Wednesday is for poets October 31, 2012

I love poetry. I love love poetry too. See, outwardly, I’m not a very affectionate person. I don’t show love very flamboyantly. I’m not a huge fan of cheesiness, and I get kind of embarrassed when I feel sappy. I do try to embrace my cheesy side, but it doesn’t always work. Except when I read good poetry. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of those poets. Her Sonnets from the Portuguese are some of the most beautiful love poems I’ve ever read. Here is one of my favorites.

XIV.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

I have a dream… and I need your help to make it happen October 30, 2012

This sounds like a great idea, so I’m doing my part and spreading the word, because I would love another way to get my art into the world. Check it out, bloggers and facebookers!

It’s like writing senior seminar all over again… October 29, 2012

…only instead of paying lots of money to take that class, I could possibly GET lots of money from writing this. I just finished the application for the Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own. This organization gives out an award every two years to help a woman writer accomplish her writing goals. And the award is $50,000 over two years. Yeah, that’s a LOT of money. I have probably the tiniest possibility of ever winning this prize, but hey, I mean, why not try? For 35 bucks and a few essays and writing samples, I might as well try and convince people that I should be given an award to be financially stable enough to write as a career. Seriously, it would be insanely awesome if I got this, or even if I got a runner-up prize, which is $5,000. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to the past couple of days. Now back to the actual writing of my book.

Foto Friday! October 26, 2012

My brother stole my idea for Foto Friday. He doesn’t spell it the Spanish way though, so I guess it’s okay. I’m not quite sure what foto to post today though. Honestly, this week was a tiny bit crazy at work because I learned hwo to be an opener and therefore worked a lot more hours. Which is good, because I could use the money. I discovered that I really need better shoes to wear if I am going to stand for six hours though.

So here is a random picture from my travels my sophomore year of college. Since Halloween is so close, enjoy this creepy picture of Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France. My friend Clement was genuinely scared the entire time we were there. He kept saying, “Hurry up, Dorothy! What if they lock us in the cemetery overnight?!” It was quite amusing.

Wednesday (night) is for Poets. October 24, 2012

And for using your roommate’s computer to update your blog at 11:00 at night because you forgot to do it before, and your own computer takes twenty minutes or so to decide to be useful.

For tonight, I am giving a selection from my poetry journal. This is a journal in which I write (in my neatest, prettiest handwriting) poems. Some of them are my own poetry, but most of them are not. Many of them came out of an awesome poetry anthology called Staying Alive. Since it is a bit late, and I need to sleep because I have to work tomorrow, here is a short, but wonderful poem by William Carlos Williams.

El Hombre

It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:

Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!

Simplicity and an epic message. Such a good poem. 🙂

P.S.- tomorrow my friend and fellow writer Matt Mikalatos is posting something I wrote on his blog. He asked me to do a guest post because I wanted to promote my blog a bit more, and he is awesome like that. Go check out his site! His blog is called The Burning Hearts Revolution and the site is mikalatos.com

It’s not Wednesday… October 22, 2012

…but this poem is just too good to wait!

Really, I wish I could make something as beautiful as this short film someday.

Friday….of the foto kind! October 19, 2012

So today, we finally got a piano in the house! My roommate recruited her brother and a few of our burly man-friends to move it from her parents house to our house! And now, even though it is slightly out of tune, I have lovely keys to play on! In honor of the piano, here is a slightly artsy picture of it. It was taken with my 8 megapixel phone-camera, so it might not be the best quality. But I love it, simply because now I get to play it!

Wednesday is for poets! October 17, 2012

This week is another one of my poems. I wrote it during my senior year of college while taking a creative writing class. I’m not sure how to describe this poem. For me, it was very hard to write, because it came out of some of the things I saw while staying with some friends on a reservation in Alaska. I have always wanted to learn more about Native American culture, and a few summers ago, I got a chance to experience it first hand and make some wonderful friends. I was struck by the culture difference, and the similarities. Like I said, it is hard to describe, and even though it has been a couple of years, I am still processing the experience. This poem is part of that processing, I guess.

trails

we are hidden for fear
of discovery. we cannot blame
anyone now, yet the fear
lingers. by searching
you sometimes find us.
mostly though, we
are invisible, the result
of our hearts’ desires.

crushed, misplaced, driven
to places we now call
home, but which are no
comfort. no longer
aspiring, no longer
fighting, no longer
crying. for acceptance
we laugh, but we
remember.

look closely. please look
closely. who will see?
filled hearts embrace
tragedy with beauty,
tradition barely keeps
us stable.

Success, failure, and music October 16, 2012

Success: Butternut Squash cookies! Seriously, so tasty. So very, very tasty. I discovered that you can pretty much substitute butternut squash anywhere you would put pumpkin.

Failure: Cinnamon Coffee. You put cinnamon underneath the coffee grounds in the filter, and it makes delicious cinnamon-flavored goodness! That is, it makes delicious goodness if the coffee filter doesn’t fall down in the maker and leak coffee grounds into your carafe…
I’ve managed to make this successfully once, only once. That one time was SO delicious, that I keep trying, and failing. Oh well, maybe next time.

Music: Sometimes I love Pandora, and sometimes it annoys the crap out of me. But tonight, it is wonderful, because it just juxtaposed an instrumental piano version of Colors of the Wind from Disney’s Pocahontas with a song by Florence & the Machine. Awesome? I think so. Want a taste of the soundscapes of my night?
Here you go!

Sushi and frantic Mondays October 15, 2012

There is just something about Mondays that feels slow and frantic at the same time. Maybe it is because I never want to leave the weekend, but Mondays are just so hectic. at work today, I felt rushed and uneasy, even though it really wasn’t that busy. Nobody was really talking to each other in the kitchen, and we all just minded out own business. It just felt strange. Then after work, I hurried to eat something and then drive to music practice, only to find out (when I got there) that it was cancelled…again, slow, yet frantic. My roommate had an even more intense day. The calculus teacher at the high school had her baby this weekend, so my roommate had to start teaching calculus today. The stress of it made her forget her lunch, and it was just crazy all day.
Ah Mondays, why do you always have to repeat you nasty cycle over and over?

At least on Mondays, we get to have $2.50 sushi rolls! 🙂 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sushi!