By
Your Bedside
A
Chapbook on Poetry and Poems
By
Rosalinda Flores - Martinez
For you
Maybe
you and I once held hands
Or
just looked at each other
Maybe
I wanted you so much when you were away
Maybe
you came, but I didn’t see you
Maybe
the paths we’ve crossed had gone astray
Maybe
you had loved me, too
Because
you, a zeal for my heart
Once
taught me I could be best -
When
there was nothing and no one but God
And
all the time, I have loved you then.
By
your bedside,
Rose
Contents
Places
to Look to Publish Your Poems
How
to Write a Poem Using Figurative Language
How
to Write a Poem Just for Fun
Love
Poems – Elements to Include in a Love Poem
Write
It, Rhyme It
On
Poetic Preferences
Let
me Share a Poem Prayer: The Stations of the Cross
Poetry: Let Us Practice With Words
Some
Poetry Thoughts
Vignette: Does She Really Love Me?
Why
We Still Write and Read Poetry in the Information Age
Describing
Using the Five Senses
Emily
Dickinson – A Private Poet
Poetry
in a Speech Class
Alvarez
on Sylvia Plath
Places
To
Look
To
Publish
Your
Poems
After a press conference (my last at that
time), when I could no longer go out the house often, I explored the web community. After my husband's death and while taking care of a
sick mom, I found good places to write and good places to blog. Of course, no
one has to die or to be sick first, but then, that was how it came with me.
I retrieved my old poems, my poems from a
workshop and my love poems. I saw my high school poems, Where Did We All Come
From and Goodbye Dear Grandmother.
I also found some six poems, submitted to Dr.
Marjorie Evasco (of our Poetry Class), where the kind teacher offered me to
join a writer's workshop for free (which I declined because of a house chore).
Thank you dear teacher for the challenge, and I am sorry for not having the
guts and seriousness of a poet, that time.
My journey to the places of where to publicize
my poems required and entailed hard work. I felt those moments grand and
exciting; at other times, haunting. I thought someone, readers, or at least
you, would read my poems and be with me. I wrote the words. I restrained some
phrases. I came to you.
I had written Death Row on Poemhunter.com. I
had thought about Haiti, sores, healing, blood dripping and Uncle Scrooge
wilting in pain; hence my lines imposed "Prepare the heaven, open!" I
thought of pleading to God in the screams and agonies of battlefields, pain and
confusion.
The poem Three Bottles came while I was alone
with my mother (may God rest her soul) in the hospital, years ago. I was
literally counting the drops of blood in the bottle till it filled the brim.
"It makes my brain shiver and my hands
tight with each other." So I thought, there was no other way, but to pray!
Truly, vivid pictures of memories are gifts
from God. They have to be shared, as they are an enormous task of poets and
writers to fulfill.
Conversations Across Borders, Read Write
Think, Yahoo Network, Google+, You Tube, Worldwide Poetry, Prose and Poetry
Global, Shadow Poetry. Com, Filipino Poet's Circle, Blogspot websites, and
WordPress blogs are places to look to publicize your poems. And there are still
many others offered by the I Share Community!
So write your poems, create your own blogs or
sign up. You can join challenges and prompts online. Literary magazines are
also accepting contributions from both amateur and professional writers.
.
How
To
Write
A
Poem
Using
Figurative
Language
Using the
figurative language adds human touch to words. While it makes prose more
interesting, it sparks a lucid image in poetry.
A word is most
effective when used with care. A polished poet uses the right denotation
(dictionary or factual meaning) and connotation (figurative or suggestive
meaning) of words.
The figurative
language is woven by the poet from the stock of experiences, knowledge, and
zeal she deals with everyday, in and out of her world. Through the senses, she
relates words with pleasure so the readers could feel, hear, see, smell and
taste.
Way back in high
school, my English teacher (Miss Jose) asked, "What's a cloud like?"
"It is like a
cotton ball," I answered. Until now, that scene is vivid to me dealing
with similes and metaphors.
See this example.
A simile is a
comparison with the use of as or like.
That is: A cloud is
like a cotton ball. It is soft as a cotton ball. It is white as a cotton ball.
A metaphor is an
implied comparison without as or like.
That is: A cloud is
a cotton ball. It is soft and white.
Among others, other
symbolic devices are personification, metonymy, hyperbole, and allusion. It
will depend how you would interpret your words and make them alive.
Here is my own
poem, as an example.
I Will Write In
Your Heart
I will whisper in
your ear, all your heart yearns to hear.
I will write in your heart, all your mind wants to remember.
I will weave in your body, all you dream about love.
I did the poem
using implied metaphors.
Literally, the ear
is for hearing. The word whisper is appropriate for soft cuddling with a lover.
The heart literally, can't hear sounds, but it does feel unspoken words. When
you love someone, you feel the beloved in your heart. Here is acceptance.
