Words Wonderful Words

Words wonderful words,
Wallowing in the wide spaces of my mind.
I Stumbled upon someone's blog
From somewhere in the world;
I read his poem and wept

With joy at the image
That the writer offered me
For free. No ads, no selling.
A gift
From the wonderful world
Of creative urges
And surges
Of the conscious and unconscious mind
Using only one little tool
With 26 parts:
Words.

Respect for Great Authors

I have great respect for writers from every part of the world and from every historical era. The idea that you can communicate your life thoughts, your stories, your opinions and your creativity through a complex display of 26 symbols has never ceased to amaze me. Books and authors have changed my life. I have been actually transformed from reading certain authors- Ayn Rand, Jack Kerouac, Eckhart Tolle, Walt Whitman, Margaret Laurence, J.R. Tolkien, J.K.Rowling, Tony Robbins, Hale Dwoskin, Wayne Dyer, etc.


I read fiction and non-fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Self-Help, The Classics, Poetry, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc. etc. etc. Most authors will tell you if you want to be a good writer become a voracious reader- READ A LOT!!!


One of the authors I find particularly interesting is Walt Whitman (May31 1819- March 26, 1892- 72 years old) . I'm just beginning to read "Leaves of Grass" an epic poem by Whitman, about his life and experiences. It is a very famous book. Whitman is considered the father of American Free Verse (poems without rhyme/rhythm).  Students in the United States all study Walt Whitman in school.

He's considered to be an Essayist, a Poet and a Journalist. Many writers began as Journalists. Most writers have to do other kinds of work until their books make a living for them. All arts are like that, so if you want to ACT, WRITE, DRAW, DANCE, etc. expect to be a waiter or waitress or Tim Hortons' Drive Thru attendant before your rise to fame.






A CLEAR MIDNIGHT
THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou
lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.   (Walt Whitman)

Walt Whitman had a vagabond lifestyle much like the Beat poets (Jack Kerouac (1950's). Whitman is claimed to be America's first "Poet of Democracy". "You can't really understand America wihtout Walt Whitman..." (Mary Costelloe)

Song of Myself
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 


This is the first stanza of the first section "Song of Myself" from the poem "Leaves of Grass" 
What do these lines mean? Why begin his poem with them? Why do I use them in my subtitle?

The Limerick

To all who are naturally gifted
My hat I have enviably lifted
They have their own path
That I search for in wrath
Oh, how it seems I have been set adrifted.

Limericks are fun and challenging because you have to fit them into certain structure and meaning format.

There was a young rustic named Mallory,

who drew but a very small salary.

    When he went to the show,

    his purse made him go

to a seat in the uppermost gallery.

                                                            

There was a Young Person of Smyrna

Whose grandmother threatened to burn her*;

But she seized on the cat,

and said 'Granny, burn that!

You incongruous old woman of Smyrna!'  (Edward Lear)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_(poetry)

The standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth usually rhyming with one another and having three feetof three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables. The defining "foot" of a limerick's meter is usually the anapaest, (ta-ta-TUM), but limericks can also be considered amphibrachic (ta-TUM-ta).  (from Wikipedia)


For your first attempts stay true to the structure even if the meaning is off, just so you can practive the actual structure. Without the structure your Limericks don't work.

The Haiku

I follow #Haiku on Twitter. People all over the world contribute their thoughts and experiences through short 3 line poems using syllable structure:  5-7-5. Haikus are originally Japanese and they are both easy and offer wonderful insights into our human experience. They can be about anything (traditionally they have a nature theme). Haikus often have a juxtaposition of two ideas or images (juxtaposition is the placing of two things close together for effect.
Here are two EXAMPLES: 


My lips long / For the wetness of your touch / My dreams run dry (from Sahrazad528- Twitter)


Notice the contrast between wet and dry and how the dryness implies loss. Also notice that she didn't follow the syllable structure. Here is another. What is the juxtaposition?


