A Poet Reflects
Month

February 2011

FINAL REMINDER: POETRY CHALLENGE SUBMISSIONS BEGIN FEBRUARY 1st (see note below regarding deadline change)


 

****NOTE:  I have decided to extend the submission period three extra days.  Submissions for Poetry Challenge entries will now be accepted Tuesday, February 1st through Thursday, February 10th.

Entries received after February 10th (American date of time for those living abroad) will not be considered.

Again, read and adhere to the guidelines listed below.  I do wish everyone good luck, and I look forward to reading your poems.

—————————————————————————————————————

Below this announcement/prompt  you will find the poem “Possibilities” by Wisława Syzymborska, which is an excellent example of a list or inventory poem. 

Here are the details for the List Poem Poetry Challenge again:

I would like to challenge my followers to create their own list poems of preferences and to submit them to me for consideration to be posted on this blog. 

Not only will I choose poems to be posted, I will also select one poem from the overall group for the inaugural “Poet’s Choice” award. 

Winner of the “Poet’s Choice” award will receive a hardback copy of Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, which includes illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks.

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Love-Poems-Song-Despair/dp/0811803201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295946882&sr=1-1

Selection will be based on the following criteria & guidelines:

1. You must be one of my followers to enter.

2. Only one entry per follower will be accepted.

3. Your poem must have a title, and there are no length requirements (but know when to stop!)

4. The poem must be a list poem of preferences, preferably in free verse.  Be sure to read the list poem example “Possibilities” at the end of this post to get a concrete idea of what is expected in terms of form.

***NOTE: Your list poem of preferences is not required to contain anaphora (the repetitious phrase, “I prefer” at the beginning of some lines), but the poem must be a list or inventory of preferences.  So, be creative in the process!

5. The poem should possess originality - Be sure to use fresh language and images free of clichés and trite expressions.

6. The poem should exhibit sound quality - I’m not talking about “sing-songy” perfect end rhyme throughout the piece (though end rhyme is acceptable if used skillfully) but rather sonic (sound) devices like alliteration, assonance, consonance, and imperfect (near/slant) rhyme.  Be sure to handle these devices with care; do not let them become overbearing or annoying to the reader.

7. Entries will ONLY be received between Tuesday, February 1st - Thursday, February 10th, and MUST be submitted as a word document attachment and sent to the following email address:

apoetreflects@gmail.com. 

8. Entries submitted before or after the official submission period will not be considered or read.

9. Again, your poem must be submitted as a word document attachment.  Be sure to include your tumblr blog name only in the upper right-hand corner of the document.  Poems without a tumblr blog name in the upper right-hand corner will not be considered or read.

10.  The “Poet’s Choice” award winner and other poems to be posted will be announced on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2011 (American date of time for those living abroad).

You now have the guidelines.  Good luck and have fun writing your list poem of preferences!

Again, be sure to read Wisława Syzymborska’s list poem “Possibilities” for an example of the kind of poem I am looking for.

I encourage each of you to REBLOG this post to ensure that others see this.

And now the poem:

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

By Wisława Szymborska from Nothing Twice, 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh



Jan 31, 201112 notes
#Final Reminder #guidelines #Poetry Challenge

January 2011

Jan 30, 2011226 notes
#First and Last Words #Fred Chappell #poetry #Word
Jan 30, 201148 notes
#Archeology of the Circle #Bruce Weigl #Snowy Egret #The Monkey Wars
Jan 29, 201152 notes
#advice #Fred Chappell #The Function of the Poet #Plow Naked #poetry writing
Jan 29, 201146 notes
#craft #Feeling Into Words #Preoccupations #Seamus Heaney #technique
Jan 28, 201138 notes
#advice #André Gide #individuality #true to yourself

yesorotherwise:

I do not know
the shape of my body
until I bathe

and entrust the timely
faiths to slant
the willow brook wrists.

Unbreathing gesture
of float insists placed
garlands of Rue

upon the heads of the
gathered who know not
where I’ve gone.

The brook is too white
and milked to search
for a soul beyond body.

This is my advantage
in death, to lose
my shape and bounds,

to hold the lily pads
responsible for
feeling and

the bees’ hum, my snore;
by the hairs on
their legs, I may scent.

From the brook’s end
I continue, rocks,
my feet, never stoned

to the sky even,
my eyes, my attentions
are hazel depth.