I will etch. I will
write in your heart, literally, is bloody. Blood is a sacred pact. It comes
with a covenant. The mind is very intelligent; hence, people are specially
created by God for his Kingdom. The heart is over mind here, only to offer what
is most beautiful for the beloved. The mind will be programmed to remember the
beautiful things because of that sacred love. An endless love like that of the
Sacred Heart, roots from God's words all over time.
I will weave in
your body, all you dream about love. How do you weave? You intertwine threads.
You lace colors. You merge juices.
My friend asked me,
"How would you do that?"
I answered,
"By kneeling... "
Also, I got mixed
feelings in this poem. I used "synesthesia" as a device (in Greek, it
means perceiving together). When I had this poem, it just came out quickly like
press, zoom, and send!
How
To
Write
A
Poem
Just
For
Fun
Have you ever tried
having fun rhyming words? Poems are fun in all ages! This is good for brain
exercise. When my children were younger, we tried talking in short sentences
with full end rhymes. The words and sentences seemed funny or out of context,
but everyone never got bored because the mind was working and the thinking
cells to the max!
My students enjoyed
writing diamond poems and fill in the blank exercises, but what they liked most
was writing number poems. See this example.
Your phone number
is 525-4944. You could use your telephone or cell phone number to specify the
number of syllables, accents or words in each line.
The Android
How are you
today?
I'm good.
May God light your way.
Are you busy?
I am working now. How about you?
Bored and sleepy,
Here, so creepy!
The poem is set up
as a triplet and a quatrain, where lines four, six and seven set the rhyme
pattern. The poem can also be a syllabic poem, where the phone numbers set up
the number of syllables. Try this poetic experiment.
Also, you can try
changing the verbs in your poems. Change the present verb tense to a past tense
or a past tense to a present form, although the poem might sound muddled
because poems are formed or meant to be with a tone and the overall structure,
not as dictated by rigid tenses. See this example.
Glass (my original
poem)
She broke the
glass.
She and her wicked teeth broke it.
Her gums did not bleed while she swallowed the chips.
The monster in her, with its slimy green saliva, feasted on my precious
glass.
But after a while, she burped her black heart out.
Glass (changing the
verb tense from the past to present form)
She breaks the
glass.
She and her wicked teeth break it.
Her gums do not bleed while she swallows the chips.
The monster in her, with its slimy green saliva, feasts on my precious
glass.
But after a while, she burps her black heart out.
Moreover, you can
write occasional poetry. These poems include celebration, mourning, fortuitous
events, and birthdays, among others, expressing varied emotions related to
people, events and objects. Check this.
A Prayer Poem For
Calamities
Lord, we can do
nothing but wait at what would come to us.
We are nothing but dust, yet you make us your children.
Our hands cannot reach out, but only measure from one arm.
Our feet cannot run, but only walk a few steps till the next turn.
We cannot hide God,
but just stay where we are.
When the earth
shakes, the waters rise and darkness visit our lands,
we can only cry for
your mercy and seek your face.
Where are you
dearest God?
Please protect us
and those we love.
Hold each falling
leaf and sweep with your breath every rattle of doom.
God come! Come God
to us, and carry the weak earth,
every crippled
nation, and mend those teeth all cracked from the mouth of life.
We are so afraid
dear God.
Forgive our transgressions.
Help us rest with you, forever!
Halt the chaos, and give us tranquility!
Be our strength!
Most Sacred Heart,
we trust in Thee.
All angels and saints, hear our prayers.
Into your hands, God Almighty, we commend our lives.
Write your poems
now! Express yourself!
Love
Poems –
Elements
To
Include
In
A
Love
Poem
In A Promise and
Clothes of Time: I still miss the bones of your hands, those lips that rocked
my ribs, those gaze that skinned the metamorphosis of my flesh. These are lines
from my work. This is one example of a contemporary love poem.
Love poems usually
convey emotions and subjectivity. Some are sung and go under the classification
of the Lyric. According to Paul Landis and Entwistle (The Study of Poetry, 1929
Tomas Nelson and Sons), lyric poems can be a poetic cry from the heart. They
express a single emotion, could be short, musical metrically or verbally, or both.
Hence, its wistful
and haunting loveliness eludes all tests!
Professor Albert
Casuga said "Those who can write love poems could be better poets."
Online, check Rumi,
Poem Hunter, and Poems About for examples.
Master poets in
lyric and love are Shakespeare, Milton, Neruda, Lorca, Auden, Pushkin, Rilke,
Plath, Maya Angelou, Dylan, Frost, Hass, Yeats, Eliot, Donne and more.
From Wikipedia
could be found more courtly poems about knights and nobility.
Love poems must let
the mind see the lines in action. Moments of absence and separation,
invitations, activities, conversations on life, ardent reflections, or triumphs
or loss of a lover are expressed vividly in words with characters in peaks of
emotion or drama.
