Alright, I apologize. I realize I have slacked off greatly in my blogging this past month. With the holiday season comes my most depressed time of the year, and I simply do not have the kind of energy to maintain a blog. However, I believe my brief(ish) hiatus is over, and I will begin posting with much more frequency. I sincerely hope that all of your holiday experiences were filled with joy and good food! I must say, my aunt Wei-chi made the most stunning crab cakes I have ever tasted. MMMMMmmmm good!
I realize that I usually have some relation to poetry in the first section of my blog, but I really don't feel that food poetry would be quite appropriate. I also just wrote up an entire blog with poetry from my great-great-great-grandmother. I erased it because I realized you all probably don't care about her. I will try to focus on more relevant things. It's bad enough I subject you to my ramblings let alone the ramblings of an ancestor. I think I would like some feedback. What type of poetry or specific poet or topic would you like to read about? I will try to honor any requests you make (within reason!).
When I was about three years old, I really started getting interested in Abraham Lincoln (don't ask me, I was an odd child). I have carried this obsession throughout life, though I have lost in the recesses of my mind most of the information I used to retain on his life. Naturally, one of my favorite poems of the day was "Oh, Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman because it is about Lincoln.
Walt Whitman was a man of many talents. He was employed in trades from printing, to teaching, to journalism, and, for a brief time, he was clerk for the Department of the Interior. He began his working life at the age of 11 when he was pulled out of school to help support his family. It was when he began work as a printer at age 12 that he began his love affair with written language. He was mostly self-taught. He was a strong abolitionist, and even developed a "free soil" newspaper. He was influential in the lives of the wounded often giving his own salary to pay for gifts and supplies for them.He left Washington D.C. for Camden in order to care for his dying mother and brother. He suffered a stroke in the mid 1870s and found returning to Washington D.C. impossible. He lived in Camden for the last of his days.
O Captain My Captain
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
♪Someday, my love, there will be songs to sing♫
Yay! There is finally snow on the ground, so I can post the winter poem I found without feeling guilty. I am rather spastastic (yes, Firefox, that is a word. I just made it up.) today due to waking up at 5 and drinking lots of caffeine and getting into the Christmas spirit. Well, I made Christmas gifts if that counts as the Christmas spirit. I think we'll say it counts. I even attempted to remember how to play "Carol of the Bells" on the piano. This is astonishing since I hate pretty much all Christmas music. I'm Scrooge in a much younger, smaller package! Actually, my high school choir always sang "Carol of the Bells" in our Christmas concert, so I kind of know the words. Except two years I sang it as a soprano (which I am), and two years I sang it as an alto (which I am most assuredly not). I tend to sing the beginning half of the words from whence I spiral down into "ding dong ding dong", which is the alto part. Congratulations to me for a long pointless story!
Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958 for Dr. Zhivago. It was the only novel he ever wrote (that I am aware of. He did write a "novel in verse", but I'm not sure entirely what that entails.), but it was not published in his own homeland until 1988 (which, if I do say so myself, was a very good year). He turned down the Prize, but it was presented posthumously to his son in 1989. I think that's a very ambiguous sentence, and I apologize. Interestingly enough, he has a planet named after him, the 3508 Pasternak. Though here in the West, we know him best for Dr. Zhivago, he was much more highly influential and well known as a poet. He set the groundwork for much contemporary Russian poetry. He also was a translator in his homeland translating Shakespeare and Goethe as well as many others into Russian. Without further ado and more pointless rambling from yours truly, I present Winter's Night.
Winter's Night
Blizzards were blowing everywhere
Throughout the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
As midgets in the summer fly
Towards a flame,
The snowflakes from the yard swarmed to
The window pane.
And, on the glass, bright snowy rings
And arrows formed.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
And on the white illumined ceiling
Shadows were cast,
As arms and legs and destinies
Fatefully crossed.
Two slippers fell on to the floor
With a light sound,
And waxen tears dripped from the candle
On to a gown.
No object in the misty whiteness
Could be discerned.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
A mild draught coming from the corner
Blew on the candle,
Seduction's heat raised two wings crosswise
As might an angel.
It snowed and snowed that February
All through the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
Disclaimer: I do not speak one iota of Russian, so I sincerely hope this translation is good.
Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1958 for Dr. Zhivago. It was the only novel he ever wrote (that I am aware of. He did write a "novel in verse", but I'm not sure entirely what that entails.), but it was not published in his own homeland until 1988 (which, if I do say so myself, was a very good year). He turned down the Prize, but it was presented posthumously to his son in 1989. I think that's a very ambiguous sentence, and I apologize. Interestingly enough, he has a planet named after him, the 3508 Pasternak. Though here in the West, we know him best for Dr. Zhivago, he was much more highly influential and well known as a poet. He set the groundwork for much contemporary Russian poetry. He also was a translator in his homeland translating Shakespeare and Goethe as well as many others into Russian. Without further ado and more pointless rambling from yours truly, I present Winter's Night.
