FOR MEETINGS AFTER JANUARY 2009 CLICK THIS LINK:
CPSMANCHESTER
WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO OUR WIKI PAGE WHICH WE FEEL IS EASIER TO BUILD AND A LOT MORE FUN TO WORK WITH.
THANKS!
WWWC Meeting December 13, 2008
At the outset we thank Debbie Howard for again inviting us to celebrate our Christmas in her home. As always it is a delight and a highlight of the season.
Minutes of Last Meeting
November 08, 2008
Wit & Wisdom Writers Club
Attended: 12
Chaired: Emerson Gilmore
Location: The Music Makers Academy, 517 Hartford Rd., Manchester, CT. 06040
CPS Topics:
Christmas Party, Dec 13, 1-4 pm at the home of Debbie Howard, 47 Wellington Rd., Manchester, CT. Sign up for a dish to bring! Bring Grab Bag estimated cost of $5.00.
Fresh Water Magazine 10th anniv. Submit by Dec. 30th., Asnuntuck Community College.
Conn. River Review Contest - Dec. 1, 2008 up to three poems.
Judge: Brian Clements
Butterworth Hall, Univ. Of Hartford: Greater Hartford Chapter to read seasonal poems in Dec.
All CPS members welcome.
November Meeting:
Ready for November the assignment was to gaze the senses of sound.
Make use of the five senses using them in writing a poem.
See, Hear, Smell, Touch, and Taste.
Assignment Poems were read first, followed by other poems of poets choice.
Including works of new member Patricia Christie of Manchester . Welcome Pat!
New Assignment: December assignment is to write a poem about what was in the steamer trunk
in the yard where a house is for sale.
Treasurer: Membership dues $10.00. Debbie Howard for the new year
$25.00 Julia Paul CPS Membership dues
Poetry Interest:
Organized poetry readings were held in England,
with known readers to act.
Barrack Obama held a book of poems by West Indies Poet Derek Walcoltt (Epic Omeroes)
James Dicky, The Sharks Parlor (Poems about War)
Sleeping Beauty by Hayden Carrouth
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Paul, Julia, Ed, Joan Chaput and I were all published in Long River Run, the CPS members-only journal
Dues
Membership
Advertising
We can be in Hartford Courant I-Times (?)
I will send in announcement of the next meeting
CPS Topics
CONNECTICUT RIVER REVIEW POETRY CONTEST
Open to all poets. NEW GUIDELINES AND PRIZE AMOUNTS
Submit poems: Dec. 1- Feb. 28th 2009(postmark)
Prizes of $400, $200, and $100.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 80 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked CRR Contest. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $15 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
CPS is pleased to announce that the judge for the 2009 Connecticut River Review Contest will be Brian Clements, Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University and coordinator of WestConn’s MFA in Professional Writing. He edits Sentence: a journal of prose poetics and Sentence’s parent press, Firewheel Editions. His most recent books are Disappointed Psalms (Meritage Press) and And How to End It (prose poems from Quale Press).
Send submissions to CT River Review Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
LYNN DECARO POETRY CONTEST
Open to Connecticut high school students only (grades 9 - 12)
Dec. 1 - March 15th 2009 Deadline
Prizes of $75, $50, and $25.
This contest was established to honor Lynn DeCaro, a promising young CPS member who died of leukemia in 1986. Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked DeCaro Contest. Include SASE, a stamped, self-addressed, stamped envelope, for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. There is no entry fee for this contest. Prize winning poems will be published in Long River Review II.
Send submissions to Lynn DeCaro Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
Judge for 2009 Decaro Contest: Bessy Reyna is an opinion columnist for the Hartford Courant. Her poems and stories are found in U.S. and Latin American literary magazines and anthologies. Reyna’s latest book, The Battlefield of Your Body , a bilingual poetry collection, was released in June, 2005 by the Hill-Stead Museum.
News Item
Dorothy Featherstone Porter (26 March 1954 – 10 December 2008) was an Australian poet.
There is currently a lot of hope that Prersident-elect Obama will include a poet in his inauguration ceremony.
www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2442583.htm this links to a story about Australian poet Dorothy Porter who died of cancer at age 54
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE
How do you bury a poet?
Surely not
how they buried Baudelaire
thrown in with his parents
like an infant death.
It stretches
to a ghastly irony
Pasternak’s remark
that poets should remain
children.
Do poets really want to trade
the lingering savour
of experience
for guileless eyes?
There’s something
repulsive
about an empty fresh
adult face.
Such baby faces
can be seen in uniform
or with a foot
on a slaughtered tiger.
They can be capable
of anything
or a long lullaby
of nothing.
I want to exhume Baudelaire
and give him his own
magnificent mercurial vault.
From one angle
an arching ebony cat.
From another
sneering black marble
spleen.
No poet
dead or alive
should rot
with their parents.
THE HAMPSTEAD HEATH TOAD
It was one of those
beautiful
English summer nights
when levitating
on the moonshine
of a moonlit world
was your entranced lucky
fate.
The lilac shimmer of silent
lakes.
The whisper of ghost fox
through your heartbeat.
But the toad in the hand
stank real.
Stank through his palpitating
skin.
Stank of fear.
Is the fabled hallucinogenic
touch of toads
just as Macbeth
witnessed
a hypnotising snare
of toxic apparition?
What thrilling doors of perception
open
to the musky ooze
of panting paralysed
terror?
Of course
on that silky intoxicating
night
you wanted
and will always want
the toad
to calm down
smell sweet
and give up his phantasmagorical
secrets
generously.
But the toad in the hand
protected himself.
The toad in the hand
stank real.
Educational Item
Al Daily
www.plagiarist.com/
This well-seasoned websiote has been a personal favorite for several years. Its list of poems grows daily and you can search by title, author, etc. It also offers
Plagiarist.com
Archive contains:
9231 Poems
460 Poets
& 55 Articles
Next Assignment
The next assignment is to write a poem for the new year in which you discuss what you will not do in the coming year-- sort of a reverse resolution poem. Any length, any style
This Month's Assignment and Poems
Minutes of Last Meeting
November 08, 2008
Wit & Wisdom Writers Club
Attended: 12
Chaired: Emerson Gilmore
Location: The Music Makers Academy, 517 Hartford Rd., Manchester, CT. 06040
CPS Topics:
Christmas Party, Dec 13, 1-4 pm at the home of Debbie Howard, 47 Wellington Rd., Manchester, CT. Sign up for a dish to bring! Bring Grab Bag estimated cost of $5.00.
Fresh Water Magazine 10th anniv. Submit by Dec. 30th., Asnuntuck Community College.
Conn. River Review Contest - Dec. 1, 2008 up to three poems.
Judge: Brian Clements
Butterworth Hall, Univ. Of Hartford: Greater Hartford Chapter to read seasonal poems in Dec.
All CPS members welcome.
November Meeting:
Ready for November the assignment was to gaze the senses of sound.
Make use of the five senses using them in writing a poem.
See, Hear, Smell, Touch, and Taste.
Assignment Poems were read first, followed by other poems of poets choice.
Including works of new member Patricia Christie of Manchester . Welcome Pat!
New Assignment: December assignment is to write a poem about what was in the steamer trunk
in the yard where a house is for sale.
Treasurer: Membership dues $10.00. Debbie Howard for the new year
$25.00 Julia Paul CPS Membership dues
Poetry Interest:
Organized poetry readings were held in England,
with known readers to act.
Barrack Obama held a book of poems by West Indies Poet Derek Walcoltt (Epic Omeroes)
James Dicky, The Sharks Parlor (Poems about War)
Sleeping Beauty by Hayden Carrouth
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Paul, Julia, Ed, Joan Chaput and I were all published in Long River Run, the CPS members-only journal
Dues
Membership
Advertising
We can be in Hartford Courant I-Times (?)
I will send in announcement of the next meeting
CPS Topics
CONNECTICUT RIVER REVIEW POETRY CONTEST
Open to all poets. NEW GUIDELINES AND PRIZE AMOUNTS
Submit poems: Dec. 1- Feb. 28th 2009(postmark)
Prizes of $400, $200, and $100.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 80 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked CRR Contest. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $15 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
CPS is pleased to announce that the judge for the 2009 Connecticut River Review Contest will be Brian Clements, Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University and coordinator of WestConn’s MFA in Professional Writing. He edits Sentence: a journal of prose poetics and Sentence’s parent press, Firewheel Editions. His most recent books are Disappointed Psalms (Meritage Press) and And How to End It (prose poems from Quale Press).
Send submissions to CT River Review Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
LYNN DECARO POETRY CONTEST
Open to Connecticut high school students only (grades 9 - 12)
Dec. 1 - March 15th 2009 Deadline
Prizes of $75, $50, and $25.
