Tag: poetry

P.S. I Lo…

camsterdam Leave a comment
Image via speechfoyosoul.com

A love letter is one of the best pieces of paper you’ll ever hold in your hand. It’s more personal than a clothing accessory, more enduring than an edible sweet or a five-second Snapchat, more secret than a wink and a cheery clink. These written declarations of affection have been touching hearts since Ancient Egypt. But times indeed have changed – keyboards have replaced quills, and ‘thee’ got thrown out for ‘u’. The love letter now teeters on the cliff of extinction. If I could, I would make a campaign badge: SAVE THE LOVE LETTER! Help protect this rare species this Valentine’s Day by penning one of your very own to anyone you want to share your words with: whether it’s your best friend, your grandma, your SO, or your neighbor. A letter says that you’ve taken the time to think and write thoughtfully and reflectively on your love for this being that you share the planet and your life with. And who doesn’t love getting mail??

Not sure where to start? Here are some tips to write the most heartfelt and genuine letter without being too cheesy, cliché, or Hallmark-y.

  1. Think ink. A real paper letter gives the recipient the sheer pleasure of opening up an envelope. It allows you to be a little cheeky and hide it where they least expect it. Your one-of-a-kind handwriting technique flavors the text in a way that no one else could accomplish. Plus, why risk the chance of an overzealous spellcheck  and spam filters? You want to be sure that the exact letter you write is seen by the person you love.
  2. Address to Impress. “Dear” is so overrated. This isn’t an email to your professor (at least I hope not!!). Make your greeting unique and get your reader smiling from the get-go. “Dearest Duck,” said Lady to Lord Byron. “My dear little lunatic,” wrote the actress Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo. When in doubt, get a little wacky, get a little retro, get a little silly.
  3. Flavor it with details. Make sure to flag all the quirky things you like about your reader. Let them know you didn’t copy the default template for “How-To Write a Love Letter.” Think both physically (“the lines on your face that crinkle when you smile”) and mentally (“how you’ve literally memorized the whole Tim the Enchanter scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail”). Let glimpses into your own daily life color your paper: “As I sit here writing to you in the Diag, people must be wondering why I’m smiling so much.” Recollect the first time you met, your favorite shared experience together, ponder about the next thing you want to do together to knock something off your bucket lists.
  4. Avoid clichés. That’s right. If you’re being paid to write cards for Hallmark, then by all means, bring on the cheesiness. But, for real? None of this “two souls entwined” crap. Gush too much and the game is over. Find the perfect balance between authentic feeling and hearts-for-eyes emoji.
  5. Intertextualize. Perhaps you have really tiny handwriting and you’re worried that you don’t have enough to say to appropriately fill the entire paper (at least two-thirds down the page is adequate). Think of your reader’s favorite movie, song, book, or play. There isn’t one out there that doesn’t include some romantic love. It will show that you really have paid attention to what they love. And gives your brain a moment’s rest, but still packs all the same punch. Alternatively, you can…
  6. Include a poem. But not a “how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Everyone knows that. Instead try something a little more obscure to add to the uniqueness. Try Frank O’Hara’s ‘Animals’ or Pablo Neruda’s ‘I Do Not Love You‘ or Simon Armitage’s “You’re Beautiful.”

7. PG-13, please! Remember these letters are a kind of artifact. When you pass, you never know who will find them. And you don’t want to win a posthumous Bad Sex (Writing) Award, do you? So let’s keep it clean please, and let E.L. James do all the dirty work.

8. Sincerely… “Believe in me” (Juliette to Victor again) is heartstopping. Henry VIII’s “No more for fear of annoying you” to Anne Boleyn is awkwardly endearing. Dump the dreary “Yours truly” for something a little more creative.

9. Handle with Care. Send love letters only to those you can trust with them. Remember, these words are fragments of your soul. Mark the envelope as “FRAGILAY.” Likewise, treat any letters you’re so lucky to receive with kindness. Keep these paper relics – from past flings and present flames – for yourself and your mental scrapbook. Now that’s so much more than …

Image via people.com

P.S.  Interested in reading famous people’s love letters? Check out: http://thoughtcatalog.com/rachel-hodin/2014/01/the-16-most-beautifully-touching-love-letters-from-famous-writers-and-artists/.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Merr(e.e.) Little Tr(e.e.)

camsterdam Leave a comment

my holiday gift to you: a celebration of [little tree] by e.e. cummings

Image via University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

 

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see            i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

 

i will kiss your sweet bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don’t be afraid

 

look             the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

 

put up your little arms

and i’ll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy

 

then when you’re quite dressed

you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they’ll stare!

oh but you’ll be very proud

 

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we’ll dance and sing

“Noel Noel”

Image via people.com

As you find comfort within the sprigs of this picture poem, among the hugs and warmth of human kindness, let me raise a cup of cheer to you all.

Love thy trees. Love thy neighbors. Love thyselves and thy spirits. Love thy love.

There is nothing on this earth that couldn’t benefit from feeling your touch, your awareness, your acknowledgment of their place here in relation to yours. I wish you all happiness on this winter break, and may you all dance and sing in your own little ways.

Theory of Moving On

Erika Bell Leave a comment

Theory of Moving On

By Erika Bell

The warm

chocolate-filled,

wine colored,

flowered,

date nights

are among me again.

Three months ago I thrived in this time.

I twisted my curly hair,

knotted it around my polished ring finger

and you rubbed my knee

sending soft shots of confirmation through my veins.

Though, I am here again.

Not here, where we were.

Somewhere new.

I look across the table and

you’re not scratching your scruff

and talking about the impending doom of the world

and I’m not staring into your glossy hazel eyes

as you wolf down that spinach dip.

