Poetry Sunday (20)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth! Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion. This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so! Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her graphic!

This is a love poem.  Beautiful and simplistic, but full of emotion.  This is the kind of poetry that makes people swoon and believe in true love.  This is the kind of reaction words can produce if put together in such a way.  I hope you enjoy.


Yours
by Daniel Hoffman

I am yours as the summer air at evening is
Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms,

As the snowcap gleams with light
Lent it by the brimming moon.

Without you I'd be an unleafed tree
Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.

Your love is the weather of my being.
What is an island without the sea?

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Poetry Sunday (19)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth! Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion. This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so! Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her graphic!

In honor of Easter, and as a preamble to National Poetry Month starting on April 1st, I bring you a nice Easter poem.  It is religious in nature, just to warn you.  I don't set out to offend.

Let Your God Love You
by Edwina Gateley

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God—
Love you.

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Poetry Sunday (18)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth! Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion. This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so! Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her graphic!

This is another poem from the amazing Adrienne Rich.  She blows me away every time I read her work.  This is the kind of poetry I wish came running out of my fingers.  Beautiful.

This Evening Let's

not talk

about my country     How
I'm from an optimistic culture

that speaks louder than my passport
Don't double-agent-contra my

invincible innocence     I've
got my own

suspicions     Let's
order retsina

cracked olives and bread
I've got questions of my own but

let's give a little
let's let a little be

If friendship is not a tragedy
if it's a mercy

we can be merciful
if it's just escape

we're neither of us running
why otherwise be here

Too many reasons not
to waste a rainy evening

in a backroom of bouzouki
and kitchen Greek

I've got questions of my own but
let's let it be a little

There's a beat in my head
song of my country

called Happiness, U.S.A. 
Drowns out bouzouki

drowns out world and fusion
with its Get—get—get

into your happiness before
happiness pulls away

hangs a left along the piney shore
weaves a hand at you—"one I adore"—

Don't be proud, run hard for that
enchantment boat

tear up the shore if you must but
get into your happiness because

before
and otherwise
it's going to pull away

So tell me later
what I know already

and what I don't get
yet     save for another day

Tell me this time
what you are going through

travelling the Metropolitan
Express

break out of that style
give me your smile
awhile

Adrienne Rich - 2001 

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Poetry Sunday (17)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth! Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion. This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so! Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her graphic!

Today I'm feeling some women power, so I have one of the champions of women: Maya Angelou.  I love her work, and this is one of my favorite poems written by her.

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

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Poetry Sunday (16)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth! Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion. This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so! Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her graphic!

Today, since we're in the middle of summer, I wanted to share one of my favorite poems which evokes summer to me.  I love the sound of the words, each line creating a feeling of lazy hot summer days.  I hope you enjoy it too!


Fishing on the Susquehanna in July   
by Billy Collins 

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure--
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one--
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table--
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandanna

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

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Poetry Sunday (14)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion.  This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her graphic!

Today's entry is a somber one.  Today, I found out that a poet I greatly admire passed away.  Adrienne Rich died on March 27, 2012, and I didn't even know until I was looking up one of her poems to share with you all.  She was an amazing feminist writer, and a great advocate for poetry and the arts.  She inspired me to write, and I am very sad she will no longer grace us with her amazing work.  In her memory, I'd like to share a few pieces of her poetry.

Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What Kind of Times Are These

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In Those Years

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I.

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Poetry Sunday (13)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion.  This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!

Anonymous Lyric
By Connie Voisine

It was the summer of 1976 when I saw the moon fall down.

It broke like a hen’s egg on the sidewalk.

The garden roiled with weeds, hummed with gnats who settled clouds on my

oblivious siblings.

A great hunger insatiate to find / A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness blind.

A gush of yolk and then darker.

Somewhere a streetlamp disclosed the insides of a Chevy Impala—vinyl seats, the rear- view,

headrests and you, your hand through your hair.

An indistinguishable burning, failing bliss.

Because the earth’s core was cooling, all animals felt the urge to wander.

Wash down this whisper of you, the terrible must.

Maybe the core wasn’t cooling, but I felt a coolness in my mother.

That girl was shining me on.

In blue crayon, the bug-bitten siblings printed lyrics on the walls of my room.

