Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Prose Poetry #1

I recently submitted a poem for publication.  I am more reluctant to share my poetry than my prose and essays for some reason.  I don't know exactly what that's about - maybe it's an issue of confidence.

In any case, I learned a rookie writer's lesson.  I failed to read the poetry already posted on the site before submitting my own.  It turned out that what I submitted really was not a good fit for that venue if for no other reason than the overwhelming majority of poems they accepted for publication were of the Prose Poetry variety - that is, they didn't rhyme.  The piece I submitted was of the traditional bent - rhythmic, lyrical, and rhyming.  I fear that, by comparison, mine may have come off as a bit Seussian.

Not surprisingly, the poem was rejected.  Alas, what's done is done.  Lesson learned.  I (probably) won't do that again.

It stung a bit, but for the time being my view is that acceptance and rejection doesn't matter so much as actually getting the submission out there.  For now, I choose to focus on my efforts rather than my outcomes.  By committing myself to the acts of writing & submitting rather than being attached to the result, my aim is to develop a routine; a daily practice.  And, like an athletic endeavor, I am confident that success on the field will come in time, as long as I put in the practice regularly and hard. This blog will be part of that practice and, as you can see from my incredibly inconsistent entries, developing a daily routine is an ongoing work in progress for me.

So, to the point of today.  My 2nd-grader is working on poetry in school.  He did an acrostic, which is akin to an acronym in reverse.  Choose a word - my son's word was Basketball - and then start each line of the "poem" with each letter of the word - B... A... S... K... - then try to relate those lines to the theme word in some fashion - B is for Bouncey... etc.

My son still had a second poem to write this morning, but didn't have much time and didn't want to do another acrostic.  He tapped his pencil on the blank paper as he watched some birds on our feeder outside the window and declared he wanted to write what he called a metaphor poem.  But he couldn't think of any metaphors to write about, so he tapped and watched and tapped and watched some more.  And, thus, my opening to redeem my earlier poetic rejection.

While I cleaned up the boys' breakfast and made their lunches, I shared with him my proven poetic prowess.  This is the result of our collaboration.  I think it's a poem, but it definitely doesn't rhyme.  Enjoy and ponder how such rare talent could have possibly been rejected by anyone. 

My pencil is like a bird.
Sometimes it flies across the page.
Sometimes it just pecks a bit.
And this poem is its song.


Friday, November 30, 2012

Parsing Vocabulary - Completely Finished

I plan to focus my blog entries primarily on original material - I'm told "I'm full of it" - but I found the following funny and wanted to share.  It hits on themes I like to explore - language, relationships, humor - and at this point in my blogging life, any entry is better than none at all.

I don't know if there is any truth to this little ditty, but the punchline is chuckle-worthy.  I couldn't find anything on Snopes.com to dispute it, though several details have the telltale whiff of internet urban legend.  Nevertheless, jokes are no less funny for being outright lies, so here it is... 
COMPLETE AND FINISHED
No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between the two words, Complete and Finished.  Some people say there is no difference.
[Questionable, as I can think of a couple simple differences right off the top of my head, but whatever.  Carry on]. 
In a recently held linguistic competition in London, England attended by the best in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese man from Bachelors Adventure, was the clear winner with a standing ovation lasting over 5 minutes
[Okay, first of all, “Recently held”?  Really?  Why not just list the year?  Linguistic competition”?  The competition doesn’t have a name?  Standing ovation lasting over 5 minutes”?  Come on.  Bachelors Adventure”?  Seriously?  Is that multiple bachelors adventuring together or just one bachelor having many adventures all by his lonesome?  And then we have "Balgobin"?  Apologies to my friends from Guyana, but I cannot be the only person who reads that as 'ball-gobbler'.  Am I right?  Anyway.  Continuing].
The Question: 
How do you explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED in a way that is easy to understand?
Samsundar's Answer:
“When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE.”

“When you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED.”

“And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!”

 Photo from SmartFoxSecurity.com

In deference to my female readers, the gender roles could be reversed, but the resulting version sadly loses much of its humorous quality and takes on a far more sinister aspect. 


PS - Snopes rhymes with Swopes.  That's kinda cool, huh?  Or is that just me?  It's just me, isn't it?

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Bubbly Water


I just sat down to begin yet another clever blog entry only to let it languish in my draft box, un-posted, along with so many others.  Yesterday, over a plate of "second Thanksgiving" (the Friday of leftovers after official Thanksgiving) with friends, I rolled through several paragraphs of a tongue-in-cheek proposal for a new American holiday.  The words flowed quickly and fully-formed through my mind and I thought, as I have many times before, that when I finally made time to jot them all down that the lines would come just as easily.  And, as so many times before, I was rudely reminded that inspiration strikes when and where it chooses and rarely lingers.

So, instead, I'll write a little ditty about inspiration and effort because I have got to carry some post all the way through to publication here otherwise this new blog will be never be more than another good intention.  I apologize in advance for the length

Years ago, a good friend recommended me to Natalie Goldberg's classic writing guide, Writing Down the Bones, and I am finally getting around to reading it through.  Goldberg is an avid practitioner of Zen meditation and that practice permeates her understanding of the art of writing and creative expression in general.  The book includes an afterword in which the author answers several questions.  She advocates that the act of writing, like all meaningful endeavors, is one of personal application and hard work.  So the interviewer asks her what she thinks of talent, as many would-be writers lament their lack of innate talent as a reason they don't write.  Goldberg added that, on the other side of things, naturally talented writers often remain content with their inherent talent but never progress because they don't need to apply themselves.