This contest was established to honor Lynn DeCaro, a promising young CPS member who died of leukemia in 1986. Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked DeCaro Contest. Include SASE, a stamped, self-addressed, stamped envelope, for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. There is no entry fee for this contest. Prize winning poems will be published in Long River Review II.
Send submissions to Lynn DeCaro Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
Judge for 2009 Decaro Contest: Bessy Reyna is an opinion columnist for the Hartford Courant. Her poems and stories are found in U.S. and Latin American literary magazines and anthologies. Reyna’s latest book, The Battlefield of Your Body , a bilingual poetry collection, was released in June, 2005 by the Hill-Stead Museum.
News Item
Dorothy Featherstone Porter (26 March 1954 – 10 December 2008) was an Australian poet.
There is currently a lot of hope that Prersident-elect Obama will include a poet in his inauguration ceremony.
www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2442583.htm this links to a story about Australian poet Dorothy Porter who died of cancer at age 54
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S GRAVE
How do you bury a poet?
Surely not
how they buried Baudelaire
thrown in with his parents
like an infant death.
It stretches
to a ghastly irony
Pasternak’s remark
that poets should remain
children.
Do poets really want to trade
the lingering savour
of experience
for guileless eyes?
There’s something
repulsive
about an empty fresh
adult face.
Such baby faces
can be seen in uniform
or with a foot
on a slaughtered tiger.
They can be capable
of anything
or a long lullaby
of nothing.
I want to exhume Baudelaire
and give him his own
magnificent mercurial vault.
From one angle
an arching ebony cat.
From another
sneering black marble
spleen.
No poet
dead or alive
should rot
with their parents.
THE HAMPSTEAD HEATH TOAD
It was one of those
beautiful
English summer nights
when levitating
on the moonshine
of a moonlit world
was your entranced lucky
fate.
The lilac shimmer of silent
lakes.
The whisper of ghost fox
through your heartbeat.
But the toad in the hand
stank real.
Stank through his palpitating
skin.
Stank of fear.
Is the fabled hallucinogenic
touch of toads
just as Macbeth
witnessed
a hypnotising snare
of toxic apparition?
What thrilling doors of perception
open
to the musky ooze
of panting paralysed
terror?
Of course
on that silky intoxicating
night
you wanted
and will always want
the toad
to calm down
smell sweet
and give up his phantasmagorical
secrets
generously.
But the toad in the hand
protected himself.
The toad in the hand
stank real.
Educational Item
Al Daily
www.plagiarist.com/
This well-seasoned websiote has been a personal favorite for several years. Its list of poems grows daily and you can search by title, author, etc. It also offers
Plagiarist.com
Archive contains:
9231 Poems
460 Poets
& 55 Articles
Next Assignment
The next assignment is to write a poem for the new year in which you discuss what you will not do in the coming year-- sort of a reverse resolution poem. Any length, any style
This Month's Assignment and Poems
Meeting, November 8, 2008
The Manchester Chapter of The Connecticut Poetry Society
Get a poem from Paul
Minutes of Last Meeting
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Do we really need an election of officers?
The next meeting is our holiday meeting, December 13, 2008-- let's make plans.
Freshwater request for submissions
CPS Topics
Dues due?
Current contests--CONNECTICUT RIVER REVIEW POETRY CONTEST
Open to all poets. NEW GUIDELINES AND PRIZE AMOUNTS
Submit poems: Dec. 1- Feb. 28th 2009(postmark)
Prizes of $400, $200, and $100.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 80 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked CRR Contest. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $15 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
CPS is pleased to announce that the judge for the 2009 Connecticut River Review Contest will be Brian Clements, Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University and coordinator of WestConn’s MFA in Professional Writing. He edits Sentence: a journal of prose poetics and Sentence’s parent press, Firewheel Editions. His most recent books are Disappointed Psalms (Meritage Press) and And How to End It (prose poems from Quale Press).
Send submissions to CT River Review Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
News Item
This link-- The London Times Online will take you to a London Times Online article I read from at the meeting. It discusses the impact of a program led by an Irish woman to introduce people to great poetry read by professional actors, actresses and entertainers. Definitely worth the read.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama still has time for a little poetry
President Elect Barack Obama may be busy assembling his transition team and meeting with economic advisers to discuss healing the blighted US economy.
By Catherine Elsworth
Last Updated: 8:37PM GMT 07 Nov 2008
Barack Obama still has time for a little poetry
Barack Obama carries the book of poems in his right arm as he and his wife Michelle leave their daughters' school Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
But it appears he still has time for a little poetry.
Three days after winning the presidential election, Barack Obama was spotted in Chicago carrying a book of poems by Derek Walcott, the West Indies Nobel laureate.
The Illinois senator was photographed holding the new-looking book, perhaps a gift he had just received, and reading a letter as he headed to his car with his wife, Michelle.
The 500-page volume, Collected Poems 1948-1984, is one of 20 collections by the poet, theatre director and playwright, who has also written more than 20 plays.
Walcott, who won the 1992 Nobel prize for Literature, is often described as the West Indies' greatest writer and intellectual. He was born in St Lucia in 1930 and is best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of the story of the Odyssey in a 20th century Caribbean setting.
Collected Poems 1948-1984 includes selections from all of Walcott's previous seven books of verse, including the full text of Another Life, his 1974 autobiographical poem.
Midsummer, Tobago
by Derek Walcott
Broad sun-stoned beaches.
White heat.
A green river.
A bridge,
scorched yellow palms
from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.
Days I have held,
days I have lost,
days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.
You can certainly see why this is of interest to President-elect Obama with two daughters who will outgrow his harboring arms.
If you get a chance to hear Derek Walcott read, do so. I met and heard him once at the University of Hartford about twenty years ago. It was in a small classroom with perhaps 15-20 in the audience. A far cry from the scene described in the article about the readings in England. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a president who supports the arts, esp poetry?
Educational Item
Correction of prior website address: Alpha Dictionary is at:
www.mississippireview.com/
Next Assignment
Several weeks ago I passed a house that was empty, trucks having apparently just left. The house was okay looking, not large, not small. The only thing remaining outside, at the roadside near a mailbox that was open was a steamer trunk-- the kind with straps and buckles. It was closed, the straps buckled. The assignment for the next meeting is to write a poem that tells what was in that trunk.
This Month's Assignment and Poems
This month's poems are to engage all five senses in some way.
One of the reasons for doing this is to enrich our poems with imagery that is real, sensible, tactile, visual, savory and olfactory. So often the poems we remember are the ones that tie in to our sense-experience of the world. Recent developments in neuroscience reveal that we recall events better when memory is accompanied by sense-stimuli that were present when the memory was first created even if that sense stimulus is unrelated to what is being recalled. An example from John Medina's Brain Rules describes two groups of students asked to memorized some material. One group was in a room where the scent of lilacs was present, the other in a room without a significant similar scent. The group with the lilac scent, when asked to recall the information recalled it better when the lilac scent was present than when it was not and the group without the sense stimulus recalled the information with the same accuracy as the other group without the lilacs but not nearly as well as the group with the lilac scent present at the recall event. What does this mean? Tie the poems down; anchor them for the reader so that the reader may bring her own sensory experiences to the reading of the poem.
Keeping this in mind we come to the educational item for the day-- alliteration. One of the key elements of good poetry is how the poem sounds. As obvious as this is we still sometimes neglect sonic aspects when we write and revise. I'm guilty of this all the time. Let's take an example-- alliteration. This is defined as The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of two or more words (ie, Waves want to be wheels…).
Example:
Grief (an exercise in alliteration)
Tuesday, 14. August 2007, 02:30:34
Prayer, Alliteration, poetry, Hope, Grief
desultory, disconnected. defeated and undone
listless, languid, lethargic and alone
the love, the fun, the desire is gone
left in place to keep the faith
holding onto only grace in the face
of trials, troubles and woes
weary, wan and woebegone
wondering why and weeping
hot tears of despair
distress and hopelessness
hopeful heart hardens
from holding on when hope is gone.
rekindle the flame
revive and refresh me again
send strength into my soul
lest I swoon with the sorrow
of this love lost.
I'm not recommending you write that alliteratively but suggest that as you write and revise you pay attention to the ways you can enhance the sonic effects of your poems.
Get a poem from Paul
Minutes of Last Meeting
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Do we really need an election of officers?
The next meeting is our holiday meeting, December 13, 2008-- let's make plans.
Freshwater request for submissions
CPS Topics
Dues due?
