Book Riot has solved the problem for how to squeeze in your poem before the month dwindles away completely. Or to help you to figure out what poem to read when the month is a distant memory.
A flowchart.
For what poem to read.
GENIUS!!
Author Archives: mylibrarycardworeout
Poetry To Feed You
Poetry Month is rapidly drawing to a close and hopefully somewhere (maybe here) you have found a new poem or poet that speaks to you. Or have rekindled a love for something you forgot.
Before our month long journey into rhymes and sonnets and whatnots is over I just have to share a wonderful new place for you to check out. Food and poetry. What a fabulous idea!
Eat This Poem is a ‘Literary Food Blog’ where Nicole Gulotta weaves wonder with recipes and poetry and talks about books, writers and food. Each entry is so well written and photographed with inserts of poems, recollections and recipes. Who would have thought? Be sure to check out Pablo Neruda, Blood Oranges and Sour Cream Donuts. The poem is wonderful and the donuts make you want to drop everything and make them. A wonderful place if you like poems!
Cat In An Empty Apartment by Wislawa Szymborska
Stumbled on this wonderful poet via New York Review of Books. A delight.
Her words are slight yet crystal clear. It would take me several paragraphs to get her ideas across. Enjoy this gem.
Cat In An Empty Apartment ~ Wislawa Szymborska
Die—you can’t do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here
but nothing is the same.
Nothing’s been moved
but there’s more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.
Footsteps on the staircase,
but they’re new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.
Something doesn’t start
at its usual time.
Something doesn’t happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.
Every closet’s been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.
Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.
FunDay Friday
Something fun for you to consider.
Ever wonder why you love Steven Spielberg movies?
Well, here from Time is 5 Ways You Know You’re Watching a Spielberg Movie!
And they are all true!
Enjoy! (starts after a short commercial – definitely worth the wait)
E.L.Konigsburg
If you are a reader and love books there are no doubt certain books and authors that fueled your introduction and love. Some of the warmest feelings are for the authors who introduced us to this wonderful medium. The list is endless with names like Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Sandra Boynton, Patricia Pollacco, Beverley Cleary and on and on. This weekend a wonderful author died ~ E.L. Konigsburg, author of From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and other books. What a great book! A treasure set in New York City featuring the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a certain statue. Such is the impact of the book that the Museum has an activity for young people searching for the statue. If you haven’t read the book – do. And if you are planning a trip to New York make sure you visit the Museum and try to find the statue.
Thank you Mrs. Koningsburg for hours of happy reading!
Some More Shakespeare
Want to immerse yourself in more Shakespeare and don’t know where to start? or how to start? or even what he wrote?
Head on over to Here and you will be guided beautifully in a flow chart in your selection choices.
And there are some links to free books!!!
From You Have I Been Absent In The Spring by William Shakespeare
It was William Shakespeare’s birthday 2 days ago. Missed it. Well, in belated honor of this great writer a sonnet that he wrote.
If you want to read more about Shakespeare Here and Here and Here.
Wondering about Sonnets? Here.
Sonnet 98 ~ From You Have I Been Absent In The Spring ~ William Shakespeare
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
The Three Little Pigs by Roald Dahl
After yesterdays intense and serious poem, that really needed to be read with a furrowed brow from the concentration today we have something different. The story we all know (and if not, why not?) but this is from the creative mind of the master storyteller Roald Dahl. From his fabulous collection Revolting Rhymes, definitely worth checking out from your library. Full of of wacky poems with illustrations by Quentin Blake it makes great reading for all ages.
The Three Little Pigs from Revolting Rhymes ~ Roald Dahl
The animal I really dig,
Above all others is the pig.
Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
Pigs are courteous. However,
Now and then, to break this rule,
One meets a pig who is a fool.
What, for example, would you say,
If strolling through the woods one day,
Right there in front of you you saw
A pig who’d built his house of STRAW?
The Wolf who saw it licked his lips,
And said, ‘That pig has had his chips.’
‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in!’
‘No, no, by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!’
‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!
The little pig began to pray,
But Wolfie blew his house away.
He shouted, ‘Bacon, pork and ham!
Oh, what a lucky Wolf I am!’
And though he ate the pig quite fast,
He carefully kept the tail till last.
Wolf wandered on, a trifle bloated.
Surprise, surprise, for soon he noted
Another little house for pigs,
And this one had been built of TWIGS!
‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in!’
‘No, no, by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!’
‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!’
The Wolf said, ‘Okay, here we go!’
He then began to blow and blow.
The little pig began to squeal.
He cried, ‘Oh Wolf, you’ve had one meal!
Why can’t we talk and make a deal?
The Wolf replied, ‘Not on your nelly!’
And soon the pig was in his belly.