I wrote the word LAVA on my jeans.

It must be the Night Fever, I sang with the 8-track.

But the moon had not broken on the sidewalk, the moon

was hot, bright as a teakettle whistling outside my door,

tied up in sorrow, lost in my song, if you don’t come back . . .

and that serious night cooled, settling like sugar on our lawn.

I wrote the word SUGAR on my palms.

I shall say what inordinate love is.

The moon rose itself up on its elbows and shook out its long hair.

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Poetry Sunday (12)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I often don't have an opportunity to share that passion.  This feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!

I haven't, unfortunately, posted a Poetry Sunday since 2011.  But since April was National Poetry Month (check out my posts) my love for poetry was re-ignited, and I want to continue to share it!

In honor of Mother's Day, I've got a couple of fabulous poems all about moms!  Share one with a mom or mom-to-be in your life!  If you have any poems, share them in the comments!

Mother's Day
by David Young

        —for my children

I see her doing something simple, paying bills,

or leafing through a magazine or book,

and wish that I could say, and she could hear,

that now I start to understand her love

for all of us, the fullness of it.

It burns there in the past, beyond my reach,

a modest lamp.

------------------------------------------------------

Untitled [A house just like his mother's]  

by Gregory Orr

A house just like his mother's,

But made of words.

Everything he could remember

Inside it:

Parrots and a bowl

Of peaches, and the bright rug

His grandmother wove.

Shadows also—mysteries

And secrets.

Corridors

Only ghosts patrol.

And did I mention

Strawberry jam and toast?

Did I mention

That everyone he loved

Lives there now,

In that poem

He called "My Mother’s House?"

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[Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome]  

by Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be

One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me

To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,

To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee

I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;

Whose service is my special dignity,

And she my loadstar while I go and come

And so because you love me, and because

I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath

Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:

In you not fourscore years can dim the flame

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws

Of time and change and mortal life and death.

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Poetry Sunday (11)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

"We each carry lines of poetry with us. Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly. We clutch these "Life Lines" like totems, repeat them  as mantras, and summon them for comfort and laughter." - POET.ORG

I feel these words within my bones, but today, today I am not finding my life lines, so I am going to share ones from other people.  Hopefully, I will find more inspiration through the poetry on poets.org, one of my favorite poetry sites.  If you have a life line, please share it with me in the comments.

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Poetry Sunday (10)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

This week I wanted to share a poem by author/poet/illustrator Dalla Clayton.  He's the author of two books, An Awesome Book and An Awesome Book of Thanks, both of which are children's books.  But I love them because they are inspirational!  Really!  Dallas also has a cool tumblr which you should check out for more of his poetry and illustrations!

-----------------------------------------------------------

EXPLORERS by Dallas Clayton

You can’t be an explorer anymore.
Not the way it used to go down -
just being the bravest guy in the room
with a machete and a hat and a desire to walk
long distances across places no one had ever been
(except the native populations
that had been living there comfortably for centuries.)

You can’t discover Nebraska anymore.
We’ve scared off all the dangerous animals
killed them up
or pushed them to the hills.
 
You can’t be an explorer anymore,
unless you really want to get involved
far underground or deep in the sea.
The easy work’s already been carved out.
They’ve already written their names on the mountains.

You don’t need to be an explorer anymore
We’ve got plenty of space already
to entertain ourselves
with big scary ideas
like “what if new animals came to get us”
and “how would we fight them off.”

We’ve had plenty of time to arm ourselves
with ideas and weapons from the future,
and muscles that you couldn’t get from god.
There’s no need for explorers
just makers
protectors
defenders of what we already own.

You can’t be an explorer anymore
unless you really want to
unless you feel it in you heart
and you stop all this thinking
about how all those other guys already saw things
for the very first time
way back before you were born
and what it all looked like to them.

Unless you stop caring about who owns what
and why someone would ever want to write his name on a mountain
and start wondering what it would be like
to go out into the darkness
and get so totally lost
that you never find your way back
and maybe
just maybe
you never want to.

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Poetry Sunday (09)

This is a fabulous blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

This week I'm sharing with you a poem by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins.  He was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 - 2003, and in my opinion is both fantastical as well as grounded.  If you don't like poetry, I believe you should pick up some of his collections to try out because he is so relatable in his rhetoric.