In my poems, I
could hardly imagine how I did it. In first drafts, they were written
spontaneously, as if I did not want to stop. Revisions could be made after the
draft, though most of the time I submitted them sooner without revisions. They
are still open to re-working.
Check "Memphis
Ferry." This is a sample of John Foster "On Translating Hieroglyphic
Love Songs." I got this sample because of my fondness of water phenomenon.
The Memphis Ferry happens in twilight, in a mystical communion with the triad
of gods who watch over. One character is Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love.
She functions in the Lyric as the Greek Aphrodite.
Lines
say"...blossoms newborn in the blue lotus. Twilight is heavy with
gods."
Finally, the
inspiration (muse) in a love poem is tremendous. Perhaps, it is by the gods or
deep from the heart that no logic or intellect can ever elucidate.
What can you say
about the psalms of David in lament to God, the canticles in the Holy Bible, or
Job in his unwavering faith?
And so my plea, in
whatever word that comes out from my heart, let your divine Sacred Heart be the
source of all love. Master of the universe, come to me in zeal.
Write It,
Rhyme It
There had been
instances in my life where I just want to hold a pen or press the keyboards. If
I can't do that, I feel restless and I have to move to and fro. If I can't
write in whatever form, I try to make-up something on my way to write. If I am
not successful at this, I rage.
In the poems I
make, I am not even sure if they will work. I admit that the classroom and
workshops are not enough, though they help a lot. But what makes me last is
when I feel, I wrote from my heart and I have released something good from
inside of me and from the muses around me.
Thank God, for my
seasons!
Let me share some
tips in writing prose and poems.
Read a lot. I mean
the right materials for the topic you want to write.
Practice. In any writing form, practice makes perfect. In life, practice is one
of the best chants.
Keep a journal and write words that stun you. Update your vocabulary.
Collaborate with students, workers, writers, teachers, and experts.
Use your five senses, or more, keenly.
At least, structure some poems.
Do writing prompts.
Read the work of other writers. They inspire and teach.
Make a leap of faith.
Open a vein.
Take note of the
metaphors. Poets and writers know how to read between the lines and understand
what is left unsaid. Familiarize yourself at this. Later, when you mature in
this field, expect changes in the way you deal with your prose and poems: it is
not easy, yet the chances of fulfillment.
In writing poems,
you may practice on the types of rhymes, too. Check the following.
There is perfect or
full rhyme when the accented vowel sounds and following consonant sounds rhyme.
It is an end rhyme
when the ends of line rhyme. Kids love this.
Falling rhymes are
those that occur at the end of lines with falling rhythm, like lines that end
on unaccented syllables.
Rising or masculine
rhyme occurs at the end of lines with rising rhythm, like lines that end on
accented syllables.
Alliteration is an
emphatical repetition of initial consonant rhymes or head rhymes, such as wind
and wheel.
Assonance is the
repetition of vowel sounds like aim and pray.
A slant rhyme, also
called near of off or half rhyme, is the repetition of accented syllables in
final consonant sounds without correspondence in the preceding vowel or
consonant sounds. Emily Dickinson is best at this.
Consonance is
partial or total repetition of consonants in words or syllables whose main
vowels differ.
Internal rhymes are
those within or between lines that do not fall at the line endings.
Sight rhymes are
words that look as though they rhyme but have different sounds.
Find your rhymes
now and have fun writing!
"Poems are
made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree." (Joyce Kilmer)
On
Poetic
Preferences
Writers have
different places under heaven.
Writing preferences
can vary like the various kinds of expertise and talents.
Among others, poems
come to everyone like magic chants, puzzling crystals, and the pleasure of
switching rainbows.
What are poems? How
do you write it? How does it differ from prose?
As for me, I'm
trying hard everyday to write them. I go bird by bird and nail by nail. I try
to taste jello and wonder how it melts.
I strive. I fail. I
win. I wait. I love.
I just hope
everything works.
Poetry teachers
advise, "Say the hardest thing."
Check these fixed
forms of poems:
A sonnet is
composed of fourteen iambic pentameter lines rhyming in various ways.
An Italian sonnet
(or Petrachan) is divided into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six
lines).
The English (or
Shakespearean) is made up of three quatrains and a final couplet.
A sestina has six
six-line stanza and a three-line envoy (short concluding stanza).
The villanelle (a
villanelle was originally an Italian country song or dance) is a nineteen-line
poem, consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain and having only two
rhymes. It repeats the first line (A1) and the third line (A2) according to the
scheme at the left. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," a poem
by Dylan Thomas is an example.
Do not go gentle
into that good night.
Old age should burn and rage at the close of day.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light...
The
"tanka," a 31-syllable poem is a poem, whose fives lines have
5.7.5.7.7 syllables. It may have influenced the cinquain (an American
invention) with 2.4.6.8.2 syllables.
The
"renga" is revived by Mexican poet Octavio Paz.
