Crafted Poetry

Clement Clarke Moore

2006-12-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

As I was searching and compiling all the information about Clement Clarke Moore, I ran across this very complete and articulate article and decided to throw away my scribbled notes and post this article written by Jeff Westover.

Clement Clarke Moore: Father, Patriot and Poet
By Jeff Westover

Clement Clarke Moore was one of New York's wealthiest men. And clearly, one of it's most highly educated.
He was born in 1779 to Benjamin Moore, a patriot and an Episcopalian minister. His mother was Charity Clarke, a feisty and ardent supporter of the American cause. He inherited from her side of the family a good portion of land that would someday become the Chelsea District in New York City.
For young Clement C. Moore, his life's work did not lay in the ministry as it did his father. He had a well developed love of language and pursued the learning of ancient dialects of Hebrew, Greek and German. But he was a man of profound attachment to family, home and church. He donated property and for a time assumed the entire debt of Saint Peter's Church.
He married a woman named Catherine Elizabeth and was shamelessly devoted to her. While courting her, Moore wrote to his future mother-in-law that he would carve her name into trees. Together, they had nine children. When her life unexpectedly was taken while she was yet 30 years old, he was devastated. But he assumed her duties and enjoyed fond relationships with his children and grandchildren.
It is not hard to imagine then what transpired that snowy Christmas Eve in 1822. Catherine sent her husband out into the elements to get one more turkey, which she and the children were preparing as a donation to the poor. Their home, with six children at the time, was one filled with love and warmth and tradition.
Clement ventured into town, his coachman being a jolly, round fellow with a long white beard and a most cheerful disposition. After he purchased the needed turkey from Jefferson's Market, with sleigh bells merrily ringing in his ears as the snow fell that Christmas Eve day, he composed a short poem.
Moore returned home with the turkey and the family traditions of Christmas took hold. He added to them by delighting his young children that night by the fire with the first reading of "The Night Before Christmas", the poem he had composed that very afternoon. Then, he tucked his handwritten copy of his creation away and gave it no further thought.
But his poem had made a powerful impression upon his children, who some months later shared it with a visiting family friend. This same friend, not knowing that Moore's sole intent was to keep the poem private, sent it to the Troy Sentinel, where it was published anonymously just before Christmas in 1823.
The poem quickly became beloved of the public and spread Moore's name around the globe. It shaped the imagination of who Santa Claus is and what he looks like. Moore's work provided inspiration for Thomas Nast, an illustrator of political cartoons who gained notoriety as well for his early wood engravings of Christmas scenes published in Harper's Weekly.
By 1844, Moore included A Visit from Saint Nicholas in a published collection of his poetic writings. He was a giant in his community, a trustee of Columbia University, well known in academia for his scholarship in ancient languages and his real estate dealings shaped modern-day Manhatten. But the world knows him and holds him dear for the "trifle", as he called it, that he penned for his children on a chilly sleigh ride back home from the market on Christmas Eve of 1822.

© 1991-2006 - All Rights Reserved

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

2006-12-18T07:09:00.000-08:00

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.
And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap.

When out on the roof there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
tore open the shutter, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
gave the lustre of midday to objects below,
when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles, his courses they came,
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

"Now Dasher! Now Dancer!
Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid!
On, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch!
To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away!
Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
so up to the house-top the courses they flew,
with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes--how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight,
'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night! '

An Old Man's Winter Night

2006-12-12T08:12:00.000-08:00

This is another Robert Frost Poem that I enjoy during the winter time.
Somehow every time I read this poem I see something in it I haven't seen before.
(The roar of trees and the cracking tree branches in the winter nights air sure seemed appropriate considering this month’s ice storm.)
What does this poem say to you?

An Old Man's Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man -- one man -- can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

2006-12-07T16:03:00.000-08:00

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

'Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.'

Robert Lee Frost

2006-12-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

Robert Lee Frost was born March 26, 1874 in San Francisco to Isabelle Moodie and William Prescott Frost, Jr.
He died January 29, 1963 in Boston and is buried the Old Bennington Cemetery, in Bennington, Vermont.

Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets and story tellers because of his great love and facination with nature and the natural world around him.

He often drew his inspiration from the rural life in New England and nature, using this setting to explore complex social and philosophical themes.
He is a popular and often-quoted poet.
Robert Frost was highly honored during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes.

*Frost lived in California until he was twelve years old. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother and sister to eastern Massachusetts, near his paternal grandparents. His mother joined the Swedenborgian church and had him baptized in it, but he left it as an adult. He grew up as a city boy and published his first poem in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He attended Dartmouth College in 1892, for just less than a semester, and while there he joined the fraternity, Theta Delta Chi. He went back home to teach and work at various jobs including factory work and newspaper delivery.

In 1894 he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly", to The New York Independent for fifteen dollars. Proud of this accomplishment, he asked Elinor Miriam White to marry him. They had graduated co-valedictorians from their high-school and had remained in contact with one another. She refused, wanting to finish school before they married. Frost was sure that there was another man and went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. He came back later that year and asked Elinor again; she accepted, and they were married in December 1895.

They taught school together until 1897. Frost then entered Harvard University for two years. He did well, but felt he had to return home due to his health and because his wife was expecting a second child. His grandfather purchased a farm in Derry, New Hampshire for the young couple. He stayed there for nine years and wrote many of the poems that would make up his first works. His attempt at poultry farming was not successful, and he was forced to take another job at Pinkerton Academy, a secondary school, from 1906 to 1911. From 1911 to 1912, Robert Frost lived in Plymouth, New Hampshire and taught at the New Hampshire Normal School (now Plymouth State University).

In 1912, Frost sailed with his family to Glasgow, and later settled in Beaconsfield, outside London.

His first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, was published the next year. In England he made some crucial contacts including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock poets), T. E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound, who was the first American to write a (favorable) review of Frost's work. Frost wrote some of the best pieces of his work while living in England.