Goldberg went on.  She compared talent to the water table that runs beneath the earth that you can tap through hard work and channel it through you.  I'm not one to question her wisdom, but it seems that a more fitting analogy is that the water table is creative vitality and talent is merely one of two ways to tap it.  I'll explain.

 

As humans, especially as American humans, we have a great appreciation for raw talent.  Our culture elevates our greatest athletes to celebrities, rewards our inventors & entrepreneurs with windfall wealth, and celebrates our geniuses with awards & prestige.  And the very reason we admire them is they are so rare among us.  They are the rightmost tip of the bell curve.  They are humanity's fraction of 1%.  Their inherent talent is unrivaled and, in some regard, completely unattainable for the rest of us.

Their natural talent is like a natural spring.  Earth's life-giving water bubbles through a spring to the surface without effort.  Even today, people flock to natural springs for their remarkable qualities.

So what are those of us without innate talent to do?  Lie down and let the 1% shepherd us like sheep?  Not likely.  At least not all of us.  We achieve what we can achieve and the only way to know what that is is to attempt it.  In those instances, some of us will discover our efforts can elevate us beyond some of those with talent.  Even the greatest of the greats, especially the greatest of the greats, magnify their rare talent through intense training and continuous effort.

If talent is the spring, then effort is the well.

Natural springs are as wonderful as they are rare.  When pioneers explore new land, they initially seek out natural sources of water to sustain them - rivers, lakes, springs.  But if mankind contained ourselves only to natural bodies of water, we would have missed out on most of the magnificence available to us.  

This world is covered in spring-less land.  The overwhelming majority of it.  Just as humanity is populated with the untalented.  When the brave venture into the blank parts of the map, expanding to settle new land, we don't maintain a bucket-line back to our original source of water.  No.  We put our backs to the picks and the shovels and the drills and we dig ourselves new wells.  

Is the new water any less vital for the effort it took to release it?  Not one bit.  In fact, what the well lacks in the natural spring's beauty it more than makes up for in the satisfaction that it is we who have tapped it ourselves.  

I will leave to you reflections on the marvel of mankind's ability to call forth the essence of life from beneath the dry, cracked earth.  For me, I can only say it is humbling.  Some few of us possess remarkable talent and that is truly remarkable.  But some few of those who don't strive to attain what they were not born with and that is what makes mankind transcendent.

The water from the well is just as wet as from the spring. 


Monday, November 12, 2012

Parsing Vocabulary

At some point I'll start taking this blog seriously and posting more regularly.  Until then, here's another quirky dispatch from the parenting trenches.

I asked the boys if they know why they have today off of school.  Who was this holiday in honor of?

Aidan answered, "It's Veterinarian's Day".

"No," Asher cut in to correct his brother before I could, "Today is for Vegetarians."

It's funny how being close can sometimes be so far off.

I explained what a veteran is and why they matter.  I explained how they have been so important to the history and future of our nation that Americans sets aside a national holiday, Veterans Day, specifically to remember and honor all the current and past veterans of our nation's armed forces.  I shared a little about the role veterans have played in defending our way of life and upholding the values of our nation; about their service and sacrifice. 


Aidan has recently studied the American Revolution in school, so I think he had a better understanding of it all, but it may be awhile before they come to appreciate Veterans Day as more than a day off from school.  At least they know we aren't celebrating plant-eating animal doctors... unless, of course, there are some plant-eating animal doctors who served in the US armed forces. 

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Every country has the government it deserves.


"Every country has the government it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre

On election day, when my fellow countrymen and women (honestly, it will probably be the women) elect the leader of our nation for the next four years, it only seems appropriate to spend a few words on the topic.

The quote above - Every country has the government it deserves - has always resonated with me.  Succinct, self-evident.  Simultaneously accusatory and inspirational.  It invests the responsibility for the course of a nation and the actions of its government in the citizens of that nation rather than laying all that blame at the feet of the individuals those citizens permit to lead them.  It says to me that if you don't like it, change it; and that applies as much to this party as to that, as much to democracy as to any other form of government, as much to the Tea Party as to the Occupy Movement.

And that is fascinating - individuals from every political disposition can see in these words something for themselves.  I recognize that one of the highest goals of writing as a form of communication is its clarity.  But I also recognize that, as an artform, readers see what they see, often based on what they bring to the reading, and not always what the artist intends. 

I knew little of the philosopher who first said this, so I looked him up today.  I knew he lived around the time of the French Revolution and I always assumed he aimed this statement at either King Louis or Napoleon in an attempt to incite or support insurrection against those authoritarian regimes.  My assumption reveals my worldview.  I was right about the timing, but completely wrong about the writer's intent.  I read something into his words he never meant.

It turns out Joseph-Marie, Count of Maistre, was a royalist.  He believed the only morally legitimate government derived its authority from divine providence and, in order to be sustainable, must be grounded on religious principle as interpreted by the leaders of a single organized church.  He blamed all the suffering of modern life on the godless elevation of reason and rational thought resulting from The Enlightenment.  The horrors of the Reign of Terror were a direct result of humanism and atheism - God's divine, and well-deserved, punishment.  He believed his country had a holy purpose on Earth as a tool to further God's righteous will.

Sound familiar?  

We see with our eyes what we believe with our hearts.  One socio-political disposition leads one group to see one thing while another sees something else entirely.  Same words.  Same objective reality.  So what's the difference?

Believing is seeing, unfortunately.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Mai too sense...

If candy wrappers were as difficult to open as the packaging of toys made in China, Halloween wouldn't be nearly so punishing to the waistline.