a href="https://youtu.be/osdY1bQXXoQ?feature=shared " target="_blank">Listen to her read the poem</a> and <a href="https://griffinpoetryprize.com/poem/crossroads-gluck/" target="_blank">look at it on the page</a>. Then, consider writing a love poem to yourself. What is it that you love about yourself? What will you miss about yourself? Do you already miss something you once loved about yourself?</p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/osdY1bQXXoQ?si=xziBJsS4NI34DyQE" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p style="text-align: center;"> <iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0374534098&asins=0374534098&linkId=8589224714a703206f2431d7ec6d3a0c&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
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<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0374535779&asins=0374535779&linkId=a82da7cbe7d0f78bb5a7a69ed194ecee&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></p><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-32522565016539676672023-11-02T17:13:00.007-04:002023-11-02T17:15:03.558-04:00The Alarming Spread of Poetry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_C8gzB0xm0Ls1PF48YM7PNaQ5Aoqc98ucoGgA37JoNQdTM4Vi9RhcuLXYFxIlvdL8f_OZVfPNzT3JV4P8PQG6UsKSzD0AEPu5iA3cWw5z8Jqh66aU_v1KoK6V6P44zn5spUL0jQml2LHEInOae2iXGwOkijJDl3Wzu4qNiqexb_0ok6YUDJp0Ww/s375/wodehouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_C8gzB0xm0Ls1PF48YM7PNaQ5Aoqc98ucoGgA37JoNQdTM4Vi9RhcuLXYFxIlvdL8f_OZVfPNzT3JV4P8PQG6UsKSzD0AEPu5iA3cWw5z8Jqh66aU_v1KoK6V6P44zn5spUL0jQml2LHEInOae2iXGwOkijJDl3Wzu4qNiqexb_0ok6YUDJp0Ww/s320/wodehouse.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><b><a href="https://amzn.to/3QDCQA1" target="_blank">P.G. Wodehouse</a></b> is Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (1881 – 1975) and he was an English author and one of the most widely-read humorists of the 20th century. wrote "The Alarming Spread of Poetry." Do you think he was being sarcastic?<br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">To the thinking man, there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we are becoming a nation of minor poets. </span>In the good old days, poets were for the most part confined to garrets, which they left only for the purpose of being ejected from the offices of magazines and papers to which they attempted to sell their wares. Nobody ever thought of reading a book of poems unless accompanied by a guarantee from the publisher that the author had been dead at least a hundred years. Poetry, like wine, certain brands of cheese, and public buildings, was rightly considered to improve with age; and no connoisseur could have dreamed of filling himself with raw, indigestible verse, warm from the maker.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/pg-wodehouse/4328/" target="_blank">read "The Alarming Spread of Poetry" by P. G. Wodehouse</a> </div>
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-75712035761354601672023-10-16T09:30:00.001-04:002023-10-16T09:30:00.137-04:00Prompt: Surprise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPm8Y6zbIidg1Brlpb8gDF1IO4HEbAK3YljUrwh7CfG3m6rWpLltotkrEsNVVt0gB-eR0iIi507zNuqWwrvYu6Imr1rwmf8kDMFya1KjJQnYTfeRtVYzI0LVLuMQ9eEeFhLsDg8YRP2U0EnDsVodzPIzAzP4ncGOilixCDYVMEjppqZX0x4o_c1w/s800/front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="800" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPm8Y6zbIidg1Brlpb8gDF1IO4HEbAK3YljUrwh7CfG3m6rWpLltotkrEsNVVt0gB-eR0iIi507zNuqWwrvYu6Imr1rwmf8kDMFya1KjJQnYTfeRtVYzI0LVLuMQ9eEeFhLsDg8YRP2U0EnDsVodzPIzAzP4ncGOilixCDYVMEjppqZX0x4o_c1w/w400-h265/front.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/james-wright" target="_blank">"Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" by James Wright</a> is our model poem this month.