Frost returned to America in 1915, bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire and launched a career of writing, teaching and lecturing. From 1916 to 1938, he was an English professor at Amherst College. He encouraged his writing students to bring the sound of the human voice to their craft. Beginning in 1921, and for the next 42 years (with three exceptions), Frost spent his summers teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College in Ripton, Vermont. Middlebury College still owns and maintains Robert Frost's Farm as a National Historic Site near the Bread Loaf campus.

Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates his having received an honorary degree there; Frost also received honorary degrees from Bates College, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and he was the first to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia as well as the main library of Amherst College was named after him.

*(rest of the bio and the pictures taken from www.wikipedia.org )

The Old Man Poem

2006-11-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

Here is a poen that I thought quite comical and I had to share!

Rumi

2006-09-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Mind does its fine-tuning hair-splitting,
but no craft or art begins
or can continue without a master
giving wisdom into it.

~RUMI

Pied Beauty

2006-08-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things --
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscape plotted & pieced -- fold, fallow, & plough;
And áll trades, their gear & tackle & trim.
All things counter, original, spáre, strange;

Whatever is fickle, frecklèd, (who knows how?)

With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

Práise hím.

Here's another well-known poem by Hopkins. I think this is my favorite one. It is another one that needs to be read aloud. Here is also some biographical information on Hopkins from the Victorian Web.

God's Grandeur

2006-08-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

The first of Hopkin's poems that I would llike to post is God's Grandeur. It is one of his most well-known poems and really should be read aloud to appreciate it fully (as should all his poems). I first became a Hopkins admirer in college. I took a Victorian Literature class from a great prof that became head of the department. Although it has been 15 years, I still remember some of things he told us about Hopkins in that course.

Hopkins was a Catholic priest, but not a very good one. His sermons bored people to death. He was transferred often.
Scholars have determined that he was one of only 2 writers with an unusually wide and varied vocabulary. (The other writer is Shakespeare.) He would virtually use any word, where most writers have a limited voacbulary that they pull from.
At a monastary one time, he was seen by 2 of his peers lying with his cheek on the ground, admiring some wet stones that he saw sparkling in the light.
Although a Victorian writer, his writings share many characteristics with early modern poets.

God's Grandeur


THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;	5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;	10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

2006-07-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's my turn. The poet for August is Gerard Manley Hopkins--one of my favorites!! I will be posting some poems starting this week. I am not very good at getting around the yahoo group, but I will try my hand at that too.

Please jump in here with anything that you have to add to the discussion on this great and unique Victorian poet.

Margaret Mead and Amy Lowell

2006-07-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Margaret Mead was a prolific letter-writer, posting from all over the world to her friends, family, colleagues, and lovers. According to the introduction to a new collection of her letters, To Cherish the Life of the World:

Mead adapted metaphors from the Amy Lowell poem, "A Decade," to describe her intimate relationships. There were people who were exciting, sparkling wine and there were those who were nurturing bread... In her life, she needed both bread and wine."

I wonder - which poems (or art, or music) would describe my relationships?

Decade - by Amy Lowell

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

adios

2006-07-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well that is all for me this month. I hope you all have enjoyed, or at least come to see something new, these past two weeks. Borges has also written short stories, literary reviews and translations. In fact one of his short story collections, The Aleph and Other Stories, is part of my Summer Reading Challenge :)

santih

For a Version of I Ching

2006-07-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

The imminent is immutable

As rigid yeserday. There is no matter

That rates more than a single, silent letter

In the eternal and inscrutable

Writing whose book is time. He who believes

He's left his home already has come back.

Life is a future and well-travelled track.

Nothing dismisses us. Nothing leaves.

Do not give up. The prison is bereft

Of light, its fabric is incessant iron,

But in some corner of your mean environs

You might discover a mistake, a cleft.

The road is fatal as an arrow's flight

But God is watching in the narrowest light.

(1976)

***

El porvenir es tan irrevocable

Como el rigido ayer. No hay una cosa

Que no sea una letra silenciosa

De la eterna escritura indescrifrable

Cuyo libro es el tiempo. Quien se aleja

De su casa ys ha vuelto. Nuestra vida

Es la senda futura y recorrida.

Nada nos dice adios. Nada nos deja.

No te rindas. la ergastula es oscura,

la firme trama es da incesante hierro

puede haber un descuido, una hendidura,

El camino es fatal como la flecha

Pero en las grietas esta Dios, que acecha.

(1976)

You Are Not the Others/ No eres los otros

2006-07-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

The writings left behind by those your dread

Implores won't have to save you. You are not

The others, and you see your feet have brought

You to the center of a maze their tread

Has plotted. Jesus' pain will afford no pardon,

Nor Socrates' suffering, nor the inviolate

Golden Siddhartha, who within the twilit

Final hour of evening, in a garden,

Accepted death. These too are dust: the soundless

Verb spoken by your lips, and the word written

By your hand. In Fate there is no pity

And the enduring night of God is boundless.

Your matter is time, its unchecked and unreckoned

Passing. You are each solitary second.

***

No te habra salvar lo que dejaron

Escrito aquellos que tu miedo implora;

No eres los ortos y te ves ahora

Centro del laberinto que tramaron

Tus pasos. No te salva la agonia

De Jesus o de ocrates ni el fuerte

Siddhartha de oro que acepto la muerte

En un jardin, al delinar el dia.

Polvo tambien es la palabra escrita

Por tu mano o el verbo pronunciado

Por tu boca. no hay lastima en el hado

Y la noche de Dios es infinita.

Tu materia es el tiempo, el incesante

Tiempo. Eres cada solitario instante.

A Blind Man/ Un Ciego

2006-07-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

I do not know what face is looking back

whenever I look at the face in the mirror;

I do not know what old face seeks its image

in silent and already weary anger.

Slow in my blindness, with my hand I feel

the contours of my face. A flash of light

gets through to me. I have made out your hair,

colour of ash and at the same time, gold.