Winter's Night
Blizzards were blowing everywhere
Throughout the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
As midgets in the summer fly
Towards a flame,
The snowflakes from the yard swarmed to
The window pane.
And, on the glass, bright snowy rings
And arrows formed.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
And on the white illumined ceiling
Shadows were cast,
As arms and legs and destinies
Fatefully crossed.
Two slippers fell on to the floor
With a light sound,
And waxen tears dripped from the candle
On to a gown.
No object in the misty whiteness
Could be discerned.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
A mild draught coming from the corner
Blew on the candle,
Seduction's heat raised two wings crosswise
As might an angel.
It snowed and snowed that February
All through the land.
A candle burned upon the table,
A candle burned.
Disclaimer: I do not speak one iota of Russian, so I sincerely hope this translation is good.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Antiquities
Well, today was an adventure of the grandest sort! I went out to eat with one of my dearest friends and her mother, imbibed in so much sweet stuff I almost exploded, got a package in the mail for my birthday, and was given an antique book of Lowell's Poems. All in all, I was pretty well satisfied today. Some days I feel better equipped for coping with life than others. After yesterday's maudlin attitude, I definitely needed to feel upbeat. I think the lack of sleep and the copious amounts of sugar added greatly to the spasticity of my mood (I think I made that word up. Oh well, I definitely think it should be added to my Funk and Wagnalls! Actually, I can't say "my" since I don't technically own one. I would like one someday though. *sends hint out to the cosmos* Maybe next year for my birthday when it doesn't land on a holiday, and people have fewer things on their plates. *sigh*
James Russell Lowell. Consequently, if I had been a boy, my name would have been Russell. Okay, maybe that much sugar was not a good idea. You should see me when I have espresso! Poetry, think poetry!
I honestly knew nothing about James Russell Lowell before today. I am finding out many fascinating odds and ends. For example, he was the godfather of Virginia Woolf. He was good friends with Longfellow and Emerson. He had a rather illustrious political career later in his life serving in both the Spanish and English courts. He was a strong supporter of Lincoln, which definitely bumps him up in my book since Lincoln is my favorite president. He was abolitionist though he was much less involved in that belief later in life. In fact, he oscillated considerably on that belief. His first wife was a strong supporter of the anti-slavery movement and pushed him to be more actively involved. He struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts many times. Three out of his four children died in infancy, and he almost didn't recover. I liked the quote from Walt Whitman in regard to Lowell. He said, "Lowell was not a grower--he was a builder. He built poems: he didn't put in the seed, and water the seed, and send down his sun—letting the rest take care of itself: he measured his poems—kept them within formula." Lowell wrote a goodly amount of sonnets, which is nice for me since I rather enjoy sonnets in general--their structure and ebb and flow. Here is Sonnet XIV.
I would not have this perfect love of ours
Grow from a single root, a single stem,
Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers
That idly hide Life's iron diadem:
It should grow always like that Eastern tree
Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;
That love for one, from which there doth not spring
Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.
Not in another world, as poets prate,
Dwell we apart, above the tide of things,
High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings;
But our pure love doth ever elevate
Into a holy bond of brotherhood
All earthly things, making them pure and good.
James Russell Lowell. Consequently, if I had been a boy, my name would have been Russell. Okay, maybe that much sugar was not a good idea. You should see me when I have espresso! Poetry, think poetry!
I honestly knew nothing about James Russell Lowell before today. I am finding out many fascinating odds and ends. For example, he was the godfather of Virginia Woolf. He was good friends with Longfellow and Emerson. He had a rather illustrious political career later in his life serving in both the Spanish and English courts. He was a strong supporter of Lincoln, which definitely bumps him up in my book since Lincoln is my favorite president. He was abolitionist though he was much less involved in that belief later in life. In fact, he oscillated considerably on that belief. His first wife was a strong supporter of the anti-slavery movement and pushed him to be more actively involved. He struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts many times. Three out of his four children died in infancy, and he almost didn't recover. I liked the quote from Walt Whitman in regard to Lowell. He said, "Lowell was not a grower--he was a builder. He built poems: he didn't put in the seed, and water the seed, and send down his sun—letting the rest take care of itself: he measured his poems—kept them within formula." Lowell wrote a goodly amount of sonnets, which is nice for me since I rather enjoy sonnets in general--their structure and ebb and flow. Here is Sonnet XIV.
I would not have this perfect love of ours
Grow from a single root, a single stem,
Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers
That idly hide Life's iron diadem:
It should grow always like that Eastern tree
Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;
That love for one, from which there doth not spring
Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.
Not in another world, as poets prate,
Dwell we apart, above the tide of things,
High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings;
But our pure love doth ever elevate
Into a holy bond of brotherhood
All earthly things, making them pure and good.
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