Current contests--CONNECTICUT RIVER REVIEW POETRY CONTEST
Open to all poets. NEW GUIDELINES AND PRIZE AMOUNTS
Submit poems: Dec. 1- Feb. 28th 2009(postmark)
Prizes of $400, $200, and $100.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 80 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked CRR Contest. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $15 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
CPS is pleased to announce that the judge for the 2009 Connecticut River Review Contest will be Brian Clements, Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University and coordinator of WestConn’s MFA in Professional Writing. He edits Sentence: a journal of prose poetics and Sentence’s parent press, Firewheel Editions. His most recent books are Disappointed Psalms (Meritage Press) and And How to End It (prose poems from Quale Press).
Send submissions to CT River Review Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
News Item
This link-- The London Times Online will take you to a London Times Online article I read from at the meeting. It discusses the impact of a program led by an Irish woman to introduce people to great poetry read by professional actors, actresses and entertainers. Definitely worth the read.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama still has time for a little poetry
President Elect Barack Obama may be busy assembling his transition team and meeting with economic advisers to discuss healing the blighted US economy.
By Catherine Elsworth
Last Updated: 8:37PM GMT 07 Nov 2008
Barack Obama still has time for a little poetry
Barack Obama carries the book of poems in his right arm as he and his wife Michelle leave their daughters' school Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
But it appears he still has time for a little poetry.
Three days after winning the presidential election, Barack Obama was spotted in Chicago carrying a book of poems by Derek Walcott, the West Indies Nobel laureate.
The Illinois senator was photographed holding the new-looking book, perhaps a gift he had just received, and reading a letter as he headed to his car with his wife, Michelle.
The 500-page volume, Collected Poems 1948-1984, is one of 20 collections by the poet, theatre director and playwright, who has also written more than 20 plays.
Walcott, who won the 1992 Nobel prize for Literature, is often described as the West Indies' greatest writer and intellectual. He was born in St Lucia in 1930 and is best known for his epic poem Omeros, a reworking of the story of the Odyssey in a 20th century Caribbean setting.
Collected Poems 1948-1984 includes selections from all of Walcott's previous seven books of verse, including the full text of Another Life, his 1974 autobiographical poem.
Midsummer, Tobago
by Derek Walcott
Broad sun-stoned beaches.
White heat.
A green river.
A bridge,
scorched yellow palms
from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.
Days I have held,
days I have lost,
days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.
You can certainly see why this is of interest to President-elect Obama with two daughters who will outgrow his harboring arms.
If you get a chance to hear Derek Walcott read, do so. I met and heard him once at the University of Hartford about twenty years ago. It was in a small classroom with perhaps 15-20 in the audience. A far cry from the scene described in the article about the readings in England. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a president who supports the arts, esp poetry?
Educational Item
Correction of prior website address: Alpha Dictionary is at:
www.mississippireview.com/
Next Assignment
Several weeks ago I passed a house that was empty, trucks having apparently just left. The house was okay looking, not large, not small. The only thing remaining outside, at the roadside near a mailbox that was open was a steamer trunk-- the kind with straps and buckles. It was closed, the straps buckled. The assignment for the next meeting is to write a poem that tells what was in that trunk.
This Month's Assignment and Poems
This month's poems are to engage all five senses in some way.
One of the reasons for doing this is to enrich our poems with imagery that is real, sensible, tactile, visual, savory and olfactory. So often the poems we remember are the ones that tie in to our sense-experience of the world. Recent developments in neuroscience reveal that we recall events better when memory is accompanied by sense-stimuli that were present when the memory was first created even if that sense stimulus is unrelated to what is being recalled. An example from John Medina's Brain Rules describes two groups of students asked to memorized some material. One group was in a room where the scent of lilacs was present, the other in a room without a significant similar scent. The group with the lilac scent, when asked to recall the information recalled it better when the lilac scent was present than when it was not and the group without the sense stimulus recalled the information with the same accuracy as the other group without the lilacs but not nearly as well as the group with the lilac scent present at the recall event. What does this mean? Tie the poems down; anchor them for the reader so that the reader may bring her own sensory experiences to the reading of the poem.
Keeping this in mind we come to the educational item for the day-- alliteration. One of the key elements of good poetry is how the poem sounds. As obvious as this is we still sometimes neglect sonic aspects when we write and revise. I'm guilty of this all the time. Let's take an example-- alliteration. This is defined as The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of two or more words (ie, Waves want to be wheels…).
Example:
Grief (an exercise in alliteration)
Tuesday, 14. August 2007, 02:30:34
Prayer, Alliteration, poetry, Hope, Grief
desultory, disconnected. defeated and undone
listless, languid, lethargic and alone
the love, the fun, the desire is gone
left in place to keep the faith
holding onto only grace in the face
of trials, troubles and woes
weary, wan and woebegone
wondering why and weeping
hot tears of despair
distress and hopelessness
hopeful heart hardens
from holding on when hope is gone.
rekindle the flame
revive and refresh me again
send strength into my soul
lest I swoon with the sorrow
of this love lost.
I'm not recommending you write that alliteratively but suggest that as you write and revise you pay attention to the ways you can enhance the sonic effects of your poems.
WWWC Meeting October 11, 2008
Minutes of Last Meeting
September 13, 2008
Wit & Wisdom Writers Club
Attended: 13
Chaired: Ed Bartek chaired for Emerson Gilmore
Location: The Music Makers Academy, 517 Hartford Rd., Manchester, CT. 06040
We must LOCK FRONT DOOR AND DEADBOLT and then the last one out
should go out the back door. Lock back door before leaving.
Kathy is the music teacher and if there are any problems she can be reached at 860-328-1112.
It was briefly discussed that perhaps the Music Dept. could provide background music while reading our poems. Something to think about in the future.
CPS Topics:
Members have until September 30 to submit a poem of 40 lines or fewer
for automatic inclusion in the members-only Conn. River Review 11. Email copy to
emgil3@yahoo.com
September Meeting:
Ed read the minutes from last meeting and also worked from Emerson’s outline.
Read works of Claudia Emerson, Va. poet laureate.
Discussion of Membership. Charlie said to advertise! Target poets through Poet Calendar on line through CPS.
It was agreed that if Ed wrote the letter( Notice for Membership, Charlie would distribute it around town.
Discussion of to have work shops for us or keep it poet and social.
Nominations of officers were going to be held, members decided to wait your return.
Assignment: Members read their Haiku’s. Then other poems of their choice.
New Assignment: Write a poem of witness, one that bears testament or sheds light in the world.
Write a poem that is a letter to the editor about something, or somebody. Political or current events any style.
Treasurer: Membership dues was due. $10.00. Debbie Howard collected dues for the new year
Other News: Poets Club, Oct 1 , open mike at MCC at Fireside Common Library.
Julia told us of the Dodge Poet Festival, Stanhoke, NJ., end of month. Thurs, Fri, Sat.25,26,27th.
Ollie came for a short time: Left a note and wanted us to know she was 1st runner up for the
Ms Connecticut Sr. Pageant and Best Gown of the evening, held on Sept 6th.
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Membership drive-- Charlie et alia
Dues $10
LRR II-- Email or give me your poems-- I'll get them in
CPS Topics
Current contests
LRR II
Not much
News Item
Educational Item
Part of this will be a monthly link to a website of particular use to writers. This month's is to The Sage www.sequencepublishing.com/thesage.html. From the site:
TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus
A Comprehensive and Easy-to-use Language Reference System
TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system.
TheSage can look up words directly from almost any program (IE, Word, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird,... ) and is 100% portable.
Due to popular demand, TheSage's dictionary is now online. Note that only the definition database is consulted. If you are interested in TheSage's complete package (definition + thesaurus + examples), read on.
Feature List
Well Beyond Traditional Dictionaries
TheSage allows you to look up words directly from most applications, offering multiple detailed definitions each coupled with its own thesaurus.
Some of the most interesting characteristics of TheSage are:
Features Description
Comprehensive Dictionary Over 145,000 references with multiple detailed definitions (over 200,000)
Complete Thesaurus Nearly 1,200,000 relationships between definitions (synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, holonyms,...)
Example Sentences A large collection that already includes approximately 35,000 examples of usage.
System Integration Look up words directly from most applications.
Information Integration Each definition has its own specific thesaurus.
Cross-Referencing Any and all displayed words are clickable, triggering a new lookup.
Wildcard Search Match single/multiple characters as well as filter by single/groups of vowels and consonants.
Anagram Search Only valid english words are returned.
Portability Fully functional when run from portable devices such as a USB.
Clipboard Support Copy search results, examples, thesauri, single/multiple definitions, even the entire lookup.
Tabbed Interface Previous lookups and searches remain readily available.
Structured Display Clean, flexible, fast, and easy to use presentation of information.
Price Absolutely 100% free of charge.