I say again that I have lost no more

than the inconsequential skin of things.

These wise words come from Milton, and are noble,

but then I think of letters, and of roses.

I think, too, that if I could see my features,

I would know who I am, this precious afternoon.

(1975)

***

No se cual es la cara que me mira

Cuando miro la cara del espejo;

No se que anciano acecha en su reflejo

Con silencio soy ya cansada ira.

Lento en mi sombra, con la mano exploro

Mis invisiables rasagos. Un destello

Me alcanza. He vislumbrado tu cabello

Que es de ceniza o es aun de oro.

Repito que he perdido solamente

La vana superficie de los cosas.

El consuelo es de Milton y es valiente,

Pero pienso en las letras y en las rosas.

Pienso que si pudiera ver mi cara

Sabriaquien soy esta tarde rara.

(1975)

The Streets

2006-07-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

My soul is in the streets

of Buenos Aires.

Not the greedy streets

jostling with crowds and traffic,

but the neighborhood streets where nothing is happening,

almost invisible by force of habit,

rendered etrenal in the dim light of sunset,

and the ones even farther out,

empty of comforting trees,

where austere little houses scarcely venture,

overwhelmed by deathless distances,

losing themselves in the deep expanse

of sky and plains.

For the solitary one they are a promise

because thousands of singular souls inhabit them,

unique before God and in time

and no doubt precious.

To the West, the North, and the South

unfold the streets-and they too are my country:

within these lines I trace

may their flags fly.

(1923)

***

Las calles de Buenos Aires

ya mi son entrana.

No las avidas calles,

incomodas de turba y de ajetreo,

sino lasa calles desganandas del barrio,

casi invisibles de habituales,

enternecides de penumbra y de ocaso

y aquellas mas afuera

ajenas de arboles piadosos

donde austeras casitas apenas se aventuran,

abrumadas por immortales distancias,

a perderse en la honda vision

de cielo y de Banura.

Son para el solitario una promesa

porque millares de almas singulares las pueblan,

unicas ante Dios y e el tiempo

y sin duda preciosas.

Hacia el Oeste, el Norte y el Sur

se han desplegado-y son tambien la patria-las calles:

ojala en los versos que trazo

esten esas banderas.

The Moon

2006-07-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

for Maria Kodama

There is such loneliness in that gold.

The moon of the nights is not the moon

Whom the first Adam saw. The long centuries

Of human vigil have filled her

With ancient lament. Look at her. She is your mirror.

(1976)

***

Hay tanta soledad en ese oro.

La luna de las noches no es la luna

Que vio el primer Adan. ls largos siglos

De la vigilia humana la han colmado

De antiguo llanto. Mirala. Es tu espejo.

(1976)

June, 1968

2006-07-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

In the golden afternoon, or in

a serenity the gold of afternoon

might symbolize,

a man arranges books

on waiting shelves

and feels the parchment, the leather, the cloth,

and the pleasure bestowed

by looking forward to a habit

and establishing an order.

Here Stevenson and Andrew Lang, the other Scot,

will magically resume

their slow discussion

which seas and death cut short,

and surely Reyes will not be displeased

by the closeness of Virgil.

(In a modest, silent way,

by arranging books on shelves

we ply the critics art.)

The man is blind, and knows

he won't be able to decode

the handsome volumes he is handling,

and that they will never help him write

the book that will justify his life in others' eyes;

but in the afternoon that might be gold

he smiles at his curious fate

and feels the peculiar happiness

which comes from loved old things.

(1969)

***

En la tarde de oro

o en una serenidad cuyo simbolo

podria ser la tarde de oro,

el hombre disponce los libros

en los anaqueles que aguardan

y siente el pergamino, el cuero, la tela

y el agrado que dan

la prevision de un habito

y el establecimiento de un orden.

Stevenson y el otro escoce, Andrew Lang,

reanduaran aqui, de manera magica,

la lenta discusion que interrumpieron

las mares y la muerte

y a Reyes no la desagradara ciertamente

la cercania de Viriglio.

(Ordenar bibliotecas es ejercer,

de un modo silencioso y modesto,

el arte de la critica.)

El hombre, que estaciego,

sabe que ya no podra decifrar

los hermosos volumenes que maneja

y que no le aydaran a escribir

el libro que lo justificara ante los otros,

pero en la tarde que es acaso de oro

sonrie ante el curioso destino

y siente esa felicidad peculiar

de las viejas cosas qieridas.

(1969)

morpheus

2006-07-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

The Dream

While the clocks of the midnight hours are squandering

an abundance of time,

I shall go, farther than the shipmates of Ulysses,

to the territory of dream, beyond the reach

of human memory.

From that underwater world I save some fragments,

inexhaustible to my understanding:

grasses from some primitive botany,

animals of all kinds,

conversations with the dead,

faces which all the time are masks,

words out of very ancient languages,

and at times, horror, unlike anything

the day can offer us.

I shall be all or no one. I shall be the other

I am without knowing it, he who has looked on

the other dream, my waking state. He weighs it up,

resigned and smiling.

(1975)

***

Cuando los relojes de la media noche prodiguen

Un tiempo generoso,

Ire mas lejos que los bogavantes se Ulises

A la region del sueno, inaccesible

A la memoria humana.

De esa region immersa rescato restos

Que no acabo de comprender:

Hierbas de sencilla botanica,

Animales algos diversos,

Dialogos con los muertos,

Rostros que realmente son mascaras,

Palabras de lenguajes muy antiguos

Y a veces un horror incomparable

Al que nos puede dar el dia.

Sere todos o nadie. Sere el otro

Que sin saberlo soy, el que ha mirado

Ese otro sueno, mi vigilia. La juzga,

Resignado y sonriente.

(1975)

boast of quietness

2006-07-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

Boast of Quietness

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigous then meteors.

The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.

Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to

understand them.

Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.

Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.

They speak of humanity.

My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.

They speak of homeland.

My homeland in the rythym of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,

the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.