Wright's short poem is primarily a description of a country setting. He sees a farm, viewed from a hammock. It is a pleasant, relaxing scene.<br />
<br />
The poem is a single stanza, free verse, in simple language. It has 13 lines - one short of a sonnet. But like a sonnet, it has a "turn" - a quick one in its final line. It is almost like the poem is a sonnet without the final concluding heroic couplet. That final line is a surprise ending - a twist that seems to undo the previous 12 lines.<br />
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My reading of the poem is that the person in the hammock is a visitor to Duffy's farm. It is not where he lives and different from where he does live. The scene around him is pleasant and the visitor's conclusion comes from that scene, but in an unexpected way.<br />
<br />
For our November issue, we are looking for poems with a surprise ending, a twist, or a poem that ends in a way that flips the poem's meaning.
</p><p><a href="https://www.poetsonline.org/submit.html" target="_blank">Submission Deadline: October 31, 2023</a></p><p></p><center>
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0374522820&asins=0374522820&linkId=241c91af1279d03cae4682401fb69dcd&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe> <iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0374529027&asins=0374529027&linkId=c6c9558a2eb31b9248310d9ed31976d7&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></center><p></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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Visit our website at <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></div>
<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-58866285202455184032023-10-15T16:05:00.000-04:002023-10-15T16:05:02.090-04:00Conversations About Poetry"Tell all the truth but tell it slant" wrote Emily Dickinson. I have heard recited it or read it many times, but I realized that I'm still not really sure I understand it completely.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Tell all the truth but tell it slant —</b><br />
<b>Success in Circuit lies</b><br />
<b>Too bright for our infirm Delight</b><br />
<b>The Truth’s superb surprise</b><br />
<b>As Lightning to the Children eased</b><br />
<b>With explanation kind</b><br />
<b>The Truth must dazzle gradually</b><br />
<b>Or every man be blind —</b></blockquote>
<br />
Maybe that's the thing about good poems - that as much as you like hearing them and getting some meaning from them, they offer you the chance to revisit them and get even more from them.<div><br /><div>I enjoy having conversations about poetry. You could post a comment about Emily's little poem on this post.<br />
<br />
Poets Online has been a website asking you to write to a prompt since 1998. I enjoy receiving and reading poems submitted and occasionally I develop an email connection with a poet. I know a few poets who have written on the site in real life, and just a few times someone has approached me at a reading to introduce themself as one of the poets published on the site. But that is the rare exception.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30zANBF2KOfSOu_LYe95WScmsUAD6d17y0fukbptdyUQb1WxoC1Op2hyphenhyphenCA5mAeQ8b63G0gPHvPdIhNak1FnfHMv6Uao0RgeAWwEtO_kdLJKy-Kpn4JBOrsa1b6SGxGMRe3NPUxA/s1600/comments.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30zANBF2KOfSOu_LYe95WScmsUAD6d17y0fukbptdyUQb1WxoC1Op2hyphenhyphenCA5mAeQ8b63G0gPHvPdIhNak1FnfHMv6Uao0RgeAWwEtO_kdLJKy-Kpn4JBOrsa1b6SGxGMRe3NPUxA/s200/comments.png" width="200" /></a></div><div><br /></div>
In 2005, I started this blog and added <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PoetsOnline/" target="_blank"><b>Poets Online to Facebook</b></a>, Twitter and Pinterest - not so much as promotion, but so that readers could connect with me. It happens sometimes, but not often.<div><br />There is also a<b> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/poetsonlinediscussion" target="_blank">Poets Online discussion group on Facebook</a> </b>where people sometimes post poems they have written, or ones that touch them, or links to things poetic. </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://twitter.com/poetsonline" target="_blank"><b>Twitter </b></a>is not as good at conversations (and has a tarnished reputation since I entered us there in 2005) but it still has value. <br />