Custom Appearance Choose your own font and color for each aspect of the display.
Multi-Session History Quickly available via dropdown or the 'history' tab.
I also owe you one from September. This one also concerns words but you type in the definition and it returns words that might meet it:
www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
Here you insert a phrase representing what you need the word for and the site returns a list of words in order of relevance. I put in "intellecutal brilliance" and it returned more than 200 responses including synonyms, antonyms and related words. Further, when you click on a result word it takes you to a list of dictionaries where you can research the word's meanings, origins and scientific and medical usages. "Intellectual brilliance" yielded "magnificence" which led to twenty-four dictionaries from which I selected an online etymology dictionary.
From www.alphadictionary.com/langdir.html:
* Dictionaries ››
o Dictionaries/Grammars
o Specialty Glossaries
o Various 'Nyms
* Good Word ››
o Today's Good Word
o Good Word Archive
o Good Word Dictionary
o Sign Up!
o Podcasts
* Dr. GW's Office ››
o Dr. Goodword
o Best Words
o Grammar and Style
o Russian Grammar
* Fun & Games ››
o Fun & Games
o Crosswords
o Language Fun
o Laughing Stock
* Services ››
o Translations
o Testing Network
* Products ››
o Custom-made Dictionaries
o Word Lists
* Alpha Agora
* Language Blog
* Advertising Info
Send this Page to a Friend!
Search Website:
Alpha Dictionary Language Directory
Of the roughly 6,912 known languages and dialects spoken in the 191 countries of the world, only 2,287 have writing systems (the others are only spoken) and about 300 of these have online dictionaries. You can search for them on Google and wade through 50 million mostly irrelevant returns or quickly peruse the cream of the crop here at alphaDictionary. We carefully select and add new dictionaries, grammars, and LANGUAGES regularly, marking the new languages below with a bullet (•). If you know of any online dictionaries or grammars that we do not list, please let us know through our contact page.
* alphaDictionary's Most Popular Dictionaries and Glossaries
* alphaDictionary's Newest Dictionaries and Glossaries
Literary Dictionary: poetry
poetry, language sung, chanted, spoken, or written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense: this pattern is almost always a rhythm or metre, which may be supplemented by rhyme or alliteration or both. The demands of verbal patterning usually make poetry a more condensed medium than prose or everyday speech, often involving variations in syntax, the use of special words and phrases ( poetic diction) peculiar to poets, and a more frequent and more elaborate use of figures of speech, principally metaphor and simile. All cultures have their poetry, using it for various purposes from sacred ritual to obscene insult, but it is generally employed in those utterances and writings that call for heightened intensity of emotion, dignity of expression, or subtlety of meditation. Poetry is valued for combining pleasures of sound with freshness of ideas, whether these be solemn or comical. Some critics make an evaluative distinction between poetry, which is elevated or inspired, and verse, which is merely clever or mechanical. The three major categories of poetry are narrative, dramatic, and lyric, the last being the most extensive.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: poetry
Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through its meaning, sound, and rhythm. It may be distinguished from prose by its compression, frequent use of conventions of metre and rhyme, use of the line as a formal unit, heightened vocabulary, and freedom of syntax. Its emotional content is expressed through a variety of techniques, from direct description to symbolism, including the use of metaphor and simile. See also prose poem; prosody.
For more information on poetry, visit Britannica.com.
Poetry Glossary: Poetry
A literary expression in which language is used in a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional response; essentially rhythmic, it is usually metrical and frequently structured in stanzas.
Devil's Dictionary: poetry
A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce
n.
A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
Next Assignment
THE NEXT ASSIGNMENT IS TO WRITE A POEM THAT ENGAGES ALL FIVE OF THE SENSES-- SIGHT, TOUCH, SMELL, TASTE AND HEARING. IT MAY BE A REVISION OF A POEM THAT ENGAGES FEWER THAN ALL FIVE OF THE SENSES OR AN ENTIRELY NEW POEM. ANY STYLE/LENGTH.
Synonym Poetry*:
Choose any word. Write that word in capital letters on the first line. In a thesaurus (you can link the the WWWebster(TM) Dictionary based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary, Tenth Edition by clicking here) look up the word and find three to five synonyms for it. Write the synonyms on the second line. One the third line, write a descriptive phrase about the word. The last two lines of the poem should rhyme.
Student Examples:
LOVE
Attachment, adoration, warmth, adore
Love is so pure, right down to the core.
---Kimiko Brantley (Grade 10)
NOISE
Clamor, uproar, hullabaloo.
These things can really annoy you.
---Shasta Inman (Grade 9)
30 Days of Poetry - Day 19
A green line that divides the page
Sense Poems:
Think of a place that is special. Form an image in your mind of this place. If you need to, cluster this image. Then complete the following statements.
a. I see_________________________
b. I smell_______________________
c. I hear________________________
d. I feel________________________
e. I taste_______________________
f. I think_______________________ I see the sage-covered desert
I smell the freshness of the morning
I hear the scream of the hawk
I feel the caress of a breeze
I taste the dew on the wind
I think the new day is born
After you have written out the sentences, remove the pronouns, verbs, and articles as you need to:
sage-covered desert
freshness of morning
scream of the hawk
caress of a breeze
dew of the wind
new day born
For the next meeting write a "sense" poem, that is, one in which you use the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste.
This Month's Assignment and Poems
September 13, 2008
Wit & Wisdom Writers Club
Attended: 13
Chaired: Ed Bartek chaired for Emerson Gilmore
Location: The Music Makers Academy, 517 Hartford Rd., Manchester, CT. 06040
We must LOCK FRONT DOOR AND DEADBOLT and then the last one out
should go out the back door. Lock back door before leaving.
Kathy is the music teacher and if there are any problems she can be reached at 860-328-1112.
It was briefly discussed that perhaps the Music Dept. could provide background music while reading our poems. Something to think about in the future.
CPS Topics:
Members have until September 30 to submit a poem of 40 lines or fewer
for automatic inclusion in the members-only Conn. River Review 11. Email copy to
emgil3@yahoo.com
September Meeting:
Ed read the minutes from last meeting and also worked from Emerson’s outline.
Read works of Claudia Emerson, Va. poet laureate.
Discussion of Membership. Charlie said to advertise! Target poets through Poet Calendar on line through CPS.
It was agreed that if Ed wrote the letter( Notice for Membership, Charlie would distribute it around town.
Discussion of to have work shops for us or keep it poet and social.
Nominations of officers were going to be held, members decided to wait your return.
Assignment: Members read their Haiku’s. Then other poems of their choice.
New Assignment: Write a poem of witness, one that bears testament or sheds light in the world.
Write a poem that is a letter to the editor about something, or somebody. Political or current events any style.
Treasurer: Membership dues was due. $10.00. Debbie Howard collected dues for the new year
Other News: Poets Club, Oct 1 , open mike at MCC at Fireside Common Library.
Julia told us of the Dodge Poet Festival, Stanhoke, NJ., end of month. Thurs, Fri, Sat.25,26,27th.
Ollie came for a short time: Left a note and wanted us to know she was 1st runner up for the
Ms Connecticut Sr. Pageant and Best Gown of the evening, held on Sept 6th.
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Membership drive-- Charlie et alia
Dues $10
LRR II-- Email or give me your poems-- I'll get them in
CPS Topics
Current contests
LRR II
Not much
News Item
Educational Item
Part of this will be a monthly link to a website of particular use to writers. This month's is to The Sage www.sequencepublishing.com/thesage.html. From the site:
TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus
A Comprehensive and Easy-to-use Language Reference System
TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system.
TheSage can look up words directly from almost any program (IE, Word, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird,... ) and is 100% portable.
Due to popular demand, TheSage's dictionary is now online. Note that only the definition database is consulted. If you are interested in TheSage's complete package (definition + thesaurus + examples), read on.
Feature List
Well Beyond Traditional Dictionaries
TheSage allows you to look up words directly from most applications, offering multiple detailed definitions each coupled with its own thesaurus.
Some of the most interesting characteristics of TheSage are:
Features Description
Comprehensive Dictionary Over 145,000 references with multiple detailed definitions (over 200,000)
Complete Thesaurus Nearly 1,200,000 relationships between definitions (synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, holonyms,...)
Example Sentences A large collection that already includes approximately 35,000 examples of usage.
System Integration Look up words directly from most applications.
Information Integration Each definition has its own specific thesaurus.
Cross-Referencing Any and all displayed words are clickable, triggering a new lookup.
Wildcard Search Match single/multiple characters as well as filter by single/groups of vowels and consonants.
Anagram Search Only valid english words are returned.
Portability Fully functional when run from portable devices such as a USB.
