Magic

I know this isn't necessarily related to poetry but...

There's something about the first real snowfall of the season that captures the imagination and sends it soaring. With snow flakes the size of diced peaches drifting to the ground I can reach my hand out of the window of my apartment and pull them in before they even begin to melt. The silence that covers the world brings back memories of late nights on the ice under similiar skys , dancing and weaving, with the only sound that of blades carving their story into the solid expanse.

On second thought maybe this is about poetry after all.

Create your own

fridge magnet poetry.

Well not really, but if you're stuck a good way to get the creative process underway is to begin writing. This link leads to a contest where a set of words is provided and you get to make poems from them. The results can get interesting (and on occasion a bit painful) and it's an easy way to get started.

http://www.poetry.com/poetry_in_motion/magcon.asp

Why I Love Poetry

There's something in a poem that makes you pause, and stop, and turn to see the thing you just saw in a different light. Like diving into a lake you've eaten breakfast by, every morning for a year, and seeing suddenly that it's not the glorious blue of the sky, but a soft golden colour with moving shadows and a rhythm of its own. I love when you come to last line of a poem and are confronted with a statement so shockingly conclusive, that still holds nothing but absolute honesty, and feeling your place in the world because of it.

There are somethings that can be said only in a poem; some images that require the unique combination of structure and freedom coupled with the brivity of words to be recreated.


And that is why I love poetry.

Answers in the Trip

Alright, I'm back from the annual road trip to Lethbridge college and a good six hours of driving music. I've noticed that since the lyric essay I've been paying a lot more attention to what songs are actually saying. I'm not entirely sure that this is a good thing, as there are certain times when just belting out a favourite tune makes the day.

One song that caught my attention -right around hour five- was Sarah McLauchlan's Answer (by the way I was not in charge of the Ipod on this trip). I actually really like this song and beleive that it can have many different meanings depending upon whose eyes it is veiwed through. Originally this is one of the songs I was considering for the afore mentioned assignment, but when I read the lyrics I found that it appeared to represent someone waiting in/for a relationship. This was at odds with the meaning that I had connected to it from hearing it, and I decided that I didn't really want to write about that kind of song. Something interesting happened today though, when it was played - the song reverted to its initial message, and having reread the lyrics it still retains that position. It seems that this song is talking about a personal journey through a difficult time and represents the hope, faith and strength that help a person to find their way.

Just for Fun

Because of their brevity word placemnt in a Haiku can take on even greater importance then in other forms of poetry. This idea intigues me, so as a poetic excercise I attempted to rearrange the words in some verses, and here is one that I came up with.

A verse from the text book Poetic Form by Ethridge Knight (page 157) goes as follows:

Eastern guard tower
glints in sunset; convicts rest
like lizards on rocks.

A little switcharoo and you get:

Convicts glint in east-
ern tower; guards rest on rocks
like sunset lizards.

Perhaps this rearrangment mirriors a transposition of placements for the convicts? Or maybe it's just nonsense. You be the judge.

I'm Back

Well, after an extended absence thanks in part to a 50 hour work week, I am atempting to write in my blog once a day from here on in.

Todays topic? One of my all time favourite poets - Ray Bagley.
Mr Bagley was a true cowboy poet who was born in the sunset of the free range days, back when fences were hard to find and the land and the people were still wild (in a slightly over romanticized way). He writes about the changes he saw taking place around him, and in what I find an intresting aspect of his work, he also seems to be able to take on the voices of various characters and present an accurate and heart felt rendition of their diverse circomstances. From riding out on the trails, to watching a city spring up from nothing, to losing a child Ray Bagley captures the essense of each situation and shares in a lyrical fasion. I even found one of his poems set to lyrics at http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/25.4/BV25-4art5.pdf. It seems as if everything that he wrote fit perfectly around the enevitable campfire at the end of a hard days ride.