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I hope you will join the conversation.<br />
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-38840900086033475492023-10-04T12:00:00.001-04:002023-10-04T12:00:00.130-04:00Tennyson<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETbG3u9b0-ug-H4m6M-d6uqJdI9lxLhrvMOT8GLSnNnfaYY7I3WV2LBUpQZXemYGsdu2OU0f-RzvqKUzcE15VmbRCKZ0cxkMkjrjBnR_8TEhHrb06tu89jyyW_5T1Aps1P1h3Fpe-ZG_erK1mjji3Y3bL2FfaZz50sdd0vaMS4XJxfolcDLRx9g/s479/Tennyson,_Vanity_Fair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="284" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETbG3u9b0-ug-H4m6M-d6uqJdI9lxLhrvMOT8GLSnNnfaYY7I3WV2LBUpQZXemYGsdu2OU0f-RzvqKUzcE15VmbRCKZ0cxkMkjrjBnR_8TEhHrb06tu89jyyW_5T1Aps1P1h3Fpe-ZG_erK1mjji3Y3bL2FfaZz50sdd0vaMS4XJxfolcDLRx9g/w238-h400/Tennyson,_Vanity_Fair.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Poet Laureate", caricature of Tennyson in <i>Vanity Fair</i>, 1871</td></tr></tbody></table><p> Do people still read the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson? I'm not sure if he is even read in K-12 English classrooms these days. I read him in high school and had a course in college in the 1970s that assigned us <i><a href="https://amzn.to/48BH8yX" target="_blank">Idylls of the King</a></i>. I enjoyed the cycle of twelve narrative poems which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom. I was taking another course on Arthurian literature and it all made sense.</p><p>Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) was the Poet Laureate from 1850. <i>Idylls of the King </i>was published between 1859 and 1885.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idylls-King-Baron-Alfred-Tennyson-ebook/dp/B0768L9TCL?qid=1696432887&refinements=p_27%3ABaron+Alfred+Tennyson+Tennyson&s=digital-text&sr=1-2&text=Baron+Alfred+Tennyson+Tennyson&linkCode=li3&tag=poetsonlineblog-20&linkId=e681d41184033469258617680d549094&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_il" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B0768L9TCL&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&l=li3&o=1&a=B0768L9TCL" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /></p><p>Tennyson was born in Lincolnshire, England in 1809 and showed early promise as a poet. I don't know how good it is but he wrote a 6,000-line epic when he was only 12. He published a book of poetry with his brother when he was only 17. </p><p>He had to leave Cambridge because of his father's death. He published some poetry and got some particularly negative reviews. Then, his best friend died and Tennyson fell into a period of depression. "I suffered what seemed to me to shatter all my life so that I desired to die rather than to live," he said of that time He refused to publish anything for ten years. </p><p>When he finally put out his next book, simply titled <b><i><a href="https://amzn.to/440P5dw" target="_blank">Poems</a></i></b>, it established his career immediately and brilliantly. He went on to succeed William Wordsworth as Britain's poet laureate, and Queen Victoria conferred on him the title of baron, arguably making him the first poet ever to sit in the House of Lords based solely on the merit of his verse. His fame at the time was probably only eclipsed by that of the prime minister and the queen herself. </p><p>But I don't think he is read much anymore except for some anthologized poems that turn up in a high school Brit Lit course or in a college survey class.