The vast swaths
of stars, my lungs.
The swirls, the space, last exhale.

This is the true shape
of my body. I cannot
know this

until I bathe in the brook
to allow a form
to sink.

I am one, I am all.
The water around me
grows tall.

photo credit: “ofelia”, sasha_afisha @ flickr or sashabo.tumblr.com

Jan 28, 201116 notes
#poetry #reblog #untitled #yesorotherwise
REMINDER: SUBMISSIONS FOR POETRY CHALLENGE OPEN ON FEB. 1st

 

Below this announcement/prompt  you will find the poem “Possibilities” by Wisława Syzymborska, which is an excellent example of a list or inventory poem. 

Here are the details for the List Poem Poetry Challenge again:

I would like to challenge my followers to create their own list poems of preferences and to submit them to me for consideration to be posted on this blog. 

Not only will I choose poems to be posted, I will also select one poem from the overall group for the inaugural “Poet’s Choice” award. 

Winner of the “Poet’s Choice” award will receive a hardback copy of Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, which includes illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks.

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Love-Poems-Song-Despair/dp/0811803201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295946882&sr=1-1

Selection will be based on the following criteria & guidelines:

1. You must be one of my followers to enter.

2. Only one entry per follower will be accepted.

3. Your poem must have a title, and there are no length requirements (but know when to stop!)

4. The poem must be a list poem of preferences, preferably in free verse.  Be sure to read the list poem example “Possibilities” at the end of this post to get a concrete idea of what is expected in terms of form.

***NOTE: Your list poem of preferences is not required to contain anaphora (the repetitious phrase, “I prefer” at the beginning of some lines), but the poem must be a list or inventory of preferences.  So, be creative in the process!

5. The poem should possess originality - Be sure to use fresh language and images free of clichés and trite expressions.

6. The poem should exhibit sound quality - I’m not talking about “sing-songy” perfect end rhyme throughout the piece (though end rhyme is acceptable if used skillfully) but rather sonic (sound) devices like alliteration, assonance, consonance, and imperfect (near/slant) rhyme.  Be sure to handle these devices with care; do not let them become overbearing or annoying to the reader.

7. Entries will ONLY be received between Tuesday, February 1st - Monday, February 7th, and MUST be submitted as a word document attachment and sent to the following email address:

apoetreflects@gmail.com. 

8. Entries submitted before or after the official submission period will not be considered or read.

9. Again, your poem must be submitted as a word document attachment.  Be sure to include your tumblr blog name only in the upper right-hand corner of the document.  Poems without a tumblr blog name in the upper right-hand corner will not be considered or read.

10.  The “Poet’s Choice” award winner and other poems to be posted will be announced on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2011.

You now have the guidelines.  Good luck and have fun writing your list poem of preferences!

Again, be sure to read Wisława Syzymborska’s list poem “Possibilities” for an example of the kind of poem I am looking for.

I encourage each of you to REBLOG this post to ensure that others see this.

And now the poem:

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

By Wisława Szymborska from Nothing Twice, 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh



Jan 28, 201114 notes
Jan 28, 201117 notes
#A Poetry of Two Minds #In a Glass Darkly #literary criticism #Sherod Santos
Jan 28, 201174 notes
#For the Last American Buffalo #poetry #Steve Scafidi
Fragmented Memory → janeesanluis.tumblr.com

janeesanluis:

By Janee San Luis

She smells of sweet ripe papayas
while hands smell of rust.
Every morning I would watch her—
her petite weakly arms carrying a bucket
which is the color of her pouty bare lips
and the blood of broken men that boils with the very sight of her.
She would talk to me in her thick Visayan accent
while moving up and down the pumping rod of a traditional hand pump
until the groundwater gushes out from its snout
like a grand waterfall with its gloomy cliffs
and its promise of a ghastly death.
Her skin is like a Geisha’s—smooth, supple, and unblemished.
And she lives near the fertile rice fields
where its inhabitants wear burnt skin
and smell of a certain fermented coconut drink.
On October 18, the night before her sister’s birthday, she heard something banged against the door.
Like a sudden flash of lightning five men came crashing through.
Seconds after, like the rumble of thunder, a raucous struggle ensued.
She ran barefooted into the rice fields,
her legs scraping against the rice leaf sheaths
but they were faster—filled with intoxicated hunger.
As she fell on her back,
they stripped off her sanity
and pinned her down deeper in the mud.
The shattered pieces of coiled shells cut through her flesh.
Her tears cascaded down her mud covered cheeks.
She was screaming but her screams were muffled by the same hands
that steer the water buffalo
while it pounds the soil and pulls the plows.
Amidst the stillness of the night
the frogs croaked, the crickets chirped, the windows creaked,
and my nine-year-old heart cracked open.