Haiku is a poem
about nature and generally follow the principles of minimalism and immediacy.
There is a suggestion of season. The Haiku is composed of 17 syllables (5.7.5).
The pantuom is made
up of quatrains in which the second and the fourth lines of each stanza become
the first and the third of the next one. The concluding stanza repeats lines
from the first stanza.
Here's part of a
poem I wrote, as pattern.
Four Seasons With
God
"Dear God,
dear God
I give you myself
Split from skull to toe
Hold me.
I give you
myself
My hands and the work I do
Hold me
Talk my thoughts..."
The diamond poem is
a poem that makes the shape of a diamond (The Diamante, 1969).
Check my example.
The first line is
love.
The second line is sweet, sour.
The third line is hugging, beating, promising.
The fourth line is heart, hands, sky, earth.
The fifth line is living, working, embracing.
The sixth line is brilliant, strong.
The seventh line is God.
Let
Me
Share
A
Poem Prayer:
The
Stations
Of
The
Cross
The Lenten season
is a season of grace for all. From here, man is reminded of a faith in God. How
Jesus lived his life on earth, and taught everyone is a concrete example of how
man must deal with life, its trials and lessons about living. If someone
Almighty could be offering something to humanity, then why should we doubt
God's love?
It was Good Friday
when Jesus Christ was crucified for his love to us. So who say's no one loves
you?
Of course, Jesus
loves you.
It was Sunday,
called as "Easter Sunday" when he resurrected and redeemed mankind.
We are sinners. We have to forgive ourselves, build our lives anew, and find
the meaning of life. That meaning will be realized not by any wealth or human
power, but by the love and service we share to one another. God is just around
the corner.
Let me share this
poetry prayer I wrote:
"Stations of
the Cross in Poetry Prayer"
Station 1. Jesus is
condemned to death.
You were betrayed
Jesus
Even by trusted friends
Still shows us charity
Life for us you mend
Your power brings
to serve
People you call your own
Condemned to death, for us
A Father's promise sown
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 2. Jesus
bears his cross.
Cross, you bear
means love
Almighty's gift to the world
Jesus, brother, keeper
To journey with us, Lord
You became man
Mercy for humanity
Sky and earth unite
Miracle flowing sanctity
Jesus on the Cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 3. Jesus
falls the first time.
Lord, let us hold
you
Lord, let us rise with you
Power in humility
Shows us to be true
No man is perfect
Only God - is
Lord Jesus, as example
If fallen, hold to peace
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heals us.
Station 4. Jesus
meets his mother.
What grief for a
mother
What grief for a child
What grief for a beloved
Alone in sorrow, Jesus guides
Feel us Jesus
In sorrow and isolation
But God's will is best
Have mercy in temptation
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 5. Jesus is
helped by Simon.
Simon of Cyrene,
hail to God
Courage and cross you lifted
Bridge to us from heaven
Angel signs we're gifted
And so we come in
prayer
Flesh, thoughts, and our hearts
Your holy cross dear Jesus
To us don't ever part.
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 6. Veronica
wipes the face of Jesus.
Saint, Oh Saint
Veronica
Ring bells to God's workers
Crown of thorns on Holy face
Hope and bliss, His blood carves
O, poor Face we
love you
Face of beauty, Face of light
In suffering and brokenness
Sacred Face of might
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 7. Jesus
falls a second time.
My Lord! My God! My
Savior!
We trust our lives in Thee
You know how weak we all are
We beg, we beg, we plea
My Lord! My God!
Be here to servants frail
Hold me, hold us
O'er wind we fly, on sea we sail
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 8. Jesus
speaks to the women.
Help us to love
Mother Mary
You longed your parents, too
The crowd, are us, your family
How precious all to you
Speak to us, we
long for Thee
The bravest soldier frees
From sin and wars
Your words a bomb and keys
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 9. Jesus
falls a third time.
Race and blows
The third's the final count
Your sacrifice, a painful lash
Forgive our sins abound
Hold tight hold,
dear Jesus
Please - do not let go
These eyes are full of tears
Wash us white as snow
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 10. Jesus
is stripped of his garments.
When all is done
for love
So fair and pure the nakedness
And all that Christ gave
T' was peace for all and happiness
Strip all, be all
We ask You for nothing
Let You alone fill us
Christ, O Christ be everything!
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 11. Jesus
is nailed to the cross.
Nails piercing
us
First pierced on you
Nations already won
Sacred Cross on earth anew
Man and tides
pushing rocks
When life cries in pain
Trials come harrowing
Lord let Your Kingdom reign.
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
How You loved us,
Jesus; How great, You are God's Son.
How You loved us, Jesus; How great, You are God's Son.
"Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do
Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise
Woman, this is your son. And this is your mother
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I thirst
It is finished."
Then, Jesus cried
out in a loud voice
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 12. Jesus
dies on the cross.