The video below is an animation of one of my favorite poems, from Collins' book Questions About Angels: Selected Poems. It is titled "Forgetfullness".

------------------

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

------------------

Let me know what you think!

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Poetry Sunday (08)

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

I had the awesome opportunity to win Genna's, at Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, Poetry Magazine giveaway.  Poetry is an awesome magazine full of awesome poetry!  I'm going to share one of my favorite poems from the magazine.

What’s Left
by W.S. Di Piero

How often now, raging weeping for the days
love gives then takes away, takes from you
the slightly chapped hand laid on the one
you’re pointing at a tree, and the voice
that breathes coffeeberry bush into your mouth.
The finger that taps and feathers your ear
but the giggle’s gone before you turn around.
The sandalwood scent hanging in the room,
the auburn strand like a flaw in the carpet.
The days eat into your stomach, knife you
with longing for relief from love
that you cannot leave or leave alone,
from its rings of fire where you won’t
burn down to ash or be transformed.
You become them, and they keep burning
and have a coffeeberry voice.
          Listen how
                    their rhymes sing
                             the little deaths you live.

Hope you like the poem.  Check out Genna's blog: Reading, Writing and the World of Words and check out Poetry magazine.

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Poetry Sunday (07)

 

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

This week I'm concentrating on the future.  I will be graduating from university in 18 days, and I now have to go be an adult (which blows by the way).  Since April is National Poetry Month, I figured it would be a good time to gather some inspiration from some great poets.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Today We Make the Poet's Words Our Own
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To-day we make the poet's words our own, And utter them in plaintive undertone; Nor to the living only be they said, But to the other living called the dead, Whose dear, paternal images appear Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here; Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw, Were part and parcel of great Nature's law; Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid, "Here is thy talent in a napkin laid," But labored in their sphere, as men who live In the delight that work alone can give. Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest, And the fulfillment of the great behest: "Ye have been faithful over a few things, Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings."

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Poetry Sunday (06) ON MONDAY EDITION!!!

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

Due to real life happening (why do we need anything but the internet and books?) I haven't been around much.  Which is a shame since April is freaking National Poetry Month!  So even though I'm late I'd thought I'd share some cool things I found on Poets.org.

For NPM, there are 30 different ways to celebrate, suggested by the site.  Some of the ideas I want to do are: put poetry in an unexpected place, put a poem on the pavement,  play Exquisite Corpse, and start a commonplace book.  I've already started my commonplace book.

 

Most of it is just snippets of poems and dialogue right now.  Slowly filling it up, especially soince I've recently gotten a couple of cool poertry books.

Let me know what you guys are doing for NPM! 

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Poetry Sunday (05)

 

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

This week, I've decided to share one of my own poems.  Now I don't consider myself much of a poet, I much rather write fiction.  However, we had to do an exercise in my YA Literature class using a form poem titled: I AM FROM (you can find it if you Google it) and this is the result, with a little bit of tweaking.  I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! 

I AM FROM

I am from blankets made out of long worn clothes,
from televisions, CCD classes and home-cooked meals.
I am from the suburbs, (but every house has character),
From ice cream trucks and the neighborhood watch,
And the three oaks standing tall in the front yard,
growing as my sister grows, as I grow, as my brother grows.

---

I’m from the blessing of the baskets and midnight mass.
From Michele and David, Blanche and Raymond.
I’m from kisses on the mouth and constant teasing.
From enveloping hugs and spanks on the butt.
From Melissa’s shadow, from the middle of three.
I’m from “Don’t talk to strangers!” and “You're so sensitive.",
"Kocham Cię." and "Malutka.", and “Our Fathers”
followed by “Hail Marys”.

---

I’m from Poland, not by blood but family;
the home my dziadkowie speak of so often.
From Gołąbki, Kiełbasa, and Placki ziemniaczane
(with the occasional pot roast and pizza.)
I'm from the struggle of indentured servants
trying to earn their freedom, but never reaching it.
Keeping their traditions alive through
a hand-written recipe book, a cast-iron mold,
and a gilt-edged Bible.

- Elisquared

 

 

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Poetry Sunday (04)

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

This Sunday I'm happy to share an awesome book of poetry I bought last year.  I was simply shopping on the shelves and the cover popped out at me.  Intrigued, I opened to find some of the funniest and insightful poems I've read.  Made out of newspapers.

