Tag Archives: Writing

[Intermezzo] I bought this mug because it reminded me of Sylvia Plath

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Cold, mossy gravestones whisper laments as I stroll past them in the shadowy pathways on an autumn morning. The tree swaying outside my apartment shouts poetry through the window. The pavement beneath my mobile feet croons a love song to the beauty of the late afternoon sunlight that dances across its craggy surface. Squirrels leaping across wires recite snippets of stories. I experience words everywhere I go: sometimes they are new combinations, asking or demanding to be written down. Stories waiting to be told. Sometimes they belong to other people. Stories waiting to be retold.

The bus stop across from the gallery would like permission to transform into flash fiction./The memory of a creepy photograph, seen briefly weeks ago, wants to be reborn as a horror story.

Chilly October evenings evoke the landscape of Hardy, so I’ve been reading The Return of the Native after the sun sets./ The Roebling Bridge, which connects Ohio to Kentucky, brings to mind Hart Crane./Then there’s my Sylvia Plath mug.

The trees of the mind are black.*

The trees of the mind are black.*

*From The Moon and the Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 21st-25th October

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  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on 10/21/1772. “Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.”
  • Jack Kerouac died on 10/21/1969. “My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”
  • Kingsley Amis died on 10/22/1995. “If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.” (Lucky Jim)
  • Sarah Josepha Hale was born on 10/24/1788. “There is something in the decay of nature that awakens thought, even in the most trifling mind.”
  • Denise Levertov was born on 10/24/1923. “Images/split the truth/in fractions.”
  • Geoffrey Chaucer died on 10/25/1400. “There’s never a new fashion but it’s old.”
  • Frank Norris died on 10/25/1902. “The function of the novelist…is to comment upon life as he sees it.”
  • John Berryman was born on 10/25/1914. “The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he’s in business.”
  • Mary McCarthy died on 10/25/1989. “We are the hero of our own story.”

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[All images are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and are in the Public Domain.]

 

Beautiful Blogger Award

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 Literature and Culture has nominated us for the Beautiful Blogger Award. What does this mean to us? We did some free association and jotted down the words that came to mind. We are: happy, elated, honored, humbled, gratified and grateful. The WordPress community is extraordinarily warm, diverse, open, helpful and giving. Enough with the superlatives, and on to the rules!

Beautiful Blogger Award

Beautiful Blogger Award

They are:

  • Thank the person who nominated you. Thanks again, Literature and Culture.
  • Post the award image to your page.
  • Tell seven facts about yourself.  I’m doing the honors on this one.
  1. October is my favourite month. I love the warm days and cool nights, falling leaves, hot apple cider, the smell of cinnamon…
  2. Breakfast is my favourite meal.
  3. I have green eyes.
  4. I hate everything about coffee.
  5. I am not a morning person. I am cranky and obtuse before 11:00 AM.  This has nothing to do with my refusal to drink coffee. Honest.
  6. I have the chronic inability to read one book at a time. I’m a juggler: I prefer to have 6 or 7 going continuously. When I finish a book, I add another to the rotation.
  7. I am obsessed with list-making. I create multiple lists a day, for a variety of things. I made a list about this list.
  • Nominate 15 other bloggers, and let them know about the nomination. I’m going to slack a bit on this part. Not because I am lazy, but because there are so many lovely blogs I enjoy reading on a daily basis that I cannot choose just 15. Not today, anyway. Chalk it up to a lack of coffee!