Tomorrow's death so
scary
Life today we pray
Us - forever with you Jesus
With Almighty Father lay
Jesus how we love
you
Let us see Thy face
Forgive us in transgressions
A Holy Cross wins grace
Jesus on the cross,
by your love heal us.
Station 13. Jesus
is taken from the cross.
God's justice stark
in love
Priests on temples pray
Breath of Holy Spirit blows
Forever brothers all we stay
Body whole and pure
No evil can defeat
The triumph of the cross
For holy workers banquet
Jesus on the cross
by your love heal us.
Station 14. Jesus
is laid in the tomb.
Love never fails;
never ends
The Holy Bible writes
Wake us up dear Jesus
At dawn, resurrect flight
We adore you O
Christ
Have mercy -
Your holy cross be salvation
Hearts with Thee forever, have mercy.
Jesus on the cross
by your love heal us.
Jesus on the cross by your love heal us.
We love you.
I love you.
Thanks for letting
me share this one. We would all keep praying.
Truly, "The
Lord is our/my shepherd, we/I shall not want."
Poetry:
Let
Us
Practice
With
Words
Words are fun to
study! Those, which they signify are pictures of all sorts and a hurricane of
imaginations, as Archibald Macleish's maple leaf and globed fruit represent.
Below are some
poems, as comments to other beautiful poems:
To: Sir William C.
Williams (The Descent)
Descent is the moon
that wanes beneath darkness
Clouds, gray nights of cold
Like a love unrequited
Like tales untold
Like throes hiding
under shadows
Like dreams unrealized burrow
Etched is truth, there lies abyss
Lonely lilacs surrender peace.
To: Sir Richard
Eberhart (Grave Piece)
Death nigh unto
life, lay questions of tomorrow
Four doves in the grave, blight then, now sorrow
O crystal Tear, of all be near, I shall not fear, I shall not fear!
To Sir: W. H. Auden
(Perhaps)
Your "barren
virtuous marriage of stone and water"
Is a ring in my heart where name and image meet.
You paint a
soothing ocean in the summer
Black stones glittering gold cobwebs ponder
Underneath stones sparkling ripples of kiss
My lips supple - still, pure pink for your love
Lithe for your flesh; be for you, Dear love.
To: Sir Dylan
Thomas: After the Funeral (in Memory of Ann Jones)
Could there be a
love like Michael Furey's love?
Could Ann Jones be the reality of Gretta?
What other thoughts tie Sir James with you?
And me, and the others? Perhaps love, that of Auden.
Scrubbed and sour
humble hands of old Anne
Clench monuments for the boys shedding dry leaves
And I, now a
mother, a womb of oceans
My naked chest for the world
And after all the
lovers gone
Vigor and bloom on window sills
Everything fades from a love, all transient like grass
Only funerals in
choir of angels
Only God's love eternally lasts
And for my lover,
my lover, my lover
Haul me up your arms when in death;
Nigh your heart, nigh your breath,
In peace, cast away my fear
To Father God, I shall forever rest.
Truly, works of art
are indestructible and true. They bear fruits and would last unto the next
morrow. Only patterns change, and feelings as to the way how people live. But
then, the world turns. Nothing is permanent, as art gives birth to new
dimensions like water, it will disperse unto the sea again, back to the sky
again, then unto the earth again. Poems keep moving, and that is why they are
alive!
Thank you for the
poems, dear poets. God bless the poets!
Poems:
Some
Poetry
Thoughts
Poems give light to
pleasure in words. I don't know what poets like it for, but as I practice my
poetry every word comes alive, while I diffuse myself to that which lay before
me.
From a burnt wood,
from the slivers of time, from the gusty wind of waves,
how from heart unto heart life could feel and see, believe the hum of
seasons,
touch the blossom of sun, face the whip of tide, thou receive the mercy of
Allah.
Thought:
In poems the hands
are filled with abounding grace
In those times they're denied the sweetness of flesh
The hands and grip are never releasing
Until something blooms from stars, the clouds drop rain
And refresh seeds for a harvest.
Check these
beautiful poem lines from Master Poets. Each one can give a thought by
expressing a feeling on the poem. It is not exactly to summarize it, but
explicate the images that create sensations. Moreover, critics relate the poems
to other significant literary texts. Express your thoughts!
T.S. Eliot: The
Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock (1909-1935)
"I grow old... I grow old
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
Thought:
A glimpse of aging as told by Eliot. Can you imagine how an old man rolls his
trousers?
Carl Sanburg: The
Ghost of Milton
"One of the triumphs of the poem is that is takes a literary figure and
makes him not a remote writer in history, but a living and vigorous man."
Paul Engle
"I would sit
by fire and dream of hell and heaven,
Idiots and kings, women my eyes could never look on again,
And God Himself and the rebels God threw into hell."
Thought:
Milton was always in protest. Sandburg shows sympathy for Milton, and empathy
to Milton's blindness.
