‘The Stones’ by Sylvia Plath.
This is the city where men are mended
Voices from the Grave #22: Sylvia Plath Reading ‘The Stones’
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Tag Archives: Poets
A Year in Books/Day 143: Longfellow’s Poems
- Title: Longfellow’s Poems
- Year Published: 1900/This Edition: 1901 (A.L. Burt Company, Publishers)
- Year Purchased: Unknown
- Source: My Step-grandmother
- About: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the great American poet of the 19th century, is remembered for Evangeline, Paul Revere’s Ride, and The Song of Hiawatha.
- Motivation: This is another book that I ended up with after my Step-grandmother’s death nearly 20 years ago; it was given to her by her mother, who had been a school teacher during The Great War. This beautifully preserved volume was, I thought then, something of a reward for having been frightened by my stepfather’s severe (yet kindly enough) Grandmother Doris. During the few years that I knew her, when she was in her nineties, she was every inch the prim, dour school marm. Each encounter with her was like an inspection, where I was assessed head to foot then grilled about my school work. In her presence, I instinctively knew not to speak until spoken to; fortunately, simply being in the same room with her cowed me (and my natural chattiness) to the point of panicky muteness.
- Times Read: 1
- Random Excerpt/Page vii: “The reader observes also the absence of the wit and humor which is almost universal in poets. While Longfellow was always cheerful, he was never droll.”
- Happiness Scale: 7 1/2
English: Engraving of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, presumably after a portrait by Samuel Lawrence. From the book The Song of Hiawatha, Moscow, 1931. Published by OGIZ. Sepia. Русский: Генри Лонгфелло. Портрет. “Песнь о Гайавате”. ОГИЗ – Молодая гвардия – 1931. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Daily Diversion #9: Emily Dickinson
I’m nobody, who are you?
This literary paper doll was a birthday gift from my mom about 5 years ago. She lives on a shelf in my studio, staring at me from behind a glazed ceramic urn full of Tardis dessert flags.
Beauty is not caused. It is.
Her deceptively simple poetry quickens the mind, the heart, the blood, the creativity that dwells within us all, hidden yet frantic to escape.
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 12th-15th May
- Amy Lowell died on 5/12/1925. “Take everything easy and quit dreaming and brooding and you will be well guarded from a thousand evils.”
- Daphne du Maurier was born on 5/13/1907. “Time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter. But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh. It was not the future, it was the present. It was too vivid, too real.” (from Rebecca)
- Jean Rhys died on 5/14/1979. “Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”
- L. Frank Baum was born on 5/15/1856. “Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.”
- Emily Dickinson died on 5/15/1886. “Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.”
- Katherine Anne Porter was born on 5/15/1890. Her The Collected Stories won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
[All images are in the public domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
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“The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills that it have. It has kinetic force, it sets in motion…elements in the reader that would otherwise be stagnant.”-Denise Levertov
Voices from the Grave #18: Ezra Pound Reading ‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’
‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’ by Ezra Pound.
For three years, out of key with his time
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 5th-9th May
- Christopher Morley was born on 5/5/1890. “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.”
- Henry David Thoreau died on 5/6/1862. “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
- L. Frank Baum died on 5/6/1919. “I can’t give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma.”
- Robert Browning was born on 5/7/1812. “A minute’s success pays the failure of years.”
- Gustave Flaubert died on 5/8/1880. “A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.”
- Edmund Wilson was born on 5/8/1895. “I am not quite a poet but I am something of the kind.”
All images are in the public domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Voices from the Grave #17: Diane di Prima Reading ‘April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa’
‘April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa’ by Diane di Prima.
For honestly weeping in time to innumerable heartbreaking Italian operas
(And, yes, Diane is still alive.)
Introducing: Alternative Muses + Our First Mini Contest/Giveaway*
I don’t like normal muses. I’m not inspired by flawless beauty or a record heavy with wild successes. Convention is a hindrance. I look to the obscure, the weird, the disenfranchised for daily sustenance. I love passion, prickliness, commitment, awkwardness, individuality. A willingness to fall hard on a big stage or the refusal to walk on to it at all, to not shut up when it’s convenient, to live close to the bone and heart and brain. Dead Writers, mostly, but also artists, photographers, performers, activists, life-livers, non-conformists, survivors. The majority are women but, being a feminist, men are definitely not excluded. It’s a personal list-and very, very long-but inclusive. My magpie tastes couldn’t have it any other way. Continue reading
A Year in Books/Day 119: I Care About Your Happiness
- Title: I Care About Your Happiness Quotations from the Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell
- Selected by: Susan Polis Schutz
- Year Published: Seventh Printing-February 1979 (Blue Mountain Press)
- Year Purchased: I have no idea. This is a hand-me-down book from my mom.
- Source: My mom
- About: Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell lived at a time when communication was more meaningful and deliberate. Their love letters are intense and a bit flowery (as was typical of that period) and beautifully unrestrained. The intervening century has not dimmed their effectiveness.
- Motivation: I read everything I could get my hands on when I was growing up. This first made its way into my hands when I was 10 or 11. When I moved out as a young adult, it *accidentally* came with me. Ahem. It was well worth it, though, as one of Gibran’s poems was incorporated into my wedding vows in 2010.
- Times Read: Countless
- Random Excerpt/Page 30: “What difference does it make, whether you live in a big city or in a community of homes? The real life is within.”
- Happiness Scale: An unabashed, soppy, sentimental 10
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 