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=0199572763&asins=0199572763&linkId=09ea08940dc980f831d15db3e7dfef7f&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe></p><p><br /></p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-73765315589436126062023-09-23T10:00:00.008-04:002023-09-23T10:00:00.147-04:00Oppenheimer, John Donne and the Bhagavad Gita<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_PsEwV9XLCYOyJMuObY-3HBilPmdJ7xYEYIY8nZc2W2b7eUmkopq0TM2JnXKDdqWLof5gn7_cRyzfPoKSudG-rAo59q_a9pykKQSQeyoBFR3HoODJ56OUZO8qnC38YdVqdtHuiTYLEZ5IDFln73R1wnkp1L6M1ynRm-_LGn7tD0N8EbONEODCbA/s640/trinity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="640" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_PsEwV9XLCYOyJMuObY-3HBilPmdJ7xYEYIY8nZc2W2b7eUmkopq0TM2JnXKDdqWLof5gn7_cRyzfPoKSudG-rAo59q_a9pykKQSQeyoBFR3HoODJ56OUZO8qnC38YdVqdtHuiTYLEZ5IDFln73R1wnkp1L6M1ynRm-_LGn7tD0N8EbONEODCbA/w400-h269/trinity.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">July 16, 1945, Trinity, the first nuclear weapons test.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Prometheus-Triumph-Tragedy-Oppenheimer-ebook/dp/B000XUBEYS?crid=EFL3EJFJSXWK&keywords=american+prometheus&qid=1695429381&s=digital-text&sprefix=american+prometheus%2Cdigital-text%2C69&sr=1-1&linkCode=li3&tag=poetsonlineblog-20&linkId=f3939e05fe287e769dad8ef6907a30db&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_il" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B000XUBEYS&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&l=li3&o=1&a=B000XUBEYS" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /></p><p>The film Oppenheimer was a big hit this summer and if you saw the film and especially if you read the book it is based on, <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3Ps3cDl" target="_blank">American Prometheus</a></i>, you know that there are some literary references. Two that influenced him were <a href="https://amzn.to/4500OcF" target="_blank">the poetry of John Donne</a> and the Hindu scripture <i>Bhagavad Gita</i>.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-John-Donne-Collections-Letters-ebook/dp/B01AZMNG26?&linkCode=li3&tag=poetsonlineblog-20&linkId=fd3f43f78ad3037084e410242691ff18&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_il" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B01AZMNG26&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=poetsonlineblog-20&language=en_US&l=li3&o=1&a=B01AZMNG26" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /></p><p>Both were important to him during the Manhattan Project and at the Trinity test. In 1962, Manhattan Project leader Gen. Leslie Groves wrote to Oppenheimer to ask about the origins of the name Trinity. Oppenheimer said, “Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death, which I know and love.” </p><p>Oppenheimer quoted the sonnet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44114/hymn-to-god-my-god-in-my-sickness" target="_blank">“Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness”</a> which is about a man unafraid to die because he believed in resurrection.</p><p>Oppenheimer continued, “That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens, ‘Batter my heart, three person’d God.’ Beyond this, I have no clues whatever.”</p><p>That second poem,“<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44106/holy-sonnets-batter-my-heart-three-persond-god" target="_blank">Batter My Heart</a>,” expresses the paradox that by being chained to God, the narrator can be set free. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2iGxrPT-NhN3pHmiEQwlgPLe8dKJj3-neS4yRpP6omNN1oZ3-RwxpSJPrVIlfMx68cSZ1x_YNTwgf5HVw-WYALlOPTeoi97VFTQ-5ia6TaseVhO2FadcfDErQmu5tIMADUbikz8kQYIOFTT-SAlUFnw3MfyXhKLqUA_iAvFAysYMmRaszBJfgIQ/s1367/bhagavad%20gita.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="1367" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2iGxrPT-NhN3pHmiEQwlgPLe8dKJj3-neS4yRpP6omNN1oZ3-RwxpSJPrVIlfMx68cSZ1x_YNTwgf5HVw-WYALlOPTeoi97VFTQ-5ia6TaseVhO2FadcfDErQmu5tIMADUbikz8kQYIOFTT-SAlUFnw3MfyXhKLqUA_iAvFAysYMmRaszBJfgIQ/w400-h183/bhagavad%20gita.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>Oppenheimer wanted to read the <i>Bhagavad-Gita</i> in the original Sanskrit, the primary sacred language of Hinduism. Before Los Alamos, when he was a professor at Berkeley, he audited Sanskrit classes with <a href="https://amzn.to/3Zs48w0" target="_blank">Arthur W. Ryder, who had published an English translation of the <i>Bhagavad-Gita.