According to Paul
Engle, the last line of all "And God Himself and the rebels God threw into
hell," is the strongest line of all.
D.H. Lawrence: The
Snake
"Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting."
Thought:
The poet brings us an exact, vivid and true picture where snakes love to dwell.
Humans need not attack, but just wait and see, as the lines express in "a
second comer and waiting."
Man, as D. H. Lawrence (most afraid) is also honored by a snake accepting a
kind of hospitality from us, letting the animal be first in the line. The
snake, crawling holes, troughs, as in "dark doors" whence the snake
comes from, from all of creations that part, of our secret earth.
True enough, a poem
is from God's sup, dropped down our tongues, a sweet taste of bliss.
Vignette:
Does
She
Really
Love
Me?
I will address this
to everyone, and specifically for the second person pronoun, singular and
plural in number: You.
I am she, third
person pronoun: singular in number, feminine gender. My name is Rose.
Don't you know that
I love you? Every beat of me lives for you. My every breath longs to linger in
your mouth.
Do I really love
you? Why do you have to ask? Your face is the sky to me.
They told me you
were a great man.
You don't need to win that soccer match.
Your peculiarity and your brilliance, come to serve everyone.
I know where to tickle you.
You don't need a hair grower.
You don't need an enlarger of any stuff.
You don't need those big muscles to punch.
And I don't want you to be a senator robbing money from the people.
You don't need a Volvo.
You don't need to be young.
You don't need to be old.
You don't need to be what you aren't and pretend you are someone else,
like Superman, or an American Idol,
or a rocker like Bono.
You only need to be you -cool and cute in any angle that I look at you, during
work.
I need you to be a
man for me: strong, and a baby, sometimes.
I need you to clasp those hands together in chants and Kung Fu.
I need you to go on your knees every morning,
Lift your hands and bow to the sky. The sky is your mirror.
I am not anyone's
wife. I am somebody else's wife.
My husband knows I belong to him alone.
Oh, and how could
you tell that she really loves you?
In marriage and a family.
Oh, and she,
another she?
If she's concerned with how good you could be for others,
But I don't know exactly how, maybe if God's will comes.
And forget about
her, are you with me?
Every fiber of your vein is woven in my prayer.
Every muscle that you flex, I could feel in my heart.
Every time you say you love Him,
I love you more and more, more than anything - that very moment.
Your heart is in
mine?
My heart takes the place of yours?
We beat as one now? Take care of my heart.
Are you confused
with my answers?
You have to pray, so you would find out.
And who do I love? The monks.
And you, too,
brother, father, and son,
And all else is for God to decide.
It seems that we have to love each other, too.
Take care of my heart.
I love you. Be with
me in prayer.
Now we are the first person pronoun, plural in number: We.
Why
We
Still
Write
And
Read
Poetry
In
The
Information
Age
The "whys" of life are many and some
unanswerable. Entertainment in films and other forms of arts make life vivid
and more thrilling for all to see. We, as humans express ourselves in different
ways like poetry. And like the many forms of being creative, poetry endures
time, and speaks of life yesterday, today and tomorrow.
When I was younger, I could find happiness in
scribbling words. I was not really aware how grammar rules were complied with
because I was not a native speaker of English. Yet, my earlier poems were in
the second language. I loved my native tongue and my second language, as well.
I remember reading cartoon dialogues in both
Filipino and English. I held newspapers and magazines, to read only that
section and the headlines. I pretended to understand all the other texts, as
the adults in the house (my aunts and uncles who were all college students)
read. I imitated them, and made myself happy reading what I could not
understand at all. I was a "trying hard" learner.
In that way, I have learned to read small
verses which my small mind could absorb. Since no one spoke and gossiped with
me, I found books and papers - the interesting topics in the house and school.
At a young age, we talked about songs, and poems, and rhymes and ideas.
Yesterday, people loved it when I gave them short notes of caring. In school,
we did that, too. We exchanged candy messages and old common poems.
During the generation of my children, their
teachers in school asked them to memorize poems and recite them. This is part
of the language subjects for the teens to express themselves, whether about
life, love, religion, society, and longing, among others.
In culture - songs, poems, and other reading
texts don't die. They just change as to the needs of time and people's way of
life. Some are revived, and then passed on again. New literatures are being
written in the present and even in view of the future. Films and fiction are
creative and good forms of entertainment. They make use of the brains.
Yes, we still read poetry in the information
age, because poetry is life itself, that speaks the heart and intellect of man.
Poetry is a gift from God, that binds a canon and an experience to become
flesh.
There are many poetry sites online like Poem
Hunter.com (classic, masters, amateur, and professional poets), Slam Poetry in
You Tube (Andrea Gibson and Shane Hawley), and intellectual poetry (Robert Hass
and others) to entertain, inform, and sustain culture with fresh, classic, and
inspiring ideas for the world. We need to be smart, and feed our brains with
good reading materials in all of time. Moreover, read the "Psalms"
(Holy Bible, old testament) they're one of the best forms of poetry. If you
believe in love, life and connections, poetry will define your needs. Poetry is
endless and will exist in any age and layer of life. Now, it becomes a vital
part of the information age, too. Seek profound thoughts. Check online!