Bird song signals dawn /Crickets chirp, cicada's whirl / Nature is noisy! (from josepf Twitter)


Here are some links:


Wikipedia (3 qualities of a haiku)


A good resource on Hakius with some famous Japanese poet masters.


Keep a journal of your haikus. Post your best ones on your blog. You could add a picture for effect- or make a poster with the haiku on the image. Use creative commons for copyright safety.

WHO AM I?

Who Am I?

In my grade 12 university English class one of the major themes of the course that recurs through the texts is the question, “WHO AM I” (“A Separate Peace”, “The Educated Imagination” by Northrop Frye, and “Hamlet”),

Of course, this is a philosophical question that reaches many levels: Who am I as an individual? Who am I as a productive person, a husband/wife, father/mother, son/daughter, a Canadian, a westerner, a human being, a sentient being in the universe?

“Who am I?” is a question that is more worth asking than answering because as soon as we answer it we die in some way. Until we come back to the question of who I am, we have stopped growing, learning, we’ve stopped groping for new answers-we become hardened.  This is the paradox of life- answers are so wonderful until we realize they have a little death in them every time we get them. Somehow, paradoxically, we have to have answers and still hold the questions up to view and consider, new questions perhaps, but without those questions, you might just as well put me in a casket and incinerate me because I am already dead.

People who are so certain of the ways of the world, in any endeavor- they may even be the Tiger Woods of their subject- but if they hold such certainty they have stopped growing.

So the question of who I am continues and what I find fascinating is that while Hamlet questions himself within the context of his castle and his ‘family’ problems, and Gene and Finny define themselves through their coming of age and the mistakes they make as teenagers, today, in a web 2.0 world, our definitions of who we are extend to the entire world through what we blog, what we say, the quality of our ‘friends’ in social networking, the purposes we use the web for. What we are doing here defines us as much as anything.

‘Who we are’ is no longer our little personality in our little community. It must grow to be much more than that and our strengths and our weaknesses will become much more public than ever before- that is if you are willing to take the leap into the 21st century and join the online communities who are thinking through issues of today. What issues interest you? And how far will you stretch and grow and continue to ask: “WHO AM I?”

Is

“Where I Live”

I don’t live in the role of father;

Although I do.

I don’t live in the role of husband;

Although I do.

And I don’t live in the role of teacher or friend or son;

Although I do.

I live on the crest of the wave

That flushes out the space

Between what it means to live this life,

And my existence.

Because what it means to live this life is the ethical question

The devil and the little angel that rest their horns and wings

On my shoulders, and the question never goes away.

I live this life in the guttural the vocal the physiological

Obsessions and insecurities, addictions and disease.

I live this life in the real the moment the visceral

Guttural way that life sucks me up, spits me out

Makes me feel - in juxtaposition to death.

I don’t live life in a plain and ordinary way;

Although I do.

I don’t live life in the linear, dry working-stiff life;

Although I do.

I live where Hesse creates the Steppenwolf,

Where Conrad creates the heart of darkness,

Where Salinger creates the dead-and-lost Caulfield.

I live where I seek the space between knowing and not knowing,

Where I connect to something greater; yet feel disconnected most of the time.

I live in my mind and my heart. And sometimes people get it;

But most of the time they don’t.

I live on the crest of the wave that moves through time.

No reason- no rhyme.

WORDS ARE POWERFUL, WORDS ARE MAGICAL

As human beings, we think, we feel, and we take actions. That's it- simple, really. And as we think, we use words; and as we feel, we use words; and as we act, we use words. Words can take us to the heights of exhilaration and success- and they can take us to the depths of despair. One word spoken from another to you can have the power to build and connect; or, it can have the power to disconnect and destroy.

Learning how to use words is a lifetime experience. It never ends, and that is the challenge: to continue to learn and grow and change your words, your ideas, your thoughts your attitudes and your actions. If you're always open to change, you'll always be a student of life- you'll avoid getting 'stuck'. As a student of life,  you have a great responsibility: To find the words that will make yourself, and others, better.