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Showing posts with label Poems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poems. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2014
Silly me. Time gets away from you, y'know? In case you have inordinate amounts of time on your hands (like our fellow poet friend Peter, who shared this with me), here's a list of the 117 "most beautiful words". These should make for interesting poems.
Acquiesce Submit or comply silently or without protest.
Ailurophile A cat-lover.
Ameliorate To make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory
Assemblage A gathering.
Becoming Attractive.
Beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.
Brood To think alone.
Bucolic In a lovely rural setting.
Bungalow A small, cozy cottage.
Callipygous Having beautifully proportioned buttocks.
Cathartic Inducing catharsis; purgative.
Chatoyant Like a cat’s eye.
Comely Attractive.
Conflate To blend together.
Crestfallen Dejected; dispirited; discouraged
Cynosure A focal point of admiration.
Dalliance A brief love affair.
Demesne Dominion, territory.
Demure Shy and reserved.
Denouement The resolution of a mystery.
Desuetude Disuse.
Desultory Slow, sluggish.
Diaphanous Filmy.
Dissemble Deceive.
Dulcet Sweet, sugary.
Ebullience Bubbling enthusiasm.
Effervescent Bubbly.
Efflorescence Flowering, blooming.
Effluence The act or an instance of flowing out.
Elision Dropping a sound or syllable in a word.
Elixir A good potion.
Eloquence Beauty and persuasion in speech.
Embrocation Rubbing on a lotion.
Emollient A softener.
Ephemeral Short-lived.
Epiphany A sudden revelation.
Erstwhile At one time, for a time.
Ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.
Evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.
Evocative Suggestive.
Fetching Pretty.
Felicity Pleasantness.
Forbearance Withholding response to provocation.
Fugacious Fleeting.
Frisson A moment of intense excitement.
Furtive Shifty, sneaky.
Gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.
Glamour Beauty.
Gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk.
Halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.
Harbinger Messenger with news of the future.
Imbrication Overlapping and forming a regular pattern.
Imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.
Imbue To infuse, instill.
Incipient Beginning, in an early stage.
Ineffable Unutterable, inexpressible.
Ingénue A naïve young woman.
Inglenook A cozy nook by the hearth.
Insouciance Blithe nonchalance.
Inure To become jaded.
Labyrinthine Twisting and turning.
Lachrymose Given to tears or weeping.
Lagniappe A special kind of gift.
Lagoon A small gulf or inlet.
Languor Listlessness, inactivity.
Lassitude Weariness, listlessness.
Leisure Free time.
Lilt To move musically or lively.
Lissome Slender and graceful.
Lithe Slender and flexible.
Love Deep affection.
Loquacious Talking or tending to talk much or freely.
Mellifluous Sweet sounding.
Moiety One of two equal parts.
Mondegreen A slip of the ear.
Murmurous Murmuring.
Nemesis An unconquerable archenemy.
Offing The sea between the horizon and the offshore.
Onomatopoeia A word that sounds like its meaning.
Opulent Lush, luxuriant.
Palimpsest A manuscript written over earlier ones.
Panacea A solution for all problems.
Panoply A complete set.
Pastiche An art work combining materials from various sources.
Penumbra A half-shadow.
Petrichor The smell of earth after rain.
Plethora A large quantity.
Propinquity Proximity; Nearness
Pyrrhic Successful with heavy losses.
Quintessential Most essential.
Ratatouille A spicy French stew.
Ravel To knit or unknit.
Redolent Fragrant.
Resplendence Splendid or dazzling in appearance.
Riparian By the bank of a stream.
Ripple A very small wave.
Saccharine Overly or sickishly sweet.
Scintilla A spark or very small thing.
Sempiternal Eternal.
Seraglio Rich, luxurious oriental palace or harem.
Serendipity Finding something nice while looking for something else.
Soliloquy The act of talking to oneself
Summery Light, delicate or warm and sunny.
Sumptuous Lush, luxurious.
Surreptitious Secretive, sneaky.
Susquehanna A river in Pennsylvania.
