Amy's Place ... Poetry and Potpourri ... Mar. 29-30, 2004

3-29-04 | JustAmy, St.Louie1 and Mama_Bear

[NicknamedBob]

Gosh, Jacqui, what are you doing up in the middle of the night?

I didn't wake you, did I?

[Billie]

Good morning, Amy and Amy's Place Poets, Writers, and Readers.

Redbuds are one of my favorite flowering trees - love reading your aunt's poems!

[PreviouslyA-Lurker]

Nice poem, Bob, very appropriate, too!

[ST.LOUIE1]

Good morning, sweet (((((Sis))))))).

I shall return. : )

Bro

[Billie]

The other day I was browsing through some of the early threads, and I think we need to hear from "I AM LOONEY" again, wolfie!

[KangarooJacqui]

Gosh, Jacqui, what are you doing up in the middle of the night? I didn't wake you, did I?

No, just going through one of my sleepless nights. It's 2.30am now, and my eyelids are drooping badly so perhaps it is time to go to bed...

I have a psychiatrist's appointment I cannot afford to mist at 10am, so maybe I'll manage to grab a few hours' sleep anyway...

'Night evereyone...

[JustAmy]

Good Morning, Mayor.
Coffee was delicious, as usual. Today's lesson was inspiring.
Thank you.
Have a Terrific Tuesday!

[OESY]

"Portrait of Dr. Gachet" by Vincent van Gogh

OK, I'll compromise. How about a portrait of a doctor, though I feel
as disappointed as Dr. Gachet looks? You are hard to keep up with. LOL!

[JustAmy]

We planted that tree about 3 years ago. I wanted the spring color.

You are right, the rest of the year it is just a tree. If it ever gets large, I hope it gives lots of shade!

[OESY]

Van Gogh

All right, I love him for the way
he painted Vermilion! Orange! jagged as
shouts, and when no one bought them,
no one even listened,
he shouted louder,
Sunflowers! Self-Portrait!
and years later, not one sold,
he cut off his own ear.

Then he had to bring it back on canvas
hundreds of times,
in the brass swelling
of the bell
that called him to dinner,
in the complicated iris
at the end of the asylum path.
Think how stooping
at the fork in the road
he might have seen a stone-shaped ear,
how the human heart,
once it knows what it needs,
will find it everywhere, how
in the curve of his delicately padded cell
one starry night, he must have murmured
everything he had ever wanted to say
straight into the ear of God.


COPYRIGHT 2003 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

[JustAmy]

:)

I have been trying to lose a few pounds and that picture of pasta reminded me that I was hungry at 4:30 this morning.

Sorry .... I will see if I can find something healthy for us tomorrow. :)

Hope you are having a great Tuesday!

[JustAmy]

A Happy Vincent Van Gogh Birthday to you!!

Thanks for the link.

[JustAmy]

LOL

Good afternoon, OESY.

Thank you for posting the doctor poems and jokes. They gave me a smile and a chuckle this morning.

Hope your Tuesday is going well.

[Dubya]

WOW! You are great. Thanks for sharing.
DUB

[PreviouslyA-Lurker]

things that change my perception.....in a good way for a change!

very punny!

[JustAmy]

Good afternoon, Spooky!

Thank you for the VanGogh picture. He is adorable. He looks so sweet. Who needs an ear anyway?

Hope you are having a wonderful day!!

[OESY]

Vincent Van Gogh's most famous work, Starry Night, has been a question mark to scholars since 1889, the year it was painted. Art historians have speculated about the painting's origin over the years....

The fact that Van Gogh not only admired Whitman but was avidly reading him during this time surfaces in a letter to his younger sister Wilhelmina:

"Have you read the American poems by Whitman? [his italics] I am sure Theo has them, and I strongly advise you to read them, because to begin with they are really fine, and the English speak about them a good deal. He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of healthy, carnal love, strong and frank— of friendship— of work— under the great starlit vault of heaven a something which after all one can only call God— and eternity in its place above this world. At first it makes you smile, it is all so candid and pure; but it sets you thinking for the same reason."

...

This letter was written around 8 September 1888: "At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that the night is still more richly colored than the day, having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens" (Van Gogh 443). To clarify, the chronology is as follows: Van Gogh tells his sister that he wants to "paint a starry sky," then he recommends that she read "the American poems by Whitman." Whitman and the starry sky were both in his head before they synthesized into Starry Night. Though he never said much about the painting, is there a better explanation than what he says in the above letter?: "Under the great starlit vault of heaven a something which after all one can only call God" (Van Gogh 445).

...

Whitman's "Song of Myself," particularly section 21, is the work that inspired Van Gogh:

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosom'd night--press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds--night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night--mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset--earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake! Far-swooping elbow'd earth--rich apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love--therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love (Whitman 208).

More

[JustAmy]

Happy Wednesday, Jacqui.

Wishing you a wonderful day!!

[PreviouslyA-Lurker]

He's a big boy! His coloring and fur look like the brush strokes an impressionist painter (like Van Gogh?) might make to paint a cat.

My co-worker and I laughed out loud at the song you chose for that pic!

[JustAmy]

Good morning, Billie.
It is so nice to see you this morning.
Hope you are having a wonderful day!

"love reading your aunt's poems"
I will start typing more of her poems so I can share them.
I have been lazy recently.