Time is living me.

More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.

They are indispensible, singular, worthy of tomorrow.

My name is someone and anyone.

I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to

arrive.

(1925)

***

Escrituras de luz embisten la sombra, mas prodigiosas que meteoros.

La alta ciudad inconocible arrecia sobre el campo.

Seguro de mi vida y de mi muerte, miro los ambiciosos y quisiera

entenderlos.

Su dia es avido como el lazo en el aire.

Su noche es tregua de la ira en el hierro, pronto en acometer.

Hablan de humanidad.

Mi humanidad esta en sentir que somos voces de una misma penuria.

Hablan de patria.

Mi patria es un latido de guitarra, unos retratos y una vieja espada,

la oracion evidente del asauzal en los atardeceres.

El tiempo esta viviendome.

Mas silencioso que mi sombra, cruzo el tropel de su leventada codicia.

Ellos son imprescindibles, unicos, mercedores del manana.

Mi nombre es alguien y cualquiera.

Paso con lentitud, como quien viene de tan lejos que no espera llegar.

(1925)

the south or the southside

2006-07-04T22:33:00.000-07:00

The South

To have watched from one of your patios

the ancient stars,

from the bench of shadow to have watched

those scattered lights

that my ignorance has learned no names for

nor their places in constellations,

to have heard the note of water

in the cistern,

known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,

the silence of the sleeping bird,

the arch of the entrance, the damp

--these things perhaps are the poem.

(1923)

***

El sur

Desde uno de tus patios haber mirado

las antiguas estrellas,

desde el banco de

la sombra haber mirado

esas luces dispersas

que mi ignorancia no ha aprendido a nombrar

ni a ordenar en constelaciones,

haber sentido el circulo del agua

en el secreto alijibe,

el olor del jazmin y la madreselva,

el silencio del pajaro dormido,

el arco del zanguan, la humedad

--esas cosas, acaso, son el poema.

(1923)

(re) collections

2006-07-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

On Aquiring an Encyclopedia

Here's the huge Brockhaus encyclopedia,

with those many crammed volumes and an atlas,

here is Germanic dedication,

here are neo-Plationists and Gnostics,

the first Adam is here and Adam of Bremen,

the tiger and the tartar,

painstaking typography and the blue of oceans,

here are time's memory and time's labyrinths,

here are error and the truth,

here are the protracted miscellany more learned than any man,

here the sum total of all late hours kept.

Here too are the eyes of no use, hands that lose their way,

pages unreadable,

the dim semishade of blindness, walls that recede.

But also there is a habit new

to that long-standing habit, the house,

a drawing card and a prescence,

the mysterious love of things ---

things unaware of themselves and of us.

(1981)

***

Aqui la vasta enciclopedia de Brockhaus,

aui los muchos y cargados volumenes y el volumen del atlas,

aqui la devocion de Alemania,

aqui lose neoplatonicos y los gnosticos,

aqui el primer Adan y Adan de Bremen,

aqui el tigre y tartaro,

aqui la escrupulosa tipografia y el azul de los mares,

aqui la memoria del tiempo y los laberintos del tiempo,

aqui el error y la verdad,

aqui la dilatda miscelanea que sabe mas que cualquier hombre,

aqui la suma de la larga vigilia.

Aqui tambien les ojos que no sirven, las manos que no aciertan, las ilegibles paginas,

la dudosa penumbra de la ceguera, los muros que se alejan.

Pero tambien aqui una costumbre nueva,

de esta costumbre vieja, la casa,

una gravitacion y una presencia,

el misterioso amor de las cosas

que nos ignoran y se ignoran.

(1981)

reality is a word

2006-07-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

"It is a general rule that novelists do not present a reality, but rather the memory of one. They may write about true or believable events, but these have been revised and arranged by recollection. (This process needless to say has nothing to do with the verb tenses they use) .... The "pure present" is no more than a psychological ideal - ... " JL Borges

Baltasar Gracian

Labyrinths, symbols, all the tricks of language,
a cold and over intricate nothingness -
that, for this Jesuit, was poetry,
reduced by him to verbal strategem.

He had no music in him, only a vain
herbal of metaphors and sophistries,
a worship of agility, and also
disdain for all things, human and superhuman.

He was not touched by the ancient voice of Homer
nor by the moon-and-silver tones of Virgil;
he did not see doomed Oedipus in exile,
nor Christ, dying on a wooden cross.

The bright stars gathered in the Eastern sky,
losing their brightness in the spread of dawn,
he nicknamed, in a questionable phrase,
"Chickens of the celestial countryside."

As ignorant of love of the divine
as of that other love that burns in bodies,
the Pale One started him one afternoon
as he was reading the poems of El Marino.

His later destiny is not recorded.
The dust that formed him finally delivered
to the corrosive changes of the tomb,
the soul of Gracian entered into glory.

What did he feel coming face to face
with all the Archetypes and Heavenly Hosts?
Perhaps he wept, and told himself "In vain
I fed myself on shadow and on errors."

What happened when at last the inexorable
Sun of God, the Truth, unveiled its fire?
Perhaps the light of Heaven left him blinded
there in the midst of that unending glory.

I have another ending. Lost in his trivia,
Gracian never even noticed Heaven
and keeps reworking in his memory
labyrinths, symbols, all the tricks of language.
(1964)

***
Laberintos, retruecanos, emblemas,
Helada y laboriosa naderia,
Fue para este jesuita la poesia,
Reducida por el a estratgemas.

No Hubo musica en su alma; solo un vano
Herbario de metaphoras y argucias
Y la veneracion de las astucias
Y el desden de lo humano y sobrehumano.

No lo movio la antigua voz de Homero
Ni esa, de plata y luna, deVirgilio:
No vio al fatal Edipo en el exilio
Ni a Christo que se muere en un madero.

A las claras estrellas oriantales
Que palidecenen la vasta aurora,
Apodo con palabra pecadora
Callianas se los campos celestiales.