I'm talking about Austin Kleon's Newspaper Blackout.

     "Poet and cartoonist Austin Kleon has discovered a new way to read between the lines. Armed with a daily newspaper and a permanent marker, he constructs through deconstruction—eliminating the words he doesn't need to create a new art form: Newspaper Blackout poetry.

      Highly original, Kleon's verse ranges from provocative to lighthearted, and from moving to hysterically funny, and undoubtedly entertaining. The latest creations in a long history of "found art," Newspaper Blackout will challenge you to find new meaning in the familiar and inspiration from the mundane.

      Newspaper Blackout contains original poems by Austin Kleon, as well as submissions from readers of Kleon's popular online blog and a handy appendix on how to create your own blackout poetry."


It is a really, really cool book.  I've done this on several occasions when I've been stuck for inspiration.  I've also seen people do his with magazines and books.  The point is to create something new, and that's why I love them.

Here are some awesome examples:

 

I hope you guys have enjoyed this sample, and you can 

check out more at Austin's blog:  AustinKleon.com

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Poetry Sunday (03)

 

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

I subscribe to a Youtube channel which features spoken word from the Bowery Poetry Club around NYC: SpeakEasyNYC.  I really love spoken word.  I feel you get so much more when you hear the poet reading/speaking/performing their poem.

In recognition of Valentine's Day, this poem is about love and how it resembles owning a dog.

"Why Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog" performed by Taylor Mali Mali who is the author of What Learning Leaves and the Last Time as We Are (Write Bloody Publishing). Mali has been on seven National Poetry Slam teams; six appeared on the finals stage and four won the competition. He has appeared in the documentaries "SlamNation" (1997) and "Slam Planet" (2006) and also in the HBO production, "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Mali has recorded four CDs.

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Poetry Sunday (02)

 

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

The poem this week is a really great feminist manifesto calling to young women to really reflect on their self-worth, their consumerism, and their artificial lives.

DEAR DEMOGRAPHIC by Amber Tamblyn (yes the actress)

I’d like to say:
As a former member of your clique
(and a current member of your representation)
I know it’s hard to be a young woman ages 18-to 24-years-old.

They put you in a time slot
that doesn’t reflect your views
with a ratings system
that doesn’t respect your truths.

Listen:
From one cynical self-hater-by-default to another,
please put down the magazine article that has bored you
into hair extensions and reality television.
Stop with the 20th century redux:

Make your own era. You are not out of your own league.
Fake eyelashes will not get you Ryan Gosling.
Nor will sporting a Barack Obama keychain.

No need to break all the rules:
Just bend them into balloon animals,
give them to your little brothers and sisters.
Show them how silly and cute American culture is.
Time will naturally deflate all of it.

Start mosh-pits in the crowded thoughts of tycoons:
Stir something up with your tongue.
Sip someone else’s logic then spit it out
(preferably when they’re looking).
Taste test your own style. 
Get your mind into the gutter of others:

Search for the things they let go down the drain or threw away.

Everyone’s scared to tell you how they really feel.

Including Oprah.

Stop getting wasted and throwing up
your individuality outside of clubs.
There is no fast food to help you cope with that.

Leave your mark on the world
with something that can’t be chosen from
a tattoo book of Chinese symbols
for the lower back.

Pierce something other than your skin:
When I tell you to think for yourself,
don’t give a shit what I say.

(© 2010 Amber Tamblyn)

If you liked this poem, you can check out more of Amber's work on her website or by buying one of her books: Bang Ditto (the poem is from this volume) and Free Stallion.  (I'm in NO way getting paid by Amber Tamblyn or anyone associated with her! I just think she is an awesome poet.)

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Poetry Sunday (01)

 

This is a fabulous new blog feature here at Eli to the nth!  Thanks to Genna from Reading, Writing, and the World of Words, who created this awesome feature and gave me the permission to host it here, as well as, use her cute graphic!  Poetry is one of my passions, but I have yet to share it here.  So this feature gives me the perfect opportunity to do so!

I'm starting it off right with one of my favorite, favorite poems about writing and being a writer.

so you want to be a writer
by Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.

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