</i></a></p><p>The "Bhagavad-Gita" expresses a life structured by action. One should detach from desired outcomes and work. Preparing for Trinity, Oppenheimer’s thoughts were on the success of the test and the impact of the bomb on his life and the world. </p><p>As you see in the film, at the Trinity detonation, Oppenheimer was said to have recalled the line from the book, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” </p><p>However, some <a href="https://discover.lanl.gov/news/0714-oppenheimer-literature/ " target="_blank">critics have said that the quote has been widely misinterpreted</a>. Oppenheimer is not Krishna/Vishnu, not the terrible god, not the ‘destroyer of worlds’ — he is Arjuna, the human prince who didn’t really want to kill his brothers, his fellow people but he has been enjoined to battle by something bigger than himself.</p><p>Historian James A. Hijiya wrote that Oppenheimer believed, “It was the duty of the scientists to build the bomb, but it was the duty of the statesman to decide whether or how to use it.”</p><p>Before the Trinity test, Oppenheimer sipped coffee, rolled smokes, and read French poet Charles Baudelaire. T.S. Eliot was another poet Oppenheimer admired. He met Eliot when he invited him as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Eliot wrote, “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?”</p>
<hr /><hr /><p style="text-align: center;">Follow this blog for all things poetry.<br />To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues, <br />visit our website at <a href="https://poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">
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Visit our website at <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/poetsonline.org" target="_blank">poetsonline.org</a></div>
<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-72418440084164091752023-09-13T16:03:00.001-04:002023-09-13T16:03:24.089-04:00Prompt: Broken Off <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1wxoMb-nsjhzWEmTzZxnjJ9nxYfFWmCG3EYG63TVCxnwPEqKEPEjgiQLi2HUM8NAp3_7QAHqMaK_KjwSd_wAO5AspB64dWyNksvH3JOubt2M_ntYpKUuNRjyEYv5Ga_lcVpVP6LaAgidEFnHkIofsA1kvcy0cZx2LnOMyWlRpD1tJe-kUM2m8A/s2048/B4627030-C68D-4F89-8A21-7B172BD83AF1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1wxoMb-nsjhzWEmTzZxnjJ9nxYfFWmCG3EYG63TVCxnwPEqKEPEjgiQLi2HUM8NAp3_7QAHqMaK_KjwSd_wAO5AspB64dWyNksvH3JOubt2M_ntYpKUuNRjyEYv5Ga_lcVpVP6LaAgidEFnHkIofsA1kvcy0cZx2LnOMyWlRpD1tJe-kUM2m8A/w400-h400/B4627030-C68D-4F89-8A21-7B172BD83AF1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>This month's model poem is the shortest we have ever used as a writing prompt example for our submissions. Not even 17 syllables, it is shorter than a haiku.<br />
<br /><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b>Two Linen Handkerchiefs</b><br />
How can you have been dead twelve years<br />
and these still<br /></span> <b>by Jane Hirshfield<br /></b>
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The poem asks the reader to complete the thought, as poems often do. No ellipsis, no dash, just broken off.<br />
<br />It was in listening to a short <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/03/14/392075809/windows-that-transform-the-world-jane-hirshfield-on-poetry" target="_blank">interview with the poet</a>, that I discovered this poem and her explanation of how it came to be.</p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The poem is broken off in exactly the way a life is broken off, in exactly the way grief breaks off, takes us beyond any possible capacity for words to speak. And yet it also, short as it is, holds all of our bewilderment in the face of death. How is it that these inanimate handkerchiefs — which did belong to my father and are still in a drawer of mine, and which I did accidentally come across — how can they still be so pristinely ironed and clean and existent when the person who chose them and used them and wore them is gone? ... Some poems have a way of, sometimes quite literally, looking out a window. They change their focus of direction, they change their attention. And by doing that, by glancing for a moment at something else, the field of the poem becomes larger."