Clipboard Support Copy search results, examples, thesauri, single/multiple definitions, even the entire lookup.
Tabbed Interface Previous lookups and searches remain readily available.
Structured Display Clean, flexible, fast, and easy to use presentation of information.
Price Absolutely 100% free of charge.
Custom Appearance Choose your own font and color for each aspect of the display.
Multi-Session History Quickly available via dropdown or the 'history' tab.
I also owe you one from September. This one also concerns words but you type in the definition and it returns words that might meet it:
www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
Here you insert a phrase representing what you need the word for and the site returns a list of words in order of relevance. I put in "intellecutal brilliance" and it returned more than 200 responses including synonyms, antonyms and related words. Further, when you click on a result word it takes you to a list of dictionaries where you can research the word's meanings, origins and scientific and medical usages. "Intellectual brilliance" yielded "magnificence" which led to twenty-four dictionaries from which I selected an online etymology dictionary.
From www.alphadictionary.com/langdir.html:
* Dictionaries ››
o Dictionaries/Grammars
o Specialty Glossaries
o Various 'Nyms
* Good Word ››
o Today's Good Word
o Good Word Archive
o Good Word Dictionary
o Sign Up!
o Podcasts
* Dr. GW's Office ››
o Dr. Goodword
o Best Words
o Grammar and Style
o Russian Grammar
* Fun & Games ››
o Fun & Games
o Crosswords
o Language Fun
o Laughing Stock
* Services ››
o Translations
o Testing Network
* Products ››
o Custom-made Dictionaries
o Word Lists
* Alpha Agora
* Language Blog
* Advertising Info
Send this Page to a Friend!
Search Website:
Alpha Dictionary Language Directory
Of the roughly 6,912 known languages and dialects spoken in the 191 countries of the world, only 2,287 have writing systems (the others are only spoken) and about 300 of these have online dictionaries. You can search for them on Google and wade through 50 million mostly irrelevant returns or quickly peruse the cream of the crop here at alphaDictionary. We carefully select and add new dictionaries, grammars, and LANGUAGES regularly, marking the new languages below with a bullet (•). If you know of any online dictionaries or grammars that we do not list, please let us know through our contact page.
* alphaDictionary's Most Popular Dictionaries and Glossaries
* alphaDictionary's Newest Dictionaries and Glossaries
Literary Dictionary: poetry
poetry, language sung, chanted, spoken, or written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense: this pattern is almost always a rhythm or metre, which may be supplemented by rhyme or alliteration or both. The demands of verbal patterning usually make poetry a more condensed medium than prose or everyday speech, often involving variations in syntax, the use of special words and phrases ( poetic diction) peculiar to poets, and a more frequent and more elaborate use of figures of speech, principally metaphor and simile. All cultures have their poetry, using it for various purposes from sacred ritual to obscene insult, but it is generally employed in those utterances and writings that call for heightened intensity of emotion, dignity of expression, or subtlety of meditation. Poetry is valued for combining pleasures of sound with freshness of ideas, whether these be solemn or comical. Some critics make an evaluative distinction between poetry, which is elevated or inspired, and verse, which is merely clever or mechanical. The three major categories of poetry are narrative, dramatic, and lyric, the last being the most extensive.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: poetry
Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through its meaning, sound, and rhythm. It may be distinguished from prose by its compression, frequent use of conventions of metre and rhyme, use of the line as a formal unit, heightened vocabulary, and freedom of syntax. Its emotional content is expressed through a variety of techniques, from direct description to symbolism, including the use of metaphor and simile. See also prose poem; prosody.
For more information on poetry, visit Britannica.com.
Poetry Glossary: Poetry
A literary expression in which language is used in a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional response; essentially rhythmic, it is usually metrical and frequently structured in stanzas.
Devil's Dictionary: poetry
A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce
n.
A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
Next Assignment
THE NEXT ASSIGNMENT IS TO WRITE A POEM THAT ENGAGES ALL FIVE OF THE SENSES-- SIGHT, TOUCH, SMELL, TASTE AND HEARING. IT MAY BE A REVISION OF A POEM THAT ENGAGES FEWER THAN ALL FIVE OF THE SENSES OR AN ENTIRELY NEW POEM. ANY STYLE/LENGTH.
Synonym Poetry*:
Choose any word. Write that word in capital letters on the first line. In a thesaurus (you can link the the WWWebster(TM) Dictionary based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary, Tenth Edition by clicking here) look up the word and find three to five synonyms for it. Write the synonyms on the second line. One the third line, write a descriptive phrase about the word. The last two lines of the poem should rhyme.
Student Examples:
LOVE
Attachment, adoration, warmth, adore
Love is so pure, right down to the core.
---Kimiko Brantley (Grade 10)
NOISE
Clamor, uproar, hullabaloo.
These things can really annoy you.
---Shasta Inman (Grade 9)
30 Days of Poetry - Day 19
A green line that divides the page
Sense Poems:
Think of a place that is special. Form an image in your mind of this place. If you need to, cluster this image. Then complete the following statements.
a. I see_________________________
b. I smell_______________________
c. I hear________________________
d. I feel________________________
e. I taste_______________________
f. I think_______________________ I see the sage-covered desert
I smell the freshness of the morning
I hear the scream of the hawk
I feel the caress of a breeze
I taste the dew on the wind
I think the new day is born
After you have written out the sentences, remove the pronouns, verbs, and articles as you need to:
sage-covered desert
freshness of morning
scream of the hawk
caress of a breeze
dew of the wind
new day born
For the next meeting write a "sense" poem, that is, one in which you use the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste.
This Month's Assignment and Poems
September 13, 2008 Meeting Notes
Minutes of Last Meeting
Treasurer's Report
WWWC Topics
Dues are due
How to gain membership?
CPS Topics
Members have until September 30 to submit a poem of 40 lines or fewer for automatic inclusion in the members-only Connecticut River Review II. Email copy to emgil3@yahoo.com
No current contests
Anything from Julia or Debbie on this?
News Item
Claudia Emerson
I figured that with a name like Emerson she must be interesting and a good writer.
Mary Washington teacher named
English professor won Pulitzer Prize for a book of poetry two years ago
Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 - 12:25 AM
By
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
First it was a Pulitzer, then it was a state prize. Now,
"I'm kind of getting used to Claudia coming up with all these fabulous prizes," said Teresa A. Kennedy, head of the department of English, linguistics and communications at the
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced Emerson's appointment yesterday. It is the third major honor that Emerson has gained in three years. She received the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2006 for "Late Wife," her third book of poetry, and won a $10,000 prize awarded by the Virginia State Library Association in 2007.
"I'm so excited," said Emerson, whose fourth book of poetry, "Figure Studies," has just been published by the Louisiana State University Press.
Besides a prodigious output of art, Emerson is known for her love of teaching at UMW, where she has been a professor the past 10 years.
"She loves her students and is incredibly dedicated. I can't say enough what it's like to work with her," Kennedy said.
Emerson said her responsibilities as poet laureate remain unclear.
"Previous poet laureates have done a lot in terms of promoting poetry in the state," she said. "I'd love to think about doing something, perhaps for poetry month, at the campus."
Mary Washington is no stranger to poet laureates.
Emerson, who grew up in
Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.
Two Poems
What They Want
They covet fields and seize them; and houses, and take them away.
Micah 2:2
1
The men faked a collective boredom, nodded, spat,
bid—and would buy it all divided: pasture,
tractor, flatbed, bulkbarns—then the house
where the auctioneer called, convincing us
to bid for all we had desired, had coveted
all those years: her hats would go for one money—
felt, fur, straw, the velvet one from which the feathers
of an egret rose white and trembled, as though her head
still turned to nod to us. He would make us admit it,
make us wear what she wore, what yet bore her favorite scent,
what we had sworn beneath the preacher's drone,
hissing, we would not be caught dead in.
2
The story had its way with us the way a bee bores first
into the mouth of one rose and then another: they found her
where how many days my word my God the coffin closed
of course can you imagine how sad she died alone, we said, how sad.
By the time we saw the doll wheeled out in its carriage, wicker-white,
it might as well have been her heart cradled, still warm. Held high
above us like a long-awaited heir—old, infant—she delighted us.
The bidding climbed, an aberrant vine, as the doll cried out
her one vowel, eyes opening, then closing inside the perfect
form of her face.—Oh, what we wouldn't give for her.
Great Depression Story
Sometimes the season changed in the telling,
sometimes the state, but it was always during
the Depression, and he was alone in the boxcar,
the train stalled beneath a sky wider
than any he'd seen so far, the fields of grass
wider than the sky. He'd been curious
to see if things were as bad somewhere else
as they were at home. They were—and worse,
he said, places with no trees, no water.
