poetry

You are currently browsing the archive for the poetry category.

Celebrate Poetry Month with Trees

April 25, 2011 in poetry by Kim | 1 comment

I love pairing poetry with art.  There is a beautiful photography exhibit at the Getty Center through early July called In Focus:  The Tree.  In a single room, many of the great photographers are represented by one of their photographs of a tree.  Even Man Ray is included with picture of a redwood and he’s not an artist I’d call “outdoorsy.”  Of course, one of Ansel Adams’ Yosemite pictures is up along with a couple by Watkins.  The image I will remember the most is Tree #3 by Myoung Ho Lee.  In honor of poetry month, here is his photograph along with a poem that many of us are quite familiar with, enjoy!

Trees

Joyce Kilmer

 

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

 

 

Share

Tags: , ,

The Perfect Activity for the Literary Teen

March 25, 2011 in poetry by Kim | No comments

Spring break has started over here so the kids were set loose for two weeks.  Hmmm, what to do.  One terrific idea–my daughter told me about a website one of her teachers started, One Billion Poets.  The goal is to connect teenagers all over the world through poetry.  Teens from all over the world are posting their original poems.  I’ve seen contributions from Sri Lanka, the United States, India and locations in the Caribbean.

Here are the guidelines to enter a poem:

1. Click the region of the map on the website to disclose your country

2. Then in the forum, select your region

3. Click Add and submit a poem that responds to one of the five prompts (see below)

4. In the discussion title: write the prompt and in (  ) your country or state

Prompts:

I CARRY - I’M FROM - WISHES - LAUGHTER - YOUR CHOICE

It’s easy!  My daughter is loving reading the poetry of fellow teens all over the world.  I suspect she’ll find a lot of commonality and enough difference to be fascinating.

One Billion Poets just added its first contest, the topic is ‘something people see as ugly but you see as beautiful.’  The prizes are gifts cards and contributions to a literary society, great way to win and contribute at the same time.

Pass along to your favorite literary teen and let’s see how many budding poets around the world can enjoy each others company.

 

 

Share

Tags: , , ,

In Celebration of Maya Angelou

February 17, 2011 in award, poetry by Kim | No comments

This week President Obama gave the Medal of Freedom to Maya Angelou.  The President chooses the recipients of the Medal of Freedom for their “especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”  It is the highest honor the President can bestow upon a civilian.  Maya Angelou joins the ranks of 20 other literature honorees, a group she enhances by her inclusion.

I remember standing just beyond the steps of the Capitol building on January 20, 1993, the crowd amped up and excited for the inauguration of President Clinton.  I’m sure his speech was terrific, but I doubt many remember.  What we all can recall with a note of reverence is Maya Angelou reciting On the Pulse of Morning.  There have been a couple of times in my life when secular events have taken on the hue of the sacred and this was one of them.  She and her poem overshadowed the entire ceremony.  However, On the Pulse of Morning isn’t my favorite Angelou poem, the one I truly love is Still I Rise.  In celebration of her well deserved award, here is the poem and a video of her reciting it.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Share

Tags:

In Honor of 10-10-10 – Three Great Literary Tens

October 10, 2010 in poetry by Kim | 1 comment

photo by woodley wonderworks

In celebration of the numerically whimsical date.

First:  The most influential list of ten in the history of humanity:

The Ten Commandments

  1. You shall have no other gods before me.
  2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
  3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
  4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
  5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
  6. You shall not murder.
  7. You shall not commit adultery.
  8. You shall not steal.
  9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
  10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

Second:  Other than the Bible (which I already gave the top spot), the all time top bestsellers according to Wikipedia:

1.  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859, English)

2.  The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954, English)

3.  The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937, English)

4.  Dream of the  Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin (1759-1791, Chinese)

5.  On the Three Representations by Jiang Zemin (2001, Chinese)

6.  And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939, English)

7.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950, English)

8.  She by H. Rider Haggard (1887, English)

9.  Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1943, French)

10.  The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003, English) [Okay, at the risk of looking like a literary snob, this kills me a little bit.]

Third:  From the greatest writer in the English language, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 10:

For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident;
For thou art so possess’d with murderous hate
That ‘gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire.
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

Would love to hear what literary 10s you come up with.  Better yet, what literary 11s since 11-11-11 will be here before we know it.

Share

Tags: , ,

Recommended Reading for Memorial Day – Owen’s “Parable of the Old Man and the Young”

May 29, 2010 in holiday, poetry, recommended reading by Kim | No comments

Memorial Day started to honor the fallen of the Civil War, but after World War I was expanded to honor the dead of any war and became a national holiday.  My son spent the last several weeks studying World War I poetry, so I asked him if there was one poem he would recommend for this Memorial Day.  He said Wilfred Owen’s “Parable of the Old Men and the Young” was the best of the era, here it is and some of his thoughts:

Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him.  Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the see of Europe, one by one.

Taking the Biblical story  of Abraham and Issac  and twisting the ending gives the poem a powerful ending on the theme of the horror of war.  Owen’s use of Abram vs. Abraham (God had ‘renamed’ Abram by the time of the sacrifice) is an early indicator of the tragic ending of the poem.  Under the name Abram, he doubted God and his promise and had a son with Hagar, his wife’s slave.  His life as Abram signified the time when he was not a righteous man.  When God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, it signals his righteousness and obedience to God.  Owen’s use of Abram signals that the correct action will be shunned for the sake of pride and instead a great evil is committed.

For those who are like me and would rather hear poetry than read it, few are better than Kenneth Branagh:

Owen Wilfred died a week before the end of World War I.  His mother received the telegram notifying her of his death as the church bells were ringing for the Armistice.


Share

Tags: , , , ,

« Older entries