Words Of Wisdom

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

~Henry David Thoreau

Fan Of The Beats

This is the book I'm currently reading. I've always been a big fan of the Beat Generation and enjoy reading about the lives of the people who lived it. Jack Kerouac is probably my favorite because I enjoy reading his novels. I grew up during the fifties and sixties and just missed out on being a part of that culture. 

The Beats And Others Influences

Yesterday my spouse and I were at the Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side. I usually browse the literature and poetry section. I selected a few books and sat down in the reading area. I read some chapters of two books by Beat writer Jack Kerouac. Big Sur and Dharma Bums were the books titles. 

Kerouac is one writer I've taken a great interest in. I've read a few of his poetry books and a couple of his novels. I read On The Road a couple of years back but my interest in the beat writers goes back a long way.Kerouac, along with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and later Neal Cassidy for an interesting nucleus of disaffected writers disgusted with war and the current state of society during the 1940s and 1950s.

 Last Friday after an open mic I reflected on the power of the spoken word and art throughout the ages with another artist. It's amazing about some genres and some artists and poets ad writers still influence a generation of writers and artist today. That's the beauty of it. Some may wonder what our importance is. Look at the many neighborhoods artist brought attention to. Harlem, Chelsea, Greenwich and the East Village to name a few. Artist brought attention to these neighborhoods where rents were cheap, food was reasonable, and where they could develop their craft. These places are slowly going away but they will not disappear.

 I love reading the history of these and other areas where the arts were a vital part of the community. The people who were the catalysts were colorful and unique. Many years after their heydays I can still feel their spirit. I can here them saying "Keep on writing!"

Background Singers

 

This past Tuesday my wife and and I watched this movie at a local theater. Background singers are much a part of the musical performances as the stars themselves. This documentary details the lives of these wonderful women and men on and off stage. 

One of my favorite singers growing up was Darlene Love. Songs like 'Wait Until My Bobby Gets Home' and 'He's The Boy I Love' bring back memories of my youth. Now in her seventies, Darlene is as beautiful and lively as ever. How many people know that the late, great Luther Vondross was a backup singer before achieving fame as a solo artist? 

I recommend this for our music lovers. 

Words Of Wisdom

Let us be grateful to people who make us
happy, they are the charming gardeners who
make our souls blossom.

~Marcel Proust

Words Of Wisdom

Poetry is painting that speaks. Painting is poetry that's silent.

~Simonides

Reading More

I see that I will be reading a lot more this year. I mentioned in the past that I read biographies of poets that I read. It helps me to understand the mindset of the poet. Reading Sylvia Plath's bio helped me to understand the poetry she wrote. 

One thing I have found is that there's more to poetry than I realize. Reading like a poet and putting myself in the poet's mind is quite interesting. I did this with Edgar Allan Poe and found him to be a compelling, brilliant, and complicated individual. It's a possibility that I could write an essay about an author. I have thought about translating an author but right now it's a passing thought. 

Seeing it now, I see myself doing a protracted study on a poet. I have Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath in my sights. Langston Hughes is another poet I admire ad love. If I were to make this a goal of mine it would be a LOOOOOONNG term project.    

Writing Goals

One of my writing goals is to write more. I confess that I always haven't been consistent in writing but now it's changed. I have set aside time to write. I do read a lot of poetry and other works but don't always write. I will write poems and a novella to start with.

A second goal is to have a chapbook published. I have procrastinated on this but I can't anymore. 

Poetry On New Year's Day

Last night my wife and I attended the New Year's Day Poetry Marathon Benefit. It was my umpteenth time and my spouse's first. Over 140 poets perform through reading, the spoken word, drama, musical accompaniment and dance. My wife was impressed by the numerous variety of performances. The marathon goes from two in the afternoon till one in the morning (sometimes longer). I'm hopefully that next year I will be able to read at this wonderful event. Below are pictures of some of the performers.

Words Of Wisdom

If you want to change the world...pick up your pen and write.

                ~Martin Luther 

2014

With 2013 drawing to a close, I have taken steps forward to improving my writing. I love writing and reading poetry. I still write short stories, commentaries, and articles. I am working on a novella, a genre I discovered while doing some research. I googled novellas and discovered that a number of classics are novellas. Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor comes to mind. 

Going into 2014 I have been working on some writing goals. Publishing a chapbook is one. Writing a novella is another. There's so much I hope to accomplish in 2014.

HAPPY  NEW  YEAR!

Current Reading

This is the book I am currently reading. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) wrote a number of novels, short stores, plays and articles. She was active in the Harlem Renaissance.

Words Of Wisdom

Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that's in a way the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.

~C.K.Williams

I Love Writing Poems

I started writing poetry only two years ago. Believing that my short story and essay writing had become stale, I decided to tackle a genre that I read little or wrote about. Now I'm absolutely in love with poetry. 

I believe that Edgar Allan Poe may have piqued my interest many years ago. I loved reading his short stories (still do) but it was his classic poem The Raven that may have planted the seed in my heart. Poe is my favorite writer. I have read the work of Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Herman Melville, Theodore Roethke, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rumi and numerous others.

Each of these authors had their own voice. Robinson Jeffers poems were quite different from those of Jack Kerouac. James Weldon Johnson and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were different but had their own distinct voice. I have taking a liking to the spoken word by the young people. Their words are strong and heartfelt. 

I read a lot of poetry which in turn has helped educate me and honed my own particular style. My spouse also writes poetry. Her style is totally different from mine. We have read at open mics and poetry venues and hope to do more reading.

Setting Goals

About this time each year I am creating goals in which I will achieve in the coming year. Besides other goals, I do have writing goals. One is to publish a chapbook of poems. I'm deciding whether or not to self publish.

Setting goals, in my mind, is a more concrete way of achieving them rather than making resolutions. For one thing, when a timetable is set, it puts teeth into those goals.  It's up to me to achieve them.  If adjustments are to be made, then I make them.  

Set a few goals to begin with. When the goal is achieved, set some more. By the end of the year you see that you achieved more than you thought.  

Words Of Wisdom

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

~Charles Baudelaire, French Poet (1821-1867)

POEM

Woods in Winter

  by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When winter winds are piercing chill,
  And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
  That overbrows the lonely vale. 

O'er the bare upland, and away
  Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
  And gladden these deep solitudes. 

Where, twisted round the barren oak,
  The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
  The crystal icicle is hung. 

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
  Pour out the river's gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater's iron rings,
  And voices fill the woodland side. 

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
  When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
  And the song ceased not with the day! 

But still wild music is abroad,
  Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
  Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.
 
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
  Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
  I listen, and it cheers me long.

1950s Classic

One of the all time classics from the 1950s, Rebel Without A Cause, will be shown at the Film Forum thru December 19th. I watched this movie years ago and I was drawn by the actors who later became stars. James Dean (1931-1955) was a talented actor who died too young. Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo became stars in their own right.

www.filmforum.com

Claude McKay

An early contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay (1889-1948) had an influence on  the major players, most notably Langston Hughes. He wrote of black life in his native Jamaica and in the United States. He wrote of the racism he experienced and his dealings with it. 

When I read his poem If We Must Die, I was touched by the strength of character in his words. His poems are strong and direct. I have read some of McKay's other poems and find them strong and reflecting the many experiences in his life.

If we Must Die

 

If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen!  We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Words Of Wisdom

Learn poetry by heart. If you know a poem by heart, no one can take from you, and you can take advantage of it anytime.

~Raymond Aubrac