He hadn't eaten all day, all week, his hunger
hard-fixed, doubled, gleaming as the rails. A lone
house broke the sharp horizon, the train dreaming
beneath him, so he climbed down, walked out,
the grass parting at his knees. The windows
were open, curtainless, and the screendoor,
unlatched, moved to open, too, when he knocked.
He could see in all the way through to the kitchen—
and he smelled before he saw the lidded
pot on the stove, the steam escaping. Her clothes
moved on the line for all reply, the sheets,
a slip, one dress, washed thin, worn to translucence;
through it he could see what he mistook for fields
of roses until a crow flew in with the wind—
sudden, fleeting seam. By the time he got back to the train,
he'd guessed already what he'd taken—pot
and all—a hen, an old one that had quit
laying, he was sure, or she wouldn't have killed it.
The train began to move then, her house falling
away from him. The story ended with the meat
not quite done, but, believe him, he ate it
all, white and dark, back, breast, legs, and thighs,
strewing the still-warm bones behind him for miles.
Figure Studies
Louisiana State University Press
Educational Item
I met and had a seminar with Dana Gioia at the
Section: Arts+ > Printer-Friendly Version
Gioia Leaves NEA After Changing Debate Over Arts Funding
By KATE TAYLOR | September 12, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/arts/gioia-leaves-nea-after-changing-debate-over-arts/85697/
In the midst of a deeply contentious election, in which the major parties are divided on almost all of the issues, from abortion to health care to Iraq, one old rallying cry — that of the so-called culture wars — has hardly been heard at all.
Vance Jacobs
NEA Chairman Dana Gioia.
That one no longer hears Republican candidates calling for the abolition of the National Endowment for the Arts is a credit to the effectiveness of the NEA's chairman since 2003, the poet Dana Gioia, in changing the terms of the debate around government funding for the arts.
Mr. Gioia will announce Friday that he plans to resign in January to return to writing. He will also take a part-time position at the Aspen Institute, as the first director of the Harman-Eisner Program in the Arts.
Mr. Gioia leaves the NEA considerably strengthened. For fiscal year 2008, it received a budget increase of $20 million, the largest dollar increase in NEA funding in 29 years. A bill that is currently in the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations would give the NEA another $15 million increase for fiscal year 2009.
"We have built a new national consensus about the importance of public support of the arts and arts education, and we did it by emphasizing artistic excellence, educational impact, and the democratic importance" of arts funding, Mr. Gioia said in an interview.
Among the programs Mr. Gioia initiated are Shakespeare in American Communities, a program that funds professional theater companies to tour Shakespeare productions in schools; the Big Read, which encourages communities to read and discuss one of 26 selected works of American and world literature; NEA Jazz Masters, which includes both live performances and educational resources about jazz; Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest for high school students, and Operation Homecoming, which provides writing workshops for troops and their spouses.
During Mr. Gioia's tenure, the NEA has also produced several major research reports, including "Reading at Risk" (2004), which found dramatic declines in adult reading of literature; "The Arts and Civic Engagement" (2006), which showed that people who participate in the arts also participate in other civic activities, and "Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005" (2008), a nationwide look at artists' demographic and employment patterns.
Under Mr. Gioia, the NEA has also dramatically broadened the geographic impact of its funding through an initiative called Challenge America, which awards grants to small- and midsize organizations that bring art to underserved populations. Previously, in an average year, direct grants reached only three-quarters of the country, as measured by congressional district. Since 2005, grants have reached at least one organization in every congressional district.
"I can go into a congressman's office and ask him to name any high school in his district, and we've been there," Mr. Gioia said. "That changes the conversation."
The NEA's grants are largely one-to-one matching grants — that is, they require that the recipient get the same amount of funding from a private source, as well.
"The NEA does not subsidize the arts: We give the grants that make a project possible," Mr. Gioia said, offering what is clearly a finely honed argument. "If we give [our] grant, it tells other potential funders that on a national basis this project was selected as of the highest quality." An organization can go to a potential funding source and say, "'[I]f you don't match this we'll lose it,'" Mr. Gioia said. "It gives it a level of urgency. And that's the leverage that makes the American system, which is largely privately funded, work better."
Mr. Gioia said that while he could easily continue working in
Asked what lies ahead for the NEA after he leaves, and what its major challenges and opportunities are, Mr. Gioia said that the agency should expand its education programs directed at elementary school students and focus more on international cultural exchanges.
Toward that end, the NEA recently put out a request for proposals from institutions to host a new NEA arts-journalism institute focused on the visual arts. The NEA already sponsors arts-journalism institutes focused on dance, theater, and classical music. The new institute, on which the NEA is collaborating with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will focus on American art from the last 150 years. Half of the participants will be American journalists, and half will be journalists from the Middle East, the Far East, and
"It will create a second level of dialogue," Mr. Gioia said.
Next Assignment
In the past we have discussed poetry of witness, poetry that bears testament to or shed light on wrongs in our world. This is perhaps the most tumultuous political season in our memories. Write a poem that is a "letter to the editor" about something/somebody/some event in politics. Make it strong, opinionated. Don't be shy. It can even be satirical as with this from G.K. Chesterton--
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
THE men that worked for
They have their graves at home:
And birds and bees of
About the cross can roam.
But they that fought for
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for
They have their graves afar.
And they that rule in
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for
They have no graves as yet.
G. K. Chesterton
Or it could be serious as this sonnet:
EASTER SONNET 2001
Like Aztec pyramids, stinking with human blood,
burnt offerings on an altar built to greed,
we turn from care of our dependants' need
to sacrifice them to a demon god.
The smoke that stains this low white Easter sky
is raised to nostrils of a higher breed
in places far away. They plant their seed,
Corruption, while a million voices die.
Once more the nails thud in to sever love
once more the deadly clouds obscure the sun
once more incomprehension in the one
who follows orders filtering from above.
To God this feeble thanks we can return:
It's animals, not humans, that they burn.
O© Richard Lawson
Congresbury
13/4/01
Whatever style you choose, 'tis the season.
This Month's Assignment and Poems
The assignment was to write a haiku a week over the summer. Read, comment and enjoy!
I'll see you all in October and I would like to hear from you all reagarding the meeting, any proposals to increase membership, how the new place is, etc.
“This is no longer as case of 'Johnny can't read,' ... It's Johnny won't read.'”
“People have to recognize that the arts are a major industry and need to be at the table for the recovery plan, ... There is no way for these local economies to recover unless we invest in the cultural life. Culture was
My haiku from the summer-- the numbered ones go together, the rest stand alone
Various Haiku
The restaurant is out
of Guinness and crab slammers.
I begin my diet.
The black cat stretches,
recoils, flexes to pounce.
The mouse runs in vain.
Swelter fills the air,
the swooning fuchsia blossoms
can’t ask for water.
The turtle races
slowly across the loud road.
Goddam! He makes it!
1.
In the lawn six skunks.
Brenna, two, chases after,
runs squealing, “Kitties!”
2.
Brenna runs, squeals, “Kitties!”
Grandpa runs too, breathless, gasps,
“Stop! Those kitties-- bite!”
3.
Brenna learns to leave skunks
alone in Grandpa’s back yard.
Grandpa is still breathless.
Bush repeals the ban.
Oil drilling soon begins.
The wounded earth weeps.
Corey, born dieing,
refuses the prognosis,
lives. We laugh. We cry.
Betty dozes off.
Not one for lengthy good-byes,
she quietly dies.
Cabby mutilates
his fare, severing its head.
The court gives him life.
The growling dog
hounds the four cats unaware
they will live here longer.
1.
My wife is away.
The dog craps in the bedroom
I do not see it.
2.
Mistakenly I
vacuum the dark dog shit.
It sticks everywhere.
3.
My wife is back home—
new carpeting, new vacuum.
She loves surprises.
Meeting June 14, 2008
WWWC
Meeting June 14, 2008
News
Poetry of the pavement
Saturday, June 14, 2008
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N. SCOTT TRIMBLE/The Columbian
Meg Farnis, 12, left, and Llerenda Lightner, 13, chalk out a theme poem on the subject of time. Vancouver School of Arts and Academics hosted its second annual sidewalk chalk poetry event Friday." border="0" width="250">
N. SCOTT TRIMBLE/The Columbian
Meg Farnis, 12, left, and Llerenda Lightner, 13, chalk out a theme poem on the subject of time. Vancouver School of Arts and Academics hosted its second annual sidewalk chalk poetry event Friday.
Related: » Chalk talk slideshow
By ISOLDE RAFTERY, Columbian staff writerMarilyn Moelhman was reading around midnight when she accidentally smushed a fly within the pages of her book. After killing it, a sense of dread and smallness consumed her.