I look into a dark brown set of eyes now.

He talks of working out.

There’s no scruff to scratch.

He eats his Greek salad with a fork

and

a

knife.

The bedazzled night is above our heads

like a giant headlight on my heart.

The Love Doctor

Erika Bell Leave a comment

In light of Valentine’s Day approaching, (cue groans..groans that are all coming from me…) I would like to share one of my beloved poems that I wrote during my Sophomore year of college in a poetry class. It’s called The Love Doctor.

The Love Doctor

Let me tell you what I think.

I think this thing they call love,

it’s bullshit.

We women do all this work to get a man’s attention —

hair soft as cotton candy

nails clean with girlish pinks and reds always prim

body right, curves that round the world —

Oh, and don’t forget a personality, we must have a little of that.

Which one should you be today?

The loving girlfriend that gives him massages,

hot meals, alone time for him to be a man?

So he can watch the same shot

being made by the same person on TV,

or so he can criticize that girl’s physique

like it really is that thought provoking.

Or should you be the girlfriend that’s —

oh wait

he doesn’t want you to be anyone else.

That’s all there is to it with love.

I’m telling you, when a man finds out that you

have needs, complaints, wants, dreams, feelings, tears—

They deny ever knowing you,

like a grain of dreary dust they stepped on,

walking away from a deserted beach

holding another woman’s hand.

My advice honey,

the next time you hear someone say the word love,

tell ’em to come see me.

Why I’m an English Major

Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

In terms of my blog, this will probably be my shortest post to date (and possibly ever). While my Wednesdays are usually free, I have a paper due tonight that I’m very concerned about.

And I’m not concerned because I haven’t started or I don’t know what I’m writing – I’m concerned because this topic is important to me and I don’t want to screw it up. While I have written papers like this before, this is the first time in a while where this has happened to me. Last night I got to page 6 of my assigned 4 page essay – I have a lot to say about this particular poem.

Thankfully my professor said it’s okay if you go over the page count – while it gives him more to read, he says he’ll enjoy it if you’re “in the zone.” And what a zone I’m in.

I don’t know why, but doing justice to this beautiful, tragic poem is important to me. Written by W. B. Yeats, “No Second Troy” is a 10 line poem, yet its complexity compels me to tell its story, about this woman that Yeats believes is Helen of Troy reincarnated. I feel as though if I don’t write this paper to the best of my ability, I will let Yeats down. He gave me this wonderful work of art for me to mess with, to twist and to mold into an argument about why anyone should care about a 10 line poem, and I have to return the favor and write that argument in an eloquent and beautiful way.

This is why I’m an English major. It’s not that I like to read, it’s not that I like to write. It’s not that my mind automatically turns to analysis of character and syntax when I read a work such as this one. It’s the joy I get when I can finally tease apart the complexities of a piece and then reconstruct it into my own argument. Even though the poem was Yeats’, the argument is mine. And that joy is something I might have lost, writing paper after paper. Sure, I don’t often come across a subject I’m this passionate about. But as I write more papers than I ever have this year, I hope that I inject that same amount of passion into every one of them – and that my teacher can see that passion I have.

 

“No Second Troy”

from The Green Helmet and Other Poems, 1912

 

Why should I blame her that she filled my days

With misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

Or hurled the little streets upon the great.

Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,

With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,

Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Waves, Avesw, Veswa, Eswav, Swave, Waves

Taylor Leave a comment

“The birds sang their blank melody outside.”

“There is nothing staid, nothing
settled in this universe.
All is rippling, all is
dancing; all is quickness and triumph.”

“I would rather
be loved,
I would rather be famous
than follow perfection
through the sand.”

“I am this,
that
and the other.”

“Yes;
I will reduce you
to order.”

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

“I am not single and entire
as you are.
I have lived a thousand lives
already. Every day I unbury–
I dig up. I find relics
of myself in the sand that
women made thousands of years ago . . .”

“The weight of the world
is on our shoulders.
This is life.”

“I do not wish
to be a man who sits
for fifty years
on the same spot thinking
of his navel. I wish to be
harnessed to a cart, a vegetable cart
that rattles over the cobbles.”

“I have reached
the summit
of my desires.”

“I desired always
to stretch the night and
fill it fuller and fuller
with dreams.”

“There is no repetition for me.
Each day
is dangerous.”

“. . . we are extinct,
lost
in the abyss
of time,
in the
darkness.”

“We have destroyed
something by our
presence . . .
a world perhaps.”

“I, I, I.”

“But if there are no stories,
what end can there be,
or what beginning?”

“It is strange
how the dead leap out
on us at street corners,
or in dreams.”

“Life
is a dream
surely.”

“For this is
not one life;
nor do I always know
if I am man
or woman . . .
so strange is the contact
of one with another.”

“I said life had been imperfect,
an unfinished
phrase.”

“Life has destroyed me.”

“I begin now
to forget;
I begin to doubt the fixity
of tables, the reality of here
and now, to tap my knuckles smartly
upon the edges of apparently
solid objects and say, ‘Are you hard?’”

“It is strange
that we who are capable
of so much suffering,
should inflict
so much suffering.”

“It is death.
Death is the enemy.”

“The
waves
broke
on
the
shore.”

After I finished reading The Waves by Virginia Woolf, I realized that I needed to meditate more on passages, the construction of prose vs. poetry, and my visceral connection with the text. The above are some of my favorite passages that I thought could work by themselves and with more fragmentation (of lines, spacing, etc.). Also, it’s national poetry month . . .

May Virginia not roll over in her grave and topple my shore with waves of despair.