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"Autumn's the mellow Time" ...

9/17/2018

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Earthy Autumn is my favorite time of year, when daylight hours begin to wither, the nights grow deeper, the temperatures sink to chilling lows, and I can bathe in the pleasant glow of my fireplace.  

Though I am a Summer baby by birth, my muse is better nourished by gloomy skies, the thick aroma of fallen leaves, by comfy oversize sweaters and aromatic tea … by all the elements of Fall.

“Autumn's the mellow time.”  So wrote poet, diarist, editor, and scholar, William Allingham, who greatly influenced other poets of his day, including Y.B.Yeats, John Hewitt, and Walter de la Mare.
As all the world lies down to rest, that is when I like it best.  When I was a city dweller the signs of Autumn were very evident in sweetly spiced coffee and cocoa, and pumpkin-flavored everything.

Now we live in what I fondly call “the boonies.”  All of those urban Autumn treats are attainable, but just a bit farther away.  Here, the natural elements of Fall consume my senses and bid me to write.

My muse is ever near
Yet now she whispers in my ear
“Come, let us play with wisps, and dream
Of lovely rhyming schemes.”

And all of this is but to say that I wish you a very Happy Autumn.


Image: wallpapersthebest.blogspot.com
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The many works of Anonymous ...

9/14/2018

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Perhaps as far back as the onset of human speech pithy phrases have been uttered by ... well, who knows?  And so we have, to date, a plethora of works by those known only as Anonymous.

For instance:

“Anonymous is really just a name for someone who had something great to say, but was not famous enough for anyone to remember their real name.”  Anonymous

“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”  Anonymous

“Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.”  Anonymous

I’ve known some who got a quiet giggle from hearing their own brilliant, uncredited witticism spoken casually by others, but I suspect that most of us wouldn’t mind being credited for an axiom.

Once, while in a creative writing class in college where we shared and discussed our own poetry, and I asked my professor to keep my poems anonymous so I could hear unbiased  critiques.

He allowed this to go on for several weeks, but at which point he pointed out how unfair my little experiment was to the other students in that class.  I sighed, but acquiesced, because he was right.

The following week he read one of my new poems and then said, “Would the writer like to say a word of two?”  Heads spun around, searching, but there were only my fellow students and I present.

Slowly, I began to speak.  Suddenly, there were gasps and shocked expressions everywhere.  All had assumed that my works were anonymously published, so I’d gotten their honest opinions.   

Still, mine had been the only unavowed poems shared that entire term, and it was rather dishonest, but it certainly goes to show that occasionally one can actually benefit from being anonymous.











Image: CU Family Medicine  
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Navigating the writer's mind ...

9/7/2018

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Edgar Lawrence Doctorow, an American professor, editor, and author of the historical fiction novel, Billy Bathgate, said, “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”

I’ve often liken my method of writing to an interactive conversation with my muse. Occasionally, it feels as if I’m merely taking dictation from someone who knows just what to say in a given line.

When I’ve managed to extricate a poem from a corner I’d written it into, I wonder, “Did I come up with that saving word or phrase, or do I credit my muse?”  Writing is a curious collaboration, indeed.

Half for fun of writing lies in not knowing exactly where I’m going, even when I begin a piece with a roadmap of an idea only to find that the layout of my intended thoughts diverge along the way.

It can take a great deal of patience, on the part of my muse and myself, to allow a poem to get to where it is intended to go.  The alternative to this would be to chisel rhyme out of unwilling stone.

This journey through the landscape of words, ideas, and nuance is akin to my lucid dreams wherein I have a certain measure of control; when I see a nightmare looming I can alter its course.

How does one avert a dream while dreaming?  I learned, long ago, to keep my eyes closed as I began to wake up from a bad dream, relax into the lingering sleepiness, and imagine a better ending.

I did this every time I encountered a nightmare, and now it’s second nature to me … most of the time.  I do not actually recommend this obscure dream exercise. I only know that it works for me.

And I note it here to make the point that, as with lucid dreaming, writing involves a measure of allowing, of investigation, of discovery, some inspiring surprises, and always a bit of editorial control.

With regards to this blog, and with some of my poetry, I’m in total agreement with E. L. Doctorow … starting with nothing and learning as I go.







Image: learning-mind.com
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    Author

    I've written many poems over the years.  This blog is a preview of my books: Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry (April 2013), Echoes ll, More Neo-Victorian Poetry (May 2014), Echoes lll, Even More Neo-Victorian Poetry, (August 2016), A Compilation of Echoes. (September 2016), and When None Command (April 13, 2019)

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