Tan ignoratnte del amor divino
Como del otro que en las bocas arde,
Lo sorprendio la palida una tarfe
Leyendo las estrofas del Mariano.

Su destion ulterior no esta en la historia;
Librado a las mudanzas de la impura
Tumba el polvo que ayer fue se figura,
El alma de Gracian entro en la gloria.

?Que habra sentido al contemplar de frente
Los Arquitipos y los Esplendores?
Quiza lloro y se dijo: Vanamente
Busque alimento en sombras y en errores.

?Que sucedio cuando el inexorble
Sol de Dios, La verdad, mostro su fuego?
Quiza la luz de Dios lo dejo ciego
En mitad de la gloria interminable.

Se de otra conclusion. Dado a sus temas
Minisculos, Gracian no vio la gloria
Y sigue resolviendo en la memoria
Labirentos, retruecanos y emblemas.
(1964)

hope

2006-07-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

In much of Borges poetry there is the sense of eternal prescence. Not prescence with a capital as of some specific or particular entity. The prescence of being present. We know how we came, we know how we will end, what we do not know for certain in how we are from moment to moment. But we can imagine. Or we can know that we do not know.

Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf

At various times I have asked myself what reasons

moved me to study while my night came down,

without particular hope of satisfaction,

the language of the blunt tongued Anglo-Saxons.

Used up by the years my memory

loses its grip on words that I have vainly

repeated and repeated. My life in the same way

weaves and unweaves its weary history.

Then I tell myself: it must be that the soul

has some secret sufficient way of knowing

that it is immortal, that its vast encompassing

circle can take in all, accomplish all.

Beyond my anxiety and beyond this writing

the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.

(1964)

***

A veces me pregunto que razones

Me mueven a estudiar sin esperanza

De precision, mientras mi noche avanza,

La lengua de los asperos sajones.

Gastada por los anos la memoria

Deja caer la en vano repetida

Palabra y es asi como mi vida

Teje y desteje su cansada historia.

Sera (me digo entonces) que de un modo

Secreto y suficiente el alama sabe

Que es immortal y que su vasto y grave

Circulo abarca todo y puede todo.

Mas alla de este afan y de este verso

Me aguarda inagotable el universo.

(1964)

Melanie, the wait is over :)

2006-06-30T23:23:00.000-07:00

Born in 1899 Borges lost his sight in 1955 and died in 1986. For 31 years this man who loved books, who used libraries, reading, words as potent symbols, was denied that which he greatly if not uniquely loved. As a devoted reader myself just the thought of not having the ability to pursue this passion called reading is frightening and yet I sit in admiration of a person who continued regardless not only to write but to enjoy a rich literary life.

Beppo

The celibate white cat surveys himself

in the mirror's clear-eyed glass,

not suspecting that the whiteness facing him

and those gold eyes that he's not seen before

in ramblings through the house are his own likeness.

Who is to tell him the cat observing him

is only the mirror's way of dreaming?

I remind myself that these concordant cats-

the one of glass, the one with warm blood coursing-

are both mere simulacra granted time

by a timeless archetype. In the Enneads

Plotinus, himself a shade, has said as much.

Of what Adam predating paradise,

of what inscrutable divinity

are all of us a broken mirror image?

(1981)

***

Beppo

El gato blanco y celibe se mira

en la lucida luna del espejo

Y no puede saber que esa blancura

y esos ojos de oro que no ha visto

nunca en la casa son su propia imagen.

?Quien la dira que el otro que lo observa

es apenas un sueno del espejo?

Me digo que esos gatos armoniosos,

el de cristal y el de caliente sangre,

son simulacros que concede al tiempo

un aquetipo eterno. Asi lo afirma,

sombra tambien, Plotino en las Enneadas.

?De que Adian anterior al paraiso,

de que divinidad indescrifrable

somos los hombres un espejo roto?

(1981)

poem for a lowly harbinger of spring

2006-06-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

From Poetry 180:

Dandelion

Julie Lechevsky

My science teacher said
there are no monographs
on the dandelion.

Unlike the Venus fly-trap
or Calopogon pulchellus,
it is not a plant worthy of scrutiny.

It goes on television
between the poison squirt bottles,
during commercial breakaways from Ricki Lake.

But that's how life
parachutes
to my home.

Home,
where they make you do
what you don't want to do.

Moms with Uzis of reproach,
dads with their silencers.
(My parents watch me closely because I am their jewel.)

So no one knows how strong
a dandelion is inside,
how its parts stick together,
bract, involucre, pappus,
how it clings to its fragile self.

There are 188 florets in a bloom,
which might seem a peculiar number,
but there are 188,000 square feet
in the perfectly proportioned Wal-Mart,
which allows for circulation
without getting lost.

I wish I could grow like a dandelion,
from gold to thin white hair,
and be carried on a breeze
to the next yard.

from Poems & Plays, Number 8, Spring/Summer 2001
University of Arkansas Press

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)

2006-05-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

From: Poets.org

Happy First Unofficial Day of Summer everyone...

a poem for a long weekend -- Lake Isle of Innisfree

2006-05-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

1892

Yahoo group invitation - 2nd edition

2006-05-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

Let's see if this works better.... we are moving the discussion for Crafted Poetry to a Yahoo group. I think (I hope) this button will bring you to a screen that allows you to join, but doesn't automatically join you --

Click to join crafted_poetry

Maybe we can use this blog to post crafts and such? Or, if we'd prefer, we can upload photos to the Yahoo group -- we'll all just have to figure this out together!

Today's Poetry Daily selection

2006-05-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

TO THE SOUL


Is anyone there
if so
are you real
either way are you
one or several
if the latter
are you all at once
or do you
take turns not answering

is your answer
the question itself
surviving the asking
without end
whose question is it
how does it begin
where does it come from
how did it ever
find out about you
over the sound
of itself
with nothing but its own
ignorance to go by


W. S. Merwin
Migration: New and Selected Poems
Copper Canyon Press

Copyright (c) 2005 by W. S. Merwin.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

One of my Favorites

2006-05-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

This is a quote from Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. It is one of my favorities. I can't remember the names of the two characters right off the top of my head, but what's funny about it is that the young man in the play is telling his girlfriend this, and she doesn't get it. She's like 'yeah, whatever'.

"harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

William Shakespeare

Post-Angelou

2006-05-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

Thank you Jenni for posting that wonderful poem. I grew up in a neighborhood filled with women, and women to be, who embodied what Still I Rise projects. So many memories came back as I read it :)

There are two more days in the Angelou focus, though of course the more the better.

Starting next week I thought it would be fun if we all posted bits of poetry, or metaphors that appeal to us. They could be familiar, found, just thought up, funny, sad, peculiar; in other words no theme except that it is a bit or piece that catches your attention

For example:

" whisper your name in an empty room

brushed past my skin

as soft as fur"

Other Voices, R. Smith

Sound good?

Melanie will be the close reader leader in June. I snuck a peak :) She's gonna be good***CV

"Still I Rise" Maya Angelou

2006-05-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Next we have....

2006-05-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

Last week was E.A. Poe (no not Hoffman) and this week is Ms. Angelou.

*hangs head in shame*

I know of her but not about her work. Please step forward all you Angelou'ians and illuminate - please :) ***CV

grains of sand

2006-05-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking of musical uses of Poe: there is a group called Propaganda which has recorded Dream within a Dream. The female lead has this wonderful northern european accented voice which is wonderfully suited to the poem.

In fact I use this recording as my test for a good sound system ;) **CV

Not exactly the boy next door

2006-05-11T06:05:00.001-07:00

I love to experience an artist or author through the genre-bending idiosyncracies of another. Even the most uninspired collection of "covers" can lead me to an insight. These two interpretations of Poe's poetry and prose go far beyond "covers," and lead me to experience Poe's mad art very, very directly.

Lou Reed's CD, "The Raven," is a rock and roll carnival and play about Edgar Allen Poe, who is, according to Reed, "not exactly the boy next door." Spoken tracks (with music) include readings of "The Raven, "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Willem Dafoe, Amanda Plummer reading "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells, " and Elizabeth Ashley's "The Valley of Unrest." Steve Buscemi, Laurie Anderson, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Ornette Coleman, David Bowie, and (of course) Reed himself contribute to the words, music, and atmosphere - pure Poe, filtered through the sensibility of Lou Reed, whose zesty, decadent interpretation captures Poe's raw madness and genius. (Lest you think the collection is humorless, you will never again hear a faux-jazzy lounge singer's interpretation of a Broadway song without recalling Steve Buscemi's spot-on take-off, "Broadway Song.")

Seemingly from another world, Donovan's musical setting of "El Dorado," on "Sutras," is both driving, with its complex guitar work, and evocative, with a yearning melody.
"Over the Mountains of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly, ride," the shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado."

SOS*

2006-05-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

I would really like this group to continue.

So I was thinking that instead of having one group leader for Poe and Maya Angelou we could all post our favorite Poe'isms whether they be literary, musical, parody or inspired by, for one week and do the same for Ms. Angelou the following week.

True it wouldn't be a close reading ( I'm still trying to figure out what a close reading is. I figure I'll just deluge you all with what I like and think about my guy...er....um poet) but, we would get to know each other better through our selections and interpretaions in the meantime.

Maybe (*gasp* shock* horror*) you don't care for Poe or Angelou. Great! Tell us why.

Jan my heart goes out to you. Check in when you can even if it's to just read what we're up to 'kay?

santih ***CV

***I just couldn't title this entry with the acronym for Save Our Blog ;)

Urgent Assistance Needed

2006-05-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

I won't go into details here, but I have had a major crisis in my personal life. I have spent the last 10 days about 80 miles from home at the hospital with my dh! He is out of the immediate danger, stable for now, but is by no means out of the woods yet. I am home for a few days to take care of some of personal business, but will go back to be with dh.

Because of this I will not be able to lead this month. I am sorry, I can occassionally check emails and blogs from the hospital, but cannot lead I am sorry. Please forgive me.

A Cat's tale

2006-05-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Since Jan will be doing the Raven I found a parody version last year which is on my blog chitta'svrtti

Enjoy!

I'm looking forward to your reading Jan :)***CV

Poe boy

2006-05-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

Since we will be led to read Poe closely soon by Jan, I thought I would mention that I have been by Poe's 'hood. I was in Baltimore a couple of years ago and discovered that that is where Poe lived for the majority of his life.

So of course I had to go and see his pad.

My dad was visiting at the time so he drove us to the Poe site. I don't think it's the same building but if it was? I can see why Poe drank. ***CV

Goblin Market Project

2006-05-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

I made a Goblin Market inspired sewing pouch!

It is very Victorina and the fabric is decorated with various types of berries: blackberries, cherries, blueberries. It has a small pincushion in the center and eight pockets for thread and various sewing items. I even crocheted a doiley for the center of it using some sport weight wool that I had in my stash. I am new to crochet and found it quite fun.

It is a celebration of feminity and fruit. Fruit really isn't that threatening after all!

The Idiot in Charge of the Aslym...Jan

2006-04-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Okay so I am either brave or totally crazy, you'll have to be the ones to decide! But I am the "leader" (if you can call me that). Never fear, Amanda is still here.

I'd like some input from y'all.
Would you like to have project contests? Not every month necessarily, but atleast once in awhile. Maybe even just have a project contest once every two (or three months) to include any projects done for the readings during that time. The hostess's and myself, and anyone else I can convince to help, could be the judges. Let me know how you feel about this idea.

Also, if anyone has suggestions, tips, or advice please feel free to email me at the email addy in the sidebar.

Next Monday we begin on the "Raven" by Edger Allen Poe.

Looking For...