Describing
Using
The
Five
Senses
How To Describe
Using the 5 Senses
Art deems pleasure
in the senses. It is something indescribable, beautiful, and almost
intoxicating. To describe, poets use sense impressions like creating images
similar in fiction's, "Show don't tell."
Take this sample 1:
Art is
your mouth in my
mouth
the fragrance of sea breeze
the drumbeat and church bells
squeaking of rubbing saw
they're small
pounds of a hammer
gliding of twigs
tinkering dishes
creation of Ikebana
Art is
the curve of your
jaw
those eyes when you gaze
your untouched lips
the sweetness
when you talk fiercely
The five senses
include the sense of touch, smell, sight, hearing and touch.
An activity for
students in an English class is to describe people, places and things through
their five senses:
Take this sample2:
Sense of sight sun
like rays of gold
Sense of taste like honey
Sense of smell brewing coffee
Sense of hearing sound of the forest
Sense of touch your pores, when they open
Description is
describing the concrete attributes. One can describe using the figurative
language and/or sense impressions.
1. Simile is
comparing objects using "as or like."
Example: Clouds are like cotton balls.
2. A metaphor is
direct comparison.
Example: Clouds are cotton balls.
In some books,
other than the simile; others are classification of different metaphors.
"Metaphor"
is from the Greek word transfer.
3. Synesthesia is a
blended feeling.
"To the bugle, every color is red." Emily Dickinson
4. Personification
is speech endowing human qualities to things.
Heaven cries with me.
5. Synecdoche a
form of substitution in whole or part
She is a heron.
6. Allusion reminds
of something or with reference to something
Check out the poems of Plath... (death poems)
Using the five
senses will make your speech colorful and interesting. It can give depth or
humor, and there's pleasure in your expression. The exactness and profundity of
choosing the right descriptions is gift.
The poet sees a lot
of the world, and includes beauty and ugliness in the magic of words creating
pleasure and meaning.
Let try this:
Gold
in the coming of dawn
you shepherded
to remind how love should be
perfect.
/rose, ishallwrite
1. How do you
explain "gold" here?
2. Who was the shepherd?
3. What figure of speech was used?
The senses work in
divine ways. It draws special images and symbols, it builds concrete assemblage
of life. And though Carl Jung says "The individual is the only
reality," the poet works hard at these. He/She will describe, specifically,
writing in words symbols and images where you can hold and experience
something. The poet will bleed for you and you will interpret how you felt it
(other than deconstructing the poem, etc) - sharp as bliss. You will come
peacefully.
Emily
Dickinson –
A
Private
Poet
When you can browse
an abstract picture and you can talk and see life in deep metaphors, you will
feel the value of art in being.
Poetry is something
beautiful out of anything and in ugliness. It transforms matter into movement
and life. It creates an array of light, culture, stories, buildings, clouds,
and cute monsters. It tastes heaven, death, grapes, blood, and glass. It sees
triumph, moans grief, shouts wisdom, and all the mind could do.
"If I read a
book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is
poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know
that is poetry. These are the only way I know it...," this is how Emily
Dickinson finds poetry.
Dickinson is a
noted poet. Her sentences are short that express a nervous discharge of energy.
A poet of Victorian period, she has a certain kind of poetic insight that
brings a startling contemporary tone to her works. Most of Ms. Dickinson's
poems are metaphysical poems which are about life, love, and death among
others. Her gift of words is timeless.
Sample Poem /Phrase
from Emily Dickinson
"Death Is A
Dialogue"
Death is a dialogue
between
The spirit and the dust.
"Dissolve, says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,"
I have another trust."
Death doubts it,
argues from the ground
The Spirit turns away,
Just laying off, for evidence,
An overcoat of clay.
1. "In the
usual Metaphysical tradition, "Death is a Dialogue" expresses its
meaning through the central devices of argument, and of image and
situation," Edith Tiempo says. (Edith Tiempo is a reputable professor in
Poetry)
2. Emily Dickinson
often uses off-rhymes (near rhymes or oblique rhymes) that it becomes a
characteristic. Her earliest works show she could rhyme perfectly when she
wants to, but for some reason she becomes fond of the little dissonance. She
believes that any vowel can rhyme with another vowel.
Example: Instead of
rhymes like "June"/ "moon"
She prefers "June"/men."
3. She also uses
synesthesia (from Greek words meaning "blended feeling"), as in
"... he hears odors..." and "To the bugle every color is
red."
An analysis by R.P.
