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Posted on 07/12/2006 8:30:09 PM PDT by Soaring Feather
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;^)
Good morning,
Ms Feather!
Good one!
Good morning, bentfeather! Nice photo!
Written on another thread. Inspired by this photo.
What makes a poet, oh, I don't know it's innate
born with rhythm, swinging to the beat
watching pulsating stars, with huge curiosity
thin skinned and tender of heart poets be
painting pictures of what they'd like to see
day dreaming of life pastoral,
idyllic, sublime and grand
holding a bird in the palm of one's hand.
To dare to write in the face of ridicule
to believe in ones words will hold up to
the drifting twirling winds of time
to know one made a different to one gal or man.
To feel emotional pain on the skin
to break from the onus lived day to day
to hold to sanity in some small way
to meld those emotions in a line or two
to have someone say, I love you.
To be a poet, it's innate!
bentfeather (c) 08.01.06
LOL!! Nice to see George again.
Today is Tuesday, Aug. 1, the 213th day of 2006 with 152 to
follow. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Mars,
Uranus, Saturn and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury,
Jupiter, Venus and Pluto.
"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once 'the very wish
Partook of the sublime.'
The tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'!"
The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."
"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic --
A very simple rule.
"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.
'Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful --
Those are the things that pay!
"Next, when we are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint."
"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell'?"
"Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
Would answer very well.
"Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word --
As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird --
Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'
Are much to be preferred."
"And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump --
As 'the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump'?"
"Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.
"Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!
"Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.
"Therefore to test his patience --
How much he can endure --
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.
"First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with 'Padding'
(Beg some of any friend)
Your great SENSATION-STANZA
You place towards the end."
"And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
'Exempli gratiâ'"
And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said "Go to the Adelphi,
And see the 'Colleen Bawn.'
"The word is due to Boucicault --
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don't know what it is,
"Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow --"
"And then," his grandson added,
"We'll publish it, you know:
Green cloth -- gold-lettered at the back --
In duodecimo!"
Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad --
But, when he thought of publishing,
His face grew stern and sad.
OMGOSH! Nope, don't own one. LOL
Ah, Carroll believes, a poet is made not born.
Maybe so, but the talent has to be there --to become a poet.
If one doesn't have rhythm, they probably can't be poetic, either.
LOL
Do you realize how many peacocks would have to die for this indulgence??
Yet many poets are inmates.
Peacocks? Those are chickens.
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