“I felt really bad about it,” Marilyn, 12, said. “Because in the grand scheme of things, it probably affects as many things as me.”
Marilyn is a tiny, fast-talking sixth-grader at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. On Friday, she was among a group of students writing poetry in chalk on the school’s sidewalks.
The annual poetry event, organized by English teacher Michael Carr, may look like a giddy exercise from the street. It involves, after all, rainbow-colored sidewalk chalk and an abundance of flip flops and cutoff shorts.
But walk through the school gates and to the main plaza, and watch students wrestle with metaphor and meaning.
Marilyn’s poetry, for example, questions whether humans or flies have a greater purpose of being other than just that: being.
“Really there’s no written rule about what we’re supposed to do — even the quest for happiness, that’s just to feel good,” Marilyn said. “And like, emos feel bad because they like feeling bad.”
Nearby, her identical twin sister Madison transcribed her own poem. Does her twin harbor transcendental thoughts?
“It’s not like I’m going to come down the stairs at breakfast and say, ‘Hey Maddie, did you think about the universe last night?’ ” Marilyn said. “I believe that she does, but we’re not telepathic.”
Christian Ivans, 14, wrote poignantly about depression. His poem begins:
Your soul
Bright and shining
Full of hope
No regrets,
Until your body
Is touched by something so dark
It creeps up your limbs.“My dad inspired this poem because he’s always depressed,” Christian said. “So it’s about overcoming depression.”
Christian doesn’t know where his father lives now, but he knows that his father had been adversely affected by the dreary Pacific Northwest.
“When you’re not depressed, everything is all right,” Christian said. “But when you’re depressed, you find sadness in everything and you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”
Across the courtyard, Lexi Peterson-Burge, 14, held fast to optimism. She blasted Z100, a popular music station, and wrote across her concrete space: “CANCER.”
When asked to elaborate, she said she was diagnosed with leukemia last August. Then she said: “It’s like, cancer, what?”
Meaning, cancer doesn’t faze her. But it got her down one day in class, so she wrote about it, but more specifically, other people’s pity.
“The reality is that people hear cancer and they think death,” Lexi said. “Though it’s a grim thought, it’s the truth. I was scared at first, but I didn’t want to show it, because my parents were sad enough.”
Give me this cancer
I will grab it by the horns and take it on
By the end of this year, it will be gone.Isolde Raftery can be reached at 360-735-4546 or isolde.raftery@columbian.com.
Minutes of Last Meeting
WWWC Business
MusicMakers Academy is our new meeting place beginning in September 13, 2008.
Thanks again for the work of Joan, Joan, Linda and Sue on the Celebration of the Arts in Manchester at MCC.
Summer meetings?
CPS Business
Important CPS stuff is that if you are a paid-up CPS member then if you submit a poem to LRR 2 by the end of this month you will be published. Since I am the editor of the volume you won't be overlooked. We will be checking each entry to make certain that submissions are from current members.
Long River Run IIa CPS members-only journal
Long River Run II is a poetry journal open only to CPS members. CPS members receive it for free. The reading period for Long River Run II is May 1-June 30. Please submit one poem, maximum of 40 lines, typed, single-spaced. Include your name in upper left corner, and under that please put your town (and state if you are not a Connecticut resident). Previously published okay, provide credits. Simultaneous submission okay, please notify if accepted elsewhere. Enclose SASE.
Upon notification of acceptance, poem must be submitted to a specified e-mail address exactly as you wish poem to appear.
Send submission to:
Long River Run II
CPS
PO Box 270554
W. Hartford, CT 06127
BRODINE/BRODINSKY POETRY COMPETITION
Open to all poets.
Submit poems: May 1-July 31 (postmark)
Prizes of $150, $100, and $50.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked Brodine/Brodinsky. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $10 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
Send submissions to Brodine/Brodinsky Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127
2008 Contest Judge: Maria Sassi Prize winning poet and playwright, writer, lecturer and teacher. She is the first Poet Laureate of West Hartford. Ms. Sassi has taught creative writing for nine years at The Hartford College for Women, University of Hartford. Her lecture, Our American Poet Laureates, has been presented at schools, libraries and literary organizations around Connecticut and New York. The first edition of her book of poems Rooted in Stars was selected for the permanent collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript library at Yale University.
Education
See article in news section
Assignment
Haiku
May 10, 2008 2
The next meeting of the Wit and Wisdom Writers Club (Manchester Chapter of the Connecticut Poetry Society) will be on Saturday, May 10, 2008 from 1-4PM at the Mahoney Recreation Center, 114 Cedar St, Manchester. We will plan the June picnic meeting and (still) discuss relocation but perhaps with some new information. The assignment is to write a poem honoring, inspired by, dedicated to Ed Bartek of any other mentor who has influenced your poetry. Any form, any topic. By the time you receive this I will have posted my notes for the April meeting to http://cpsmanchester.blogspot.com.
Poetry is the special medium of spiritual crazy wisdom, the form of expression that comes closest to creating a bridge between words and what is wordless.
~ Wes "Scoop" Nisker ~
1. Minutes of Last Meeting
April 12, 2008
Wit & Wisdom Writers Club
Attended: 11
Emerson Gilmore chaired
April Dining was held at the Marco Polo Restaurant in East Hartford.
on April 12th at 1:00 pm. The luncheon was enjoyed by 11 members.
Phyllis Karlson and Peter who have long been absent attend.
It was our chance to honor Ed Bartek for all his years of service.
Emerson, Charlie and other members offered kind words on how Ed made
a difference. Emerson presented a plaque to Ed from the group. Our way of saying thank you.
Ed spoke of how Wit and Wisdom Writers group got started with Wally W. Winchell.
Members enjoyed the afternoon and read there poems while dining. It was fitting
seeing April is National Poetry Month.
The assignment was to write a food poem. Peter sang his food poem to the music of
"Now or Never". Joan Moran for the first time also sang her food poem. It was enjoyed
by all.
Business:
Relocation: Emerson said we will suspend the search for a new place to hold our meetings.
Until the May 10th meeting. It will be held at the Mahoney Bld. In Manchester.
June Picnic: It is yet to be decided where it will be held. Topic for discussion in May.
Assignment: Next Assignment is to write a poem influenced, dedicated or inspired by Ed Bartek.
Consciousness of you as a writer.
2. Treasurer's Report
3. WWWC Items
4. CPS Items
Remember: APRIL IS THE MONTH TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP IN THE CONNECTICUT POETRY SOCIETY!!!
Relocation: The MusicMakers Academy director Paula Penna has offered us space for our meetings. I have toured the site and find it ideal in most every way. I tentatively agreed to begin there in September.
Any discussion?
June picnic meeting:
Where?
List, etc.
Manchester Celebration of the Arts
What shall we do?
How shall we do it?
Is there a better way?
AL SAVARD MEMORIAL POETRY CONTEST
Open only to Connecticut poets.
Submit poems: March 1-June 15 (postmark)
Prizes of $150, $100, and $50.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked Savard Contest. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $10 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Long River Run II.
Send submissions to Al Savard Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127.
BRODINE/BRODINSKY POETRY COMPETITION
Open to all poets.
Submit poems: May 1-July 31 (postmark)
Prizes of $150, $100, and $50.
Send up to 3 unpublished poems, any form, 40 line limit each. Include two copies of each poem: one with complete contact info and one with NO contact info. Both copies should be marked Brodine/Brodinsky. Include SASE for results only (no poems will be returned). Winning poems must be submitted by disc or electronically following notification. Send fee of $10 for up to three poems; make check out to Connecticut Poetry Society. Prize winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
Send submissions to Brodine/Brodinsky Poetry Contest, CPS, PO Box 270554, West Hartford, CT 06127
5. News Item
‘Love & Death & Love’ His first book of poetry at age 90
BY JESSICA LYONS
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 1:24 PM EDT
At 90 years of age, Flushing House resident Leon Zuckrow has published his first book of poetry, "Love & Death & Love," which is comprised of works that were written following the death of his first wife.
Previously, Zuckrow, who was born in Philadelphia, wrote occasional poetry, for events such as birthdays. He said that although he knew the mechanics of it, he "didn’t have any great need for it."
When his wife passed away 45 years ago, Zuckrow began writing poetry as a way to deal with his wife’s death. However, he was doing it only for himself and not for anyone else.
Zuckrow’s daughter and a couple other people had pushed him to publish his work. He finally decided to do so about a year ago. It came out shortly before he turned 90.
"Love & Death & Love" features 95 of Zuckrow’s poems, although he said he has written many more than that. The poems take one through the stages that he went through when his wife passed away. He said first there was a period of grief and desolation, followed by a period of understanding. Finally, there was a feeling of elation that he had had love.