‘Two juicy little pigs!’ Wolf cried,
‘But still I’m not quite satisfied!
I know how full my tummy’s bulging,
But oh, how I adore indulging.’
So creeping quietly as a mouse,
The Wolf approached another house,
A house which also had inside
A little piggy trying to hide.
‘You’ll not get me!’ the Piggy cried.
‘I’ll blow you down!’ the Wolf replied.
‘You’ll need,’ Pig said, ‘a lot of puff,
And I don’t think you’ve got enough.’
Wolf huffed and puffed and blew and blew.
The house stayed up as good as new.
‘If I can’t blow it down,’ Wolf said,
I’ll have to blow it up instead.
I’ll come back in the dead of night
And blow it up with dynamite!’
Pig cried, ‘You brute! I might have known!’
Then, picking up the telephone,
He dialed as quickly as he could
The number of red Riding Hood.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Who’s speaking? Who?
Oh, hello, Piggy, how d’you do?’
Pig cried, ‘I need your help, Miss Hood!
Oh help me, please! D’you think you could?’
‘I’ll try of course,’ Miss Hood replied.
‘What’s on your mind…?’ ‘A Wolf!’ Pig cried.
‘I know you’ve dealt with wolves before,
And now I’ve got one at my door!’
‘My darling Pig,’ she said, ‘my sweet,
That’s something really up my street.
I’ve just begun to wash my hair.
But when it’s dry, I’ll be right there.’
A short while later, through the wood,
Came striding brave Miss Riding Hood.
The Wolf stood there, his eyes ablaze,
And yellowish, like mayonnaise.
His teeth were sharp, his gums were raw,
And spit was dripping from his jaw.
Once more the maiden’s eyelid flickers.
She draws the pistol from her knickers.
Once more she hits the vital spot,
And kills him with a single shot.
Pig, peeping through the window, stood
And yelled, ‘Well done, Miss Riding Hood!’
Ah, Piglet, you must never trust
Young ladies from the upper crust.
For now, Miss Riding Hood, one notes,
Not only has two wolfskin coats,
But when she goes from place to place,
She has a PIGSKIN TRAVELING CASE.
On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Did you know that today is Leonardo Da Vinci’s birthday?
No, me neither.
But in his honor, a poem of considerable intensity.
Requires a lot of concentration, but is worth it.
On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shrine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.
Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer’s spirit into stone;
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
‘Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanize and harmonize the strain.
And from its head as from one body grow,
As [ ] grass out of a watery rock,
Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow
And their long tangles in each other lock,
And with unending involutions shew
Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock
The torture and the death within, and saw
The solid air with many a ragged jaw.
And from a stone beside, a poisonous eft
Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;
Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft
Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise
Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft,
And he comes hastening like a moth that hies
After a taper; and the midnight sky
Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.
‘Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;
For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare
Kindled by that inextricable error, 35
Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air
Become a [ ] and ever-shifting mirror
Of all the beauty and the terror there—
A woman’s countenance, with serpent locks,
Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks.
FunDay Friday – Poetry Month Edition
Not sure what to say……..
Enjoy?!
Poetry, A Slightly Different Approach
Sometimes poetry can be found in the most interesting places.
When you least expect it.
Maybe sometimes you create poetry too?
We Never Know How High We Are ~ Emily Dickinson
We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.
The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.
Meeting And Passing ~ Robert Frost
Meeting and Passing ~ Robert Frost
As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less than two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met, and you what I had passed.
How To Enjoy Poetry Month
April is Poetry Month, a month long celebration of the beauty and intricacies of language that sometimes rhymes, sometimes jumps across the page, sometimes evokes such depth and emotion in hardly any words. Poets struggle to find their voice. The public sometimes struggles to understand.
If you want to get to know poetry and poets better where do you start? The libraries and book shops contain volumes of poetry that might not help you much, and at worst might intimidate you. Flowery language, vague imagery. But, there are ways!
A gentle introduction can be found by the Academy of Poets at Poets.org which (as might expect) is all things poetry. Go take a look and see. This is a great place to discover new poems and poets, find poems on specific themes, and find poetry events that you can attend. But the absolute best part is you can sign up to receive a poem in your mailbox each day. Every day they will send you a poem (just one) that is easily read and understood which will enrich your day. Try it!
Penguin Classics have gone one further. They have created Poems By Heart by Penguin Classics, an app, that helps you memorize poems, HERE, and offers you the world of poetry in a very approachable way. This app is free, but you do need a particular device so it won’t be available to everyone – but if you know someone with an iPad maybe they will download it and you can share. Cool. With such great things there is no excuse for not enjoying Poetry Month fully!
“Five Characters That Would Make Terrible Real Life Boyfriends”
I completely agree with this list.
Probably the first one the most.