2006-04-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Crafted Poetry members-

So I admit I am over ambitious. I really like starting groups, especially when I know I do not have time for them. So in an effort to keep Crafted Poetry going, I was wondering if there is anyone who would like to take over? I am afraid I will not be able to contribute much and I feel like an awful director. Please email me if you are interested in taking over the group.

Thank you-
Amanda

email: ttbookjunkie at yahoo dot com

The Golden Thread?

2006-04-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

I made a reference to Lucie Manette in one of my previous posts. I thought of her again as I was re-reading "The Goblin Market". Lucie is a typical Victorian female from A Tale of Two Cities. Her blonde hair is the "golden thread" that links and binds the characters through love, while her foil, Madame DeFarge knits them together with the black wool of hate and revenge.

I notice in Rosetti's poem there is a reference to a lock of golden hair, the lock that Laura uses to pay for the fruit.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
"Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather."
"You have much gold upon your head,"
They answered altogether:
"Buy from us with a golden curl."
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:

I wonder what this gold hair might have represented to the Victorians. Here it seems to be something refined and innocent that Laura sacrifices. With Lucie, it is her care, concern, and love--her womanly gift to care for her family and her nest.

There are also references to nests in Rosetti's poem. (?)

I can't put it into words (that's what poetry is for I suppose) but both works seem to capture the special, almost unwordly, qualities the Victorians assigned to women. Victorians embraced the feminine so much that no woman could live up to the ideal. And of course, many women were trapped by it as well.

....But, it seems sad that some of it has been lost. To be a liberated woman in our time, we are often expected to look and act like men. Our feminine characteristics are seen as weak. Have you even been scoffed at when people find out that you are a knitter? Why? I have read a lot of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He longed for a different standard for feminity and admired the hardiness, strength, and grace of early colonial women. He complained that the Victorian woman had become weak and superficial. Why did this happen? Would Rosetti agree with Hawthorne's assessment? I am not sure.

My Project

2006-04-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

At first I thought I would make a mesh bag to carry fruit in. But as I re-read, and re-read, and read the poem again, I am not sure that that's the project calling to me to be made. (I'll wait until the open discussion period to explain my thoughts as to why I don't think a mesh bag is right for me to make as my project.)

I am not sure what I will make. I just know that for me, atleast the way I am thinking/feeling at the moment, something evoking protection and/or rescue is called for.

UPDATED monday 04-10-06

I know what I'd like to make, it came to me at the Super Walmart this morning, I am just not real sure that I'll be able to or not. But here's the idea anyway.....a bread cloth with counted cross stitch fruits in the corners. The fruit conection should be obvious, but why a bread cloth? Well:"... Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat, Cakes for dainty mouths to eat..."

Why animals?

2006-04-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

I am wondering why the merchant man-goblins are compared to animals in the following passage:

One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.
Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

This is when Laura first starts to falter--after she looks.

The fruit

2006-04-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

The fruits, I believe, are echoes of the many stories of women being tempted and punished for their hunger and thirst. Weren't they all punished for their sensuality, and how that sensuality might corrupt men? We all know these stories, but we rarely think about them in such immediate and vibrant terms.

When Eve bit into that apple, what sensual joys did she discover in the new taste? Was it a red apple? Was it crisp? Was she delighted with the flavor and the texture, and did she want to share those wonders with Adam?

When Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds, was she delighting in the sweetness and tang that was, perhaps, absent in her life as the mortal daughter of a Goddess? Rachel Pollack has made the case that Persephone became a Goddess because she ate the fruit, and that she became Demeter's equal by eating the fruit of the Underworld. Had she not, she would have not become immortal and powerful.

When Cinderella ate the apple, wasn't she tempted by its beauty? And wasn't she rescued from that lapse only by the ministration of a man?

And the goblins, I believe, are the fairytale agents of temptation. Notice how they are all men - hideous men, who bear gorgeous fruits that look and taste like nothing else .That look, that temptation, is as dangerous as any sensual temptation in the world of a Victorian woman. Only her sister can save Laura from the repercussions of her passion. Isn't that a wonderfully transgressive idea for the times?

(But no, I do not believe that the transgression is "Sapphic.")

Virginia Woolf on Christina Rossetti

2006-04-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

From The Second Common Reader:

"Yet for all its symmetry, yours was a complex song. When you struck your harp many strings sounded together. Like all instinctives you had a keen sense of the visual beauty of the world. Your poems are full of gold dust and “sweet geraniums’ varied brightness”; your eye noted incessantly how rushes are “velvet-headed”, and lizards have a “strange metallic mail”—your eye, indeed, observed with a sensual pre-Raphaelite intensity that must have surprised Christina the Anglo–Catholic. But to her you owed perhaps the fixity and sadness of your muse."

The nightmares of a Victorian female

2006-04-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

Poor Lizzie and Laura. They are haunted by the goblin men. When I read this poem, I can't help but think of the typical Dickensian heroine in all her purity, ignorance, repression, and self-sacrifice (I do like Dickens by the way.) What would Lucie Manette think of all these goblins? She was haunted too, but she heard footsteps.

Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"

I particularly like this passage. I imagine the girls blushing and hiding, feeling so asahmed that the goblins call out to them.

They must not buy the fruit. They must not listen. They must not look. The fruit may be tainted and evil. Mmmm? But the "goblin men" can tempt the girls and push their fruit on them. It seems to be a double standard. I guess I need to keep reading.

My Project

2006-04-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

I started reading the Goblin Market. I am thinking that a simple mesh bag out ot the cheap acrylic yarn I am ashamed of so hide in the closet would be great for this. The mesh bag will be a design on the go sort of thing. But first I have to finish a bit for my mom's cruise stole before starting anything else.