Susurrous Whispering, hissing.
Talisman A good luck charm.
Tintinnabulation Tinkling.
Umbrella Protection from sun or rain.
Untoward Unseemly, inappropriate.
Vespertine Relating to, or occurring in the evening.
Vestigial In trace amounts.
Wafture Waving.
Wherewithal The means.
Woebegone Sorrowful, downcast.
Zephyr A gentle breeze.
Bonus Words
Juxtaposition The state of being close together or side by side.
Velvet A very pleasant, luxurious, desirable situation.
Wafture The act of waving or a wavelike motion.
Callipygous Having shapely buttocks.
Malevolence Wishing evil or harm to another or others.
Quixotic Impulsive and often rashly unpredictable.
Desideratum Something wanted or needed.
Abeyance Temporary inactivity, cessation, or suspension.
Sovereign Having supreme rank, power, or authority.
Syllogism An extremely subtle, sophisticated, or deceptive argument.
Friday, November 15, 2013
My apologies for being a bit absent on this blog lately! There's been plenty going on, of course. Last Friday we had our second successful Word Mob! Thanks to all who participated, as well as those who helped make it all possible. You know who you are ;)
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Just some announcements and information:
1. Everyone should check out Poetics Corvallis, a local poetry group that meets the first Fridays of the month at Interzone cafe. Follow that link to their Facebook page and learn all about them!
2. I am looking for submissions! From anyone, about anything! Thanks to one of our fellow poets Kent, we now have a connection at the Commuter. What I would like is to receive emailed poem submissions every week to put in the Commuter. Sometimes we have a theme, other times we do not. When I start receiving emails I can let people know the specifics, but it's a pretty laid-back process! My only requirement is that I receive poems by Thursday of the week.
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3. The next Word MOB will be Friday, January 31st!
And now, a video for your utter enjoyment:
Akua Naru - How Does It Feel Now?
Monday, October 7, 2013
Thanks to our very own Jeff F., I have some news on a currently running submission!
The Lyric College Poetry Contest
http://www.thelyricmagazine.com/colleage_all.html
Directed toward undergraduate enrolled full time in an American or
Canadian college or university
$500 First Prize
$100 Second Prize
Poems must be original and unpublished, 39 lines or less, written in
English in traditional forms, preferably with regular scansion and
rhyme. Please send up to 6 poems per student.
Winners will be announced and published in the Winter issue of The Lyric.
Entries may be sent by email to tanyacim@aol.com or by postal service to:
The Lyric College Contest
c/o Tanya Cimonetti
1393 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
Submissions must be postmarked or emailed by December 1, 2013. The
following information must appear on each poem:
Student' s name and complete address
College' s name and complete address
Contestants should retain copies of all poems.
The Lyric College Poetry Contest
http://www.thelyricmagazine.com/colleage_all.html
Directed toward undergraduate enrolled full time in an American or
Canadian college or university
$500 First Prize
$100 Second Prize
Poems must be original and unpublished, 39 lines or less, written in
English in traditional forms, preferably with regular scansion and
rhyme. Please send up to 6 poems per student.
Winners will be announced and published in the Winter issue of The Lyric.
Entries may be sent by email to tanyacim@aol.com or by postal service to:
The Lyric College Contest
c/o Tanya Cimonetti
1393 Spear Street
South Burlington, VT 05403
Submissions must be postmarked or emailed by December 1, 2013. The
following information must appear on each poem:
Student' s name and complete address
College' s name and complete address
Contestants should retain copies of all poems.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
This is just a quick reminder of the PoetryWall
at the LBCC Library. Our library is sponsoring the space (next to the
Library Reading Room) and the materials (whiteboards and pens) and our
Poetry Club is providing themes and recording and archiving your
submissions. What we need is YOU and your "gaiety of language."
Consider it poetry improv and bring your classes. Or drop by yourself.
It's fun!!! This week's theme: Curiosity....
