Archive | April 2008

NPM: Write a Poem, or Thirty

Apr3

The English Room presents 30 Days of Poetry, a series of lessons on writing poetry for students in the middle grades. Students learn to write all sorts of poetry from cinquains to sestinas to concrete poems.

This poem by George Herbert, written in the 17th century, is a sort of a concrete poem, probably one of the earliest examples:

Easter Wings
Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:

With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.

With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Poetry activity for today: Try writing a concrete poem.
Poet of the day: George Herbert, who was born on this date in 1593.

I’m becoming more and more fond of Mr. Herbert, as evidenced by these Herbert posts from the archives.

The Dawning by George Herbert.

The Sonne by George Herbert.

A Wreath by George Herbert.

More April 3 Birthdays.

Bringing Back Kate, or What’s Up, Professor Grant?

Apr2

Brown Bear Daughter and I watched the 1938 Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant movie Bringing Up Baby the other night, and I realized about halfway through the movie that one of my other favorite movies, What’s Up Doc?, made in 1972 with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, was just a take-off on Bringing Up Baby, practically a remake. Absent-minded professor meets lunatic girl who brings his ordered life crashing down around him—and coincidentally ends his engagement to the wrong, boring girl. Screwball comedy. Innocent mayhem. Lots of laughs in both movies.

I like Katharine and Cary better than Barbra and Ryan, but for some reason I think What’s Up Doc? is the funnier movie. Madeleine Kahn, as Ryan O’Neal’s boringly hilarious fiance, adds a new layer of comedy to the second movie and almost steals the show. Hepburn would never have let herself get upstaged by anyone. Don’t you wish The Great Kate were still around to make more memorable movies? I’d love to see What’s Up Doc?, revised and updated, but starring magically young again Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

NPM: Compressed Poetry

Apr2

“Poetry is the simultaneous compression of language and expansion of meaning.” —Tom Stoppard.

Some poets have made it their goal to compress as much meaning as possible into the fewest possible words.

The Eclipse by Richard Eberhart

I stood out in the open cold
To see the essence of the eclipse
Which was its perfect darkness.

I stood in the cold on the porch
And could not think of anything so perfect
As man’s hope of light in the face of darkness.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

By Emily Dickinson

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

What is your favorite short poem?
Poetry Activity for today: Find a short poem and memorize it. Share it with the family at the dinner table.
Poet of the Day: Emily Dickinson

April Fools and Poetry Month

Apr1

“Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you’ve lost the whole thing.”
–W.S. Merwin

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”
–Mark Twain

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
– T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922

April is National Poetry Month, and I intend to give you a gift this month: a poem a day and a suggested poetry activity or poetical thought each day. If I miss a day, forgive me. If my poetical selections displease you, again forgive. If you enjoy deceptively simple poetry and light verse that’s not always so light and meaning cloaked in the language of poetry, you might have a good time celebrating Poetry Month with me.

AngelMonster by Veronica Bennett

Apr1

AngelMonster is the fictionalized story of the turbulent relationship between sixteen year old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley, who had already eloped with another sixteen year old, Harriet, and had become tired of his first child-wife, sought another in Mary Godwin, daughter of a pioneer feminist mother and a philosopher father. When Mary and her lover, Shelley, ran away together, they took with them their accomplice in arranging their secretive trysts, Mary’s step-sister, Jane. Mary was pregnant with Shelley’s child when the trio absconded.

The tone of the novel, and apparently of the Shelleys’ lives, is histrionic with the characters, Mary, Percy Shelley, and Jane-who-later-changes-her-name-to-Claire, taking turns making “scenes.” Their way of life is immoral, purposefully iconoclastic, and hysterically passionate. Such choices in lifestyle naturally lead to jealousy, fits of anger and violence, depression, and wild, undisciplined exhibitions. Bennett’s Mary Shelley alternates between thinking Shelley is her angel and her saviour, and considering him to be her demon, monster, and betrayer. Add to the lack of restraint and the promiscuity of their lives a succession of tragedies: two suicides of close family members, the deaths of four out of five of the Shelleys’ young children, and the book becomes almost unbelievably tragic as one cataclysmic event follows another, spiced with doses of laudanum and liberal amounts of alcohol to dull the pain and confuse the issues.

AngelMonster is an excellent portrayal of the slavery that results when all of the rules of God and man are flouted, and only one’s passions are allowed to rule. Whether or not the author meant to write a cautionary tale, the story cannot help but warn that emotion is an inadequate governor of life’s choices. Sad, essentially true, and recommended for mature young adult readers.

The Indian Serenade by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright;
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me – who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs, they faint
On the dark, the silent stream;
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!

Oh, lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
Oh! Press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!

And so we begin National Poetry Month with the Poetry of Romantic Melodrama, but beautiful nonetheless.