I appoligize if doing this is a No No. If it is, please feel free to throw countless balls of lace weight yarn at me!(VBG)

I am hosting a KAL for the "Tissue Tunic". Please check it out and if interested in joining in please email me (Caffinna at brightok dot net) for an official invitation. http://tissuetunic.blogspot.com/

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

2006-03-31T14:32:00.000-08:00

Welcome Crafted Poetry participants to our very first poetry discussion. So from April 1 to April 15th we will be discussing Goblin Market Christina Rossetti. The Victorian Website is a wonderful resource to browse and it has many great links about Rossetti and her poems. Here are a couple I found useful...

The Life of Rossetti
Rossetti Literary Career
Themes in Rossetti

Some questions I would like to pose to the group to get us going are...

What do you make of the goblins in the poem? What significance do they have? Why Goblins?

How do you feel about the way Rossetti handled gender? How do you feel about the relationship between the sisters?

I have seen others compare Rossetti to Dickinson and Austen, do you think the comparison is fair?

What do you make of the fruit in the poem?

What do you think of Rossetti overall? Do you like? Dislike her?

Are there any other poets or poems that remind you of Goblin Market? If so why?

Does this poem make you feel crafty?

Here are some additional poems from Rossetti available for free online...
An Apple Gathering
Remember
The Woodspurge
Up Hill

What do you think?

2006-03-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to read and make notes about Jane Hirshfield, and I came across these lines in her poem, "Mathematics":

Does a poem enlarge the world,
or only our idea of the world?

I posted some ideas on my blog -- I'd love to read other opinions...

What Collection hooked you?

2006-03-23T18:07:00.000-08:00

I was reading the March/April edition of Pages and there was an article listed 6 collections of poetry that would make anyone love poetry. Now I am in no way a poetry buff but out of the six I can honestly say I have only heard of one of the poets and actually read his work...Allen Ginsberg and his collection Howl and other poems. Now I read a couple of his poems a couple of years ago and was in no way taken by him. So it got me to thinking, what actually got me hooked on poetry.

I am not sure, how about you...

Amanda

Do you write?

2006-03-19T07:56:00.000-08:00

If so what is your inspiration? I often times find that simple things like rocks can offer inspiration for poetry. And there is of course quotations and other poems and prose. Although I have to admit that I am not really a writer but I do enjoy playing around everynow and then.

So what do you use for inspiration...

Jane Hirshfield in June

2006-03-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

Since no one else (so far) is doing a whole book of poems, I decided to use only poems by Jane Hirshfield that are available online or in databases that I can access.I'll post links to the poems soon, both here and on my blog.

If anyone wants to visit me, I already have a comprehensive post over there that can get you started if you'd like to learn about this wonderful poet.

Hi and thanks for the invite..

2006-03-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

Just so I am clear on things...which two weeks of the month are we going to discuss a particular poet/poems, the first two weeks? Also, since a member will chose for the month, can we choose two different poems (same poet) for each week? By when do we need to post our selesctions (being that Nov. and Dec. -the avail months- are some time away? Is there anything else I need to know that I may not be asking...any additional info. is greatly appreciated. Thanks again for the invite.

My May Poem(s) Decision

2006-03-15T05:53:00.000-08:00

Okay I have made the decision on my choices of Poems for May. Since two weeks is to be the shared poem(s), I thought I'd choose two poems by two differant authors.

Week1:
Edgar Allen Poe's "THE RAVEN". It is widely available, easy to find, and can be located free online and printed from the site bellow:
http://eserver.org/poetry/
Just scroll down untill you see it listed, clic, and it takes you to a simple printable copy of the Poem.I know it's an oldie, but it is also a goodie.

Week2:
Maya Angelou's "Inauguration Poem". It is also available online in a printable form for free. It is also available at:
http://eserver.org/poetry/
It's the first poem listed. Again just the linc and you will be taken to a printable copy of the poem.

Ode to Hatered of Autos

2006-03-10T21:21:00.000-08:00

I hate cars atleast I think I do
They're alot of trouble and money too

My luck with autos ain't so good
I tend to get the lemons under the hood

First was a van that was a pain
Until it burst and burnt up in flames

Now it's an LTD that's a rock
We think it might just have a cracked block

It's likely no computer, camera, or printer for me
Probably a newer car that's in great need

So I hate autos, atleast I think I do
I hate autos, now how about you?

Thanks and some ?'s

2006-03-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

I want to thank the blog mom, ttbookjunkie, for setting up this blog. I also would like to thank her for allowing me to join. I have neglected my poetry writing for far too long, and this was just the creative spark that I needed!

I did have a question, tho. When we choose our poetry for the month, does it need to be available online? online for free? at the public library? I want to be selective when I choose for May, but would like to know what the parameters are. If we are to put it up on the blog, do we need to be concerned about copyrights? I know I am being a bugger, but I do wish to do a good job so would like to know.

Monthly Poetry Schedule...

2006-03-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

April: Amanda Goblin Market

May: Jan Poe "The Raven" Angelou "Inauguration Poem"

June: Melanie Given Sugar, Given Salt - a collection - by Jane Hirshfield

July: Nancy

August: Jenni Gerard Manly Hopkins

September: Zee

October: Lisa Here by Grace Paley

November: Still Available

December: Paula -Robert Frost and Emmett Moore

Welcome...

2006-03-08T14:11:00.000-08:00

Do you love poetry? Are you looking for a group of people to close read poetry with? You have come to the right place. The idea of this group will be to each month have a member lead the group through a poem or collection of poetry of their choice. We will use this blog to talk about the poets life, a close reading of the poem or a collection of poetry two weeks of the month. The rest of the month members are encouraged to share their poetry, other poems they like that might relate to the poem or collection of poetry we close read for the group, and here is the twist if you craft and a poem or collection of poetry has inspired you to certain project post all about it here. All crafts are welcome and those you just want to discuss poetry are welcome.

To join please send an email with JOIN CRAFTED POETRY in the subject line to Amanda via ttbookjunkie at yahoo dot com. You will be sent an invitation from blogger to become a contributor to the blog. Also in this email please sign up for a month you would like to pick the poetry for... we will begin in April (National Poetry Month).

Thank you and welcome to Crafted Poetry!