Here's a little gem from e.e. cummings:
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
while Spring is in the world
my blood approve,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Monday, April 1, 2013
Gold Man Review, a literary journal produced in Salem, is currently open for submissions of fiction, nonfiction and poetry until May 1, 2013, for their third issue. They are looking for Oregon authors, both new and old, to grace them with the written word!
Requirements:
Prose submissions up to 5,000 words
Poetry submissions up to 3 poems (up to 3 pages total)
If you're interested, go to www.GoldManPublishing.com to submit your work!
Happy scribbling!
Monday, February 4, 2013
Gwendolyn Brooks
she doesn’t wear
costume jewelry
& she knew that walt disney
was/is making a fortune off
false-eyelashes and that time magazine is the
authority on the knee/grow.
her makeup is total-real.
a negro english instructor called her:
“a fine negro poet.”
a whi-te critic said:
“she’s a credit to the negro race.”
somebody else called her;
“a pure negro writer.”
johnnie mae, who’s a senior in high school said:
“she and Langston are the only negro poets we’ve
read in school and i understand her.”
pee wee used to carry one of her poems around in his
back pocket;
the one about being cool. that was befo pee wee
was cooled by a cop’s warning shot.
into the sixties
a word was born . . . . . . . . BLACK
& with black came poets
& from the poet’s ball points came:
black doubleblack purpleblack blueblack beenblack was
black daybeforeyesterday blackerthan ultrablack super
black blackblack yellowblack niggerblack blackwhi-te-
man
blackthanyoueverbes ¼ black unblack coldblack clear
black my momma’s blackerthanyourmomma pimpleblack
fall
black so black we can’t even see you black on black in
black by black technically black mantanblack winter
black coolblack 360degreesblack coalblack midnight
black black when it’s convenient rustyblack moonblack
black starblack summerblack electronblack spaceman
black shoeshineblack jimshoeblack underwearblack ugly
black auntjimammablack, uncleben’srice black
williebest
black blackisbeautifulblack i justdiscoveredblack negro
black unsubstanceblack.
and everywhere the
lady “negro poet”
appeared the poets were there.
they listened & questioned
& went home feeling uncomfortable/unsound & so-
untogether
they read/re-read/wrote & rewrote
& came back the next time to tell the
lady “negro poet”
how beautiful she was/is & how she helped them
& she came back with:
how necessary they were and how they’ve helped her.
the poets walked & as space filled the vacuum between
them & the
lady “negro poet”
u could hear one of the blackpoets say:
“bro, they been calling that sister by the wrong name.”
In Your Eyes
I shine on your stomach
where I removed your entrails
I swell your tongue in my grip
spread frozen across your skin
I sold your heart for feathers
liquefied your joints with pain
I set your whiskers a-quiver
and grew bulbs in your viscera
If you hide me in shame
I grow forever more
Yet if you name me
you prove I am not yours
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Hello all!
At tonight's meeting at the Benton Center we were met with an interesting question: if you wrote a series of poems addressed to your faults, your ailments, or the "seven deadly sins" that you find yourself giving into (avarice, gluttony, pride...), what would they look like? What would they sound like? I challenge you to write your own series of personal letters, addressing these entities. Happy scribbles!
At tonight's meeting at the Benton Center we were met with an interesting question: if you wrote a series of poems addressed to your faults, your ailments, or the "seven deadly sins" that you find yourself giving into (avarice, gluttony, pride...), what would they look like? What would they sound like? I challenge you to write your own series of personal letters, addressing these entities. Happy scribbles!
Gustave Doré
The Avaricious
The Avaricious
This is our prompt from last week! Sorry for my not-so-prompt update. Try to pick a line from this poem and work it into one of your own!
Praise Song for the Day |
||
| by Elizabeth Alexander | ||
A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other's eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair. Someone is trying to make music somewhere, with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice. A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky. A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin. We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider. We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of some one and then others, who said I need to see what's on the other side. I know there's something better down the road. We need to find a place where we are safe. We walk into that which we cannot yet see. Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of. Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables. Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, others by first do no harm or take no more than you need. What if the mightiest word is love? Love beyond marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening pool of light, love with no need to pre-empt grievance. In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, any thing can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, praise song for walking forward in that light. | ||
Friday, January 4, 2013
If distance is
measurement of space-
And I am your
between, what then,
If I should come to
you.