Blackmur about Emily Dickinson writes:
"She was
neither a professional nor an amateur poet (She was a private a poet); she
wrote indefatigably as some women cook or knit. Her gift of words and the
cultural predicaments of her time drove her into poetry instead of
antimacassars."
Poetry in a Speech Class
When I was younger,
I tried to make my own dialogues, and expressing myself I wrote a child's poem
about creation. I remember I pleased and surprised my English teacher in high
school when I delivered my own poem during a speech exam. My classmates got poems
they read from books and other reference texts, while I read my own
composition. I was the only student in the class with a thick face to impose on
everyone, "Please listen, I've got a poem for all!"
Around the world,
poets will not stop writing poems and sing their hymns because poetry is made
out of life. According to Eliot and Wordsworth it is something recollected in
tranquility. I knew poetry should magnify things. Truly, it should make things
bigger and vivid and tangible in words.
Here are lines from
Ars Poetica by Archibald Machleish
A poem should be
equal to:
Not true
For all the history
of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -
A poem should not
mean
But be.
II. Check out the
following poetry words:
1. metrical
literature - A metrical literature is having a regular arrangement of accents.
A= metrical
literature
B= imaginative literature
A+B=Poetry
2. prosaic means
ordinary, like prose (plain language). It is the language of reason.
"The
definition of a good prose is proper words in their proper places."
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
3. imagination -
Imagination is a creation of the mind. It is thinking to create or forming
pictures in the mind; the imagination of a writer
4. Scrooge- Scrooge
is any dingy or stingy person. The old miser in Charles Dickens story, "A
Christmas Carol."
5. succor - Succor
means assistance or any person or thing that relieves (especially British,
succor).
6.epic - An epic is
a long narrative poem which is communal in character (...race), rather than
those of individual. The style is marked by dignity and sublimity. The same
meter is used throughout, and the theme is the same action of unusual interest.
In an epic unity is
achieved by concentration on the main character.
7. sonnet - A
sonnet can be an Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet with an octave ( 8 lines), a
sestet (6 lines).
English or
Shakespearean sonnet is divided into 3 quatrains, with a rhyming couplet.
In both types the
normal measure is iambic pentameter (14 lines).
8. octave - An
octave is a group of eight; first eight lines of a sonnet; a group of 8 lines
of poetry; in music the series of tones GABCDEFG
9. elegy - An elegy
is a poem of lamentation. As a rule an elegy is less spontaneous than the true
lyric. Like the ode, is often elaborate in style and death is sometimes the
sole theme.
10. lyric - This
can apply to all classes of poetry. Its chief characteristic is its emotional quality
or intensity.
The lyric says that
the poetic way of the heart follows powerful feelings of brief duration. The
lyric as an artistic expression of emotion is short. According to Paul Landis
"It has been called the quintessence of momentary mood into words".
Alvarez
On
Sylvia
Plath
She was a valued
poet. During poetry classes held in many academes and workshops, there was
always something special about her work. Poetry students kept thinking about
her life, and the readers curiosity got aroused. And I, like the other writers
and readers came always peeping on her poetry and the life that wrote that
poetry. She was married in 1956 to Ted Hughes, who was also a notable poet. The
critic A. Alvarez wrote in his personal essay that maybe this was why she and
her husband had temporarily parted, it was a question not of differences but of
intolerable similarities.
From time to time,
upon reading the personal essay of Alvarez about Sylvia Plath, there was a
certain part of her life that was quite similar to ordinary mothers who worked
for a living, took care of babies, and did domestic chores. No doubt, the
plainness of Sylvia's life, was as ordinary as anyone's, but intolerably
complicated because of the imaginary thoughts of her being a prolific and
serious writer. She deemed a surrendering responsibility in writing, even in
the dead hours (between night and day), despite everything that blocked her
way. She always thought deeply and was in constant association with her muses,
facing her private horrors, involving deeply with her writing prompts.
In the course of
her life, she attempted suicide many times and had been spared, on some
occasions, because of what she believed to be miracles. In one of her poems,
She even said that she had nine lives, like that of a cat. She had survived
deaths, she sardonically felt herself was fated to undergo once very decade.
This made her wrote freely, experimenting with death. According to Alvarez when
she read her poems "She was always hot and full of venom."
Sylvia Plath gave
the readers a poetry of wonders. And of course, empathy and praise for her
courage which no human science could explain. Even her doctors tried to help
her.
"The passion
for destruction is also a creative passion," said Michael Bakunin. The
playwright and professor Tony Perez said that in Creative Arts there are
Thanatos loving people. In Mythology, Thanatos is the Greek personification of
death.
Check this out:
"I have once
done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it -
A sort of walking
miracle...
I am only thirty.
And like the cat, I have nine times to die.
This is Number
Three...
Sylvia Plath
A Alvarez is an
English poet and critic. He wrote the essay "Sylvia Plath: A Memoir".
/thank you for
reading!
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Glory to God in the highest!
Rosevocations 2014
