2007
Hmmm...no posts here for a long time, I doubt anybody missed them.
Plenty of fine reasons but none worth mentioning as in the final analysis if something is sufficiently important we do it.
Will 2007 be different? Probably not, although photoblogging is a thought. I have been active with photography over most pursuits. I continue to read and enjoy poetry but have given up my zine due to the lack of quality submissions. Probably my fault as I never really gave it enough attention and failed to send out newsletters and publicize it in other ways.
I also tired of poetry forums during last year. The level of discussion tends not to be high and for most posted questions about dead poets work a quick visit to google suffices. For commentary on poems written by forum contributors, it seems that there isn't that much middle ground. Forums either thrive on vapid praise or suffer a form of masochism that permits all contributors to rewrite posted poems and to then be unhappy when the original poet chooses not to take the offered rewrite as a substantial improvement. There are probably many forums that foloow a happy medium, but they probably demand a level of commitment that doesn't interest me at the moment.
Despite the gloomy spirit exhibited above, I am beginning 2007 in better heart than for quite some years and am looking forward to making many more photographs - the year ended with a bunch of my photographs exhibited in Cleveland, which was quite a thrill.
Anyway, a recent self-portrait:
Plenty of fine reasons but none worth mentioning as in the final analysis if something is sufficiently important we do it.
Will 2007 be different? Probably not, although photoblogging is a thought. I have been active with photography over most pursuits. I continue to read and enjoy poetry but have given up my zine due to the lack of quality submissions. Probably my fault as I never really gave it enough attention and failed to send out newsletters and publicize it in other ways.
I also tired of poetry forums during last year. The level of discussion tends not to be high and for most posted questions about dead poets work a quick visit to google suffices. For commentary on poems written by forum contributors, it seems that there isn't that much middle ground. Forums either thrive on vapid praise or suffer a form of masochism that permits all contributors to rewrite posted poems and to then be unhappy when the original poet chooses not to take the offered rewrite as a substantial improvement. There are probably many forums that foloow a happy medium, but they probably demand a level of commitment that doesn't interest me at the moment.
Despite the gloomy spirit exhibited above, I am beginning 2007 in better heart than for quite some years and am looking forward to making many more photographs - the year ended with a bunch of my photographs exhibited in Cleveland, which was quite a thrill.
Anyway, a recent self-portrait:
posted by Paul | Monday, January 01, 2007
5 Comments:
thanks for chesil's poetry...........i was looking for a poem to help me express the challenges taking place in my life right now..........can you recommend a poem..........one that expresses.......making sacrifices and working so hard to fulfill a dream.....then having it taken away from you by people who slander and judge you wrongly....myself....i am 49...a third year veterinary student......or was....i have been dismissed....but am appealing.......my crime.....speaking up for a not-so-sick dog....her life was put into jeopardy by unecessary diagnostic testing............then being labeled 'opinionated, self-righteous'.......i knew i could jeopardize my academic career by speaking up.....but my conscience would not allow me to keep quiet......
Maybe this by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul
I once was awarded all the beer I and my friends could drink in a bar one night for knowing the title of that poem. It was a trivia question on a blackboard. I don't remember much about that night once we got into the third pitcher, but I do know I've had to associate this poem with both joy and hangover ever since.
-Ray
"Woof!" - far too late to be of use in last January's predicament, but this poem brings tears and comfort at the same time:
SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)
Paul, thank you for your poetry website, especially John Clare's "A Shepherd's Calendar": "January: A Cottage Evening" is one of the masterworks of English literature. You must read it aloud. I did once, to a group of A-level English students, and after that they couldn't wait to borrow the book.
too quick to abandon - not challenged - too many excuses
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