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jane Hirshfield is a poet I have used multiple times for prompts and she is a poet I have heard read in person multiple times. She seems to be a very gentle and compassionate soul, and that is often clear in her poetry. She is an ordained lay practitioner of Zen. ("I'm [also] a Universal Life minister, but that was just so I could marry some friends," she says, laughing.)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>I think compassion, in a way, is one of the most important things poems do for me, and I trust do for other people. They allow us to feel how shared our fates are. If a person reads this poem when they're inside their own most immediate loss, they immediately — I hope — feel themselves accompanied. Someone else has been here. Someone else has felt what I felt. And, you know, we know this in our minds, but that's very different from being accompanied by the words of a poem, which are not ideas but are experiences."</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXqMGUgvU1Rh4JoGSHi1rEO7nBOFuuGRhoEmnaw8-WmELtN7kk4bHmbKtFrgPTYLR1M30vIet7CgN44oOXSZwk6jOAV9jYU9SvC0hcsXyfeL6gTerkR6hYAdRuxLCZHV3uzjHQKeKVNw8BI-RqX8_EG5IEqBXztKgcSG1IkEVHXxueHtWzMRRCA/s200/submit%20red.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="64" data-original-width="200" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXqMGUgvU1Rh4JoGSHi1rEO7nBOFuuGRhoEmnaw8-WmELtN7kk4bHmbKtFrgPTYLR1M30vIet7CgN44oOXSZwk6jOAV9jYU9SvC0hcsXyfeL6gTerkR6hYAdRuxLCZHV3uzjHQKeKVNw8BI-RqX8_EG5IEqBXztKgcSG1IkEVHXxueHtWzMRRCA/w156-h50/submit%20red.png" width="156" /></a></div>I don't know if all that can be contained in her two-line poem. And we don't expect you to submit poems that are only two lines. <p></p><p>Our call for submissions for the October issue is for poems about things "broken off." Your poem might be about a relationship broken off. Maybe your poem will literally break off at some appropriate point, as Jane's poem does. Maybe it is about an actual object that has a part broken off, or more figuratively, a person with something broken off. What do those two words mean to you?</p><p><b>Submission Deadline: September 30, 2023</b></p>
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17676950.post-42309390595082545922023-08-21T19:55:00.002-04:002023-08-21T19:55:11.717-04:00A Poetry Prompt from Kurt Vonnegut<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwvOnRbEB35AG3aRHLSvk8irYz5BckN-zXxC_TKtg3UGVKgyPMQT4efXr-RITPcRNwWYj5WAsXCzMmbMY_8uH1jXfq-e_4tgJ1xCsu8ezuounzK9cEfzRgyVNb9s5wX5EMzJn-EQGtF6ILtpiF0PsV6GXwUGWj4gUnv5AtVT27Q68Km_IhSCYPA/s261/kurt.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="260" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwvOnRbEB35AG3aRHLSvk8irYz5BckN-zXxC_TKtg3UGVKgyPMQT4efXr-RITPcRNwWYj5WAsXCzMmbMY_8uH1jXfq-e_4tgJ1xCsu8ezuounzK9cEfzRgyVNb9s5wX5EMzJn-EQGtF6ILtpiF0PsV6GXwUGWj4gUnv5AtVT27Q68Km_IhSCYPA/s1600/kurt.JPG" width="260" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The doodle that Vonnegut sometimes used as a signature,<br />as with the letter below. His actual signature is that mess that<br />is the ear and hair on the doodle.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div><b>In this reply to a high school class, Kurt Vonnegut gives a poetry prompt that you might want to try. It's not one that would work well for Poets Online, but it makes a good point about the rewards of writing poetry.</b><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don't make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">God bless you all!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Kurt Vonnegut</span></blockquote>
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<hr /></div>Ken Ronkowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02900812689003111586noreply@blogger.com0