Jan 27, 20113 notes
Jan 27, 201126 notes
#Carolyn Forché #Poetry Magazine #Travel Papers
Jan 26, 201125 notes
#Leslie Monsour #poetry #The Education of a Poet
Jan 26, 2011137 notes
#advice #poetry writing #Ted Kooser #U.S. Poet Laureate
Jan 25, 20115 notes
#Alberto Ríos #poetry challenge #submission #Tito

ATTENTION!!!  A POETRY CHALLENGE FOR MY FOLLOWERS!!!

Below this announcement/prompt  you will find the poem “Possibilities” by Wisława Syzymborska, which is an excellent example of a list or inventory poem. 

Here is what I propose:

I would like to challenge my followers to create their own list poems of preferences and to submit them to me for consideration to be posted on this blog. 

Not only will I choose poems to be posted, I will also select one poem from the overall group for the inaugural “Poet’s Choice” award. 

Winner of the “Poet’s Choice” award will receive a hardback copy of Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, which includes illustrations by Jan Thompson Dicks.

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Love-Poems-Song-Despair/dp/0811803201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295946882&sr=1-1

Selection will be based on the following criteria & guidelines:

1. You must be one of my followers to enter.

2. Only one entry per follower will be accepted.

3. Your poem must have a title.

4. The poem must be a list poem of preferences, preferably in free verse.  Be sure to read the list poem example “Possibilities” at the end of this post to get a concrete idea of what is expected in terms of form.

***NOTE: Your list poem of preferences is not required to contain anaphora (the repetitious phrase, “I prefer” at the beginning of some lines), but the poem must be a list or inventory of preferences.  So, be creative in the process!

5. The poem should possess originality - Be sure to use fresh language and images free of clichés and trite expressions.

6. The poem should exhibit sound quality - I’m not talking about “sing-songy” perfect end rhyme throughout the piece (though end rhyme is acceptable if used skillfully) but rather sonic (sound) devices like alliteration, assonance, consonance, and imperfect (near/slant) rhyme.  Be sure to handle these devices with care; do not let them become overbearing or annoying to the reader.

7. Entries will ONLY be received between Tuesday, February 1st - Monday, February 7th, and MUST be submitted as a word document attachment and sent to the following email address:

apoetreflects@gmail.com. 

8. Entries submitted before or after the official submission period will not be considered or read.

9. Again, your poem must be submitted as a word document attachment.  Be sure to include your tumblr blog name only in the upper right-hand corner of the document.  Poems without a tumblr blog name in the upper right-hand corner will not be considered or read.

10.  The “Poet’s Choice” award winner and other poems to be posted will be announced on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2011.

You now have the guidelines.  Good luck and have fun writing your list poem of preferences!

Again, be sure to read Wisława Syzymborska’s list poem “Possibilities” for an example of the kind of poem I am looking for.

I encourage each of you to REBLOG this post to ensure that others see this.

And now the poem:

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

By Wisława Szymborska from Nothing Twice, 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh



Jan 25, 201136 notes
#list poem #poetry challege #Poet's Choice award
Jan 24, 201122 notes
#poetry #poets #revision #X.J. Kennedy
Tonight I Can Write Luis E. Bacalov


Poem: “XX Tonight I Can Write …” by Pablo Neruda
Read by Andy Garcia

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, ‘The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Translation: W.S. Merwin

Painting: An achromatic rendering of Melancholy, 1891, by Edvard Munch

Jan 24, 201144 notes
#Andy Garcia #Edvard Munch #Pablo Neruda #Tonight I Can Write . . .
Jan 24, 201143 notes
#ancient Chinese poet #poetic voice #poetry writing #reading poetry
Jan 23, 201121 notes
#advice #Dixie Salazar #poetry writing #What Will Suffice
Next page →
2012 2013
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
2011 2012 2013
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
2010 2011 2012
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December
2010 2011
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December