"They’ll understand what loves means (and) that death intervenes," Zuckrow said. "It does not prevent or stop it. Love continues."
Zuckrow, who also recently recorded the poems from the book onto CD, has four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, many of whom never knew his first wife.
"This is a way for them to know what our life was like and what our love was like," he said.
Although Zuckrow said it is "just a book," it has also said that it also means something special to him personally.
"For me, this is like having my wife back again," Zuckrow said.
Zuckrow moved to Flushing House seven years ago after his second wife passed away and his daughter already knew someone who was living there. He is a member of the Flushing House Drama Group, which reads acts of plays almost every Saturday afternoon.
Along with his writing, Zuckrow also does non-conformist artwork, including sculptures. He said that he has been doing art longer than he has been writing poetry, and said that he works mostly with found materials.
A graduate of Columbia University, Zuckrow has formerly worked as a teacher and worked in private industry and for the federal government.
Zuckrow will be giving a reading at Flushing House in the near future and is available for public readings and book signings. For more information, contact Robert Salant at 347-532-3025 or rsalant@uam.org.
Published by iUniverse, Zuckrow’s poetry book "Love & Death & Love" can be purchased through Barnes and Noble’s website, www.bn.com.
Expected-the despair, the sigh and tears and moans because she has gone where body is stripped to bones. Yet?-silliness? laughter? frivolity? and mirth?-
so scandalous after that consignment to earth!
But she decrees it! Then, when I come from above
we are masters again of joy as well as love.
In revelry, not grief, she and I will resume,
robbing time, that old thief, as a new bride and groom.
6. Education
In looking for something educational for the meeting I came across the following test which features real poems and parodies of poems. Which is which?
To take the test and get the answers online go to http://reverent.org/poetry_or_parody.html
Poetry, or parody?
by Mikhail Simkin
Some of these verses are masterpieces, created by the great modernist poets of the early 20th century, Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. Ezra Pound was the founder of the Imagist poetic movement, while Amy Lowell was the "fair Trotsky of the Imagist revolution." The other verses are parodies, written by two poets, Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke, to mock the modernists. They used fake names, Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, to found the Spectric School of Poetry, which was meant as a spoof. Many advanced poets and critics were completely taken in by this Spectric hoax. And what about you? Can you tell true modernistic poems from ridiculous parodies? Take this quiz to find out.
After each verse choose what it is. Hit the Submit button when done. The quiz will be graded and you will see the correct answers.
I have not written, reader,
That you may read...
They sit in rows in the bare school-room
Reading.
Throwing rocks at windows is better,
And oh the tortoise-shell cat with the can fled on!
I would rather be a can-tier
Than a writer for readers.
I have written, reader,
For abstruse reasons.
Gold in the mine...
Black water seeping into tunnels
A plank breaks, and the roof falls...
Three men suffocated.
The wife of one now works in a laundry;
The wife of another has married a fat man;
I forget about the third.
1. Poetry Parody
Reiteration !...
The seconds bob by,
So many, so many,
Each ugly in its own way
As raw meats are all ugly.
Why do we feed on the dead?
Or would at least it were with cries and lust
Of slaying our human food
Beneath a cannibal sun!
But these old corpses of alien creatures!...
I loathe them!
And too many heads go by the window,
All alien-
Filers of saws, doubtless,
Or lechers
Or Sabbath-keepers.
Morality comes from God.
He was busy.
He forgot to make beauty.
Why does he not call back into their hen-house
This ugly straggling flock of seconds
That trail by
With pin-feathers showing?
2. Poetry Parody
Skeptical cat,
Calm your eyes, and come to me.
For long ago, in some palmed forest,
I too felt claws curling
Within my fingers...
Moons wax and wane;
My eyes, too, once narrowed and widened...
Why do you shrink back?
Come to me: let me pat you -
Come, vast-eyed one...
Or I will spring upon you
And with steel-hook fingers
Tear you limb from limb....
There were twins in my cradle....
3. Poetry Parody
The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers
Sneered languidly over his quail.
Then my heart flew up and laboured,
And I burst from my own holding
And hurled myself forward.
With straight blows I beat upon him,
Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him.
But my weapon slithered over his polished surface,
And I recoiled upon myself,
Panting.
4. Poetry Parody
They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia,
Opulent, flaunting.
Round gold
Flung out of a pale green stalk.
Round, ripe gold
Of maturity,
Meticulously frilled and flaming,
A fire-ball of proclamation:
Fecundity decked in staring yellow
For all the world to see.
They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia,
To me who am barren
Shall I send it to you,
You who have taken with you
All I once possessed?
5. Poetry Parody
Red slippers in a shop-window, and outside in the street, flaws of grey, windy sleet!
Behind the polished glass, the slippers hang in long threads of red, festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes of passers-by with dripping colour, jamming their crimson reflections against the windows of cabs and tram-cars, screaming their claret and salmon into the teeth of the sleet, plopping their little round maroon lights upon the tops of umbrellas.
The row of white, sparkling shop fronts is gashed and bleeding, it bleeds red slippers. They spout under the electric light, fluid and fluctuating, a hot rain -- and freeze again to red slippers, myriadly multiplied in the mirror side of the window.
They balance upon arched insteps like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared and burnished by red rockets.
Snap, snap, they are cracker-sparks of scarlet in the white, monotonous block of shops.
They plunge the clangour of billions of vermilion trumpets into the crowd outside, and echo in faint rose over the pavement.
People hurry by, for these are only shoes, and in a window, farther down, is a big lotus bud of cardboard whose petals open every few minutes and reveal a wax doll, with staring bead eyes and flaxen hair, lolling awkwardly in its flower chair.
One has often seen shoes, but whoever saw a cardboard lotus bud before?
The flaws of grey, windy sleet beat on the shop-window where there are only red slippers.
6. Poetry Parody
Two cocktails round a smile,
A grapefruit after grace,
Flowers in an aisle
...Were your face.
A strap in a street-car,
A sea-fan on the sand,
A beer on a bar
...Were your hand.
The pillar of a porch,
The tapering of an egg,
The pine of a torch
...Were your leg,
Sun on the Hellespont,
White swimmers in the bowl
Of the baptismal font
Are your soul.
7. Poetry Parody
Beyond her lips in the dark are a man's feet
Composed and dead...
In the light between her lips is a moving tongue-tip sweet,
Red.
Her arms are his white robes,
They cover a king,
His ornaments her crescent lobes
And two moons on a string.
Sheba, Sheba, Proserpina, Salome,
See, I am come!- king, god, saint!-
With the stone of a volcano O show that you know me,
Pound till the true blood pricks through the paint!
Twitch of the dead man's feet if he remembers
A bunch of grapes and a ripped-open gown.
And the live man's eyes are night after embers,
Two black spots on a white-faced down...
And in the dawn, lava ... rolling down...
Downrolling lava on an up-pointing town.
8. Poetry Parody
Poet, a wreath!-
No matter how we had combined our flowers,
You would have worn them - being ours....
On you, on them, the showers -
O roots beneath!
9. Poetry Parody
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
10. Poetry Parody
See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!
See, they return, one by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"
Inviolable.
Gods of the Winged shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
sniffing the trace of air!
Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.
Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!
11. Poetry Parody
Goddess of the murmuring courts,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Houri of the mystic sports,
trailing-robed in gabardine,
Gliding where the breath hath glided,
Hidden sylph of filmy veils,
Truth behind the dream is veiled
E'en as thou art, smiling ever, ever gliding,
Wraith of wraiths, dim lights dividing
Purple, grey, and shadow green
Goddess, Dream-grace, Nicotine.
Goddess of the shadow's lights,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Some would set old Earth to rights,
Thou I none such ween.
Veils of shade our dream dividing,
Houris dancing, intergliding,
Wraith of wraiths and dream of faces,
Silent guardian of the old unhallowed places,
Utter symbol of all old sweet druidings,
Mem'ry of witched wold and green,
Nicotine, my Nicotine:
Neath the shadows of thy weaving
Dreams that need no undeceiving,
Loves that longer hold me not,
Dreams I dream not any more,
Fragrance of old sweet forgotten places,
Smiles of dream-lit, flit-by faces
All as perfume Arab-sweet
Deck the high road to thy feet
As were Godiva's coming fated
And all the April's blush belated
Were lain before her, carpeting
The stones of Coventry with spring,
So thou my mist-enwreathed queen,
Nicotine, white Nicotine,
Riding engloried in they hair
Mak'st by-road of our dreams
Thy thorough-fare.
12. Poetry Parody
7. Next Assignment
Write a poem about going home, finding a place, returning home, being home, etc.
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