If your snakes head
blossomed against my leg,
And I could catch the
blue-violet of your attention,
As you climbed the
clouds with handfuls of ocean pressed to your arms.
If you in your
loveliness and maddening ineptitude would slow to listen,
And I would stop just
long enough to see that water fill the great above.
How it would rain,
How I would love you,
without pause.
Friday, December 14, 2012
My sixteenth
egret from
the window
of this train,
white against
the marshes'
shocking green
cushioning
Long Island
Sound from
Kingston down
to Mystic against
the shoreline's
erratic discipline:
the egret so
completely
still, the colors
so extreme,
the window
of my train
might be rolling
out a scroll
of meticulous
ancient Chinese
painting: my heart-
beat down its side
in liquid characters:
no tenses, no
conjunctions, just
emphatic strokes
on paper from
the inner bark
of sandalwood:
egret, marshes,
the number
sixteen: white
and that essential
shocking green-
perhaps even
the character
for kingfisher
green balanced
with jade white
in ancient poems-
every other element
implicit in the
brush strokes'
elliptic fusion
of calm and motion,
assuring as my
train moves on
and marsh gives way
to warehouses
and idle factories
that my sixteen
egrets still remain:
each a crescent
moon against
an emerald sky,
alabaster on
kingfisher green,
its body motionless
on one lithe leg,
cradling its
surreptitious
wings
the window
of this train,
white against
the marshes'
shocking green
cushioning
Long Island
Sound from
Kingston down
to Mystic against
the shoreline's
erratic discipline:
the egret so
completely
still, the colors
so extreme,
the window
of my train
might be rolling
out a scroll
of meticulous
ancient Chinese
painting: my heart-
beat down its side
in liquid characters:
no tenses, no
conjunctions, just
emphatic strokes
on paper from
the inner bark
of sandalwood:
egret, marshes,
the number
sixteen: white
and that essential
shocking green-
perhaps even
the character
for kingfisher
green balanced
with jade white
in ancient poems-
every other element
implicit in the
brush strokes'
elliptic fusion
of calm and motion,
assuring as my
train moves on
and marsh gives way
to warehouses
and idle factories
that my sixteen
egrets still remain:
each a crescent
moon against
an emerald sky,
alabaster on
kingfisher green,
its body motionless
on one lithe leg,
cradling its
surreptitious
wings
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Hello fellow poets!
I hope everyone's finals went well as our term is officially over! Poetry club will start back up on January 8th at 3:00 pm in the Hot Shot Cafe on the Albany campus. On January 9th the Benton Center's poetry club starts back up at 5:30 pm in the conference room. Until then, we're having a little poetry get-together today at 3:00 pm at the 2nd street Beanery in downtown Corvallis. I' sure I'll see some of you there!
In light of the wintery season, I thought some Robert Frost would be appropriate:
Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
I hope everyone's finals went well as our term is officially over! Poetry club will start back up on January 8th at 3:00 pm in the Hot Shot Cafe on the Albany campus. On January 9th the Benton Center's poetry club starts back up at 5:30 pm in the conference room. Until then, we're having a little poetry get-together today at 3:00 pm at the 2nd street Beanery in downtown Corvallis. I' sure I'll see some of you there!
In light of the wintery season, I thought some Robert Frost would be appropriate:
Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Monday, November 19, 2012
This short film, produced by Duality Filmworks and Write Bloody Publishing, was a collaboration project that took Derrick C. Brown's poem A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me to an entirely new level. It has won countless film festivals since the beginning of 2011 when it was filmed.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Welcome, fellow poets, to another year of artful language! This week's prompt is simply based off the feelings and images that you may get reading this poem. I can't wait to see what we all come up with. Happy handwriting!
Eagle Poem
By Joy Harjo
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadly growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
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